Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries 10 - Bed and Breakfast and Cruises

by A. R. Winters

  “It’s already on the map, thank you very much,” said Bernice. “A pleasure to meet you all. Let’s hope your enthusiasm is contagious, otherwise I’m going to be exhausted.”

  Not quite sure what to make of that comment, I offered a smile to mirror Sam’s.

  “Shall I take your picture?” I asked, waving my phone in front of her.

  “I don’t think so. I had a long flight last night and I’m exhausted. I look positively ghastly. Let’s hold on the theatrics until tomorrow, at least.”

  “Shaun! Shaun! Shaun!” shouted Kelly.

  Bernice, Sam and I all looked on, equally bemused, as Kelly managed to catch the attention of Shaun the erstwhile pool boy. I noticed with some interest that he was wearing a customer liaison uniform today.

  He came over to us using big swaggering steps and with a beaming, brilliant-white smile on his face. His eyes didn’t linger on Sam for even an instant, instead immediately locking onto Bernice.

  “Shaun, would you escort Chair Bernice Burford to her stateroom, please?”

  “Sure thing.” He stuck out a hand. “Nice to meet you, Chair.”

  Bernice stared at him for several long seconds to see if he was mocking her. “You can call me Bernice, or Ms. Burford. I’m the chair of the B&B association. It’s not my name.”

  With his hand untaken, but manner unshaken, Shaun lowered it back to his side. “Let me get your bags.”

  Bernice looked on approvingly as Shaun seemed to effortlessly pick up her two suitcases, his biceps clearly bulging through his blue customer liaison uniform shirt. “Please proceed. I shall follow.”

  When the pair of them left, Sam turned to stare at Kelly. “Why’s he wearing a customer liaison shirt? He’s a pool boy.”

  “He wants to move up in the world. He came to see me last cruise. So, I told him he could try his hand at being a customer liaison during boarding this time, to see how he gets on and whether he really wants to continue. If he does, you may soon have a new team mate!”

  ”Great,” said Sam coldly.

  “Isn’t it? Bernice seemed to approve of him. I think he might fit right in.” Kelly’s eyes locked on something behind us. “Is that…”

  Kelly whipped out her phone, and tapped at the screen. Then she held up the phone right in front of her, and her eyes flicked back and forth between the screen and who she’d seen behind us.

  Sam and I waited expectantly to find out who it was that Kelly had spotted.

  “There’s a woman boarding behind you with two pink bags. She’s Geraldine Whitney, and she’s the former head of the B&B association. Why don’t you go and welcome her?”

  “Are you coming with us?” I asked suspiciously.

  “I’d love to, but… the Captain is here! Look!”

  Sam and I turned and, sure enough, Captain Jonathan Ellman had successfully made it from the dock to the ship. “Ciao!”

  “Come on, then,” I said to Sam. “Let’s go and be the welcome wagon again.”

  Geraldine Whitney was a steel-haired woman in her fifties. She was wearing a tweed skirt, black riding boots, and a dark green woolen sweater. She had her hair pulled up in a bun so tight it seemed to give her eyebrows an almost startled expression.

  “Hi! Welcome aboard the Swan of the Seas!” said Sam.

  “Welcome, you’re Gerladine Whitney, right?”

  She gave us a suspicious look.

  “How do you know who I am? I haven’t introduced myself yet.”

  “Our boss told us, and we pride ourselves on trying to learn the names of as many of our distinguished guests as we can. Would you like me to call you Gerry?”

  Her eyebrows went up even higher than their natural state.

  “No, I would not like you to call me Gerry. My name is Geraldine.”

  “Right. Geraldine.” I tapped the side of my head. “Locked into the memory banks!”

  Geraldine slowly shook her head at me.

  “So. This is a ship. A cruise ship.”

  Sam and I looked at each other to see if either of us were missing anything. We weren’t.

  “Yes, one of the finest ships you’ll find anywhere in the world.”

  This made her laugh, a slightly worrying scratchy sound that obviously didn’t get produced too often.

  “I doubt it.”

  Pride somewhat wounded on behalf of my floating second-home, I decided to try and ignore the jibe.

  “I wish to see the conference suites and whatever else you have prepared for us. It was arranged by the new head of the B&B association and, frankly, I don’t think she’s up to the task. I’m expecting to be disappointed.”

  “I… right. Okay. No problem. Sam…?”

  I gave my friend a sweet smile. She gave me an even sweeter one back.

  “Geraldine, I’ll take your bags to your stateroom for you. Addi here will be delighted to give you a quick tour.”

  Gritting my teeth I tried to glare at Sam while maintaining my sweet smile. In a moment she’d picked up the bags and was on her way. There was nothing for it. She’d abandoned me with the tough-seeming English woman.

  “Well? What are we waiting for. Chop chop.”

  Putting on a brave face, I started by leading Geraldine across the ship and down toward the conference suite they had booked out.

  “It’s very sterile, isn’t it?” she said as we made our way down a lovely clean hallway.

  “Oh, yes, we take great pride in maintaining our ship well.”

  “I meant it doesn’t have much character. Not like my little B&B.”

  “Is that so?”

  “It is.”

  Although we were walking side-by-side, Geraldine seemed to be in a hurry. She kept increasing her walking speed, causing me to hurry to catch up with her.

  “I expect the ship floats better than your B&B though.” I was trying to make her laugh again; not that I was particularly keen to hear that rather strangled sound for a second time.

  “What an absurd thing to say.”

  I’d heard the phrase a cut glass accent before, but I hadn’t been entirely sure what it meant. Having listened to several statements from Geraldine I was beginning to get an idea. And I didn’t think I liked it very much. She could probably cut more than glass with her voice, too.

  We walked the rest of the way to the conference suite in suitably stony silence. I think Geraldine enjoyed the quiet rather more than my attempts at conversation, so I guess we were both happy. Or equally unhappy.

  “This is it, is it?” She said when we arrived.

  At the entrance was hung a large banner, reading Welcome B&B Association!!!

  “It is.”

  “That banner has three exclamation marks. One would have sufficed.”

  “I’ll let the banner makers know,” I said politely. I wasn’t sure who the banner makers were, and I strongly suspected they wouldn’t care a jot. As such, I had no intention of passing on Geraldine’s thoughts on what they had produced.

  I led Geraldine inside the Conference Suite and took her first to the largest room, which had a stage at the front and rows of seating leading all the way to the back of the room.

  “So, this is your main room, where your talks and the like will be held. There’s drop-down screens, projectors, surround sound, and fully adjustable lighting.”

  She froze at the entrance, arms crossed across her chest.

  “It’s big.” Geraldine sounded somewhat surprised.

  “We’ve got far bigger venues, too, should you need them,” I said proudly.

  “Not required. Is there more?”

  I led her back out to the lobby area of the Conference Suite. I opened another door, to reveal another large room that had been set up with half a dozen large tables scattered around.

  “This room is where the vendors are going to be set up to showcase their products and services.”

  “Also adequate. I suppose Swan arranged all this. Not Bernice.”

  “Usually our customers wor
k together in tandem with the events team at HQ to plan it out.”

  “Right, they must have guided her. There’s no way this would have happened if she was doing it all herself. Now. Show me the maze.”

  I understood the words. At least I thought I did. But it seemed to be a very odd request. The maze?

  “I’m sorry…?”

  “The maze. Come on. Chop chop. Where is it? Outside? On the deck?”

  “I… I mean, a maze? What is that?”

  Of course I knew perfectly well what a maze was, but it’s not the kind of thing you find on a cruise ship. So I figured it must be some kind of language barrier. Some British secret meaning of the word maze that a Nebraska farm girl like me had no understanding of.

  “Are you thick? A maze. You know. Hedgerows and deadends. I was assured by Bernice that there would be a maze.”

  “Right. Umm. Let me check. Hold on.”

  I pulled up my phone and dialed up Kelly’s number. She answered on the third ring.

  “Hi, Kelly? It’s Addy? Geraldine was asking about the, umm, maze?”

  “Sure! Take her there!”

  “Where is it?”

  “Next to the gardens, silly! I’ve got to go, it’s—”

  “—Wait! What gardens? What are you talking about?”

  “At the back of the ship! Sorry, crisis here, got to go!”

  This was ridiculous. How could there be a maze and gardens on the ship? But Kelly had said it was at the stern. There was a large outdoor event space back there, so I supposed that must be where she was referring to.

  “Do you know where we’re going?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “At my B&B, my employees know all of the facilities we offer. They don’t call me to find out where the stables are! And it’s not just stables, we have quite a few different facilities, let me tell you.”

  “As many as a cruise ship?” I asked sweetly.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Come on.”

  With the horrible woman beside me, I took us toward the back of the ship and then up an elevator until we were near a bulkhead door we could exit through. I was still quite skeptical as to what we would find. How could there be a maze?

  Just before we exited the interior of the ship, I stopped. There was a sign on the wall. A new sign. A temporary one in a little plastic frame. It read Traditional English Maze and there was an arrow pointing outside.

  “That’s the way we have to go,” said Geraldine, pointing in the same direction as the arrow. “Do you read, girl?”

  “Yep. I even write, too.”

  “Wonders will never cease. Come on.”

  Geraldine pulled me by the elbow to get me to hurry up as we headed outside. When the door was open, I stopped and stared. The large event space had been completely transformed.

  “It’s in pots,” said Geraldine. She had her arms crossed in front of her chest again and seemed to be quite angry at the near-miraculous scene before us.

  There was, indeed a maze. It had been created through the addition of dozens and dozens of large planters, each filled with thick, dark green shrubs. Ahead of us was a single, solitary entrance, and just in front of it the first turn and a fresh wall of greenery.

  “I guess it would be hard to plant a real maze on board a ship, it’d probably die,” I told her.

  “Probably. That’s why ship’s aren’t really any good for a holiday. In a B&B you can really work on a garden over years — decades even — you should see the garden I’ve got. Tell me, have you ever seen a rose bush?”

  “Ye-es?” I suspected my answer was going to be wrong.

  “Wrong!” she declared. “You haven’t seen a real rose bush until you’ve seen an English rosebush in an English rose garden. And I have the best rose garden of any B&B in the Cotswolds.”

  “I see. Perhaps one day I’ll have the pleasure.”

  “Yes, I’ll give you my card so you can make a booking.”

  “Will I get a discount?” If I did visit the UK I had no intention of staying at this woman’s B&B, but I was still trying to be friendly.

  Geraldine laughed.

  “Of course not. I run a business, not a charity for impoverished American sailors!”

  “Of course you do.”

  Then, my phone buzzed. I pulled it out of my pocket to see if it was important. It was a message from Cece. She had made the same discovery as me.

  >There’s a maze! Let’s check it out!”

  “Are you allowed to do that while you’re serving a customer?” asked Geraldine with a little shake of her head at my phone. “My staff are forbidden. Mobiles are popped in a box before they start, and removed when they leave for the day. Professionalism is very important if you want to run a successful B&B, you know.”

  “I use it for work,” I told her. “Speaking of which, I have to get going. Something very urgent just came up.”

  “More urgent than looking after a guest? I’m sure that can’t be right. I want to see the—”

  “—Yep, very urgent. Got to go. Enjoy the maze!”

  After managing one final smile I left her to it. She looked visibly shocked that I was ‘abandoning’ her. It was almost as if she was unaware that she was, basically, just a regular guest. Former head of the B&B Association didn’t carry much weight with me.

  “I’m sure I’ll manage!” she called after me as I left.

  I gave a thumbs up behind my back and headed inside. First I had to call Cece to tell her to hold off on checking out the maze, and then I had to get back to work. I hadn’t taken a single picture yet — what kind of social media manager was I?

  Clutching my phone tightly, I headed back down to the arrivals area. I wanted to get out of Geraldines sights first.

  Chapter 3

  That evening, I was feeling exhausted but not unhappy. Luckily for my sanity, it turned out that Geraldine was the worst of the guests. Bossy, rude, and seemingly lacking in humor, looking after her had been the biggest challenge of my day. After her, everything else had felt like smooth sailing.

  After leaving her to explore the maze, I’d returned to arrivals, taken some pictures and helped out a few more passengers. When they were all taken care of I sat down and typed up a fun little article about suitcases, and then, finally, had five minutes of rest before dinner.

  At seven o’clock I was waiting outside the International Buffet for Ethan. Unusually for him, he was two minutes late.

  “I was just about to give up on you,” I said when he finally arrived.

  Ethan was wearing his bright white and gold First Officer’s uniform, and although he wasn’t out of breath — he was far too fit for that — there was a slight sheen to his forehead and his cheeks were flushed with just the tiniest tinge of red from exertion.

  “Really?” He asked, surprised.

  “No, you dolt,” I said with a laugh. “I’m kidding. Come on. I’m famished.”

  Inside we grabbed plates and started loading them up before even finding a table to sit at. I think Ethan was just as hungry as I was. When we’d each created a suitably diverse but toweringly impressive mountain of food on our plates, we sunk down at a table for two toward the edge of the room.

  “Good day?” I asked him.

  “Don’t ask,” he said, shaking his head. “Let’s not talk about it for once. Work, I mean.”

  “Sounds good to me. I had the— wait, I’m doing it already! Make sure you stop me if I do it again.”

  Ethan speared a carrot as he chuckled at me.

  “And the same goes for me.”

  The thing about deciding not to talk about something, is that you immediately want to talk about it. I wanted to tell him about Geraldine, and my awesome suitcase article. But the rules had been put in place. And I’m a stickler for rules. Except when they needed to be broken, obviously.

  “You went to see your family during the break, right?” I asked him.

  Ethan nodded.

  “I did. My father’s on th
e mend, at least we think so, so hopefully I won’t get called away too much more.”

  “That’s good to hear. So you won’t be going back home for a while?”

  Ethan slowly shook his head. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. In fact, I was thinking about another trip fairly soon.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Actually, they all keep hassling me. They really want to meet you. They’ve started accusing me of keeping you locked up on the ship so they can’t ever see you.”

  “Oh, wow. Meet the family, huh?”

  “You’re not nervous, are you?”

  Terrified.

  “No, of course not. If they’re half as nice as you I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

  “You’ll be fine because you’re a wonderful person and everyone who meets you thinks so, Addi. And my family will be no different.”

  My cheeks suddenly felt hot for some reason. I loaded some chili-chicken onto my fork and popped it into my mouth to give me that reason.

  “How was Nebraska?”

  “You know… it was fine. Everyone there was… fine.” I couldn’t seem to find a better word than fine. It had been so underwhelming being back that words any stronger didn’t seem to fit.

  “Was that your first time going home after a long time away?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. I mean there was college, but that was only a couple of hours drive, and I was back a couple times a semester, as well as for the breaks. And then I worked for our hometown newspaper. I’d never been away as long as this. I thought it would be more… exciting? I thought everyone would be clamoring to hear about everything I’d been up to. But all they really wanted to hear was that I was okay. They didn’t ask much about what I do at all.”

  “It’s like that. You’ll get used to it. People who don’t leave their hometowns don’t really understand people like us, when we go back. Or maybe it’s us who change, when we travel.”

  “Maybe both,” I suggested.

  Ethan nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah. That’s it. Did you do anything fun while you were back there?”

  “Same things I used to do. Had some pretty thick milkshakes. Drove around some farms. Ate a burger at the local restaurant. None of it seemed as fun as it used to though.”

  “The burger doesn’t cut it compared to the International Buffet, right?”