“Do you think the rumor about Johnson and Charlegne Jackson is true?”
“Damned if I know. Johnson denies it, but that’s what I would do in that situation, wouldn’t you? And then there was this whole ‘It wasn’t her cabin’ thing. How would he know something like that? He’s always acted a bit funny.”
Li held his breath and listened closer.
“What do you mean, Jer?”
“He’s always moping about, looking miserable. Keeps to himself a lot. Quiet. I know we’re not exactly friends or anything, but I don’t really care for the overly quiet people. They’re creepy, Ross.”
“I know what you mean, Jer. Johnson can be a weirdo sometimes. Like when he does his homework.”
“Homework? I thought he dropped out of college?”
“He did. That’s what’s so weird about it. He left school, but still studies?”
Li ground his teeth together. I dropped out because the school kept cutting classes I needed, and my family’s income and savings totally dried up. I still study because I don’t want to fall behind.
“But that’s nothing compared to what I just heard, Ross!”
“What is it?”
“Johnson found Charlegne’s dead body.”
“Aw, come on! Don’t pull my leg!”
“I’m serious! I heard it from a steward! The Ice Bitch is dead!”
“How?”
“Dunno. Nobody really knows. But it’s true. The story is floating around the whole ship. Apparently, they’re going to plan some stupid memorial for her.”
“Geez. I didn’t think she could ever die.”
“Yep. And I’ll tell you something else: I think Johnson killed her.”
Li could feel his heartbeat in his teeth.
“What the hell are you talking about, Jer?”
“Do I have to spell it out? First, Charlegne demands that Johnson serves her table. Then there’s this whole rumor about Johnson having sex with Charlegne. Then he conveniently finds her dead body!”
“But still—”
“I bet the rumor was true. I bet you a week’s pay that Charlegne ‘invited’ Johnson to her cabin after dinner. He goes at the appointed time, and they do the nasty. But it doesn’t stay a secret like he hoped it would. Word has it that he can’t afford to lose his job. What if she says something that could ruin everything for him? So he kills her. She may have even left him a substantial wad of greenback in her will. They may have known each other beforehand for all we know. That’s why she demanded he serve her table.”
“Wow…Crazy…”
“I’ll find out of course. No one will pay much attention to a waiter snooping. I’ll have to find out how he killed her. Maybe he slipped something in that tea he said he delivered to her. We’ll have to be careful, Ross. He might be a psychopath.”
Li felt his jaw tense like a stretched rubber band. I hate these people, he thought.
“Boy, Jer, you could be another Sherlock Holmes.”
“Hey, if the cruise ship business doesn’t work out, I could start my own P.I. agency!”
Maybe if you get your head out of your butt first.
“We better get back to the dining room before Paulie throws us off the ship with Johnson.”
“Paulie wants to chuck Johnson?”
“Aren’t you the amateur detective, Jer? Paulie can’t wait to dump him. He hates Johnson. Super jealous of all the attention he gets. He’s just waiting to prove that Johnson slept with Charlegne, so he can fire him.”
“Maybe I can help Paulie out. I certainly don’t want to work with a murderer. And keep up your poker face, Ross. Johnson’s out there. Don’t let him on to the fact that you know his secret.”
Footsteps stretched into silence. Li stumbled out of the storeroom. His blood pounded in his head.
They all want to get rid of me. Everyone wants me to lose my job, to lose everything I have! What am I going to do?
“Christ, what took so damn long?” Paul ripped the cloth napkins out of Li’s grip. “Remember, Dropout, one teeny tiny mistake and you’re out of here for good. You’ll be drinking water out of the gutters when I’m done with you. Get your ass to Table 12! I’ll handle the Captain’s Table this evening.”
“Yes, sir.”
He shuffled back into the dining room. At Table 12, Li found Countess Ramseyer. He felt like hanging himself with a tablecloth.
“I’ll have ze cod,” she muttered.
He returned with the steaming entrée. The countess acknowledged it with an elegant grunt. Once he turned around, he felt something searing hot and wet splatter all over his back. His ear burned. He looked down to see a white lump of fish bleeding sauce into the carpet.
That’s it! I’m done! I hate this ship! I hate these people! I hate everything here!
Li popped on a plastic smile and turned to the Countess.
“Shall I get you another cod, madam?”
Sally Brent was in her garden again. Over the cold, dry years, her mind wove the wrought-iron into the curls of a garden gate, stitched grass into the earth, and draped the brick walls with a wild rainbow of impossible flowers. Sally crept around the Forbidden Ones, the eroding stone statues of people from her past, people she had been ordered to no longer see in real life. She stroked their tear-worn features with her thumb, trying to dredge up the face that matched. Her memories were as fragile as interrupted dreams.
Back in reality, Sally stumbled around the ship’s Atrium, comatose to the chaos of the passengers and crew.
There was a new statue in the secret garden. One whose features time hadn’t yet buffed away. Sally recognized the freshly whittled face of Charlegne Jackson. She didn’t need to dredge deep for these memories. It was the woman who saved her, the woman who made her life all the more agonizing.
How could she do this to me?
Outside the garden, Sally twisted her split ends into a thick rope of hair and teetered into the glass elevator.
Already Charlegne’s stone effigy started to blur with tears. Sally couldn’t feel that the tears were her own, but she could see a dim reflection of her pain in the classic elegance of Charlegne’s features.
The elevator’s bright ping signaling the end of her journey shocked her out of the fantasy. She couldn’t recall ever pushing the elevator button. Her life was pure muscle memory. With a wooden gait, Sally shuffled down the passageway of the Verandah Deck. She tried to fall back into her secret garden. She could see the dream flowers scale the walls around her. They grew black and oily before melting into a bad taste in her mouth.
She neared the source of the poison. The swirls in the pattern of the carpet twisted and stretched toward a distant door—her cabin door. Her tears evaporated. She couldn’t risk Aaron seeing her cry without cause. Especially, if he didn’t cause it.
The lock slurped up the keycard. Her fingertips stuck to the doorknob. It turned smoothly.
Sally knew this was a fatal mistake.
“Where were you, dear?”
Aaron sat in the wingback chair across from the door. Hate darkened his face.
“Where were you, Sally?”
“I…I went for a short walk.”
“Where?”
“Around the Atrium.”
“Were you with anyone?”
“N-No.”
“Don’t lie to me, dear.”
He only used “dear” when he wanted her to do something. Or when he wanted to suck the air out of her lungs.
“I met no one, Aaron.”
Aaron’s whole body scowled at her. “You abandoned me today, Sally.”
“Aaron, I—”
“Shut up. You left me. Several times. That primped prostitute last night. That stupid woman who couldn’t stop yammering this morning. They took you away from me, Sally. You know how I feel about that.”
“Aaron, honey—”
“You begged to come on this cruise. It was your idea. And you’re using it as an opportunity to get away from me. After
all I’ve done for you.”
“Please, Aaron, I—”
“I said ‘Shut. Up.’”
Sally did.
“I’ve had my own fun, dear. I tried not to take it out on you. You should be grateful.”
Sally said nothing.
“But it wasn’t enough. Sure I had fun, but that wasn’t the point. I may have dealt with some of the annoyances, but I didn’t get to the heart of the problem.”
Sally tried to shrink into the carpet.
“You.”
Aaron Brent unbuckled his belt and yanked it through the belt loops in one hard tug. It hissed at Sally. Her husband held up the belt for her to examine: the tense leather, the sharp fangs of the buckle.
“Shut the door, dear.”
She hesitated. There was a small chance. She could turn…run…scream. Surely a passenger or a member of the crew would hear her. They would know. They would take her away from Aaron. She would be free.
“Shut. The. Door.”
There was psychic pull in those black cobra eyes.
Her hands fumbled like clumsy spiders over the doorknob.
Her throat closed in tandem with the door.
“Look at me, Sally.”
Her eyes flicked upwards.
“You don’t play along, dear. And we know what happens to people who don’t play along. Get on the bed.”
“Oh please, Aaron! I’m sorry! I’ll never do it again! I’ll never leave your side! Please don’t! You always make it hurt! I’m—”
The belt cracked across her face, sounding loud enough to start a revolution. Fireworks of pain exploded along her jaw. He only hit her with the leather. That was good.
“Get. On. The. Bed.”
Sally’s feet felt weighed down with sand, but she heaved forward. Her eyes started to get wet, but she sucked back on the tears to keep them from falling. To her, it looked like the bed floated on a floor of tears.
“Face down. You know I hate to see you cry.”
She prostrated herself on the white bed linen.
“You have to learn, Sally dear. I’m sorry.”
She hated when he apologized.
Sally buried her face into the pillow, praying that this time she would just die.
“Homework again?” David asked.
Li’s stormy blue eyes peeked over the tattered cover of his math workbook. “Is there a reason I can’t do homework?”
“Don’t you get cramps if you do it immediately after a horrible dinner service?”
“This one wasn’t that bad.”
“Then how do you explain that burn on your left ear?”
Li brushed his ear with the tips of his fingers and winced. “Would you believe me if I said I got into a hideous accident with a Baked Alaska?”
“At this point, yes, I would.” David bookmarked his thriller novel and tossed it on top of Li’s copious notes, which earned him a sour look from his bunkmate. He stretched out his legs and scanned the crew lounge. “Why are you studying anyway, Li? I thought you had to leave school?”
Li disappeared behind his workbook again. “I wanted a distraction.”
“About your dad?”
Li grumbled.
“Or about Charlegne?”
“What makes you think I have any memories of her?”
“Well, I hate to bring it up, but we did find her body.”
Li shushed him. “You heard the Captain, David! We’re not supposed to—”
“Oh relax.” David gestured to the crew members reaching second base on the sofa. “Even if Carlos came up for air, he barely understands English.”
“I don’t want anything to risk my job. I’m already dealing with a psychotic boss and his hair-trigger temper. I’m just going to keep my head down and serve people whatever they want. Perfect little waiter.” Li plunged under the safe umbrella of the quadratic formula.
David pushed the spine of the workbook down so he could look Li in the eye. “Then I suggest you come clean about a certain tea delivery you made.”
Li fought the urge to throw the workbook across the lounge. His voice struggled to stay smooth. “I did not—repeat DID NOT—have sex with—”
“Not that delivery, doofus. The later one. The one you were making when we found Charlegne’s body.”
The apples of Li’s cheeks went pink. “I…um…I…”
“The truth would be nice, Li. I don’t think you have time to come up with a lame excuse.”
“You can’t prove that there was something fishy about me delivering tea to Charlegne this afternoon!”
“Are you sure about that, buddy? Last night, Charlegne ordered Oolong tea. When I saw you in the passageway this afternoon, you said you were delivering tea to Charlegne. The tea was Darjeeling. I know Charlegne’s habits. She doesn’t change her tea preferences at the drop of a hat. And even if she did, she would have asked me, the deck attendant waiting on her, to serve her, no matter how much she liked you. So you were clearly lying.”
“I-I don’t have to defend myself!”
David sent a few sentences of perfect Spanish over his shoulder towards the couple on the couch. Li’s classroom version barely caught the word escuchar, meaning “listen.” He tugged on David’s shirt sleeve.
“Okay! Just don’t get other people involved, please?”
“I thought that would get your attention.”
“Not funny.”
“I’m not laughing, Li. Now spill before I grow old and die in this seat.”
Li glanced at the overheated couple before starting to talk. “I didn’t do anything with Charlegne if that’s what you’re thinking. But when Paul said he would stop at nothing until he proved that I slept with her, I panicked. I know he couldn’t prove it definitively, seeing as nothing happened, but I was terrified he might be able to twist something innocent and convince certain people in charge that I did sleep with her. I freaked out. I needed a character witness, someone who could clear my name. And the only person I could think of with that kind of power was Charlegne herself. My friend, Travis, joked that I needed her to fake cry and drink Darjeeling while defending my character. It got into my head. I got the tea and said Charlegne ordered it. I didn’t even remember the actual kind she liked. The image of a cup of Darjeeling just stuck. I needed an innocent excuse to see her and beg her to help me. I was desperate.” Li’s shoulders drooped. “Then…Then we found her.”
“Yeah. Bummer.”
“You believe me, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do. Now that you’ve actually told me the truth.” David leaned back and balanced his chair on two legs. “Guess you’re kind of screwed now that Charlegne is out of the picture. What’ll you do?”
“I can try to find out who did sleep with her and see if he would be willing to help me.”
“That’s asking a lot of a man willing to sleep with the Queen of the Cold Shoulder.”
“Maybe. It’s either that or get hanged as Charlegne’s boy toy.”
“There are worse titles.”
Li’s pencil trembled as he scrawled a few shaky numbers on his scratch paper. “Things would be so much easier if Charlegne hadn’t…hadn’t died. It seems impossible. If I didn’t see it for myself.” His eyes swelled, pushing his eyebrows higher up his forehead. He raked his hand through his black hair in quick swipes. “Someone must have seen her.”
David let his chair fall back onto four legs and checked his bunkmate’s forehead for a fever. “What the hell possessed you this time, Li? If you slip into shock again, I’ll take a risk and slap you.”
“Someone had to have seen her besides you, David. Maybe this morning before the tenders left for Catalina Island.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
“Did you see anyone near the Sunbathing Deck around the time Charlegne got there?”
David fiddled with his collar. “I’m not sure I should mention any names. That could cost me my job.”
“Well, they might have seen what Charlegne did
this morning and whether she did anything different from her normal routine.”
“What makes you think she did anything different?”
Li thought of the missing sunscreen. “Oh…no special reason…”
“You’re lying again.”
“You have to admit that someone like Charlegne Jackson didn’t seem like a person who would die suddenly.”
“Just because it seemed like that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”
“Well yes, but—”
“But what, Li? What are you hinting at this time?”
Li began folding and unfolding a corner of his workbook. He kept his eyes glued to the equations stamped onto the paper. “A model would use sunscreen.”
“So?”
“So she would take the necessary precautions. I don’t think she would forget, and it’s even less likely that she would refuse to use it on purpose.”
“I can’t see how that’s important.”
“I guess it isn’t, but it might be good to find out what she did.” He added quickly: “For the people who joined her on this cruise. Maybe it will make them feel better to know that it wasn’t something else.”
David arched an eyebrow. “You’re not going to do something stupid, are you?”
“Depends on your definition of stupid.”
“There goes the other eye. Try not to get yourself killed, okay?”
“I think I’m smarter than that.”
“That remains to be seen.” David pinched his eyelids together and rubbed his forehead. “I can see you getting into trouble already. Don’t mention my name, okay?”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“Well…I did see some passengers in the vicinity. Three total. They were…um…You’re sure that you won’t—?”
“I promise, David. I won’t drag you into this.”
“Okay, I guess. Martin Hale sat near the pool, looking toward the Sunbathing Deck. He’s the husband of Rosemary Hale, the fashion designer. They both sail frequently with the Howard Line. Rosemary was at the opposite end, standing at the Prow Deck.”
He paused.
“But who was the third person?”
“I don’t know. I mean I don’t know her name. She’s not a regular. She sat next to Mr. Hale and never stopped talking. She burned through more words than I have ever heard in my life. I thought Mr. Hale would fall into a coma from listening to that.”
Sunny Side Up Page 10
