by Mel McCoy
The elderly woman nodded.
“She has a spill once in a while,” the husband said. “It’s my fault. She’s late taking her pill.”
“She’s all right!” Janice yelled out to the other guests. “Just a fainting spell.”
There were several murmurs of “oh” and “my dear” before the chatter started up in the room again.
Janice dabbed her head some more. “There, take it easy. Let’s just lie here a moment.” She zeroed in on the husband. “Does she need medical attention?”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“If you don’t need me, I’ll go back to work then,” Ruth said to Janice.
“Yes, I’ll take it from here. Thank you for your help, Ruth.”
As Ruth pivoted to step away, she heard the woman say, “I thought I saw a mouse.”
Ruth stopped in her tracks.
Janice choked. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“A mouse.” Her voice rose slightly in volume.
Janice’s eyes went wide. She glanced around to see if anyone had heard the elderly woman. Once satisfied that no one had heard, she regarded the lady lying on the floor. “Are you sure that is was—”
“I know what I saw!”
“Okay, okay.” Janice pushed her hands down to indicate for the woman to decrease the volume of her voice.
The woman’s husband cleared his throat, patting his wife’s hand. “There, there, Margaret. I think it’s time for your pill.”
Margaret glared at her husband. “Don’t patronize me, Lou!”
“Sir—” Janice started.
He waved her words away. “Sometimes she sees things when she has her episodes.” He switched his gaze back to his wife. “And it’s time for her pill.”
“How dare you!” Margaret tried pulling herself up.
Janice took her arm to help her. “Take it easy, ma’am.”
The woman pulled away. “I don’t need this!”
“Margaret, honey.” Lou’s tone became sweet. “How about I give you my chocolate soufflé. It’s your favorite.”
Margaret’s body relaxed instantly.
“How about I get you a fresh one, warm right from the oven?” Ruth offered.
Margaret fixed her eyes on Ruth. “Really?”
“Really.” Janice glanced at Ruth. “Get her one, now.”
Ruth hurried to the kitchen, but not before catching Margaret’s wide grin.
Loretta followed. When they were inside the kitchen, Loretta whispered, “I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a ruse.”
“A ruse?”
“Yeah, she claims to see a mouse to get free desserts. It happens all the time.”
Janice’s heels could be heard approaching. When she was only inches from them, she said in a low voice, “We need to figure out this mouse situation.” Her eyes were wide as she spoke, jumping back and forth between Ruth and Loretta. “If anyone catches wind of this, it could lead to bad press for the ship, and we could all lose our jobs. Where’s Aaron?”
“Uh,” Ruth started. “Well, Chef Mills is—”
The door swung open and Chef Mills’s voice boomed. “What in creation is going on? I leave for two minutes, and there’s utter chaos in the dining room!”
Janice rolled her eyes. “While you were busy taking a bathroom break, one of your guests claimed to have seen a mouse running toward your kitchen.”
“A mouse!” Chef Mills took several steps back as if he’d just taken a blow to the face. “That’s absurd! Never in my twenty-five years have I ever had a rodent problem or any other problem like that in my kitchen.”
“Keep your voice down. As of right now, this is just between her husband and us. He says she has fainting spells and sometimes hallucinates—she takes pills or something. She’ll be happy with a fresh chocolate soufflé, which we are taking care of right now. Besides, you should be thanking me. I just saved you while you were taking your break.”
“Saved me? More like you released a mouse into my dining hall to sabotage me.”
Janice scoffed. “Sabotage? You really think I’m that low? To put the ship’s reputation on the line like that, not to mention all our jobs?”
Chef Mills leaned in toward her. “I wouldn’t put it past you.”
“Sounds like a guilty conscience, if you ask me.”
“There’s no other explanation as to why you were in my dining hall in the first place.”
“You mean, my dining hall.”
Chef Mills let out a hearty chuckle.
“The man said his wife hallucinates, but if she wasn’t…” Janice narrowed her eyes. “Good luck finding the little vermin plaguing your kitchen.” Janice unfolded her arms and headed out. When she reached the door, she called over her shoulder, “Oh, and fair warning, I will get my kitchen back. I don’t care what it takes.”
“Over my dead body!” he yelled after her.
When she was gone, he diverted his attention to the two people left in the room, Ruth and Loretta, who had been silent the entire time. “You and you. I want you both in this kitchen at zero five hundred hours. That’s 5 a.m. sharp. I’ve got a job for you two.”
Ruth and Loretta stood silently.
“Dismissed!” His voice boomed over them. They jumped into action, scuffling out of the kitchen.
They hobbled back to their cabin. It had been a long day, and Ruth couldn’t wait to get off her feet.
“I think I’m forming blisters.” Loretta shifted her weight from side to side as she walked down the long corridor. “This is not at all what I had imagined this job to be.”
Ruth raised her eyebrows. “You and me both.”
When they entered their cabin, Ruth kicked off her shoes and plopped face first into her pillow. The muscles in her back eased with the comfort of not having to carry any weight—she could lie here forever. She turned her head to face Loretta. “Hey, I just wanted to thank you for helping me today, especially with the blow torch.”
Loretta shrugged. She was already on her bed, flipping through a celebrity magazine. “You helped me. I didn’t know what I was doing with the chocolate soufflé. I would have pulled it out of the oven too early, but what you said made sense, so I left it in. Glad I did. It had deflated to half the size it was by the time Chef Mills got to me.”
Ruth had forgotten she’d said anything to Loretta about the soufflé. From all the years of owning her own bakery, she was just used to teaching and explaining everything. It came naturally. “Say, Loretta…”
“Hm?”
“Janice said that we were the two most experienced bakers.”
“Yeah?”
“What did you do before getting this job?”
Loretta closed the magazine. “It all started when I was young. I couldn’t wait to be an actress like Katharine Hepburn or Rita Hayworth. So, I took to Hollywood. My mother was an actress, you know.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, Athena Marie Trescott.”
Ruth thought a moment, trying to place an Athena Marie Trescott in anything she might have seen. In her youth, she’d seen many movies, especially as a teenager with her friends. Still, she couldn’t remember anything with this particular actress in it. “Any movies I’d have seen?”
“Saucers from the Deep, Flyers from the Dark, Dracula’s Seductress, The Rise of the Goose Pimples.”
“The Rise of the…” Ruth had never heard of any of these movies.
“Goose Pimples,” Loretta said. “Oh, and she had a starring role in The Glamorous Tressy.”
“Glamorous Tressy?”
“Yeah. It was sort of a rendition or a reimagining of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. But anyway, Athena Marie Trescott was my mother’s stage name. Her real name was AnnMarie Dunkinberry, her maiden name. So, you can see why actresses need a stage name. Anyway, she was just starting out, making a name for herself, when she got pregnant.”
“With you?”
“No. My sister.” Loretta paused. “And then my
other sister. Then three more, and then there was me.”
“Must be nice having so many sisters.” Ruth had always wanted a sibling when she was a child, but alas, she was the only child to two loving parents, so she couldn’t complain.
Loretta cocked her head. “I guess, if you like sharing everything and you’re not too worried about getting a cold sore.”
Ruth chuckled, remembering what she’d told Loretta earlier about sharing personal items.
“Anyway,” Loretta continued, “I wasn’t going to make the same mistake my mother did. I was going to go to Hollywood and make it big. Unfortunately, there were thousands of other women who had the same idea. So, I took up dance. But, you see”—she pulled up her pant leg—“I have flat feet. My teacher called them flippers and told me I’d be better off a fish. I tried voice, but no one was looking for an alto. So, I figured I’d wait it out, and that’s when I got a job at a bakery shop until things turned around. Before I knew it, thirty years of failed auditions and three husbands later, here I am.”
Ruth had no idea how it felt to go through so many marriages. The day she met Lawrence, she’d fallen madly in love, and they’d been together ever since, having kids of their own, and now two grown grandchildren. She’d had everything she’d ever wanted in a family. “I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry?” Loretta sat up on her bed. “What are you sorry for? I’m certainly not sorry. One of my husbands was great, Ernie was his name, and I’ve lived an amazing life so far. Besides, you never know when you’re going to have your big break.”
“So, you’re looking for your big break as a pastry chef on a cruise ship?”
“No, I’m waiting for my big break as I do what I’m skilled at on a luxury cruise ship that has a lot of shows and well-known people in the business.”
Ruth nodded. “I hope it works out for you.”
They got ready for bed and were under the covers when Ruth switched off the lights. It was pitch dark, but Ruth didn’t mind. She was too exhausted to think much about it.
“Things don’t always go the way you plan, you know,” Loretta said into the dark.
“Hm?”
“Things don’t always go the way you plan. But if you swim with the school of fish rather than fight against the current, it usually works out, sometimes better than you could have ever imagined.” Loretta paused. “My mom told me that once. I love that saying.”
“Yeah, it’s beautiful.” Ruth yawned, turning over. She hoped tomorrow would be a better day. Still, something inside—her intuition, perhaps—told her it was only going to get crazier.
Chapter 8
The next morning, an awful sound jolted Ruth awake. She lifted her head, straining her ears. It sounded like a yowling feline, or maybe the ship’s horn had lost its power and was limited to a whiny hum. Ruth raised herself onto her elbows. It was coming from the bathroom.
“What on earth?”
The door swung open, and Loretta swayed out, fluffing her hair and singing the lead part for “A Little Bird Told Me,” plus all the backup vocals.
“Ugh.” Ruth fell back onto her pillow and threw the covers over her head. She was beginning to realize why Loretta hadn’t made it as a movie star-slash-singer. It sounded like she was killing the little bird. “Would you cut it out, Loretta!”
Loretta stopped abruptly. “Don’t you like Evelyn Knight?”
Ruth flipped the covers off her head in one fell swoop, her hands bouncing on the thin mattress on either side of her. “Who?” She shook her head before Loretta could answer. “Never mind.” She noticed Loretta was completely dressed and ready to go to work. She furrowed her brows. “What time is it?” She really had no idea, since the cabin didn’t have a porthole. No matter if the sun was up or not, she’d never know. The only light that came into that room was man-made electricity.
“Four forty-five.”
Ruth pushed the sheets off and checked the clock. “Loretta!” She jumped out of bed and hurled herself to the bathroom. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
“You’re so peaceful when you sleep. Besides, did you know you are a heavy sleeper? I called your name and turned on the lights.” She had only switched on the small lamp attached to the wall next to her bed. They were basically personal nightlights that emitted a yellow glow so you could read—or find your way to the bathroom without breaking your neck.
Ruth gargled water from the sink and spat. “Great. I have no time to shower.”
“Maybe you should have showered last night,” Loretta offered.
Opening the bathroom door, Ruth scowled at Loretta before grabbing her uniform.
“So you don’t have time to bathe,” Loretta continued. “You’re just going to get all sweaty anyway in the kitchen. I thought I was doing you a favor by letting you sleep in. You were so tired last night.”
Ruth finished dressing, slipping on her shoes quickly and tying them. She snatched her ID badge from the small desk they shared. “Let’s go.” Loretta followed Ruth out the door.
When they reached the kitchen, they found a batch recipe for croquembouche sitting at their counter. Ruth checked her watch and let out a breath of relief. They had gotten there with five minutes to spare.
“Great.” Loretta slammed the recipe down on the counter with a huff. “Now, he expects us to perform miracles.”
Ruth grabbed the recipe, glossing over everything Chef Mills expected from the dessert. The croquembouche was known as the Super Bowl of making pastries, and with the amount he wanted them to bake, it would take them all day to prepare what he’d envisioned.
First, they’d have to make each individual puff pastry out of pâte à choux and fill it with three different types of cream—chocolate, cinnamon caramel, and a basic homemade cream. That, alone, would take hours. Then they would have to dunk each puff pastry into hot, sugary syrup, coating and assembling them carefully by stacking them on top of one another using a mold to guide them. This took extreme patience, and it didn’t include the decoration he had in mind using spun sugar. It was one of the most challenging desserts to make. Even with a comfortable amount of time, it still took experience, technique, and precision to get it right, let alone adding refinement and elegance—a wow factor that most would expect from such a treat.
Ruth scratched the side of her cheek. “Well, it’s not entirely impossible. I’m sure we can do this.” She was adding up the hours in her head, trying to figure out how long it would take them to make a dozen towers of the classy French dessert. “I’m sure we can do this.” Of course, there was no room for error, and her statement didn’t exactly exude much confidence.
“Ruth.” Loretta waved a finger between them. “There’s only two of us.”
“I know, and all we have to do is divide the tasks. If you make the pastries, I can work on the cream, and we can come together to fill each pastry. Though, I’d need your help with the flavoring of the cream.”
“He expects us to do different-flavor creams?” Loretta snatched the recipe from Ruth’s hands. Eyes darting across the paper, she slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand. “Chocolate? Caramel cinnamon? This man is insane!”
Ruth couldn’t argue. For once, they agreed on something.
Twenty minutes later, they were still standing there, staring at the clock. Loretta was slumped over the counter as if she were ready to take a nap. “Maybe he overslept,” Loretta offered.
Ruth paced, glancing at the clock again. “He doesn’t seem like the type to be tardy.”
“Good. Because if Mills expected us to get out of bed before the break of dawn just so he could sleep in, I’ll be grumpier than—” Loretta thought a moment. “Than grumpy cat.”
There was a moment of silence.
Anxiety bubbled up in Ruth’s chest. “We have to get started! We’ve already wasted a full half an hour waiting. We don’t have that much time!”
“Maybe it’s a test.”
“A test? Don’t be silly.” Ruth swatted the air. “He
wouldn’t risk ruining dinner for his elite passengers for some stupid test for me and you.”
“Could be pastry chef boot camp.” Loretta rested her head in her hands. “You know, I didn’t sign up for this.”
Ruth sighed. “Test or no test, we should probably get started. This dessert is going to take us all day!” Ruth marched toward the pantry to get the supplies.
Loretta tugged at Ruth’s uniform as she made her way across the kitchen. “Maybe we shouldn’t, Ruth. Remember what I said about swimming with the fish? Don’t make this harder on us.”
Ruth stopped at the doorway to the room where they kept many of the supplies for the kitchen, the freezer, and refrigerators. It also contained a door to another room, the pantry. “I’m not. I just know how long it takes to make and assemble just one of these desserts, let alone one for each table. If we don’t start now, we’ll never get it done.”
“But what if he walks through that door, fuming because you started without his permission?”
“I think he would rather us be proactive in case he got held up with something else.” Ruth shrugged. “Or maybe he did sleep in. As we already know, that’s really easy to do in those cabins. The way I see it, we have two options. One, wait for him and most likely be in trouble later for not getting these desserts done in time. Or two, get started on it and have a chance of redeeming ourselves.”
Loretta pressed her lips together. “Fine,” she said, waving her away. “Do what you want. I’m not getting involved. When he comes in this door, any minute now, you’ll have some explaining to do.”
Ruth exhaled sharply, shaking her head at the nonsense Loretta was spouting. She continued into the storage room, walking directly to the door that led to the pantry. Pulling the door open, she peered around before proceeding inside, when she stepped on something. She let out a short yelp. Was it a mouse—possibly the mouse that the elderly woman had hallucinated last night?
“Is everything okay in there?” Loretta yelled from the other room.
Ruth ignored her, glancing down at what was under her shoe. When she removed her foot, she immediately felt the blood drain from her face.