Smooth Sailing Read Free

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,