The Unsinkable Greta James(13)
Her dad is saying something to her, and she blinks at him. “What?”
“We’re gonna hit the spa,” he repeats, standing up. “We’ve all got appointments at ten.”
“For what?” she asks, surprised. Her dad is a beer guy. A fishing guy. A sit-around-and-watch-baseball guy. Greta has never in her whole life known him to go to a spa; in fact, the idea of him walking around in a fluffy robe is about as strange as if he’d shown up to breakfast in a clown costume.
“Some kind of massage,” he says, glancing over at Todd, who is wearing a brand-new hat with the logo of the cruise ship on it. “Is that what’s happening? These guys made the appointments. I have no idea what I’m getting myself into.”
“You’ll love it,” Eleanor assures him as she digs through her purse for a tube of cherry-red lipstick. “It’s just what you need to relax and take your mind off things.”
Conrad’s smile freezes slightly, but he nods. “I’m hoping it’ll help my back, anyway.”
“Did you want to come?” Mary asks Greta. “We weren’t sure. We figured you might want a break from all of us old folks.”
“I’m okay, thanks. I’m gonna grab some breakfast, and then I can meet up with you later.”
“Here,” Conrad says, sliding a piece of paper over to her. It’s a list of daily activities, and he’s circled several of them in blue pen. “We’ve got the spa at ten, then lunch at the Admiral at noon, then there’s a talk I want to see at two, and bingo at three—”
“Bingo?” Greta says skeptically.
He ignores this. “Then we’re supposed to be passing some sea lions around six, so we’ll head out to the promenade deck to catch that.”
“And hopefully some marbled murrelets too,” Todd adds with enthusiasm. “They’re often found in these parts.”
“And hopefully some marbled murrelets too,” Conrad agrees in a slightly placating tone. In all the years they’ve been friends, Todd has had little success in recruiting the others to his favorite hobby. “Then dinner tonight at Portside, and the piano bar for a nightcap.”
“Wow,” Greta says, staring at the list. “That’s quite the itinerary.”
“You can come to as much or little as you want,” he says, standing up from the table. “Totally up to you.”
“Here.” Mary hands her a booklet with the daily schedule of activities. “See what sounds good to you, and meet us wherever, okay?”
Greta nods. “Sure. Enjoy the spa.”
When they’re gone, she sits alone at the table with a cup of coffee, staring at the painting of the grizzly bear. One of its giant paws has a silvery fish pinned under it, the river streaming around them. The fish is wild-eyed and flailing, even in stillness, and Greta starts to feel queasy again. She forces herself to look away.
The booklet on the table is thick, with two neat staples along one side. She flips idly through the photos and descriptions of various events—the jugglers and magicians, hypnotists and mimes, lecturers and historians—until she recognizes a familiar face. Right there on page 11 is a picture of Benjamin Wilder, bestselling author and associate professor of history at Columbia University.
For some reason, this makes her laugh. He looks so serious in the photo, so professorial, with those thick-rimmed glasses and an expression of great concentration. Beneath the picture, there’s a bio that’s mostly about his internationally bestselling novel, One Wild Song, which apparently tells a fictional version of the story of Jack London, the author of The Call of the Wild and White Fang, among other works. She glances over at the itinerary her father had marked up and sees that the two o’clock lecture is called “Jack London: An Alaskan Perspective.”
She hadn’t been planning on joining them for much besides the sea lions. But when she stands up to go to the buffet, she tucks the booklet into the pocket of her jacket, just in case.
Chapter Seven
If her dad is surprised to see Greta waiting at the door to the auditorium, he doesn’t show it. He’s still pink-faced from his morning at the spa, and the deep groove between his eyebrows—which has taken up residence in the months since her mom died—has all but disappeared.
“How was it?” Greta asks when he walks up. “Relaxing?”
“Actually, yes,” he says, raising his arms in a stretch. He’s wearing a navy golf jacket zipped up all the way, and his mostly white hair is still damp from the shower. Her eye is drawn, as it always is, to the hook-shaped scar on his chin, from a fight he’d broken up during his bartending days. When she was little, Greta used to trace it with her finger. Now she sees how much the map of his face is crowded with other lines too. “My back feels amazing,” he says as he lowers his arms again. “What are you doing here?”
She holds up the itinerary. “You gave me your schedule.”
“I know,” he says, looking around at the crowd outside the auditorium. Beside them, there’s a poster with the name of the talk and a picture of Ben’s book, which features a snowy landscape and a distant team of sled dogs. “But you’ve never really been the lecture type.”
“I only avoid lectures from you,” she teases, and to her surprise, this makes him laugh. “Besides, we’re stuck on the ship all day. What else am I gonna do?”