Meryl walked stiffly away from the snack bar, silently seething. What bothered her wasn't so much that the steward-bouncer had denied her the opportunity to find Vash, as it was the assumption she would sell her body to him. Milly hurried to catch up, having needed to retrieve her stun-gun from behind the counter, and now she quickly smoothed out Meryl's hair, flattening and tidying it where bobby pins had held the paper hat in place. Meryl was glad of the familiar gesture and relaxed a little.
The main deck was already empty by the time they had crossed the open floor and turned the corner toward the casinos. There the doors were closed and blocked, each by a pair of those beefy steward-bouncers. The crowd of gamblers was dispersing slowly, though, and Meryl could see why.
More than a dozen stewardesses were still mixed in with the crowd, each carrying a tray and accepting empty glasses as gamblers finished their drinks. Meryl watched many of the girls in furtive conversation with one of these men, making arrangements, and in one instance she actually saw money changing hands.
Meryl smirked.
Poor bastard.
That girl was going to pocket his money and disappear.
One time in a hundred a man would be foolish enough to pay up front, and that girl hit just the jackpot. She vanished into the crowd, becoming just another short skirt and low-cut blouse, and Meryl knew that man would never see her again.
She and Milly were engulfed by the exodus now, their progress impeded, and Meryl considered just making a break for Vash's room after all. As if he could read her thoughts, one of the steward-bouncers she had already encountered appeared from nowhere, blocking her path entirely. He stared coolly at Milly's stun-gun for a long moment, but then nodded toward the end of the hall, silently ushering them toward the crew stairs. Meryl scowled again, but turned and led Milly away as directed.
"Do we know where our bags are?" Milly asked Meryl as they joined a stream of crewmen and women descending the stairs. "That boy at the loading dock—he just ran off with them."
"I have a guess," said Meryl. "Assuming that kid was lazy as he looked, he'll have just thrown them in the nearest empty storage."
"And you know where that is?" asked Milly, hopefully.
"Yep."
The line moved slowly for the first five decks. It was a narrow staircase and there were no crew galleys or bunk rooms until F-deck, and only then did the crowd start to thin out. Meryl kept leading Milly down toward the crew and cargo loading deck, and by the time she turned from the stairs and down a narrow corridor there was no one else to follow them.
"Here's the loading dock," said Meryl, pressing her palm against the huge doors that would open wide to take in supplies whenever the steamer pulled in to port. "There are about a dozen storage units along this corridor, they have to be in here somewhere."
Meryl was relieved to find that none of the units, most of them the size of a small warehouse, were locked. After they found no sign of their luggage in the first two units, they decided to split up and cover ground more quickly. Meryl was digging through a room that mixed pallets of non-perishables with crates of spare engine parts, and she wanted to find the steamer's stores clerk and strangle him.
What the hell kind of Jack Dusty lets his shit get this disorganized?
"Ma'am, I've found them!" called Milly, and Meryl stopped trying to squeeze between two crates to get to the back of the room. She picked her way out to the corridor again and pulled the overhead door down carefully, trying to keep it from slamming into the floor.
Meryl had been half right; the unit where Milly led her wasn't at all near to the loading dock, but it was completely empty, save for their luggage. She knelt down and opened her suitcase, unrolling her cloak and retrieving her blouse and tunic, tucking them in a small compartment separate from her clean clothes. Meryl realized she and Milly didn't have spare uniforms and would have to wear the same again tomorrow. She gritted her teeth, annoyed with the matron who had harassed them earlier.
Milly had stowed her clothes away, too, and was standing to fasten her stun-gun sling over her shoulder again. Meryl put a hand on her arm.
"Sorry, Milly, no stun-gun," she told her.
"Ma'am?" asked Milly, startled.
"There'll be no room for it a bunk room, I can guarantee you," said Meryl, shaking her head.
"I don't like to leave it," Milly said, anxiously. She looked pleadingly at Meryl, and Meryl wished she could say differently.
"I know how you feel," she said. You have no idea. "But you can't take it tonight."
Milly hesitated, torn, and Meryl really, really knew how she felt.
"Okay," said Milly, finally. She tucked the stun-gun back into the corner of the storage room and arranged their luggage in front to hide it.
"In the morning we'll find somewhere to fit everything, I promise. For now, just bring something to sleep in," Meryl told her. She herself had already dug her nightshirt out of her suitcase and now she wrapped it in her cloak. Her derringers were definitely coming. In an effort to cheer Milly, she smiled up at the younger woman and said, "How about we find something to eat?"
Milly's stomach growled audibly and Meryl laughed.
Meryl knew exactly where to find the crew galley she frequented when she was on the Gunsmoke—it wasn't far from here, really—but she led Milly up several decks away from it, hoping to find one more appropriate for their current crew status.
She could smell it before she found it; bland though it was, she recognized the aroma of canned potato stew, and she led Milly straight to the nearest crew galley. When they entered, Meryl was surprised to see it so crowded. It was a tiny room in itself, containing just a pantry, a small ice box, a few cupboards and a central table. Eight stewardesses were already inside, and they looked toward the door when she and Milly entered. Most of them looked just as surprised to see them.
"Hullo," said one girl, sitting on a counter at the back of the room. She was blowing on a cup of what had to be the potato stew. "Well, c'mon in, you're in the right place," she said, beckoning them in further.
"You're on the snack bar, right?" asked the nearest girl, who was probably around Milly's age and the oldest in the room. She was leaning against the table with a sandwich in hand. "You working tonight?"
"No," said Meryl, before Milly could answer (or ask) anything.
"Bad luck," said the girl, shrugging in knowing sympathy as she took another bite of the sandwich. Meryl finally noticed a jar of mayonnaise and a tin of salmon both lying open on the table behind the girl, next to a loaf of bread. When another girl appeared in the galley, she made a bee-line for the table and piled all the remaining salmon onto her sandwich.
"Nan just got a freebie, she could use someone to cover her casino shift tomorrow," said a small girl, barely sixteen, sitting on the counter across from Meryl. She hooked her thumb toward another girl, who was rummaging through the ice box a few feet away. "You might have more luck working a table."
Nan, previously buried head and shoulders in the ice box, looked around now and nodded, and Meryl recognized her as the girl she had seen earlier, being paid up front.
"I'd owe you one," said Nan. She had found an unopened jar of pickles and brought it to the table, though she seemed to be having some difficulty prizing it open. "Either of you ever dealt blackjack?"
"Sorry," said Meryl. Milly shook her head, but then she stepped forward, reaching across the table to take the pickle jar from Nan. She unscrewed the lid and Meryl heard the quiet pop as Milly broke the air-tight seal.
"Oh," said Nan, looking surprised as Milly handed her the jar again. "Thanks!" The girl set the pickles on the counter behind her and then hopped up to sit next to it. She drew the jar into her lap and fished around for a pickle spear, biting into it with a satisfying crunch.
"I'm off tomorrow, Nan, I can take your shift," said the girl who had last come in. She took a bite of her over-stuffed sandwich and had to catch some of the salmon that tried to escape out the other side. Meryl's stomach grumbled enviously.
Another pair of girls came into the galley together, laughing, and now Meryl counted eleven in all—thirteen with her and Milly. It was a tight squeeze for the lot of them to fit and Meryl shepherded Milly further into the tiny galley to make room.
"Hi!" said the girl bringing up the rear, when she spotted Meryl and Milly. "You girls new?"
"Obviously," said the first girl Meryl had spoken to, her voice dry. "Haven't seen them in here before, have you?"
"Oh, shut up, Allie," said the girl, punching the other—Allie—playfully in the arm.
"What happened to all the salmon?" asked the other newcomer, holding the empty tin upside-down.
"Paige," chorused all the girls that had already been there when Meryl and Milly had arrived. They all pointed at the girl who had taken the last of it.
Paige shrugged and mumbled something through a large mouthful of sandwich, but it didn't sound apologetic.
"I'll get another," Allie announced, turning to walk to the back of the room. "S'cuse," she said, brushing past Meryl. When she returned to the table, Allie opened the tin with an ancient, claw-style can opener with a practiced ease that impressed Meryl. She was utterly useless with one of those.
Both girls who had just entered made sandwiches for themselves, and the second used the very last of the mayonnaise, scraping intently at the bottom of the jar.
"Go on, love," said Allie, nudging Milly with her elbow. "Help yourself, there's plenty to go—"
"Oh shit!" said Paige, suddenly glancing up to the clock on the back wall of the galley. "I gotta run, I'm in first class A-deck tonight. Here," she said, and Meryl was startled to find half a sandwich thrust into her hands as Paige hurried past her toward the door.
Meryl wasn't complaining though; the sandwich was still full to bursting with salmon. Her stomach grumbled again, in anticipation this time.
"I'm A-deck too," said one of the first girls Meryl had seen.
"And me," said a third.
The girl who had used the last of the mayonnaise sighed heavily. "I'll eat on the way, I guess."
Meryl spoke up before anyone else could leave: "Is anyone here going to first class B-deck? 219?"
The stewardesses who remained all shook their heads, most with mouths full, and though Milly looked at her curiously no one made comment on Meryl's query.
She wasn't really sure how she should feel about that answer; if someone was going to Vash's room, Meryl might have made a deal to take her place and confront him right now. If not…was he with someone already?
And goddamn it, why should she care?
Besides, this was just one small group of stewardesses; who knew how many others were all over the steamer, preparing for their next shift…
"Well, come on girls," said one of the last girls to enter. Meryl didn't know her name. She took the last bite of her sandwich and brushed the crumbs off her skirt as she turned to look at the clock again. "Anyone else working tonight had better get upstairs pretty soon."
The rest (save Nan and two others) looked at the clock too, and each either hurriedly finished her food or passed the last of it on to one of the remaining girls, as Paige had done for Meryl.
Milly had been handed a steaming bowl of potato stew and she looked delighted, thanking the girl as she disappeared into the corridor. Meryl took a bite of her half-sandwich as Milly slurped quietly at the stew, and she thought she could hear the younger woman echo her own satisfied sigh. It turned out Meryl had been starving, and just too busy to notice.
The galley had emptied in a rush and now there was silence in the room as she and Milly and the last three stewardesses ate steadily, without interruption for needless chatter. When Meryl finished what was left of the sandwich, Milly paused with the soup spoon halfway to her mouth, evidently waiting for this opportunity to speak.
"Are we going up to Mr. Vash's room?" she asked, startling Meryl.
"What? No!" Meryl said, automatically, still thinking in terms of the night shift. "I mean, yes," she went on, shaking her head as she tried to change gears again. "Yes, but not tonight."
Milly looked puzzled, but the excuse Meryl gave the younger woman was that she was just too damn tired. It was perfectly true, too, but really Meryl just didn't want to get to Vash's room and find she was…interrupting anything.
"Are you all—" Meryl gestured toward the door, to convey all the girls who had left earlier "—in the same bunk room?" she asked of the remaining three. They all nodded and Meryl cursed under her breath.
"Sorry," said Nan. "But there's a half-empty housekeeping cabin, aft and two decks down, if you want to try your luck."
"They won't take well to getting woke up," warned a girl at the back of the galley.
"They can stuff it," Meryl said vehemently, and all three girls laughed. "I'm—we're exhausted," Meryl corrected herself with a nod to Milly. "And we're taking the nearest bunks available."
"Alright, good luck," Nan told them. "Down two decks and about 50 yarz aft, starboard facing out, I'm afraid. You know what to look for?" Meryl nodded. "I'll leave the bread out," Nan said, "and there's more salmon in the pantry if you like." She pointed to a large cabinet at the back wall, and then pressed the open jar of pickles into Milly's hands before sliding off the counter and onto her feet.
"Did you get enough to eat?" asked Milly, worriedly.
"Don't worry," said Nan, grinning as she disappeared into the corridor after the others. "That was dessert!"
Then Meryl and Milly were alone in the galley, and they shared a glance and a sigh that could have summed up the whole of their day. Meryl snagged a pickle spear from the jar in Milly's hands and took a bite. Then she made a face and discarded the rest; far too much dill.
"Ma'am!" said Milly, frowning down at her and catching the pickle before it fell in the galley trash bin. She bit into it and said, "You're wasting perfectly good—oh." Now Milly made a face, and she bent over the trash bin to spit the pickle out.
Meryl laughed and Milly gave her the tamest stink-eye Meryl had ever seen. Milly carefully screwed the lid back on the jar and set it on the counter, pushing the pickles away across the surface and as far from them as possible.
"Are you still hungry?" Meryl asked, trying to stifle more laughter. Milly's stomach grumbled again and Meryl took that as answer enough. She found another tin of salmon in the pantry and eventually managed to cut it open using the antiquated can opener Allie had left on the table.
Milly dutifully made sandwiches for them both as Meryl cleaned up the mess she had made struggling with the can opener. She accepted the sandwich from Milly with a grateful sigh and they ate again in silence, too focused on food to bother with conversation.
"So I guess you didn't work in a kitchen," Milly said, suddenly. "This is a lot more…self-serve than I expected." She looked disappointed.
"Oh, no," said Meryl, laughing. "This isn't—these aren't really galleys, in the strictest sense. This is more like the snack bar, something quick, to tide you over. There are huge kitchens, down toward the heat of the boiler room, to make proper meals. Some goes up to passenger dining rooms, and then there are crew mess halls off each kitchen. We'll go for breakfast tomorrow, I promise."
"Oh!" said Milly, looking pleased again. "That'll be fun!"
They finished their sandwiches and left the not-quite-a-galley, following Nan's directions toward the bunk room. Meryl led the way down into the steamer again and Milly nearly bowled her over when Meryl finally stopped outside a small hatch door set halfway along a row of larger, normally-sized doors.
"Oops—sorry, Ma'am!" she said, catching Meryl by the elbow before she hit the metal plating of the deck. Meryl thanked her, and then turned to face the hatch door.
The bare light bulb mounted on the wall above the door was dim and flickering uncertainly in a way that made Meryl's head hurt. It took her a moment for her eyes to really adjust but she eventually found what she was looking for: the number 7 was inscribed on the door in white chalk. Meryl rubbed it off with her sleeve and then tried to brush the white powder off with the other hand, though the chalk was nearly indistinguishable from the faded yellow fabric. She slapped her open palm on the hatch twice, hearing the sound of hollow metal ring out, and waited.
Milly had watched all this curiously and seemed moments from asking Meryl what was going on when the door's locking mechanism gave a loud clank and the hatch iched unexpectedly open, swinging heavily and slowly out into the hall. A tall blonde girl stood in the doorway, squinting in even just the dim light from the flickering bulb. Her feet were bare and she wore a long nightgown, and she glanced from Milly to Meryl before asking, "Just two?" Her voice was low and husky from recent slumber.
"Just two," said Meryl, nodding.
"Mark it," said the girl, tossing Meryl a small chunk of chalk. Meryl stepped back to close the door halfway, writing the number 9 where the 7 had been earlier.
When the door was pushed fully open to let them in, the room was just as Meryl remembered: low-ceilinged, crowded around a narrow strip of floor and two step ladders that took up nearly half the floor to begin with. There were two tiny compartments for luggage on either side of the door, which were already crammed full with the original occupants' belongings; Meryl had guessed rightly on this count.
The only difference was the porthole window at the end of the aisle; her room had faced in toward the center of the steamer. Here the window was open to keep the room cool (she assumed) and it was covered with a thin blanket of some kind, which was making a valiant effort to block out the sand. But it did nothing for the noise.
The girl who had opened the door for them now scowled at them both, glancing at their uniforms.
"This is housekeeping, not whoring," she grumbled, as Meryl stepped past her. Meryl turned wide and furious eyes on her, but the noise of the wind and the engines seemed to have kept the words only for the two of them. Milly was still bent nearly in half just to fit through the low doorway and she appeared not to have heard the comment. "We were all just getting to sleep," complained the girl.
"Then stop making it worse and shut the hell up," Meryl hissed, glaring fiercely. The girl scowled again, pulled the heavy door shut behind them, and crawled into the nearest bunk, turning her back to them. For the first time, Meryl wondered if she was doing the right thing, trying to keep the truth about "the night-shift" from Milly. Maybe it wasn't her place to keep it. She wasn't sure if she was protecting Milly's innocence, or just begetting her ignorance.
But it was too late and she was too exhausted and Meryl decided not to think on it for now. She just led Milly farther into the room. Past the over-stuffed luggage compartments, there were two sets of three-tiered bunks on either side of the aisle, maybe two yarz long each. Meryl felt bad for Milly already; that girl was going to be folded in half just to fit. To make things even worse, each bunk had only about a foot's distance between it and the one above.
"Well gosh," said Milly, bending low to speak in Meryl's ear. Actually, she was bent over to keep her head from hitting the low ceiling, Meryl realized. "This is certainly…cozy." As she pointed out two open bunks, one above the other, she asked Meryl, "Did you sleep in this kind of cabin when you worked on a steamer?"
"Yeah," Meryl lied, after a moment's hesitation. In truth, for most of her time on the S.S. Gunsmoke, Meryl shared a small room several decks below with just one other person. It was barely large enough for a proper bed, but at least it had been private.
Meryl threw her bundled cloak into the top bunk, then kicked off her boots and tossed them in, too. She hurriedly stripped off leggings, skirt, and blouse, and pulled her nightshirt over her head. Next to the window she was freezing, despite being so near to the coal-fired engines now. For an instant she wished she had thought to bring Vash's clothes to sleep in—and then remembered they were still just another secret she was keeping from Milly.
"Ow," hissed Milly now, slamming her knee into the narrow step-ladder Meryl was climbing to get to up to her third-tier cot. There was just enough space between the levels to slide in onto the worn mattress, and with her nose just iches from the ceiling, Meryl was glad she wasn't claustrophobic.
It took some strange maneuvering (and a great deal of cursing under her breath) to arrange everything to fit in Meryl's tiny bunk. She kicked the boots to the foot of her cot and stowed her cloak alongside them. Even tucked in the very far corner it didn't leave much room for her feet, and Meryl realized again just how poorly these bunks would fit Milly.
Now she could hear the younger woman trying to get settled in the bunk below and after a few audible bonks of knees or elbows, Milly sighed heavily.
"Does it ever get less awkward?" she asked Meryl, her voice muffled from below.
"Not really," said Meryl.
"Shut it, the both of you!" someone from across the aisle ordered, in a fierce whisper, just loudly enough to be heard.
Meryl opened her mouth to apologize and then realized it would only make things worse. She sighed. Stuffing the discarded uniform her into a makeshift pillow (the one provided was hardly better than a folded tea towel), she did her best to get settled.
Shifting around on her tiny cot, uncomfortable no matter where she lay, Meryl tried to think of the last time she had a full night's rest. She fell asleep before she could remember.
And she dreamed.
She was watching Vash sleep, from above, as though she was floating somewhere in mid-air. Vash lay on his stomach and the sheets came only as high as his waist, leaving bare the smooth expanse of skin across his back.
Then Meryl realized he wasn't sleeping. Two small hands appeared from beneath Vash's torso and slender arms wrapped around his back, gripping his shoulders tightly. Now Meryl could see, in the moonslight through the open window, the sheen of sweat on Vash's skin. Now she could hear the rapid breaths and soft sighs of the woman lying under him, could see the wiry musculature of Vash's back flexing beneath his skin as he moved over her.
Vash bent to kiss the woman's neck and Meryl saw Elizabeth's face revealed over his shoulder. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was open, breathing shallowly, with a look of utter bliss across her features. Elizabeth moaned, and her auburn hair turned to a tide of blonde ringlets that cascaded across the pillow as her face changed to that of someone else, a younger woman Meryl didn't recognize, who wore the same rapturous expression at Vash's touch.
Then Vash rolled onto his back, carrying the woman along until she sat astride him, his strong hands gripping her hips to guide her movements. He looked up into her face through eyes half-lidded in a haze of pleasure—and suddenly it was her; Meryl recognized her own body, her hair, a familiar scar on her shoulder.
As though she wasn't already sure of it, there was no doubt left to be had when the woman threw her head back and cried out Vash's name; Meryl watched her own face, transformed, in an unmistakable expression of sheer ecstasy.
And in that instant Vash looked up, not at the other-Meryl, but at her, clear green eyes now staring into her, through her, with a gaze so intense it woke her from the dream.
Meryl sat up with a gasp, immediately slamming her head into the ludicrously low ceiling of the bunk. Pain flared in her skull, but she was more preoccupied with the way her heart was pounding like mad against her ribs, and how her insides were burning up under skin covered in a cold sweat.
She curled up on her side and gritted her teeth against the growing ache in her head, trying to take long, steady breaths to slow her heart rate. It didn't help that she was shaking all over, staring wide-eyed and very much awake into the darkness of her bunk.
What the fuck was that?
Meryl dug the heels of her palms into her eyes and tried hard to stop seeing her face like that. She tried to stop seeing Vash like that. Until the night before, Meryl had never even seen Vash out of his jacket, but now she knew his real build and her imagination had done… wonderful things with that new information.
The steamer abruptly gave a little shake, a bump that sent Meryl flying up the few iches into her ceiling again before dropping her, hard, on the mattress. Thoughts of Vash were gone as she blinked dazedly, rubbing her head again, and wondered what the hell could have happened.
Then there was a much larger lurch, something that rocked the whole steamer, and Meryl found herself thrown roughly from ceiling to floor, wall to ceiling, floor to wall, as if some giant had put her inside a wine cask and shook it as hard as he could. Finally she was thrown fully out of the bunk and onto the floor of the crew quarters. She was going to have bruises upon bruises now, but she was glad just to be out of the wine cask and she sat gratefully on the floor for a moment, trying to catch her breath.
The other young women were appearing at the mouths of their bunks, yawning, all of them complaining about the turbulence. A few others had been knocked out of bed like Meryl and they stood up again, rubbing their eyes and looking sleepily surprised.
"Ma'am, are you alright?" asked Milly, sliding out of her bunk and looking curiously down at Meryl.
"Yeah," said Meryl, standing. She lost her balance at first, still dizzy, but Milly steadied her. "Something's wrong," Meryl said, frowning. That kind of turbulence wasn't normal for a steamer this size, whatever the terrain.
"Well, the captain said there would be a few bumps," Milly said, looking tentatively hopeful.
"These aren't normal bumps," said Meryl, gravely. Milly sobered.
The steamer gave another huge heave beneath their feet, this time throwing everyone to the floor.
"Oh my god!" screamed one woman, as she scrambled to her feet. "A boiler's blown!"
"No it hasn't," snapped Meryl, but the rest of the women had started panicking. "No it hasn't!" she shouted, angry and trying to be heard over the commotion. "A blow-out would have us listing to one side!"
"What are you talking about?" asked one woman, seizing Meryl by the shoulder. Meryl recognized her voice as the woman who had snapped at her and Milly earlier; she was the eldest in the room, easily a decade Meryl's senior, and seemed to be the only one not screaming her head off.
"The boilers run parallel to the aft bulkhead; if one blew we'd be off-balance!" Meryl told her, still almost shouting to be heard. "This is something else!" She caught Milly's eye now and knew instantly that the younger woman no longer believed her to have worked in the kitchens.
Well…that'll have to wait.
"Everybody be quiet!" demanded Meryl, gesturing wildly with her arms as though she could shove all the women back into their bunks through sheer force of will. The girl who had let her and Milly into the room was in hysterics and Meryl dragged her down by the front of her nightgown before seizing her in a headlock. She clapped a hand over the girl's mouth, shouting, "Quiet, quiet, quiet!"
Amazingly, the room went silent. Meryl held her breath, waiting and hoping that whatever it was, it was over. After another fifteen seconds the steamer shuddered once more, but this time the violent shaking was accompanied by the sound of an explosion, somewhere much nearer to them than the boilers.
Meryl realized what was happening just moments before the gunfire started, and then it was too late. Everyone else in the room was screaming and panicking again, negating any chance of their being able to hide and stay unnoticed.
She glanced at Milly, who just gave her a miserable grimace in return.
They were being hijacked.
"Aw, shit," muttered Meryl.