Кейт Кристенсен - The Last Cruise

They moved apart, got back to work. Rodrigo arrived, took his place on the line, the meat station swung into high gear, and the night went on, like any other night.

Christine opened her stateroom door to find Valerie at the small table by the window, in her bra and underwear, painting her nails.

“It’s almost time,” Valerie said. “We have to go up in ten minutes.”

Somehow, by befriending the Brazilian lounge singer who was the girlfriend or mistress of one of the senior officers, Valerie had finagled invitations for herself and Christine to the captain’s table dinner. It was black tie, and apparently the two or three celebrities on board would be there, as well as the captain and senior officers and ship’s owner. All day, Christine had been half dreading the stuffy formalities and enforced small talk, but Valerie had insisted that she come along.

Well, at least she had the right clothes for it. Before the cruise, Christine had bought a strapless emerald-green gown with a low bodice and a tight mermaid skirt in a vintage thrift store in Portland, a vaulted former bank where the rouged-and-mascaraed old woman behind the counter always made everyone check their bags because “hoboes” liked to come in, she said, and “steal my wares.” Trying on the dress, looking in the store’s warped mirror, Christine had felt a rare shock of pure pleasure. It had been so long since she’d dressed up. Along with a gauzy gold shawl and a rhinestone necklace to go with it, her haul had cost almost four hundred dollars. She had charged it to the farm credit card, and she hadn’t told Ed.

Now she imagined his face when he got the bill. Well, it was her money too.

After a quick shower, self-conscious as always under Valerie’s frank gaze, but now more accustomed or at least inured to it, she slid on the satiny, well-cut gown, zipped up the short side zipper, and bent forward to nestle her heavy breasts into the bodice. She brushed her hair and put it up in a loose knot with a hairpin.

“No makeup?” Valerie asked.

“I look like a cheap whore in makeup.”

Valerie studied her. Their eyes met in the mirror. “Put on some lipstick, that outfit is begging for it.”

“It’ll just smear all over my tooth and come off on the rim of my glass.”

Valerie shook her head. “Put on some lipstick.”

To appease her, Christine uncapped a tube of dark red lipstick and ran it over her mouth. She grinned at Valerie. “See? Cheap whore.”

“You look perfect,” said Valerie with a sigh.

The captain’s dining room was off by itself down a short private hallway from the fine-dining restaurant. There was a small crowd already in the teak-paneled lounge, which had a hand-painted mural of a jungle scene above an inlaid mother-of-pearl mahogany bar. Behind the bar stood Alexei, the bartender who made Christine’s martini every afternoon. The captain held court in the center of the room in his whites and insignia and brass epaulets and buttons, clustered with three similarly attired senior officers, an intimidating scrum of nautical authority. Christine recognized a young female Disney star standing by the bar holding a champagne flute, talking with theatrical self-awareness to another young woman Christine also recognized, a hip-hop singer named Tameesha. So these were the cruise’s celebrities.

Valerie strode up to a gorgeous woman who could have been a foreign movie star.

“Beatriz,” said Valerie, “hi!”

“Valerie!” Beatriz hugged Valerie, then looked her up and down. “You look stunning. ” She pronounced it “stoning” in a husky voice and an alarmingly sexy accent. Her skin was flawless; she exuded a heady warm scent so potent, Christine found herself leaning closer to breathe her in.

Valerie preened at the compliment. She was wearing a shapeless but wildly stylish charcoal-gray dress made of a dull, sturdy material with a square neckline, short sleeves, a simple Empire bodice, and a long flared skirt. It had been designed by a Williamsburg wunderkind, and had cost so much money that Valerie wouldn’t tell Christine the amount, even after Christine told her how much her own dress had cost.

“Thanks so much for getting us invited,” said Valerie. “This is my friend Christine.”

“Nice to meet you. And now, we need a drink,” said Beatriz as she led them over to the bar.

“I’ll have a cosmo,” said Valerie to Alexei. Although she was aggressively au courant about almost everything else, she was endearingly un-snobbish about food and drink; Christine had always loved this about her.

“I’ll take a glass of white wine, please,” said Christine.

Alexei winked at her as if they were old friends. “I have a beautiful, very cold white Burgundy. You will not be disappointed.”

Beatriz and Valerie talked in low, fast voices, their heads together, while Christine sipped the chilled, dry, spectacularly good wine and eavesdropped. Nearby, the Disney star was saying something earnestly to the hip-hop singer. Christine remembered her name: Cynthia Perez. In real life, up close, she looked exactly the way she did in photographs, with an enormous round head like a doll’s and small, pretty features. “So I was like, ‘If you have to discuss this right this freaking minute, let’s go somewhere quiet so she doesn’t hear you.’ ”

“She was listening, right?” said Tameesha, who was tall and willowy and big-eyed, a humanoid grasshopper.

Before Christine could figure out what this conversation was about, she was flanked by two elegant black men. They were, she guessed, about her own age, in their mid-thirties. One of them wore a plum-colored velvet jacket and black checked trousers; the other was in a tuxedo. Their faces were lean and sly. They appeared to be identical twins.

“Hello,” she said to the starboard brother.

“I’m Tye Blevins,” he said. “And this is my brother James.”

Christine appreciated their courtliness, which matched their outfits. “Are you having fun on the cruise?”

“Oh, we love the mid-century era,” said James. “We’re cultural historians. Tye is a history professor at Yale. I write historical mystery thrillers. We thought it would be a lark; there’s an old word you don’t hear anymore. Our last chance to sail on the Queen Isabella. For us, it’s all about how convincing the period details are.”

“So,” said Christine. “Are you convinced by the period details?”

“We were the historical consultants for this cruise,” said James. “So we’d better be convinced. Otherwise we’re all in trouble.”

“Are you convinced, that’s a better question,” said Tye.

“I’ve been drifting around for days, feeling like I’m in a time warp,” said Christine. Her chest was warm from the wine. “Wait. You guys wrote that thing in the brochure, about the history of the ship, right?”

“Guilty as charged,” said James.

“I thought it was really interesting,” said Christine, snatching a small dark snack from a passing tray that turned out to be caviar and crème fraîche on cocktail rye. She put it into her mouth to free her hand and quickly took another one before the waiter moved away.

Valerie, hoisting her cosmo aloft, tipped her head at Christine. She was standing with the captain of the Isabella, a tall, bald, cinematically handsome white man with salt-and-pepper sideburns and broad shoulders. He looked the part so completely, white teeth and twinkling eyes and all, that Christine almost laughed aloud.

“Excuse me,” Christine said to the Blevins brothers. “My date beckons.”

“Captain Jack Carpenter,” Beatriz was saying, “this is my new friend Valerie Chapin.”