Until the Gangaway Tears Us Apart, Page 2

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  After being dropped off by the port agent who did a disappearing act seconds later, Sofia was left sitting on her suitcase waiting for someone to tell her where to go next. While waiting, she looked at the white ship and admired her size and beauty. On the side she read the vessel’s name, Ocean Pearl. Pretty. From where she was the ship looked gigantic, very elegant with its sparkling white color and the contrast with the wooden railings on the promenade deck and the bluish of the glassed balconies. Sofia couldn’t really see all the way to the top because she was too close to the side of the ship but she noticed the bright orange lifeboats, some people walking in different directions on deck and the doors opened like a tunnel for the forklifts. The gangway was very busy.

  The balconies looked lovely and she imagined sitting on one of them wearing a bath robe and sharing a cocktail with someone loved. Not that she wanted to think about love. That was one of her least favorite subjects at the moment.

  The young woman wearing a white uniform and a golden stripe on the shoulders approached and by the way she was smiling Sofia guessed she was the welcoming committee.

  Denise tried to put her hair in order but the wind kept messing it around her face. “Another bad hair day,” she murmured, tugging a wisp of hair behind her left ear. She waved a hand at the doctor who replied with a smile and continued looking mesmerized at the ship.

  “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, she is indeed. Hi, I’m Sofia, the new doctor.” She gave Denise a strong and friendly hand shake.

  “Hello and welcome to our floating world. I’m Denise. I work in the crew office. Please follow me. Do you need help with your bags?”

  “No thanks. It’s great that these things come with wheels.” She pointed at the bottom of the suitcase.

  Sofia followed Denise and dragged her heavy luggage up the gangway, saving the questions for later. They passed security where a group of smiling Indian faces in immaculate white shirts and matching white trousers scanned her belongings on the x-ray machine and cleared her to go. They passed the big brown doors that separate the crew area from the passenger’s stairs, walked through the long white corridor with posters and ship’s deck plans on the walls that Denise called M1 and Sofia was impressed with the organized chaos going on.

  Forklifts jammed storage areas, suitcases literally flew from one side to the other, a radio played loud dance music and men in boiler suits talked loudly in Italian. She tried to look natural and confident, although a million questions lined up in her mind.

  “I’m so going to get lost in this place!” She confessed loud enough for Denise to hear it.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. It’s not as bad as it looks.” She answered as she opened the door to the crew office where everything was exactly the way she had left it and there was no sign of her life-saving milkshake.

  Sofia was told to fill some forms while they waited for someone from the medical department to pick her up. She handed her passport and tried to understand why they were going to keep it in the safe until the end of her contract.

  “How do I get to the ports then?” She asked, feeling a bit uneasy without the possession of her official ID.

  “You will be issued with a picture ID like this one I have around my neck.” Denise showed her the laminex, which Sofia examined for a second.

  “No offense, but I hope I’ll look better on my picture.” The doctor said politely.

  Denise chuckled. “Lesson number one my dear: no one ever looks good on a laminex picture. But this one isn’t so bad. My last contract my face was green. I used to feel embarrassed to show that card around but the security officer thought it was funny so he made me keep it the entire contract.”

  Sofia gave her a pitiful look. Diego came in with the milkshakes and found them laughing. He gave a large cup to Denise and apologized for not having one for Sofia.

  “No worries. I know I wasn’t expected but you need to tell me where to get those, for future reference, since I’ll be here for a while.”

  Denise introduced them. “Sofia, this is Diego. He is doing handover with me, which means that soon he will be doing my job and I will be replacing him as front desk supervisor. Diego, this is Sofia, the new baby doctor.”

  Sofia took a quick look at the tall young man with dark hair and light brown eyes. It seemed that no one onboard had time to use a brush that morning but he did pull the disheveled look all right.

  Diego gave her a hand shake and admired her beauty in silence. The word that came to his mind was simple and small: hot! Complimenting the doctor’s perfectly formed ass, the naturally tanned skin and her amazing green eyes in front of his girlfriend would probably lead to serious complications so he kept his opinion to himself.

  “Baby doctor?” Sofia looked at both of them bewildered.

  Diego understood her surprise straight way. “There are two doctors onboard, the senior doctor who is your superior in rank and head of the medical department, and you. Your job has always been called baby doctor, I don’t really know why. One day someone came up with that and it stuck.” He clarified.

  “Good. For a moment I thought you were expecting a pediatrician.” She replied and returned the papers to Denise.

  Sofia received a package with the ship’s general information, a key card for her room, a very useful ship’s map, her account number, a pin with the company’s logo and two name badges with her name spelled wrong. They wrote Sophia instead of Sofia. The moment she organized everything inside the manila A5 envelope another smiling face ducked through the door.

  “Mary! Here’s your mission for the day. This is Sofia, the new baby doctor and brand new to sea. She’s all yours.” Denise told the nurse with enthusiasm.

  “Oh love, if this was my only mission today I would be as happy as the pigs in the mud!” The senior nurse answered with a strong Irish accent. “Hello.” She said turning to Sofia. “Welcome to the team. I’m going to show you your cabin, the medical center and we also have to get you a uniform. Busy day for you.”

  “It’s all right. I’m used to be busy.” Sofia replied with a smirk. A ship couldn’t be worse than a hospital, she thought.

  They said goodbye to Denise and Diego and promised to see each other later. Mary helped pushing her suitcase out the door and as Sofia followed, the nurse gave her what she claimed to be very important information.

  “First of all, stay away from Italians. Second make sure your pager is always working, third, don’t listen to gossip. Also, be aware that crew members have a tendency to pathetic sex lives. I wouldn’t say love lives because most of them have no idea what love is and the ones who know eventually leave the ships before it’s too late. If you want to get out of here mentally sane, stay away from crazy people.” Mary said like she was advising her on how to survive in the jungle.

  “I thought you would be giving me important information about work.” Sofia replied with a chuckle.

  “Work? No way. I’ll leave that to Ryan, the senior doctor.”

  Sofia followed Mary to the starboard side where her cabin was located. Curious looks clearly speculated who she was but no one said anything. Either they were too shy or just afraid of Mary. Sofia suspected it was the last option.

  In the crew office, Denise took a sip of her milkshake and looked at Diego. “So, how did you find the new doctor?” She asked casually.

  “Very honestly, gorgeous! What a beautiful woman.” He replied innocently.

  Denise threw him a stapler that nearly hit him in the shoulder, proving he was right about silence before. “Hey! You asked.” He chided.

  “I meant as a person.”

  “The five minutes she was here I felt a good vibe”. He took the stapler that meanwhile landed on the floor and tried to put it back together. There were staples everywhere.

  “I liked her. I can feel we’ll be good friends.” Denise declared and started ordering the passports into piles of done and not done, ignoring th
e fact that he was cleaning her mess.

  Diego looked at her sideways. “Sure, but for the record, she is gorgeous.” He stated, holding her hands over the desk to make sure nothing else would fly in his direction.

  Sofia opened the door to her cabin and what she saw made her happy. There were two portholes framed by striped curtains that allowed for decent natural light, a double bed with a cover matching the curtains, a bedside table with two drawers and a lamp, a long desk with a cupboard, a small TV with DVD player, a double closet and a good space behind the door to put the luggage. Not bad at all. She took a quick look at the bathroom: tiny with no bath; the shower was big enough to fit a skinny person.

  “So, what do you think?” Mary asked impatiently.

  “Nice. Needs a bit of decoration.”

  “Your steward will probably only meet you tomorrow. He must be busy today with the passenger’s bags but I’m sure he’ll be very helpful and arrange for anything you need.” She said like the doctor knew exactly what she was talking about.

  Sofia gave her a quizzical look. “I have a steward?”

  “Yes. There is a young man, likely Filipino, who will take care of your room: do your bed, empty the bin, take care of your laundry, you know, things like that.”

  “Wow. Does everyone get that treatment around here?” Sofia asked unknowingly.

  “Of course not. Only officers. There are many privileges in having stripes on your shoulders. Talking about that, let me show you the medical center now. We still have to get you the uniform and the clock is ticking.” Mary took her across the corridor.

  Sofia asked where she was from in Ireland.

  “Galway.” The nurse replied.

  “I used to live in Dublin.”

  Mary glanced at her bewildered. “Really? So you’re from Portugal, your documents say you went to med school in England and you used to live in Dublin? What in the world are you doing on a cruise ship in Thailand the week before Christmas?”

  Sofia shrugged. “Long story. I’ll tell you one of these days.”

  They entered through the crew door into what looked like a waiting room with chairs and posters advertising how to deal with a number of things. Sofia could see the pharmacy on the left and an observation room to the right. A tall man completely dressed in white and with four red and gold stripes approached them. He smiled warmly and introduced himself.

  “Hi. You must be Sofia. I’m Ryan from South Africa, senior doctor. We have a small but very nice team here and I’m sure you’ll have a great time with us. Welcome.”

  Sofia shook his hand and smiled back. “Thank you. It all looks very interesting but I’m still feeling lost. Big ship.”

  Ryan gave her an understanding look. “Soon you will find her small. I promise.”

  Mary went to check the contents of a box that had just been delivered by a bellboy with what she expected to be medical supplies ordered two weeks earlier and Ryan showed the new doctor her working place. He gave her the pager that Mary had mentioned earlier, her emergency blue card stating her duties and told her everything she had to know for that day. He didn’t want to overwhelm her with too much information. She took note of the inductions she would have to attend starting that afternoon and gained conscience that her first week was going to be almost as bad as her first week of internship in the hospital.

  Back in the reception area the senior doctor paged Keira, one of the nurses, and told her to go with Sofia to get a uniform from the linen keeper since Mary was now on the phone with someone who had sent her the wrong order.

  Keira was an English, tall, red headed girl, friendly but a bit too loud for an already confused Sofia, so the doctor let her talk and pretended to know exactly what she was saying. It was easier to keep it like that for the moment than taking the chances on getting even more baffled. They took the amidships stairs to deck 2, according to the nurse because Sofia had no idea where they were, and then knocked on a big white door.

  The linen keeper, a short Italian man, received them with rude manners, complaining about his opening times. As soon as Keira told him that Sofia was the new doctor his attitude changed radically. He smiled and continuously asked what else they needed. He checked that all the items on the list were there and waved them goodbye with a big smile as they walked upstairs again with a pile of clothes.

  “Did you see that? As soon as I said the magic word doctor he was all nice and smiles.” Keira observed with amusement.

  “Is it always like that? Do we always get special treatment?” Sofia enquired wondering what kind of world she was getting into. The hiring agency ashore had not been very specific.

  “It’s unfair for most of the crew, but yes, we tend to be treated better, first because we are officers and second because no one wants to upset the medical department. Pretty soon you will understand what rank means onboard a cruise ship.” Keira explained, getting Sofia to conclude that maybe some things would never change, no matter where you are.

  As they entered Sofia’s cabin the clothes were dropped on the bed. The doctor picked up a skirt and blouse that looked almost ironed and tried them on. After struggling with the golden buttons and the stripes she managed to look all right. The skirt was too long, the blouse didn’t have a shape, the fabric was rough and the buttons were not user friendly but she would have to deal with those details some other time. A message from the bridge came through the PA calling all the new joiners to go to induction one.

  “What am I supposed to do now?”

  “You take that life jacket, your blue card and go. It should take about one hour. Page me when you’re done and I’ll meet you for a quick bite. You must be hungry.” Keira instructed her.

  “Starving.” Sofia replied walking out the door with all the gear.

  She didn’t have any idea of where to go but it was easy to follow the crowd carrying orange life jackets all the way to deck 8, to the crew recreation room, better known as crew bar. She found the place too cold and poorly decorated. Maybe it would look better at night with different lights. She sat on one of the chairs lined up in the central area and waited like everyone else. Her fellow crew members looked bored.

  A few officers came in and during almost one hour she heard a well elaborated speech about onboard safety, fire extinguishers, what to do in an emergency and ships organization. As important as that could be, she found it way too much information for someone who had just travelled half way around the world into something almost as strange as a brand new planet. Sofia decided she would learn all that stuff after she knew how to go back to her cabin.

  Keira arrived right after Sofia paged her. “Pizza?” She offered.

  The doctor touched her empty stomach. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear that word.”

  The nurse guided her to the elevator and pressed fifteen. “Let me warn you that the pizzas onboard are not the best. We’ll have a better dinner tonight.” Keira promised.

  “I’m so hungry I’ll eat anything.”

  The outside deck looked very nice, fascinating even. They passed by one of the pools and saw many passengers consulting their pocket maps and wandering around. Sofia liked the wide open spaces, the different bars and the ship had been designed to be comfortable and stylish at the same time. The top decks were beautiful and she guessed the passengers would want to spend a lot of their time there. From up there the view was amazing and she felt tiny as she looked down over the dock. It was like being on top of a really tall building.

  “In some ports we can get a great view from here.” Keira observed and they sat on white chairs by the tall windows with two slices of pepperoni pizza each.

  “I bet. I haven’t felt this small in a very long time.”

  “Wait until you see a sail away from Sydney. That moment, if you don’t know why you are working on a cruise ship, you’ll find out.”

  They returned to the medical center where Sofia spent a few hours before having a chance to call it a day and start unpacking
. Keira told the new doctor how she could send her clothes to the main laundry and where to find the launderette in case she preferred to look after the clothes herself. The nurse also promised to show her the way to the officer’s mess.

  After a quick shower, Sofia realized she was hungry again and the jet lag was starting to hit her badly. Her muscles were sore and her messed up body clock demanded rest. Her mind was not quite focused on her new reality yet.

  Someone knocked loudly.

  “Food!” Two cheerful voices said at the same time.

  Sofia opened and Keira walked in with another nurse, Carla. Her name tag said South Africa and she was very pretty, tanned, with black wavy hair, dark brown eyes and a very athletic body.

  As they made their way towards what was supposed to be the back of the ship, not that Sofia knew which way that was, she noticed that the nurses had two red stripes, while Mary had two and a half, she had three and Ryan four. Ranks seemed to be very well defined onboard.

  In just a couple of minutes they reached the back, went up one deck and walked through a small room with a buffet line and from there to a wider room with wooden walls and no windows. There were tables set up with white plates, glasses and cutlery.

  They sat in a corner and a friendly waiter of Asian features named Joey gave them a menu each. Sofia ordered the spring rolls, which should be a starter so she asked for two portions. She took a small plate and got some cheese from the buffet line. From the corner they could see the entire room and it was pleasurable to be able to observe people without causing the impression of being nosy.

  “Who are those with the khaki uniforms looking at us?” The doctor asked.

  “Technical department. The one pretending to eat is English. The other two are Italians and they’re probably thinking something like I need to get sick, the new doctor is hot.” Carla explained making them all laugh.

  Keira gave her a disapproving look. “Stop it. The woman has just arrived and you are already scaring her.”

  “I’m only preparing her for ship’s reality. She better get used to it.” Carla replied.

  Sofia was finding everything very amusing.

  “Let’s get to the important business.” Carla continued. “Over there on the left side in the oval table, is the technical area. Anyone who dares to sit there will receive unfriendly looks but I’m sure they would open and exception for pretty girls. On the other side is the pursers’ domain. Pursers are the ones who put up with the passengers, poor things. You’ve probably met a couple of them and the others must be arriving. After a day like this they always go for a drink in the officer’s wardroom before dinner. The guys from the bridge like that middle area and you’ll recognize them by the black and gold stripes. Cruise staff are the ones who play with the passengers to keep them entertained. You’ll see them wearing very strange outfits sometimes.”

  “What about us, do we normally sit here?” Sofia enquired.

  “I like this corner because we can watch everyone but we can seat wherever we like because everyone loves us and if they don’t, we don’t care because sooner or later they’ll need us and they all know that.” Carla retorted.

  “Cheers to that.” Keira lifted her glass on a toast.

  “Now, also very important, that door over there is the officer’s wardroom, best known as wardie. It’s a private bar only for officers. We can go and have a drink after dinner so you get familiar with the place.” Keira offered, pointing at the dark brown door across the room.

  Joey served them the meals and even though she was confused and tired, Sofia had a wonderful time and a positive first impression of life onboard. Maybe because Carla and Keira made everything seem like a big comedy, she was looking forward to the next few days to know more people and find a space in that world, so different from everything she was familiar with.

  Many more people came in to the room to have their meals and soon the atmosphere was filled with voices. Sofia could see the curious looks in the faces of those who didn’t know her yet.

  After dinner they moved to the so called wardroom, an enclosed space with wooden walls that felt a bit claustrophobic. The wardie was much smaller than she expected. There were a few tables and sofas, a TV that no one was paying attention to and a stereo in a corner playing loud music. There were no windows and the decoration consisted of a few paintings. Smoking was allowed and Sofia was not happy about that. She found it hard to breathe and she hated the smell.

  They ordered drinks from another Filipino bar tender before they found a seat. There were more men than women and except for two girls everyone was wearing uniform. Keira guessed Sofia’s thoughts and told her that it was not mandatory to wear uniform in there, but most people never bothered to change because they needed it for dinner anyway.

  She recognized Denise sitting on a couch and joined her together with the nurses. She was having a glass of red wine and chatting with Amy, the crew office manager. They talked about trivialities and a little later Diego came in and asked loudly for a rum and coke before he sat on the couch in the spot next to Amy.

  “Bad afternoon?” She asked looking at him sideways.

  “Considering that last cruise we missed four ports because of the typhoon and I thought Armageddon was about to start, today wasn’t that bad.” He replied coolly.

  “I’m not convinced. Tell us the details.” Carla asked, knowing the front desk was the best source of dramatic comedies onboard.

  “Let me see…” Diego paused for a moment. “I got this guy who wanted us to give him two thousand dollars to buy a new laptop because we broke his. The moron put it in the main luggage and now it’s our fault it doesn’t work. Then there was a lady making a fuss because we have Christmas trees onboard but no menorahs. I told her the trees are holiday trees, not Christmas trees, like anyone would ever believe that! She didn’t buy it so the only thing I could think about to get rid of her was to say that we ordered the menorahs, but the company failed to deliver them. There was also a man who complained because he wanted to stay in the bar drinking during the drill and the nasty bar tender closed the bar and told him to fetch the life jacket and go to the muster station. So he decided he should argue with the reception about the ship’s potential sinking schedule and if it was really that important to know what to do in case of an emergency because apparently emergencies never really happen. Finally I had a couple who wanted an upgrade because their son is in Iraq.” He concluded and everyone giggled.

  “Not bad.” Amy acknowledged. She had had her share of front desk dramas in her previous contracts. “I think you deserve another drink. This one is on me.”

  “Thank you.” Diego answered, feeling relieved that the day was over.

  A few minutes later Ian, the administration officer, and a tall blond guy walked in and Diego joined them on a dart game.

  The girls stayed in the comfort of the sofas. Sofia felt her body begging for a bed. It had been a long, long day and she thanked Carla and Keira for their company and left. It was easy to find the way back to the cabin. Her suitcase was open in a corner waiting for when she had some time to unpack. She desperately needed a few hours of sleep first.

  Sofia had a quick shower, put on a white pajama and looked for a book to have on her bedside table for whenever she had the chance to read. She threw herself on the bed and felt the ship moving. It was not too intense but she could clearly feel the movement. It was exciting to be there. She left the curtains open so she could admired the moonlight. Water splashed on the portholes as she closed her eyes and sunk into deep sleep.