“Do you like your job, Alexei?” she asked as he poured her martini into a glass.
“Making a drink for a beautiful woman on a beautiful ship at sea. Who would complain?”
“I hear they’re canceling all your contracts,” she said before she could stop herself.
He put her martini in front of her. “Yes,” he said. He didn’t ask how she knew. “But there are ten other cruise lines, maybe twenty. I’ll take a vacation and then I will get another job.”
She stared at Alexei’s face for any sign of panic or outrage, but his expression remained blankly benign. She took a gulp of booze and watched a group of adults in the pool playing water polo, splashing and dunking one another with vicious fun. She turned to face the ocean and watched the light on the sea surface, tracking the occasional cloud mass that sailed over the horizon to engulf the lowering sun before sailing on again.
She made her way along the deck and down the external staircase, two flights. The promenade was a wide, glassed-in, teak-floored hall that ran most of the starboard-side length of the ship, with double doors all along its inner wall that led to equally grand public rooms, the Starlight Lounge, the casino, the smoking room. The windows were multi-paned, gigantic, providing a glass barrier against the sea spray but no impediment to the view of the open ocean.
Now, the sun was dipping below the horizon through a misty curtain of faraway rain, staining the sky a lurid combination of intense cantaloupe pink and mango yellow that had just begun to fade. People strolled along in twos and threes, enjoying the sunset, doing laps. The light in the promenade was tinged with gauzy gold; it felt as if it came from the past, and Christine was sure she saw a ghost out of the corner of her eye, far down the promenade, and then another one, human-sized impressions of electricity in the air, kinetic disturbances of the light. Superstitiously, she felt that these imprinted echoes of long-gone people were good luck, and their eeriness somehow magically broke the slight unease she’d been feeling on this much-vaunted last cruise, with all its freighted symbolism and sentimental melodrama.
She turned back to the seemingly infinite parallel surfaces of the sky and water and let her eyes blur into a daydream. Soon it would be time to dress for dinner.
* * *
*
Scorching heat and sweat on his forehead and fiery steam and the fleshy demands of meat were a special kind of hellish earth-air-fire-water combo Mick dealt with every day and loved perversely, even the burns on his wrists and hands, the tiny abrasions and cuts and splashes of hot fat. He welcomed it all. It quieted his brain, this stainless steel inferno of raw and charred meat and the quick flash of knives.
For the first two days of the cruise he’d thrown himself into impressing Chef, keeping his hard-won respect, showing him he’d made the right decision. Laurens had confirmed the rumor Mick had heard: that he was leaving the industry after this cruise and opening his own restaurant in Amsterdam, of all the beautiful, fun, cool fucking cities.
“I’ll be hiring chefs to come and work for me very soon,” Laurens said. He was sitting behind his desk with his fingers steepled. His tone was noncommittal, cool. Mick, hovering in the doorway with that night’s menu for his approval, couldn’t tell whether Laurens meant he might be interested in hiring Mick himself, or whether he was speaking hypothetically about his plans.
“You’re currently looking for chefs, then?”
“I’m always looking for talented people who aren’t afraid to contribute to my vision,” said Laurens. “I want to be impressed. I want to feel inspired and excited. I want people I can trust to execute my ideas. It’s a rare quality I’m looking for.”
And he fixed Mick with a direct, challenging gaze. Mick was sure now that he wasn’t imagining it: Laurens was considering him as a potential hire for his new restaurant.
Until he’d proved himself and given Laurens something to be impressed by, Mick resisted articulating it consciously in the privacy of his own skull; but maybe, his subconscious hummed with percolating urgency, maybe, if Laurens liked Mick’s work, he might have a place there for him. The prospect of working on land, in a restaurant, with a regular schedule, living in an apartment, was so tantalizing that at the moment he felt that, if he had to do so in order to leave the cruise industry and work for Laurens van Buyten and live in Amsterdam, he would slice off his left nut, stick it on a skewer along with his left pinkie finger and his right ear, roast it all to dripping perfection, and feed this kebab to a starving dog in a cage. Luckily, Mick had skills and experience, and generally, that was all getting a new job required. But he had to shine. He had to dominate. He could not fuck up.
This was his first chance to distinguish himself after the initial success of the lobster thermidor. Chef hadn’t said a word to Mick about it until the following day, when he’d taken him aside and informed him that this dish would be one of three entrées on the menu for the second of the five captain’s table dinners for the cruise.
“Make it exactly as you made it for me. Do not alter one molecule. It was perfection. We’re also offering filet mignon with a red wine reduction, and for the vegetarians, a truffle risotto. It’s a beautiful, classic menu and the lobster is the pièce de résistance. It’s also the only entrée we won’t be offering on our general menu. It will be exclusive to this dinner.”
“Oui, Chef.” Mick, jubilant, watched him walk away, then turned back to the duck à l’orange he was working on for tomorrow’s Home Cooking Night in the restaurant, to be offered along with boeuf bourguignon and paella, a dish Mick loathed both to eat and to cook because it was complicated and labor-intensive and in the end a waste of good seafood, because the rice just took over, but luckily the guys on the fish station were in charge of it.
“What the fuck did he want?” Consuelo asked when Chef was out of earshot. The question was rhetorical: she had heard every word.
“More lobster thermidor,” said Mick. “Get ready to outdo the last one.”
“We’re meat, not seafood,” she said, tipping a tray of roasted bones into a hotel pan in a hollow clattering rush.
“Not for the captain’s table dinner. He also wants filet mignon with red wine reduction.”
She grunted. “Easiest thing in the world.”
“Then it’s yours,” he said.
She cocked her hip against the counter edge and folded her arms and fixed Mick with a sideways, hooded glare.
“So you’re his butt boy,” she muttered.
“What?” said Mick.
“Nothing,” she said. “Congratulations.”
“No,” he said, advancing toward her, making her back up to get away from him. He stopped when they hit the end of the station. His face was right in hers. “You do not talk to me like that on my station.”
He held his face close to hers, so close their breath commingled in the short air between them. His eyes pinned hers. She stared back at him. Her irises were the color of cinnamon, reddish brown, flecked with the pale gold of ginger. He could smell that scent she wore, very slightly, rising in fumes from her warm neck, emanating from the thrum of her elevated pulse. It had no effect on him here. He felt clear, unconflicted. He was management. So be it. That was how you moved up in the world, you took opportunities when they came, and you acted with authority when you had to.
“Do you understand me?” he said, his voice even. “I want an answer.”
“Yes, I understand you,” she said clearly. “Chef.”
He stayed there for a few beats to make sure she got his point.
They moved apart, got back to work. Rodrigo arrived, took his place on the line, the meat station swung into high gear, and the night went on, like any other night.
chapter ten
Christine opened her stateroom door to find Valerie at the small table by the window, in her bra and underwear, painting her nails.
“It’s
almost time,” Valerie said. “We have to go up in ten minutes.”
Somehow, by befriending the Brazilian lounge singer who was the girlfriend or mistress of one of the senior officers, Valerie had finagled invitations for herself and Christine to the captain’s table dinner. It was black tie, and apparently the two or three celebrities on board would be there, as well as the captain and senior officers and ship’s owner. All day, Christine had been half dreading the stuffy formalities and enforced small talk, but Valerie had insisted that she come along.
Well, at least she had the right clothes for it. Before the cruise, Christine had bought a strapless emerald-green gown with a low bodice and a tight mermaid skirt in a vintage thrift store in Portland, a vaulted former bank where the rouged-and-mascaraed old woman behind the counter always made everyone check their bags because “hoboes” liked to come in, she said, and “steal my wares.” Trying on the dress, looking in the store’s warped mirror, Christine had felt a rare shock of pure pleasure. It had been so long since she’d dressed up. Along with a gauzy gold shawl and a rhinestone necklace to go with it, her haul had cost almost four hundred dollars. She had charged it to the farm credit card, and she hadn’t told Ed.
Now she imagined his face when he got the bill. Well, it was her money too.
After a quick shower, self-conscious as always under Valerie’s frank gaze, but now more accustomed or at least inured to it, she slid on the satiny, well-cut gown, zipped up the short side zipper, and bent forward to nestle her heavy breasts into the bodice. She brushed her hair and put it up in a loose knot with a hairpin.
“No makeup?” Valerie asked.
“I look like a cheap whore in makeup.”
Valerie studied her. Their eyes met in the mirror. “Put on some lipstick, that outfit is begging for it.”
“It’ll just smear all over my tooth and come off on the rim of my glass.”
Valerie shook her head. “Put on some lipstick.”
To appease her, Christine uncapped a tube of dark red lipstick and ran it over her mouth. She grinned at Valerie. “See? Cheap whore.”
“You look perfect,” said Valerie with a sigh.
The captain’s dining room was off by itself down a short private hallway from the fine-dining restaurant. There was a small crowd already in the teak-paneled lounge, which had a hand-painted mural of a jungle scene above an inlaid mother-of-pearl mahogany bar. Behind the bar stood Alexei, the bartender who made Christine’s martini every afternoon. The captain held court in the center of the room in his whites and insignia and brass epaulets and buttons, clustered with three similarly attired senior officers, an intimidating scrum of nautical authority. Christine recognized a young female Disney star standing by the bar holding a champagne flute, talking with theatrical self-awareness to another young woman Christine also recognized, a hip-hop singer named Tameesha. So these were the cruise’s celebrities.
Valerie strode up to a gorgeous woman who could have been a foreign movie star.
“Beatriz,” said Valerie, “hi!”
“Valerie!” Beatriz hugged Valerie, then looked her up and down. “You look stunning.” She pronounced it “stoning” in a husky voice and an alarmingly sexy accent. Her skin was flawless; she exuded a heady warm scent so potent, Christine found herself leaning closer to breathe her in.
Valerie preened at the compliment. She was wearing a shapeless but wildly stylish charcoal-gray dress made of a dull, sturdy material with a square neckline, short sleeves, a simple Empire bodice, and a long flared skirt. It had been designed by a Williamsburg wunderkind, and had cost so much money that Valerie wouldn’t tell Christine the amount, even after Christine told her how much her own dress had cost.
“Thanks so much for getting us invited,” said Valerie. “This is my friend Christine.”
“Nice to meet you. And now, we need a drink,” said Beatriz as she led them over to the bar.
“I’ll have a cosmo,” said Valerie to Alexei. Although she was aggressively au courant about almost everything else, she was endearingly un-snobbish about food and drink; Christine had always loved this about her.
“I’ll take a glass of white wine, please,” said Christine.
Alexei winked at her as if they were old friends. “I have a beautiful, very cold white Burgundy. You will not be disappointed.”
Beatriz and Valerie talked in low, fast voices, their heads together, while Christine sipped the chilled, dry, spectacularly good wine and eavesdropped. Nearby, the Disney star was saying something earnestly to the hip-hop singer. Christine remembered her name: Cynthia Perez. In real life, up close, she looked exactly the way she did in photographs, with an enormous round head like a doll’s and small, pretty features. “So I was like, ‘If you have to discuss this right this freaking minute, let’s go somewhere quiet so she doesn’t hear you.’ ”
“She was listening, right?” said Tameesha, who was tall and willowy and big-eyed, a humanoid grasshopper.
Before Christine could figure out what this conversation was about, she was flanked by two elegant black men. They were, she guessed, about her own age, in their mid-thirties. One of them wore a plum-colored velvet jacket and black checked trousers; the other was in a tuxedo. Their faces were lean and sly. They appeared to be identical twins.
“Hello,” she said to the starboard brother.
“I’m Tye Blevins,” he said. “And this is my brother James.”
Christine appreciated their courtliness, which matched their outfits. “Are you having fun on the cruise?”
“Oh, we love the mid-century era,” said James. “We’re cultural historians. Tye is a history professor at Yale. I write historical mystery thrillers. We thought it would be a lark; there’s an old word you don’t hear anymore. Our last chance to sail on the Queen Isabella. For us, it’s all about how convincing the period details are.”
“So,” said Christine. “Are you convinced by the period details?”
“We were the historical consultants for this cruise,” said James. “So we’d better be convinced. Otherwise we’re all in trouble.”
“Are you convinced, that’s a better question,” said Tye.
“I’ve been drifting around for days, feeling like I’m in a time warp,” said Christine. Her chest was warm from the wine. “Wait. You guys wrote that thing in the brochure, about the history of the ship, right?”
“Guilty as charged,” said James.
“I thought it was really interesting,” said Christine, snatching a small dark snack from a passing tray that turned out to be caviar and crème fraîche on cocktail rye. She put it into her mouth to free her hand and quickly took another one before the waiter moved away.
Valerie, hoisting her cosmo aloft, tipped her head at Christine. She was standing with the captain of the Isabella, a tall, bald, cinematically handsome white man with salt-and-pepper sideburns and broad shoulders. He looked the part so completely, white teeth and twinkling eyes and all, that Christine almost laughed aloud.
“Excuse me,” Christine said to the Blevins brothers. “My date beckons.”
“Captain Jack Carpenter,” Beatriz was saying, “this is my new friend Valerie Chapin.”
“Pleasure,” said the captain, turning to look at Christine while he shook Valerie’s hand. “Hello there.”
“This is my friend Christine Thorne,” said Valerie.
He looked Christine up and down with blatant appraisal. “Where did you come from?” His accent was midwestern.
“Maine,” said Christine. “A farm, actually.”
“Oh. What kind of farm?”
“Vegetables and chickens. It’s small. My husband and I own about twelve acres.”
“I grew up on a huge farm in Wisconsin,” he said. “We grew corn. Nothing but. It’s nice to have a little variety, don’t you think?”
Christine glan
ced at Valerie, who narrowed her eyes in a smirk.
“This is such a beautiful old ship,” said Valerie.
“Yes?” he said, turning away from Christine with a hint of reluctance.
“You must love being in charge of it.”
“She’s a great relic, for sure,” said the captain, smoothly refocusing his attention as if he’d hit a button on the control panel in his forehead and his internal rudders had swiveled, far below. “I hope you’re enjoying the cruise.”
Just then, a young woman in a Cabaret crew uniform approached the captain and began to speak rapidly into his ear.
“It’s a bit of a working vacation,” said Valerie to the air where the captain had been standing a second ago. She shot a grin at Christine, pretending to confess to her imaginary listener. “I’m talking to a lot of interesting people for a book I’m writing.”
“You’re a writer?” asked Tye Blevins, who had been talking until now with seeming total absorption to Cynthia Perez, but apparently with one ear cocked at their conversation. “I’m a writer too. Dry academic stuff. What are you working on?”
“It’s still early days,” said Valerie, her face instantly alight with the pleasure of discussing her work with anyone who took an interest in it. “I’m going for a portrait of workers at the lowest levels of various industries, the people on the ground who keep things running. Who are they, what are their experiences.”
Tye’s eyes were lasers. “You’re interviewing the staff on board?”
“Oh God no,” said Valerie, waving the question away with breezy firmness. “I’m on vacation.”
“Right,” said Tye. “I get it.”
“Hello, everyone,” called Kimmi, the cruise director. She raised a glass of champagne to the room at large. “Welcome. We have a special group tonight, and it’s good to see you all getting to know one another.”
The Last Cruise Page 12