by Diane Noble
My stomach did backflips as the last twinkling lights of Parisima faded, and I saw nothing but the darkening sea. I wondered whether I was up to the task ahead. Wondered if I still had the guts and savvy I’d always counted on. When the wind is in your face instead of at your back, even taking a single step into the unknown seems daunting. And here I was leaping—not stepping—into a world beyond my imagination.
I stood and peered into the mirror.
Harriet MacIver, travel writer. The Dear Abby of the jet set … well, make that ship set because of the flying thing.
I pulled my hair through the back of my ball cap, grinned at the “You Go, Girl!” stitched above the brim, and headed to my stateroom door. I didn’t want to be late for my dinner with Carly.
Iseated myself at a table for eight. On an ocean liner, tables are assigned, and you’re attended to by a server in a tuxedo who treats you like you’re related to the princess of Wales. Candlelight glows across linen tablecloths, reflecting in crystal goblets and gleaming silverware.
Not on this bare-bones bucket. No maître d’ with a white cloth draped over his arm to lead you to your table, no symphonic music playing in the background, no smiling waiter making food and wine suggestions from a menu of endless choices. Here, instead of roasted pumpkin-and-apple soup for an appetizer, mahi-mahi tempura for an entrée, and a custard-nut parfait with warm caramel-fudge sauce, almonds, and macadamia nuts for dessert, you have the choice of tricolor tortilla chips with green or red salsa or shoestring potatoes with ketchup for a starter, hamburgers or tacos for an entrée, and a scoop of vanilla or chocolate ice cream for dessert.
And instead of classical music softly playing in the background, you have the roar of laughter and shouting provided by college students, their professors, and the adventurous, brave souls—mostly golden agers—who dared to travel with Global Sea Adventures.
I scooted my chair closer to the round Formica table and smiled at my seat partners, the Browns, the Doyles, and the Quilps. Carly’s chair beside me was still empty. I rather liked dining with people who weren’t trussed up in tuxes, party dresses, heels, and jewels. And although I missed the elegant desserts on cruise liners, this fare suited me fine. I reached for a tortilla chip, took a bite, salted the whole basket, then reached for another chip.
“Are you saving this seat?” Adele Quilp seemed perturbed that I was alone.
“Actually, yes. One of the students, a friend, will be joining us shortly.”
Adele raised a severely plucked eyebrow. “Hunh.”
It was an us-versus-them hunh. I’d heard it before. Some of the passengers were put off by the college students and gave them a wide berth. So to speak. Some of the passengers even talked of demanding their money back at the end of the cruise. Adele Quilp was likely one of the disgruntled few.
“Carly’s a sweetheart,” I said to get Adele to lower her eyebrow. “I’ve known her for years. Since she was in grade school actually. I have a son the same age, and I’m still holding out hope they’ll get together. She was his first girlfriend.”
“Well, now. That’s the sweetest thing I’ve heard about any of these kids,” Ed Brown said, his Oklahoma drawl thick as sorghum.
His wife, Betty, laughed. “That’s about the only sweet thing you’ve heard about these kids.”
Adele looked pained and said, “Hunh.” Her husband looked down at his plate. So far he hadn’t uttered a word.
“You ought to sit in on some of the classes,” Barbara Doyle said. “These kids are bright. I attended one of their lectures yesterday—Dr. Baptiste’s talk on the intricacies of the human body. It was incredibly complex stuff, but he had the kids soaking it up like deep-sea sponges. And the classroom was crowded. Standing room only.”
Betty Brown reached for a chip. “I hear he’s up for a Nobel Prize for his research.”
“No, he’s not,” Adele said. “There’s talk of it, but no formal announcement.”
“What I’m getting at,” Barbara said, “is that those who are upset with the invasion of the Shepparton students ought to sit in and listen to what they’re here to learn. They may be boisterous and annoying at times, but overall they’re good kids.”
Her husband agreed.
I glanced at my watch. It wasn’t like Carly to be late. The girl might be petite, but she had an appetite. I tried not to worry.
Some of the students were earning extra credit by working in the kitchen and dining room. Breakfasts and lunches were buffet affairs, but dinners were served family style by the student waiters. One of the students, a tall, thin kid who’d told us the night before that his name was Max Pribble, walked toward us with a platter of tacos in one hand and a platter piled with hamburgers in the other. The condiments were already on the table.
I thought about how I would word my article for the Town Crier as I rated the cuisine, but I drew a blank, just as I had from day one. I sighed and reached for another tortilla chip.
Max set the platter of tacos in the center of the table, then with a wobbly hand, he set down the heavy plate of hamburgers. The cook must have thought the golden agers onboard had appetites equaling the students’.
“Do you know Carly Lowe?” I ventured as he wiped his hands on his apron.
“Sure, everybody knows Carly.” Max gave his hair a shake. It was shaved even with the tops of his ears and worn long and straight on top. It made his head look like a cantaloupe with a corn-silk toupee. It made me want to smile.
“She was supposed to join me for dinner. I’m surprised she’s late.”
He shrugged. “With Carly, who knows. She never does what you expect her to.”
I laughed. “Or what she’s told to do.”
He shot me a surprised look. “How’d you know that?”
“We go back a ways.”
“Then you can probably guess she’s just changed her mind.” He grinned. “Probably got a better offer. No offense.”
“None taken. If you see her later, let her know I asked.”
“Sure.” And he was off to wait on another table.
“Kids are so undependable these days,” Adele said. She picked at her taco with a fork, pulling out the chicken pieces and setting them in a precise pile at the far side of her plate.
Her husband sighed and bit into his hamburger.
“I disagree,” Ed Brown said, reaching for a taco. “I’ve got grandkids who are the smartest, most responsible teens you’d ever want to meet. One’s a summer lifeguard.”
“That’s my point,” Adele said. “These kids are no longer teens. Used to be we worried about teenagers. It’s a proven fact that kids run about a decade behind in their level of maturity than our generation did. It’s the kids in their twenties you have to worry about now. When they hit twenty or twenty-one, it’s all downhill until they reach thirty. I pity their parents.” She shook her head.
“You have any kids, Adele?” Ed wanted to know.
“No,” Adele’s husband said. I figured he was thinking it was a good thing. The replication of Adele was no doubt too scary to consider.
It was the only word he said all evening.
That night I awoke to the light of a full moon spilling through my window.
Something was different about the ship. Startlingly different. Usually the Sun Spirit almost seemed to cavort through the swells between ports each night. But now it was utterly still. Silent. As in no engines humming, no tropical winds whistling. I turned over and closed my eyes against the bright moonlight, wondering why my heart thudded in alarm, wondering what, besides the silence, had awakened me. All I could see on the back of my lids was the pale hull of the ill-fated ghost ship in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Then the image of Carly’s face replaced that of the ghost ship. I sat up fast and flicked on the lamp beside my bed. I’d hav
e to find my own bottle of Clairol by the time this cruise was over if I couldn’t keep my imagination under wraps. Carly was a big girl. She’d pulled her share of disappearing-slash-looking-for-adventure acts before. Just because she’d missed dinner with me didn’t mean she’d missed the ship. But telling myself not to worry wasn’t helping.
Gus sat up on the end of the bed and began vigorously licking his left paw in a patch of moonlight. The scratch-scratch rhythm of his tongue brought me back to reality. I patted his head and heard his tail thump in response. Then somewhere in the bowels of the ship, the engines coughed and sputtered. Within minutes they were humming as if I had imagined their earlier silence. And maybe I had.
I was just about to drift off again when a knock at my stateroom door made Gus sit at full attention, ears cocked, and my heart threatened to jump from my chest. I obviously hadn’t fully recovered from my earlier alarm.
A muffled whisper floated from the other side of the door. “Mrs. MacIver? I know it’s late, and I hate to disturb you …”
I fumbled for the clock on the bedside table, drew it close to my nose, and peered at its face: 12:42 a.m. With a sigh I found my slippers, pulled on a light cotton robe, and padded to the door. “Who is it?”
“Zoë Shire.”
I unlatched the lock and swung open the door.
The young woman stood there for a moment, her large gray eyes peering at me through thick glasses. She was a thin girl, small boned, a bit mousy, but only because she seemed not to care about her appearance. She was wearing baggy sweatpants and a Shepparton T-shirt, and her hair was slicked back into a ponytail. She looked like who she was: a bookish science major trying to get into med school, a wannabe activist for the downtrodden in society who maybe cared more about the fate of others than the latest fashion fad. Commendable, but she might get on in this world better if she shampooed her hair more often. A smile now and then wouldn’t hurt either.
I had overheard some of the cattier students snickering about how Zoë had once made a big deal out of how she was going to chain herself to the White House fence to draw attention to Alzheimer’s patients. Then she chickened out. I knew from their guffaws that she had never lived it down. Worse than openly teasing her, the other students seemed to have chosen ignoring her as the best punishment for being “uncool.”
“Zoë, come in. Please …” I stepped back from the door so she could enter. She slouched onto the small sofa across from the bed and stared unblinking at me as I took the barrel chair by the window, facing her.
Gus lost no time hopping onto her lap. She pushed him away. “Allergic.” She pulled out her inhaler and took a couple of puffs as if to emphasize the point. Gus hopped back onto her lap. I patted the seat beside me, but he stared at me as if he had no idea what I meant. I reached across the distance between us and picked him up, bringing him back to my lap. He hopped down and stared up at Zoë as if hers was the only lap in the world he wanted.
She blinked at him. “I’m sorry.”
Gus turned his back to her, stretched, and sauntered to the bed, his tail waving lazily. He hopped up and circled several times before curling into a ball, his back still to Zoë. Apparently he didn’t accept her apology. Cats are like that.
I waited for her to initiate the conversation, then finally said, “What is the problem, Zoë?”
“The note you slid under our door? The one for Carly …?”
I nodded and waited for her to go on, swallowing a yawn that made my eyes water.
“I didn’t open the note, but I know you were supposed to meet for dinner tonight. I figured you were worried about her.”
Premed student, social activist, and mind reader. “A little,” I lied. “Do you know where she is?”
I reminded myself again of Carly’s guts and brains. I was worried over nothing. I was certain. Sort of. Besides—I glanced at the clock—it was still early for students to be tucked into their staterooms. Carly was no exception.
“She’s usually in by now.” Zoë leaned closer. “I wouldn’t think too much about it, but I haven’t seen Carly since everyone left for the onshore excursion.”
My heart crept into my throat. “You didn’t go?”
“No one asked.” She twisted a stringy lock of hair around her finger. “After we left port, I got worried.”
I took a breath. “The students get together in the evenings, don’t they?”
She nodded. “Yeah, they do.”
She looked embarrassed again. She’d probably never been invited to one of those confabs either. “Look,” I said. “I don’t think you need to worry. Carly’s pretty good at taking care of herself. I’ve known her a long time. She’s a pistol.”
Zoë pushed up her Coke-bottle glasses and stared at me with those mournful gray eyes. “A what?”
“Self-sufficient. Feisty.”
“But what if she missed the ship?”
The moon reappeared, casting a silvery glow across the water. The engines hummed below us, and the rhythm of the swells was gentler now.
“There’s something I should tell you …”
I frowned as her voice trailed off. I guessed she didn’t want to bad-mouth her friend—or she might have been dramatizing for effect. I sighed, suspecting the latter. “I raised two sons and a daughter. You can tell me anything.” Well, almost. There are certain topics today’s young people discuss quite openly that I’d rather not hear. But this wasn’t the time to get picky.
Her eyes caught mine.
“What is it?” I asked.
She settled back into the sofa and tucked one foot beneath her. She reminded me of a baby stork. Big eyes set on a pale, elongated face. The mother in me wanted to gather her into a big hug. “She’s been a little angry that her mother asked you to spy on her. A couple of days ago, she said she had to get off the ship.”
Spy on her? I almost laughed. I’d raised three kids. They love drama. I didn’t correct her. “Look, Zoë, maybe she did need to get away.” I gave her a reassuring smile, though my own apprehension was growing by the minute. “Why don’t you go back to bed? She may be in your stateroom by now. If she hasn’t shown up by morning, we’ll talk again and decide what to do.”
She nodded, unwound her leg, and stood. But she didn’t make a move toward the door. “Carly is one of the only kids onboard who treats me like I’m somebody.”
“She’s a caring kid,” I agreed. I sidled toward the door, hoping she’d take the hint. I stifled another yawn when she didn’t.
She shrugged. “I’m just worried, that’s all. There was that groom who disappeared on his honeymoon on a Mediterranean cruise … Do you remember?”
“Yes, it was tragic.”
“They think he fell overboard—or was pushed.” As she voiced her fears, her eyes widened, seeming too large for her face. “His poor bride,” she whispered softly. “What if—?”
“Hey, kiddo,” I interrupted. “You’re letting your imagination run off like wild horses.” As if she had a corner on the market.
“And then there was that girl in Aruba …”
I sighed and softened my voice. “If you’re that worried, go check your cabin, and if Carly’s not there, come back and tell me. Then we’ll go see the captain.”
Zoë gave me an appreciative look. “I’ll be right back.”
I pulled on my sweats and ran a brush through my hair. Ten minutes later, Zoë was back. “She’s still missing.”
“Missing is a bit over the top,” I said. “She may be in one of her friends’ staterooms.”
“I asked a couple of kids I saw in the hall. They said they hadn’t seen her.”
“How many students are on the ship?”
“Ninety-seven. There was supposed to be hundred, but at the last minute three students dropped out. Health reasons.” When I frowned, she went on to explain. “I work in the registrar’s office on campus, which carries over to taking care of administrative details for the program here onboard.” She flushed and lifted
her chin a notch.
“How about the head of the program, the dean—what’s his name?”
“Dean Williams. Guy Williams.”
“Shouldn’t you let Dean Williams know your concerns?”
“What if I’m wrong, which, of course, I hope I am. But if I am, I would look like such a fool.”
I sighed. The girl was a bundle of neuroses. “What I was getting at is that out of ninety-seven students, Carly could be in one of several staterooms.”
She shrugged. “I suppose.”
“But we’ll take a look around anyway. Where do you want to start?”
“How about contacting the captain? Maybe he could do a search.”
She’d be embarrassed to be wrong in front of the dean, but not the captain? She read my expression. “You could be the one to raise the question. You’re her friend, charged by her mother to keep an eye on her. She didn’t meet you for dinner tonight …”
Her reasons were well thought out, which surprised me. There was more behind those Coke-bottle-covered eyes than I’d first thought.
“No, it’s too soon,” I said, “and there’s no evidence that she’s actually missing.” I could picture Carly’s embarrassment if the captain announced an all-out search for her and she was merely having an all-night yak-fest with her girlfriends. “Let’s start with Ricki. I would hope she counted noses when the excursion folks came back onboard.”
I took the lead as we headed out the door. The ship rolled slightly in the swells. I grabbed the railing for balance as we descended the metal staircase, Zoë right behind me. As we stepped onto the lower deck, the wind, still balmy and warm even at this time of night, whistled past my ears. A chain clanked against the side of a lifeboat that hung over the side of the ship.
We were alone on the deck. The moon gleamed across the water, turning it into a surrealistic mirrorlike surface. I shivered and moved away from the railing.
We had almost reached Ricki’s stateroom when I heard a small cry. I turned to Zoë.
She had stopped dead still. Her face looked paler than ever in the moonlight. Her hand shaking, she pointed to a small pool a few yards away. It had once been a decompression pool for deep-sea divers. When Global Sea Adventures purchased and refurbished the ship, they turned the pool into a dipping pool, just for cooling off when passengers wanted to sunbathe.