Ross answered for me: “You’re such an imbecile, Bonnie. The boat’s a hundred seventy feet long; it can handle a bit of chop. Besides, seasickness is a state of mind.”
I needed to calm everyone’s fears. “We have seasickness patches on board,” I said confidently, “so if you get seasick, you should put one on as soon as we get on the boat.”
When we reached the bottom of the hill, I noticed that we’d all been wrong. There were no whitecaps; there were waves… Christ!I’d never seen anything like it! Inside the harbor were four-foot waves, and they seemed to be crossing over one another, in no particular direction. It was as if the wind were blowing from all four corners of the earth simultaneously.
The limo made a right turn, and there it was: the yacht Nadine,rising up majestically, above all the other yachts. God—how I hated the thing! Why the fuck had I bought it? I turned to my guests and said, “Is she gorgeous or what?”
Everyone nodded. Then Ophelia said, “Why are there waves in the harbor?”
The Duchess said, “Don’t worry, O. If it’s too rough we’ll wait it out.”
Not a fucking prayer! I thought. Movement…movement… I needed movement.
The limo stopped at the end of the dock, and Captain Marc was waiting to greet us. Next to him was John, the first mate. They both wore their Nadineoutfits—white collared polo shirts, blue boating shorts, and gray canvas boating moccasins. Every article of clothing bore the Nadinelogo, designed by Dave Ceradini for the bargain price of $8,000.
The Duchess gave Captain Marc a great hug. “Why is the harbor so rough?” she asked.
“There’s a storm that popped out of nowhere,” said the captain. “The seas are eight to ten feet. We should”— should—“wait ’til it dies down a bit before we head to Sardinia.”
“Fuck that!” I sputtered. “I gotta move right this fucking second, Marc.”
The Duchess was quick to rain on my parade: “We’re not going anywhere unless Captain Marc says it’s safe.”
I smiled at the safety-conscious Duchess and said, “Why don’t you go on board and cut the tags off your new clothes? We’re at sea now, honey, and I’m a god at sea!”
The Duchess rolled her eyes. “You’re a fucking idiot, and you don’t know the first thing about the sea.” She turned to the group. “Come on, girls, the sea godhas spoken.” With that, all the women laughed at me. Then, in single file, they headed to the gangway and climbed aboard the yacht—following their cherished leader, the Duchess of Bay Ridge.
“I can’t sit in this harbor, Marc. I’m heavily post-Luded. How far is Sardinia?”
“About a hundred miles, but if we leave now it’s gonna take forever to get there. We’d have to go slow. You’ve got eight-foot waves, and the storms are unpredictable in this part of the Med. We’d have to batten down the hatches, tie everything down in the main salon.” He shrugged his square shoulders. “Even then we might sustain some damage to the interior—some broken plates, some vases, maybe a few glasses. We’ll make it, but I strongly advise against it.”
I looked at Rob, who compressed his lips and gave me a single nod, as if to say, “Let’s do it!” Then I said, “Let’s go for it, Marc!” I pumped my fist in the air. “It’ll be a fabulous adventure, one for the record books!”
Captain Marc smiled and started shaking his rectangular head. And we climbed aboard and prepared to shove off.
Fifteen minutes later, I was lying on a very comfortable mattress atop the yacht’s flybridge, while a dark-haired stewardess named Michelle served me a Bloody Mary. Like the rest of the crew, she wore the Nadineuniform.
“Here you go, Mr. Belfort!” said Michelle, smiling. “Can I get you anything else?”
“Yes, Michelle. I have a rare condition that requires me to drink one of these every fifteen minutes. And those are doctor’s orders, Michelle, so please set your egg timer or else I might wind up in the hospital.”
She giggled. “Whatever you say, Mr. Belfort.” She started to walk away.
“Michelle!” I screamed, in a voice loud enough to cut through the wind and the rumble of the twin caterpillar engines.
Michelle turned to me, and I said, “If I fall asleep, don’t wake me up. Just keep bringing up the Bloody Marys every fifteen minutes and line them up next to me. I’ll drink them when I wake up, okay?”
She gave me the thumbs-up sign and then descended a very steep flight of stairs that led to the deck below, where the helicopter was stowed.
I looked at my watch. It was one p.m., Rome time. At this very moment, inside my stomach sac, four Ludes were dissolving. In fifteen minutes I would be tingling away; fifteen minutes after that I’d be fast asleep. How relaxing, I thought, as I downed the Bloody Mary. Then I took a few deep breaths and shut my eyes. How very relaxing!
I woke up to the feeling of raindrops, but the sky was blue. That confused me. I looked to my right, and there were eight Bloody Marys lined up, all filled to the rim. I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. There was a ferocious wind howling. Then I felt more raindrops. What the fuck?I opened my eyes. Was the Duchess pouring water on me again? She was nowhere in sight, though. I was alone on the flybridge.
All of a sudden I felt the yacht dipping down in a most unsettling way until it reached a forty-five-degree angle, and then out of nowhere I heard a wild crashing sound. A moment later a thick wall of gray water came rising up over the side of the yacht, curled over the top of the flybridge, poured down—soaking me from head to toe.
What on God’s earth? The flybridge was a good thirty feet above the water and— oh, shit, oh, shit—the yacht was dipping down again. Now I was being thrown on my side, and the Bloody Marys went flying on top of me.
I sat up straight and looked over the side and— holy fucking shit!The waves had to be twenty feet high, and they were thicker than buildings. Then I lost my balance. I was flying off the mattress now onto the teak deck, and the Bloody Mary glasses followed me, shattering into a thousand pieces.
I crawled over to the side, grabbed hold of a chrome railing, and pulled myself up. I looked behind the boat and— Holy shit! TheChandler! We were towing the Chandler,a forty-two foot dive-boat, by two thick dock ropes, and it was disappearing and reappearing in the peaks and troughs of these enormous waves.
I got back on all fours and started crawling over to the stairs. The yacht felt like it was breaking apart. By the time I’d crawled down the stairway to the main deck, I’d been soaked and banged around mercilessly. I stumbled into the main salon. The entire group was sitting on the leopard-print carpet, huddled in a tight circle. They were holding hands and wearing life vests. When the Duchess saw me, she broke from the group and crawled toward me. But then all at once the boat began tipping wildly to port.
“Watch out!” I screamed, watching the Duchess roll across the carpet and smash into a wall. A moment later an antique Chinese vase went flying across the main salon and smashed into a window above her head, shattering into a thousand pieces.
Then the boat righted itself. I dropped to my hands and knees and quickly crawled over to her. “Are you all right, baby?”
She gritted her teeth at me. “ You…you fucking sea god! I’m gonna kill you if we make it off this fucking boat! We’re all about to die! What’s going on? Why are the waves so big?” She stared at me with her enormous blue eyes.
“I don’t know,” I said defensively. “I was sleeping.”
The Duchess was incredulous. “You were sleeping? How the fuck could you sleep through this? We’re about to sink! Ophelia and Dave are deathly ill. So are Ross and Bonnie…and Shelly too!”