American Fantasy

At the welcome lunch in the Serenity Suites, Shawn⁴ arrives late with a stranger: Jonathan Schenk,⁸ his new executive coach. Jonathan has a beard down to his chest, wears fleece, and talks about alpha wolves and inner power. He hands Bobby⁷ a business card for Wolf Management and Production.

Shawn explains that Jonathan will help the band think about legacy and maybe howl at the moon. The room goes silent. Bobby takes the card like it might be electric. Keith² feels sick: Shawn has been with him all morning and said nothing. Keith wonders what else Shawn is not telling him, who Shawn is calling instead.

Jonathan's presence signals a threat to Bobby's stewardship and to the delicate equilibrium that has kept the band functional. Scotty⁹ groans. Terrence¹⁰ grabs his wife's¹⁵ bottom. Keith claps his hands, the good little brother, always ready to cheer.

During Photo Day, Annie¹ moves through the assembly line of Boy Talk members. She hugs Terrence,¹⁰ exchanges pleasantries with Shawn,⁴ shares an awkward moment with Corey⁵ about their birthdays being one month apart. When she reaches Keith,² something shifts.

Up close, he looks pained, his eyes red-streaked, like a marathoner at mile twenty. Without planning to, without the irony she has carried all weekend, she asks if he is okay. A real question. He shrugs, shakes his head, then asks her back. She laughs and says it is hard to say.

His face floods with genuine worry, deep lines appearing between his brows. They stare at each other for a moment before a security guard hustles her along to Scotty.⁹ The exchange lasts maybe twenty seconds, but something has cracked open in both of them.

Hours into Photo Day, Keith² flees to a single-stall bathroom, his chest rattling with panic. He locks the door and sits on the bolted stool, trying to remember how to breathe. The Talkers never ask real questions; they want selfies, stories, proof of proximity.

But that woman¹ asked if he was okay, and something cracked. He splashes water on his face. Sarah,³ summoned by Tyler's¹² incompetence, finds him and knocks. When he opens the door, dripping, she sees his face and opens her arms.

Keith, who has touched thousands of strangers all day, collapses onto her shoulder and weeps. She holds him until the crying stops, then gives him a granola bar. He has not cried in front of another person since grade school. Sarah tells the others he had explosive diarrhea.

Alone in her cabin, Annie¹ watches Boy Talk music videos on the ship's dedicated television channel. She finds herself unexpectedly aroused, thinking about Keith's² face as she uses a vibrator, an act of self-possession that surprises her.

She has not had sex in two years and has not wanted to. That evening at the MTV Night party, she wears a Madonna costume with fingerless lace gloves and a tulle skirt. She notices Greg,¹¹ a tall man dressed as Freddie Mercury whom she has seen dancing with different women each night.

They flirt. He kisses her on a secluded balcony while Salt-N-Pepa plays. She feels like a teenager and also like someone discovering that desire did not die with her marriage. For the first time all year, Annie thinks, maybe. The door that creaked open was internal.

Late after the MTV party, Annie¹ and Maira⁶ sneak into the VIP after-party at the John Travolta Disco, where Shawn⁴ dances shirtless and Keith² sits tucked in a booth with Scotty.⁹ Later, on the windy smoking deck, Annie leans on the railing with an unlit cigarette.

Keith appears beside her and offers a light. She asks if he likes Bob Dylan (he does), mentions opera, and in response he tells her Puccini makes him think of his mother's kitchen table. She says hers was more Barry Manilow. He smiles.

She tells him she does not really smoke; he says he does not either. They talk easily, two people using the shared cigarette as an excuse to linger. Maira⁶ barrels up and interrupts, calling the encounter a unicorn sighting. Keith stubs out his cigarette and vanishes through the swinging doors.

Back in the Sanctuary after Beach Day, Shawn⁴ and Jonathan⁸ corner Keith² in his cabin while he is still in his bathrobe, his bare feet pale on the carpet. They pitch a Boy Talk World Tour: Japan, Germany, Brazil, the Philippines. Six months of nonstop touring.

Jonathan frames it as unlocking Keith's alpha wolf within and making his family proud. When Keith asks about Bobby's⁷ role, Shawn dismisses the question: Bobby's vision only got them this far. Jonathan chuckles about getting insurance for Robert Downey Jr. pre-Iron Man.

Keith realizes Shawn has already discussed this with Corey⁵ first, as always. He refuses. Shawn calls him jealous and says Corey works harder. Keith tells them to leave. After the door closes, he lies face-down and screams into the beige carpet.

Sarah³ goes to fetch Corey⁵ for the Costume Contest. He answers the door shirtless, a bottle of vodka on the dresser. He pours a generous amount into his water bottle and mentions, almost casually, that his wife is making him go to rehab after the cruise, so he might as well enjoy himself. Then he propositions Sarah: she likes girls, right? No boys, never?

He offers himself as a novelty worth trying, an experience he clearly assumes any woman would be grateful for receiving. Sarah, exhausted and disgusted, tells him to put his shirt on and walks out. She radios her team that if Corey is not ready in two minutes, she will not come back for him. His entitlement is as unremarkable to him as breathing.

Annie¹ brings Greg¹¹ back to her cabin during Pajama Night. She is wearing a modest white cotton nightgown; he is dressed as the Sleepytime Tea bear. On her narrow twin bed, they begin having sex, Greg's mouth moving down her body while she closes her eyes and lets herself feel pleasure for the first time in years.

Then the door swings open: Maira.⁶ Greg, caught in his underwear, calls Maira crazy and tells Annie everyone on the ship knows it. Maira fires back that he has slept with half the women on board.

Greg winks at Annie and leaves a trail of ice cubes from his overturned beer bucket. Annie, holding the sheet to her neck, realizes she is not ashamed. She tells Maira she is sorry about the interruption, but not sorry about what she was doing. They go back upstairs to smoke together.

On Prom Night, the band assembles in color-coded tuxedos. In the elevator to the lido deck, Keith² learns Corey⁵ propositioned Sarah.³ When the doors open, Keith tackles Corey to the floor in front of dozens of filming fans. He straddles him and drives his fist into Corey's face.

Shawn⁴ tries to pull Keith off, shouting that he is just jealous, that Corey works harder and always has. Keith screams back that Shawn always defends Corey, no matter what he does, and never defends him. Corey, blood running from his nose, calls it Keith's own failure.

Thirty years of suppressed resentment pours out while Scotty⁹ dances around the brawl like a deranged leprechaun and Terrence¹⁰ shields his wife¹⁵ against the wall. Bobby⁷ holds out his arms to block the fans. Keith declares he is never getting on this boat again.

In the chaos after the fight, Annie¹ finds herself stranded. Maira⁶ has been locked in their cabin for assaulting a rival Talker named Theresa over a skincare business dispute, and Annie has nowhere to sleep. Sarah³ notices and, when Keith² volunteers that Annie can stay in the Sanctuary, agrees.

Sarah leads Annie through the guarded door into the quiet common room lined with Georgia O'Keeffe reproductions, a shallow pool at its center. For the first time all weekend, Annie can hear herself think. Sarah leaves them alone. Keith collapses onto a couch.

Annie perches on the opposite end. She tells him about her divorce, her demotion, her plan to quit her job. He tells her she looks like someone who smiles a lot, who seems kind. She tells him he looks like someone who needs a long, real break. Their knees touch.

Sarah³ corrals the entire band into the Sanctuary sitting room. Jonathan,⁸ the alpha-wolf coach, leads a group therapy exercise, instructing everyone to close their eyes and visualize their personal fantasy. Scotty⁹ pictures an audience of beautiful men cheering for him.

Terrence¹⁰ imagines an alien abduction with Kelsey¹⁵ beside him. Corey⁵ sees flashbulbs and Oprah's forgiveness, his scandals washed clean. Shawn⁴ envisions himself at a hundred years old, still dancing in a tracksuit, surrounded by aging fans.

Sarah dreams of living on land, running a music venue, kissing girls in bunk beds. Keith² imagines a quiet garden, sandals on his feet, a city street where no one does a double take, where strangers smile for their own reasons. It is not too late, he realizes. He is never getting on this ship again.

Keith² shows Annie¹ to a spare stateroom in the Sanctuary. Standing in the doorway, they embrace. She turns her head and kisses him. For a moment it is gentle, then he pulls her tight and kisses her back like someone who has been starving.

She pulls away and tells him that might have been her best first kiss, noting that it is nice to know there are still bests and firsts at their age. She closes the door. He returns to his room and finds a pen, the beginnings of a song forming.

In the morning, Keith leaves the ship before anyone else, hugging every Talker he can on the way out without waiting for Shawn⁴ or Corey.⁵ Annie walks past the final photo op without stopping, imagining her future in New York, two people doing that sidewalk dance of mistaken directions, looking up to find each other.