Amorah spent the following week wearing plastered smiles and a diamond any girl would kill for. Every meal was eaten in the company of guests whom she had no knowledge of nor interest in before her engagement. She had never longed for seclusion, but the passing days made her wont for nothing more. Thankfully, she always carried a book or notebook in her beaded clutch.
One evening, after a particularly dull dinner with Jacob’s and her families that lasted much longer than she thought really necessary, she returned to her compartment but found she had left her key on her bedside table. This was no oddity, being the middle of her second week aboard the ship on her family’s two week trip to England. During many afternoon rendezvous’, Amorah would opt for a book instead of keys or leave the door unlatched altogether. A small inconvenience was worth the cost of saving her ears from the many droll stories of her companions. Besides, she needed to jot down the laughable ways in which these people interacted, so that she wouldn’t forget to tell Carolyn.
If it wasn’t for seeing her best friend, she wouldn’t embark on this silly trip and suffer these odious people year after year. Her family would journey to Europe every summer. They would visit a different country each year and then spend the last month in England with her grandmother. Her father would always allow her a week at Carolyn Goodchild’s, however, this year she was staying the entire summer. She wondered how her friend would react to the news of her engagement, and to Jacob of all men! She thought of Carolyn’s initial wide-eyed expression, then imagined her laughing uncontrollably. Wonderful… She thought to herself once and then again for she remembered she had no way of unlocking her door.
In the case of forgotten keys, she would venture to the Captain’s compartment and he would kindly unlock her door. Captain Smith was such an obliging man, but she had never had to ask his assistance at such a late hour. She hoped she would not be bothering him.
Amorah went over the many pretentious and ever so banal conversations that had passed through the course of the night. Mrs. Mauntilae’s voice rung in her head, “Oh Amorah! Wouldn’t Henrietta just look lovely as a bride’s maid?” At dinner she had smiled and nodded quite elegantly but now she thought of throwing Jacob’s obnoxious sister out the ships window and seeing how that would suit Mrs. Mauntilae as a reply. She laughed out loud at the image of Henrietta’s chubby limbs flailing about in the ocean, she would have to write that in her journal; she made a mental note.
