Bring Me To Your Stars

The Rose

But if the first time they met on the ship was an accident, then surely, the second was fate.

Roses were the first thing James saw in his officers' quarters when he unwittingly walked in to find a maid inside his room.

The smooth burgundy wine carpet with olive green diamonds rounded at the corners. A vase of blooming white roses she'd left for him on a polished oakwood vanity. Fragrant and sweet to distract him from the headache-inducing stench of fresh white paint coating the interior walls of the novel ship. And reflecting off the pristine mirror of his wash basin, was the white bonnet and crossed apron tie of a stewardess. Her back turned to him while she took extra care to smooth out the white star stitched across the standard red company quilt.

She didn't hear the floor creak ever so gently, as she was too busy making an operetta out of his cabin, belting out dramatically. With James standing undetected in the doorway, his hands heavy with his luggage, content to go on forever listening to her.

"OOO0HHH, SWEET MYSTERY OF LIFE, AT LAST I FOUND THEE! Ah! I know at last the secret of it all. All the longing, seeking, striving, waiting, yearning...For, yes I'm falling in love with someone, plain to seeeeee! And I'm sure I could love someone madly-"

"If someone would only love me," James finished the catchy show tune for her.

Her hands froze in their careful smoothing of his quilts.

"Good day to you again, miss," he greeted her once more. "Or, having a look at you now, I'd imagine it's a good one?"

She turned away from his bed, and James once again found in her the same stewardess he'd met on the gangway ramp.

"Forgive me," she excused herself, quickly snatching her wooden crate of roses up again, and as she knelt down, James could've sworn he heard her whisper. "Of all the cabins to get stuck in today, why did I have to linger in his..."

"I'm sorry, miss?"

"They asked me to deliver these roses to all the officers' quarters," she explained, as if afraid to give him the impression that she'd done him only the favor. "I noticed they hadn't made up the bed yet in this one. And since your steward was busy, I hope you didn't mind me doing it instead."

"That's very kind of you-"

"It's nothing, you see," she seemed on a race to explain away anything that he might deem exceptional kindness for him on her part. "My father also served in the navy reserve, and it just bugs me when the stewards don't take care to look after your rooms like they see to the senior officers. I meant nothing else by it, of course."

"Well, your 'nothing' has been the best 'nothing' I've had on any ship," he said. "In fact, I think I am so spoiled now that I might find I'm reluctant to let you leave my bed again until the ship docks."

She stiffened wide-eyed over her rose crate, and James quickly caught himself.

"Forgive me, that's not the word I meant. It's 'room' I had meant to say," he corrected himself in embarrassment. "Blimey, that doesn't sound any better--I don't mean it in that way--what I mean is that I'm rather busy all the while navigating and such, that I have scarcely little time for other things...And it's rather nice, I suppose, being welcomed back to my cabin with a freshly-made bed. And so, I suppose what I'm really trying to say is that I think rather highly of you stewardesses and the unsung work you do on this ship. So, I implore you, miss, forget everything I've said before that last bit, and trust that despite me babbling on like a nervous fool, you're in sound hands aboard this ship, for I, Officer James Paul Moody will-"

"If this is your way of telling me thank you," she mercifully saved him from both their miseries. "Then you're welcome. As I said before, it was nothing."

And stepping around him with her wooden crate, a subtle smile hidden behind her bustle of white and red roses, the stewardess walked back into the officers' corridor, turning right to deliver her next batch of roses to the 5th Officer Lowe's cabin.

No wonder she was in such a hurry to leave, James thought. She must think him a right clarht-eead.

"Thank you," James said, before she vanished from his doorway completely.

"It's nothing, Mr. Moody, really," she called back to him over her shoulder as she went. "It's just my job, you see."

And before she could make her final escape, James stepped toward her again.

"Millicent," he called after her, unable to help himself from doing it. "From this moment on, consider me forever in your debt, Miss Crawley."

The stewardess froze at the entrance of his door with her rose crate, momentarily caught off guard and lost for words for what she should say next to him. 

"I'm sorry, you must be mistaken. I don't know anyone by that name," she answered him at last, turning around and quickly hurrying on her way out of his cabin. "Happy Sailing, Officer Moody."