Claire
Claire Bennett had spent eighteen years working in hotels, which apparently did not qualify her to find the employee entrance to a cruise ship.
She stood outside the PortMiami terminal with two suitcases, a carry-on, and an email she had now read six times. CREW ARRIVAL was right there at the top, along with her reporting time, a terminal number, and several paragraphs of instructions that had seemed perfectly adequate back in Indiana. What the email didn’t explain was why every sign in front of her pointed toward a vacation.
Families rolled suitcases toward the passenger entrance. A couple in matching Everline T-shirts took turns photographing each other with Passage behind them. Claire dragged herself and her luggage out of the flow of traffic and looked up.
She had watched the videos. She had studied the deck plans and zoomed in on enough photographs to feel she knew the ship the way she had known the Bellweather. This, it turned out, was a mistake. The Bellweather would have fit inside the stretch of hull in front of her, with room left over for the neighbors.
“Okay,” she said quietly. “Where do they keep the employees?”
A port worker in a reflective vest slowed down. “Joining the ship?”
“Is it that obvious?”
He glanced at her luggage. “Little bit.” He grinned and pointed to the far side of the terminal, where a much less glamorous door sat half hidden behind a row of shuttle vans. “Welcome aboard. Almost.”
“Thank you.”
She had already said her goodbyes. Samantha had hugged her hard enough that Claire had needed to mention breathing, and Mike had sent a thumbs up, which from Mike was practically a speech. Nobody was left on the other side of that terminal to wave to, so she picked up her bags and kept walking.
Crew processing moved like a conveyor belt. A security officer checked her passport, someone matched her name against a list, and someone else handed her a badge and a form to sign. Everyone said welcome aboard without breaking stride, which was nice, though nobody paused long enough for her to say thank you. By the time she stepped onto Passage, two hours had gone, and she had been told to report to her cabin, to Guest Services, and to someone from crew orientation. She wasn’t sure in which order.
“Claire Bennett?”
A young woman in an Everline uniform was waiting just inside the door, wearing more earrings than any dress code could have intended.
“That’s me.”
“Sophie Laurent. Destination Services.” She pronounced Laurent in a way Claire knew she should not attempt yet. “I’m your new crew buddy.”
“My what?”
“Buddy. They assign one when you join.”
Claire looked at her. “Is that standard, or did someone read my file and decide I needed supervision?”
Sophie laughed. “Standard. But it’s still early.”
“Good. I’d hate to peak on my first day.”
Sophie reached for the nearest suitcase.
“I’ve got it.”
“I know. I also have a hand.”
Claire hesitated, then let go.
“Cabin first,” Sophie said, wheeling it down the corridor. “Nobody should meet Guest Services with two suitcases. And this part of the ship won’t look like the pictures. You’re in Working Passage now.”
The corridor was bright and clean and built for use. Crew moved past in both directions, and somewhere a radio crackled out a conversation Claire couldn’t follow.
“So this is backstage.”
“Basically. Except backstage is also where you live.”
The cabin was at the end of a row of identical doors. This one stuck. Sophie said something short in French and opened it with her hip, and Claire stood in the doorway long enough to wonder how two adult women and five months’ worth of belongings were supposed to share it without one of them eventually being stored vertically. The lower bunk was buried under someone else’s life. A yellow note was stuck to the pillow on the upper one.
Bottom drawer is yours. Don’t wake me for anything short of fire. —T
“Tessa,” Sophie said. “Reprise production. Nights, mostly.”
“Is she always this warm?”
“She’s warmer in person. Barely.”
On the way back, Sophie stopped at an intersection beside a large red emergency cabinet bolted to the wall. “Remember this spot. Guest Services is that way. Crew cabins are back the other way. If you get completely turned around tomorrow, find this.”
Claire studied it. “My navigational strategy is a red box?”
“For now.”
“I can work with that.”
They went through one more door, and the ship changed. The carpet went soft under her shoes, the light turned warm, and passengers crossed the Grand Atrium with drinks in their hands beneath a staircase she had memorized from photographs. Claire looked back. From this side, the door they had just come through was a flat panel painted to match the wall, and a man in a flowered shirt was leaning against it to read his phone.
“That takes a minute,” Sophie said.
“I think it’s going to take several.”
It was a little after three, and the bar off the atrium was already two deep with people who had decided sailaway began there.
“That’s BB.”
“BB?”
“The Bar Between.”
Claire waited. Sophie kept walking.
“Between what?”
“You’ll hear several theories.”
Behind the bar, a dark haired bartender was telling a couple something that made the woman laugh. A passing guest called, “Hi, Mateo!” and he raised two fingers without looking up.
“Everybody knows Mateo,” Sophie said.
As they passed, he glanced over. “New crew?”
“Is it the badge or the face?” Claire asked.
“First day face.” He grinned. “You’ll lose it soon enough.”
Claire laughed, and Sophie steered her toward Guest Services before she could think of a reply.
Ethan Kim was twenty-seven, had worked for Everline for four years, and knew more about Claire’s new job than Claire did. She learned the first two facts during introductions. The third took six minutes.
“This part will probably feel familiar,” he said, nodding at the guest counter.
“Very.”
“Good. This part won’t.” He turned to the computer. “Full disclosure, I’ve never trained anyone with eighteen years of experience. Mostly I train people who’ve never met a guest. If I explain something you already know, tell me.”
Eighteen years ago, Ethan had been in the fourth grade. Claire judged this was not the moment to mention it.
“Absolutely.”
“You said that very politely.”
“I’m a very polite person.”
“That’s what worries me.”
Claire laughed.
A woman in a sun hat reached the counter before he could go on. Her suitcases hadn’t arrived, her husband had announced he would be in the pool by four, and his swim trunks were in one of them.
“Congratulations on boarding,” Ethan said, and turned the monitor so she could see the baggage queue. “Bags are screened first, then delivered deck by deck. Yours should be at your door sometime this evening. If they aren’t by the end of dinner, call us and we’ll chase them down.”
“And the trunks?”
“I’m sorry about the wait. In the meantime, I hear sailaway has already started at the bar around the corner.”
She left less worried and a little resigned, which Claire gathered was the standard result.
“You didn’t give her a time,” Claire said.
“I don’t have one. I have a window and an extension.”
“At the Bellweather, I’d have carried them up myself.”
“At the Bellweather, nobody screens the luggage first.” He said it kindly. “Also, you’d get lost.”
“I have a system.”
“Is it a red box?” He grinned. “It works for about a day.”
He took her through the screens until her eyes crossed, including a color coded map of who owned what, drawn by someone with strong feelings about departments. Claire absorbed perhaps a third of it and nodded in all the right places, a skill she had perfected in a great many budget meetings. When the line finally thinned, he checked the time and switched off the monitor.
“Seven tomorrow, right here. Nobody’s coming to get you.”
“I’ll find it.”
“I know you will.” He smiled. “And if you don’t, there’s always the red box.”
It was nearly seven when Sophie came to collect her, and they crossed the atrium to the panel in the wall that was painted to look like nothing. A man with a paper umbrella in his drink was studying it the way people study modern art.
“Tap and pull,” Sophie said, nodding at the badge reader.
Claire tapped. The light turned green, which was the most validated she had felt all day. Sophie slipped through, the man drifted closer, and her hotel reflexes did what they had been trained to do.
“After you,” Claire said, holding the door.
“Oh, thank you.” He beamed. “I’ve been wondering about this door since lunch.”
He stepped through and stopped. Beyond him lay a long, windowless corridor of fire hoses, stacked cartons, and a crew member mopping with great concentration.
“Huh,” he said. “It’s a hallway.”
Sophie turned, took in the umbrella, the door, and Claire’s hand on it, and understood everything in about a second and a half.
“Sir! You found our secret passage.” She said it as if he’d won something. “It’s a very good hallway, but the party’s the other way. The glass elevators will take you right to it.”
“There’s a party?”
“There is always a party.”
She turned him by the elbow, and he wandered back toward the atrium, umbrella first. “Thanks for the tour,” he called to Claire.
She held the door for him on the way out, because apparently she couldn’t stop. Eighteen years of holding doors, and the first one she had held on Passage had sent a guest backstage.
“Does that happen a lot?” she asked as it clicked shut behind them.
“To everyone, eventually. Usually by day two.”
“I’m ahead of schedule.”
“Overachiever,” Sophie said. “I like it.”
They passed the red cabinet, and Claire counted the turns out loud and got two of them wrong. At the cabin, Sophie promised to message later and left Claire in the doorway with her suitcases and the roommate now sitting on the lower bunk, scrolling her phone.
“You’re Claire.”
“You’re the note.”
“Did you find the drawer?”
“I found the drawer. I haven’t used the drawer.”
Tessa said nothing, which seemed deliberate. “I’m sleeping when you’re up, and up when you’re sleeping. If you’re naturally cheerful in the morning, I’d rather not know.”
“I raised a daughter. I know how to be quiet around someone sleeping.”
Tessa held out a hand, as though they were signing something. “Excellent. We may survive.”
Claire shook it.
Tessa left for Reprise in black jeans with a belt full of tools Claire couldn’t name, and the door clicked shut behind her.
Then, for the first time since she’d reached the port, nobody was waiting for her to go anywhere.
Claire sat on the edge of the bed. Five months, and she could touch both walls from where she sat. Beneath her feet, something low and steady was humming, and it took her a moment to understand that Passage had left Miami at some point while she was learning about luggage. She hadn’t seen it go.
Her phone buzzed.
Samantha: You alive?
Technically.
Three dots appeared almost immediately.
Do you hate it?
Claire typed It’s fine, looked at it, and deleted it. Samantha could read fine through any distance. She tried again.
Ask me tomorrow.
She set the phone face down, unzipped the first suitcase on the only open patch of floor, and pulled out the bottom drawer. It was empty and, as promised, hers.
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