29 #2
“Please,” I insist, giving her puppy-dog eyes beneath my usual seriousness. “Make up whatever you want. Say the process has been canceled, that you’re looking for a different profile—whatever fits your script. But don’t let her find out about my resignation.”
“That’s a ticking time bomb, Helen. If she finds out from someone else, she’ll feel completely betrayed,” she warns me, quite rightly.
“I’ll take the risk.”
Julianne looks down at her tablet, deep in thought. I sit there holding my breath, my heart racing, with the strange feeling that I’m signing my own death warrant.
“Just because we accept your resignation doesn’t mean Maika has the job guaranteed,” she finally clarifies.
“I understand that perfectly. And I’m very grateful to you.”
“Helen, I still think you would have been a superb leader for this company.”
“That may be true, but right now my priorities have changed.” I stand up before the tears start to fall, because keeping my composure is starting to feel like an impossible task. “I just want her to have less weight on her shoulders.”
“The position on land is a snake pit. And I remind you that leadership skills aren’t learned from books. But it’s your choice, and I respect it.”
I nod and rush out of the office. The officers’ corridor greets me, and I walk back toward the crew quarters on autopilot.
I did the right thing. Yes, I’m almost certain of it.
The problem is that doing the right thing sometimes leaves you feeling emptier than a cruise ship buffet at eleven at night.
· · ·
As I pass by the main restaurant’s kitchens, the bustle hits me hard. Life on board goes on as usual. The ship moves forward, and the world doesn’t stop for anyone. And I, on the other hand, feel like I’ve left half my life behind.
Gonzalo steps in front of me before I can hide in my cabin, and the moment he locks eyes with me, I know I’m done for.
“Oh my God. What’s with that face? You look like you’ve seen the ghost of the Titanic.”
I look around for an escape route, but I don’t see Maika anywhere. She must be on the upper deck organizing the closing dance, with no clue that I’ve just blown up the game board behind her back.
“I spoke with Julianne,” I blurt out to Gonzalo without warning. I don’t know how to soften the blow, so I just let it all out. “I’ve withdrawn my candidacy.”
Gonzalo’s smile vanishes instantly, and his jaw drops.
“Tell me this is one of your jokes, because it’s not fucking funny.”
“Well, no, it’s done.”
“What do you mean, it’s done?” he insists, his eyes wide, grabbing my arm to drag me into the crew service corridor, away from the passengers’ gaze. “Have you lost your mind or something?”
Gonzalo looks at me as if I’d told him I’d thrown the lifeboats overboard.
“It was my career and my decision,” I reply.
“Does Maika know?”
“No.”
“Of course not! If she’d gotten wind of anything, she would’ve handcuffed you to the cabin bed and lectured you for three hours to talk some sense into you,” he says, slapping his forehead with the palm of his hand. “What on earth has gotten into you?”
Gonzalo lets out a loud snort.
“Seriously, Helen, you need to be locked up.”
“Please don’t lecture me too. I’ve got enough on my plate already.”
“Don’t lecture you? But you’ve been killing yourself over that management position for twenty thousand contracts!” he throws in my face, as if I didn’t remember. “You wanted it so badly it was scary, girl.”
“I know, Gonzalo, I know perfectly well.”
“You almost gave me a heart attack that night when you made me do a mock interview while I had a fever.”
“Come on, you had a fever of 37.2 degrees—you’re such a drama queen,” I retort, trying to lighten the mood so I won’t burst into tears.
“Why the hell did you do it, Helen? Tell me.”
“Because Maika needs it a million times more than I do.”
“And what about you? Don’t you count?”
“Not in the same way,” I insist, cornered. “Her grandmother needs medical care. And Maika can’t afford to turn down that salary. I couldn’t just sit back and do nothing.”
“You should’ve talked about it, damn it. You talk things out,” he snaps at me.
“For what? To get stuck in a loop of ‘no, you quit,’ ‘no, you first,’ and end up both acting like idiots, like two soap opera characters?”
“Well, it’s a little late to avoid looking like an idiot now, sweetie,” he says with a pitying smile.
I don’t find it funny, but I don’t argue with him. Gonzalo sighs, leans against the partition in the hallway, and puts an affectionate hand on my shoulder.
“How are you? I mean, really.”
Relieved and angry at the world, head over heels in love, and with a frightening sense of emptiness.
“I did the right thing,” I whisper, looking at the floor.
Gonzalo lifts my chin with a finger.
“I didn’t ask if you’re the noblest person on the ship. I asked how you’re doing.”
I bite my lower lip. The echo of the Caribbean music from the restaurant reaches me distorted.
The fiasco of our previous cruise together comes to mind—the anger, the humiliation of being stuck.
This is different. Now there are no incompetent bosses to blame; the decision was mine, and that makes it cleaner, but also a thousand times more painful.
“I feel the same way I did back then,” I confess.
“As if a reinforced door had slammed shut in my face and I’d been left on the dark side of the pier.
” Only this time, I threw the key into the depths of the sea.
And that’s supposed to make me feel like a heroine in a romantic movie…
but no. Although I don’t regret having done it.
I swear that to you by all that is sacred.
“You can be sure you did the right thing and still feel like you’ve been stabbed in the heart, Helen.”
I close my eyes for a second, take a deep breath, and when I open them, I stand right in front of him.
“It’s vital that Maika doesn’t catch on to anything, Gonzalo,” I warn him, nervously biting my lip.
“I know full well that sooner or later the truth will come out—lies on ships have very short legs—but as long as the secret holds until the committee signs off on Maika’s promotion, I’ll be satisfied. ”
“Whatever you say. But just so you know, you’re hiding out of fear of her reaction, not to protect her. It’s your defense mechanism, but don’t come crying to me later if things go south.”