The Saltport ATM

4. Cash and Its Many Uses

I wake to incessant knocking. I roll over, the bed sinking and shifting from the many fluffy comforters piled atop it. Seriously, I've never been engulfed by so much fluff in my entire life. The white blankets are huge and thick, yet impossibly light. Clouds would be an accurate description, as would souffle pancakes.

The pillow is just as soft, and, for lack of a better word, pillowy. It cradles my head so that my skull feels weightless. I feel like I've melted into a puddle of satin luxury. Is this better than a resort, even if I'm kind of being held here against my will by a crazy merman prince? Probably. If this is what royalty can buy, then maybe I should start looking for a Prince Charming after all.

Not Prince Tewen. He might be "prince," but stalkerish and kidnapping behavior is not charming.

"Jessi, are you decent?" a voice calls out. I realize that the knocking has continued through my reverie.

"Yeah, yeah." I'm still in the black dress from yesterday. It was either that or nothing, and I refused to take any chances of someone venturing in my room. Besides, it's just weird.

The door opens, and Right-scar enters with a steaming, light-tan mug shaped like a shell. "You drink coffee?"

"I do this morning." Exhaustion fogs the corners of my mind. We didn't return to the yacht until after midnight, and based on the pale light streaming through the window, it can't be much past dawn.

"We leave in five minutes," Right-scar says. "We have bagels for the road. I'm sure the prince will want to get an early start on things once we pick him up, starting with your car."

Right-scar shuts the door as he leaves. I climb from the sea of covers and wriggle my dress down to mid-thigh. I don't even need to look in the floor-length mirror to know that it's wrinkles, or to guess that makeup is smudged on my face. At least I always keep makeup remover in my purse. I spend the next three minutes wiping the vestiges of mascara and foundation away, then applying some concealer and eyeshadow to hide my dark circles.

I don't look my best. But "person trying to hide that they're a mess" beats "person who looks like a mess."

It's only a five minute walk down the road. The wooden shack looks a little less sketchy now that shadows no longer cluster around it. At the same time, there's little room to hide the trash littered outside, the splintering wood forming the shop's walls, and the hole in the roof.

The front entrance flings open, and the door flies off its hinges, crashing to the ground. "You're here!" Madame Sourbelle exclaims. "Prince Tewen is all ready."

My eyes refuse to peel away from the abandoned door until I'm inside the shop and it's out of sight. Two stands by the dust-coated front desk on human legs. He still wears the vest from before, but it's overtop a red wetsuit. We'll have to do something about that.

"He's all ready for pickup," Madame Sourbelle chirps, motioning to her handiwork.

"Right-scar just called in a cab this morning. We'll use that to get a rental car," Left-scar tells Two.

"And my car," I chime in. Left-scar just side-eyes me.

"Excellent." Two waves to Madame Sourbelle. "Thanks for the legs."

"Anytime!"

Outside, a yellow taxi waits. I climb in the backseat with Two and Right-scar while Left-scar takes the front seat, who navigates back to the boardwalk. The Scar-twins still don't believe that I brought them to the right place last night. Over the next ten minutes, I finish my coffee and a blueberry bagel with honey walnut smear. The cab pulls up to the same boardwalk I was at yesterday. Even if we went to the wrong boardwalk last night, that doesn't change the fact that my car is nowhere to be found, and neither is the ATM.