“Ye can own a piece o history. Not some dusty old trinket or faded letter, but something that brought joy tae yer parents’ childhood, tae yer own childhood, tae yer children’s right now, and wull be there tae make yer grandchildren laugh. Ye think Wile E. Coyote won’t survive that long? He can survive a drop from this cliff, can’t he? You bet he wull! But the original artwork from the original artist’s hand that brought him tae life? You can bet they won’t.”
Hamish paused to tap some keys on the computer. He was doing very well. Many trainees were jotting down notes. But the real challenge lay ahead. The next work would make or break him, and Hamish knew it. He tried not to look at Lucifer, but instead took a deep breath and readied for the plunge. The next image popped up.
“Whit’s this?” Hamish asked enthusiastically.
The answer was so obvious that nobody bothered. I worriedly held my breath. This was Hamish’s moment, which meant it was my and Bianca’s moment. Did Hamish have it in him?
“It’s bloody Fred Flintstone!” Hamish exclaimed, bringing chuckles from the class.
“Aye, ye all know that,” he continued. Hamish began talking faster and with more enthusiasm. He almost began jumping up and down, working himself up to a moment that was going to make him a hero... or get him fired.
“This one’s an original animation cel from 1961. Tis already fifty years auld. But nae like the so-called ‘classier’ films from Disney or Warner Brothers, Hanna Barbera cartoons were made special for television. They began an entire era: an era o Saturday morning cartoons. Who nae remembers sittin’ afore the tele watchin’ cartoons in yer pajamas? Did ye lay on the living room floor like ah did? From the past, ye say? Nae! How many of ye even now enjoy a cup o coffee while yer kids do the same thing ye did on Saturday mornings?
“This ain’t just some throw-away tool from fifty years ago, mates, this is a piece o Americana. A’m from Scotland, and ah grew up watching The Flintstones. The whole world did—the whole world does!—don’t let anybody else take away yer heritage. This is your history, this is a part o your life!
Hamish burst into song.
“Flintstones... Meet the Flintstones,” he sang, “They’re a modern stone age family...”
Hamish raced back and forth in front of the class, waving ecstatically to get the crowd to join him. The trainees were hesitant, of course. It had been a long, stressful day, and everyone was tired. But not anymore. Hamish kept right on singing.
Something magical happened.
The whole classroom woke up. Students slouching at their desks perked up, and trainers began sharing huge grins. Suddenly the entire classroom was roaring along with their energetic maestro.
“FROM THE... TOWN OF BEDROCK,
THEY’RE A PAGE RIGHT OUT OF HISTORY.
WHEN YOU’RE... WITH THE FLINTSTONES
HAVE A YABBA DABBA DOO TIME,
A DABBA DOO TIME,
WE’LL HAVE A GAY OLD TIME!”
“That’s right!” Hamish boomed, panting with excitement. He had the entire room in the palm of his hand, and he knew it.
“Dinna let some fool from Scotland steal yer heritage. This is Americana. Think yer too adult tae have cartoons on yer mind? Keep it in yer heart—keep it in yer home!”
Striking while the room was hot and bothered, Hamish immediately clicked onto the final work. Up flashed the familiar image of the little girl sharing ice cream with the town sheriff in an ice cream parlor.
“We’ve been talkin’ aboot American tradition. How’s this? We all know this image, don’t we? Tis a classic from Norman Rockwell: famous for comforting images that make us smile. But it’s more than that, ain’t it? His was the hand that graced the cover o The Saturday Evening Post for forty years. That’s right, forty years! He painted over three hundred covers o America’s favorite magazine. But where’d he get all that inspiration, I wonder?
“From you! Everyday people, everyday places, everyday things. These are Americans,” he emphasized. “Washington, D.C. cited Norman Rockwell as a Great Living American, saying tae him—and I quote, ‘Through the magic of your talent, the folks next door—their gentle sorrows, their modest joys—have enriched our own lives and given us new insight into our countrymen.’”
Hamish slowed down, and looked over the class. His face became serious, his words intimate. Everyone listened with rapt attention.
“This is more than just a classic image,” he finished gently, earnestly. “This is a happy moment o yer life, or yer parents’ life, or even yer grandparents. This is something special. This is Americana. Don’t take it for granted. Life is about moments, and what better moment tae remember? Whit’s better than always having a smile on yer wall? Ye don’t want yer children tae forget about this simpler, happier time, do ye? This is Americana. This is yer gift to them.”
Hamish paused, then quietly said, “Thenk ye.”
The room burst into applause. Gene actually rose to his feet to clap. John Goodman nodded deeply in approval. I was so thrilled, I hugged Cocoa—not that I ever needed a reason to try that. Hamish blushed so profusely that his cheeks nearly rivaled his hair.
Until Lucifer stalked to the front.
His head was slouched forward, his arms tight behind his back. His face was silent and hard as stone.
“You can sit down,” Lucifer said gently to Hamish, with a slight, yet still imperious, wave of his hand.
Lucifer opened his mouth, but paused. The room waited, silent, expectant.
“This pains me to say it,” Lucifer finally said, “but that was excellent. It was perfect. Tadpole Twenty-two: I know you didn’t write one bloody word of it. I don’t care. I am going to steal all of it. That was fantastic.”
A satisfied breath of relief flushed through the room. Lucifer eyed the assemblage before him, then added briskly, “You idiots better write the whole thing down, or I’m firing every last one of you.”
Gene stepped forward and added with a big grin, “That goes for auctioneers, too!”
3
The next morning I woke up very early, as was my natural habit—or curse, depending on how one looked at it. The returning auctioneers had partied late into the night, but I had retired around midnight. Without having even set my alarm, by 5:30 a.m. I was slipping quietly down to the lounge for a cup of coffee. Like every morning that week, Gene was already in the lounge working before I arrived. Despite being a large man, he looked small amid the huge gathering of logbooks, sheafs of papers, a laptop, and his BlackBerry.
“Good morning, Gene,” I said, raising my coffee in salute.
“Always the early riser, eh Buzz?” Gene greeted kindly. “Didn’t party with the auctioneers?”
“Enough,” I answered. “But I’m a morning creature, as you know. I love the calm before the storm.”
Gene smiled and nodded.
“Ship assignments today?” I prodded.
“Yes,” he said. He grinned somewhat mischievously and added, “The trainees all earned a spot, though they don’t know it yet. Even Hamish. Well, unless they implode delivering their mock auction this afternoon.”
“Oh, I’m sure Lucifer will delight in tormenting them until the very end. But auctioneers don’t have to wait that long, do we?”
Gene chuckled. “No, you won’t. This is one of the best parts of my job: giving ship assignments. Brian, I’m putting you on a ship that I think will suit your talents perfectly. You’re getting the Seven Seas Mariner. You know it?”
I shook my head.
“The Radisson Seven Seas Mariner,” Gene emphasized. “It’s a six star ship. Congratulations.”
I blinked in surprise. “I didn’t know they even came in six stars.”
“Well, a very few do, and you’re on one,” Gene said proudly. “You see, I know you’re not one to let alcohol get the better of you, which is important because the cabin includes a fully stocked mini bar.”
I was thrilled beyond belief, but didn’t dare let on that alcohol got the bett
er of me all too often. Feigning indifference with supreme effort, I said, “Is that so?”
“It’s a luxury ship in the true sense of the term,” he continued, beaming. “You’ll have your own private balcony and the galley is staffed by Le Cordon Bleu.”
“You’re kidding!”
“You’ve earned it,” Gene complimented. “The clientele, of course, is well-to-do and highly educated. No singing ‘The Flintstones’ to them. But what better auctioneer than the only one who was also an art historian? I think this just might be the ship you’ve been looking for!”
4
Blood smeared on the artwork. Nibbled bits of flesh clung to the computer. An auctioneer trembled, hyperventilating. A nightmare?
No, a handover.
With great pity I regarded the Seven Seas Mariner’s departing auctioneer. I looked down at her raised rump, lost in loose skirts of thick green fabric, while her head and shoulders were thrust beneath a low shelf in the art locker. She scratched and hissed like an alley cat. Somewhere down in that shadowed recess, a small frame cowered.
“You’re freaking me out, Alanis,” I chided gently. “Will you please calm down?”
A squeal of triumph signaled success, and she wriggled back into the open. On her knees in the tiny, crowded art locker, she tossed back her head and fingered wild locks behind her ear. She rearranged her woolen shawl and sniffed indignantly.
The auctioneer dubbed Alanis Morrissette could have been quite pretty. Should have been, in fact. She had lustrous black curls and big brown eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses. Her mouth was also bold, with large, perfect teeth behind curvaceous lips. Those lips were bright red, but it was not from lipstick. They were stained from the blood welling up from self-inflicted wounds. She was so thoroughly dominated by nervous mannerisms that it was impossible not to judge her by them. Her body was wracked by shudders. Those huge white teeth were always masticating a finger, to the point where all ten fingertips were ruined stumps of flesh. They left bloody streaks on everything she touched.
“Freaking you out?” Alanis squawked. “Freaking you out? We have only six hours for this handover and you’re talking about me freaking you out! What about the inventory? What about the paperwork? Oh my God!”
“Stay chill, sister,” I soothed, glancing at the laptop. “According to the computer, we’re almost done and we have loads of time.”
“Loads!” Alanis repeated, finding a way to somehow be even more aghast. “We were supposed to have a load of sales materials today. Oh my God! Is it here? Did you see a pallet on the dock for us? I already signed for it, but I didn’t verify anything!”
Alanis shivered again. It was painful to watch, and my heart ached for her. I felt a kinship with Alanis because she had been a fellow tadpole just nine months ago. We had even been assigned homework together. She had been a nervous girl then, but had since become an old wreck of a woman.
“You’re going to have a heart attack by thirty if you keep this up,” I commented. “Now, relax and breathe, OK? Let’s just talk about some of the simple stuff. Like what are Mariner’s ports, for example?”
“What?” she screeched loud enough to make a banshee proud. “You don’t know the ports? Didn’t you read the handover report? He didn’t read the handover report, oh my God!”
“You never sent it, dear,” I said gently.
Fear flashed across her face. “Oh my God, I forgot to send it! Does that mean I forgot to cc it to Sundance? Or did I forget to cc it to you? Oh no, what if I didn’t send it to either of you?”
“It’s OK, it’s OK,” I soothed again. I wanted to reach out to her, feeling a strange desire to stroke her frazzled hair as if she were a hyperactive longhaired house pet.
“It’s awful here,” she muttered, losing herself in a low moan. “They won’t let us do any of the things we were taught. None of them. I had to watch my butt every minute with that damn chief officer.”
Upon hearing those words, I had begun chewing at my own fingernail. Sheepishly I lowered my hand.
“I can’t believe I lost my first ship,” she sulked. “They cut me after only two months.”
“Me, too,” I consoled.
“Really?” she asked. A bit of torn cuticle dropped from her trembling lip. “But you were the first of us to get a ship. They sacked you, too?”
“Two months,” I agreed.
Alanis began chuckling silently. I knew she didn’t mean to be rude, but something was very, very wrong. Her quiet chuckles swelled, and suddenly Alanis was lost in raucous, unbalanced laughter.
“But he’ll be watching your butt now, that’s for sure!” she cried. “The Flaming Dutchman!”
She laughed so hard that she buckled forward, gasping for breath, huge lips almost comically gulping the air. Her body shook and she clutched her middle. When she raised her head again, she was snuffling back tears. Strange how laughter looks like crying with no sound. What was it about working on ships that made so many people cry?
Alanis suddenly snuffed out her hysteria as thoroughly as if dumping a candle in water. She peered at me strangely. I stared back, brows raised, unsure what to say. I was thoroughly confused and more than a little intimidated. Her behavior was highly erratic. I had seen it before. I had seen it all too often on ships.
Suddenly Alanis gripped me in a tight, earnest embrace. Though surprised at first, I soon squeezed back. We embraced a long time. Eventually Alanis pulled back. She stood tall, pulled her curls behind her ear again, and became resolute.
“Thank you, Buzz,” she said. “You know what? Screw the handover. Screw it all. Sign my name on whatever needs it. This whole experience has been awful from the beginning. I’m done with it. I’m never going back to sea again.”
She stalked off, leaving me alone in the silent, crowded locker.
I smiled. A hug was a powerful thing, but this one was particularly so, for a unique reason. We had not conversed, or even seen each other, in nine months. Even then, we had only known each other peripherally for a few stressful days. We did not even know each others’ names. But we had shared something that few people would ever understand. She knew she would not get a hug like that back on land.
Strangely enough, at that moment I thought about Moby Dick. Understanding had blossomed while hugging a sobbing colleague in that cramped, dark little art locker. During my school days I had slogged through the novel and learned the usual: namely that Captain Ahab’s quest for the white whale was the quintessential tale of revenge. I had figured the sea was integral to the story because the book was really an exhaustive lesson about whaling.
As a landlubber, it was impossible to comprehend life at sea. The magnitude of humility was profound. No amount of human effort could withstand the sea’s caprice. The mental fortitude required to cast your lot into such a vast, uncaring void was staggering. Ahab’s crew had regarded him with awe—not from fear over his recklessness, but because he actually dared to match wits with the sea, dared to demand from it something he wanted, rather than take what was given and count his blessings.
We, too, dared to demand against the sea.
Perhaps, when deciding to join ships, we were assuaged by man’s modern marvels to feel physically safe. But the enormity of what lay beneath our daily toil, literally and figuratively, was something no one could understand until endured. It had broken so many Carnival waiters I knew: Camilla, Ramona, and Xenia, to name a few. It had broken me. And certainly the auctioneers Shawn, Charles—now Alanis—had all cracked under the inherent loneliness of those who dared.
But what of Bianca and I, who dared the greatest thing of all?
5
I stepped into my new cabin. My breath caught, hung in midair. My leg, too. I stood there, poised to step, but frozen in the doorway.
The mother of all cabins. I had thought that on Conquest. I had even thought that on Majesty of the Seas. But this... this was superlative.
And it was mine.
It took me a moment to a
bsorb all I was looking at. I was used to tiny metal boxes with tiny metal bunks, but instead beheld a chamber that sprawled past a king-sized bed. There was even a sitting area with a couch. Opposite that was a large, ornate wooden entertainment center graced with a minibar and refrigerator. A comfortable desk was lit with a green-hooded lamp. Beyond all that luxury was something even greater: a full-sized, private balcony overlooking the sea.
Stunned, I explored past the walk-in closet and into the bathroom. I began laughing as uncontrollably as Alanis. The bathroom was equally gorgeous, boasting an actual bathtub! Mirrors were everywhere, as were fine brass appointments and glass shelving laden with spa-worthy toiletries. I made a mental note to collect the complimentary shower caps for my mother.
Though still in a daze, I returned to the sitting area to look over Alanis’s handover notes. I was eager to see what was necessary to keep this most amazing cabin in the history of the universe. My eyes scanned the pages nervously, but brightened when I realized Alanis had only offered three auctions over an entire fourteen day cruise. With five days at sea, there was no excuse for not working each of them. But then I began asking myself why she wouldn’t have done five auctions, when she was stressing and failing so badly.
The answer suddenly occurred to me—and scared me.
There were only 700 guests on Mariner. Each art auction on Carnival Conquest hosted half of Mariner’s entire passenger manifest! So a numbers game was a afoot. I had to think outside the box. Fortunately, I identified several opportunities for art history lectures and gallery functions. I’d find a way. I had to.
After digging deeper into her documentation, as well as scanning her sales materials and personal notes, I formed a theory regarding why Alanis had choked on Mariner. Like her predecessor—who apparently had run the same number of functions and also been booted after two months—Alanis had stuck to an auctions-only attitude, and sunk. I also sensed that her hyperactive, stressful personality may have been toxic to the rich folks.
Unsinkable Mister Brown (Cruise Confidential 3) Page 31