Maika
Helen leaves the room with her back straight, the folder clutched tightly against her chest, and a firm stride that leaves no room for doubt. She doesn’t look back once. But I do follow her until she disappears through the door.
“Boss,” someone calls out to me.
I blink and return to Technical Room Two, where my team watches me with a mix of curiosity, nervousness, and that very particular fear that arises when you’ve just witnessed a professional argument between two women capable of setting a deck on fire just by looking at each other.
“Yes?” I reply, regaining my smile with ease.
Nico, one of the new entertainers, raises his hand as if we were in class.
“Are we going to have a safety training session?”
“Yes.”
Three faces fall instantly.
“Like… a professional evaluation?” Lara asks, clutching her notebook to her chest.
“Not exactly,” I clarify.
“That means it is,” Nico mutters under his breath.
I lean on the edge of the table and cross my arms, watching them calmly.
“Look, no one’s going to throw you into the sea if you mistake an emergency exit for a service door. Relax.”
“Well, I’d say Helen would,” Iván interjects with a half-smile.
I can’t help but burst out laughing.
“Helen might seem too strict, but she knows when she’s wrong.”
The silence that follows is a good one.
“Are you sure?” Lara presses, raising her eyebrows.
“Well…” I tilt my head slightly. “She might ask you for proof first—three reports, a complete reconstruction of the events, and a signed apology in duplicate—but in the end, she admits it. She’s more flexible than she seems.”
Nico swallows hard.
“You’re not helping much.”
“Of course I’m helping you. I’m preparing you for what’s coming. It’s part of my job.”
They laugh and the atmosphere relaxes a little. I love that. I like seeing their shoulders drop, their hands loosen their grip on their pens, and their initial fear turn into attentiveness. Teams work better when they don’t feel judged from the very first minute.
And I need them to breathe. Because this cruise is going to demand a lot from them.
Because Helen will be supervising every detail: every move, every route, every gesture, and every comma in my proposal.
And I shouldn’t be feeling this absurd mix of irritation and the urge to prove to her that I’m still good at what I do.
“All right,” I continue, clapping my hands to regain my rhythm. “Let’s go over the schedule. And before anyone asks, yes, there will be changes. There always are. A cruise without changes is like a cocktail without ice.”
Lara smiles knowingly.
I open my folder. My papers aren’t as organized as Helen’s—that much is obvious. Mine are covered in arrows, margin notes, little stars, hastily scribbled reminders, and a terrible drawing of a seagull I doodled during an endless call with Markus. But I know where everything is. Well, more or less.
“The welcome for the passengers will be on the main deck—live music, an introduction of the crew, and a light icebreaker activity. Nothing intrusive. No one wants to be forced to dance with a suitcase in hand and sweat running down their forehead.”
“Thank God,” Iván sighs.
“Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, because that same night, there’s the welcome party, and we all know how parties go.”
He groans theatrically.
“I didn’t come to sea to suffer.”
“You came to work in entertainment. Suffering comes with the uniform, I’m afraid.”
Laughter fills the room again. I go through the entire program.
And as I speak, I watch my team. I like the challenge of having a new team.
Some take notes with the seriousness of someone who believes that a mistake in their notebook could sink the ship.
Others listen with shining eyes, full of that electricity I remember perfectly well feeling on my first voyage.
“The important thing,” I continue, “is to understand that entertainment isn’t about shouting louder than the music or chasing passengers with a smile until they give in.
It’s about reading the room, knowing who wants to participate and who prefers to watch from afar with a look that says, ‘If you drag me out to dance, I’m reporting you. ’”
Nico jots something down quickly.
“Should we put that verbatim in the script?”
“Only if you want Helen to take away my right to speak.”
The laughter returns, but Helen’s name lingers in my mouth like a pebble in my shoe: annoying and impossible to ignore.
“Security is going to demand that we be very professional,” I add, my tone now more serious.
“And we’ll deliver. Not because we’re constantly being watched, but because on a ship there’s no room for half-measures.
If an event gets out of hand, it’s not enough to just smile and change the song.
We have to know where to direct people, when to tone things down, when to cut off an activity, and when to call for immediate backup. ”
I look at each of them, one by one, with purpose.
“Fun is also managed with rigor.”
Lara nods slowly, processing my words.
“What if we make a mistake?”
The question sinks in and touches my heart. Perhaps because I know all too well what happens when you make a mistake. And, above all, what happens when you don’t have the courage to admit it.
“Then we correct it,” I reply. “Quickly, without drama, and without hiding anything. Mistakes don’t bring teams down. Keeping silent does.”
For a second, I see Helen at that meeting from the past, sitting next to me, waiting for me to tell the truth.
“That’s why I want you to bring up any doubts, any issues, anything that seems off to you. Even if it’s small. Even if you think I’m going to get mad. I only get mad when someone starts a conga line next to a stairway,” I joke.
Iván raises his hand curiously.
“Tell me that’s never actually happened to you.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“We do want to know now,” he insists with a smile.
“Another day. When you fully trust me and can’t give up on the team anymore.”
The meeting ends with less tension than when it began, which is already a small victory. I assign them their tasks, we go over schedules, and confirm the welcome rehearsal on deck.
“Let’s go up,” I suggest. “I need to see how you move with space, real wind, and no walls to save you from making fools of yourselves.”
“You’re so motivating,” Nico murmurs. “And here I thought we were going to dinner.”
“We’ll do that later. Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today. Or right now.”
“You should give motivational speeches,” Lara remarks.
We head out as a group toward the main deck.
As we climb, everyone notices how the ship changes when the sun goes down.
We leave behind the narrow crew corridors and the cold white lights, and emerge under the dark open sky.
The deck lights bathe everything in a special glow.
The water stretches out around the harbor like a deep blue sheet speckled with silver sparkles.
We haven’t set sail yet, but the Marine IV seems impatient.
I can feel it beneath my feet, in that slight vibration of living machinery that radiates energy.
My team scatters, driven by curiosity.
“All right,” I begin, raising my voice so they can hear me clearly.
“Passenger boarding point over there. Music here. Visual reception from this side. I need energy, but without intruding on people, okay? We smile, accompany, and guide. We don’t attack them.
” There are entertainers who see a shy passenger and feel an irresistible urge to accompany them the whole time so they don’t feel uncomfortable.
“That sounds like a huge overreaction.”
“It is, unfortunately.”
I ask them to repeat the welcome sequence: a warm greeting, pointing them toward reception, an invitation to the opening event, and guiding them smoothly toward the stairs or elevators as needed.
As they move, I correct those small details that make our work perfect.
I’m not surprised to see Helen at one end of the deck, by the railing, checking something on her tablet.
Alone, as always. Attentive. A little set apart, as if she needs to observe the world from a distance so it doesn’t affect her.
“How I hate those pants…” The uniform fits her impeccably.
It’s an objective observation. Terribly objective.
The dark pants, the wrinkle-free shirt, complementing her perfect, silky hair.
She seems made of control, of straight lines and difficult decisions.
Nothing about her invites me to approach her, and yet I want to get closer. “What a perfect disaster.”
I keep staring at her longer than is prudent.
Helen seems to notice my gaze because she looks up and our eyes meet.
She doesn’t smile, nor does she give me a look of disapproval.
There’s only that intensity of hers, direct and unadorned.
A look that always seems to do two things at once: warn me not to cross a certain line and ask me why I’m so afraid to cross it.
My chest tightens. Because suddenly I don’t just see the strict coordinator who has just torn apart half a proposal in the conference room.
I see the woman I slept with repeatedly, the one I began to get to know, the one I left alone.
The one who waited for a truth that never came.
I thought time would wash it all away. But I was very naive.
Because time doesn’t wash away what is never confronted.
It only sinks it deeper until, one day, it floats back up.
Helen looks away first, and that leaves me frozen in place.
“Maika,” Lara calls to me. “Is this okay?”
It takes me a second to react.
“Yes. Sorry. Start over from the beginning.”
My voice sounds normal. I’m good at faking normalcy. I learned that over time, too.
The rehearsal continues. The kids improve quickly, relax, laugh, and find their own rhythm.
I ask them to imagine real passengers: a family tired from the trip, an older couple who need clear directions, a group of friends eager for fun, someone feeling dizzy, someone lost, or someone who pretends not to need help but looks at all the signs upside down. They respond well.
However, a part of me remains at the far end of the deck, where Helen keeps working as if nothing could distract her.
I never thought of her as someone sad, withdrawn, or lonely.
Before, I saw her as strong, unattainable, brilliant.
A woman built to solve problems while the rest of us are incapable.
But maybe she always had a hard time trusting people, and I, with my cowardice, confirmed to her that trusting someone was a bad idea.
When we finish the first round, I give them the freedom to go to dinner and rest. They scatter, discussing what they’ve learned.
I stay by the railing, my folder pressed against my chest. Helen is still on the other side, farther away now.
I watch her as she talks to a technician.
She points to a section of the deck, listens intently, and nods.
This woman doesn’t waste time. She doesn’t sugarcoat anything. Everything about her is efficient; even the way she frowns has a clear purpose. But I keep remembering another Helen. The one who, years ago, stayed with me after a disastrous event while I pretended I wasn’t exhausted.
“If you keep smiling like that, your face is going to break,” she told me that night.
I laughed. She offered me a cup of coffee from the machine, and for an hour we stayed there, silently gazing at the horizon.
I liked her—I liked her a lot—and she liked me.
Maybe that’s why it hurt so much. Because I didn’t betray just anyone.
I betrayed someone who, in her clumsy and precious way, had begun to let me into her heart.
Helen looks at me again, and I don’t look away. I don’t smile either. I just look at her. And for a fleeting second, something changes in her expression. Then she looks down at her tablet and walks away.
“Maika,” Lara says behind me. “Are you coming to dinner with us?”
“Sure.”
Lara hooks her arm through mine as we walk toward the crew restaurant. Nico keeps talking way too loud, and the others join the conversation with that ease I’ve always envied in some people.
I walk with them, half-listening, letting the group’s chatter carry me along. The Marine IV hasn’t set sail yet, and I already feel like the journey has begun. And the worst part—the absolute worst part—is that a part of me is eager to find out where all this will take us.