Brightly Burning(45)
I wish you were here. Things are changing quickly, and I have no one to talk to.
Love,
Stella
My pupil yawned through most of her lessons the following day, her mood as sour as mine.
“He didn’t even bring me a present,” Jessa complained, abandoning a difficult math set. “Hugo always brings me something, but he was too distracted by those stupid ladies.”
“I’m sure he has something for you,” I reassured her, despite my doubts. Hugo had returned to this ship with the singular purpose of marrying Bianca, so I didn’t trust him to remember gifts. “We’ll see what happens tonight in the drawing room.” We both made faces. I’d received the order shortly after breakfast that we were to return for another evening of humiliation and boredom.
My comms pinged with an incoming hail from Officer Xiao. “Stella, I’m sorry to bother you during lessons, but please find a sensible stopping point and come see me on the bridge.” Her tone lacked her usual underpinnings of warmth. I must have been in trouble for mouthing off to Hugo. I found a grim-faced Xiao waiting for me, but what set my heart pumping and anxiety creeping up my spine was another look I knew well: pity.
“Stella, I’ll need you to go to your quarters and pack up your things.”
My breakfast threatened to return up my throat, but I pushed it down, maintaining a stoic expression as best I could.
“You’ll be moving down into the crew quarters with the Ingram staff temporarily.” Xiao flashed me an uncomfortable smile. “For the duration of their stay, that is.” Did she know the “duration of their stay” was likely to be forever? I couldn’t read her.
“May I ask why?” I needed to know if I was being punished for my insolence with Hugo.
Xiao hesitated. “Two of the Ingram cousins were doubling up, and when it came to Miss Bianca Ingram’s attention that you had a room right next to the captain’s . . . she suggested she move into your room so that her cousins might be made more comfortable.”
Bianca. Of course.
“I’ll meet you at your quarters in twenty minutes to help you move,” Xiao said, dismissing me. I didn’t understand what she would possibly need to help me with until I took inventory of my belongings. When I’d come to the Rochester, I’d been able to fit all my worldly possessions into a single bag. Now as I extracted the contents of my storage unit and my clothing drawer and surveyed them on my bed, I realized I owned far more than I could carry.
Xiao was prompt, and without a word folded several dresses over one arm and took up two pairs of shoes with her free hands. I grabbed the remaining clothes, Hugo’s Jungle Book, and my drawing tab. I cast a longing look at my desk tab, which was fixed and could not be moved.
“Don’t worry. We’ll have Rori add a profile lock to it so the next occupant can’t root around in your files. I’ll set it up so you can check for messages on the bridge in the meantime.”
We moved down to the crew quarters on the lower deck without talking, Xiao respecting my need for the head space to process it all. For my part, I was concerned if I tried to talk, I might cry. I felt stupid, vain at the thought of it—?crying over having to share a room again—?but it was more the why than the what that affected me. Someone with everything had gone out of her way to take the one space that was mine. Bianca was putting me in my place, and a bitterness swelled up inside me that I was determined would not spill out as tears.
“Stella, what are you doing here?” Preity jumped down from her bunk to greet us. At least I wouldn’t be sharing with strangers.
“Miss Ainsley will be sharing space with you until the conclusion of your visit,” Xiao informed her, taking it upon herself to locate an unoccupied locker and transferring my clothes into it. After that, she didn’t stay, bidding me farewell with a terse nod of her head, her feelings on the situation once again unspoken yet abundantly clear. She did not like this any more than I did.
Once she was gone, Preity pounced. “It was Bianca, wasn’t it?”
“How did you know?”
“Lizzy said she was all in a huff over it this morning, how you had such a nice room, and next to the captain’s, no less. It doesn’t surprise me one bit she schemed to get you out of there. Anyway, I’m sorry you have to slum it down here with us.”
“This is hardly slumming it,” I said, determined to remain good-natured and not to put myself on wrong footing with my new roommate by acting like I was above this, or her. “They’re the nicest bunk quarters I’ve ever seen.”
“You and me both,” Preity said. “You can go on the other top bunk.” She pointed to the one opposite hers, which seemed to be operating as a second closet, clothes strewn all over it. “Just move that stuff. Lizzy’s been using it as storage.” Knowing it wouldn’t earn me a friend later, I did so, transferring Lizzy’s things to her bed below, tucking my drawing tab under the pillow.
I excused myself to get back to lessons with Jessa, though not before Preity invited me to hang out with the Ingram crew later that evening. It seemed now that I had been demoted in my quarters, I might be accepted by the group. A silver lining. I warned her I might not make it that evening on account of being ordered to the drawing room again, which drew me a look of pity and words of luck from her. I would need it.