by Judith Gould
“Oh, this looks like fun,” Jenny said, seeing the gaming tables and slot machines. “They’ve got a lot of the latest slots.”
A young man smiled when he saw them. “Hello. We won’t be ready until we’re at sea, but I hope you’ll come back.” He spoke with a British accent.
“Oh, I’m sure we will,” Jenny said.
“Good,” he replied. “I look forward to it.”
On they walked, past a smoking room that looked as if it were a room in a men’s club, then they reached the large theater, the Hercules Lounge. It was decorated in a vibrant red—walls, plush seats, carpeting—and had a small stage and dance floor. “This is one of those ‘see Broadway stars of tomorrow’ places,” Jenny said.
“You never know,” Crissy said.
Walking forward, they finally reached a huge dining room situated near the bow of the ship. It was cafeteria-style, less formal than the other one, but looked out to sea on three sides also. They went through sliding glass doors out onto the deck, where they saw other passengers congregating. A large open-air bar was serving drinks, coffee, and soda, and tables were set up in the sunshine.
At the bar Jenny ordered a glass of white wine, and Crissy decided to have a Coke Lite, as she discovered Diet Coke was called in Athens and on the ship.
They took their drinks to a table and sat down in the sun. It was a cool day and slightly windy, but the sun shone brightly. “I love the smell of the sea,” Crissy said, “don’t you?”
“What? Fish? Salt? It stinks to me,” Jenny replied.
Crissy laughed. “I guess you’re right, and I romanticize it. But I really do love the way it smells. It’s . . . bracing.”
“Oh, my God,” Jenny replied. “Don’t look now, but catch a gander of that stud coming down the stairs to your left.”
Crissy spotted him out of the corner of her eye. He was indeed extraordinarily handsome, in his thirties, tall and well-built, with black hair, dark eyes, sensuous lips, and an aquiline nose. He wore a navy blazer, tan trousers, deck shoes, and a predominantly red scarf tied about his neck. He carried himself with a regal, superior air, she thought, and he didn’t seem to notice them. He was, she decided, the best-looking man she’d ever seen.
“Oh, I think I’m going to drool,” Jenny said.
“Well, he certainly doesn’t seem to feel the same way,” Crissy replied.
“I wonder who he is?” Jenny said. “He’s not in uniform, so he must be a passenger.”
He strolled to the bar and placed an order, then turned their way. Crissy averted her gaze, but Jenny kept her baby blues focused on him. When she kicked Crissy under the table, Crissy looked at her. “What?” she asked.
Jenny was smiling widely, but not at her. Crissy looked in the direction of Jenny’s gaze and saw that the young man was smiling at her. When the barman brought his order—a coffee—he walked directly to their table. “Mind if I join you?” he asked.
“Oh, no,” Jenny replied. “Have a seat.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I’m Mark.” He had the merest hint of an accent that Crissy found alluring.
Crissy and Jenny introduced themselves.
“How do you like the ship?” he asked.
“It’s wonderful,” Crissy offered.
“Yes,” Jenny agreed, “and gets better all the time.” She looked at him flirtatiously.
Mark smiled. “I’m glad you like it. There are very few Americans aboard. It’s mostly a crowd of Dutch, Germans, and French, with a few Brits, Canadians, and Italians.”
“I wonder why?” Crissy said.
He shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe because the trip begins in Athens. Maybe because Americans are leery of foreign travel. I don’t really know, but we won’t pick up most passengers until we arrive in Nice. There will only be a little more than a hundred of us until then.”
“On this whole ship?” Jenny asked.
He nodded.
“How strange,” Crissy said.
“Not really,” he said. “It shaves a week off the travel time, so it’s less expensive and time-consuming. Plus, it’s easier for a lot of the older people to get to Nice than Athens.”
“I don’t know how some of them get across the street,” Jenny said unkindly.
He laughed. “I know what you mean. There will be wheelchairs and canes, and if we have rough seas, lots of bruises and cuts.”
“You seem to know a lot about the trip,” Jenny said. “How’s that?”
He shrugged again. “I have my ways.”
“Oh, come on,” Jenny said, but they were interrupted by another, equally handsome man in a snowy white uniform with black and gold epaulets, various medals, and a small name tag above one breast pocket that read CAPT. DEMETRIOS PAPADAPOLIS.
“Pardon me for breaking in,” he said with a smile, “but I wanted to welcome you aboard the Sea Nymph. I hope you will have a pleasant journey.”
Crissy and Jenny thanked him, but Mark nodded, then stared straight ahead, avoiding the captain’s gaze.
“If you need anything,” Captain Papadapolis added, “let me or one of the officers know. I’ll be off, but hope I get to see you again.”
“Thanks,” Crissy said. She watched him enter the dining room through a sliding glass door. Turning her attention back to the table, she said, “Isn’t he charming?”
“Yes,” Jenny said. “A real smoothie.”
Mark ignored them, still staring out toward the harbor. “I must go,” he said abruptly, getting to his feet. “Perhaps we will meet again.”
“Leaving?” Jenny said. “Already? But—”
He looked down at Crissy. “It was a pleasure.”
Crissy was momentarily nonplussed. What an oddball, she thought, but an extraordinarily sexy oddball. “Yes,” she said, “it was. I hope we see you later.”
He walked back to the stairs and went up them without a backward glance, his posture rigidly straight.
“What a snotty bastard,” Jenny said with a malevolent expression.
“He sure was mysterious,” Crissy commented.
“Let’s see what’s up there on the next deck where he went,” Jenny said.
Crissy looked at her map. “That’s the Dionysus Deck,” she said. “Deck Seven. And according to this there’s the pool and pool bar and pizzeria, the spa and beauty salon, gym, and a disco. Plus, the biggest suites.”
“Ohhh,” Jenny said, “let’s go.”
After touring Deck Seven, they stood at the deck railing, looking below to the outdoor area where they’d had their drinks. More and more people were gathering there, nearly filling up tables that overlooked the docks and Piraeus. Turning around, Crissy looked up at the enormous funnel that contained the ship’s smokestacks. It was truly an awesome ship, she thought. She turned back to Jenny. “I’ve got my digital camera,” she said. “Let me get some pictures of you.”
“Okay,” Jenny readily agreed. She loved having her picture taken no matter the occasion.
“See those decks that run along below the funnels?” Crissy said. “Let’s start over there.”
They went past the pool and bar, through heavy doors, and out onto a long side deck above which the funnel rose into the air with majestic grace. Metal stairs led up to a walkway around the bottom of it.
“Why don’t you go up the stairs,” Crissy said, “and I’ll get you from down here. Maybe I can get the shipping line’s logo in.” It was a highly stylized blue trident that stood out on the snowy white funnel.
Jenny climbed the metal steps and stopped when she reached the top. Peering down at Crissy, she waved wildly. Crissy snapped several pictures, then called up to her, “Why don’t you change positions? Look out to sea or something.”
Jenny was game, and posed with a hand over her brow, looking out at the harbor as if she were searching for something on the horizon. Crissy snapped a couple of pictures, then began backing up on the deck to take some from another angle. She didn’t see the person who’d come out onto the
deck and was directly in her path.
“Ah! So sorry,” a man said.
Crissy straightened up instantly. “No, it’s my fault,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
A uniformed ship’s officer smiled. “I saw you,” he said, “but then I looked up at your friend and didn’t realize you were moving.”
Jenny saw them talking from her perch on the stairs and quickly descended. “Hi,” she said to the young man.
He tipped his cap. “Hello. I apologize for interrupting your photo session,” he said. “I nearly knocked your friend here down.”
“I’m Jenny,” she said.
“And I’m Crissy.”
“I’m Manolo,” he said. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Are you a ship officer?” Jenny inquired.
“Yes,” he said.
“You must love working on the Sea Nymph,” Crissy said. “It’s such a beautiful ship.”
“Yes, it is,” he agreed. “It’s also the fastest ship in the world.”
“You’re kidding,” Jenny said. “It’s so small compared to most of them nowadays.”
“Yes, we’re only 25,000 tons and 590 feet long, but fast. We cruise at 28 knots. The Queen Elizabeth II and a few others can go that fast, but they can’t maintain that speed like we can. That’s why we can get between ports and back and forth across the Atlantic so fast.”
“How many passengers are there?” Crissy asked.
“The ship has a capacity of 836, if all the doubles are occupied with two people. Plus there are 360 crew. So, you see, we are minuscule compared to most ships being built today.”
“That’s one of the things I like about it,” Crissy said.
“It’s a lot more intimate, isn’t it?” Jenny said, smiling at Manolo.
“Oh, yes,” he said. Then he added, his eyes on Jenny, “Much more intimate.”
“It was nice to meet you,” Crissy said, seeing that the two of them had made a connection and deciding to let them pursue it without her hampering them. “It looks like the pool bar is open now, and I think I’ll go get some water.” She looked at Jenny. “I’ll meet you there or see you in the cabin later.”
Jenny sketched a little wave in the air. “Bye,” she said.
Crissy went through the heavy doors back to the pool area. Through its windows, she could see Jenny and Manolo talking. She got a mineral water from the bar, then returned to the railing and looked down at the deck below. The crowd was dressed casually, but she spied one of the most extraordinary-looking women she’d ever seen coming through the sliding doors that led onto the deck. It was her hair that first caught her eye. It was a wild but carefully contrived silver mass that seemed to have been teased straight up, though as she focused she saw that it was not precisely straight up, there was the slightest curl in the obviously dyed silver. Her makeup created a virtual Kabuki mask. Drawn arched brows, heavy mascara lines above and below her eyes, the one beneath in a straight line that made no pretense of following the natural curve of her eye. Is she trying to look like Cleopatra? Crissy asked herself. Heavy purple shadowed her eyes, and bloodred lipstick slashed across her lips. Her powder or blush was the palest ivory and the contrast was shocking. When Crissy finally tore her gaze away from the woman’s exotic hair and makeup, she looked at her clothes. She smiled helplessly at the sight. A glittery top with silvery sequins was worn over a knee-length skirt of glittery silver palettes. Her high heels were sandals of gold and silver, and she carried an enormous handbag of gold leather. Her walk across the deck was almost a mince of very short steps, her head held high, the slightest smile always on her lips. She was of an indeterminate age, surely past forty but not yet sixty.
Crissy saw her nod to several people as she made her way to a table where a fortyish couple seemed to await her arrival. They rose, and the three exchanged kisses in the continental manner, brushing both cheeks, then sat. The younger woman was dressed in a laser-cut white pantsuit, and she was striking, nearly beautiful, with her hair pulled back into a chignon into which she had stuck chopsticks. Her husband—or the man accompanying her—was handsome at first glance, with a dark trimmed mustache and small goatee. As Crissy looked closer, she could see that he was well put together, as was his wife, but there was something almost feral about him that the neat trimming didn’t conceal.
She turned back to where she’d left Jenny with Manolo, but they had disappeared. She couldn’t help but smile. Jenny, she thought, would find someone within the first hour on the ship—before they had even set sail. Turning her attention back to the deck below, she decided to descend the staircase and mingle. She headed for the silver-haired woman and the younger couple.
As she had on the upper deck, she stared out at the harbor and sipped her water before glancing about at her fellow passengers chatting around the crowded tables. The woman with the chopsticks in her hair smiled at Crissy. “Would you like to join us?” she asked in accented English. “We have one of the few vacant chairs.”
“Oh, thank you,” Crissy said, “but I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“It’s no imposition,” the woman’s husband said. He stood and drew back the empty chair for Crissy.
“How nice of you,” Crissy said as she sat down. “I’ve been on my feet for a long time after being up nearly all night.”
“My name is Mina,” the woman said, extending a hand. Crissy took it in hers, and they shook. “This is Monika Graf.” She indicated the silver-haired woman, and the woman nodded from across the table, her smile unchanged. “And this is Rudolph, my husband.” He took Crissy’s hand in his, brought his lips toward it, and made as if to kiss it.
“I’m Crissy Fitzgerald,” she said to the table.
“Ah, you are American,” Mina said.
“Yes,” Crissy said with a nod.
“Where are you from in America?” Monika Graf asked in good but accented English.
“New York,” Crissy said, hoping they wouldn’t question her further. She would like for them to think that she was from the city, rather than the provincial, unknown upstate area that she actually called home.
“Oh,” Monika Graf said, her eyes bright with interest. “New York City?”
Crissy couldn’t lie. “No,” she replied. “I’m from Albany, the capital of New York. It’s about three hours north.”
Monika Graf’s eyes immediately dulled, and she looked away. Up close, Crissy could see that the woman wasn’t as old as she’d first thought. She could see the dark roots that were beginning to appear beneath her silver Medusa do, and the perfect skin that lay beneath the heavily applied makeup. Her hands, a telltale indicator of age, were visible, but just barely because of the number of bangle bracelets and rings with big jewels she wore. She was probably in her mid-forties, not more than fifty.
“Where are you from?” Crissy asked.
“We’re from Austria,” Mina replied. “From Graz.” She tinkled laughter. “Where your movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger is from.”
“I’m from Vienna,” Monika Graf said, turning her attention back to Crissy. It was almost as if she wanted to make certain that Crissy was aware that she wasn’t from a provincial backwater but from the operetta set of Vienna, the glorious former seat of the Hapsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire.
“All of you speak such good English,” Crissy said.
“We take English from the time we start school,” Rudolph replied.
“Yes,” Monika Graf added. “It’s not like in America where hardly anyone seems to speak a second or third language. Most of us speak a bit of several. I speak seven languages quite adequately.”
“Seven,” Crissy said, impressed.
“You have to remember that we live in close proximity to the people who speak those languages,” Mina said diplomatically. “The Germans, the French, the Italians, and so on.”
“That does make a difference,” Crissy said.
“Yes,” Mina said. She turned her attention to her husband. “Rudy, darling, I’
d best get back to the cabin. I have to take a bath and a nap, I’m afraid.” She looked at Crissy. “We were up all night dancing,” she said, “at this completely wild place in Athens. So we haven’t had any sleep, and I want to be fresh for dinner and dancing tonight.”
“It was very nice to meet you,” Crissy said, “and I hope to see you again.”
“I’m sure we will,” Rudy said, getting to his feet. “Surely at the disco tonight.”
Crissy smiled. “I’ll be there.”
They left, and Crissy looked across the table at Monika Graf. The woman’s perpetual smile was in place, but she focused on Crissy as she had not before. “They are a lovely couple, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” Crissy said. “They seem to be.”
“It’s too bad they have that terrible guttural accent like your Mr. Schwarzenegger. So provincial.”
“I didn’t know,” Crissy said.
“Oh, yes,” Monika Graf said, warming to the subject. “It’s quite embarrassing, really. Certainly in Austria.” Her beautiful violet eyes twinkled with mischief. “I adore them, of course, but we can’t help but laugh about it, you know.”
“We have accents we laugh about in America, too,” Crissy replied.
The woman nodded vigorously. “Oh, I know,” she said. “I’ve been to the States many times. New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami. So I know a little of your country—the more glamorous places, anyway.”
“Yes,” Crissy said. “I guess they would be the more glamorous.” She noticed that the woman was sipping a glass of champagne and supposed that together with her hair, makeup, and clothes, glamour was one of her principal interests.
“Have you been on a cruise before?”
“Only once,” Crissy said, “but it was nothing like this. I just went on a weeklong cruise from New York to the Caribbean.”
Monika Graf nodded. “On one of those big new boats?”
“Yes,” Crissy said.
“I love those,” she replied. “So much more glamorous than this boat. So big and shiny, with enormous casinos and lots of shops.”
