Authors: Pat Murphy
THANK YOU ALL,
PAT MURPHY
For Officer Dave, with love
and
For Gary Crounse, Cyrus Orange, Yves Rrognac, and all his pataphysical friends.
Afterword to
Adventures in Time and Space with Max Merriwell
Afterword to
Bad Grrlz’ Guide to Reality
“Are we lost?” the young woman asked.
The Captain looked up from the chart he had been examining.
“How can you be lost when you don’t know where you’re going?” he asked, with an air of imperturbable calm.
—from
Here Be Dragons
by Mary Maxwell
S
USAN WAS LOST
. She stood in the corridor, peering first in one direction and then in the other, hoping to see something that would give her a clue about what deck she was on this time.
The ship’s engines hummed softly underfoot. The faint vibration served as a constant reminder that she was aboard the
Odyssey
, a cruise ship that was about to set sail. She had hoped to find her stateroom and rendezvous with her friend Pat before that happened, but at this point, the odds didn’t look good.
Susan took another look at the map in her hand. Just half an hour before, when she had blithely accepted it from the man at the top of the gangway, this map had seemed so promising and trustworthy. Such a festive map, showing all ten of the ship’s decks in bright tropical colors. Half an hour in her hands, and the map was already dog-eared and wrinkled and she was lost.
A few doors down the way, sunlight shone through an open door onto the turquoise blue carpet. Voices—men’s voices—drifted down the corridor. She could smell fresh-brewed coffee. Tucking her purse firmly under her arm, she headed for the open door, determined to ask directions.
“But Mr. Merrimax,” a man’s voice was saying. “I just don’t see—”
“The name is Merriwell,” said a patient voice. “Max Merriwell. Weldon Merrimax is one of my pen names.”
Susan stopped in the doorway, looking into the room. It was an office. A balding man in a Hawaiian shirt sat behind the desk. He looked flustered. The etched glass nameplate on the desk identified him as “Gene Culver, Cruise Director.” A bearded man sat in the upholstered chair across from him. Neither of the men looked in her direction; they were absorbed in their own conversation.
Susan recognized the bearded man as Max Merriwell from the author photos on his books. He looked like an author, with his wirerimmed glasses, bushy eyebrows, gray hair, and gray beard. In the photos, he always wore a tweed sports coat with suede patches on the elbows.
Max Merriwell looked a bit less imposing in person than he did in his photos. He was a short man. His hair needed combing. He was wearing a tweed sports coat, but the patches on the elbows were shiny with wear.
“A pen name. Of course.” Gene rubbed his balding head. “But the company contracted with Weldon Merrimax to teach a writing workshop aboard the
Odyssey
.”
Max Merriwell nodded in agreement. “I understand that. My agent made the arrangements. But I’m sure he explained that my name is Max Merriwell. I write books as Max Merriwell, as Mary Maxwell, and as Weldon Merrimax.”
Gene shook his head, frowning. “I don’t know. All that paperwork went through company headquarters in Los Angeles. But I need to use Weldon Merrimax’s name in the ship’s newsletter. We have a lot of mystery fans aboard who will recognize that name. We have to let them know that Weldon Merrimax will be teaching a workshop.”
Max looked, Susan thought, rather uncomfortable. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
“But you are Weldon Merrimax.”
Max shook his head. “No, I’m not.” An edge had crept into his voice. “I write as Weldon Merrimax, but I’m not Weldon Merrimax. That’s not the same thing at all.”
Gene was fidgeting with a pen on his otherwise empty desk. “I just don’t see … it seems to me that you’re splitting hairs, Mr. Merriwell. What difference does it make whether we call you Max Merriwell or Weldon Merrimax?”
“It makes a great deal of difference to me,” Max said.
“You’re putting me in a very difficult position. I have a contract that says Weldon Merrimax will teach a workshop.”
Max frowned at Gene. Susan sympathized. She didn’t like the way that Gene was trying to bully the writer. She was pleased that Max rose to the challenge.
He stood up. “Well, you’ll have to take that up with Weldon Merrimax if you can find him,” he said. “I guess I’d better get back on shore while I still can.”
“Hold on,” Gene said unhappily. “Can’t you just teach as Weldon Merrimax?”
Max picked up his battered leather suitcase. “That wouldn’t be right.”
“But I have passengers who are looking forward to this writing workshop.” Gene was clearly unhappy that Max had called his bluff. “I suppose you could teach under your own name.”
Max put his suitcase down and pushed up his glasses, which had slid down his nose. “That’s what I was planning to do,” Max said. “That is, if you think anyone would want to take a workshop from me.”
“Well, I certainly would,” Susan said.
Both men turned to stare at her. She felt her cheeks grow hot. Interested in the discussion, she had forgotten that she was eavesdropping. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I was just walking by—I’m lost, you see.” She held up the map that she still clutched in her hand, feeling like a complete idiot. “I was going to ask directions and I heard you talking. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I’m so sorry, but I love Mr. Merriwell’s work. I’ve read all your books.” She knew she was babbling. Feeling the heat rise from her cheeks to her ears, she took a step backward into the corridor and bumped into someone, dropping her map. “Excuse me!” She turned to face a man in a crisp white uniform with black-and-gold striped epaulets. “I’m so sorry.”
Tom Clayton, the
Odyssey
’s chief security officer, had been on his way to the bridge when the woman bumped into him. He smiled politely and stooped to pick up her map.
“No problem,” he said, handing her the map. “I should have remembered to be on my guard when passing Gene’s office. Pretty women are always rushing out. He’s a very busy man.” Tom peered in the open door. “Isn’t that so, Gene?”
Gene looked pained. Tom had overheard a bit of the conversation as he came down the hall. Something about Max Merriwell. He had noticed that name on the list of additional staff for this cruise. He wondered if the tweedy gentleman in Gene’s office was Max Merriwell, and if Mr. Merriwell were giving Gene a hard time. That seemed strange. The tweedy gentleman didn’t look like the sort to give anyone a hard time.
“Tom, perhaps you could assist this lady,” Gene said. “She seems to be lost.”
“Of course. I’d be happy to.” Tom closed the office door and turned back to the woman who waited in the corridor. She had curly, red-gold hair fastened at the nape of her neck with a large silver hair clip. Wisps of hair had escaped this restraint and curled around her face. She wore dark gray slacks, a forest-green V-necked sweater that looked very soft and very expensive, and a light gray blazer. She clutched an oversized black leather purse under one arm.
She looked good. If she had relaxed and smiled, she would have looked great. But her forehead wrinkled in the hint of a frown; her mouth was tight with worry.
She wasn’t wearing any makeup. She had the kind of fair skin that freckles and burns, the kind that shows a blush. She was blushing like mad.
“Now where are you trying to go?” Tom asked.
“I was trying to find my stateroom.” The woman’s cheeks were still flaming red. She shook her head. “I’m always getting lost. My husband says…my husband used to say that my sense of direction was installed backward. If I said turn left, we should turn right. I guess he had a point.”
He nodded politely. She was fidgeting nervously with the wedding ring on her left hand.
“That map is enough to get anyone lost,” he told her. “None of the companionways are marked, so it’s a wonder that anyone can find their way from one deck to the next. Now what deck is your stateroom on?” He started down the hallway and she trailed him, for all the world like a wayward child who had been caught out of school. “Calypso Deck. Stateroom number 144. Where am I now?”
“In the officers’ quarters, right by the bridge.”
He glanced back in time to catch another wave of color flooding her cheeks. “Completely off limits to passengers, I’m sure.”
“No harm done.” He held the door open for her. “And you really weren’t too far off. Calypso Deck is just two decks below the bridge.”
“Well, I took a stairway that wasn’t on the map—I thought it might be a short cut. I should have known better.”
“Right down here,” he said. “By the way, aboard a ship, stairways are called companionways.”
“I like that.” Her voice echoed from the bare metal and concrete. A service companionway, this route had none of the carpeting and wood paneling of the passengers’ areas. “It sounds so friendly. I guess I took the wrong companionway.” She sounded a little less breathless; she was starting to relax a bit.
He opened a door into a corridor on the Calypso Deck. “This is your deck,” he said. “Now your stateroom is right down—”
“Don’t tell me,” she said. “I can find the way from here.” She was peering at the map, turning it around in her hands. “In fact, I’ll bet it’s right down here.” She turned to the left.
He reached around and took her arm, gently steering her in the opposite direction. “Actually, it’s this way.” He walked her down to where the corridor turned. “Straight down that way, on the right,” he said. “You can’t miss it.”
“Really?” She frowned at the map again.
Looking over her shoulder, he took the map from her hand and turned it around, so its orientation matched that of the ship. “The bow is that way. The stern is that way. We’re right here.”
She contemplated the map for a moment, then nodded tentatively. “All right,” she said, as if agreeing to a sort of compromise. “It’ll all make sense to you in no time,” he said.
“I’m sure it will.” She seemed to have about as much confidence in that as she did in his orientation of the map. “Thank you so much for your help. Sorry to be such a bother.”
“No bother at all.”
“I’ve got it straight now.” She folded the map neatly and tucked it into her purse. She pushed her hair back out of her eyes, straightened her shoulders, and smiled at him bravely. “I’m sure I’ll get it all sorted out.” She held out her hand and gave him a firm handshake. “Thank you again.”
He watched her walk down the corridor to her room. She smiled, waved, and disappeared from view. With almost two thousand passengers aboard, he probably wouldn’t see her again.
Susan found Pat already in the stateroom, already unpacked. They both lived in San Francisco, but Susan had flown into New York City just that morning. Pat had spent the last week in the city, visiting friends.
Now Pat sat cross-legged on one of the twin beds. Pat’s hair was cropped short in a spiky crew cut. While she was in New York, she had had it bleached white, then dyed a blue-violet shade that she called “electric blue.” In the sunlight that shone through the sliding glass door that led to their balcony, Pat’s hair seemed to glow, like a psychedelic poster under black light.
Having boarded at the earliest opportunity, Pat had already explored the
Odyssey
thoroughly. Pat had already unpacked—their suitcases, she informed Susan, had been delivered to the stateroom by a cheerful steward named Mario.
Working together at one of San Francisco’s branch libraries, Pat and Susan had become close friends. In the two years that Susan had known Pat, her hair had rarely remained the same color for more than a few months at a stretch.
Susan recognized that the other folks who worked at the library thought she and Pat were an unlikely pair of friends. In matters of the heart, Susan was cautious and Pat was impulsive, given to sudden passions. In matters of fashion, Pat was trendy where Susan was conservative. But Susan admired Pat’s self-assurance and her bold enthusiasm.
At twenty-six, Pat was a few years younger than Susan. She was a graduate student in theoretical physics at University of California, Berkeley. Currently, she was writing her dissertation. Until recently, she had been working part time at the library—maintaining the library’s computers and Internet connection. Actually, as far as Susan could tell, Pat wasn’t working on her dissertation much. She had had a falling out with her advisor. Pat said he was an idiot with no imagination.