Кейт Кристенсен - The Last Cruise

When everything was ready for service, he sent a few of his crew ahead with tongs and grill tools to coordinate with Sidney and whatever was left of his service team, sent others to run trays of hamburger buns and condiments, ceviche and salads to the pool deck upstairs, and then climbed up with Christine, Kenji, Lester, and Camille, each of them carrying a platter.

The sun had set and the ship rested on a flat field of water whose edges disappeared into the darkening horizon all around it, just turning violet, pure, without a hint of a sunset. The pool shimmered in the light from the tiki torches, its surface still and undisturbed. A crowd of younger passengers had gathered by the bar, their faces glowing in the light from the tiki flames, looking weirdly carefree in their summer camp outfits and tousled hair and tans. They looked as if they were at an actual party. Mick recognized Trevor behind the bar, kittenish as always, but instead of a Cabaret uniform he wore a tight black short-sleeved shirt unbuttoned to his clavicle, and a white pukka necklace to show off his brown chest. His hair was gelled into little ringlets. He could have been on his way to a Caribbean beach nightclub. Standing with him behind the bar was that friend of Christine’s, the writer who’d interviewed Consuelo. She was splashing various liquors into plastic cups, stirring mixers into them, garnishing them haphazardly, and handing them out to one and all, taking slugs of her own drink all the while.

Mick and Christine set the meat down next to one of the smoking braziers while Lester and Camille and Kenji took the other. The third grill was missing; Jean-Luc and Paolo must have moved it down to the main deck for the walkouts to use.

“Your friend,” said Mick to Christine as they slapped their steaks onto the smoking grill, “seems to be our new bartender.”

“Tell Valerie to make me a nice strong vodka,” said Christine. She looked good with her sleeves rolled up, her hair pinned back, a pair of tongs in her hand. Too bad she was married, and a passenger, thought Mick. Really too bad.

“What are you drinking?” he called over to Lester and Camille, who were pouring more charcoal briquettes from bags into the other grill.

“Maybe a beer?” said Lester.

“Two beers, please,” said Camille. “Thank you, Chef.”

“Beer,” Kenji said as he passed by with a hotel pan full of marinating chicken parts.

Mick moved through the crowd. At the bar, he waited for Christine’s friend Valerie to finish serving a guy in shorts and a T-shirt, smoking a cigarette. Mick envied him. His own pack was still in his jacket in his galley locker. He considered bumming one, but despite everything, he was still on duty.

He caught Trevor’s eye as he spun a martini shaker. “Hey. Why aren’t you down with the rest of your friends?”

“Tips,” Trevor said with a smirk.

“Me too,” said Valerie, joining in.

“Did Alexei and Natalya quit?” Mick asked.

“They started the whole thing,” said Valerie. Her eyes were bright behind her glasses. “They were the leaders. Along with Consuelo and two other Mexicans. You’re Mick, right? Didn’t she used to work for you?”

“Wait. So half the crew quit?” asked the guy in the shorts with the cigarette before Mick could answer. “Right at the same time as the fire started?”

“They told me they didn’t start the fire,” said Valerie. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”

“They told me that too,” said Mick skeptically.

“Where are they all now?” asked the shorts-wearing guy.

“Down on the main deck, having their own party,” said Trevor. “Getting some fresh air.”

“How many people are down there?”

“Fifty maybe,” said Trevor, looking directly at Mick. “Sixty, seventy, something like that. More joined today.”

“I’m calling it Occupy Main Deck. Like Occupy Wall Street,” said Valerie. “Did you have any Occupy stuff where you’re from?”

“We have TV news. America is very entertaining.”

“I talked to them earlier. Then I tried to get the rich-guy owner of Cabaret who’s on board to negotiate with them, but he totally shut me. He threatened to have them all arrested for sabotage. He’s a prick.” She turned to Mick. “What are you drinking?”

“Two vodkas, three beers. One vodka is for your friend Christine.”

“Where is she?” Valerie asked.

“At the grill over there.”

“Excellent,” she said. She handed him the drinks one by one, her eyes locked on his. Out of nowhere, an electric-eel jolt zinged his groin and shocked him. He remembered his vow to himself to get laid on this cruise. God, that had been a million years ago, on the docks at Long Beach. “I’ll trade you all this booze for a rare steak. I like it bloody.”

“Sure,” he said, turning around quickly.

Holding the drinks to his chest, he squirmed his way through the crowd. People thronged the grills, drawn to the smoke and the smell of meat. The band near the pool was playing a rollicking gypsy tune Mick recognized from childhood. Hearing an accordion among the horns, he looked over and saw Kimmi, of all people, squeezing the bellows and working the keys like an old beer-hall pro.

After he distributed the beers, he handed Christine her vodka. She knocked her plastic cup against his in a sideways toast and took a slug. “Thanks,” she said. “I needed this.”

“Why aren’t you over there? If I were a passenger, I’d be getting drunk with that crowd.”

“I’m not good at being a passenger. Doing nothing.”

“I thought that was the point of cruises. Doing nothing.”

“That’s not so good for me,” she said. “If I don’t stay busy, I think too much, and if I think too much…”

She fell silent. They worked side by side without speaking for a while, flipping hot steaks onto a platter, slapping fresh raw ones with a sizzle onto the hot grill.

“This way, I can drink while I work and have the best of both worlds,” said Christine. She had evidently been following her own train of thought.

“I know what you mean,” said Mick, going along with it. “Cheers to that.”

She laughed, a rich chuckle. He grinned at her and felt a spark ignite in the air between them. She clenched her jaw and looked down at the steaks, and he remembered again, with even more regret this time, that she was married. Maybe she had felt that spark just now too. And maybe he was flattering himself.

A crackling squawk came from above. Everyone looked up to see a young deck officer in a white uniform and cap standing on the catwalk, shouting through a megaphone. “Everybody, a helicopter is approaching. For your safety, we need you to please clear the aft deck. That’s the back. Please move to the front of the ship, everyone.”

Mick heard the chopper before he saw it, ratcheting its way over the ocean, coming low out of the twilit sky. Bridge officers appeared on the pool deck and began herding everyone forward. The crowd streamed toward the railing, chattering, with their drinks and plates of food, as the chopper made a downward arc with a stuttering roar and came to a stop, hovering with a slight wobble thirty feet above the decking outside the solarium. The gigantic, whirring blades washed the top decks of the ship with gusts of downdraft. Mick closed the hood of the brazier to keep ashes from flying everywhere while his crew scurried around, securing paper plates and cups and napkins.

Slowly, a large cage-like basket descended toward the decking, and Mick watched as two officers helped Laurens van Buyten into it. He was holding his stomach, looking weak and unstable. The basket was winched skyward. From the open door to the body of the helicopter, a pair of arms reached out and helped Laurens into the cabin, and he disappeared. The basket descended again, and when it hit the deck, a tall man Mick didn’t recognize climbed into it and shook the hand of the captain. The basket was winched aloft a second time as the captain stepped back and gave a brief upward wave that was almost a salute. The second man vanished the same way Laurens had, through the door into the cabin, without even a glance down at all the people watching him go.