Petronella continued lamenting the lack of internet as we found our way to our cabins.
Aunt Kit always said, “Best thing about these cruises. We’re out of reach of assistant, agent, editor, publicist, and those other assorted people who insist on referring to themselves as ‘your team.’ Sounds like we run a tot’s T-ball group.”
Believe me, every one of these people would need the ball set up on a tee before they could hit it.
On our first cruise we brought “my” assistant. Mistake. Major mistake.
She insisted on showing me how to connect to the internet for emails from the rest of the “team.” When I pretended I couldn’t understand her directions, she printed out all the emails and took dictation of my replies.
She told everyone she met who I was, which meant they all talked about Abandon All. She gave me a running total of every calorie I put in my mouth. She suggested spa treatments to improve my on-camera appearance.
Three strikes and you’re out.
No assistant came on another cruise. Supposedly because the business of — Oops. Almost let my other name slip — the brand name author now known as the human being Sheila Mackey could not possibly run without the assistant’s attention every second. That’s what I told the sequence of assistants who followed, anyway.
Aunt Kit might have told them the truth.
The assistants changed regularly because a couple showed hints of getting suspicious. “And they’re the ones stupid enough to let their suspicions show,” Aunt Kit said. “The ones to worry about are the ones who never reveal their suspicions. The ones who are too stupid not to suspect aren’t good enough at the job to keep around.”
After that first cruise, we took along one of Kit’s relatives. Occasionally they overlapped with my relatives, but none I knew particularly well. They all thought I wrote the books. We kept to the script in their presence.
In more recent years, there’d been a couple just-graduated-from college relatives who made me feel old. They went their way, Kit went hers, and I went mine during the day. We’d meet for dinner most nights and that was plenty of family time for all of us. This laissez-faire approach even earned Kit and me “cool” points with the younger members of the family.
This time, Kit broke down and paid for Poor Petronella to go.
With me.
Kit stayed in North Carolina, saying she had far, far too much to do in settling into her new home to go on a cruise.
“Besides, you’re more patient than I am.”
True. Vlad the Impaler had more patience than Aunt Kit.
I was several steps closer to the Nobel Peace Prize than Vlad or Aunt Kit, but that left a whole lot of room past me on the patience continuum. In other words, don’t rev up the canonization apparatus anytime soon.
Especially not after already spending several days with Poor Petronella.
* * * *
“I am Eristo, your cabin steward, miss. Is there anything you request?”
I smiled back at the man, introduced myself with my author of Abandon All name and requested a bucket of ice be left in my mini-fridge daily. I prefer water on the rocks.
He brought the ice and offered to put my empty suitcase on the closet shelf, since I was at the stage of unpacking where everything was on the bed — two twins pushed together.
When I cruised with Aunt Kit, we shared a two-bedroom suite.
When she announced the arrangements for this trip, she’d told me she’d skipped the suite so I didn’t have to share with Petronella.
Petronella’s cabin was across the hall and maybe eight doors down — an inside room.
“I’m generous. I’m not stupid,” Kit said. “Petronella will be delighted with that room, while our dignity requires at least the top line stateroom for you. If they’d have given me the discount on the suite, maybe…” She’d bought a house in the Outer Banks, but her lifetime of cost-cutting to remain solvent as an author endured when it came to more mundane matters.
So I was in a stateroom with a balcony. Not a suite. Which all suited me fine — pun intended.
Petronella and I were in our separate cabins, unpacking and settling in, after I persuaded her I didn’t want her to unpack for me.
A voice came over the public address system announcing the safety drill.
The knocking on my cabin door came before the announcement finished and I didn’t hear it all. On the other hand, I knew the gist from previous cruises.
“Sheila, Sheila!” Petronella shouted. “The ship is sinking! What do we do? Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. We’ll drown.”
I snatched open the door and yanked her inside, speaking sharply to break through her panic.
“It’s not sinking. It’s not even moving yet. This is a drill. Teaches you what to do if there is an emergency. If you’re not quiet, listen to every word, and remember every word, and there is an emergency — like the ship sinking — you will drown.”
That stopped her from talking, though I feared she’d hyperventilate.
She clung to my arm and made occasional whimpering sounds as we made our way to the assigned spot.
Not hard to find with crew members in fluorescent vests and big signs indicating which way passengers assigned to each group should go.
The crew member in charge of our muster group was a young man with skin tanned nearly as dark as his hair and eyes.
Unsmiling, he directed us into place within lines marked on the deck, recommending taller people move toward the back, to increase the number of people who’d be able to see him.
“I’m not moving to the back.” Leah’s easily recognizable voice topped all other talkers and ambient noise. “I don’t care what some idiot says. He’d get us all drowned.”
The crew member’s face darkened.
The people in front of me shifted uneasily, and I saw Leah … standing in the next group.
How strange.
I mean it was strange for anyone to be nasty at muster drill, plus his instructions didn’t apply to her, since she was short, and he wasn’t even her muster leader.
Before she could say more, the captain’s voice came over the PA system, drawing everyone’s attention. Or almost everyone’s.
I could still see Leah’s lips moving. Wardham bent as if to listen to her.
Our muster leader moved as far from Leah as he could while still having anything to do with our area.
He didn’t budge as he gave us the instructions. I hoped people on the far side had good hearing or they’d get no benefit from this.
* * * *
Petronella had listened for two — her and me.
She proved it by repeating the instructions on a loop as we returned to our cabins.
With the elevators jammed, a lot of people streamed down or up the stairways. Each set of stairs climbed halfway to the next deck, then turned 180 degrees and made the rest of the trip. We followed a stream going up. Ahead of us, I saw Ralph and Maya. Three steps higher, putting them a full half-flight higher than us, were Leah and Wardham.
I looked around but didn’t see Odette. Had Ralph and Maya been with Leah and Wardham and I hadn’t noticed, while focused on Leah’s behavior? Possible.
Leah, gripping the handrail and using her cane with the other hand, stopped abruptly on the second-half stretch of stairs to deck seven. She stared up, presumably to where others were climbing to the halfway landing to deck eight. She muttered something but I didn’t catch it.
Swearing, from her expression.
Certainly, the people stopped behind her were inclined toward grumbles.
The stoppage rippled to where I stood. A man behind me asked — not in a holiday mood — “What’s the holdup?”
As if seeking the answer, I leaned over the railing and twisted to look up, well past where I knew the holdup originated with Leah. Instead, I tried to see what caught her attention.
Mostly I saw feet through the open space where risers would otherwise be. Male feet, female feet. Tennis shoes, flat sandals, tottering-high-heeled sandals, flip-flops, orthopedic shoes.
I couldn’t identify what Leah was looking at.
She half raised her cane, as if she might hit anyone in front of her. But no one was there, because they’d moved on, while she’d stalled.
“C’mon, lady,” the man behind me called.
Leah started with a wide-angle glare, then focused on me, as if I’d suddenly become a baritone.
I smiled broadly at her.
It was a trick Aunt Kit had told me before the Abandon All interviews started. Someone tries to intimidate you, hit them with a big old smile. Throws them off their stride and makes them wonder what they missed.
Leah started up the stairs, still looking at me.
The smile started to hurt.