by Reina Torres
She walked across the deck, enjoying the soft squeak of the polished wood beneath her shoes. When she stepped up to the railing, she set her hands down and leaned against it, lifting her face into the cool night air.
It had been a few days since she’d seen Andrew in the hallway just outside the practice room. It felt like it had been weeks.
They’d arrived at port that morning and while the wait-help had directed the passengers to disembark, Andrew and his crew, complete with two strong boys from the town, had set about offloading the cargo. Up in the kitchens, Rosemary and Loretta had prepared a mid-morning meal that would have to suffice instead of their usual breakfast and noon meal with all of the work that needed to be done.
And by the time the evening meal had been prepared and served, Rosemary had been fit to drop. If it hadn’t been for Dollie’s insistence that she stop by for some practice, letting her expend some of her frustration and worry, Rosemary felt that she would have burst into tears.
Her feelings weren’t logical. That, she understood.
It wasn’t that Andrew had been short with her or rude.
He had been cordial and treated her as a gentleman would treat a lady, but he did that for everyone. Manners were upheld and performed graciously. That should have been enough to ease things between them, but there was something odd about his expression, something tired and dark in his eyes.
Something she had only begun to understand.
She saw the same sadness in her eyes reflected in every mirror-like surface. Windows without enough light, the shiny surface of a wall sconce, every face that looked back at her grew more tired and lonely as the days went on.
What he was feeling, or rather, why he was feeling it, was something unknown.
She just couldn’t bring herself to ask him.
At least with things unsaid, she could pretend.
Maybe, just maybe, she’d imagined it all from the beginning.
Or maybe she had been right. They had felt a connection to each other.
He just didn’t feel it anymore.
Her life which had been so easy before was suddenly sliding and tilting as if the boat had run aground, tangled in the tall grasses along the side of the river.
Things could have continued in the same way for years, but once Andrew Brooks stepped aboard the Siren that’s all that it had taken to forever change the world she lived in.
When they were on the river, traveling one way or the other, sometimes the wind didn’t feel like much, barely a whisper of a touch, but when they were moored at the pier wind could knock a body off their feet. But at that moment all she felt was a gentle brush along her forehead.
The wind gave her a soft caress and carried other sounds to her ears.
Voices.
Quiet conversation and soft laughter. It was the kind of sound that warmed hearts and offered comfort, and Rosemary needed that. She walked along the deck until she came upon the group gathered near the back of the boat. Moses sat on a chair with his back to the wall, facing out toward the river, with Lonnie standing beside him.
She heard them talking and moved forward in the shadows, trying to listen in.
“What about you, Lonnie?”
Her steps faltered a little. That was Andrew’s voice, laughing in the semi-darkness of the lantern light from the wall.
When Lonnie didn’t reply, Moses spoke.
“Go head, tell us.”
She really wanted to know the answer. Maybe she could figure out the question from that.
“You know all the songs I know, Moses. You pick.”
Moving ever closer, Rosemary kept to the shadows along the wall. The airy sound of a concertina greeted her ears. She’d seen Andrew play it in the dining hall, watched as the waiters danced a jig in a pool of sunlight before the windows. The scene had been a happy one but hadn’t included her as she was working in the kitchens.
But the sound was sweet to her ears. Almost as much as Lonnie’s laugh over Moses’ whispers.
“Go ahead, Moses,” Lonnie encouraged him, “tell Mister Brooks.”
“All right, all right,” Moses schooled his laughter and walked across the deck. “My friend here would like to hear you play ‘Cindy.’”
“Cindy?” Andrew’s tone was soft, confused. “I’m not sure I’m familiar with that one.”
Moses’ voice soothed Lonnie’s worried grumbling. “Give me a moment.”
And while she saw Lonnie walk to the wall and lean on it, Moses moved closer to Andrew as the river pushed by the boat, continuing on the journey and the humid air touched her skin with a heavy hand.
She could hear Moses start the song a couple of times softly before he found the pitch where he wanted to start.
“The chorus goes like this…
Get along home, Cindy. Cindy. Get along home, Cindy. Cindy.”
Andrew played a note here and then a note there, getting closer with each try as Moses continued on in his rich baritone.
“Get along home, Cindy. Cindy. I’ll marry you someday.”
Looking up from his chair along the railing, Andrew’s head nodded along with the rhythm even though no one was singing. “Again please?”
Moses jumped right back into the song.
“Get along home, Cindy. Cindy. Get along home, Cindy-”
Andrew followed along with the lyrics, finding a harmony to match the lyrics. “C. G. C. G. D. G.”
“Now a verse?” Moses waited for Andrew to nod.
“You oughta see my Cindy, she lives a way down South. And she’s so sweet, the honey bees, they swarm around her mouth.”
There were a few wincing mistakes but she could hear Lonnie’s laughter and the clap of his hands almost on the beat of the music.
When Moses started into the second verse, Lonnie spoke along with him.
“I wish I was an apple
Hanging on a tree
And every time my Cindy passed
She’d take a bite of me.”
As she watched the two cargo tenders linked their arms and danced around each other as they sang the chorus, almost on key.
“Get along home, Cindy, Cindy,
Get along home, Cindy, Cindy,
Get along home, Cindy, Cindy
I’ll marry you someday.”
Moses and Lonnie continued dancing, laughing as they went and Andrew vamped the harmony over and over.
“Come now,” he nudged them with his voice and words, “who’s going to sing the next verse?”
And she knew it wasn’t going to be Moses. He was lost in his laughter, something she hadn’t heard in quite some time. It was a joyous thing to hear.
“The next verse?” Andrew was laughing along with the other men. “If I knew the words, I could help.”
She didn’t think, she sang, walking closer toward the group.
“Cindy in the springtime,
Cindy in the fall.”
She heard Moses and Lonnie softly cheer her on as they moved toward her with light feet and laughter. Moses linked an arm with her and spun her around as she continued.
“If I can’t have my own Cindy
I’ll have no girl at all.”
Lonnie spun her about and hook her arm with his as all three of them sang the chorus.
“Get along home, Cindy. Cindy.
Get along home, Cindy. Cindy.
Get along home, Cindy, Cindy.
I’ll marry you someday.”
When the music came to an end, Rosemary found herself wrapped in one embrace after another. Moses and Lonnie, she couldn’t even really tell who went first and who went second, even the third hug was just a gasping jumble of laughter.
And finally, she found herself spun in another direction, ending up stumbling against something else.
Or, in this case, someone else.
“Oh!”
“Careful there.”
Andrew.
She felt her heart leap in her chest as she lifted her gaze to meet his. Ro
semary wasn’t sure what she expected to see in his eyes, but what she saw saddened her again.
Regret.
What had happened when she hadn’t been looking?
Had she done something?
She wanted to know, but she was oh so afraid to ask.
When he dropped his hands from her arms to his sides, Rosemary stepped back and rubbed at her arms where she’d felt the warmth of his hands, suddenly taking on a chill.
“Are you all right?”
Rosemary heard the concern in his voice and the soft rasp of something she couldn’t identify.
“I… I’m fine.”
He nodded and she saw him step back and reach for the open instrument case. When he had it in hand, he turned back to her. “I should get to sleep. We have duties in the morning.”
“Sure,” she smiled at him, but it was an effort. “I do too.”
Moses and Lonnie gave her a gentle squeeze on her shoulder as they passed by, but when she moved past Andrew as he packed the concertina away in its case, she stopped for a moment and watched the gentle care he took as he closed the lid and set the lock on the case.
She was gone before he turned around, she couldn’t take another conflicted look from him. Not at that moment.
By the time she made it to her room and closed the door it was all she could do to complete her evening ablutions and ready herself for sleep.
There were a multitude of questions wandering about inside of her head, but there were no answers.
Rosemary fell asleep to the unsettled whispers of her exhausted mind, hoping that the next day would be better.
Always hoping.
Chapter Nine
When they docked at Gaylesville, there were people enough going onto the ship and off that a single man in a good suit with fine manners didn’t stir up any odd looks or strange whispers.
People smiled and returned his gesture when he nodded and thanked him kindly as he held open a door.
And still, when he set foot on the main deck where the best cabins were placed, he seemed right at home. He needed no directions to find his way.
There was only a moment of hesitation before he gave the door he stood before a short and purposeful rap.
Dollie Owens opened her door for the very last time, waving in a rather harried and eager gentleman who swept her up in an embrace. “Goodness, Bertie! Have a care! You’re likely to crush me alive!”
“Crush you? Hardly!” He placed a kiss on each cheek before he covered her mouth in a tender kiss. “I would never, ever, hurt you, my Dollie.”
As she laughed, he released her from one arm of his embrace to reach into his vest pocket, fumbling about a bit as she reached out to help him.
“No you don’t,” he gave her a look that was likely meant to be stern, but he couldn’t seem to school his features, grinning broadly as he found what he was looking for. “There.”
He withdrew the delicate band of gold from his pocket. “Your hand?”
She flushed and remembered what it was like to be a young innocent girl, looking at the world around her as one big, gigantic adventure.
And then she looked down at the ring in Bertie’s hand and smiled. All of that great big world had nothing on that delicate band of gold pinched between Bertie’s tanned fingers.
“Oh, Bertie. Do you know how much I love you?”
She saw him straighten up the slightest bit, his shoulders drawing back and making his chest broader by an inch or two.
“Why, Dolly Owens,” his voice was deeper than she was used to, and the look in his eyes were darker by half but it wasn’t malice in his eyes, it was something wonderous, “it can’t be half as much as I love you.”
“Don’t you tease me, Mr. Givens. You should know better than to doubt my love.” She lifted her chin and walked toward him, holding out her hand with her palm facing the ground. “Now, give me back my ring.”
When he took her hand, she felt his fingers tighten around hers a moment and the gentle sweep of his thumb over the back of her hand.
She could almost feel the tightness in his throat as he swallowed and raised the ring to set it against the tip of her finger.
He sucked in ragged breath as he spoke. “I set this ring on your finger three months back, Dollie-mine, and you promised that you’d come and live with me and be my wife when you were ready to leave the Siren.”
She nodded at him. “I made that promise.”
“When you sent me this letter,” with his free hand he reached into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a well-worn piece of paper, “I thought I was dreaming when I read it, so I read it enough times that it almost fell apart where it was folded. So, if you’re ready to come and live with me, be the woman of my home as well as my heart, well... I’ve already loved you every moment of every day since the first moment I saw you. So come and let me show you how much you’ve missed.”
As he slid the ring onto her finger and set it back where it belonged, she sighed and whispered his name. “You better get ready for me to show you how much I’ve missed you too, Bertie. I do love you more than I can say.”
She lifted her hand and it caught the light from the window. “Now, Mister Givens, come and take my bag and give me your arm so that we can go home.”
He picked up her bag, weighing it with a shake. “This all you’re taking?”
Shrugging she wrapped her arm around his and leaned into his shoulder. “I’ve no need for gowns where we’re going, Bertie. The only audience I’ll need after this is you. Now, let’s head out before people know what we’re about.”
He nudged the door open with his elbow and held it open for her to walk through first. When they started toward the stairs, his smile held a hint of humor. “Don’t let this go to your head, Dollie Givens. You won’t always have the final say.”
“So you say, Bernie Givens. So you say.” As they reached the bottom of the stairs they walked out onto the deck and into the sun. “This is the beginning of the best part of my life, Bertie.”
She felt his lips gently brush her cheek.
“Our life, my love.”
Dollie sighed with pliant joy. “Yes, ours.”
Andrew could feel something in the air, like the odd sensation that sang through the air right before a thunderstorm.
But there on the river, they didn’t have to worry about monstrous waves or beasts of the deep. Disturbances could come as easily from tension as it could from a natural danger on the river.
Setting his violin aside, gently resting the neck over his pillow, Andrew stood and made his way to the door. He couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that something was amiss.
He’d been aboard the Siren long enough to know where to find the Captain at almost any moment of the day. He had his places to haunt like any other captain and when Captain Abraham needed his space to think, he liked to stand just outside the wheelhouse and lift his face into the wind.
As he neared the top of the stairs, he stopped short. He could hear Eula Abraham upbraiding her husband, not a unique situation aboard the Siren.
Knowing that interrupting the captain’s wife wouldn’t bode well for either of them, Andrew remained on the stairs, ignoring the scene developing less than ten feet away.
A few moments later, the only indication he had that the captain’s wife was done was the final cessation of her strident volley of words.
Lifting his gaze from the floor, Andrew watched the captain’s wife walk away with a certain purpose to her stride. She wasn’t a woman that wasted her energy. She went from one point to the other and did what she needed to do. With one exception. He did notice that when she went to shop, she took most of the day. For that one activity she could take her time.
But Eula Abraham wasn’t his concern.
The captain was hunched over the railing staring into the darkening waters that swept past the boat. The look on his face gave Andrew reason to worry for the man.
When the captain turned his gaze
toward Andrew, his worry went beyond concern.
The captain looked defeated.
“Sir?”
Andrew watched as the captain straightened.
It took quite a bit of effort and he had a feeling that for each inch of his spine that he straightened into a long line took a measure of energy from the man.
“Sir, is something wrong?”
Blowing out a heavy breath, the older man seemed to lose even more of his energy. “What isn’t wrong, Andrew?”
When the captain reached out a hand and set it on his shoulder it wasn’t just as a boss to his employee, he felt like a friend.
“We’ve quite a hurdle to travel o’er,” his smile was weak. “And I’m not sure it is possible to fix this mess that we’re in.”
“What is it?”
For a moment the man seemed embarrassed. A little hesitant to answer the question. “It's about our show tonight. About Dollie Owens.”
"Is something wrong with Miss Owens, sir? Is she ill?”
Andrew’s assumption was quickly countered.
“No, son, not ill. At least... not from what I understand. She left.” Shaking his head, the captain paced a short length of the walkway. “When she failed to meet Edmund for her warm up an hour ago, he went to find her and she was gone.” Again, the man seemed to deflate, like a hot-air balloon with no fire left. “Strangely enough, she left all of her costumes.”
“She left her costumes?” Andrew had to admit it was confusing for him. “I wonder why?”
The captain made a vague gesture with his hand as if he was trying to conjure an answer from thin air. “I have no idea. Eula has her own thoughts on the matter though.” Shaking his head, the captain mumbled under his breath. “And I’m sure I’ll be hearing all of them over and over for an age.”
