Coincidence - Alan May [11]
In a way it was just as well that the academy rules prohibited any sort of portable CD players onboard ship, she thought, though how she was going to get along without hers she couldn’t imagine. She loved music and did her best studying to a rock beat. But headphones weren’t exactly conducive to the social bonding that was crucial to living in a small shipboard community. Besides, you had to keep one ear out at all times for emergency announcements.
In any case, there was no room in her luggage for her beloved Discman. Her bag came in at just one pound below the seventypound limit. Her carry-on bags consisted of a bulging backpack and a video camera, a farewell gift from Uncle Jack.
Customs, immigration, and security went without a problem; boarding and departure for San Diego were on time; and the Inspiration was the next stop. She was on her way!
On the flight there were four other “Floaties,” as students on the ship liked to call themselves. They were easily recognizable by their red shirts, part of the BWA uniform. They were not seated anywhere near one another during the flight, however, so Melissa pretty much kept to herself, lost in her own thoughts. The flight was smooth, but her stomach was doing flip-flops as her emotions seesawed between elation and apprehension. No homesickness yet, at least. But then again, a few days after the orientation period her parents would be coming to San Diego to see her off, so it wasn’t really a fair test.
The source of both her greatest excitement and her greatest anxiety was the prospect of all the new people she would be meeting and all the new friends she’d make. Might that even include a boyfriend?
Anyone looking at Melissa would assume she had scads of boyfriends already. She seemed to have everything going for her: a tall, slim, well proportioned figure; lustrous hair in soft waves that reached halfway down her back; a silky cream-colored complexion; and eyes so deep brown they were almost black. She was, in fact, a knockout. And she attracted more than her share of attention from the opposite sex. Heads swiveled in her direction wherever she went.
And yet she’d never had a boyfriend.
Unfortunately, the average male is only five feet ten inches tall. At just shy of six feet, even when wearing flats, Melissa was taller than most. It wasn’t that she would reject a guy if he was shorter—she wouldn’t have turned away a midget if he’d been nice. But the fact was, most guys felt intimidated around her. And attending an all-girls school decreased her opportunities to dispel any boy’s awe of her. About the only boys she knew were Eric’s friends, who were much too young for her.
But that was all going to change on the Inspiration. According to the list of names and addresses she’d been sent, there were twenty boys to twelve girls. Good odds, she thought. But the two male Floaties on the plane were disappointingly short. She wondered what the other eighteen would be like.
The plane circled San Diego Bay as it approached the airport. Peering out the window, Melissa was able to see the Inspiration docked next to the Marine Museum, right behind the Star of India, an old tall ship that used to ply lumber between Alaska and San Francisco. With its vivid color and distinctive three-mast barquentine rig, the Inspiration was easy to recognize. That green dot in the water, she reflected, which looked so tiny from the air, was going to be her home for the next year.
As Melissa heaved her bag off the revolving carousel, she was startled to hear a voice with a pronounced Québécois accent just behind her.
“Please, allow me to help you with that.”
Turning, she found herself looking up into the face of an extraordinarily good-looking young man—an extraordinarily good-looking young man some four inches above