Alice on Board

by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

  “Man, you hear of parents having trouble with their adult children, but sometimes it’s the other way around.”

  We settled on the Crab Claw Restaurant and went inside.

  “Let me treat this time,” I said, remembering the last meal I’d enjoyed at his expense.

  “Only if you insist,” he said, smiling. “I heard paychecks are going to be late this time.”

  “Doesn’t make a whole lot of difference, does it?”

  “Well, some of the guys send their paychecks home. I know Curtis does. But if we’re paid eventually, I won’t complain too much,” Mitch said. “I pay my folks room and board every month, but most of my salary goes in the bank.”

  “What are you saving for? A bigger boat?”

  He folded his arms across his chest and grinned at me. “Naw, just want to fix up the one I have, put a cabin on her. All I’ve got now is a sunshade. Would sure appreciate a way to get in out of the weather when a storm hits on the bay.”

  I leaned my chin on my hand and studied him. “Where do you see yourself five years from now, Mitch? I love hearing about life plans.”

  “Life plans? You selling insurance on the side?”

  I laughed. “No, it’s interesting, that’s all.”

  “Well, in five years I’d like to think I’d have an all-weather boat; like to have me a wife—a pretty one.” His grin grew wider still. “Maybe even have the first of nine children.”

  “Nine!” I bolted back in my chair.

  I loved the way he chuckled. “Okay, how about the first of three? That would make a nice number.”

  “So tell me about your phantom wife.”

  “My wife. Well now, let’s see …” He stopped as a waitress came and took our order, then left again. “I think it would have to be a girl who had lived for a while in the city.”

  “Really? That’s surprising.”

  “Why? I wouldn’t want to marry a girl who was always dreaming of leaving the marshland and moving to Richmond or Baltimore or someplace. I’d want someone who really liked the waterman’s life and the work that goes with it.”

  “You may have to extend your search a little beyond Vienna, Maryland,” I said.

  “Hey! I’m looking around, aren’t I? Not working on the Seascape for nothing.” Mitch tapped my ankle with the toe of his shoe. “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

  “Well, graduated from college, hopefully with an MA in counseling. So I guess in five years I’ll be looking around for a job, preferably in a high school or possibly a middle school.”

  “Any idea where?”

  I gave a loud sigh. “That’s the unknown. I’d like to be within an hour or so of my family—Dad and Sylvia and Les—but who knows where Lester will be then? He’s got resumes out all over the place.”

  “And what about Patrick?”

  I wasn’t sure how to answer that. “He could be anywhere in the whole world by then, and … if we marry … I’ll probably end up working wherever he is.”

  “Will you miss home?”

  “Probably. But Patrick’s worth it. I guess we always give up one thing to get another, don’t we?”

  “I don’t know. It hasn’t happened to me yet,” Mitch said.

  We walked all over St. Michaels after lunch. Once we sat for a while, and I actually nodded off on a bench near the dock, I’d had so little sleep the night before. Mitch joked that I was boring company, so we went back to the ship and I slept for a half hour before Gwen woke me to change for dinner.

  We had good weather the rest of the cruise. Pamela didn’t mention her mom again, and Bill and Meredith seemed to enjoy themselves. By the time of the farewell dinner Saturday night, with the usual lobster and filet mignon, everyone seemed in a good mood, even Pamela. It was almost eleven the following morning, after the last passenger had disembarked, that the arguments started.

  Quinton had assembled staff and crew in the dining room—minus the captain and first mate—and announced that our paychecks would be a week late. “If anyone has a critical situation and needs it immediately,” he said, “see me afterward, and we’ll work something out.”

  Obviously, no one was delighted with the news. The deckhands grumbled the loudest.

  “It may not be a critical need, but I had plans for that paycheck,” I heard Curtis say to Dianne.

  “So did we all,” Dianne told him.

  You could see the difference in morale the following week, unless I only imagined it. Seemed as though people worked a little slower, a bit less cheerfully. Fewer smiles. We blamed it on a somewhat lackluster group of passengers this time, who weren’t as enthused as the group before, but they probably picked up vibes from us.

  Quinton had arranged for a local band to come aboard one evening and play dance music; a comedy team came another. There was one glorious afternoon when the wind was just right that we had a kite-flying contest on the top deck, and Stephanie was a surprisingly good cheerleader. Mitch and I flew one together, battling the yellow and orange kite that Gwen and Flavian had launched, until they tangled in midair and came spinning back down to the deck.

  When the following Sunday arrived, however, and the passengers left, Quinton had to announce that, once again, there was a shortfall. But we would absolutely get our paychecks by the end of the month. This time there were open hostilities.

  “I need mine now, Quinton,” Frank said. “I’ve got bills to pay, and I’ve certainly been doing cruises longer than the captain. He getting a paycheck?” I could tell by the murmurs that went around that he spoke for all of us.

  “Cruising’s our profession, Frank,” Quinton said. “We both know that part of this job is being able to roll with the punches. But I can guarantee that everyone here will get their paychecks before Dianne and I get ours.”

  But even Quinton couldn’t have known what would happen next.

  16

  CHANGES

  Up until now, summer on the bay, though hot, had days of respite, when the breeze picked up and the humidity went down. On these days passengers preferred being out on the decks, not in the air-conditioned lounge looking through travel magazines about what it was like every other place in the world. But now, as we started the last full week of July, the temperature shot up to the mid-nineties every day.

  Whatever the weather in Barcelona, Patrick was obviously enjoying himself:

  Students are just beginning to arrive for fall quarter. I’ll

  be transferring to a dorm as soon as summer courses are

  over. Finished all the graphs for Professor Eagan’s book.

  Just proofreading yet to do, so I’m free for most of the day

  now. He sends me on errands and I explore the city. His

  girlfriend’s coming to stay with him middle of August. She’s

  teaching a course too… .

  The Seascape wasn’t completely booked for the next cruise either. In fact, I heard from Lauren that people were now offered discounts of $800 for immediately booking in August. Dianne even told us—jokingly, maybe—that if we had relatives who were considering a vacation at sea, they might be able to get it at half price.

  What Frank told us one night, though—and he’s practically lived his life on cruise ships—is that in the heat of summer, most people think about cruising the New England coast or the St. Lawrence Seaway, or they fly out to Vancouver and take the Inner Passage to Alaska.

  Even the Seascape crew hunkered down in air-conditioning. The only time we wanted to sit on the top deck was when the ship was moving or after dark. Few of us opted to take excursions, even when we had the time. If we left the ship, it was to find a bar or a pizza place, to go bowling in air-conditioned comfort, or to take in a movie. Our paychecks finally came through, as Quinton promised, but he said we would be paid again in two weeks, not one.

  When we did go out at night, for a couple hours after the day crew finished up, I began to notice a change in Gwen and Flavian’s relationship. It had started out as
a parody of love—lots of one-liners and laughs—then a sort of affectionate joking around. But now …

  Liz and Pamela and I were watching as Yolanda replaited the cornrows that decorated Gwen’s head. “Cornrow rehab,” we called it.

  “Do you think I’m leading Flavian on?” Gwen asked no one in particular, staring straight ahead since she couldn’t move her head.

  I was trying to cut my toenails with fingernail scissors, which didn’t work, and realized I’d have to buy a pair the next time we were in a drugstore.

  “Does he think so?” I asked. If you don’t know the answer, ask a question.

  “I’m not sure. He’s been kind of moody. Haven’t you noticed?” Gwen said.

  “A little.”

  “He says I’ve changed. I said, ‘For the better, I hope.’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘That’s not what I meant.’”

  “NMI,” said Yolanda.

  “What does that mean?” asked Gwen.

  “Need more information.”

  “I told him he seemed quieter, more uptight lately. Asked him what was wrong. And he said it was me who had changed. Okay, we were kissing—serious kissing, I mean—and I guess I pulled away. I like it more playful, the way it started out with Flavian … and he doesn’t. He wants to take things up a notch.”

  “You don’t like Flavian?” I asked.

  “Sure, I like him, but I didn’t sign on for another relationship. I thought he knew that. I mean—look! I’ve got eight years of medical school ahead of me. I just wanted to really cut loose this summer and have fun.”

  “Maybe you each have a different definition of ‘really,’” I suggested.

  “I just don’t want any baggage when I start school. I don’t want long text messages from Flavian about when we’ll see each other again. On the outside, Flavian looks like a fun-loving, risk-taking Romeo, right? On the inside, he’s … I think he just needs a woman to validate him.”

  “How do you know it isn’t just you? I mean that he never really fell for someone until he met you?” I asked.

  Gwen was quiet for a moment, and then she said, “That scares the hell out of me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I can’t be anyone’s ‘all’ right now. Not even Austin’s. I can’t have anyone that dependent on me. This is my one time to cut loose and enjoy myself and not take on anyone else’s needs.”

  And listening to Gwen, I wondered if this was how Patrick felt about me. If, once I started college, I’d feel the same. But I decided this was a conversation we could have when I visited him at Christmas.

  It was the start of our eighth week, and the humid weather hung on. It had reached 101 degrees the week before and then went down to 93 where it settled in. We’d known the forecast before we left Baltimore this time, and Stephanie planned a lot of onboard activities that the passengers could enjoy in air-conditioned comfort if they declined the open-air trolley in Yorktown or the unshaded walk around Tangier Island or hiking on St. Michaels.

  There’s not a whole lot you can do on ship without a pool, an orchestra, or a theater, however. Still, Stephanie tried her best. We had a make-your-own-sundae afternoon and a bubble-blowing contest; a crazy hat day and short films on sea chanties and “The Disappearing Islands on the Chesapeake.”

  For the most part, though, passengers seemed listless and lethargic, and the subtle changes in the menu didn’t help either. The stewards knew funds were low when the caviar appetizer disappeared from the Captain’s Dinner. There was no Chilean sea bass, no duck pâté or heirloom tomatoes. Raspberry ice cream replaced the molten chocolate cake with fresh raspberry sauce that had been so popular on the other cruises.

  Quinton had been asked to save money by substituting some clearly inferior wine at dinner, Rachel told us, but he chose to raise the price of premium liquors at cocktail hour instead. “Let’s try to keep some shred of dignity,” she heard him tell Carlo.

  The third night, after we’d left Yorktown and were en route to Crisfield, we were getting ready for bed, listening to Emily’s account of a guy she used to date who made his own beer, when the lights flickered a time or two.

  I had just taken off my shorts when the lights went off completely.

  “Awwk!” I said. “I can’t find my sleep shirt.”

  “Listen,” said Gwen.

  “What?” We were quiet a moment.

  “The air just went off too,” Gwen said.

  In fact, there was no noise at all. No hum of the fan, no drone of the engine. I felt around for my shorts and put them on again, then fished about with one foot for my sandals.

  “I can’t tell if we’re still moving,” said Emily.

  “We’re not,” said Lauren.

  “The passengers are probably freaking out,” Pamela said. “I hope most of them are asleep.”

  “They won’t be if the air doesn’t come on pretty soon,” said Lauren. “It was only down to eighty-six degrees outside at dinnertime.”

  “Shouldn’t somebody be announcing something on the PA?” I asked.

  “If the electricity’s off, so is the PA. So is everything,” Rachel said.

  The only light we had was from the small, dim EXIT sign above our door, not much better than a tiny night-light.

  “Let’s go up top and see what’s happened,” said Pamela. “Does anyone know where we are?”

  “In the widest part of the bay, that’s where,” said Rachel. “I’ll bet we’re fifteen miles from land on either side.”

  “Well, it’s not like we’re lost at sea,” said Lauren.

  Some of the guys were already out in the hallway too, and we collided with semi-bare bodies as we groped our way to the stairs. We could hear clunks and clanks coming from the engine room, Frank’s and Ken’s voices, but the last thing they needed was us getting in the way.

  “Blindman’s bluff,” Barry called out behind us. “Oops, sorry, ma’am.”

  “Watch it, Barry,” I heard Natalie say.

  “What do you think is wrong?” I asked the guys over my shoulder.

  “Powers out, that’s all I know” came Mitch’s voice.

  “Generator,” said Josh. “Gotta be the generator.”

  “Is that bad?” asked Liz.

  “That’s everything,” Josh answered.

  It was a little easier to see once we reached a door on the main deck. There was enough of a moon that we could make out sizes and shapes, even if we still had to guess at who they were.

  “Are we sinking?” an elderly voice asked, and as we strained to see through the darkness, a small figure emerged from a doorway.

  “No, ma’am,” said Mitch. “Just a little problem with the power. Engineer is working on it now.”

  She was unconvinced. “We don’t need our life jackets or anything?”

  “No, you can go back to bed. If there was any danger, we’d let you know.”

  Since we didn’t have a clue what to tell people, we felt our way over to the outside staircase, and when we got up to the lounge deck, we found Quinton and Dianne. She was holding a flashlight and Quinton was rummaging around in a metal box.

  “I can’t believe that’s all they’ve got,” Quinton was saying. “There aren’t even enough for each member of the crew, much less the passengers.” He handed a flashlight to Dianne and then, hearing us, called us over. “Each of you take a flashlight and patrol the decks. I want one person at the top and one at the bottom of each stairway. The generator stopped working, and until we get power again, we’re all on duty.”

  “What are we supposed to tell people?” I asked.

  “Try to keep them in their staterooms. Help them prop their doors open if they’re too hot, open their windows for them. Those with inside cabins can go to the lounge if they like; we’re opening doors and windows in there.”

  “I’m going to put pitchers of iced tea and lemonade on the bar,” Dianne told us. “Rachel and Lauren, come help.”

  I took the bottom of the third staircase, Josh said h
e’d take the top. I heard Quinton talking to one of the passengers.

  “It happens sometimes,” he was saying. “This has been an exceptionally brutal summer, as we all know. The equipment’s had to work nonstop at maximum capacity, and sometimes it does break down. But we’ve got an expert engineer on board who’s spent half his life on ships, so we have every reason to hope for the best.”

  Mitch and Liz were heading for their assigned stairways.

  “I’m supposed to serve at breakfast,” Liz said, stopping a moment, the beam of her flashlight aimed at my chin. “But refrigeration is gone too, right?”

  “Refrigeration and everything else that’s run by electricity,” Mitch said, “including the toilets.”

  “We can’t flush the toilets?” Liz yelped. “I mean, not even once, not even at all?”

  “They all operate on electricity,” Mitch told her.

  Trust Liz to worry about toilets.

  In the dark hallway of the main deck, it was sort of like playing Marco Polo out of the water. Passengers were coming out of their stifling cabins, aware that all vent noise had stopped, and were bumping into each other.

  “Has this ever happened before?” people asked us.

  “How long before the air comes back on?”

  “Do we get a refund?”

  It was the toilets that bothered them most. It was hard to convince people that toilets at sea are not like the ones at home.

  It was going on three o’clock, and some of the crew’s flashlights that had been dim to begin with were going out. Quinton swore at himself for not checking on them at the start of the season, even though it fell under Ken McCoy’s list of duties. Passengers were clamoring for flashlights for themselves.

  As I was leading another group of passengers upstairs to the lounge, I heard Quinton ask Stephanie, “What have we got in the gift shop? Any flashlights at all?”

  “Small pen-type things on an anchor key chain,” she said.

  “We’re giving them away,” Quinton told her.