I plan to last. I need this job the way plants need rain.
"Follow me."
THE SHIP IS A CITY.
Not a metaphor. A fact. The Cerulean Royale holds three thousand guests, twelve hundred crew, nine restaurants, four pools, a theatre, and a library with a domed glass ceiling that Mr. Green points out with the only hint of pride I've caught from him so far.
"Original Tiffany panels," he announces. "Salvaged. Don't ask from where."
I don't ask. But I do stop walking, because the glass is catching Mediterranean light and scattering coloured lozenges across the reading chairs below, amber and jade and a deep rose that pools on the open page of a book someone left face-down on an armrest, and it's so beautiful that for a second I forget I'm on a tour and just stand there with my mouth open like a tourist at the Louvre.
Oh chops, I could cry. I won't, obviously, because Mr. Green is three steps ahead and already giving me the look, but I could. Because I'm here. I'm actually here. The girl who ate standing up in a studio flat in Nice and counted bus fare in centimes isstanding under original Tiffany panels on a ship that people pay thousands of euros to board, and someone is payingherto be on it, and if Madame Gilles could see this she'd probably light a cigarette and sayI told you so, Étoilein that way she has, and I'd probably cry then too and she'd tell me to stop being ridiculous and use a tissue.
Add to planner: buy tissues.
Monaco is still right there through the windows, white buildings climbing the hill, the harbour packed tight with yachts, the casino district glittering even in daylight. All of it real. All of it happening to me.
We move through the guest decks. Mr. Green narrates without enthusiasm, reciting a route he's walked a thousand times. The main pool on Deck 12, saltwater, heated.
"Guests will ask you for poolside massage. The answer is always no."
The fine dining room on Deck 8.
"You will not eat here."
The boutiques on the promenade.
"You will not shop here."
A pattern emerges: the ship is full of beautiful things that aren't for me. Mr. Green is essentially giving me a guided tour of all the places I'm not allowed to enjoy, which is actually kind of hilarious if I think about it, except he's delivering it with the solemnity of a funeral director, so I keep my face professional and nod in the right places.
It's fine. Truly fine. I grew up surrounded by beautiful things that weren't for me. Storefronts in Nice. Hotel lobbies I walked through fast. Other girls' coats. The difference is that now I get to be near them every single day, and that alone feels like winning.
What I have are my hands. They've always been enough.
On Deck 5, he stops.
"Tranquil Antique Gallery," he gestures through a glass partition.
I turn.
The space is dim, warm spotlights falling on individual pieces while the rest stays in shadow. I can see a long room lined with display cases, and inside them: porcelain, lacquerwork, a jade figure the size of my fist that seems to glow from the inside. At the far end, a writing desk in dark wood sits on a low platform, its surface bare except for an inkwell and a single sheet of paper, as if someone left mid-sentence two centuries ago and never came back.
My fingers press to the glass before I can stop them.
"I said don't touch the art," Mr. Green reminds me from behind.
I snatch my hand back. "Sorry. It's not... I wasn't going to go in. I just..."
"You were admiring."
I glance at him. His expression isn't disapproval. Something closer to recognition.
"It's beautiful," I blurt out, because it is, and because I've never learned to pretend beautiful things don't affect me when theydo. I've tried. I can't. A perfectly glazed piece of porcelain or a hand-stitched seam or light hitting old gold, and something in me just goesohand my hands itch to touch and that's probably a character flaw but it's mine.
"The gallery consultant is Mila," he offers, already turning away. "You'll meet her. She's friendly. Come along."
I follow. But I sneak one more glance through the glass at the jade figure glowing in its circle of warm light, and I think: someone made that with their hands. Centuries ago. And it's still here.
