“Maybe I’m completely off, but it seems like you have it out for me,” I continue, trying to steady my voice. “The whole paper thing earlier was an accident, and I really am sorry for that. I don’t know what else I can do—”
“This isn’t punishment, Yasmin.” West takes hold of the costume and straightens it. He looks annoyed—and, annoyingly, hot. His hands on my arms are strong and warm, and send shivers straight to my stomach. I try to ignore them. I didn’t come on board to drool over my boss, or any other guys for that matter.
“New team members wear the suits,” he goes on. “That’s the rule.”
“Oh.” So it’s a sort of hazing thing. I round my shoulders. I survived Hell Week to join my beloved Kappas—including a run-in with a bathtub full of clean kitty litter—so I can handle this. I’ll prove to West that I’m not some clueless “diva” who has never done an honest day’s work.
Then I pause. “Wait, did you say suits?” As in, plural?
West checks his watch. “Come on. They’ve probably started letting people on the ship now.”
After he grabs a tripod and his camera bag, he leads me out into the Promenade. The last time I was on the ship, the décor was sort of dated, but now the passenger areas are decorated in blues and aquas, with sand-colored carpets. There’s a big coral statue stretching up towards the ceiling, with fish statuary peeking from its limbs. It’s like we’re under the ocean’s surface. The whole effect is pretty charming, and I find myself smiling through my face screen at a cool-looking octopus sculpture that contains a trash can.
“Hey, it’s Kippy!” some middle-aged guy calls out to us as we pass the duty-free liquor shop. He waves in our direction, grinning. “Save me a hug, okay?”
“Who’s Kippy?” I ask. And why does that guy want a hug?
“You’re Kippy,” West says. “Wave when people say hi.”
“This giant heart has a name?” I ask, but wave obediently. “Why Kippy?”
“I have no idea. Corporate thought it up. We just put on the costume and take the pictures like good little worker bees.”
We reach the atrium of the ship, which soars up several stories to a glass dome ceiling. Above, the sky is gray and stormy, but inside everything is bright and cheerful and a mix of vibrant colors—airy white, turquoise trim, splashes of mango and kiwi. There’s the giant fish tank too, three decks tall, that I remember from my cruise six months ago. But other things are different, like the library, which appears to be missing. Maybe I’m misremembering. Or maybe everything looks different from inside a stuffed heart.
West leads me across the atrium and past the help desk, also called the purser’s office. We reach a little alcove with a carved wooden sign bearing a painted rendition of the Radiant Star and the words Best. Vacation. Ever! Down the hall, I can see the passenger embarkation desk where a long line of people has gathered to check in and board the ship.
“Here we go,” West says, as three older women in sundresses approach. They’re carrying umbrellas, but no one is wet, so the rain must have stopped outside. West has the women pose around me. Once everyone is in place, he sets up his camera on the tripod and smoothly adjusts the aperture and shutter speed. He flashes us all a smile that makes my stomach do a sudden flutter. Damn, West is dangerous when he smiles. For my own sanity, it’s probably a good thing he doesn’t seem to like me.
“Where are you lovely ladies from?” he asks as he takes a test shot.
The women giggle. One of them says “Wisconsin” while another whispers, “What a handsome young man!”
Apparently, West saves all his charm for the customers. I can’t say I’m surprised, not after his lecture about boosting revenue back at the photo shop. I bet he goes to bed each night staring at Excel spreadsheets and calculating sales figures.
“Say ‘bikini!’” West directs. The women laugh again, and as they say bikini the flash blinds me. West hands the women a brochure on where to purchase their picture and sends them into the atrium before we repeat the routine with a young couple who must be on their honeymoon by the looks of their “Mr.” and “Mrs.” matching t-shirts. I shift a little to my left to give them more room, but the husband takes one look at me and grins.
“Hey, don’t I get a hug? Damn it, I want a hug. I just got married!” He throws his arms open and I can smell the vodka on him, even through my costume. Wow, he really must’ve hit the bar early. The guy’s new wife smiles sheepishly at me.
“He heard that Kippy gives free hugs,” she says.
“Kippy does indeed give free hugs,” West replies. His gaze sharpens on me expectantly. “In fact, he loves giving hugs, doesn’t he?”
Oh, Jesus. This was definitely not part of the contract I signed. But you know what? If I can take a bath in cat litter, then I can give Drunk Dude a hug. So I open up my arms, shoot West a death glare through my mask, and step toward the passenger—who then wraps me in a bear hug and spins me around a few times before his wife finally talks him into getting their picture taken. After they leave, I lean dizzily against the wall and hope they won’t come back for Round 2.
“Gee, thanks for telling me about the hug thing,” I say to West before the next set of passengers arrive. He throws me a half smile and snaps a few more test shots on his Nikon D3s, a camera body one step above mine. I only know that because Sofia had her eye on it before she got too sick.
“Yeah, Kippy is a hugger,” says West. “The passengers eat it up, and these photos are some of our best sellers.”
“How long do I have to do this?”
He gives me a look. “Until everyone is on board.”
“But that’s going to be …” Glancing at the never-ending embarkation line, I trail off in dismay. West nods.
“Hours.” He smiles, and this time it’s downright wicked. “Hope you were right about those shoes being comfortable.”
Damn him. And damn my shoes, which are comfortable enough, but which I know will start killing my feet after a while. I have sneakers for working out, of course, but when I’m not running or kickboxing I prefer cute footwear. I guess that’s the girly girl in me, but sue me for loving awesome shoes.
For the next few hours, I pose with the endless stream of passengers. It must have started raining again, because people are dripping wet and none too happy to have their dream vacation start with a storm. West has to work hard to get them to smile, and several groups shrug him off entirely, refusing to get their pictures taken and flatly asking where the buffet is.
After we send off a big family group toward the atrium, there’s a lull.
“Tired yet?” West asks.
“Not at all,” I lie. My feet throb, but there’s no way I’m telling him that. I glance toward the atrium, then at the embarkation point. “I don’t remember this from when I cruised. It was on this boat, but we didn’t get pictures when we boarded.” Sure, I remember photographers taking portraits on formal night, and have a great one they took of me and some of the Kappa girls at the beach, but I don’t recall ever being accosted by a giant red heart. I think something like that would’ve been seared into my memory.
“When was your cruise?” West asks.
“New Year’s Eve.”
He grunts. “They just finished the upgrades on this ship in February. Before that, people boarded down a few decks, but when the ship was in dry dock they changed up a bunch of stuff. Now, we have this nice spot for boarding photos. And they gave each ship a Star Heart costume.”
“I’m so glad,” I mumble.
Much to my surprise, West laughs. The warm, unexpected sound sends a shot of warmth through my insides … until he says, “I told you ship life would eat you alive.”
I want to clock him in the nose, but I doubt I could drum up a good swing while I’m dressed as Kippy, the Giant Hugging Heart. I mutter something unflattering under my breath, and West’s blue eyes narrow.
“What was that?” he asks.
“Nothing, boss,” I chirp.
; West stares at me a moment, then rolls his shoulders and stretches out his arms. His polo rides up to reveal a flat stomach that makes my mouth go dry. I glance away, pissed at myself for noticing. Sure, West is easy on the eyes—when he’s not scowling at me—but there are several attractive guys on the photo team. Camelia warned me while we cleaned earlier that everyone on ships tries to score with the new hires, so it’s clear that if I want a guy to warm my tiny bunk bed, plenty of them will offer. Although I already know that I won’t take any of them up on it.
I’m not interested in distractions, especially of the male kind.
First of all, I don’t do relationships. As for one-night-stands … I’m done with that kind of thing now. I spent my whole senior year packing my schedule with classes and GRE prep and—if I’m being totally honest—the occasional hookup to fill the crater in my heart formed by Sofia’s passing. As a psych major I knew meaningless flings wouldn’t help me get past the grief, but since it kept my mind off my sister for a few hours, it became a habit.
One I need to kick. I have to face my sister’s death instead of ignoring the pain. For the last eleven months, I just wouldn’t let myself think about it. I knew that if I fell down that pit, I wouldn’t be able to function, so I shoved all thoughts of Sofia into a mental box.
But that’s not healthy, and college is over, so my excuses have dried up. My good grades don’t even matter now, because I don’t know if I want to be a clinical psychologist anymore. How can I help others when I can’t even help myself?
Without Sofia I don’t know who I am, my dreams don’t make sense, so I’m here chasing one of hers. She always wanted to be a pro photographer, and near the end, she started telling me I should be one too.
So here I am. By day, I’ll throw myself into this job that Sofia would’ve loved; and by night, I’ll work on the project I’ve planned in her memory. It’s a pair of collages, made up of photos that from far away form images of Sofia’s face. One will consist of her photos, and the other … I found a notebook in her desk after she died. In it, she listed photo ideas, stuff like a picture of a mountain, or a couple in love, or a shot from the inside of a bell tower. All shots she never got to take. I’m going to take them for her, and that’s what will make up the elements of the other collage. The pair of them will represent the Sofia that was, and the Sofia that should have been.
The hospital she went to has an annual charity art auction, and I’ve told them I’ll contribute the collages in Sofia’s honor. They’re due in a couple months, so that’s what I’ll be focusing on in my free time here on the ship. I only hope that checking Sofia’s photo shots off her list and making the collages will help me work through my grief.
Another half-hour passes before, thankfully, the embarkation door closes. West places the cap on his camera lens and packs up the tripod and flash.
“Are we done?” I ask, hardly daring to hope.
“With Kippy? Yeah. With work? No.” He tilts his head toward the atrium. “Let’s get back to the shop.”
When we arrive, Camelia is chatting with two of the guys on the team. She sees me—well, the heart—and grins.
“You have been Kippy,” she says. “Now you are one of us.”
I can’t help but laugh at that.
“Go change,” West says over his shoulder to me. “After the muster drill, Camelia will show you around and get you settled. Then you’re back here learning how to run the shop.” He smirks. “You might want to wear different shoes.”
What an ass, I think, but say nothing. It’s actually a good thing that he’s a jerk—maybe that will keep my lust in check. I head to the storeroom to strip off the stupid Kippy costume. Camelia follows to help me, and when I’m finally free, I try to fix my hair in the mirror. Unfortunately, after hours in the suit and without any detangling product to save me, my look is more horrifying rat’s-nest than sexy beach waves. God, if my Kappa sisters could see me now they’d give me hell.
An announcement comes in over the ceiling speakers, telling everyone to go to their muster stations for the emergency drill. Having been a passenger, it’s weird being on the other end, but after an hour, the drill is done and the Radiant Star can finally leave port.
Camelia leads me down from the passenger decks to the crew deck. After a few turns, we find the big stark hallway where West nearly ran me over earlier.
“This is the I-95, the main crew corridor,” Camelia says. “It runs the length of the ship, and has staircases everywhere. It’s how we can move from one passenger area to another quickly without having to deal with cones.”
“Cones?” I ask.
“That’s what we call passengers,” Camelia explains.
“Why?”
She grins. “They are like traffic cones, getting in the way.”
She shows me where the crew laundry is, and the crew dining rooms.
“There are three,” Camelia chatters as we pass each one. “One for officers, one for staff, which is us, and one for crew.”
We grab a quick meal of chicken fingers in the staff mess, and then Camelia takes me on a quick tour of passenger areas after making sure I have my nametag on straight.
As we walk around, passengers pepper us with questions. These run the gamut between, “Where’s the bathroom?” and, “How do I sign up for a shore excursion?” even though we’re clearly not manning the shore excursion desk. At one point, we’re even accosted by a woman who flags us down by the staircase that leads up to the pool deck.
“Excuse me,” she says, and points to the staircase. “Do these go up or down?”
“What?” I ask, thinking I must have heard her wrong. The woman blinks at me and waves at the staircase again.
“Do these stairs go up or down?”
“Both,” Camelia says, giving the woman a beaming smile. “You can take your pick!”
The woman heads happily up the stairs. I look incredulously at Camelia, who shrugs.
“I told you, cones say the silliest things,” she says. “Come, let’s go to the shop.”
The next couple hours are a whirlwind of learning how to run the photo room, how to print and frame photos, use the displays to walk passengers through purchase options, how to upsell them, and more. I’m so tired when Camelia finally leads me back to our cabin that I want to just curl up on the floor. I should at least change into pajamas, but instead I climb into my bunk bed and groan, totally exhausted.
Camelia bustles around the room for a while. The light’s still on, but I’m so exhausted it doesn’t bother me, and within a few minutes I’m asleep.
And then I’m not, because Camelia is poking me. I open my eyes to see her face at the edge of my bed.
“Get up, lazy one,” she says.
“Now what?” I ask. Is it the next day already? But when I climb down and grab my phone from the desk, I see it’s only twenty minutes since we got to the cabin. I blink blearily at Camelia, who smiles broadly.
“Now, the bar,” she says.
Chapter 4
Yasmin
Camelia isn’t kidding.
I feel like I’m back in college, tired after a long day of classes and studying, but going out on the town anyway. At least being a Kappa sister was good practice, because I manage to grab a faster-than-light shower and make myself at least marginally presentable within ten minutes. As we get ready to leave, I sneak a glance at myself in the mirror.
Not too bad, I think. I’ve thrown on a sleeveless cherry red top and paired it with a denim mini skirt. I almost wear flat sandals, because my feet are aching from my hours as Kippy, but remembering West’s snide comments, I slip on heels in defiance. I don’t have time to blow dry my hair, so I just throw it up in a ponytail as we walk out into the hall.
Camelia leads us through the ship, chattering about a guy she has her eye on.
“Wait,” I say after a minute. “I thought you and West were a thing.”
Camelia shakes her head. “No, sadly. But no matter. There are ple
nty of other guys on the ship, right?”
“I’m not interested in guys,” I declare. No distractions for me. Camelia tilts her head to one side, and I realize what that sounds like. “I mean, I like guys, but I’m not interested in dating right now.”
Camelia heads up a narrow circular stairwell. “Why not?”
Because I have to stop distracting myself from my sister’s death, I think. The truth sits at the tip of my tongue, but saying it would bring the conversation to an awkward halt, as I’ve found out over the course of my senior year. The mere mention of Sofia is enough to make me break down, which causes most people to run to find someone less fragile to talk to. It took me months to gather the courage to even say something to one of my closest friends, Georgia. But I’ve just met Camelia and I don’t want to alienate her, so I shrug.
“Just trying to focus on me right now,” I tell her.
She throws me a doubtful glance and leads me down a hallway that looks, to me, no different than any of the other crew hallways.
“Is that an American thing?” she says, running her fingers through her long brown hair. She’s wearing a chic gray dress that flaunts her curves, and after a peek at the rest of her closet I wish we were the same size so we could borrow each other’s clothes. My roommate has some serious style. “Why focus on yourself when there are gorgeous men to focus on? The ship is full of them, and they are all healthy.”
I let out a little laugh at her bluntness. She means all of the staff on board are free of STDs—employees are required to pass an exhausting battery of medical tests to make sure they’re healthy enough to work.
Thankfully, before I have to respond, we reach the crew bar. I still have no idea where we are on the ship. As I follow Camelia through the crowd I make a mental note to find a map soon, because I can’t rely on her forever. Around me is a chatter of conversation, some in English but also other languages. People of all builds and skin colors sit on benches and folding chairs around chipped wooden tables. Everyone is laughing and talking and drinking. A lot of people are smoking too, since apparently this is the one place on the ship we’re allowed to. I’m not a fan of smoke, but I ignore it. The whole vibe is a little bewildering, but exciting too, and I can feel the energy of the room sweep my tiredness away.
With Every Breath (Sea Swept #2) Page 3