“Not good, I’m afraid,” I admit.
“That’s what I thought,” Willow says. “But I was kind of hoping. You know, for your sake.”
“There’s nothing wrong with what they’re doing,” I say. “They’re just playing volleyball.”
“Maybe so,” Willow says, “maybe so. But when is a volleyball just a volleyball?”
“Thank you, Sigmund Freud,” I say.
“Who?” For the first time since I met her, Willow looks puzzled. Historically speaking, usually I have that effect on females much more quickly than this.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “Let’s just say, you make a good point.”
Back in the mini-suite at the end of the day, Helen is once again aglow with excitement while I am feeling somewhat less than. And not because I’ve been sick. And not because Robin is dead, although that still hurts.
“You seem a little quiet,” Helen says. “Didn’t you have a good day today?”
“Oh, it was great,” I say. “And, you know, I finally got to meet your friends.”
“Why’d you say that like that?”
“Say what like what?”
“Friends. I’ve heard you use that tone of voice only once before, when you said the name of that guy from my office: Daniel Rathbone.”
“I don’t think I say those things in any particular way.”
Do I?
“Didn’t you like them?” Helen persists. “I was so sure you would. I wanted you to.”
And suddenly I can tell that she did.
“What’s not to like?” I say. “They’re good at volleyball, they had solid handshakes—I told you what Aunt Alfresca always said about handshakes, right?”
“That they shouldn’t be limp like a cod.”
“Exactly.”
“Every time you tell me that, you use the Italian word for cod, but I can never remember what that is.”
Wait a second. Is she trying to tell me that sometimes I repeat myself?
“Anyway,” I say, “their handshakes were solid.” I can’t help adding, “Like their bodies.” And further can’t help adding, “In those Speedos.”
“I know, right?” She strips off her bathing suit and heads for the bathroom. “I didn’t think anyone still wore those.”
You and me both, kiddo.
We’re all dressed for dinner. I’m wearing my chinos and another white button-down shirt plus a tie that Helen helps me with, because it’s one of those formal dinner nights, and Helen’s got a dress on, same cut as the red and the green, only this one’s black. With her deepening tan, she looks amazing in it, insanely sexy too.
We’re almost to the open doors of the dining room when I hear a stampede of thundering feet.
Oh, shit. I hope the ship didn’t hit anything.
But when I turn to see what the commotion is, I see Helen’s new friends running toward us.
Soon, they’re surrounding us, or really the Germans are just surrounding Helen. Me, they’re wedging off to one side.
Since I can’t keep their names straight and I know I never will, I’ll just assign random names to various speakers.
“Helen, don’t eat in the dining room,” Dirk says.
“Come with us, Hel,” Uwe says.
Wait. Someone else calls her Hel? I thought only her family and I did that.
“We’re going on deck,” says Wolfgang.
“We’re going to get pizza,” Sven says.
“And beer,” Swen says, “lots of beer.”
“We’re going to eat pizza and drink lots of beer and watch the sun sink into the ocean,” says Felix.
Chatty bastard, isn’t he?
“But Johnny and I were going to—” Helen starts to say, but Maximilian cuts her off.
“Oh, Johnny! We did not see you there! Of course, you will come too.”
Gee, thanks.
“What do you think?” Helen says. She poses it as a question, like it’s up to me, but I see the hopeful look in her eyes. I can tell this is what she wants to do. It’s not really what I want to do, but…
“Well, I guess it’s preferable to having Boris tell me I ask too many questions or watching Tom and Daisy head for divorce court, right?”
“I know.” Helen throws her arms around me, which reminds me that while these German guys may be her new friends, I’m still her new husband. “It’ll be fun, right?”
As I hug her back, I think:
Sure, it’ll be fun. Won’t it?
Oktoberfest is probably overrated, I’m thinking as Uwe approaches the table. On cruise ships you can get these buckets of ice in them with a half-dozen beer bottles shoved in among the ice and Uwe’s got buckets of beer balanced on each arm like some kind of drunken milkmaid.
I twist off a top and chug down most of the bottle as I listen to them recount, blow by blow, the last two days of beach volleyball. Apparently, the first day in port—when Helen and I were both sick in our cabin—the Germans also played volleyball on the beach, but apparently that pales in comparison to the time spent playing with Helen, which they continue to recount.
Did I mention that they’re doing this blow by blow?
After the pizza and the beer and the sunset—and getting our pic snapped by a roving photographer who positions us with Helen in the center, her constellation of Germans surrounding her with me off to one side like some lonely star—the decision is made to go bowling. I say “the decision is made” because I had no part in making it.
At bowling, I get to see what the Germans already discovered the night before: what my wife’s backside looks like when she bends over to bowl while wearing a skintight mini-dress.
Well, at least as promised, she does take off her sky-high heels to bowl.
There is that.
And then we’re at karaoke again.
I really don’t feel like singing, so Helen goes up herself. The song she picks? “The Winner Takes it All,” by ABBA. When she opens her mouth and the first notes come out, it’s really just…not good. But then before it can get even worse, I hear that thundering sound again, and there’s Dirk, Felix, Jurgen, Klaus, Maximilian, Sven, Swen, Uwe and Wolfgang, surrounding my wife to help her with her song.
“The Winner Takes it All,” as music trivia experts can tell you, was originally called “The Story of My Life”—even music trivia experts who hate ABBA can tell you this—and as the ten sing their song about the humane obliteration of a heart, I hope it will not be the story of mine.
“The gods may throw the dice/their minds as cold as ice,” the Germans sing, loudly, I might add. In fact, their singing drowns out Helen. I listen to their voices and must grudgingly admit that they sing very well, even this crappy song. And as I watch them sing, arms around each other’s shoulders, crowded in around the mic, it hits me: They’re saving Helen, saving her from being exposed yet again as being a truly awful singer.
Then I look around at the crowd and people are actually enjoying themselves and sure, the song still sucks, painfully so, but the crowd is enjoying it because the ten singers are enjoying themselves so much, just like the singing actors in The Deer Hunter and My Best Friend’s Wedding.
And that’s when it further hits me that:
Shit. The Germans are having my movie moment with Helen.
The decision is made, after karaoke closes for the night, to skip the show and head straight for the disco.
In the real world, in this day and age, no one would ever be caught dead saying, “Let’s go to the disco.” But there can be no arguing that this gaudy room on the ship, with its mirrored balls and strobing lights, is exactly that.
Geez, I hope they don’t play Bee Gees music all night.
Thankfully, they do not, just some other awful crap. I can’t stand the idea of dancing to this but suddenly my wife is Ginger Rogers with nine Fred Astaires.
Which is how I wind up sitting by myself, watching them form a conga line, Uwe or Dirk or Felix’s hands on my wife’s swaying hips a
s they snake through the other dancers. Ce-le-brate good times—come on! I think not.
There’s a TV behind the bar, the Mets are on, the Mets are winning 10 to zip, and I don’t even feel like celebrating that.
I’m still sitting there, observing the dancers, when a woman comes up to me. She’s OK-enough looking, as far as non-Helen women go, with clean brown hair and she’s wearing some gowny type of purple dress.
“I was wondering if I could impose on you to dance…” she starts to say, and I don’t hear the rest because I’m already half out of my chair, thinking this could be good, I’ll show Helen, she’ll see what it feels like to watch me dancing with someone else.
But then the woman finishes her sentence, and what she finishes it with is, “…my daughter Willow? You made such a strong impression on her today and she does love to dance.”
A head pops around the corner of the woman’s gown. The head no longer has a turban, there’s no annoying sunglasses anymore so I can see her eyes are blue, and her hair is somewhat carroty.
“Hi, Mr. Smith!” she says. Then she comes all the way around and I can see she’s all spiffed out in a pink lace dress, white ankle socks and shiny black shoes. On her wrist is a rhinestone bracelet.
I did not know kids dressed like that anymore.
“How ya doin, Willow?” I say.
“I’ll be fine if you’ll dance with me,” Willow says. “It’s been my lifelong dream to dance with a man other than my father on a cruise ship.”
It must be nice to have such exact dreams, so easily fulfilled by one single thing.
I look at the mother and she’s got this “please” look on her face as in “please do this thing so my daughter will stop talking about it” or maybe it’s simply “please don’t break my little girl’s heart.”
So what choice do I have?
I extend the crook of my arm in Willow’s direction—“Miss Willow, if you will, please,” I say—and she latches onto it with both hands.
Once we’re out on the dance floor, since “Celebration” is still playing, I launch into my yahoo dance but Willow starts yelling at me over the music.
“Mr. Smith! Mr. Smith, I can’t dance like that! I prefer the box step! Do you know the box step?”
“I think you better lead, kid,” I say.
So she does, holding out her hands and forcing me into position.
We’re silent for a time, and then:
“Mr. Smith, did you know you dance like a stick figure?”
“Women have been known to make that observation before,” I allow.
Willow looks tickled at being lumped in with women.
“Mr. Smith? Do you think it’s working yet?”
“Is what working yet?”
“Making Mrs. Smith jealous.”
“Making…”
“That’s why I asked my mother to ask you to dance with me. You looked like you needed help.”
That’s what this is? A pity dance? And here I was thinking the kid maybe had a cute little crush on me when all the while it was just pity?
“So is it working, Mr. Smith?” Willow prods eagerly. “Does she look jealous yet?”
I look over at my wife, still conga-ing with the Germans, all of them oblivious to me.
The Germans, the Germans, the Germans. I don’t know why I keep saying that. It makes it sound like I’m obsessing about the fact that they’re German. But it’s not like I’d be ecstatic if a bunch of Italian guys or Russian guys or Swedish guys were constantly crowding around my wife. The nationality is not the point.
“Nah,” I say, “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t think so, kid.”
When Willow’s mom comes to collect her after the dance, Willow thanks me, I thank her, and as Willow starts to walk away, her mom leans back and, with a lascivious smile, says, “You are hot, Mr. Smith.”
After the night I’ve had, I must admit, that is mildly gratifying, but still.
What the fuck?
There’s more of drinking and singing and dancing and everything, including eating, but none of it matters.
None of it matters except that when we finally do get back to our cabin, even though we haven’t you know in three days, since before I got sick, I am not in the mood, and I’m not in the mood because, quite frankly, I’m starting to get a little pissed.
So I just roll over and, without thinking of what Helen might want, I go to sleep.
Stormy Weather
Who knew that if you booked a cruise to the Bahamas in June, there’s a chance you’ll run into a hurricane on the voyage back? I guess there’s a good reason it’s called Hurricane Season.
And now, on our last full day at sea, there’s a good reason why Helen and I don’t leave our mini-suite, which should be a good thing—you know, all that alone time. The boat is rocking like crazy and it’s all we can do not to fall over the side of the bed.
So instead of going anywhere, we stay there and do something we’ve never done before. We fight.
Well, maybe fight is too strong a word for it. I mean, no voices are raised and even though I’m thinking the word selfish and from the look on her face it’s a safe bet she’s thinking the phrase big baby or maybe even dickwad, nothing like that comes out of our mouths. Instead, other things come out of our mouths, and it all starts with me saying:
“So how come, when you told me you made a bunch of new friends, you never mentioned they all happen to be guys?”
“I didn’t realize that was a salient feature of who they are.”
“Not a—”
“They’re just people, Johnny, good, fun people. What does their gender matter?”
Can she really not know?
And why is it that I’m suddenly feeling in the wrong here?
“Would it have been better,” she continues, “if I’d hooked up with a bunch of women instead?”
“Well, now that you mention—”
“Because that was never going to happen. Have you not noticed, that I don’t make friends with women easily?”
Have I not—
“My only real girlfriend is Carla, Johnny. I grew up in a household of guys. Well, except for my mother. I’ve always been more comfortable with guys than with girls. They like the things I like. I’m more like them.”
I think about this and I realize that this is true.
This must be why she had to fill out her side of the wedding party with Aunt Alfresca and Alice. Having no other real female friends besides Carla, she had no one else to ask.
And now that I think about it, I can see why she’d have trouble getting along with other women. Helen is so smart and beautiful, other women probably feel threatened being around her.
Still, is this what our life together is going to be like, Helen hanging out with a bunch of guys while I’m relegated to an observer’s role, feeling left out, when I’m usually the one at the center of any group of guys?
When I mention feeling left out around the Germans, Helen gets a little heated.
“And whose fault is that?” she says, clearly frustrated. “You were so…not yourself around them. Usually you’re so engaging. All guys love you—you know that. But it’s like you couldn’t be bothered to try. You wouldn’t play volleyball during the day—”
“I’d been sick!”
“—and then at night, all night long, you wouldn’t sing, you wouldn’t dance, you wouldn’t talk to anybody.”
“I’d been sick!”
“So, what—the whole world’s supposed to stop and take care of you?”
And that’s when I hear the words big baby and possibly dickwad coming off of her.
“No,” I say, frustrated myself now. “The whole world doesn’t have to take care of me.” And this is when that insidious word selfish enters my own brain, as I add, “But it would be nice if my own wife did!”
“You’re the one who told me to go off and have a good time. You said there was no point in us both staying cooped up and being mis
erable.”
Did I say that? Were those the exact words I used?
Funny, now, I don’t remember. Still, I don’t think I said exactly that. Would I have ever referred to us being in a cabin together, even if one or both of us was sick, as being cooped up and miserable? Not after just a few days of marriage. But would Helen have really felt that way if she’d stayed behind with me?
And now I am feeling cooped up and miserable because that stupid storm is keeping us cooped up and I’m miserable because we’re stuck in this stupid vortex of a sort-of fight—how did we get here? and so quickly? I don’t want us to be a couple that fights, not even a little bit—and I don’t know what else to do to get out of it, so I do the first thing I can think of which is to kiss the girl.
I kiss my wife, and I can’t believe this is the reason for it, to shut her up. I kiss her because I don’t want to hear her say or imply anymore that I’m being unreasonable for being upset that she spent so much time hanging out with a six-pack and a half of blond Teutonic gods in tight Speedos when I was still sick, especially since I was only still sick because I’d given her the only magic pill we had between the two of us so she could get better quicker.
I kiss her to shut her up. Oh, it sounds so awful when I say it like that. But when she kisses me back, and her kiss is immediate and fierce, I remember all the reasons I do love her, why I fell in love with her in the first place, because she’s smart and she’s beautiful and she’s funny and she loves me and she’s just so Helen, and as kissing turns into the first love-making session we’ve had since Monday—can it really have been four days? how did we let so much time pass? Oh, right. I was in the bathroom. Anyway, as one thing leads to another, before I stop thinking at all, I think: Maybe this really was all my fault. Things will be fine once we’re home, as if none of this ever happened. Well, except for the good things.
From there on, everything is just sensation and wonder.
About fifteen minutes after we’re done, I realize what time it is and fiddling around on the nightstand, I find the remote, click on the TV.
Isn't It Bro-Mantic? Page 7
