Smooth Sailing (2 page)

Damn straight men and their long-hair hang-up. “Warren’s not a hair stylist. I just wanted to know if I looked sick.”

“No, you look good.” His eyes slid to her hair again and she wanted to bean him.

“Don’t speak without giving me a quick look for permission. Warren hates for meetings to go long, and he doesn’t know you well enough to know he should listen to you.” She put on a confident smile, nodded quickly to Aaron and boldly opened the door.

*

Later that afternoon, Fernando called her. “Talked to HR. They tell me you’ve waived over three months of vacation since you’ve been here.”

“How much have
you
lost?” She knew the best way to get him to see the error of his ways was to point out that she was merely following his lead.

“Not that much. I take my kids to Puebla to see their great-grandmother for a week every year. And we go to Florida every spring break.”

“How much vacation did you take before you had kids?”

The few moments of silence showed she’d won the point. She was feeling pretty smug.

“Well, that was in the past. HR says they’re worried they’ll be sued if one of us drops dead from stress and our families prove we weren’t allowed to take vacations.”

“We’re
allowed
to,” she protested. “We just can’t. It’s our choice. Larry Simkowitz took a month this year.”

Fernando let the silence build for a few seconds, until Laurie said, “Okay, so he’s hanging on by his fingernails and he wanted to get paid for the time he was job hunting. Still…no one complained.”

“Warren was happy to have him gone. I think he’d have let him take our vacations just to be rid of him. But that’s not the point,” he said, all businesslike again. “HR is like a dog with a bone when they get on something, and they’re on this. Go on your vacation and play the game.”

“Fine.” She sighed. “Maybe I’ll go to Australia. I’ve always wanted to see it. Then, since I’ll be halfway there…”

“Where did you learn geography?” He chuckled to himself. “I’m serious about this. You have to take a real vacation. No working. No side trips to Osaka.”

“All right. I’ll go see my family.”

“Do something for yourself this time. How about Europe?”

“I’m not interested in Europe. It’s all churches and museums. I hate that stuff.”

“How about something outdoors? What do you like to do?”

“I run on the treadmill at the gym. Other than that…”

“Oh, come on. You don’t have
any
interests?”

“What are your interests?”

A longish silence followed. “I like to be with my kids.”

“Well, I like to be with my nieces.”

“Aren’t they in school?”

“Yeah, but they’re home by four. I could…”

“No way. You’re going to work all day while the house is empty, and call that a vacation. I’m going to plan this vacation for you, Laurie. Block off the first two weeks of December and leave it to me.”

Her gulp was loud enough for him to have heard it.

*

Laurie was so busy for the next two weeks it barely crossed her mind that she was going on a mystery vacation. But the Friday before she was to leave, the mystery was solved when she received a fat packet via interoffice mail. Wendy delivered it intact, tentatively offering it up. “I think this is your vacation information.”

Scowling, Laurie took it from her, opening it while she continued to talk to Toshi in Osaka. “Yes, I understand that. But the rides won’t be fully operational until February—if we’re lucky.” She got the packet open and couldn’t stop herself from exclaiming, “Oh, fuck!”

She stared in amazement and disgust as the contents of the packet poured out onto her desk. Her stomach turned when she started to read about her two week cruise to seven exotic, fantastic Caribbean islands on Teddy Bear Cruises, where all your days are as sweet as honey.

AFTER HER SIX-HOUR flight, Laurie waited in a room the size of an airplane hangar for a chirpy, chipper woman to give the assembled masses their departure information. “We’re going to send you in, one row at a time. Be ready when I call.”

“I’ve been ready for an hour,” Laurie mumbled.

“The kids got us up at five a.m.,” the woman next to her said. “They were hyperventilating.”

Laurie dragged herself out of her funk to focus on the family next to her, a fairly handsome dad, a fit, athletic-looking mom, and three cute kids: a boy, a girl and a baby of indeterminate classification. “I bet they’re excited.”

“Oh, it’s bigger than Christmas. It’s all we’ve talked about for three months. We had a big countdown calendar, didn’t we, Lindsay?”

“Yeah!” the girl said, her voice filled with enough high-pitched excitement that she could have used it to etch glass. “It’s today!”

“It sure is.”

“You’re alone?” the mom asked.

“Yes. My boss ordered me to take a vacation.”

“Ordered you?” The woman looked skeptical.

“Strange, but true. I’ve been working on a massive project, and he found out I haven’t had a vacation since I started working for Lux…the company.”

“Do you work for Luxor?”

“Yes, I do.” She hated to “come out” to strangers since they either wanted tickets to a park or made fun of her for working for a teddy bear, but since the woman was in line for the cruise, she could hardly throw stones. “Six years. One of the bad things about working for a family-entertainment conglomerate is that they’ve got a handy cruise ship to stick me on. That keeps me from working on opening the new theme park in Osaka, and that’s supposed to be to everyone’s benefit.”

“Oh, I heard about that. I don’t think I’ll ever get over there, but I’d love to take the kids to the original park in LA.”

“It’s nice.” Laurie smiled and let herself feel the spark of pleasure she got when a civilian expressed excitement about one of their parks.

The pleasure was destroyed in seconds. The woman caught her daughter’s attention and said, “Lindsay, this lady works with Teddy Bear.”

The little girl looked at Laurie with awe, as though she were about to bow down before her. “Teddy Bear?” she shrieked. “You know Teddy Bear?”

“Well, no,” Laurie stammered. “I don’t actually
know
him. He’s…he’s usually in…Florida and I work in California…” That should work, since the mother said they hadn’t been to the original park.

“Teddy Bear?” Other, older children hesitantly approached, surrounding Laurie as though she were a creature under study. They launched questions at her with rapidity. “Have you been to his Bee Hive? Do you know Buzzy? How about his cousin Brownie? Elmer the cat?”

“No, no, really,” she insisted. “I don’t work near Teddy Bear. He’s at the theme park…I mean, his house over here in Miami almost all the time.”

The woman in charge called their row and the kids forgot about Laurie as soon as they began to move. She stayed right in her seat to allow a dozen kids and their parents and grandparents to move past her until no one in the line knew she worked with or for Teddy Bear and his ilk.

*

The procedure for boarding was crisp and efficient, as all Luxor brands strove to be. One thing you could count on with Luxor was efficiency, not to mention boundless friendliness. Laurie said hello to no fewer than fifteen friendly faces on her way to her cabin. Her steward caught her as she was going in and offered to do anything she needed at any time of day or night. With complete relief, she shut the door and leaned against it, hoping no one followed her in to smile and welcome her further.

She sat on the bed and took her laptop out, immediately following the instructions on the TV for ordering Wi-Fi. Her job didn’t require a great deal of technical proficiency, but she was no slouch when it came to being a techie. After her tenth time trying to log on she took her computer up to the Internet Café and asked for help. A friendly, smiling young man whose ID labeled him “Terry” worked on it for several minutes, then said, “Oh, I see the problem. Your account has been locked. Did you or your husband ask us to shut off the Internet because you didn’t want your kids using it?”

“No husband. No kids.”

“Oh.” He smiled again and continued running through procedures. “I’m trying to turn it back on, but it’s still blocked. Would you mind if I worked on this a little later?” He discreetly eyed the line behind her and said quietly, “You understand we have to put non team members first, right?”

“Oh, yes, Terry, I certainly do.” Terry had clearly been able to tell from her reservation that she was a team member. There was no anonymity at Luxor. You were all part of the group, and every member of the group came after every member of the public. She gritted her teeth and went back to her cabin, grumpily consigned to work on just her PDA and her smartphone. Luckily, she had a strong signal on both and she texted back and forth with her staff in Osaka, who were just getting in on Monday morning. Sometimes the sixteen-hour time difference between home and Japan worked to her advantage.

She worked until the horn blasted a noise loud enough to be heard in Cuba. “I’ll call you right back,” she told Toshi. Then she went to the balcony and watched the ship back out of its slip, amazed that the huge vessel could back up as easily as a cabin cruiser. The whole procedure was fascinating, and she spent a good half hour watching the skyscrapers of Miami fade into the setting sun. With a start, she called Toshi back, embarrassed that she’d been so taken with the departure that she’d forgotten all about him. They talked for a while, then the signal faltered, then stopped. She knew she wouldn’t have another cell signal until they reached land: the Internet was now not a luxury, but a requirement.

Even though the public came first, she had her business card with her —the one that identified her as a vice president of the corporation. She jotted down her cabin number on it, planning to use it for dual purposes in case one of the technical guys needed to call her. She’d never used her position to get any special treatment, but today was an exception. If Terry tried to slough her off, she was going to show him that her place in the company was higher than his bosses’ bosses’ boss, and then some. It was a breach of every tenet of the Teddy Bear brand, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Resolved, she strode back to the Internet Café to find Terry huddled with yet another earnest young man, both of them leaning over her laptop. “What’s up?” she asked.

“Oh, hi, Ms. Nielsen,” Terry said. He looked worried enough that he must have figured out she was a VIP. “We’re having a heck of a time with your access.”

“Well, I need it. I’ll just use a desktop until you can fix it.”

“Oh, sure.” He walked over to a computer and instructed her in putting in her stateroom and name. But, once again, her access was denied.

It was very hard to keep her temper under control, but these guys were screwing with her life. “Terry, I don’t have time to play with this. Give me an access code that will work. Now.”

His eyes grew wide and he gave his companion a quick glance. “We’re not allowed to let anyone use our codes. That’s cause for termination.”

“If you don’t give me a code, the new park in Osaka might be delayed,” she hissed quietly, making sure no one else could hear. “I’ve got things I
have
to do today. They’re vital.”

“I’ll call someone in Miami,” he said, almost shaking.

She cooled her heels for a few minutes, trying to think of a way to properly apologize for scaring the poor kid. But when he came back, he looked more puzzled than intimidated, and it slipped her mind. “Miami says you’re not allowed to use the Internet, Ms. Nielsen.”

“What?” Her shout made every head turn. “What?”

“I don’t understand what’s going on, but someone in Los Angeles put a block on your access. We’re under strict orders not to let you use any of our computers.” He looked sad, as though she were being fired and he was delivering the bad news. “I’m genuinely sorry.”

She walked over to Terry’s comrade and held out her hands. He put the laptop in them and she started to leave, then remembered her manners and said, “I’m very sorry for losing my temper. I’ve been under a lot of pressure. Please don’t take it personally.”

“I understand,” he said, his smile back in place. “Have a super sweet day, filled with honey!”

*

It took a long time for her to calm down enough to convince herself not to jump overboard and swim to shore. Yes, she’d probably drown, but at least she’d have gone down with a fight. It was absolutely infuriating that this was supposed to be relaxing. It was like being forced to stand in the corner for two weeks. Human Resources was populated by people who’d never had a deadline in their lives, and they didn’t know a thing about pressure. She’d clashed with HR too many times to count, and they were obviously using this vacation gambit to put her in her place. But no one in HR would be humiliated on two continents if the theme part didn’t open on time. Only she’d get that honor.

Thinking about it just agitated her, but what else was there to do with no phone, and no internet? Her cabin, though nice enough, was small, and after a while the walls were closing in on her. With nothing to do until her eight-thirty dinner reservation, she went onto the pool deck and found an empty deck chair. Turning it to face the water, she thought about ways to smooth the opening of the park—her park—in Osaka. She was achingly lonely, like she was the only person around who realized how difficult it was to make tough things look easy. Suddenly, it hit her. She was among friends. Everyone working on the ship knew how hard it was, and it was their job to make sure the passengers did not. That’s what made Luxor the respected brand it was, and she was inordinately proud to be one of the busy bees making sure the hive worked to perfection.