And now he wanted her at his birthday party. Claudia put down her phone and curled up on the dorm bed. She didn’t have to decide now if she would go. She could ignore him; she could run away. She could buy a plane ticket to Hawaii. Or Iceland. She could sink into hot springs, sleep under an umbrella in the humid shade. She could check into a spa in Arizona. She could take an Uber to the airport and be at the house on the Vineyard by tonight; she could walk down to the docks and feel the salt and wind in her hair. But she’d have to get out of bed. She’d have to gather up her belongings into a bag. She’d have to. Have to.

Claudia woke up a few hours later. The sun was setting and the room was lit with a hazy pink light. What had she been thinking about when she fell asleep? The reality show. She wanted to be angry, but shame felt more honest. Maybe she was a slut. And who was ever going to believe that the Rich Kids slut did anything but ask for it? Whatever it was. Maybe she did ask for it. Maybe she begged for it. How would she ever know? Dust motes swarmed in the stale air and Claudia suddenly felt that if she didn’t escape they would poison her. They would sink into her skin and sedate her and she would fall asleep and never wake up. Sunglasses, phone, wallet, jacket, shoes. She knocked on Trevor’s door and he answered.

“Wanna go on a boat ride?” she asked.

Claudia hailed a cab outside the dorm and Trevor slid in behind her.

“South Street Seaport, please,” she said into the bulletproof glass. In all her years taking random ferry rides around the city, she’d never seen anyone she knew on the Circle Line. People she knew chartered boats or had their own. Claudia’s mom had grown up sleeping in the cabin and diving off the bow of a fishing yacht named Annabelle. The boat was named after her mother’s grandmother, but after Michelle’s parents died in a plane crash, the lawyers sold it. Connecticut senator Owen Whitehouse and his wife, Helen, died together on Labor Day 1988. They were headed back to D.C. from Martha’s Vineyard in a private plane and there was fog.