by Blake Pierce
Another silence fell.
He’s not impressed, she thought.
At the same time she wondered—why should he be? Those job titles—hostess and social director—didn’t mean a thing to him.
“Where does this leave us?” Ian asked.
London was gasping as she rushed through the concourse toward her departure gate.
“Ian, I’m … I’m afraid I’m just not ready for your—‘merger.’ I’m not saying I’ll feel that way forever. Maybe after a couple more years of—”
“The deal is off,” Ian interrupted.
Huh? London almost said aloud.
“I gave you my best offer,” Ian added. “Now that offer is withdrawn. I’m afraid this matter is no longer up for negotiation.”
London was dumbfounded.
Up for negotiation?
She certainly hadn’t made that assumption …
Or did I?
Maybe she’d been too vague. Maybe he’d thought she was only stalling.
Or bargaining.
Meanwhile, Ian sounded almost spookily businesslike, and yet somehow very polite at the same time.
“I hope you understand, London. It’s just that I’m a very busy man and I’m not sitting still. The train has left the station, so to speak—and you’ve missed it. I wish you the best, though, and I’ll harbor no hard feelings.”
“I—I’m glad to hear that,” London said.
“I hope you don’t regret this decision,” Ian added. “Forgive me for saying so, but I don’t think it sounds especially wise. But then, it’s your choice, not mine. And I wish you good travels—although Hungary sounds like a very depressing place to me.”
“Thank you for … understanding,” London said.
They both said goodbye and ended the call.
London suddenly found herself breathing easier, as if some sort of load had been lifted. She felt unexpectedly relieved.
Although she’d told Ian that her choice might not be permanent, she realized now that she really couldn’t ever live her sister’s life, much less with someone as … it took a moment for the right word to come to her.
Someone as managerial as Ian.
It was hard to imagine that, just this morning, she’d still been struggling with whether to accept Ian’s “merger.”
In fact, maybe if Jeremy Lapham had actually fired her instead of offering her such a tantalizing job, she and Tia might be making wedding plans at this very moment.
A narrow escape, she realized as she showed her boarding pass to the attendant at the flight gate, then joined the line of passengers to board the plane.
*
London’s eyes snapped open at the sound of the pilot’s voice.
“We have just arrived at the Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport, named for the virtuoso pianist, conductor, organist, and composer, Franz Liszt …”
She smiled as the same announcement was repeated in French, German, Italian, and of course Hungarian. It felt wonderful to wake up to the sounds of all those languages.
I’m really in Europe again, she realized.
It was now just after eight in the morning here in Budapest, although London knew that her body would keep trying to convince her that it was hours earlier. But as a seasoned traveler, she had tricks for diminishing jetlag from her transatlantic trip. For one thing, she’d slept as much as she possibly could during the eight-and-a-half-hour flight. At the moment she felt quite refreshed.
She got up from her seat and opened the luggage compartment and took down her carry-on bags, then squeezed her way off the plane with the other passengers. She felt exhilarated even by the crush of bodies as she made her way toward the immigration desks and presented the form she’d filled out during the flight.
“Enjoy your stay in Budapest,” the smiling immigration official said to her in accented English.
London summoned up the courage to try a Hungarian word.
“Köszönöm,” she replied, smiling back at him.
His amused nod told her that she might not have pronounced “thanks” perfectly, but that he appreciated the effort.
Then she went to the baggage pickup area, where her bags quickly arrived on the carousel. Since she had no goods to declare, she didn’t have to make a stop at customs. A porter put her bags onto a handcart, and she followed him into the main terminal.
She gasped aloud as the vast, modern “Sky Court” spread all around her with its soaring ceiling and overhanging gallery and newspaper and gift stalls.
London suddenly felt freer than she had in a long time. She took special delight in the crowds of people darting about everywhere, some of them speaking languages of which she didn’t know a single word. It was chaotic, certainly—but it was the kind of chaos that suited her, nothing like the chaos of her sister’s home.
She followed the porter outside, where he quickly flagged down a little yellow cab and loaded her bags into its trunk.
The driver drove her into the heart of the part of the city known as Pest, where shiny glass office buildings gradually gave way to older brick buildings, and the city revealed more and more of its ancient character.
Finally, London Rose gasped with delight as the little yellow cab turned onto Soroksári Road. A familiar melody lilted through her mind—“The Blue Danube.”
The magnificent river had just come fully into view, and the breathtaking scene proved that the famous waltz was aptly titled. The Danube was a luscious shade of blue in the morning light, and it was flanked on either side by one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
Budapest was spread out around her like some sort of half-forgotten dream. The grand sights of this ancient city fairly shimmered with her pleasant memories of wide brick buildings, domes and towers, parks, shops, and street performers.
London smiled at what Ian had said to her before her departure.
“Hungary sounds like a very depressing place to me.”
She wondered where on earth he had gotten such an idea. There was nothing the least bit depressing about this gorgeous city.
She rolled down the cab window and breathed the fresh, clean air. It was promising to be a cool, lovely day, and Budapest sparkled all around her, truly living up to its nickname, the “Pearl of the Danube.”
And now here she was on a riverfront drive, looking out her taxi window at the lovely Danube with its beautiful bridges. All kinds of boats were docked along the waterfront, ranging from private yachts to long, low river tour ships, some of which could hold nearly two hundred passengers. Across the river was the part of the city known as Buda, hilly and wooded with old, red-roofed buildings.
This seemed like a good time to give her small Hungarian vocabulary another bit of exercise.
“I haven’t been to Budapest in a while,” she said to the driver in Hungarian.
“When was your last visit?” the driver asked, sounding pleased that a foreigner was going to the trouble to speak with him in his own language.
“It’s hard to say,” London said as the years seemed to gape behind her. “Not since the last century, I guess.”
The driver chuckled.
“That narrows it down to about a hundred years,” he said.
London chuckled as well.
“Well then, I guess it was sometime during the 1990s,” she said.
“That’s not as long ago as it sounds. And Budapest never changes much, at least not in its heart.”
The driver pointed to a large modern building near the riverbank. It had enormous windows fronted by straight, simple columns and angular shapes on the roof.
“You wouldn’t have seen that building before,” he said. “It’s the Müpa Budapest, a cultural center that opened in 2005.”
As they drove past the Müpa, the driver pointed to another large, eccentrically shaped building with a rounded entrance. “And that’s the Hungarian National Theatre. It opened in 2002. Odd to look at, isn’t it? At least many people who live here think so.”
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The dates made London feel just a little queasy.
Has it really been that long since I was here? she thought.
She suddenly felt older than she usually thought of herself as being. But at least she was still able to ask some questions in Hungarian—and even better, she could understand most of the replies.
And she could see that much of the city really hadn’t changed. Most of it was too rooted and monumental to ever give way to time. Across the river she could see the Citadella, a mighty stone fortress that had been built on that hilltop in the nineteenth century. Farther along the opposite bank was the breathtaking Buda Castle, more than a mile across with a magnificent dome rising in its center. It loomed ever larger as they continued along the riverfront.
The sight of the castle gave her a pang as she remembered visiting it with her parents when she’d been just a little girl. Her mom and dad had taken her there for several days on end to explore the endless wonders of the castle—its galleries, crown jewels, sculptures, fountains, and historical rooms.
It seems like just yesterday, she thought.
But many years had passed, and for a moment London felt sharply how much she missed her mother. She refused to let herself slip into a state of melancholy, though. There were simply too many wonderful things to see.
Just beyond the castle, the massive Szécheny Chain Bridge stretched over the Danube. London knew that the historic bridge had been built in 1849 to bring together three cities—Buda, Pest, and Obuda—into the single city of Budapest.
The driver slowed as they neared the bridge. London felt a tingle of excitement as she spotted the name Nachtmusik on the hull of a ship docked there.
There it is! she realized.
The boat was sleek and somewhat smaller than the other cruise-line riverboats docked along the bank, but it was built in the same low, elongated style. Like the others, it was some twenty yards out on the water, and a long, canopied gangway connected it to the stone embankment.
The driver parked the cab, got London’s luggage out of the trunk, and set it down at the end of the gangway. London paid him and thanked him, then stood amid her suitcases staring at the boat as he drove away.
Such a cozy little vessel was a startling sight after years of having worked on massive ocean-going cruise ships that could hold literally thousands of passengers. As much as she’d always loved her work, she’d grown tired of the sheer vastness of those larger ships.
She immediately felt a burst of affection for this sleek, friendly-looking vessel. It was going to be her new home for the near future, and she felt good about that.
Just as London stepped toward the gangway, she heard a voice call out from the other end of the gangway.
“London Rose! As I live and breathe!”
London laughed with delight as she recognized the Bronx accent that had reached her across the water. The tall blond woman dashing across the gangway toward her was her old friend Elsie Sloan.
“Elsie!” London cried. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing! The last I heard you were cruising the Caribbean.”
“And the last I heard, you were sailing all around Eastern Asia.”
“Well, times change.”
“They do at that,” London said, struck by how true those words seemed right at the moment. As they hugged and greeted each other, London realized that Elsie hadn’t actually changed since they’d worked a year and a half together on a ship along the coast of Australia. They’d been inseparable workmates for several years until they’d been separated geographically by tour assignments.
Elsie’s ruddy complexion still almost rivaled the bleached brightness of her hair, and both contrasted sharply with the familiar Epoch World Cruise Lines uniform—dark blue slacks with a blouse and vest.
A deckhand trotted after Elsie down the gangway, and Elsie told him to take London’s bags to stateroom 110. He piled them onto a handcart and scurried back to the ship with them.
Elsie said, “I didn’t believe it when the concierge told me you’d be arriving this morning to work on this cruise. But I kept a sharp lookout, and here you are! I insisted on being the first person to greet you and show you around the good ship Nachtmusik, so come on, away we go! You’ll love it, I’m sure.”
“We’ve got a lot of catching up to do,” London said, as they walked together along the gangway.
“I’ll say,” Elsie said. Then she added with a wink, “But I can tell by your radiant expression that you’ve been having a wild and exciting love life lately.”
“Not exactly,” London said. “But a guy did propose to me the night before last.”
“A rich guy?”
“Well, stable, at least.”
“You said no, I take it. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
“That’s right.”
Elsie let out an uncharacteristically anxious sigh.
“Well, you know me—I’m not one for settling down. Like you, I enjoy a life of freedom and adventure. Even so, I hope you didn’t make a mistake.”
“What do you mean?” London asked.
“I’m sure you’ve heard that Epoch World Cruise Lines is in financial trouble. From what I’ve heard, European river cruises are the company’s last resort. And this Danube trip will be its first cruise. If it doesn’t go well …”
Elsie’s voice faded away, but London sensed she knew what she was leaving unsaid. She remembered how Jeremy Lapham had assured her during their conference that Epoch World wasn’t about to go “belly-up,” and there was “plenty of life” in the company.
But what else did I expect him to say?
He’d been trying to sell her on a new job, after all.
Besides, he’d also said, “There’s a lot at stake in this new venture.”
No doubt the whole future of Epoch World was hanging on this first European tour—and on London and Elsie and the rest of the crew doing their very best at their jobs.
“What’s your job here on the Nachtmusik?” London asked.
“Bartender. In the main lounge. And you? Nobody’s told me yet.”
“Social director,” London said.
Elsie’s eyes widened.
“Social director! Oh, dear. So it’s you …”
Her voice faded away.
“Is there going to be a problem?” London asked.
“I hope not,” Elsie said with a shrug. “I’ll tell you about it when we get you settled in.”
London felt her first pang of unease since she’d arrived in Budapest.
As excited as she was about this new job, she sensed that she might be in for some rough going.
There could be trouble in paradise, she thought.
CHAPTER FIVE
London and Elsie followed the gangway into the reception area, which looked like the lobby of a small but luxurious hotel.
“We’re on the Menuetto deck,” Elsie said as London signed her name in the register. “The decks are named after the movements in Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.”
London felt a slight jolt at the mention of the piece her mother had played so often when she’d been little.
Better get used to hearing about it, she thought.
The ship was named after that piece, after all.
“We’ll start at the top and work our way down,” Elsie said as they stepped into an elevator.
The elevator took them up one floor to the ship’s top deck—the Rondo deck, Elsie said it was called. It was one huge sun deck with lounging chairs spread out around a small plunge pool. The view took London’s breath all over again, and she turned around to take it all in. It was the best view of the city she’d gotten so far.
Elsie led London toward the front of the ship, where the glass-enclosed bridge towered over everything else.
Elsie waved to the bridge and called out.
“Yoo-hoo! Oh, Captain Hays!”
A portly, middle-aged man with a walrus-style mustache poked his head out
the door. He appeared to have been conferring with some of his staff.
“Yes?” he said.
“I’ve brought our newest crew member to see you,” Elsie called. “This is our social director, London Rose. London, this is our intrepid captain, Spencer Hays.”
The captain’s eyebrows wiggled a bit flirtatiously.
“‘London Rose,’ is it?” he said in a pronounced English accent. “So glad you could make it. A lovely name for a lovely lady. Charmed, I’m sure.”
London said, “I’m honored to be aboard, Captain Hays.”
“Jolly good!” the captain said. “We’ll have more time to get to know each other during the voyage. I’ll do everything in my power to make your stay here a happy one.”
He ducked back inside the bridge to continue conferring with his staff.
“Come on, let’s take the stairs,” Elsie said.
London followed Elsie down spiraling steps back to the Menuetto deck. They took a quick look at the lounge in the bow of the ship, which had plush furniture and huge windows with a wonderful view of the river. A familiar melody wafted through the lounge speakers. Elsie couldn’t name the piece, but she was sure that it was by Mozart.
“This is the Amadeus Lounge,” Elsie told her. “I’m the chief bartender here,” she added proudly. “I’ve got a staff of four—or is it five? Anyway, it’ll be enough to make me drunk with power. I’m really going to enjoy bossing people around.”
“I’m sure you will,” London replied with a grin.
They passed back through the reception area into a passageway lined with staterooms. Pointing to the signs on the stateroom doors, Elsie said, “You can see we’ve got a theme for the higher-class rooms and suites—music of the Danube.”
London saw that the rooms had names on them: Liszt, Haydn, Schubert, and other composers of the Danube region. Elsie used a keycard to open the “Beethoven” grand suite. London immediately heard a lovely piano tune that she recognized from childhood—“Für Elise,” she thought it was.
The suite was large and luxurious, with a separate seating area and a balcony. It was decorated with hints of early nineteenth-century Vienna, including pages from music scores.
