Chapter 10 Jennifer #2
Green hillside dropping to white sand. Water so blue, turquoise at the edges where it runs shallow, deepening to something richer further out.
A dock of pale wood. Yellow flowers banking a shell path that curves up through the trees toward a low white building with shuttered windows and bougainvillea climbing the near wall in a color I don't have a word for.
Carmen is already talking to a crew member, efficient as breathing. I gather my bags and follow.
The shell path crunches softly underfoot.
Water taps against the dock behind us. Some bird I've never seen argues with the world from the trees to my left, loud and completely unbothered.
The air smells of salt and those yellow flowers and something warm underneath, sun on stone, the particular heat of a place that has been absorbing light all day and is only just beginning to let it go.
The staff quarters are around the side of the main building, down a short path that Carmen takes at a pace suggesting she has somewhere else to be immediately after.
One room. Proper bed. Window facing the water.
A small bathroom where I test the water pressure the moment she leaves because excellent water pressure is not something you assume.
It's exceptional. The closet has real hangers.
A ceiling fan turns slowly overhead, moving the warm air without complaint.
I drop my bags. Sit on the mattress. Firm, honest, reliable. Three qualities I have historically undervalued in both furniture and people.
Carmen reappears in the doorway before I've finished the thought.
"I'll show you where you'll be working," she says.
The room she takes me to is at the back of the building, long and low with windows open to the sea breeze and a range that makes me stop walking entirely for a moment.
Six burners. Restaurant grade. A marble island long enough to work a full service on, cool and generous under my palms when I cross to it.
Double refrigeration, stocked by someone who takes it seriously.
Good knives on a magnetic strip, balanced exactly as they should be.
"Is this all right?" Carmen asks, watching me.
"Yes," I say, which is the most significant understatement I have ever produced.
She runs through the practical details. Service times.
Guest preferences. The supply boat schedule.
I listen and nod and try to look like a professional chef rather than a woman who is currently running a private and highly emotional inventory of every piece of equipment in the room.
When she's done she checks something on her phone and leaves, her bergamot and clove scent fading down the corridor behind her.
I stand alone in the middle of it.
My hands find the marble again, both palms flat, and I feel something move through me that takes a second to name. Late sun through the window. Sea just audible outside. The smell of good equipment and clean stone and possibility.
Capability. That's the word. The feeling of standing in exactly the right place to do what needs doing. The sense that if I work hard enough and stay smart enough and don't fall apart, the thing I've been afraid of for three months might still turn out fine.
I'm going to cook good food. Warm, honest food that makes people feel looked after. I'm going to save every cent. I'm going to be fine.
The believing of it arrives so suddenly and so physically that I have to breathe through it for a moment before I can move.
I find a notepad in the drawer beside the refrigerator and a pen that works, which feels like an unreasonable gift, and I sit on the stool at the marble island and start planning menus.
I'm still writing when the sun drops below the treeline and the room changes color around me, the light going from gold to amber to the particular blue of early evening in a place without streetlights to argue with it.
Outside the window the sky is doing something extraordinary, orange going deep pink going purple over the water, the sort of sunset people paint because they know no one will believe them otherwise.
I make tea from the pantry supplies and stand at the window with both hands wrapped around the mug, watching it happen.
The baby shifts, slow and content.
I smile before I can stop myself.
"Pretty good," I tell her.
The evening breeze moves through the room, warm and salt-sweet, and underneath it something else, brief and barely there. Something dark and clean, like good wood and heat underneath, registering as familiar in a place I don't have the energy to examine right now.
I lean toward the window.
Gone. Just sea air and the yellow flowers on the path and the warm tropical dark settling in.
I'm overtired, twelve weeks pregnant, and fresh off a boat after the single worst week of recent memory. My senses are freelancing and I refuse to give them the satisfaction.
I go back to my menus.
Anna's rice recipe fills the margin in my handwriting, her warning not to skip the resting time copied faithfully underneath.
The notepad fills. Darkness gathers quietly around the island, the stars coming out in numbers that feel excessive, scattered across the black like someone dropped a jar of them and couldn't be bothered.
Three months. I can do three months standing on my head.
I wash the mug, put it away, and head back through the warm dark toward my room, the shell path soft underfoot.
I am halfway down the path when I hear footsteps behind me and turn to find two members of the ground staff coming the other way.
The first is a young beta woman, small and quick-moving, warm brown skin and natural hair pulled back in a neat puff, with bright dark eyes that find mine and smile before her mouth has even caught up.
Beside her is a man I put in his mid-thirties, stocky and sun-weathered, with the easy stillness of someone who spends most of his time outdoors and has made his peace with it.
"Hey, you're Jennifer, right?" the woman says.
I nod, genuinely glad to see a smiling face after a day that has required considerably more composure than I actually possessed.
"I'm Elara," she says, already warm, already easy. "And this is Miguel, my husband. If you need anything, just give us a shout. We're down the hall."
Miguel raises a hand in a brief, unhurried greeting that tells me everything I need to know about him.
I smile back, and it is a real one, the kind that arrives without my deciding to.
It would be good to have friends here, or even just the beginning of them.
I have been so focused on the job, on doing it right and keeping my head down and not falling apart in front of anyone, that nothing else has factored in.
Which is understandable. But it does not mean I have to spend three months talking to no one except a bay tree and my own reflection.
I am human. I am allowed some company.
"You know what, Elara," I say. "I'll take you up on that."
"Cool!" Her whole face lights up, the smile reaching all the way to those bright eyes.
"On Fridays, some of us get together, play cards, dance a little. Nothing fancy. If you're up for it I'll come find you and walk you over."
"I would love that," I say, and mean it completely.
Miguel nods once, apparently satisfied that the exchange has gone well, and the two of them continue down the path.
I stand there for a moment in the warm evening air.
Taking on this role was not the worst decision I have ever made. I will have the money I need, a kitchen that makes me genuinely happy, and now, it seems, the beginning of something that might qualify as company.
That is more than I had this morning.
I keep walking until I get to my room. I nearly fall asleep horizontal once I get inside. But then as I switch on the light, locate my bed, I put one hand over my stomach, and listen to the water. I’m exhausted.