Mask on the Cruise Ship

by Melanie Jackson

  “What?!” Jack stared at me, half-amused, half-exasperated.

  “Because you saw her barf.” I tackled one of the cheese blintzes with my fork. Num: nice and runny. My next words were somewhat indistinct. “I don’t get it either. Pantelli threw up on the school bus last year, and he wasn’t embarrassed.” I swallowed the mouthful of blintz and continued enthusiastically, “His aim was incredible. Right out the window, splat!, on a pedestrian.”

  “DINAH.” Mother had homed in, the way grown-ups always do when you’re telling an especially fun anecdote. “I think you can spare us the details.”

  Shrugging, I speared a papaya slice and gestured grandly with it at Jack. “Anyhow, Madge is ultra-embarrassed. I mean, this is a girl who looks perfect at all times. You’ve now seen her at less than perfect. Therefore, your relationship with her is kaput. Finito! In ruins! But she did say she’d be considerate and set you up with a classmate of hers, so you wouldn’t have to remain girlfriendless.”

  “Ah yes?” Jack’s gray eyes narrowed. They had a gleam in them that gave me the feeling Madge wasn’t going to be able to dismiss him quite so easily. “And who might this classmate be?”

  “Dora Hidzwill.”

  “Isn’t she the one with the, er, skin condition?”

  I swallowed another nummy mouthful of cheese blintz and shook my fork at him. “I said Madge was being considerate. Not kind.”

  At that moment, Lavinia and her friends, supporting the frail, bent Ira, appeared at the buffet entrance. I waved to indicate the free table next to us.

  Lavinia barked out words of encouragement to Ira until, with a little shove, she plopped him into the chair directly to my right.

  “I’ll get you a nice plate of food. Of soft food,” Lavinia assured Ira. “I suspect those teeth aren’t your own, duckie. Nothing to be ashamed of, mind!”

  “That’s Lavinia O’Herlihy,” I murmured to Julie. “She’s the one who saw your thief yesterday.”

  Then I pitched my voice over Ira’s bent head to Lavinia: “Have you seen Gooseberry Eyes since yesterday?”

  “Why, no, dear. I’ve been too busy with this cute fella here.”

  Ira’s dark eyes fairly snapped at her in annoyance. “STUFF AND NONSENSE!” the old man shouted.

  “Oh, Ira!” Lavinia exclaimed. “C’mon, ladies, we’d better shift him over a seat.”

  For Ira, hunched so far forward, had dunked the tip of his nose in the ketchup splotch.

  Shrieks interrupted our buffet breakfast just as I was reaching for a slice of chocolate pecan pie.

  “LOOK! They’re closing in on us!”

  This sounded interesting. Mother, Jack, Julie and I went out on deck.

  People were leaning over the railing, but this time not to watch for orcas. On both sides of the Empress Marie, gray masses of rock crept closer, closer …

  Another scream. It was Lavinia. She’d scurried up beside me only to grow faint. “I have claustrophobia,” she moaned. “Ohhh …”

  She swayed. Jack caught her on one side and I on the other. Julie raised her eyebrows at me. I knew what she was thinking about Lavinia. Eccentric.

  “Lavinia, weren’t you at orientation?” I demanded. I attend meetings of any sort — and ask tons of questions, as well as give helpful advice. At home, for instance, I never miss a Block Watch meeting. I’m just sorry that the neighbors are having fewer and fewer of them.

  “This is the infamous Seymour Narrows,” I explained to Lavinia. “It’s kind of a pun, right? Everywhere you look, you see more Narrows. Why, we’re practically getting scrunched by the rock. Notice how the mighty Empress has slowed down. We’re crawling through the Narrows.” I chuckled in enjoyment. “Will we make it?”

  Lavinia let out a second, more plaintive moan. Weakly she scrabbled in her dress pocket, producing the Sinful Satin tester from the perfume boutique. “Must … revive … myself … ” Seconds later we were all getting doused.

  Boy, if Madge thought Sinful Satin wasn’t my style, she oughtta smell it on Jack.

  “What is that, a pesticide?” he choked.

  I was too busy coughing to continue with my Seymour Narrows explanation. I’d intended to say that the Narrows used to be lethal as well as cramped. Ships kept crashing into huge Ripple Rock, smack in the middle of the passage. Finally, in the 1950s, the British Columbia government hired an engineer to blow it up. Ka-boom!

  It’s still tricky to get through. The tide builds to sixteen knots — translation, ultra-strong — so ships have to time their passage very carefully.

  Lavinia cackled, “I was going to return this tester. Didn’t mean to walk off with it! But,” she showed it to us, “now it’s empty!” And she tossed it into the Narrows.

  “A gift to Neptune, the god of the sea,” remarked Mother, literary as always.

  “That stench is being sent to Neptune?” coughed Jack. “In that case, we’re probably in for a few tidal waves.”

  “Wait! There are 126 buffet items left for me to try!” I protested as Jack and Mother forcibly led me away.

  They had other plans for me. I’d thought it would be a lazy day, since the Empress wouldn’t be putting into port until tomorrow: Juneau, our first stop.

  Cruises, I soon learned, are packed with activities. Sure, there were lots of comfy-looking deck chairs where I could have stretched out with the latest Deathstalkers comic book —

  “Don’t even think about it,” warned Mother, who’d noticed me eyeing the chairs. She unfolded the ship’s daily newsletter, Hundreds of Happy Events, filled with lists of what was going on. Is there an event we don’t have that you’d like us to include? the newsletter asked. If so, pop your idea into our Helpful Hints suggestion box, just outside the Captain’s cabin!

  Mother browsed the newsletter. “There’s a bridge tournament, bingo, swing and ballroom dance classes, volleyball, yoga … I think I’ll check out the yoga.”

  “Di and I will go for volleyball,” said Jack, with irritating enthusiasm.

  “We can play volleyball anywhere,” I told him. “I mean, here we are, on an Alaska cruise! We should be taking in British Columbia’s rugged scenery.” I started reading aloud from the back of the newsletter. “ ‘Her dark forests jutting out to the edges of her craggy cliffs … ’ ”

  “Dinah, we’re fogged in.”

  It was true. A mist had plumped itself over the ocean. A few optimists were leaning on the railing, binoculars propped on their noses to look for whales. But most passengers were either shopping or indulging in one of the hundreds of Happy Events.

  “Volleyball it is,” I sighed.

  POW!

  I serve a mean volleyball, if I do say so myself. It sailed high over the net, beyond the eagerly reaching fingers of the other team, to the back row.

  Where Jack punched it back over. Dang. That was the problem with having a natural athlete in your opposition.

  But, in the front row of our team, Julie was ready. She sprang at the ball and slammed! it down on the other side of the net. Somehow Julie had lengthened herself in mid-jump, the way our cat Wilfred did when stretching to catch a fly.

  I was used to Wilfred behaving like a Slinky — but Julie! Housecleaning must keep Julie in great shape, I thought.

  Julie’s fashionably untidy hair fell over her forehead, threatening to block her view. I loaned her a hairclip, shaped like a sleeping cat, that Madge had made for me. With smiled thanks, Julie used it to shove her hair back.

  Jack grew extra cunning, and slammed my next serve well out of Julie’s reach. When it was my team’s turn to serve again, I shifted to the front row, ending up beside Julie.

  “Is the Raven safe?” I asked her.

  Julie laughed and pinched my cheek. Exercise and being outside — and not brooding about her sister, I thought — were good for Julie. Her brown eyes were sparkling; her complexion, rosy.

  She replied, “The mask is locked in a formidable steel safe in my stateroom. The Raven himself wouldn’t be cl
ever enough to get out of that.”

  Julie shot up, Slinky-like, to spike — BONK! — a fast, spinning ball Jack had punched over. Our side applauded.

  I forgot about threats to the Raven. Jack whammed the ball over. It bounced neatly on the top of my head, soared up —

  And would have landed on our side, a loss for us, except that Julie spiked it back.

  Our cheers were interrupted, however. Somebody on the other team objected that my “head return” wasn’t in the volleyball rulebook.

  “What rulebook? Where?” said everyone else. We just wanted to play. But we all ended up in a huddle to argue about it. Julie and I rolled our eyes at each other.

  I happened to roll mine in the direction of a set of stairs coming up from a stateroom level. Halfway up the stairs, staring open-mouthed, was Evan Brander.

  Maybe the concept of a volleyball court was a new and startling one to my pianist.

  I didn’t think so. Evan was surprised to see someone.

  He was looking at —

  Julie?

  Turning, Evan hurried back down the stairs.

  “Weird,” I muttered.

  “Exactly,” said Jack, addressing the person who’d complained. “This isn’t pro volleyball, buddy. It’s for fun.”

  He proceeded to lecture everyone about how sports were meant to build teamwork and friendship. How that was way more important than the actual score.

  Yup, Jack was a natural to be a teacher, all right.

  Meanwhile, my natural curiosity was acting up. Who had Evan seen to make him bolt like that?

  To me, curiosity is like a huge bowl of chocolate ice cream. You can’t resist it — especially if no one is noticing how much you indulge.

  I slipped out of the huddle of arguing volleyball players. An advantage to being short was that I was beneath their line of vision.

  I plunged down the stairs after Evan.

  Chapter 8

  Talk about your bad-hair days

  When I reached the bottom of the stairs, Evan was whisking around a corner. Whatever he was up to, he was in a tremendous hurry about it.

  “Loved your show last night,” a deep voice rumbled behind me. It was a handsome, grinning steward, wheeling along a trolley of trays and dishes that he’d been picking up outside people’s doors.

  Evan looked around. He was beside the fourth door down.

  “Thanks,” I told the steward and gave Evan my bared-teeth phony smile.

  “What are you doing here, Dinah?” Evan asked — with a tinge of impatience.

  “I...uh...” Panicky memo to self: Have excuses ready before these awkward moments occur. I brightened. “I thought we could work on some lyrics for your song. For dah DAH dah dah DAH dah.”

  “Oh.” Evan seemed to thaw. “That’s nice, Dinah. Not right now, though.” He swiveled away from the door and walked off.

  Why hadn’t he gone into his room? I wondered. He’d been about to twist the knob.

  Weirder and weirder.

  “They’re still arguing,” Julie greeted me, with a nod toward the huddle of players.

  She noticed my expression. “Is something wrong, Di?”

  I told her about Evan. “I had problems with my last pianist,” I mourned. “My fault, I admit it. This time I really wanted things to be different.”

  Julie was gaping at me. “Did you say four rooms down? That’s my room!”

  I gaped at her in return. One of the ever-present stewards glided by with a tray. Assuming our mouths were open in readiness for food, he held out the tray.

  For once my appetite failed me. “So Evan was skulking outside your room,” I said faintly.

  “Preparing to pick the lock, you think?” Julie asked. She clutched her spiky hair. “This is too melodramatic, Dinah. Can’t be true!”

  Nevertheless, like a couple of anxious moms, we went down to check on the Raven. “I won’t breathe easy until tomorrow’s over,” Julie confessed, unlocking her stateroom door.

  A fat, squat gray safe sat against the wall. “Want to see the Raven again?” Julie invited. “After all, he’ll soon be at the Juneau Heritage Gallery, secured behind thick, unbreakable glass rigged with all kinds of alarms.”

  A moment later, peeling away bubble wrap, Julie revealed the Raven. Over his red-rimmed beak, his sharp black eyes were bright with mirth, as if at his own cleverness. I couldn’t help grinning back at him.

  Julie noticed and nodded in understanding. “As with any art, masks never stop giving pleasure to the beholder,” she said. “In fact, masks are part of a giving ceremony, if you will: the potlatch. That’s a meeting of the tribal chiefs and other high-ranking members — but they’re also feasts for everyone. Gifts abound. Dances, masks, songs and stories that celebrate the tribe, giving everyone a sense of belonging,” Julie finished, rather wistfully.

  She wrapped the Raven up again. “I’m afraid that’s where my relationship with Elaine is flawed. She never accepts that I have talent at painting. To her, there’s room for only one Hébert sister to be famous.”

  Dang it, Julie was off on that again. I was getting awfully tired of hearing about Elaine.

  “And I do love art,” Julie continued. “How about you, Dinah? Who’s your favorite artist?”

  I considered this. “Adams.”

  “Ansel?”

  “Scott.”

  Julie smiled. “Perhaps you’d like to see one of my paintings before you go.” After locking up the Raven, she lifted a placemat-sized canvas off the top of her night table.

  I gasped. From the canvas, a madwoman leered out at me! Her eyes blazed. Her lips stretched way back from her gums. Her teeth loomed, huge, sharp and menacing, like knives.

  Julie patted the canvas proudly. “I still have to do some work on it. Can’t wait to show it to that dealer who was so interested in my work.” She pointed to the lower right-hand corner. “ ‘Medusa, by Julie Hébert.’ Do you like it?”

  I gulped. Mother had told me fibs were okay, even desirable, to avoid offending people. “I — I, ” I began. The problem is, I find it unnatural to be anything except blunt.

  “You’ve done interesting things with her hair,” I got out finally.

  Which was true. Julie had formed her subject’s black locks of hair into snakes.

  When I told Madge about it the next day, she shuddered. “Medusa was a character in Greek mythology. Snakes billowed out of her head, and everyone who made eye contact with her turned to stone.”

  “I guess that wrecked any chance of her getting beauty salon appointments,” I huffed and puffed.

  Along with a lot of other Empress Marie passengers, we’d taken the thirteen-mile bus trip from Juneau to the massive Mendenhall Glacier. Madge, however, had insisted on our leaving the rest of the group at the Visitors’ Center to hike up the West Glacier Trail for a better view. Like Jack, Madge had an annoying athletic streak.

  Jack would be taking a later bus to the glacier, when he got a break from work. Mother and Julie would be coming with him. First, though, they were escorting the Raven to the Juneau Heritage Gallery.

  Madge was still shunning Jack, though I didn’t see how she could keep on with it. I mean, what was one barfing episode between sweethearts?

  At the moment, Madge was thinking about Julie Hébert’s painting. “Too bad she doesn’t paint happier mythic characters. Like Persephone, who signifies spring. Or Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty.”

  “Weird,” I agreed, puffing.

  “Dinah, please stop saying ‘weird’ so much. It’s annoying.”

  After a while we flopped down in a meadow shimmering with color. Madge figured out the plant names from the wildflower guidebook she’d brought. The clusters of tiny white flowers were Indian rhubarb; the magenta sprays of blossom were shooting stars; and we already knew the lupines, exactly the brilliant blue shade of Madge’s eyes.

  Lucky Madge. I had ordinary old hazel eyes, a jumble of green, gray and brown that suggested nature hadn�
��t been able to make up its mind about me.

  On the other hand, the jumble of colors sort of reflected my personality. I did tend to barge off in all directions at once.

  As I sat feeling, as usual, dissatisfied with my appearance, Madge astounded me by saying: “You’re getting to be quite attractive, Dinah. That intensity, that fierceness, you’ve always had in your expression — in a bizarre, unexpected way, it’s turning into prettiness.”

  Me, pretty? We’d climbed high; maybe the thin air was affecting my sister’s brain.

  Madge had her sketchbook out and was drawing the flowers around us. She’d note “magenta” or “royal blue,” depending what flower she was doing, for water-coloring in later.

  I was content just to gaze at the Mendenhall Glacier. Twelve miles long, one-and-a-half miles wide, it sits in the middle of Mendenhall Lake like a humongous blueberry Popsicle. Madge had been right to bring us up the trail. The glacier was brighter and clearer from here.

  Ditto the 5,900 emerald peaks of the Mendenhall Towers, each with snow perched on top, trickling down here and there like a melting scoop of vanilla ice cream.

  I tended to think of things in terms of food. Madge, however, was murmuring that the glacier resembled an aquamarine ring Dad had once given Mother.

  A romantic gesture — except that Mother had to pay for the ring when the bill came in. Dad was off on one of his drinking binges. With Dad, the fun was offset by the frustrating. Which made the memories of him a teeter-totter. I would recall his encouragement about my singing — and then remember his binges.

  I knew Madge was also thinking of how that particular romantic gesture had ended, because she gave a slight frown and immediately replaced it with a determined cheery smile. “Shall we eat?” Her long, slim fingers unclasped the wicker latches of the picnic basket the Empress’s chef had packed for us.

  Madge had carried the basket up in her knapsack. I saw that another item she’d brought was binoculars. Reaching for these, I lay down on my stomach and trained them on the Mendenhall Glacier Visitors’ Center. I wanted to see if Mother and Julie had arrived yet.