Alice on Board Read online

  Emily, Yolanda, and Barry were on the trolley when it came, and we all sat together in the back. As we passed the old Custom House, the church, and an archeological dig, I wondered what it was like to live in a tiny place like this, where most of the people you met each day were tourists. How different it must seem to Mitch, who worked in the marshes with trappers. I was mentally composing an e-mail to Patrick—telling him I was a seeing a little more of life too, even if it wouldn’t compare with Barcelona.

  When we got off, we caught up with Liz and Natalie and all sauntered back together, not eager to spend the evening scraping plates and stacking the monstrous dishwasher—over and over and over again. As we approached the Seascape, I noticed a couple up on the lounge deck, and as we got closer, I saw that it was Flavian and Gwen. He had her cornered, his hands resting on the rail on either side of her, their faces a few inches apart. And Gwen was definitely smiling.

  4

  SINBAD

  The Crisfield port of call, where passengers took a ferry to Tangier Island, was probably the one I wanted to visit most. The island sounded faraway and mysterious. Captain John Smith had once been there, our ship’s pamphlet read, and residents still had traces of the Elizabethan accents of their ancestors.

  But I didn’t get to go, and neither did Liz, because this time Gwen had passengers who decided to sleep in instead of going ashore. One, in fact, was sick and needed not only the rug in his room shampooed and dried, but the blankets and bedspread washed as well. But fair was fair, so Liz and I loyally told Gwen we’d do the rooms she had left, and she headed for the ferry without a trace of guilt.

  “That was quick,” Liz said, peering over the rail as Gwen left the ship with Flavian.

  “She’s having fun,” I said. “She deserves it.”

  I was glad in a way that I didn’t take the tour, because it was a steamy, sticky day, and the only way to get around Tangier Island, Stephanie had told us, was on foot, unless you rented one of the few golf carts available. Consequently, passengers returned to the ship that afternoon tired and hot, and not too interested in evening entertainment. Out in the middle of the bay, or in remote places like Crisfield, we had little or no cell phone service either, though there was wireless Internet access throughout the ship that made us all the more eager to get moving.

  When dinner was over, the dining room cleared sooner than it usually did, and after the crew had eaten and the galley was cleaned, some of the stewards started a poker game in air-conditioned comfort, and others sat around to watch. But I opted to go up on the observation deck with Emily and Liz, even though the air was humid and still.

  Frank and some of the guys were already up there—Mitch and Josh, Barry and Flavian—all sitting around a big pitcher of iced coffee. We sat off to one side, faces tilted toward the night sky, letting their conversation float our way. We soon learned that the Seascape was perhaps not all it was cracked up to be.

  “Sinbad?” Barry was saying. “This was the old Sinbad?”

  “You’re kidding!” I heard Flavian say.

  In the half-light of the moon, I saw Frank wipe one hand across his face as though to erase his smile. “You didn’t hear it from me,” he said.

  “What was Sinbad?” Mitch asked.

  Josh looked over at him. “Ever heard of those fantasy cruises? One time it’s a pirate ship. Next it’s the Wild West or Arabian Nights or something?”

  “And?” said Mitch.

  “And Sinbad had more things wrong with it than you could count,” said Josh. “Like it was jinxed.” He looked at Frank to see if he should go on, and when the engineer said nothing, Josh continued: “Anything that could break, broke. Anything that could leak, leaked.”

  “But now it’s been refurbished!” said Barry.

  Frank smiled and straightened up in his chair. “Yeah,” he said. “So they tell us.”

  Barry propped his feet on the chair next to him. “So that’s why Sawyer backed out? He knows something we don’t know?”

  “Sawyer wouldn’t do that without a reason,” said Frank. “Maybe he just didn’t quite swallow the ‘refurbished’ bit. The only thing I know about Haggerty is that he hasn’t sailed the Chesapeake, but he was available. But the fact they that had to take whatever captain they could get at the last minute—that can’t be good.”

  “But, heck. You must feel confident enough to take this ship out,” said Flavian.

  Frank gave a small shrug and looked over the water once more, rubbing one shoulder. “Sawyer’s going on sixty, got a house on the Severn—he could retire anytime he wants. I haven’t got the choice.”

  “So what is he—some sort of prima donna?” Emily cut in. Her freckles were hardly visible in the moonlight. “A ship’s got to be brand-new or he doesn’t sail it?”

  “No. Prima donna he’s not. He just wants a ship without problems,” Frank told her.

  “Then what would be his objection to the Seascape? He suspects we’ve got a leak?” asked Mitch.

  “A leak we might be able to handle,” Frank said, laughing a little. And then realizing, perhaps, that we’d all been listening, he reached for his glass. “Well, who’s to say we won’t have the best season ever?”

  “At least we’re not out on the ocean,” Liz said when we were sacking up.

  “I sort of like the idea of Sinbad,” said Rachel when we told the others what we’d heard. “The curse of Sinbad. Sinbad strikes again!”

  “Gotta have a little excitement,” said Yolanda.

  “Well, one of us seems to be feeling a little excitement of her own,” I said, glancing over at Gwen, who was slipping a T-shirt over her head. “Getting pretty chummy with Flavian, Gwen?”

  She grinned mischievously and pulled on her sleep shorts. “He’s a fun guy.”

  “I still liked Austin,” Liz said, as though that would change anything.

  Lauren glanced over at Gwen as she crawled up into her bunk. “You got somebody back home?”

  “I’ve been going with a guy named Austin,” Gwen said. “But our future’s up for grabs. I’ve got eight years of school ahead of me.”

  “Ouch!” said Shannon. “I couldn’t wait to get out of school. What, you haven’t had enough of it?”

  “Gwen’s going to be a doctor!” Yolanda warbled.

  “What kind of doctor?” Natalie wanted to know.

  “Male anatomy,” Liz teased, and we laughed.

  “I haven’t decided,” Gwen said. “Obstetrics, maybe. Pediatrics.”

  “I’d want to start a family before then,” said Natalie. “I love kids. I’ve already decided that if I don’t find the right guy by the time I’m thirty-two, I’m looking for a sperm donor.”

  “No way!” Shannon declared. “Go through all the work of pregnancy and labor and none of the fun? If I ever decided to use a donor, I’d pick him live and conceive the old-fashioned way.”

  “And if it didn’t take the first time?” I asked.

  Shannon grinned. “If at first you don’t succeed … God, there was a guy in my tenth-grade civics class who would have made the most gorgeous kids!”

  “Listen to her,” said Emily. “Don’t you people know it’s past midnight? Somebody get the light.”

  We were becoming accustomed to little sleep, I discovered. After a few days of getting up at five thirty or six, that groggy feeling in mid-afternoon was familiar. But still I lay awake a while longer because I was thinking about Patrick. Had I ever thought of what our children would look like if we married? Had we ever even talked about having children? We liked to watch them on a playground, and we’d laugh at the way babies would stare at us without the least bit of self-consciousness. But had we actually said we wanted to have babies together? No, because we’d never even discussed getting married. We’d been going together longer than most of our friends, but …

  I was just drifting off to sleep when I heard scritch, scratch, scratch. I lay still, listening more intently. Nothing. Then, scritch, scratch . . .
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  I lifted my head from the pillow. “I hear a mouse,” I said.

  Instantly the room was filled with rustlings and mattress squeaks.

  “What? What?” voices cried.

  Feet thumped on the floor, the light came on, and Pamela dived back into bed, legs pulled up after her.

  “I won’t sleep for a minute with a mouse in the room,” Liz declared. “Did you know they can climb up walls? That commercial where they’re running across the drapes?”

  “You don’t have mice on a ship, you have rats,” said Shannon. “I need a cigarette.”

  “Listen!” I cautioned as the scratching noise came again.

  We all turned toward the smaller of the two dressers that stood in one corner, its bottom drawer opened an inch.

  “It’s coming from there,” said Lauren. “Behind the dresser.”

  “Or in it,” said Emily. “Get the plunger.”

  “The what?” I said.

  “The toilet plunger. Don’t we have a plunger? We can trap it under that and—”

  “Get one of the guys,” said Shannon.

  “No! Wait!” Natalie sprang off her bunk and gave us a sheepish look. “Promise you won’t tell?” And without waiting for an answer, she padded over to the dresser in her panda-print shorts, opened the bottom drawer, and lifted out a shoe box with a turtle in it, five inches across.

  We stared.

  “It’s a Maryland terrapin,” Natalie said proudly as she lifted it by its shell. “A kid was selling it in Crisfield this afternoon, and I bought it for my brother’s birthday on Sunday. He’ll be ten.”

  “Natalie!” we said, practically in unison.

  “I wanted something really special, and Kevin will love it!”

  “It’s against regulations,” Liz reminded her. “No pets of any kind.”

  “Just until we get to Baltimore. They’re meeting me on the dock.”

  “That’s four days off!” I said.

  “Dianne checks our quarters once a day! You know that,” Rachel said. “And she’s a stickler for cleanliness, especially when it comes to transmitting diseases to the passengers.”

  We eyed the greenish-brown creature dangling from Natalie’s fingers, its legs flailing. I was only familiar with the small box turtles you find in pet stores. Natalie’s turtle had extended its scrawny neck full length, and it slowly turned its head from side to side, as though taking us all in.

  “What does it eat?” asked Shannon. “Do you even know?”

  “The boy said to feed it chicken, fruit, and worms,” Natalie said, stroking the terrapin’s head with one finger.

  “It needs water,” said Liz. “Salt water or fresh?”

  Natalie looked helplessly around. “Look. All I want to do is get him to Baltimore Sunday. I’ll figure out the rest tomorrow.”

  “Okay, but keep him quiet,” said Emily.

  Natalie grabbed a handful of dirty laundry from a heap in the corner and lined the shoe box with underwear and socks. Then she put the terrapin back.

  “Death by asphyxiation,” Rachel said when the scratching stopped.

  I met Captain Haggerty the next morning when I was coming up from the linen hold. We’d docked at Oxford, and when I reached the main deck, he was standing at the entrance to the dining room, drinking coffee and talking with Quinton. There must have been an awkward gap in their conversation, because they both turned and focused on me.

  “Alice, I wonder if you’ve met the captain,” Quinton said. The stewards had been introduced to him en masse, but not one by one.

  Quinton, as always, was in his short-sleeved shirt and black pants, his head nearly reaching the door frame. Haggerty, a foot shorter, was in a T-shirt, but he still wore his captain’s hat. He moved his body in a kind of swagger that said he could handle any ship, at any time.

  “Hello,” I said, and walked over, shifting the stack of towels into my left arm so I could shake hands. “I’m Alice McKinley.”

  He had a firm handshake, but he held it only a second. “How’s it going?” he asked pleasantly.

  “I guess you’d have to ask Quinton,” I said. “But I think I’m doing all right. There’s a lot to learn.”

  “First time at sea?”

  “Yeah.”

  “This guy treating you okay?” he joked, nodding toward Quinton.

  “A regular slave driver,” I said, laughing. “But we’re getting used to it.”

  “Well, if he gives you any trouble, let me know,” the captain said, and took another sip of coffee from the black ceramic mug with a captain’s insignia on it.

  It was all in fun, of course, but there was something about the remark, something cocky, that sounded like showing his rank. Putting Quinton in his place by even suggesting that I go over his head and report something.

  I shifted the towels again. “Well, nice to meet you,” I said. “I’d better get back to work.” And I quickly took the stairs two flights up to the Chesapeake deck. Maybe he was just one of those people, like me, who lets things slip out, sometimes the very thing you don’t mean to say.

  My first room for the morning was empty. The Colliers were early risers, and when I was ready for the second state-room, the Anselminos were just leaving.

  “Good morning, Alice,” they said, holding the door for me. “You’re looking perky today.”

  “And you look like you’re setting off on a new adventure,” I said.

  “We signed up for the walking tour of Oxford,” Mrs. Anselmino told me. She was short and round, with a wreath of dark curls around her face. “I hope you’ll get a chance to see the town. Make sure you visit the Robert Morris Inn. We celebrated our thirty-fifth anniversary there.”

  “I’ll put it on my list,” I told her. “Have a good time.”

  I wished all the passengers were like the Anselminos. They wiped down the sink before I even had a chance to get at it, and picked up everything off the floor to make vacuuming easier. They’d only been aboard two days when the dining room servers had figured out that Mr. Anselmino had a great sense of humor, someone they could kid around with.

  I finished their stateroom in record time and was about to head to the third when I heard a loud voice out on the walkway saying, “If you don’t search her immediately, you won’t find it.”

  I stayed out of sight in the doorway and listened.

  “It was there when we went to breakfast—right there on the nightstand,” a woman’s voice was saying. “I remember it distinctly, and now it’s gone. I thought she had a strange look on her face when I passed her on the deck a few minutes ago.”

  “Omigod!” I whispered to myself. Were they talking about me?

  “Mrs. Collier, I want to find that watch as much as you do, but let’s not jump to conclusions.” Dianne’s voice.

  “What else can I think?” the woman continued. “No, you can’t want to find it as much as I do, because that diamond watch belonged to my mother-in-law, and Gordon gave it to me when we married.”

  I set my bucket on the deck, locked the Anselminos’ door behind me, and started down the walkway just as Dianne turned in my direction.

  “Oh, Alice,” she called. “Could you stop here, please?”

  “She could have hidden it anywhere by now,” came Mrs. Collier’s voice from inside her room. When I reached her doorway, Mrs. Collier was sitting on the edge of one of the twin beds. Her cold gray eyes settled fiercely on me as I crossed the threshold, and Dianne closed the door behind us.

  “You cleaned the Colliers’ stateroom this morning, didn’t you?” Dianne asked.

  “Yes. It was my first one for the day,” I said, and tried to keep my voice neutral, but I was furious inside.

  “Well, my watch was—,” Mrs. Collier began, but Dianne interrupted.

  “Mrs. Collier’s watch is missing, and she remembers leaving it there on the nightstand. Did you see it?”

  I tried desperately to single out that particular nightstand in my memory. Every two rooms are
exactly alike, the bathrooms placed side by side, except that they are mirror images of each other. Lamps are the same, bedspreads the same, even the pictures on the walls, nautical scenes of the Chesapeake Bay.

  “No, I don’t remember seeing a watch,” I answered. “I saw a pair of glasses on a bedside table, but they may have been in the room next door.”

  The thin brunette sitting on the bed gave an exasperated sigh and turned her face away. She was wearing a sailor top with a wide blue and white collar over her white slacks, and one foot bounced up and down impatiently. “Talk is useless,” she said.

  My anger was getting the best of me, and I held my arms out at my sides. “Would you like to search me, Mrs. Collier?” I asked.

  She startled, a little flustered. “That’s not my job, but the watch could be anywhere by now. We need to search crew quarters.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Alice,” Dianne said. “Why don’t the three of us check the room over again to see if perhaps it’s in a drawer or—”

  “I know what I know!” Mrs. Collier said emphatically. “The watch was here on the nightstand when I went to breakfast, and now it’s gone.”

  “If you see or hear anything at all about a watch, Alice, I’m sure you’ll let us know,” Dianne said. And then, to Mrs. Collier, “I know you must be terribly upset, but I need to remind you that there is a safe in the purser’s office, and we encourage people to keep their valuables in it.”

  “So I have to put my watch in the safe every evening and get it out again each morning?” Mrs. Collier said.

  “We encourage that,” Dianne repeated, and nodded me toward the door to show I was dismissed. As I went out, Mrs. Collier’s voice trailed after me:

  “That means you must expect thefts to happen. My husband is going to be extremely angry over this, I can tell you.”

  I had run out of miniature soap bars, so I went on down to the linen hold but ducked into crew quarters for a few minutes to calm myself. I’d barely sat down on my bunk when Gwen followed.

  “I heard some commotion down on your deck. What happened?” she asked, and I told her.