Isn't It Bro-Mantic?

by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

  “Karaoke!” my bride screams. “They have karaoke—I love karaoke!” She grabs my hand and tugs me in a direction. “Let’s do that.”

  So, I guess we’re doing karaoke.

  The room where they have the karaoke is done up in black and a dark red that clashes with all the red Helen has on. The room kind of looks like a rundown strip joint, not that I have that much experience with that kind of thing.

  I look around for a free table and spot one right in the front row. As we make our way over there, Helen reaches out and grabs a thick black leather-covered book, a few small scraps of paper and a stubby pencil from I guess you’d call it a captain’s stand.

  We sit there and listen to a woman in the performance area belting out an Adele song. You can’t swing a dead cat these days without hitting someone singing an Adele song, but at least this woman has a good voice. I mean, it’s really good.

  Speaking of cats, I wonder how Fluffy’s making out? Maybe I should have asked Sam to sleep over with him instead of just checking in twice a day.

  I order some drinks from the waitress and she gives me a huge smile. It occurs to me that I’ve been getting that a lot since we’ve been on the ship—waitresses smiling at me big. This is an unusual experience for me because usually I don’t have that kind of an effect on women. But maybe they just treat all the passengers that way? You know, hoping for bigger tips?

  Helen’s studying the contents of that black leather-bound book like she’s going to find the Holy Grail in there or something.

  What is that thing—a menu?

  “Are you hungry again already?”

  I don’t say this in any kind of judgy voice. Sure, I’ve heard of women getting married and then packing on a hundred pounds right away. But I’d never care about something like that—even a hundred pounds heavier, Helen’d still be Helen. Still, we did just have a pretty big meal and I am curious.

  “No,” she says, eyes glued to the page. “This is just a list of all the songs they have.”

  A list…

  “You’re going to sing?” I’m shocked. I’ve never heard her sing before. We always listen to the sports station, The Wave, when we’re in the car together.

  I wonder how the Mets made out today…

  “Of course,” she says. “Why else do people go to karaoke?”

  How would I know? I never go to karaoke.

  “I’ve got it!” she says. Then she scribbles something on one of the little scraps of paper and brings it over to some D.J. type of person, who adds it to some other scraps in front of him.

  We wait and wait through a few more singers—some good, some OK, some truly sucky—Helen swinging a red-heeled toe impatiently all the while.

  At last, the D.J. calls out, “Helen Smith!”

  Helen Smith? I do like the sound of that.

  Helen practically bounds out of the chair and as she does so, she grabs onto my hand, yanking on it.

  “Come on,” she says.

  “Oh no,” I say, digging my heels in. “This is your thing—you sing.”

  “But it won’t be half as fun without you.” She makes a little pouty face I’ve never seen before. “I want to do a duet—this is our honeymoon.”

  There are a lot worse things than your new wife wanting to do couple-type things with you—like, say, being Tom and Daisy, and hating each other’s guts after twenty-five years of marriage.

  So I make a decision. Even though it strikes me as a horrifically embarrassing thing to do, I will sing a karaoke duet with my wife in front of all these strangers. After all, how bad can it be? She probably picked out some really cool song—maybe a little Green Day—plus, I used to sing in the church choir. Aunt Alfresca made me and then they made me a soloist. I’m told I actually have a very fine tenor.

  So really, this won’t be bad at all. In fact, I suddenly think, this will be excellent, a dream come true!

  And the reason I think that is because like all Americans, I’ve seen those movies where friends spontaneously burst into song – you know those movies, like The Deer Hunter or My Best Friend’s Wedding—and everyone sounds really great, leaving everyone in the audience to wish that they had great-sounding friends they could spontaneously burst into song with.

  This is going to be exactly like that.

  This is going to be so cool.

  This is nothing like that.

  I realize that as soon as my wife starts singing “Friday night and the lights are low…” and it hits me: She picked out ABBA? There must have been thousands of song choices in that book and the one she chose with that Eureka! look on her face was ABBA? And seriously, “Dancing Queen”? Then something else hits me: She’s painfully off-key. And then a third thing hits me, which would be her fist in my shoulder, followed by a muttered, “Your turn to sing.”

  Oh, no. How can I sing this awful song in front of all these people? But how could I ever just walk off the floor and desert my bride?

  So I open my mouth and start to sing.

  “You are the dancing queen…”

  Kill me now.

  Somehow, I get through it. There’s even a fair amount of applause when we’re done, which is better than the rotten tomatoes I was expecting. Maybe people are just being polite? Of course everyone does love a pretty woman in a red dress and then too, I do have that great tenor.

  When we return to our seats, Helen is all exhilaration.

  “Yes!” She holds her hand up for a high five.

  What choice do I have but to high-five her back?

  “Yes,” I say, trying to sound like I mean it. At least my smile is genuine. After all, she really is cute.

  And at least that’s over with.

  “Well, that was fun,” I say.

  “Fun? Fun? That was amazing!”

  “Absolutely. Now maybe we should…”

  But she’s back to avidly studying her song bible again.

  She can’t possibly be thinking…

  “Perfect!” she says and then proceeds to scribble something on another piece of scrap paper.

  She can’t seriously be planning on doing that again, can she?

  I say as much, but a bit more diplomatically.

  Or maybe not so diplomatically. What comes out of my mouth is: “You want to do that again?”

  “Of course,” she says, looking at me like I’m crazy. “Who can possibly stop after just one?”

  Who indeed?

  “Don’t you like music?” she asks me.

  Of course I do. I’m a guy, so I love music, great music, but this?

  Without waiting for my answer, she goes up to give her song selection to the D.J. person and a few minutes later, when her name is called, she tries to grab my hand again to drag me with her. But this time I dig my heels in more firmly.

  “I really wish I could,” I say, “but I think I threw my voice out on that last chorus—you know, diggin’ the dancing queen and all.” I can’t believe I’m lying to my new wife. “And anyway,” I go on, “I’d really much rather sit here and listen to you.”

  “Really?” She smiles. “You think I’m that good?”

  “Let’s just say that you are…something.”

  “Aw.” She tilts her head to one side, a misty smile on her face as she reaches out to caress my cheek. And then she’s off to sing another song.

  I tell myself that maybe it won’t be as bad as last time. Who knows—maybe somehow my singing was throwing her off? I tell myself that maybe this time she’ll pick something more suitable to her lack of any vocal talents, like maybe a Taylor Swift song. I’m not exactly a big Taylor Swift fan—all that girly teenage angst, Romeo and Juliet, yadda yadda—but those kinds of songs can be talked as much as sung and Helen’s got a fine speaking voice; she’s like the reverse of Madonna who can sing great but sounds like long red fingernails on a chalkboard whenever she just talks.

  I can’t believe I’m sitting here praying for a Taylor Swift song.

  But I don’t even get t
hat.

  “Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk, I’m a woman’s man…”

  Oh, sweet everything that is holy, no.

  She’s singing a Bee Gees song?

  The love of my life can’t sing for shit and she has sucky taste in music? How did I not know this about her?

  I’m sure this song was considered hot a few years before I was born—in fact, I know it was and that John Travolta was considered to be really cool—but some things don’t stand the test of time and this song is one of them. I try to think of movie songs that have stood the test of time. Maybe that one from Titanic? At least within the context of the timeless sadness of the movie and the story, it still works.

  And then I panic.

  Holy crap. She’s not going to sing Celine Dion next, is she? I start rifling through that black leather-bound book like a madman. Is Celine Dion in here?

  Just then I feel that thing where someone’s eyes are drilling into your head and I look up, only to see my singing Helen staring at me with a quizzical look on her face. So I hastily close the book, push it away from me, and give a smile and little wave like the one Max the Dog gives when he’s caught riding on the back of the sleigh by the Grinch.

  Not that Helen’s a Grinch!

  Or that I’m a dog. Not really. Although I do feel bad for thinking that my wife sucks at this thing she’s doing, which she does—suck at it, that is, royally.

  But it’s fine. Isn’t it? After all, this is just one evening. It’s not like she’s going to be singing a soundtrack to our lives for the rest of our marriage. After tonight, I’ll be able to forget all about this. And, you know, maybe these are the only two awful songs she loves.

  Somewhere around Helen wondering “whether you’re a brother or whether you’re a mother,” two women approach—two very hot women, I might add, which may sound like an obnoxious observation to make since I just got married but their hotness is an objectively verifiable fact. It’s not like I’d ever want to do them or anything.

  “Do you mind if we sit with you?” one of them says. And, I don’t know, I could be crazy, but is she coming on to me? I have so little experience with such things. Practically none, really.

  The other one starts to slither in next to me and I hold up a restraining hand.

  “No!” I practically shout. “No,” I say in a more reasonable voice. I point at the stage. “I’m with her.”

  The one who’s half sitting slithers back out again, a disappointed look on her face.

  “Well, if you change your mind and want to hang out later,” she says, “we’re staying in 913.”

  “Um, thanks but, I think I’m good.”

  What is going on here? 913? I could use some 911!

  Mercifully, my wife finishes singing. Even more mercifully, the D.J. announces that’s it for karaoke for the night.

  Thank you.

  As Helen exits the stage, there’s more applause—maybe not as much as for the girl who could actually sing Adele, but still a respectable smattering and at least there are no boos, which, if she weren’t my wife, would not be uncalled for. In fact, there’s a group of about ten guys in the back, standing on their feet, hooting in some kind of foreign language and whistling. My wife, apparently, has admirers.

  As she makes her way back to me, I think maybe it would have been better if everyone booed. Then she would never even consider doing this again. And then I think about what an awful thing that is to think. How could I wish such a thing on my wife? She would be hurt, crushed. So instead I decide that I am grateful to all the people who clapped, whatever their motivation, grateful that they didn’t break my wife’s heart.

  “So,” she asks me, eyes bright with triumph and expectation and hope, “how was I?”

  “You were…” I take her hands, searching for a true thing I can say, finally settling on: “You are beautiful.”

  And that, at least, will always be true.

  We hit the late-night show in the big room at the end of the ship and it turns out that, this being the first night out, there’s no comedian or magician or anything cool like that. There’s just something that’s billed as “An All-Star Tribute to America,” which really just means a bunch of the staff from the cruise ship singing mash-ups of patriotic standards with popular tunes of the day. “The Star-Spangled Banner” mashed up with Bruno Mars’ “Grenade”? “And the rockets’ red glare/I’d catch a grenade for you/the bombs bursting in air/throw my head on a plate for you”—I think not.

  Plus, the singing sucks.

  At least this time, though, it’s not my wife doing the sucky singing.

  The next mash-up, “America the Beautiful” and Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida,” fares no better—“Oh beautiful for spacious skies/feel the fear in my enemies’ eyes”—but at least it rhymes.

  “Isn’t this great?” Helen whispers to me at one point. “Isn’t this everything you dreamed the cruise would be?”

  I can’t say that it is, not necessarily, but I can say that being on a honeymoon with Helen, having her be my wife, knowing that we will spend the rest of our lives together is even better than anything I ever dreamed.

  So “Yes,” I say. “Yes, it is.”

  Back in the mini-suite it turns out that—what do you know?—we still have enough energy left over for one more you know.

  And so another nearly perfect day, in what will undoubtedly be an endless stream of them, ends.

  Smooth Sailing

  And the second day, our first full day at sea, is just as nearly perfect.

  Well, actually, there are two minor problems.

  Apparently on cruise ships, people who know what they’re doing go to the pool area very early in the morning and leave the towels from their staterooms on lounge chairs, even if they’re not planning on actually using those chairs for several hours, to reserve spaces for later before all the chairs get taken. Apparently Helen read about this selfish practice when she did her pre-trip research. Apparently Helen asked me to do this when I went down to grab an early-morning coffee, while she stayed behind sleeping in, but I have no recollection of this request and when we circle the deck repeatedly looking for two empty chairs together after emerging from our cabin around eleven A.M., Helen looks miffed that the only two adjoining chairs are in the undesirable section in an upper deck far removed from the action around the pool. Apparently, although no words are spoken to this effect, that miffed look is directly my fault.

  But the miffed moment passes.

  Even though it is caught on camera by one of the roving photographers; maybe we won’t purchase that one.

  The only other less-than-perfect thing that day? More karaoke at night.

  Oy.

  But other than that?

  Nearly perfect.

  I could get used to this.

  Uh-oh

  The next morning, although we are due to dock at our first port of call at eleven A.M., I wake early with the intention of not making the same towel mistake twice, even if we don’t get to the pool before exiting the ship. But you know what they say about the best laid plans, right? You wake with the aim of being your wife’s wet dream Cabana Boy but the cramp in your gut sends you rushing to the toilet instead.

  Oh, gosh. What is that? I can’t remember the last time I felt like…

  And there it goes again.

  This. Is. Not. Good.

  And it gets worse when Helen starts pounding on the door. “Johnny, can I get in there? I have to go…now!”

  Oh, shit. And in more ways than one.

  Maybe in a few minutes I’ll feel better? Maybe this is just something I ate that has to work its way out of my system and it will do so, like, really soon?

  “Can you wait a few minutes?” I call out hopefully.

  “No, I really can’t,” she says, sounding desperate. “I have to go now.”

  What to do…what to do…

  If I stay here, I’m selfish. But if I get off this seat now, this could get ugly. />
  Still, I am the husband, the man, and Helen is my wife. So it’s my duty to flush, disinfect, squeeze my butt cheeks together as tight as I can in the hopes that no accidents occur, vacate the premises and hope it doesn’t smell as bad in there as I fear it does.

  Because, you know, bad smells can be a turnoff and destroy any prospects of morning you know.

  But Helen doesn’t seem to notice any smells at all as she hurls herself past me, slamming the door in my face. A little rude and harsh, I must say, but considering the threatening roils in my own gut, I can’t say that I blame her.

  About five minutes into her occupation, I’m not sure I can hold things together much longer and I tap a knuckle against the door.

  “Honey? Do you think maybe I can get in there for a few minutes?”

  “Just give me one more minute,” she says in a strained voice.

  A minute? I start thinking, strategically, about where the nearest public men’s room might be, but when it hits me how far away it is, I doubt I’d make it.

  When she comes out, I take her place, and so we continue switching places at fairly regular intervals.

  At one point, it’s her turn and I hear a little voice say, “I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.” I don’t know if she’s talking to me or deliriously talking to herself, but I fully understand how she feels.

  “Honey?” I call. “I’m going to get help.”

  “How?” she says. “You’re sick too.”

  I know that. How am I going to get help?

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I’ll call the Infirmary.”

  “But what good will that do? They can’t give you medication through the phone and I’m sure they don’t make house calls or just deliver.”

  “Then I’ll go down there,” I say firmly. “I’ll get help.”

  “You’d do that for me?”