Cherry Ames 09 Cruise Nurse (3 page)

Cherry’s mind raced ahead. She hadn’t done a bit of Christmas shopping yet. She could do that in New York Wednesday morning and all day Thursday. She ought to be calling about trains and making reservations now, sending a telegram to the Spencer Club. The room she shared with Gwen would be waiting for her. And that reminded Cherry that she must pay her share of the January rent before sailing, just in case the
Julita
was delayed by bad weather.

Tears fi lmed her eyes. Half of her wanted to go; the other half wanted to stay right here in Hilton. Through a blur she saw her mother’s face, smiling down at her.

“Why, Cherry darling,” Mrs. Ames was saying with just a suspicion of a catch in her voice. “It’s wonderful!

The very thing. Dr. Joe and I were saying only yesterday that you need a change and a dose of good, hot sun. We thought of Florida. But this is much better.

Your father and Charlie will be so happy for you.” 16
CHERRY

AMES,

CRUISE

NURSE

Cherry was out of bed, scrambling through tangled sheets and blankets to throw her arms around her mother. “Oh, Mrs. Ames, ma’am,” she laughed and cried at once. “You’re just about the understandingest mother a registered nurse ever had!”

The rest of the morning was a dizzy whirl of excitement. Dad came home for lunch with the train and Pullman tickets in his pocket. “Cherry Ames, Ship’s Nurse!” He gave her a mock salute.

Charlie nagged her constantly with useless instructions. “Don’t forget, honey, from now on stairs are ladders, fl oors are decks, beds are bunks—
”

“Oh, stop it, Charlie!” Cherry clapped her hand lightly over his mouth. “The
Julita
is a luxury liner, not a transport or a destroyer. It’s a house, I’ll have you know.

A mansion, I mean. Dr. Davis showed me pictures and a deck plan of her sister ship when he interviewed me two weeks ago. They have windows, not portholes; a dining
room,
a living
room,
and a library. Even a night club that opens onto a veranda above the swimming pool.”

Charlie tugged at his blond hair in mock bewilderment. “Doesn’t sound very nautical to me.” He hopped around the room in a very bad imitation of a sailor’s hornpipe.

Midge began to chant to the tune of “The Farmer in the Dell”:

“Cherry’s going to sea,

Cherry’s going to sea,

Heigh-ho, the Cherrio,

Cherry’s going to sea!”

“BON

VOYAGE!”

17

Charlie topped it off with a hastily improvised bal-lad on the dangers of the pirate-infested Caribbean.

He brought in Captain Kidd, Drake, and Morgan, and ended with Cherry walking the plank by order of Long John Silver.

What seemed like minutes later, Cherry was tensely trying to go to sleep in an upper berth of a streamliner speeding to New York. The night was endless, but the next day passed all too quickly.

She had hardly made out her Christmas shopping list and gathered her scattered thoughts when she found herself in the dim hallway of the Greenwich Village apartment house. Good old No. 9! Tacked in a row beside the doorbell were the Spencer Club’s professional cards: Gwen’s, Vivi’s, Bertha’s, Josie’s, Mai Lee’s and, last but not least, a faintly dusty one on which were engraved the words:

CHERRY AMES, R.N.

Cherry was tempted. None of them would be home until after six. It was hardly fi ve-thirty now. None of them had had the faintest hint of her new job. Why not give them the surprise of their young lives?

She set down her suitcase and scrabbled through her wallet for a fresh card. Under her name she carefully added in bold, block printing, “Ship’s Nurse.” Giggling, she substituted the new card for the old one.

That would give them a jolt. Gwen’s eyes would bug right out of her head.

Cherry unlocked the blue door and slipped into the ground-fl oor apartment. The living room with the 18
CHERRY

AMES,

CRUISE

NURSE

gold-and-white sprigged wallpaper looked just the same: Tidy, but not too tidy, with a pleasant, lived-in look. There were ashes under a huge, half-burnt log in the handsome fi replace. Books and magazines over-fl owed from the low shelves under the windows facing the street. The gold gauze curtains they had all helped make had a freshly laundered crispness.

“I’ll bet Bertha did that.” Cherry smiled to herself and went down the hall to the bedroom she shared with Gwen. Slowly she unpacked the few things she would need before sailing.

It seemed strange to be the only one home. And it seemed much stranger not to be tired and harried at the end of a working day. Luxuriating in the peace and quiet of the normally hectic apartment, she donned a warm fl annel housecoat and bunny-toed scuffs. It was so cold she could see her breath. That janitor! He insisted too much heat was unhealthy.

In the tiny kitchenette Cherry fi xed herself a cup of scalding tea and two thick slices of cinnamon toast.

Munching between sips she wandered into the back parlor. She laughed as the sight of the blue furniture reminded her of that scrape. Another “Ames Folly,” that one. The janitor had been furious when he discovered that the girls, at Cherry’s suggestion, had painted the dingy chairs, table, and sideboard without his permission. But it had all ended happily.

Cherry heard the rattle of a key in the front door lock. Quickly she dumped her cup and saucer in the sink and hurried down the hall. It was red-haired Gwen

“BON

VOYAGE!”

19

with a smudge of subway soot on the end of her pert, freckled nose.

“Cherry Ames!”

“Gwenthyan Jones!”

Sturdy arms hugged Cherry tightly. “We got your wire, but we didn’t believe a word of it. What gives?

Why come back with Christmas less than a week away?”

“Oh, dear,” Cherry moaned inwardly. “She didn’t even notice my new card. What a fi ne jolt that turned out to be.”

She opened her mouth to explain and then Bertha arrived, laden down with bundles of groceries. After that, Mai Lee showed up with Vivian right on her heels. Everybody talked at once, bombarding Cherry with questions. There was such a babel of voices that Cherry’s replies were drowned out. And suddenly there was Josie, blinking bewilderedly behind her glasses.

“Cherry,” she blurted in her rabbity way. She was holding Cherry’s new card in one gloved hand. “What’s this about you being a ship’s nurse? Are you going to give up your district?”

“Ship’s nurse,” the others shouted in unison. “Who’s a ship’s nurse? Ames, you fi end! You’ve been holding out on us!”

Cherry backed away from them, stumbled, and sat down hard on the sofa, minus one scuff. They crowded around her excitedly, Mai Lee curling up on the worn carpet at her feet.

20
CHERRY

AMES,

CRUISE

NURSE

Bertha came to the rescue. “Girls, girls! Let her get her breath. Gwen, build a fi re while I put the perish-ables in the icebox. They’ll freeze in here if I don’t.” She bustled out to the kitchenette.

Gwen grumbled but went to work with crushed paper and kindling. Soon the log was blazing cheer-ily. Bertha came back with six cups of steaming hot tomato juice on a tray.

“Now,” she said, settling her plump body in a chair.

“Begin at the beginning, Cherry.”

Cherry told them the whole thrilling story, apologizing, “I didn’t know myself until I got Dr. Davis’s letter yesterday morning. I didn’t even give Mother a hint. I honestly didn’t think I had a chance.”

“Oh, Cherry, it’s too good to be true!” Vivian’s soft hazel eyes were wide with enthusiasm.

Cherry felt a twinge of remorse. Vivian needed a rest and change as much as Cherry did, but there was not a trace of envy in her warm smile.

“It’s just what the doctor ordered, Cherry,” Josie laughed.

“You lucky, lucky girl,” Gwen shouted excitedly.

“I’m so glad for you, Cherry.” Mai Lee quietly clapped her small ivory hands in approval. “You deserve it.”

“I should say she does,” Bertha Larsen cried emphatically. “I only hope they don’t work you to death.

Oh, my aching feet. At least you won’t have to climb umpteen fl ights of stairs every day.”

Cherry’s black eyes twinkled. “You wouldn’t swap jobs with me for anything, Bertha, and you know it.

“BON

VOYAGE!”

21

You’re in love with your district. All of you are. I miss my own patients so, sometimes I ache all over.”

“A different kind of ache from mine,” Gwen sniffed, rubbing her ankles as she toasted her stockinged feet in front of the fi re. “Me, I’m so jealous I’m green. A Caribbean cruise! Moonlit decks! Soft tropical breezes!

While the rest of us plod our weary way through knee-deep snowdrifts.” She grinned affectionately at Cherry.

“I don’t envy you the hot sun though. I freckle and peel like anything.”

It had started to snow again so instead of going out they voted to have supper on low tables around the fi re. Bertha produced a delicious warmed-over lamb stew. “It always tastes better the second day,” she said, ladling out generous portions.

Gwen, complaining good-naturedly, donned overshoes and went out for vanilla ice cream. Cherry insisted upon making hot fudge sauce to go with it.

“Stop treating me like a guest. I’m not a
visiting
nurse.

And I know you’re all ten times as tired as I am.” But Cherry
was
tired, she discovered an hour later.

She fell asleep, as she said afterward, a split second before her head touched the pillow.

She breakfasted with the girls the next morning and shooed them out of the kitchen as she stacked the dishes.

“I’ll clean up; you haven’t time. The stores won’t be open for more than an hour and my appointment with the medical secretary isn’t until this afternoon.” She added: “I’m kind of excited about that. I believe 22
CHERRY

AMES,

CRUISE

NURSE

I’m going to meet the doctor who’ll be my boss on the cruise.”

“And he’ll be young and handsome, if I know the Ames luck.” Gwen chuckled. “Watch out for that tropical moon. You’ll come back engaged sure as anything.”

Cherry’s red cheeks fl ushed even redder. “Go ‘long with you, Jones.” She gave Gwen a little push. “He’ll probably be ancient and decrepit with a long gray beard.
And
a very nasty disposition.” But Gwen’s prediction, not Cherry’s, came true.

Dr. Kirk Monroe was not only young and handsome, but he had very pleasant manners. Miss Henry, the secretary of the medical department, introduced them in her offi ce after she had given Cherry a sketchy idea of what her duties aboard ship would be like.

“It’s all very fl exible, Miss Ames.” She smiled. “Miss Davis highly recommended you. Said you had an uncanny knack of being able to get along with all sorts of people. That’s important.”

The compliment made Cherry’s dark eyes dance. “I
like
all sorts of people,” she admitted.

“Good. Of course,” Miss Henry went on, “people do get seasick off Hatteras. And every now and then a member of the crew has an accident. Even more rarely a nurse has to assist at an emergency operation, such as an appendectomy. But, by and large, the people who go on our pleasure cruises are a healthy lot. They go for the fun of it; not because they’re invalids or convalescents.”

“BON

VOYAGE!”

23

She swiveled around in her chair and pointed out the window. “You can get a glimpse of the
J
ulita
now. The snowstorm last night delayed her arrival. She docked about an hour ago.”

Cherry leaned forward eagerly. Riding in a taxi along the pier-lined North River, she had seen lots of ships.

Now she was going to see her own. But, straining her eyes, she saw nothing but two black smokestacks rising above a row of lifeboats. Nevertheless, those smokestacks were the chimneys of what was going to be her home-at-sea for twelve whole days!

“It all sounds so wonderful,” she told Miss Henry. “I love my work, but I hope everybody stays well. I can’t imagine anything more disappointing than getting sick on a pleasure cruise.”

“As a matter of fact,” the secretary went on, “we did have a really serious case on the
Julita’s
last trip. One of those unpredictable, once-in-a-lifetime things. Pulmonary thrombosis. The patient, a man of seventy-odd, died shortly after they took him ashore in Curaçao.” She looked up as the door behind Cherry opened.

“Ah, here’s Dr. Monroe. He’s in charge of sick bay aboard the
Julita.
He’ll teach you the ropes after you’re aboard ship. Doctor, this is Miss Cherry Ames.” Cherry jumped up and wheeled to face the young man in the doorway. He was as tall and well-built as Charlie, with gray eyes and thick, wavy, brown hair.

Cherry thrilled at the sight of his navy-blue uniform with the gold caducei on his sleeves. The second day out, when the weather turned warm, he would change 24
CHERRY

AMES,

CRUISE

NURSE

to whites. With his deep coat of even tan, Cherry decided, he would look very handsome in whites.

With sudden embarrassment she realized that she was one of the two principal actors in a little mutual-admiration scene. Dr. Monroe’s eyes were dark with approval as he grinned down at her fl ushed, rosy face.

“He likes my looks, anyway,” Cherry thought. She hoped he wouldn’t notice how her pulse was racing when they shook hands. “Now, if he only likes
me,
we should make a grand team.”

Cherry was glad she had worn her new chocolate-brown suit and the cream-colored blouse that tied in a perky bow under her chin. Melted snow glistened in the dark curls that peeped out from under the brim of her poinsettia-red hat.

Dr. Monroe shook hands warmly. “I’m awfully glad to meet you, Miss Ames.” His voice was deep, sin-cere, and pleasantly husky. His fi ngers were the clean, strong, cool fi ngers of a born surgeon.

“I like him already,” Cherry admitted frankly to herself. “He’s one of those people who are born nice.” Dr. Monroe took two long steps into the offi ce, handed a portfolio of papers to the secretary. “The report on the pulmonary thrombosis case is in there,” he said, very sober now. “Hate to lose a patient, but, of course, there was nothing anybody could do. Kind of a nice old fellow. Eccentric, but very co-operative.” Then with a “See you Friday morning” to Cherry he departed.