DOUBLE KNOT by Gretchen Archer

our happy spy father rescued us?
    No Hair was the glue holding things together for six months of me being pregnant,
     back and forth to Pine Apple helping with Mother, and publicly representing Bianca
     Sanders’s pregnancy. The whole time, Fantasy had been trying to patch up her marriage
     and Baylor has been with my husband. We’d been a scattered crew of spies for a long
     half-year, relying completely on No Hair. Who was somewhere on this ship, and he had
     to be looking for me. He just had to be. There are three men in my life I know I can
     count on: my husband, my father, and No Hair. My husband was forty thousand feet in
     the air and over Missouri or Minnesota by now. My father was in the middle of Alabama
     without a clue. No Hair was somewhere on this ship, and why he hadn’t busted through
     the door of Suite 704 and rescued us was curious at best and disconcerting at worst.
    At eleven o’clock, with Probability well underway and still no communication in or out, Mother, Fantasy and I sat quietly
     on our appointed sofas in the salon. Burnsworth had “retired” to his quarters, Poppy
     excused herself five minutes after he did, while Jess had done nothing but drink vodka,
     whine, and beat on the front door, demanding someone let her out, which was a total
     waste of time. The companionways were private from the elevators to the individual
     suites; there was no foot traffic to hear her. The only reason someone would be outside
     our door would be to open it, so screaming unnecessary. After two solid hours of it,
     she gave up and stretched across her sofa. The steady lull of the ship moving through
     the dark Gulf waters, sheer exhaustion, and the ongoing hysteria (Jess) had numbed
     everyone.
    I looked up from the babies and caught my mother’s eye.
    “I’m dead on my feet.”
    I hated that phrase. “You should go to bed, Mother.”
    “I believe I will.”
    She stood, and without another word, made her way down the hall.
    “Mother?”
    She hesitated.
    “Lock your door.”
    She waved acknowledgement.
    “That’s it?” Fantasy stared after Mother. “No sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite?”
    “She’s not exactly the touchy-feely type, Fantasy.”
    “I heard that, Davis.”
    “Goodnight, Mother.”
    I love you.
      
    * * *
      
    “So, I don’t have my stuff.”
    We were hungry and the kitchen was white. White subway tile walls and white glazed
     porcelain floors, with round rugs and rectangular runners in thick white shag scattered
     here, there, and yon. White stone waterfall-edge countertops, solid white high gloss
     cabinets, a round white dining table with six white molded chairs. White pendant light
     fixtures dangled at the ends of white leads from the white ceiling. The only hints
     of color in the room were from the stainless steel appliances, all Miele, all obscured
     by the blinding white, and if I were to put Anderson Cooper down in this room and
     she closed her eyes, I might never find her.
    “Your stuff?” Fantasy was deep into a bag of Cheetos. “What’s your stuff, Jess?”
    “My meds . My clothes . My lipstick . And so, where am I supposed to sleep?”
    “There’s an empty staff room,” I said.
    “I don’t think so.” Jess pulled a chair from the table and plopped down, while Fantasy
     and I foraged for her dinner.
    “It’s the staff room or a sun chair on the deck,” Fantasy said.
    Our first meal aboard Probability was sliced from a whole honey ham and a wheel of Colby cheese. We had sandwiches
     on thick white crusty bread with a peppery spring pasta salad. There was enough food
     in the white kitchen to feed an army, including odd things, like a full array of spices,
     a seven-pound sirloin tip roast, fresh fruits and vegetables, several whole chickens,
     and a summer-camp-size box of Captain Crunch. That was just the first layer. Of many.
     There were thirty-one flavors of ice cream in the freezer and a wine closet behind
     a white glass door that was