Chief Steward Gail Miller didn’t bother trying to stifle her laugh. It just blew out of her. Her laugh was the main reason of many that her insignia wasn’t gold colored with twelve years of “Good Conduct,” unlike the Chief Petty Officer with the wet behind.
Somehow, the simple fact that she had laughed in the face of a grumpy ship’s Captain three years earlier—after her ship took a bad pitch and roll and she’d dumped a plate of turkey with cranberry sauce she’d been serving him down the front of his dress whites—hadn’t worked out so well.
She hadn’t done it on purpose.
At least mostly not.
But he was enough of a stiff-necked, stuck-up— Well, when the opportunity presented itself, she hadn’t fought too hard to retain her balance. Might have succeeded if she’d tried, might not, but even
