Misty
Having been the final steward on duty last night, I was excused the usual early morning rush to get breakfast prepared. Not that there was ever that much urgency on charter mornings. Often guests wouldn’t appear before ten, usually with a hangover, which left the cabin crew plenty of time to clean up from the night before, re-stock the bars, take care of any produce orders that Chef Tarquin needed, while he was on standby with eggs, bacon, pancakes, fruit, and so on, which he would prepare to order.
Although I wasn’t strictly on duty, I was in the galley anyway. I couldn’t relax. I felt like I’d been awake all night, trying to decide if I’d kissed Tyler to drag him further into my web, or because I wanted to. I guess I must have drifted off eventually because I woke and got up to run with Tanya and Brett as usual. But I knew that lying in my bunk right now was just going to give me more time to think, which was something I was really trying to avoid at the moment. So I washed, ironed, and folded all the laundry, as Tanya and Sarah got ready for the guests to appear, and I sat, keeping out of the way, sipping on a delicious fruit smoothie Tarquin had made for me. The clock just ticked past nine-fifteen when Sarah descended the galley steps.
“Paul and Veronique are up!” she announced, “Apparently, Paul was awake to see you guys running at dawn.”
“Typical sporty-type,” groaned Tarquin, “Horribly disciplined and annoyingly fit. It’s enough to make one physically ill.”
I giggled. Tarquin’s posh London accent only served to highlight his overtly homosexual mannerisms, but he was one of the main reasons all the girls felt so happy and cared for when they spent time in the galley. He was our confidant, our critic, and our gay best friend whenever we needed him to be. Even Azure, the small, quiet second deckhand, spent more time in the galley than the crew lounge. That place was much more of a haven for testosterone and was almost always either populated by deckhands Brett and Mike, Adam the engineer, bosun Keith, or all four of them, shouting, high-fiving, and playing Xbox in their downtime.
“They want egg-white omelets with steamed mushrooms and spinach, plus fruit smoothies. Chef’s choice of ingredients.”
“I get to choose what goes in their smoothies? Oh, joy!” Tarquin clapped his hands together in mock delight. “Hmm, is spaghetti a fruit, I wonder…?”
He made me laugh again. “I think we could have guessed they would have ordered that,” I smiled.
“Wow, check out Miss Third Stew over here,” teased Tarquin as he dropped some fresh blueberries into his blender. “What makes you think you know so much?”
“Paul is a professional motorcycle racer, Veronique’s a catwalk model,” I pointed out. “They’re both going to avoid fat and refined sugar as much as possible. Plus, they would be up earlier because they are both used to partying all night and still making early starts. It’s the nature of their businesses.”
“Never knew you had such a deductive and analytical mind,” said Sarah, without a hint of cattiness. “Go on, then, who will we see next?”
I thought for a moment. This was an odd skill I’d picked up over the years. It was pretty useless but I liked it when I was right. “Tyler, I reckon,” I predicted, “and soon.”
“Your hero boyfriend, you mean,” Tarquin tried to torment me, adding some mangos to his mix.
“Oh, will you shut up?” I squealed at him. He wouldn’t let Tyler’s courageous actions go so, in Tarquin’s mind, we were now some sort of prince charming and damsel in distress.
“Oh, you know you love it! Anyway, go on.”
“Tyler will be out soon, by himself. Ada will make an entrance later and it’ll be a proper entrance. She loves to command a room’s attention. Tyler will order coffee but nothing to eat until Henry joins him, which won’t be long after. Guaranteed those two have breakfast at least six days a week together.” I was sounding confident and the other two were more than impressed with her predictions. “Henry’s girlfriend…”
“Bella,” reminded Sarah over the noise of Tarquin blending up the smoothies.
“Right. We won’t see her after the fight they had last night. She’s too young and spoilt. Henry will order her banana pancakes but she won’t show up to eat them. He’ll send them to her room but she’ll send them back.”
“So, I still have to make them?” asked Tarquin.
“Afraid so,” I nodded.
“Bollocks.”
“At the same time, Tyler will have ham, sausage, and scrambled eggs, Henry will have waffles. Both will have orange juice,” I continued.
Tarquin shook his head at Tanya, pouring the blended fruit cocktail into two tall glasses. “And what of our hip-hop loving guests? D Cash and his two porn-star playmates”
“Ruby and Britney? We won’t see any of them until lunch is ready.”
Adam strolled into the galley just as Tarquin handed Sarah the tray with the glasses on. “Here you are, darling, tell them their omelets will be up in a trice.”
As Sarah headed back up, Adam leaned in closer to me. I hadn’t had a chance to speak to him since our light flirtation the night before the charter. “And how have you been?” he whispered to me with a winning smile.
“Apart from falling overboard and being hopelessly embarrassed? Just fine, thanks,” I smiled back. Adam was really nice. He was good-looking, honest, and capable of hilarious moments of self-deprecating humor, but I just couldn’t let myself get involved with anyone right now.
“I heard about that. You know I would have dived right in after you, clothes and all, right?” he said.
“I know you would,” I smiled back. I gave his firm bicep a loving squeeze. I so wanted him to think of me as more of a friend than a romantic possibility.
“Misty,” Adam spoke nervously, “after this charter, do you want to, maybe, go for dinner…”
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. I could say either ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but neither really did me any favors. ‘Yes’ would be leading him on and ‘no’ would just cause friction that I didn’t have the patience for right now. Luckily, before I could answer, in walked Captain Harper.
“Adam,” he said, “come up to the wheelhouse, please. Tell Keith I need him too. Are you the only steward around at the moment, Misty?”
I nodded. “The others are busy with breakfast.”
“Then you had better come too,” he added, before turning on his heel and marching out. Adam followed him, so I hopped down from the counter to follow Adam, only for Tarquin to call me back.
“Wait, darling,” he whispered to me. “What was all that hush-hush with Adam?”
“None of your business, luv,” I said, trying to mimic his British accent.
“But, did he finally say those three little words to you?” hissed Tarquin.
“Which three little words?” I grinned.
“Me want sucky…?”
* * *
In his dimly lit, yet elegantly presented wooden-paneled wheelhouse, Captain Harper stared out of his wide forward windows at the horizon. Adam and Keith were there, as was Mr. Harper, the first mate. I didn’t get into this room very often. Stewards and deckhands had no business up here unless we were invited. And we were only invited to be praised for an exceptional job, or fired for misconduct. The captain smiled a welcome to me and motioned for me to sit on the chair next to Adam. I felt nervous, a knot forming in my stomach.
Since I joined this crew, two months ago, abandoning my position as chief steward on a Mediterranean yacht and flying down here, lying about my years of experience so I wouldn’t be overqualified for the third steward position that was available on Aphrodite, I’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Is the jig finally up? I wondered, have I been found out and am about to be fired? If I was, I was pretty sure Adam and especially Keith wouldn’t need to be in the room. I allowed myself to breathe a small sigh of relief at that thought.
I quickly decided I may have reacted too soon, because I then noticed a looming darkness in the distance, off the port bow. I could see that the normally clear blue skies of the Caribbean were being smothered by black, foreboding clouds that hadn’t been there at dawn.
“It’s bad news, I’m afraid,” frowned Harper, his English accent making every word seem slightly more ominous than it needed to be, “A storm, of which we had no idea was headed this way, switched its trajectory in from the Atlantic and is now aimed right at us. Whatever we decide to do, Misty, the guests are going to be having an indoor day today, and it might even be a rough ride. Can you brief the other stewards?”
I nodded to him.
“Aruba is sixty miles southeast of us, through the storm, Cap’n,” said Adam, looking at the satellite map on the monitor.
“He’s right,” agreed Harper. “We’ll never make it if we try to head home.”
“And even if we did make it to port and try to ride it out,” pointed out Keith, “that’s exactly where the weather will be at its worst.”
“So, we don’t head back to port,” I said, more to myself than anyone else. The assembled men turned toward me.
“Go on,” said Harper.
“There’s an atoll, five miles west, it has a bay facing away from the storm. It’ll give us some shelter if it does get this far,” I told him, pointing it out on the map.
“She’s right,” smiled Harper. “We might get some thunder, lightning, and rain, but we’ll be out of the worst of the wind and waves. Good thinking, Misty.”
“How did you know about the island?” asked Adam.
“We passed it two charters ago. I thought it was pretty,” I giggled. He didn’t need to know that you pick up certain things after seven years as cabin crew.
“Well, it falls to me to deliver the bad news to the primary charter. Let the rest of the crew know what to expect, will you,” instructed the captain, “Everyone else, to your stations. I think we have about two hours.”
I headed back below to give Sarah and Tanya our orders, and together we started trying to work out how to we were going to keep nine wealthy clients, none of them used to being told they can’t do anything, entertained while we all waited out a hurricane.
“Toga party!” suggested Tanya. That was pretty much her go-to plan for any eventuality but, for once, Sarah and I thought it might not be the worst idea for this group. “Seriously?” Tanya looked stunned that we’d listened to her. “I was joking! You realize a toga party with this group is likely to turn into an orgy, based on yesterday’s sundeck action.”
“That’s their business,” said Sarah in her usual ‘seen-it-all-before’ fashion. “The deckhands will be nearby in case things get out of hand. Together I’m sure they could even handle D Cash if we needed them to.”
“I was more worried about Misty, TBH,” Tanya smirked. “How do we know she’s going to be able to control herself once her hero starts dancing around naked? Just remember, sexy, all it takes is one quick face-ride to earn you your ticket home!”
“Bitch!” I snapped, slapping her playfully on the arm. “Like you wouldn’t bend over for D Cash if he handed you a diamond necklace!”
“Hey, I may be a slut but I do have standards,” cried Tanya, defensively, “I’d need matching earrings!”
“Okay,” appealed Sarah. “Can we focus, please?” Tanya and I tried to pull ourselves together. “However, Misty, you were wrong about the breakfasts.”
“No way!” I was shocked.
“Yes way,” Sarah continued. “Tyler had bacon, not ham.”