Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 88902 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88902 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
We're sitting in the staff mess at breakfast, which surprised me. Mila doesn't eat in the staff mess. She's not staff, not exactly. She's a consultant, which means she occupies the strange middle territory between guest and crew: guest-deck cabin, access to the fancy restaurants where I'm not allowed to breathe, but here on a work contract like the rest of us. She could eat in the main dining room with the crystal stemware and the napkins that are probably worth more than my trousers. She could eat anywhere on this ship.
She chose to eat with me.
And I don't know why that makes my chest go warm, but it does. Like being picked first for a team. Like someone surveyed the crowded room full of people who've been here longer and know each other better and thought, actually, I want to sit with the new girl who has an oil stain on her cuff and can't button her uniform properly.
"It's just practice," I tell her, tearing a croissant in half. The pastry flakes across the table and I brush the crumbs into my palm because I don't want to leave a mess, because I've never left messes for other people to clean up, because when you grow up eating cereal standing over the sink in a studio flat, you develop a permanent relationship with tidiness that borders on compulsive. "Lots and lots of practice."
"Don't undersell yourself, darling. Kobe told me your practical scores were the highest he'd seen in years. Years!" She leans forward, chin on her hand, those warm brown eyes studying me with a fascination that makes me feel simultaneously flattered and slightly on display. "You must have been born knowing how to touch people."
I wasn't born knowing anything. I learned because I had to, because my hands were the only part of me that anyone was willing to pay for, and because Madame Gilles took one look at my application and told me you have the fingers for it, now let's see if you have the patience, and I did, I had the patience, I had nothing but patience because patience is free and everything else costs money.
But I don't say that to Mila, because it sounds like a sad story and I don't particularly enjoy being a sad story, so I just say "Thank you" and eat my croissant, and she beams at me, and the smile is warm.
It is warm.
It is.
OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS, Mila is everywhere.
Not in an intrusive way. In a generous way, a beautiful-woman-who-remembers-what-it's-like-to-be-new way. She saves me a seat at the crew film night on Deck 4. She brings me a coffee when I'm between clients, remembering without being told that I take it black with one sugar, which means either she asked someone or she noticed, and both options make me feel cared for in a way I'm not used to and don't entirely know what to do with. She asks about my sessions, my clients, whether Mr. Green is being too hard on me, whether I'm sleeping okay, whether I miss home.
"Not really," I admit, which is true. Nice was never home. Nice was a place I lived because I could afford it, barely, and because Madame Gilles's studio was there. Home is a concept I've sort of... deferred. Added it to the someday list, along with savings accounts and furniture that matches and a kitchen where I can actually sit down to eat. Priority level: eventually. Status: pending.
"Oh, darling." She touches my wrist. Her fingers are cool, her nails perfect, and the touch is brief and light. "Everyone should have a home to miss."
I smile and change the subject and later, in my cabin, lying in my bunk with the curtain drawn and the ship rocking beneath me, I think about why that comment stung. Not because it was unkind. Because it was accurate. Mila has a way of finding the tender spot and pressing on it so gently you can't even call it pressure. More like an X-ray. She locates the bruise and holds a lamp up to it and you think she's being kind because she's showing you where it hurts, but afterward you're the one standing there with the ache and she's the one who walked away smiling.
She does it again the next morning, in the corridor outside the Tranquil Antique Gallery. I'm on my way to the spa and she's unlocking the gallery, keys in one hand, a leather portfolio tucked under her arm.
"Star! Perfect timing. Come see this."
I should keep walking. I'm ten minutes early for my schedule, which means I have exactly ten minutes, and I've already learned that Mila's version of "come see this" can stretch to forty minutes and two coffees and a life story.
But the gallery pulls at me, same as it did on the tour. The dim light, the warm spotlights, the jade figure glowing in its case. I follow her in.