Page 60 of Without a Clue

She sees me set it down and draws up a smile. “Oh honey, what is love if there’s not risk of hurt? I’ve written 106 books now, and if there’s one thing every good romance story needs, every single one, it’s a heart that’s willing to risk getting hurt. Those are the stakes of love.”

She grips my hand in a moment of clarity. “And listen to me, Pip. Anyone who risks their heart for love is a winner. It doesn’t make you any less of one if it turns out the one you trusted has pulled the wool over your eyes. It just means you gotta pick yourself up and nobly try again.” She lets go of my hand. Sits back again as the air clears. “Just in case you didn’t know.”

“I know.”

“You know who I’m talking about.”

“I know,” I say tightly.

“I’m talking about him.”

“Yes. I caught that.”

“And The Incident.”

“Oookay,” I say.

“And The Breakthrough.”

“Alright, Neena. I got it.”

“And the celebratory life you get to lead now. Without him.”

I purse my lips. Maybe it’s best just not to answer.

“Well, I think that’s all, isn’t it?” she says brightly with a slap of her thighs. “I think I will take that quick dip. Unless you have anything else to ask?”

“No,” I say with a shake of my head. “That’s enough to go on for now. Thank you.” You totally loopy, grandmotherly love-doctor nutcase.

She nods and shuffles herself to standing.

“I’ll see you at lunch then, dearie,” she says, giving me a little kiss on the cheek, the smell of peppermint leaving with her. “Try not to take yourself too seriously.”

When she’s just dipping her toe into the pool’s edge, I remember something.

“Hey, Neena?”

“Hmm?” she says, turning.

“Did he hurt you? Hugh? When he broke it off?”

She looks at me through the purple haze and the bedazzled sunglasses and the heavy flowery, pepperminty perfume cloaked around her. And in that moment, I see something dark. Something entirely out of place amid all the happiness she has clothed herself with.

“Hurt doesn’t begin to describe it.”

And as she turns, I see a bright smile shimmy onto her face.

With mask firmly in place, she calls with a wave to the ladies in the pool and wades into the water.

Chapter 14

I’m not going to say I miss the roller-coaster ride of Neena from yesterday, but I’m not even seated before Jackie begins to complain.

“This chair is revolting,” Jackie snaps, all the while wiping her lacy handkerchief over the imaginary dust on the pristine tan-and-white-striped lounge chair.

It’s 10 a.m. There are seven more days on this ship before we dock. Yesterday I managed to squeeze in a Neena interview and a Neena interview only. What with group panels and packed cruise schedules, there was hardly time to breathe before Nash and I found ourselves back in the room heading for lights-out. To his credit, he stayed closer to me than my shadow all day. It was reassuring. Comforting. And I found that even in stretches of silence, we were comfortable. Not to mention, there was something quite bolstering about walking out of the bathroom this morning with my hair freshly dried (and down), a new billowy black blouse on, and freshly applied blush into a room where a man looked up from his computer, halted, and after an eternally gratifying five-second stare said, “Wow. You look”—(a cough)—“very beautiful, Pip. You’re going to make the sunrise jealous.”

I mean, he’s a man of words, yes. Lyrics are a part of his nature.