Chapter 66
Ore
Day 13
Ore had one more night on boardThalassa, before they docked in Sydney. It was the first time she’d woken up before Daniel. He was definitely an early bird. The light was grey and mauve, glowing through the thin gauze of the curtains. Ore had not only come to tolerate the endless swaying of the waves below, but to enjoy them. How would she sleep with the sound of sirens, and the vibrations of the subways under foot back in New York?
She hadn’t felt this well rested in years. It struck her that she hadn’t touched or thought about alcohol since they’d been on the island. She guessed that sleeping with a captain on duty was probably a good influence on her metropolitan drinking habit. She’d also been eating well, thanks to Carlos, and definitely getting her fair share of aerobic exercise: swimming, walking and … all the other stuff too. She smiled to herself, pleasantly surprised by her ability to take satisfaction from something other thanachieving.
Her professional life was in tatters; she’d been ignoring all of Henry’s increasingly urgent emails and messages about theprofile, and she wasn’t interested in that sham job offer. She’d spent the past two weeks chasing a story that was probably unpublishable, and she had no other prospects, having let her other regular freelance writing slip by the wayside.
And yet, here she was grinning, content, happy. Maybe Carlos had a point with all this ‘living in the moment’ stuff. And she didn’t have much moment left. She nestled her face into Daniel’s back and he shifted awake.
‘Morning, beautiful.’ He smiled dopily, and she planted a kiss on each of his drooping eyelids.
‘I wish I could wake up to this every morning.’ The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, piercing through their embryonic cocoon of denial. She felt the tension seize his body almost immediately, and her own stiffened in response.
She’d have done anything for one more minute in the ‘before’ but it was too late now. The bubble was burst, and the world outside it needed to be faced.
They were both quiet for a time, bodies pressed against each other in the dawn light.
‘I’m going to miss you.’ Daniel’s tone was disarmingly matter-of-fact.
Ore pulled his face to hers, and when she spoke, her lips almost brushed his. ‘Me too, Daniel, but I’m sure we’ll see each other again …’ She hoped with her whole heart that that was true.
‘I don’t think you can ever know how profoundly you’ve changed me, Ore.’ His eyes blazed. ‘Before I met you, I was on a treadmill, sometimes walking, sometimes running, consistently into my future. But with you I learnt how to fly. Andhopefully …’ he betrayed himself, the composure cracking with a break in his voice ‘… after you, I can keep doing that, high enough so that I can see how beautiful everything is.’ She stroked the tear away from his cheek.
‘Honestly,’ she said, her voice low, ‘it sounds like that’s more Carlos’ influence than mine.’ His tears were swallowed into a chuckle then. Ore tried to capture the moment in her mind’s eye. The dark, hot form of him against the cool light. The tiny gap between his two front teeth, the particular shade of pink of his inner bottom lip, the rays of his laughter lines fanning out from those dark, molten jewels.
‘We still have an hour,’ she whispered, sinking her fingers into his hair.
‘It won’t be enough, but I’ll take it,’ he murmured, closing his eyes again and resting his forehead against hers tenderly. And that’s how they lay, for the next fifty-nine minutes, the seconds ticking away unceremoniously until Daniel pulled himself away and quietly got dressed. Ore stayed as she was, eyes closed, and pictured him moving around. If her imagination was going to be her only access to Daniel soon, she’d better start practising.
The door shut softly behind him as a silent hot tear rolled down her cheek. After an unknown while she got herself up, and slowly moved around her cabin, gathering her things, folding some, scrunching others, and then piling them into her suitcase.
They would dock in Sydney in the early hours and she would be far too groggy and grumpy to pack then. When alltraces of her, apart from her toothbrush, were cleared from the room, she sat on the unmade bed and stared at her reflection in the mirror opposite. She was nervous about going back to her old life, where, ironically, she had felt so unmoored. By some strange logic her time onThalassahad been intense, but also grounding. She was a more certain person than she had been two weeks ago. No job waiting perhaps, but a stronger sense of what she wanted, what she believed, her skills as a journalist and her ability to rise to the occasion.
Her phone buzzed her out of her introspection. It was an email from Henry.
On second thoughts, we’ve decided that the first draft you sent last week was actually some great copy. So let’s run with that. The rest of the team and I are really looking forward to working with you on a permanent business. Congrats!
All my best,
H
P.S. see attached ;)
Ore was unnerved by the tone it was so jovial, as though their last conversation had never happened. And that winky face … She also found herself rereading the first few words over and over again: ‘our end’, an image of Chuck reading the article a few floors above where she was sitting, and nodding along approvingly made her feel nauseous again, for the first time in days.
She clicked on the attachment. EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT FOR MISS ORE BALLOU-ADU. She skimmed over it. It wasan outrageous deal. Thirty-five hours with enforced overtime pay, twenty days’ leave, unheard of in New York, and a signing bonus of … $50,001. She closed the document and threw her phone across the bed, a shiver running down her spine. Chuckwantedher to know that he was behind this. Was the cheque in the envelope all part of his plan? To make her understand just how deeply his claws were dug into her life?If she hadn’t been so disturbed she might have been impressed by the foresight of it all. It was really giving ‘evil genius’.
She would have to reply to Henry soon if she wanted to block publication, but she had at least until the end of the day, and for now she wanted to get as far away from her phone as possible.
She made her way up to the pool. Maybe a swim would help clear her head. She rummaged for her swimsuit and grabbed a towel.
She had grown accustomed to having the pool to herself but this morning another black-bikini-clad swimmer was doing lengths of front crawl. They were fast as well. It was hard to tell who it was until the goggled face emerged and removed its cap. Elbows splayed on the pool’s edge, Mel gave Ore a surprisingly broad smile.
‘Hey,’ she said as Ore approached. ‘I was hoping I might see you before we all get off this floating prison …’
