Corona Gale, 0.5.1

Note: this is an alpha release of Corona Gale. Much like Sprites, Jets, and Elves, it only exists as a first act with no ending and has a lot of rough edges. You can see other chapters by following the Corona Gale tag. 

This was the kind of thinking that derailed relationships. This is why people who travel can’t be with one another, why long-distance relationships always crumbled. James Bond may be full of shit, but the fact that he’d never held down a girl for very long was maybe the most realistic part of those movies. Kate wasn’t at that point, but she could see it, off in the distance, a long string of broken hearts. It made her somber, and sober. What didn’t help was the little bit of her that actually felt a little like James Bond, and that little part of her was beaming at this realization, that she’d used up Ollie—sweet, perfect Ollie—and now she’d be on to something else in a month. 

Kate decided she needed to leaver her cabin and explore the ship a little. How was she going to fulfill this mission if she never left her room? So she put on a light jacket, put the card on the inside pocket, and headed out. She took the elevator up to the surface level, where she breathed fresh air for what felt like the first time in hours. The sun shone down on the ship and all its couples, all there to presumably fix something wrong with a marriage, like Madelina and Jack. But maybe some of them were just happy, and this was their lifestyle? Kate didn’t know. These were not her people. But who was, really? 

Kate walked past lawnchairs filled with people tanning, reading newspapers and ebook devices, some talking on their phones through headphone speaker jacks, telling loved ones how much they missed them, relaying gossip, and checking in on sitters to make sure their dogs weren’t missing them too much. 

The deck was white, as were most of the walls and accents. A blue line contrasted the white at points, but this was a clean ship, made to look brand new, likely scrubbed down heavily after each booze-soaked trip. Kate remembered that Madelina had insisted on booking a bumpy ride, and had no real trouble figuring out why. As soon as the weather got bad, everyone would return to their quarters. They’d be essentially stuck there, and once the sea-sickness wore off, they’d have nothing but one another. She wondered why it took her so long to add that up, but then realized she hadn’t actually been thinking about it until now.

She leaned on the side—port? She leaned on the port side of the ship. She couldn’t see Vancouver. She couldn’t see any land mass. Kate was adrift on a very, very large boat with nowhere to go, no direction home, and no idea why she’d come in the first place. 

Kate walked the top of the ship, looking around, taking in the surroundings and the people. It was such an artificial thing, this ship, a facsimile of Las Vegas on the water, every light a harsh white or neon, a bar every thirty metres, usually with a companion pool or jacuzzi filled with the middle-aged. She looked at people and they looked back. Where is her husband? They must have thought. She wanted another drink. 

She found her way back to the original bar. She felt she managed a tiny rapport with Stellen, and could, if she got lucky, get some kind of information from him. 

Getting information is what I do best! The nerdiest part of her thought. 

“Shut up, Kate,” she said, annoyingly to herself. 

There was a slight problem with her plan, however. She had no idea where she was. In her wandering, she’d found herself lost. Backtracking seemed laborious. She instead searched for a map. They were everywhere. The closest one, laminated and framed with screws, being being poked at by two of the oldest women Kate had ever seen. She could hear them bickering. 

“Which way to the gazebo?”

“There’s no gazebo on this one Shirline. You’re thinking of the Mist Naturale. We went on that one just after Harold died. You remember.” 

“I thought I swore I saw a gazebo, though.”

“You probably saw a zebra. You know, in that circus from France.” 

“I thought they were Canadian?”

Kate sidled along the opposite wall, looking away from them. She slowly moved east, around a corner. There would be another map, and she knew they would snare her up into minutes of useless hen-pecking. She may not have had any idea if there was time to lose, but she wasn’t about to start actively losing it unless she had to. 

The next map proved tougher to locate. She had to re-enter the interior of the ship. She thought that finding an elevator would help her, but one wasn’t in sight anywhere. What she found in this hallway instead were maid carts holding towels and cleaning products. She saw three of them, all sitting idly outside doors twice the size of her own. She’d stumbled onto executive or first-class or some kind of high status accommodations. It was difficult for Kate to do anything but snicker. She’s never had much admiration for the wealthy, even if she had to work with them from time to time. 

Even the hallway was nicer than hers, though. The carpet felt nicer under her feet. The doors were made of a dark cherry wood instead of the brushed hotel-door-style steel of hers. The only aesthetic upgrade she felt a tinge of jealousy for were the lights: yellow and natural and awful for the environment. She’d never quite got used to white light or its over-exposing harshness.

It was difficult for her to believe in coincidences, so she didn’t rush through the hallway. If she loitered for a moment, something might happen. She leaned against a wall and checked her messages. Ollie hadn’t texted anything cute. Nobody else had contacted her. Her battery was draining quickly, but she inexplicably had full bars in the middle of nowhere. 

Her assumption proved half wrong. She did hear a bit of a conversation through the walls, something about an upcoming launch, some kind of showy event, but the person speaking was doing a good job of hiding their voice and any actual distinguishing remarks. She wrote down what she’d heard anyway, just in case it came up later. 

The voice was enthusiastic, but cautious, methodical. Is he a little British? She thought. The accent wasn’t immediately parceable. Then she realized, she wasn’t hearing him through the wall. She was hearing him through the door, left open just a crack, improperly closed by the cleaning woman. This guy, whoever he was, was talking about something to someone on the phone (there was only one voice, and there were pauses) while a cleaning woman cleaned the washroom and made the bed around him. How important could the conversation be? 

Still, Kate wrote down what she believed to be the key words from the conversation. 

—Launch.

—Party.

—Surprise.

—Corona Gale.

—Fundraising.

—Mimosas.  

She heard the door swing open and turned to leave, before she could hear more of the conversation, but she’d heard enough to make note of its importance. She knew how lucky this was. This was definitely a thing, unless something else became a larger deal later, in which this might actually be nothing. There were no easy answers at the beginning. Even the obvious stuff would be turned over a hundred times, until things became so convoluted Kate felt a fathom under. 

Kate walked until she found an elevator. There was a map. She took a picture, so she’d have it on her from then on. Placing her finger over the red dot showing her location, she etched her way back. She wasn’t nearly as far off as she figured. The map didn’t make the boat seem like a labyrinth, but it already sort of had been. How likely was it that it might continue, increasing in difficulty as time went on and the weather soured? 

No, everything’s going to be fine, she thought. This one’s going to be easy. 

She would ask the bartender about any strange attractions on the ship. She would ask if he knew about any special passengers. Surely, he would tell her about the man in the expensive room.