Faking It(13)

Misty

Having been the final steward on duty last night, I was excused the usual early morning rush to get breakfast prepared. Not that there was ever that much urgency on charter mornings. Often guests wouldn’t appear before ten, usually with a hangover, which left the cabin crew plenty of time to clean up from the night before, re-stock the bars, take care of any produce orders that Chef Tarquin needed, while he was on standby with eggs, bacon, pancakes, fruit, and so on, which he would prepare to order.

Although I wasn’t strictly on duty, I was in the galley anyway. I couldn’t relax. I felt like I’d been awake all night, trying to decide if I’d kissed Tyler to drag him further into my web, or because I wanted to. I guess I must have drifted off eventually because I woke and got up to run with Tanya and Brett as usual. But I knew that lying in my bunk right now was just going to give me more time to think, which was something I was really trying to avoid at the moment. So I washed, ironed, and folded all the laundry, as Tanya and Sarah got ready for the guests to appear, and I sat, keeping out of the way, sipping on a delicious fruit smoothie Tarquin had made for me. The clock just ticked past nine-fifteen when Sarah descended the galley steps.

“Paul and Veronique are up!” she announced, “Apparently, Paul was awake to see you guys running at dawn.”

“Typical sporty-type,” groaned Tarquin, “Horribly disciplined and annoyingly fit. It’s enough to make one physically ill.”

I giggled. Tarquin’s posh London accent only served to highlight his overtly homosexual mannerisms, but he was one of the main reasons all the girls felt so happy and cared for when they spent time in the galley. He was our confidant, our critic, and our gay best friend whenever we needed him to be. Even Azure, the small, quiet second deckhand, spent more time in the galley than the crew lounge. That place was much more of a haven for testosterone and was almost always either populated by deckhands Brett and Mike, Adam the engineer, bosun Keith, or all four of them, shouting, high-fiving, and playing Xbox in their downtime.

“They want egg-white omelets with steamed mushrooms and spinach, plus fruit smoothies. Chef’s choice of ingredients.”

“I get to choose what goes in their smoothies? Oh, joy!” Tarquin clapped his hands together in mock delight. “Hmm, is spaghetti a fruit, I wonder…?”

He made me laugh again. “I think we could have guessed they would have ordered that,” I smiled.

“Wow, check out Miss Third Stew over here,” teased Tarquin as he dropped some fresh blueberries into his blender. “What makes you think you know so much?”

“Paul is a professional motorcycle racer, Veronique’s a catwalk model,” I pointed out. “They’re both going to avoid fat and refined sugar as much as possible. Plus, they would be up earlier because they are both used to partying all night and still making early starts. It’s the nature of their businesses.”

“Never knew you had such a deductive and analytical mind,” said Sarah, without a hint of cattiness. “Go on, then, who will we see next?”

I thought for a moment. This was an odd skill I’d picked up over the years. It was pretty useless but I liked it when I was right. “Tyler, I reckon,” I predicted, “and soon.”

“Your hero boyfriend, you mean,” Tarquin tried to torment me, adding some mangos to his mix.

“Oh, will you shut up?” I squealed at him. He wouldn’t let Tyler’s courageous actions go so, in Tarquin’s mind, we were now some sort of prince charming and damsel in distress.

“Oh, you know you love it! Anyway, go on.”

“Tyler will be out soon, by himself. Ada will make an entrance later and it’ll be a proper entrance. She loves to command a room’s attention. Tyler will order coffee but nothing to eat until Henry joins him, which won’t be long after. Guaranteed those two have breakfast at least six days a week together.” I was sounding confident and the other two were more than impressed with her predictions. “Henry’s girlfriend…”

“Bella,” reminded Sarah over the noise of Tarquin blending up the smoothies.

“Right. We won’t see her after the fight they had last night. She’s too young and spoilt. Henry will order her banana pancakes but she won’t show up to eat them. He’ll send them to her room but she’ll send them back.”

“So, I still have to make them?” asked Tarquin.

“Afraid so,” I nodded.

“Bollocks.”

“At the same time, Tyler will have ham, sausage, and scrambled eggs, Henry will have waffles. Both will have orange juice,” I continued.

Tarquin shook his head at Tanya, pouring the blended fruit cocktail into two tall glasses. “And what of our hip-hop loving guests? D Cash and his two porn-star playmates”

“Ruby and Britney? We won’t see any of them until lunch is ready.”

Adam strolled into the galley just as Tarquin handed Sarah the tray with the glasses on. “Here you are, darling, tell them their omelets will be up in a trice.”

As Sarah headed back up, Adam leaned in closer to me. I hadn’t had a chance to speak to him since our light flirtation the night before the charter. “And how have you been?” he whispered to me with a winning smile.

“Apart from falling overboard and being hopelessly embarrassed? Just fine, thanks,” I smiled back. Adam was really nice. He was good-looking, honest, and capable of hilarious moments of self-deprecating humor, but I just couldn’t let myself get involved with anyone right now.