WHEN MY FATHER PASSED THREE months ago, I felt adrift. Nothing made sense. Not working for the job I continued to hate. Not dating someone for the sole reason of being afraid to be alone. Not continuing to be friends with people simply out of habit.
Habit.
That word became a bigger enemy than the cancer my father battled and finally lost against. Because even in the almost seventy years he had, some of them harder than others, my father lived every second. He lived. He did everything he wanted and nothing he didn’t. I often felt he lived a selfish life, and when I was younger I begrudged him for it.
But now…now I understand.
I get it.
I watched my father waste away over the course of a year while he watched me do the same my entire adult life. I lived my life like there was some kind of checklist. Go to college, get a boring degree, work a secure job, date, eventually marry a stable man and pop a few kids out.
I’m sure for some people that’s fine, but I was living my life with my eyes firmly shut. It’s like those times when you drive and you arrive at a destination, and then wonder how you got there. You try to remember, but your mind must have shut off and your body operated on autopilot because you’ve done it so many times.
That was how I lived my twenties.
It took my father passing a week before my thirtieth birthday for me to completely wake the hell up and realize I wasn’t happy and I didn’t want to be lying in that bed someday, regretting not doing one thing for myself. He died without a single regret and had nothing but love in his heart. Even for the mistakes he made. He loved all of it.
I wanted that.
Which is probably why, while heavily influenced from wine post-breakup with Jamie, boyfriend of six years, and watching Bravo’s Below Deck, I went into full-on midlife crisis mode and signed up to work for Signature Charters.
Imagine my shock a week later when I received a request for a Skype interview.
That was three months ago.
I quit my job as an accountant for a securities firm in Seattle, sublet my apartment, said goodbye forever to Jamie, and buried my father. Now, as a crewmember on the Naiad, a forty-foot yacht touring the Virgin Islands, I could be whomever I want.
“Taylor!”
I jump, nearly dropping the freshly laundered sheets I just finished folding as Chief Stew George Laken comes marching down the stairs to the laundry room. Shaking off my thoughts of the past, I turn to my boss.
“Yes?” I blow a few strands of my hair out of my face and try to present myself as a submissive employee. Difficult when your boss is a tiny tyrant.
Three inches shorter than me and nearly thirty pounds heavier, it’s clear the Chief Stew has a bit of a complex and, unfortunately, as the newbie on the yacht, he’s singled me out for his special attention. This has pretty much alienated me from the rest of the crew; everyone wants to avoid his wrath, so they’ve avoided me too. All my plans of boozing it up and having fun in the Caribbean went out the door the second this guy asked me for a proper salute.
“Why are you not dressed yet? The guests will be up soon! We need fresh towels in all the bathrooms. I can’t believe I still need to tell you this after three months.” His round face is flushed with anger and the humidity of the room we’re in, giving him the appearance of a pissed-off tomato.
I bite the inside of my cheek, nodding in what I hope looks like a subservient way. “I’ll go get dressed right away,” I tell him.
Not that it matters, I think to myself, since I’m kept out of sight the moment the “guests” arrive on board. I try not to take it personally. I am definitely the oldest stew on board, at thirty, while the rest of them are fresh-faced, eager, and in their early twenties.
I want to argue that it feels a little like they are pimping the younger stewards, or Stews as everyone around here called them, out but tips are pooled at the end of the trip, and if they could bring in more than the old hag I apparently am, who am I to argue? I’m just glad they’ll share with me, the resident Quasimodo.
I grab my basket of neatly folded linens—seems my OCD comes in handy somewhere—and head back to the small cabin I share with an older woman who works in the kitchen.
I slip on the starched white Oxford, which Laken called obscene on me the first time he saw me, as if I can help being chesty. I pull the khaki pencil skirt over it, tucking the shirt into the waistband. After slipping on my white sneakers, I scoop my long blonde hair into a low ponytail. Glancing into the mirror glued onto the wall over our small sink, I wince at my pale reflection. So much for the tan I thought I’d be rocking.
I grab some concealer to hide the dark bags under my brown eyes but decide to leave off with the rest of the makeup. No one else is going to see me, so hiding the circles under my eyes is really for my own benefit. I never expected to be working this hard in my life, but these near twelve-hour days are killer. I don’t want to give anyone the idea I can’t get the job done, not even through the appearance of the exhaustion I feel.
Running a hand over my ponytail and smoothing down my skirt, I briefly touch my father’s wedding ring tucked into my shirt and exit the room, ready to start another long day.
This job may not have been what I expected, but that’s the point of upending my life, I remind myself.