Chapter 15
Daniel
Daniel stood in the kitchen for a few minutes after Ore left. He was, maybe for the first time in his life, wholly unsure what had come over him. He replayed the moment in his head, cringing to himself as he recalled his palm landing on her bare shoulder. He hadn’t been thinking, another rare phenomenon, and he had seen something in her eyes that he recognised, although he couldn’t put a name to it. She seemed scared and he had wanted to protect her from that feeling.
He had glimpsed the negative that made up the Technicolor Polaroid, and he had felt a little overwhelmed as though she was now sitting naked in front of him. Except he was at least worldly enough to know how to navigate a woman’s naked body – not so much her soul laid bare.
Daniel was beginning to come to terms with what all of this meant. He had had crushes before and, much like this one, he always found them more disturbing than enjoyable. He reasoned that it was only natural for people, including himself, to be attracted to Ore. She was beautiful, bright, funny and easy-going. On his good days he thought of himself as being the former two, but the latter he was most certainly lacking.
He had suspected after yesterday that he might have some untoward feelings, but he’d thought himself more than capable of overriding those. The hand-on-the-shoulder incident seemed to suggest otherwise and he was going to have to double down on his efforts. It was all quite inconvenient really, to be faced with these unnecessary challenges, just as he had been hoping for an autopilot kind of gig – figuratively speaking, of course.
‘Captain Wilsons to top deck.’ The radio clipped to his belt crackled into life with Vicky’s voice.
‘Copy that.’ He was glad to have somewhere to be.
As he walked up the stairs, he felt the now familiar vibration of the walls around him and heard a distant whining. The choppers were on the way, and that meant one thing: more guests arriving, which was not on the itinerary. He took the steps two at a time.
Vicky was barking out orders to the clusters of stewards and stewardesses who were coming, and then going, once they had received their instructions.
‘Did you know about this?’ Vicky strode over to him.
He held his hands up in surrender. ‘Not at all.’
Vicky brought her forefingers to her temples and massaged them slowly. Daniel stood still waiting for what he suspected was her bridled rage to pass.
‘Right, OK, well there’s two choppers on the way, that’s all I’ve been told, so that’s anywhere between like eight and sixteen new guests.’ Vicky looked up at him, as if he was supposed to provide sympathy at this point, despite the fact he was still waiting to hear exactly what all this had to do with him.
‘That’s a lot to ask, at such short notice,’ he offered, and Vicky seemed satisfied.
‘Oh, and they want to go to the Barrier Reef.’ She delivered this line with an almost theatrical level of nonchalance, as if that wasn’t going to mess up the entire navigation schedule and require Daniel to plot the reroute all through the night.
Daniel was unwilling to take the bait that Vicky was dangling in front of him. He sensed this was another one of her tests.
‘I guess I’ll go speak with First Office Dudley and we’ll come up with a plan.’
Vicky didn’t seem impressed but then again she didn’t seem disappointed either. She merely nodded curtly and said, ‘Thanks, Captain, I know it’s not an easy ask, but I appreciate your level-headedness.’
Daniel was stunned by the compliment; he enjoyed passing tests.
‘No time to lose then.’ He smiled and was met with something similar, a slight upturning of lips at least, before she set her sights on another victim.
In truth, as much as this would mean changing course, he was keen to have something other than Ore to focus on. It was too much like hard work mediating his own feelings whilst having to spy on her. Maybe this also exempted him from a debrief with Chuck, which was another aspect of this scheme that made his skin crawl.
He radioed Ollie as he made his way to the wheelhouse. ‘First Officer Dudley, do you copy?’
‘Copy.’
‘I’m heading over to discuss a new plan. Mr Regas wants to make a little detour.’
‘How little are we talking?’
‘He wants to go to the Barrier Reef.’
A click and then silence on the other end of the line. Daniel imagined that Ollie might have muted himself as he reeled off a colourful variety of expletives. Another click and Ollie was back, with a performatively calm: ‘Copy that, Captain.’
Ollie was leant back with his arms crossed wearing an unamused expression when Daniel got to him a few minutes later.
‘I heard the choppers and I knew it wasn’t going to be good news.’ Ollie had been working with Chuck on and off for about five years, so Daniel had come to understand that nothing about the billionaire’s last-minute whims shocked him, even if they annoyed him immensely.
