There was always a great deal of confusion, more noise,
and a touch of panic to flavor the arrival of embarking
passengers. Some were already a bit travel weary from
their flight into Miami, others were running on the
adrenaline of anticipation. The huge white ocean liner,
the Celebration, waited in port โ their ticket to fun,
relaxation, romance. When they crossed the gangway, they
would no longer be accountants, assistant managers, or
teachers, but pampered passengers assured of being fed,
spoiled, and entertained for the next ten days. The
brochures guaranteed it.
From the rail of the Observation deck, Serena watched the
flow of humanity. At that distance she could enjoy the
color and noise, which never lost its appeal for her,
without being caught in the inevitable tangle of fifteen
hundred people trying to get to the same place at the same
time. The cooks, the bartenders, the cabin stewards, had
already begun the orgy of work that would continue,
virtually uninterrupted, for the next ten days. But she
had time. Serena relished it.
These were her idle moments โ before the ship pulled out
of port. She could remember her first experience with a
cruise liner. She'd been eight, the youngest of the three
children of financial wizard Daniel MacGregor and Dr. Anna
Whitefield MacGregor. There had been first-class cabins,
where the steward had served her hot buns and juice in
bed. Serena had enjoyed it the same way she enjoyed her
tiny cabin in the crew's quarters now. They were both an
adventure.
Serena remembered, too, the day she had told her parents
of her plans to apply for a job with the Celebration. Her
father had huffed and puffed about her throwing away her
education. The more he had huffed, the more pronounced his
soft Scottish burr had become. A woman who had graduated
from Smith at the tender age of twenty, who had then gone
on to earn degrees in English, history, and sociology
didn't swab decks. And even as Serena had assured him that
wasn't her intention, her mother had laughed, telling
Daniel to let the child be. Because at six foot three and
two hundred and twenty pounds, Daniel MacGregor was
helpless against what he called his females, he did just
that.
So Serena had gotten her job and had escaped from what had
become endless years of study. She'd traded her three-room
suite in the family mansion in Hyannis Port for a one-room
broom closet with a bunk on a floating hotel. None of her
coworkers cared what her I.Q. was, or how many degrees
she'd earned. They didn't know her father could have
bought the cruise line lock, stock, and barrel if he'd had
the whim, or that her mother was an authority on thoracic
surgery. They didn't know her oldest brother was a senator
and the younger a state's attorney. When they looked at
her, they saw Serena. That was all she wanted.
Lifting her head, she let the wind take her hair. It
danced on the breeze, a mass of blond, the rich shade of
gold one found in old paintings. She had high, slanting
cheekbones and a sharp, stubborn jaw. Her skin refused to
tan, remaining a delicate peach to contrast with the
violet-blue of her eyes. Her father called them purple; a
few romantics had called them violet. Serena stubbornly
termed them blue and left it at that. Men were drawn to
them because of their uniqueness, then to her because of
the elegant sexuality she exuded without thought. But she
wasn't very interested.
Intellectually, Serena thought a man was a fool if he fell
for a shade of irises. It was a matter of genetics after
all, and had little to do with her personally. She'd
listened to accolades on her eyes for twenty-six years
with a kind of detached wonder. There was a miniature in
her father's library of his great-grandmother, another
Serena. If anyone had asked, she could have explained the
process of genetics that resulted in the resemblance, down
to the bone structure and eye shade โ and the reputed
temper. But the men she met were generally not interested
in scientific explanation, and Serena was generally not
interested in them.
Below her, the crowd flowing up the gangway was thinning.
Shortly the calypso band would be playing on the Lido deck
to entertain the passengers while the ship prepared to
sail. Se-rena would enjoy staying outside, listening to
the tinny, rhythmic music and laughter. There would be a
buffet laden with more food than the well over one
thousand people could possibly eat, exotic drinks, and
excitement. Soon the rails would be packed with people
wanting that last glimpse of shore before all there would
be was open sea.
Wistfully, she watched the last stragglers come on board.
It was the final cruise of the season. When they returned
to Miami, the Celebration would go into dry dock for two
months. When it sailed again, Serena wouldn't be on it.
She'd already made up her mind that it was time to move
on. When she'd taken the job on the ship, she had been
looking for one thing โ freedom from years of study, from
family expectations, from her own restlessnes. She knew
she had accomplished something in the year on her own.
Serena had found the independence she had always struggled
for, and she had escaped the niche so many of her college
friends had been determinedly heading for: a good marriage.
And yet, though she'd found the freedom and independence,
she hadn't found the most important ingredient: the goal.
What did Serena MacGregor want to do with the rest of her
life? She didn't want the political career both her
brothers had chosen. She didn't want to teach or lecture.
She wanted excitement and challenges and no longer wanted
to look for them in a classroom. They were all negative
answers, but she knew whatever it was that would fill the
rest of her life wouldn't be found by floating endlessly
in the Bahamas.
Time to get off the boat, Rena, she told herself with a
sudden smile. The next adventure's always just around the
corner. Not knowing what it would be only made the search
more intriguing.
The first long, loud blast of the horn was her signal.
Drawing back from the rail, Serena went to her cabin to
change.
Within thirty minutes she entered the ship's casino
dressed in the modified tux that was her uniform. She had
pulled her hair back in a loose bun at the nape of her
neck so that it wouldn't tend to fall all over her face.
Her hands would soon be too busy to fool with it.
The chandeliers were lit, spilling light onto the red and
gold art deco carpet. Long curved windows allowed a view
of the glassed-in Promenade deck, then the blue-green
stretch of sea. The remaining walls were lined with slot
machines, as silent as soldiers waiting for an attack.
Fussing with the bow tie she could never seem to get quite
right, Serena crossed to her supervisor. As with any
sailor, the shifting of the ship under her feet went
unnoticed.
"Serena MacGregor reporting for duty, sir," she said
crisply. Turning, a clipboard in one hand, he looked her
up and down. Dale Zimmerman's lightweight boxer's build
skimmed just under six feet. He had a smooth, handsome
face he dedicatedly tanned, winning crinkles at the
corners of his light blue eyes, and sun-bleached hair that
curled riotously. He had a reputation, which he
assiduously promoted, of being a marvelous lover. After
his brief study of Serena, his grin broke out.
"Rena, can't you ever get this thing right?" Tucking the
clipboard under his arm, Dale straightened her tie.
"I like to give you something to do."
"You know, lover, if you're serious about quitting after
this run, this is going to be your last chance for
paradise." Tugging on her tie, he lifted his eyes to grin
into hers.
Serena cocked a brow. What had begun a year ago as an
ardent pursual on Dale's part had been tempered into a
good-humored joke about Serena's refusal to go to bed with
him. They had become, more to his surprise than hers,
friends. "I'm going to hate to miss it," Serena told him
with a sigh. "Did the little redhead from South Dakota go
home happy?" she asked with a guileless smile.
Dale's eyes narrowed. "Anybody ever tell you that you see
too much?"
"All the time. What's my table?"
"You're on two." Taking out a cigarette, Dale lit it as
she walked away. If anyone had told him a year before that
a classy number like Serena MacGregor would not only hold
him off but make him feel fraternal, he'd have recommended
a good psychiatrist. With a shrug he went back to his
clipboard. He was going to regret losing her, Dale
reflected, and not only because of his personal feelings.
She was the best damn blackjack dealer he had.
There were eight blackjack tables scattered throughout the
casino. Serena and the seven other dealers would rotate
from position to position through the rest of the
afternoon and evening, with only a brief, staggered dinner
break. Unless the playing was light, the casino would stay
open until two. If it was heavy, a few tables might stay
open until three. The first rule was to give the
passengers what they wanted.
Other men and women clad in tuxedos went to their
stations. Beside Serena the young Italian who had just
been promoted to croupier stood at table two. Serena gave
him a smile, remembering that Dale had asked her to keep
an eye on him.
"Enjoy yourself, Tony," she suggested, eyeing the crowd
that already waited outside the glass doors. "It's going
to be a long night." And all on our feet, she added
silently as Dale gave the signal to open the door.
Passengers poured in. Not in a trickle โ they rarely
trickled in the first day of a cruise. The crowd would be
thin during the dinner hours, then swell again until past
midnight. Dress was casual โ shorts, jeans, bare feet โ
the uniform for afternoon gambling. With the opening of
the door Serena heard the musical sound effects of arcade
games already being fed on the Promenade deck. Within
minutes the sound was drowned out by the steady clatter of
slots.
Serena could separate the gamblers from the "players" and
the players from the "lookers." There was always some of
each group in any batch of passengers. There would be a
percentage who had never been to a casino before. They
would simply wander around, attracted by the noise and the
colorful equipment before they exchanged their bills for
change for the slots.
There were some who came for fun, not really caring if
they won or lost. These were the players โ they came for
the game. It usually took little time for the looker to
become the player. They would shout when they won and moan
when they lost in much the same way the arcade addicts
reacted.
But always, there were the gamblers. They would haunt the
casino during the trip, turning the game of win and lose
into an art โ or an obsession. They had no specific
features, no particular mode of dress. The mystique of the
riverboat gambler could be found in the neat little
grandmother from Peoria just as it could be found in the
Madison Avenue executive. As the tables began to fill,
Serena categorized them. She smiled at the five people who
had chosen her table, then broke the seal on four decks of
cards.
"Welcome aboard," she said, and began to shuffle.
It took only an hour for the scent of gambling to rise. It
permeated the smoke and light sweat that drifted through
the casino. It was a heady scent, tempting. Serena had
always wondered if it was what drew people more than the
lights and green baize. The scent, and the noise of silver
clattering in the bowls of the slot machines. Serena never
played them, perhaps because she recognized the gambler in
herself. She'd decided long ago not to risk anything
unless the odds were on her side.
During her first shift she changed tables every thirty
minutes, making her way slowly around the room. After her
dinner break it began again. The casino grew more crowded
after the sun set. Tables were full and the roulette wheel
spun continuously. Dress became more elegant, as if to
gamble in the evening required glamor.
Because the cards and people always changed, Serena was
never bored. She had chosen the job to meet people โ not
the cut-out-of-the-same-affluent-cloth people she'd met in
college, but a variety. In that she'd accomplished her
goal. At the moment she had a Texan, two New Yorkers, a
Korean and a Georgian at her table, all of whom she'd
identified by their accents. This was as much a part of
the game for her as the cards she slid onto the baize. One
she never tired of.
Serena dealt the second card around, peeked at her hole
card, and was satisfied with an eighteen. The first New
Yorker took a hit, counted his cards, and gave a disgusted
grunt. With a shake of the head he indicated that he'd
stand. The Korean busted on twenty-two, then rose from the
table with a mutter. The second New Yorker, a sleek blonde
in a narrow black dinner dress, held with a nine and a
queen.
"I'll take one," the man from Georgia drawled. He counted
eighteen, gave Serena a thoughtful look, and held.
The man from Texas took his time. He had fourteen and
didn't like the eight Serena had showing. Considering the
possibilities, he stroked his chin, swilled some bourbon,
then motioned Serena to hit him. She did, a tad too hard
with a nine.
"Sweetheart," he said as he leaned on the table, "you're
just too pretty to take a man's money that way."
"Sorry." With a smile she turned over her hole
card. "Eighteen," she announced before she settled the
betting.
© 2003-2026