Episode 19 – In the Margins of Memory

Onboard MV Maverick’s Rose

May 21^st, 2012 – 7:25PM

The chase pressed upward, onto the observation deck. The sea wind hit hard with salt and damp, a rude contrast to the velvet air of the theater. Few passengers braved the chill; the deck felt like another world.

The man in the navy cap leaned against the railing. Something metallic glinted in his hand, something too compact for a phone. He tapped it twice, then pocketed it, and moved quickly toward the aft stairs.

“Stay casual,” Marisse murmured at Zeke’s shoulder.

Zeke stiffened. “You keep sneaking up on me.”

“I keep you alive,” Marisse said simply, falling in step with him.

They trailed after, brushing past a fleece-jacketed passenger who tried to chat about the view. Zeke forced a grin, ducked out quickly, and caught sight of the stranger vanishing below.

The pursuit wound into service corridors, steel bulkheads lit by humming fluorescents. Zeke ducked into alcoves, heart hammering, but Marisse moved like a man who already knew every corner.

The caped man slipped into a room. Voices bled out:

“…dockside transfer… twenty-three hundred hours…”

“…signal confirmation before we make port…”

“…crew rotation covers it. Nobody checks twice.”

Zeke leaned closer, but Marisse’s hand gripped his sleeve, holding him steady. Patience.

A chair scraped. The door swung open. A crewman stepped out, lighting a cigarette. His ember flared dangerously close, but his gaze slid past them, oblivious. He wandered off down the hall.

Inside, the stranger’s voice dropped:

“…she’s the key.”

The words cut like a blade. Zeke’s eyes snapped to Marisse.

Marisse didn’t look away. “He means Rose.”

Zeke’s breath caught. “You don’t know that.”

“I do.” His voice was flat, steady. “They’re not moving cargo. They’re moving influence. And your girl is at the center of it.”

The stranger disappeared deeper, into a cabin tucked where no passenger rooms should exist. No number marked the door, only the faint insignia of a concessionaire.

Zeke frowned. “What is this place?”

“Not crew quarters,” Marisse said. “Concessionaires. Vendors who ride the ship, invisible but official. They answer to contracts, not captains. Perfect cover.”

Zeke stared at the door, bile rising in his throat. This wasn’t just one man. This was a network, buried into the ship’s skin. And now Rose’s name hung between them like a fuse waiting to spark.

*******

The journal lay open across Rose’s lap, Marisse’s handwriting pulling her into another time, another tide. She had barely turned the page when a sharp knock rattled the door.

“Rose,” her aunt’s voice cut through, firm as a gavel. “Dinner. Captain’s table tonight. Hurry, child, you’ll keep us waiting.”

Rose closed the journal with a reluctant sigh, fingers lingering as though to trap its secrets inside. She rose, smoothed her dress, and followed.

*******

The dining hall shimmered under chandeliers, laughter and crystal ringing like coins poured into velvet. Rose slipped into her seat beside her aunt, opposite her father, who already commanded the table with quiet gravity.

Captain Rojas, tall in his whites, raised his glass. “Ladies and gentlemen, may I present our distinguished guests tonight, Voltaire and Vincent Viaqueza.”

The twins entered as though the light itself had bent toward them, identical in their tailored suits, their confidence twin flames. Voltaire’s smile was measured, his eyes assessing; Vincent’s charm unfolded quicker, practiced and smooth.

They bowed their heads politely, but when they lifted them, their gazes found Rose.

Captain Rojas gestured. “Gentlemen, this is Miss Rose Villamor.”

“An honor,” Voltaire said, his voice deliberately rich with weight.

“Truly,” Vincent added with a softer lilt.

Enrique offered the courtesy of introductions, and soon the conversation turned, as it always did in his presence, toward business. Routes, logistics, infrastructure. The twins sketched their ideas with careful brushstrokes of plans for expansion, opportunities in the south.

Rose listened in silence until Vincent, almost idly, asked, “And what does the young Miss Villamor think of these ventures? Surely, you have an opinion.”

Her aunt tensed beside her, but Rose met Vincent’s gaze. “Our strength has always been air and sea,” she said, steady. “But both depend on land. Trucks carry goods from port to city, city to airfield. Every delay on the road eats our margins. Close those gaps, and Villamor Shipping and Airways remains untouchable.”

A pause swept the table. Even Enrique leaned back, appraising her with new light.

Voltaire’s smile widened, genuine this time. “Exactly. The new expressways rising in Mindanao will transform the flow of commerce. With the right trucking arm, your family could dominate every channel. May it be sky, sea, and land.”

“Ambitious,” Enrique said softly, a trace of pride in his tone.

Her aunt, lips pinched, cut in sharply. “Ambition is not her duty. Rose will serve this family best not by chasing ledgers but by securing a marriage that strengthens our alliances. Strategy belongs to men, not girls at the table.”

The air chilled. Rose’s spine straightened, chin lifting, but it was Voltaire who laughed lightly, breaking the tension.

“With respect, Ma’am, the century has turned. Women are no longer heirs to be bartered. They are leaders. Visionaries. In our circles, the sharpest deals are struck by women who see further than their fathers.”

Her aunt’s eyes flashed. “Deals? Children are not investments to be traded.”

Rose’s voice slipped in before her father could intervene. “No, Aunt. But neither are they ornaments.”

The words dropped like pebbles into still water. Though small, but the ripples spread.

Vincent leaned forward, intrigued. “Spoken like someone who has studied her father’s empire. You know your routes well, Miss Villamor.”

Enrique’s gaze softened, pride unspoken but visible in the crinkle at his eyes. For once, he did not silence her.

Voltaire lifted his glass. “Then let us toast to futures shaped not just by inheritance, but by insight.”

Enrique clinked his glass against theirs, the spark in his eyes unmistakable. Rose caught it, held it, and for the first time in years felt seen.

Her aunt pressed her lips thin but said nothing.

*******

Passenger Alleyway, Deck 12

MARISSE

The alleyway was a vein of shadow running between passenger cabins, the kind of place no one lingered unless they had reason. A pantry door swung on tired hinges, creaking each time the swell tilted the ship. The air smelled of varnish, salt, and detergent.

Zeke leaned against the bulkhead, arms crossed, his gaze fixed on nothing and everything. Marisse stood opposite, half-lit by the yellow bulb that hummed above the pantry. Neither man spoke at first. Silence has a weight at sea; it pressed down on them both.

Finally, Zeke’s voice cut through, low and edged.
“You keep circling her. The boss’s daughter. Why?”

Marisse didn’t flinch. He had expected this. He folded his arms slowly, eyes narrowing not in anger but in calculation.
“You think I’m reckless.”

“I think you’re drowning in a tide that isn’t yours,” Zeke shot back. “I saw you with her. Body language tells everything. She’s distant. Cold. If she cared, you’d know. But she doesn’t. And still you chase.”

Marisse’s mouth curved, not quite a smile. “I had a friend once. Younger than me, eager, sharp. He was assigned to protect a woman, a daughter of someone powerful. The eldest heir of an IT Magnate. He told me the biggest mistake he ever made was silence. She shut him out, not because she didn’t feel something, but because her feelings for him were inconvenient. He let her walk away without a word.”

Zeke tilted his head, suspicion flickering. “And what happened to him?”

“Last we spoke, he was still looking for a chance. A chance to reach her again, to let her know how much she meant. That’s what I’m doing now.” Marisse’s voice carried a steadiness that didn’t waver in the hush of the corridor.

Zeke let the silence return, only this time it was tinged with incredulity. He studied Marisse as though trying to read whether he was telling a fable or baring his own chest. “And if she dumps you? If she decides she wants nothing to do with you?”

Marisse’s eyes locked onto his. “Better that she knows than not. That evens out the odds.”

Zeke’s brow furrowed, as though caught between scoffing and understanding. Something in him recognized the rawness, maybe even envied it. “You’re mad,” he muttered.

“You say that like it’s a crime.”

The pantry door groaned again, breaking the tension. Zeke exhaled, shaking his head. “And this friend of yours did he got a nickname too, like the one you gave me?”

Marisse allowed himself a brief chuckle. “He does.”

“Don't tell me it's something animated like what you gave me.”

“Not yet. Names carry weight.”

Zeke rolled his eyes. “For the record, I hate mine. Zeke? Makes me sound like a computer nerd. Which I’m not.”

“For now,” Marisse countered, quick, almost playful.

Zeke eyed him sharply, but there was no malice in it, only disbelief at how this man could slip levity into the tightest moments. He looked away first, scanning the shadows of the alley.

Marisse, meanwhile, turned his gaze down the passage toward the door at the far end was Rose’s cabin. He said nothing more, but the weight of his words hung in the air, every syllable shaped as though she were meant to hear them, just beyond the wall.

*******

Inside her cabin, Rose sat once more with the journal, its leather worn, its pages yellowed as though belonging to another decade. Her mind still replayed the dinner, the sparkle in her father’s eyes, the sharp edge of her aunt’s rebuke. And underneath it all, the reason she had spoken at all was…Marisse.

If he hadn’t told me to speak, I might have swallowed those words. And no one would have known I had them.

She touched the journal’s cover with the tips of her fingers. Why had he given it to her? Why did it look so old, yet describe events from only days ago? And why, she frowned, why was it not exactly what had happened? Marisse’s writing from the first day was close, but not precise. The conversations were shifted, the details bent.

Is this some trick? Some manipulation?

Her heart urged her to shut it, to throw it away. But her curiosity being as sharp and  restless as it were, drew her deeper. She remembered something Marisse had said with that half-smile of his, a riddle wrapped in ease: “What happens to the diary tomorrow will matter more than what you read today.”

The thought made her pulse quicken. Rose opened to the next entry, determined now. She would read to the end. She had to know what Marisse believed was waiting in the margins of memory.

********