Blue Autumn Cruise

by Lisa Williams Kline

  When everybody was heading back to the room to get ready to go to dinner, I lagged behind. I let Stephanie and Lauren walk along, nearly arm in arm, giggling together. Once Stephanie looked back and said, “Come walk with us, Diana,” but I just told her to go ahead. Mom noticed that I was walking alone toward the back of the group, and she waited for me, then walked along with me as we went back by the swimming pool.

  “So, what do you think? This boat is amazing, huh? We’re going to have a fantastic time, aren’t we? And I thought Grammy was really sweet to you.” She tried to put her arm around me as we walked, but I stepped away. Hanging around with my mom was the last thing I wanted to do when I was feeling left out.

  “You know, Stephanie and Lauren have a lot of memories together. Sometimes you’ll feel left out since you weren’t there. Just try to remember they’re enjoying being together, and they’re not leaving you out on purpose, okay?”

  Did Mom think I was a moron? Finally Mom got the message and went ahead to walk with Norm. I watched him put his arm around her and speak reassuringly to her. I knew I’d hurt her feelings, and he was trying to make her feel better.

  Then Stephanie came back to talk to me. “Hey, Lauren and I are going to make a ‘day in the life of a cruise’ video. We want you and Luke to help us.”

  “I don’t like the video camera,” I said. My voice sounds so much higher on the video than it does in my head.

  “You don’t have to be in it. You can run the camera if you want. We just thought it would be fun to do something together.”

  The ‘rents were probably making them include me.

  “What’s Luke going to do?” I said.

  “I don’t know. We haven’t figured that out yet.” Stephanie touched my arm, and I looked into her brown eyes as she made an appeal. “C’mon, Diana. I want us all to get to know each other and have fun. Lauren is so much fun if you give her a chance. Will you?”

  I walked along a few strides with Stephanie, thinking about how things had been different since she’d moved in with us. I didn’t have to share my room with her, and since she had cheerleading practice every day, she wasn’t home until dinnertime. But when she was home, she was always having friends over. I never felt like I had Mom to myself. Once I came back from the barn—Josie, the barn manager, had given me a ride home—and Mom, Norm, and Stephanie were sitting in the family room laughing and joking around. It seemed like everyone stopped laughing the minute I walked into the room. Like they all had a great time except when I was around.

  But at other times, Stephanie had been nice to me. Whenever she had a friend over, she’d invite me to join them, even though most of the time I wasn’t interested. She sometimes had this girl, Colleen, over. But I didn’t trust her. Stephanie did try to help me with my English homework, though. And whenever she went downstairs to get a cookie, she’d always bring one up for me. That was the thing; she was always nice. Sometimes I wished she’d just lose it and act horrible. It was just so hard to believe that anyone could be that nice all the time.

  “Well,” I said slowly. “I’ll try. But if it gets on my nerves, I’m going to quit.”

  “Fantastic! You’ll try it!” She grabbed my arm and squeezed. “It’s going to be so fun.” She went back and joined Lauren again.

  We passed the buffet and then rode down the elevator and went single file down the long hallway back to our rooms.

  “We’ll head over to the restaurant for dinner in about thirty minutes,” Norm said as he and Lynn went into their room. “We’ll come to the room and get you.”

  “How about we meet you over at the restaurant?” Lauren said. “We can find our way!” I could tell she was dying to be on her own on the ship.

  “No, not just yet,” said Aunt Carol. “The first time we go to this restaurant, we’ll all go together. Once we learn our way around the ship a little bit, we’ll give you kids more freedom. Don’t forget, girls, you have to look nice for dinner. Tonight isn’t dress-up night, but no short shorts or anything like that.”

  “Okay,” Stephanie said. “See you in a few.”

  I was the last one to walk into our room.

  “It’s driving me crazy,” Lauren was saying. “I feel like I have an umbilical cord attached or something. Like we’re little babies. I wish they’d just chill and let us be on our own more.”

  “Well, it is a really big boat,” Stephanie said. “I think you need to chill. I don’t mind being with the ‘rents at first, until we learn our way around better.”

  “I want to go see where the crew stays. I saw some online videos of cruise-ship crews, and they have their own mess hall and their own bar and everything. I want to take my video camera down there.”

  “I can’t wait till dress-up night,” Stephanie said, looking at herself in the full-length mirror beside the door. “What does your dress look like, Lauren?”

  “I brought two. One’s short and blue and off one shoulder. Dad said I look at least seventeen in it,” Lauren said.

  “Big deal,” I said. “Why do you want to look older?”

  “I just do,” Lauren said, giving me a funny look. “Why not?”

  “Diana’s on the cross-country team at our school,” Stephanie said, suddenly changing the subject. “She’s really good. So you guys are both good runners. Maybe you could run on the track together while we’re on the boat.”

  “That track was so teeny,” Lauren said.

  “I know. I ran around it a couple of times, but I was afraid I’d get dizzy,” I said, laughing.

  “I know, right?”

  “But you guys could still run together one day,” Stephanie insisted.

  “Sure, maybe,” I said noncommittally. If I went up there to run, it would be to get away from Lauren, not be with her. I climbed up on my bunk and lay on my elbow, looking down. This sure was a little room.

  “Anybody want me to French-braid their hair for dinner?” Stephanie asked.

  “Oh, me!” said Lauren.

  I lay on my bunk and watched as Lauren settled on the bunk in front of Stephanie, and then Stephanie separated Lauren’s shiny dark hair into sections and started to braid it.

  One time at home, Stephanie had talked me into letting her braid my hair. She’d come in my room and sat on my bed, and I had to admit it had felt good for her to smooth and comb my hair. At dinner that night, Mom and Norm had complimented me on how nice it looked.

  “That would be a good way to wear your hair when you ride,” Stephanie had said when I checked out myself in the mirror. “It will fit better under your riding helmet than a ponytail.”

  Now Stephanie and Lauren talked and laughed as Stephanie worked. I didn’t want to watch them but I couldn’t help myself.

  “My dad has a new saying,” Lauren said.

  “Ha-ha, a new one?” Stephanie said. “What?”

  “What he says all the time now is ‘At the end of the day.’ He picked it up from the news, I think. I just want to crack up. He says it about everything.”

  “What does it mean?” Stephanie said.

  “I guess it means when all the evidence is evaluated, or when everything is all over. ‘At the end of the day,’” she said in a reporter’s voice, “we will all be paying higher prices. Now if he says it tonight, you can’t laugh!”

  “At the end of the day, I promise I won’t laugh at your dad saying ‘at the end of the day,’” said Stephanie, giggling.

  “I hope that, at the end of the day, you won’t,” said Lauren.

  “Remember last time we visited you guys, his saying was ‘It is what it is’?”

  Stephanie laughed. “Oh yeah, and we were at dinner at your house, and he said it about ten times, and we were, like, rolling in the floor. Every topic …”

  “It is what it is,” Lauren said in a dadlike voice. “And before that it was, ‘Been there, done that.’ And before that it was ‘I went ballistic.’ He always picks up whatever sayings are cool or popular.”

  Stephanie
giggled. I turned over. I told myself they had known each other their whole lives. I told myself they weren’t trying to make me feel left out. I told myself they were just remembering stuff they’d done in the past. I told myself I didn’t care.

  “Okay, done!”

  Stephanie straightened and smoothed the braid a few times. Lauren went over to the mirror on the wall and held up a hand mirror so she could see the back of her head.

  “Oh, excellent, girl,” Lauren said. “Thanks.”

  “Diana, you want me to do yours?” Stephanie said. “It looked so nice the time I did it at home.”

  I shouldn’t have said yes, but I did. And so Stephanie braided my hair, and then Lauren braided Stephanie’s, and we all had braided hair for going to dinner the first night. And of course Lauren wanted to videotape us. And I agreed. I don’t know why I did it.

  So Lauren videotaped Stephanie and me smiling at the camera and then turning our heads around so the camera could see the braids. And for some reason, we started singing this song on the video. It was called “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” It’s an old song, but everybody knows the words. There is one part where you sing “In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight,” and then you sing, “Aweemaway, aweemaway, aweemaway, aweemaway,” and it sounds really funny.

  So first Stephanie went skipping across the room singing, “Aweemaway, aweemaway,” and when she got to the side of the room I was on, we put our heads together and sang, “A-we-um-um-away.”

  And then Stephanie said, “You do it, Diana!” And so I did. I skipped across the room and back singing “Aweemaway, aweemaway,” and then met up with her, and together we sang, “A-we-um-um-away.” Lauren about dropped the camera, we were laughing so hard. I couldn’t believe I did that. Stephanie made me do it.

  And I was kind of having fun, I have to admit it.

  4

  STEPHANIE

  Just as we finished singing our very ridiculous version of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” Daddy knocked on our door and called us to come to dinner. I was so excited that the three of us were having fun together. And I felt like we all looked pretty and grown up with our braided hair. Even if we were singing “Aweemaway.”

  The restaurant was beautiful! Murals of Italy were painted on the walls, and four round white columns stood in the center of the room. Hanging from the ceiling were gorgeous chandeliers in gold and glass. The tables were covered with long white tablecloths and were set with sparkling glasses for water and wine, with a cream-colored napkin folded on each gold-rimmed dinner plate.

  Grammy was the first one there. She had claimed a big round table for us and was sitting there all alone. “Finally! There you are! Over here!” She waved her arms energetically. “It’s a good thing I got here early and got the table,” she said.

  We laughed as she gestured to the empty tables all around. When we sat down, two cute waiters came up, dressed in white, long-sleeved shirts and brocaded vests, with white aprons tightly tied around their waists, and they handed us heavy menus covered in leather.

  “Good evening,” said the first waiter, who was tall and pale with dark hair. “I am Bogdan, and I am from the Ukraine. I’ve been on the ship for eight months.”

  “And I am Luis,” said the second waiter, who was shorter and stocky, with shiny dark hair. “I’m from Mexico, and I’ve been on the ship for five months.”

  “So you don’t get to see your families for all that time?” Grammy asked.

  “No, we stay with the ship. But we get to go to wonderful, exciting places,” said Bogdan.

  “What’s the most fun place you’ve been?” Lauren asked as she held the video camera up and pressed the Record button.

  “Rio de Janeiro,” said Luis.

  Bogdan scratched his chin. “I would say Barcelona, Spain.”

  Luis and Bogdan told us they would be our waiters every night for the whole five days, and that they would be back in a few minutes to take our orders.

  I opened my menu and discovered that the names of the dishes were in Italian.

  “Oh my gosh!” said Lauren. “I have no idea what any of these things are.”

  “What a great learning experience,” said Uncle Ted. “No chicken tenders tonight!”

  Although the names of the dishes were in Italian, the description of each dish was in English. There were several different courses, including “antipasti,” which were appetizers; “zuppa e insalata,” which was soup and salad; pasta; and the main dish.

  When Bogdan and Luis came back to take our orders, we had a lot of questions for them. They allowed me to order ravioli as my main dish, even though it was listed under “pasta.” Diana ordered stuffed chicken, which was called petto di pollo, and Lauren who said she was an adventurous eater, ordered lobster, which was called aragosta. Luke ordered spaghetti.

  “Can I taste your lobster?” I asked Lauren.

  “Sure!” she said.

  Dinner went by in a blur. I focused on using my best manners. My ravioli melted in my mouth, and Lauren’s lobster, when I tried it, had a rich, sweet taste.

  “What are you girls going to do tomorrow? We’re supposed to be at sea all day,” said Grammy.

  “Go swimming!” said Lauren. “And maybe play some basketball. I’d like to try out that court that’s up there near the golf course.”

  “There’s one pool where they play a lot of games, and then there’s another where it’s supposed to be quiet for adults,” said Lynn. “And then there’s a small pool at the very back of the ship.”

  “I’ve heard that you have to get out early to claim a lounge chair,” said Daddy. “You girls shouldn’t sleep too late. You’ll miss getting a spot by the pool.”

  “They have a teen nightclub!” said Lauren. “Can we go tonight?”

  “Sure,” said Uncle Ted. “But the three of you will need to stay together.”

  “We can go by ourselves, right?” Lauren asked.

  “We’ll walk you up there just to see where it is,” said Daddy.

  “Come on, we can find it ourselves!” Lauren said.

  “Be patient, Lauren,” said Aunt Carol. “All in good time.”

  All during the meal, Luis and Bogdan paid special attention to us, even though the dining room filled up with people.

  “The staff is so attentive,” said Lynn. “Service is really a big part of the cruise experience, I can see.”

  “It must be a challenge to live on the ship for months at a time. Think how small the staff rooms must be,” said Daddy.

  “At the end of the day,” said Uncle Ted, “I would say the service is the key to a vacation on a cruise ship.”

  He said it! Uncle Ted said “at the end of the day.” I glanced at Lauren, and we pressed our lips together. I looked away from her to keep from laughing.

  A minute later, I couldn’t help it, and I looked back at her. She had put her hand over her mouth to cover up the laughing.

  Before I could stop myself, I let out a giggle. Then Lauren did too. We looked away from each other quickly and tried to stop.

  “Girls? What’s so funny?” Aunt Carol said.

  “Nothing,” Lauren said. Then she burst out laughing.

  I laughed too. Uncle Ted, when I looked at him, was concentrating on his steak. I cut my eyes over to Diana. She knew what was going on. She’d heard us talking about Uncle Ted’s sayings.

  “Okay, do you girls want to share the joke?” Daddy said. “The rest of us feel left out.”

  “Never mind,” Lauren said. “It’s nothing. Sorry.”

  “They’re laughing at the way Uncle Ted says ‘at the end of the day,’” Diana said quite loudly.

  “What?” Uncle Ted looked up.

  I felt my face go hot and my scalp start to prickle. I couldn’t believe Diana had told! How could she do something like that? Now Lauren and I were so embarrassed.

  “Oh,” said Daddy, “you’re making fun of your ‘rents, huh?”

  “We don’t mean anything by
it,” I said all in a rush. “We just noticed that Uncle Ted has new sayings each time we see him. We were just teasing.”

  That was such a mean thing Diana had just done to us. She’d purposefully tried to make us look bad. Just because she was feeling left out. Which as far as I could see was her own fault. We’d been trying to include her the whole time. I’d been looking at my lap, but when I glanced up I saw Lauren looking at Diana with narrowed eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Uncle Ted,” I said, feeling so awful.

  “Well, I tell you,” said Uncle Ted suddenly. “Some people will go ballistic if you make fun of them. At the end of the day, I don’t mind a little teasing.”

  All the grown-ups laughed, but Lauren was still giving Diana a dirty look. Diana’s jaw was set and her expression was stony-looking.

  “That was a good way to handle it, Ted,” said Grammy Verra.

  In a minute the grown-ups had started talking about something else. I heaved a sigh of relief. When we had finished dessert—chocolate mousse for all the kids, and tiramisu for the adults—Lauren wanted to go directly to the teen nightclub without going back to our rooms. Daddy said he’d walk us up there because he wanted to see where it was and what it was like. I was fine with that, but I could tell that Lauren was dying to go wander around the ship on our own. Diana said she didn’t want to go.

  “Oh, you should go,” Lynn said to her. “Give it a try. If you really don’t like it, you can come back to the room.”

  I watched Diana look at her lap. The way I was feeling right now, I didn’t care whether she came or not!

  We walked toward the front of the ship, rode the elevator up to one of the top floors, and found the teen nightclub, which was called Cabaret. The walls were bright blue, and there was a funky blue-and-yellow pattern in the carpet. Small round tables surrounded by chairs were positioned around the room. High stools attached to the floor surrounded a shiny metallic circular bar. Against one wall stood one of those giant, colorful jukeboxes with flashing lights. On another wall was a huge video screen where underwater scenes were showing. In one corner of the room was a console where there were joysticks and video editing equipment.