Valerie preened at the compliment. She was wearing a shapeless but wildly stylish charcoal-gray dress made of a dull, sturdy material with a square neckline, short sleeves, a simple Empire bodice, and a long flared skirt. It had been designed by a Williamsburg wunderkind, and had cost so much money that Valerie wouldn’t tell Christine the amount, even after Christine told her how much her own dress had cost.
“Thanks so much for getting us invited,” said Valerie. “This is my friend Christine.”
“Nice to meet you. And now, we need a drink,” said Beatriz as she led them over to the bar.
“I’ll have a cosmo,” said Valerie to Alexei. Although she was aggressively au courant about almost everything else, she was endearingly un-snobbish about food and drink; Christine had always loved this about her.
“I’ll take a glass of white wine, please,” said Christine.
Alexei winked at her as if they were old friends. “I have a beautiful, very cold white Burgundy. You will not be disappointed.”
Beatriz and Valerie talked in low, fast voices, their heads together, while Christine sipped the chilled, dry, spectacularly good wine and eavesdropped. Nearby, the Disney star was saying something earnestly to the hip-hop singer. Christine remembered her name: Cynthia Perez. In real life, up close, she looked exactly the way she did in photographs, with an enormous round head like a doll’s and small, pretty features. “So I was like, ‘If you have to discuss this right this freaking minute, let’s go somewhere quiet so she doesn’t hear you.’ ”
“She was listening, right?” said Tameesha, who was tall and willowy and big-eyed, a humanoid grasshopper.
Before Christine could figure out what this conversation was about, she was flanked by two elegant black men. They were, she guessed, about her own age, in their mid-thirties. One of them wore a plum-colored velvet jacket and black checked trousers; the other was in a tuxedo. Their faces were lean and sly. They appeared to be identical twins.
“Hello,” she said to the starboard brother.
“I’m Tye Blevins,” he said. “And this is my brother James.”
Christine appreciated their courtliness, which matched their outfits. “Are you having fun on the cruise?”
“Oh, we love the mid-century era,” said James. “We’re cultural historians. Tye is a history professor at Yale. I write historical mystery thrillers. We thought it would be a lark; there’s an old word you don’t hear anymore. Our last chance to sail on the Queen Isabella. For us, it’s all about how convincing the period details are.”
“So,” said Christine. “Are you convinced by the period details?”
“We were the historical consultants for this cruise,” said James. “So we’d better be convinced. Otherwise we’re all in trouble.”
“Are you convinced, that’s a better question,” said Tye.
“I’ve been drifting around for days, feeling like I’m in a time warp,” said Christine. Her chest was warm from the wine. “Wait. You guys wrote that thing in the brochure, about the history of the ship, right?”
“Guilty as charged,” said James.
“I thought it was really interesting,” said Christine, snatching a small dark snack from a passing tray that turned out to be caviar and crème fraîche on cocktail rye. She put it into her mouth to free her hand and quickly took another one before the waiter moved away.
Valerie, hoisting her cosmo aloft, tipped her head at Christine. She was standing with the captain of the Isabella, a tall, bald, cinematically handsome white man with salt-and-pepper sideburns and broad shoulders. He looked the part so completely, white teeth and twinkling eyes and all, that Christine almost laughed aloud.
“Excuse me,” Christine said to the Blevins brothers. “My date beckons.”
“Captain Jack Carpenter,” Beatriz was saying, “this is my new friend Valerie Chapin.”
“Pleasure,” said the captain, turning to look at Christine while he shook Valerie’s hand. “Hello there.”
“This is my friend Christine Thorne,” said Valerie.
He looked Christine up and down with blatant appraisal. “Where did you come from?” His accent was midwestern.
“Maine,” said Christine. “A farm, actually.”
“Oh. What kind of farm?”
“Vegetables and chickens. It’s small. My husband and I own about twelve acres.”
“I grew up on a huge farm in Wisconsin,” he said. “We grew corn. Nothing but. It’s nice to have a little variety, don’t you think?”
Christine glanced at Valerie, who narrowed her eyes in a smirk.
“This is such a beautiful old ship,” said Valerie.
“Yes?” he said, turning away from Christine with a hint of reluctance.
“You must love being in charge of it.”
“She’s a great relic, for sure,” said the captain, smoothly refocusing his attention as if he’d hit a button on the control panel in his forehead and his internal rudders had swiveled, far below. “I hope you’re enjoying the cruise.”
Just then, a young woman in a Cabaret crew uniform approached the captain and began to speak rapidly into his ear.
“It’s a bit of a working vacation,” said Valerie to the air where the captain had been standing a second ago. She shot a grin at Christine, pretending to confess to her imaginary listener. “I’m talking to a lot of interesting people for a book I’m writing.”
“You’re a writer?” asked Tye Blevins, who had been talking until now with seeming total absorption to Cynthia Perez, but apparently with one ear cocked at their conversation. “I’m a writer too. Dry academic stuff. What are you working on?”
“It’s still early days,” said Valerie, her face instantly alight with the pleasure of discussing her work with anyone who took an interest in it. “I’m going for a portrait of workers at the lowest levels of various industries, the people on the ground who keep things running. Who are they, what are their experiences.”
Tye’s eyes were lasers. “You’re interviewing the staff on board?”
“Oh God no,” said Valerie, waving the question away with breezy firmness. “I’m on vacation.”
“Right,” said Tye. “I get it.”
“Hello, everyone,” called Kimmi, the cruise director. She raised a glass of champagne to the room at large. “Welcome. We have a special group tonight, and it’s good to see you all getting to know one another.”
“Hear, hear,” said the captain, who had freed himself from his underling and now stood next to Kimmi, holding his own glass up. “Welcome, everyone. Cheers.”
Two of the waiters flung open the tall double doors at the end of the lounge, and Christine walked with everyone else into the small dining room. She gazed around. The arched ceiling was painted sky blue with a few fluffy clouds, its rim edged in gold leaf. The walls were paneled in bamboo. Amber-colored teardrop sconces protruded at intervals. The long table down the middle of the room was draped in white linen and set with china, silver, and crystal, tall white tapers burning in candelabras. Next to each plate, Christine saw a hand-lettered place card and an individual glass bud vase containing a single white peony in full bloom. Open French doors led out to a balcony beyond the sideboard and small bar. Warm air blew in and made the flames flicker.
“Dude, we’ve been slumming it till now,” said Valerie, lifting a bud to her nose. “Finally, the VIP treatment.”
The Sabra Quartet played in an alcove. Miriam gave her violin a little dip in greeting when Christine caught her eye.