by Jane Heller
“You do business in the Caribbean?”
He nodded.
“What kind of business?” Drug deals, probably.
“I’m an art director with V,Y&D. One of my clients is Crubanno Rum, and when the spirit moves the client, the spirit moves me. So here I am, on my way to scout locations for a photo shoot.”
I was stunned. This guy, this child, held a position of responsibility at Vance, Yellen and Drier, the big ad agency? He was actually an art director working on an account as important as Crubanno Rum?
“It’s amazing that V,Y&D lets you take a seven-day cruise down to the Caribbean to scout locations for photo shoots,” I said, knowing that Pearson & Strulley would never have paid for my cruise, never mind let me take a leisurely seven days to get to a job.
“I had some vacation days coming,” Skip said. “Plus I told them I could use a creative time-out. Recharge the batteries. Get my butt in gear. How about you? First cruise or what?”
“First cruise,” I said. “I came with two of my friends.”
“That’s too cool,” he remarked.
“Too,” I responded, glad that Skip wasn’t responsible for advertising copy as well as photo shoots.
“Maybe we’ll all get together sometime,” he offered. “Are you and your friends into music?”
Oh, no. Not another disco king. I wasn’t over Lenny Lubin yet. “It depends on what kind,” I said tentatively.
“New Age. Yanni, John Tesh, Andreas Vollenweider. Laid-back sounds are my thing, basically. They’re good for my head.”
I knew how laid-back Andreas Vollenweider was. The Weather Channel often played his “sounds” as background music during the local forecasts, particularly when the forecasts involved a violent storm.
“I’m a Beatles fan myself,” I said, recalling the adoration I had felt toward Paul McCartney as a teenager, probably the last time I had adored any man.
“Hey, that’s cool,” said Skip. “I have nothing against oldies groups. If you and your friends want to hang out in that lounge where they have all the jukeboxes, give me a jingle. I’m in Cabin 8067.”
I’m sure Skip was expecting me to reveal my cabin number, but I did not. Instead, I wished him a pleasant trip. When the elevator left us off on Deck 8, we each said, “Nice to meet you”; then I went my way and he went his. I waited for him to disappear into his stateroom before I stopped at mine and opened the door. Let my friends give strange men an open invitation to do them bodily harm. I was not about to.
And speaking of my friends, Pat and Jackie practically doubled over with laughter when I emerged from my cabin at twenty after six in my Perky Princess creation, a heavy, gold, long-sleeved dress with tassels.
“Listen,” I silenced them, “if Scarlett O’Hara could wear living room drapes out in public, I can wear this.”
We took the elevator down to the Palace Dining Room, an enormous space that was the very antithesis of “intimate.” It was decorated entirely in dusty rose, a shade that achieved a brief popularity in the eighties. The carpet, the upholstered chairs, the tablecloths, the napkins, everything was the same dreary shade of pink, except the giant crystal chandelier that hung from the center of the ceiling and the equally giant ice sculpture that sat in the center of the dessert table. (It was in the shape of the ship’s logo, the crown and the shoe.) There was nothing remotely nautical about the room, and aside from the occasional pitch and roll over the ocean, I had to keep reminding myself I was even on a ship.
We showed the head waiter the little Cruise Convenience Cards we’d been given as ID and he informed us that we were to be seated at Table 186 for the duration of our cruise.
Table 186, it turned out, was a table for ten.
“Good God,” I said as we followed the head waiter past dozens of tables to ours. “Every night is going to feel like a Bar Mitzvah.”
We were not the first to arrive at Table 186. Already seated were an elderly couple from Akron, Ohio, who, we were soon to learn, were celebrating their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary; a dewy-eyed, twentysomething couple from Fayetteville, North Carolina, who had chosen the Princess Charming on which to honeymoon; and a middle-aged couple from Short Hills, New Jersey, who simply had to get away while their 6,000-square-foot house was being renovated. The tenth person had yet to show up. I chose to cast my lot with him or her and sat down next to the empty chair.
After a second or two of awkward silence, we went around the table counterclockwise, introducing ourselves, first names only, just like at a twelve-step meeting.
“I’m Jackie,” Jackie said, sounding disappointed that we’d been put exclusively with couples.
“And my name is Pat,” said Pat with a little finger wave.
“Elaine,” I said, with the enthusiasm of a prison inmate.
We all stared at the empty seat next to me, then moved on.
“Brianna,” said the young newlywed, who looked as if she were at her high school prom. Her long brown hair was swept up in a chignon, except for the little tendrils that hung down around her baby face, and she wore a corsage on her right wrist. After she told us her name, she gazed adoringly at her new husband in eager anticipation of the utterance of his name.
“Rick,” he grunted, then squeezed her arm, nearly crushing the corsage. He was a bruiser, that Rick. Buzz haircut, thick neck, huge chest. A football player, no doubt. Or perhaps a member of one of those militia groups.
“Dorothy. I’m eighty-six,” said the spry little white-haired woman to Rick’s right. I guessed she had volunteered her age along with her name so we would all go, “You’re eighty-six? That’s amazing!” But nobody did. She looked eighty-six and then some.
She turned to her right, to her husband, a stooped, wizened creature with a large, Gorbachevesque wine stain on his bald head, and roused him from his nap.
“What is it?” he shouted. He was very cranky and would stay that way for the next seven days.
“They’re waiting for you to say your name, dear,” Dorothy said gently but loudly into his left ear.
“My what?” he said, cupping the same ear.
“Your name,” she repeated without the slightest trace of impatience. She winked at us and whispered, “He doesn’t hear so well. He’s eighty-nine.”
“The name’s Lloyd,” he bellowed, then went back to sleep.
“Gayle,” said the woman to Lloyd’s right. “With a y and an e, not an i.” She was extremely petite, which made the immense diamond ring on her right hand stand out all the more, and she was outfitted in a very chic little black cocktail dress. Her accessories included a diamond tennis bracelet and diamond stud earrings. In addition to all the diamonds, she was a redhead and therefore made me think of the redhead for whom my father had abandoned me and for whom he had undoubtedly purchased diamonds instead of supporting his family. This did not predispose me toward liking Gayle.
“Kenneth,” said Gayle’s husband, winding up our little game. He was of average height, weight, and table manners. After introducing himself, he tossed several of his business cards at us. He was a stockbroker, it appeared, or rather, according to the business cards, an “asset manager.” Either way, he was doing all right if he could afford all the rocks Gayle was flaunting, not to mention the Armani suit he was sporting.
“Where’s our mystery guest?” said Dorothy, pointing to the empty chair. She addressed the question to me, as if she thought I knew the missing person.
I explained that I was with Jackie and Pat and didn’t know anyone else on the ship. (I didn’t think my brief exchanges with Henry Prichard, Albert Mullins, Lenny Lubin, and Skip Jamison counted.) I added that perhaps the person who had been assigned to our table had asked to be changed to the eight-thirty seating, something I had thought of doing before deciding to leave well enough alone. You have to pick your shots in life, I knew. I was more interested in leaning on the Purser’s Office to find my luggage than I was in getting them to switch us to the later seating.
I was about to put my handbag on the empty chair when an extremely attractive man appeared and parked himself there.
“Sorry I’m late, everybody,” he said as he held up his hand in a gesture of apology.
Our eyes met, and as hopelessly clichéd as it sounds, I felt a surge of electricity charge through me—a jolt that literally made my brain short out. The feeling was thrilling and terrifying and thoroughly absurd.
What on earth is this? I asked myself as I tried desperately to regain control. It couldn’t have been love at first sight, because I didn’t believe in love at first sight. And it couldn’t have been lust at first sight, because I was the least lusty person on the planet. Furthermore, very handsome men left me cold, not including my adolescent fantasies about Paul McCartney. Remember the old rock ’n’ roll lyric: If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife? Well, I took it seriously—in reverse: If you want a husband who won’t cheat on you, don’t marry one that looks like John F. Kennedy, Jr.! Not that my ex-husband, Eric, was such a beauty, and look what a cad and a bounder he turned out to be. Still, fortune cookie-ish or not, it was my firm belief that if you picked a man that women found irresistible, you’d be more than likely to have your share of heartache.
No, this guy is far too good-looking to interest me, I thought, as he sat there in his slightly frayed but freshly laundered light blue Ralph Lauren shirt, khaki slacks, and brown loafers, a vision of preppiness. He had a thick head of hair that was dark and wavy with little glints of gray, sky-blue eyes that dazzled behind a pair of tortoiseshell glasses, a straight nose, a square jaw, gorgeous teeth, juicy lips—well, you get the picture. As for his body, he was lean and wiry, yet broad shouldered, strong. And he was very tall—six-five or so. A cross between Michael Crichton and Clark Kent. Perhaps that’s what I’m feeling, I decided. I’m simply identifying with this man’s tallness.
And yet, there was also a sense that he was familiar to me somehow; that we had met before. But as he pulled his chair closer to the table and placed the napkin on his lap, I tried to imagine where we could have met and how, and couldn’t.
All nine pairs of eyes were on him as he cleared his throat and introduced himself.
“I’m Sam Peck,” he said, setting off another roll call, this time with last names.
“Jackie Gault,” she said as she tried not to drool. Sam Peck wasn’t the beefy type she favored, but he wasn’t chopped liver either, particularly if you were as ravenously hungry as Jackie was.
“Pat Kovecky,” said Pat, who smiled in Sam’s general direction but was unable to make eye contact with him.
“Elaine Zimmerman,” I said with a slight quiver to my voice that betrayed the jumble of emotions I was feeling. The fact that I was feeling anything but apathy toward a man was a miracle.
“Brianna Brown. I mean [giggle] Brianna DeFabrizio,” said the newlywed, who had momentarily forgotten she was one.
“Rick DeFabrizio,” said the groom, glaring at her for not acknowledging that she was his property now, and then nibbling on her ear in a gesture of forgiveness.
“Dorothy Thayer,” said the eighty-six-year-old.
Silence.
“Wake up, dear. They want to know your name again,” she told her husband.
“They want to know WHAT again?”
“Your name.”
“Lloyd!”
“Your last name too, dear.”
“Lloyd Thayer!”
“Gayle Cone. That’s C-o-n-e, not C-o-h-e-n.” Gayle’s expression was deadly serious this time, as if it were imperative that people not mistake her for a Jew.
“Kenneth Cone,” said her husband with a little chuckle. “Cone. Like the baseball player.”
“You mean David Cone,” Jackie said. “The pitcher.”
“That’s the one,” Kenneth chuckled again. “No relation though.” He sounded regretful, as if he wished he were a famous, shiny star too. Ironically, he was shiny: shiny, slicked-back hair; shiny, manicured nails; shiny, crisp-new money. In fact, both of the Cones gave off a kind of eighties-style, nouveau riche aura. They seemed the sort of people who’d made it big during the Reagan era, survived Black Monday, and were now into conspicuous consumption in a thoroughly guiltless, clueless way.
“Good evening, everybody. My name is Ismet and I’ll be your waiter for the cruise.”
Great, another name to remember.
Ismet announced that he was born and raised in Turkey, had worked for Sea Swan Cruises for seventeen years, and was supporting a family of thirty-two. And then, he told us the specials.
“Each night we will have a different theme in the Palace Dining Room,” he explained. “Tonight is French Night. May I recommend the coq au vin?”
“What did he say, Dorothy?” asked Lloyd.
Dorothy reported to her husband, word for word.
“What the hell’s cockavan?” demanded Rick, the newlywed from Fayetteville.
His bride, Brianna, leaned over, kissed his cheek, and said very diplomatically, “I think it’s chicken, honeybun. In wine sauce.”
“Then why didn’t Ishmael or whatever his name is just say so,” Rick scowled, as if Ismet had deliberately shown him up in front of the womenfolk. Unlike Lloyd, who was merely out of sorts, Rick appeared to be one of those disaffected white American males who takes his inadequacies out on foreigners.
While we were all perusing the menus Ismet had handed us, the sommelier joined our happy group.
“Hello, hello, everybody. I’m Manfred, your wine steward,” he said, pressing his hands together in the manner of a supplicant and then bowing deeply. He was positively resplendent in his red coat and silver tasting paraphernalia. “To whom may I bring a bottle of wine this evening?”
Brianna and Rick said they were sticking with their sodas. Gayle said she and Kenneth had already enjoyed a bottle of Dom Perignon in their stateroom and were, therefore, “satiated, alcoholically.” Jackie said she wanted her usual Dewars and water. Pat said the Miami Whammy and piña colada she’d had earlier were quite enough for one day. And Dorothy said she and Lloyd had given up booze the same year they’d given up eating dinner any later than six-thirty. That left Sam Peck and me. We raised our hands—simultaneously. Manfred scurried over with the wine list, which he placed on the table between us, apparently mistaking us for a twosome.
“Now that’s what I like to see: a couple with an appreciation for the grape,” he beamed, obsequiousness oozing from every pore. “And such a lovely couple you are, too.”
Sam turned to look at me, peering over his eyeglasses, presumably to inspect the woman with whom he had just been erroneously linked. I wondered what sort of women he preferred and how I measured up in my gold dress with the tassels.
“We’re…um…not together,” I told Manfred when Sam didn’t correct him right away. I didn’t want this Adonis to feel as if he’d been saddled with me by an unctuous, matchmaking cruise ship employee.
“No, but there’s no harm in sharing the wine list, is there?” Sam said offhandedly, as if he were a very bored world traveler who was often forced to make conversation with simpering females. His voice was flat, accentless, leaving me no hints as to where he was from. All I knew with any certainty was that he had great cheekbones.
“No…no harm. I can take a look at…well, unless you want to see it first and then…” I was actually stammering. I was so disoriented, so flustered, that I was behaving like some tongue-tied groupie—and just because this man, this Sam Peck person, was sitting so close to me, was addressing me, was suggesting we share the goddamn wine list.
It occurred to me suddenly, with shocking clarity, that I didn’t have the vaguest notion how to talk to or even relate to a man in whom I was interested. “Be yourself,” everybody always says when this sort of thing crops up. “Be yourself and he’ll love you for what you are.” I wasn’t so sure about that. In the movies, women in my situation tend to behave in one of two ways: they either act as
awkward and foolish as I was acting, or they make themselves seem the epitome of coolness, indifference, smart-aleckyness. Where was my smart alecky side when I needed it? I thought, willing myself to slip into the “Don’t touch me” mode Skip Jamison had referred to.
“Why don’t you just order a bottle for both of us,” Sam said almost impatiently, as if he were assigning the task to a flight attendant on some interminably long trip. But then he added, “Are you in the mood for white tonight? Or are you a red person?”
I was a red person, all right. I couldn’t remember the last time I blushed, but there I was, flushing and sweating like a heart attack patient. Jackie and Pat were looking at me as if they couldn’t believe what they were witnessing.
“What about a Merlot?” I blurted out before I’d even glanced at the wine list. Actually, I was a red person. I had started drinking red wine the minute they released that study saying two or three glasses a day kept the cardiologist away.
“Good choice,” Sam said, with the barest of smiles. I had the feeling he was laughing at me, at my uneasiness. He was probably used to women turning to mush in his presence.
Eventually, Manfred brought our wine and Ismet brought Jackie’s scotch and then we gave the waiter our dinner orders—for all six courses. I tried to concentrate on food, but I could only concentrate on Sam, on his nearness, on the subtle, citrusy scent of his cologne, on the fact that, since he was a lefty and I was a righty, our arms made contact every time we each reached for the bread basket.
Of course, there were other dynamics going on at the table. In between visits from the ship’s photographer, we all attempted to make chitchat with the perfect strangers we were being compelled to sit with. At a table of ten, it’s difficult to engage everyone in the same conversation, so we kept breaking off into little groups, not including Brianna and Rick, who kept to themselves, feeding each other, nuzzling each other’s body parts and generally making it clear that where they really wanted to be was back in their stateroom, Doing It.
At one point, after the entrees had been served, Gayle and Kenneth were telling Jackie and Pat about the bathroom tiles their interior decorator had ordered for their newly renovated master bath (when you’re on a cruise, you tend to stay away from subjects such as health care, the budget deficit, and the O.J. Simpson verdict for fear of coming to blows with people you’ll have to sit across the table from for the next seven nights). Dorothy and Lloyd were concentrating on their sole meuniere, which meant that Sam and I were left to talk to each other.
