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 Tristan 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 Seth to drag him further into my web, or because I'd wanted to. I guess I must have drifted off eventually, because I awoke and got up to run with Suzy and Troy 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 Suzy and Michelle got ready for the guests to appear, and I sat, keeping out of the way, sipping on a delicious fruit smoothie Tristan had made for me. The clock just ticked past nine-fifteen when Michelle descended the galley steps.
“Mick and Antonia are up!” she announced, “Apparently, Mick was awake to see you guys running at dawn.”
“Typical sporty-type,” groaned Tristan. “Horribly disciplined and annoyingly fit. It’s enough to make one physically ill.”
I giggled. Tristan’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 Sofia, 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 Troy and Mike, Alex the engineer, bosun Sam, 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!” Tristan 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 Tristan as he dropped some fresh blueberries into his blender. “What makes you think you know so much?”
“Mick is a professional motorcycle racer, Antonia’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 Michelle, 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. “Seth, I reckon,” I predicted, “and soon.”
“Your hero boyfriend, you mean,” Tristan tried to torment me, adding some mangos to his mix.
“Oh, will you shut up?” I squealed at him. He wouldn’t let Seth’s courageous actions go so, in Tristan’s mind, we were now some sort of prince charming and damsel in distress.
“Oh, you know you love it! Anyway, go on.”
“Seth will be out soon, by himself. Mia will make an entrance later and it’ll be a proper entrance. She loves to command a room’s attention. Seth will order coffee but nothing to eat until George 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 my predictions. “George’s girlfriend…”
“Valentina,” reminded Michelle over the noise of Tristan blending up the smoothies.
“Right. We won’t see her after the fight they had last night. She’s too young and spoilt. George 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 Tristan.
“Afraid so,” I nodded.
“Bollocks.”
“At the same time, Seth will have ham, sausage and scrambled eggs, George will have waffles. Both will have orange juice,” I continued.
Tristan shook his head at Suzy, pouring the blended fruit cocktail into two tall glasses. “And what of our hip-hop loving guests? Jay Money Monarch and his two porn-star playmates?”
“Coco and Jessica? We won’t see any of them until lunch is ready.”
Alex strolled into the galley just as Tristan handed Michelle the tray with the glasses on it. “Here you are, darling, tell them their omelets will be up in a trice.”
As Michelle headed back up, Alex 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. Alex 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.
“Tara,” Alex 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 Samson.
“Alex,” he said, “come up to the wheelhouse, please. Tell Sam I need him too. Are you the only steward around at the moment, Tara?”
I nodded. “The others are busy with breakfast.”
“Then you had better come too,” he added, before turning on his heel and marching out. Alex followed him, so I hopped down from the counter to follow Alex, only for Tristan to call me back.
“Wait, darling,” he whispered to me. “What was all that hush-hush with Alex?”
“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 Tristan.
“Which three little words?” I grinned.
“Me want sucky…?”