What Doesn't Kill You

by Virginia DeBerry

  Besides, even without a drink I felt good for the first time in ages. Upbeat. No gloom and doom—I was enjoying the positive vibe. We acted like kids on the first day of summer vacation—even went to the rail to wave at passengers on other ocean liners and yachts as we left the harbor, full steam ahead toward a glorious adventure. I decided to keep my sorry luggage saga to myself because I wasn’t sure if I could make it funny yet, and all’s well that ends well. Isn’t that how the saying goes?

  That night we shared our assigned dinner table with newlywed seniors from a town somewhere near Charlotte who were celebrating their six-month anniversary—kinda sappy, but we had to keep distracting Joyce because it made her weepy. The brother and sister from Phoenix who raised tarantulas and always vacationed together—they were weird, if you ask me. And the guy from Buffalo with a Michael Jackson pageboy and missing front teeth who claimed to be Rick James’s cousin’s best friend—I was changing my seat if he sang “Give It to Me Baby,” but when he asked if I was with somebody, I said yes, long term. Which wasn’t a lie. But really I wanted to ask, if he could afford this trip and have the nerve to be trying to rap, why didn’t he have teeth? I know what you’re thinking. But at least I had teeth.

  Marie and Diane tried to outdo each other with how much they knew about wine, which meant we had to order both of the bottles they picked. I said I was fine with iced tea. They looked at me like I was the one with no teeth. Well, iced tea is refreshing—and free. This economizing was going to be a serious challenge.

  We managed to see some of both Maze and Babyface—which involved fast walking, from one end of the ship to the other—and fast talking, thanks to Diane and Cecily. After that, Joyce suggested we go to the Sky Lounge for a nightcap. I’d had quite enough fun for one day, and I was ready for my nightgown and a pillow. So I became the party pooper: “You could have stayed home to go to bed at a reasonable hour. It’s not like you have to go to work in the morning” is how Joyce put it. All the way back to my cabin I wondered if they knew something. But how could they?

  7

  …diamonds and rubies and pearls, oh my…

  During our first full day at sea it was close to torture sticking to my retail moratorium. Strolling the Boulevard—he ship’s shopping strip of dreams—was as much an activity as aerobics and blackjack: kind of a warm-up for the next day, when we would go ashore for round one of Caribbean Treasure Hunt. From muumuus to mules I encountered many temptations. Diane thought I was crazy not to buy the brown-and-salmon clutch that would go perfectly with the sandals I had worn the night before, but I stepped away from the purse. While the others bought mink eyelashes, St. John and La Mer, I did lots of browsing and eventually picked up some magazines and a pair of red rhinestone flip-flops—on sale. I think I snapped at Marie when she said they looked like something one of her granddaughters would wear. All that restraint made me grouchy.

  After lunch the others headed for the casino. I couldn’t get past the Gold Dust fast enough because I didn’t need help turning nothing into minus nothing. Watching other people throw away large sums of perfectly good money when their cherries didn’t line up in a row or their clubs and diamonds totaled more than twenty-one was more than I could I could bear. I could have found way too many things to do with their losings if they’d just handed me the cash, so I set off to explore the Colossus.

  Don’t ask me how, but I found the wedding chapel and watched a couple who looked too young to even eat rum-raisin ice-cream giggle and sniff through “I do.” He wiped his tears with his pocket square. She pumped the bouquet like Rocky after the final knockout as they walked back up the aisle. Whatever floats your boat. After that I checked out the lunatics on the rock-climbing wall—there was actually a line of folks waiting to make fools of themselves. I heard the bowling alley before I saw it—I coulda stayed in Jersey for that. And I didn’t even pause at Hang Ten, the surfing beach, ’cause Gidget I’m not.

  I actually ran into somebody I knew, a musician friend of my ex’s from back in the day. He was playing bass with one of the bands. Everybody but Marie had seen at least one familiar somebody. Joyce had bumped into four or five people, but she belongs to every organization you can think of—anyplace she might meet somebody looking to buy a house, sell one or know someone who was. I was hoping I’d find Toni. Maybe she was out shopping too, for stuff that pleased her, not hubby.

  After a refreshing siesta—something I never did unless I was sick—I headed up to see Trevor and meet the girls for cocktails and our color commentary on the poolside fashion extravaganza. The profiling and promenading started around three. Hardly anybody was actually in the water—too early in the trip to get those fresh hairdos doused. Now, I understand self-confidence. And I know that nobody has a supermodel body—not even supermodels and certainly not me. That’s OK. But I have never seen such an assortment of bellies, butts and boobs spilling out of tank tops, thongs and way too teeny string bikinis that coulda used some rope. Come on, stretchy fabrics are forgiving, but some of the stuff people squeezed into was a sin. There were women strutting their neon-iridescent-sequined-see-through ensembles like showgirls. And don’t get me started on the Speedos—talk about Lycra abuse. We knew it was wrong to enjoy it so much, but we couldn’t help it.

  Anyway, I was in the glass scenic elevator, heading for my fashion fix, when I spotted this man—just his profile, really—his jaw, shoulders, the way he stood. For a second it looked like Ron, and then this tingly, twinkly feeling washed over me. Now, I knew it couldn’t be him. Amber and J.J. weren’t speaking to each other, but somebody would have let me know Ron would be on board. But before I reached my floor I was in the middle of our near-miss kiss in the parking lot, and I swear I could almost smell him.

  Now, it wasn’t like I couldn’t get him out of my mind. Actually, I resented going through all this just because I thought I had seen the man. So I made myself think about Gerald, which canceled the little flutters in my belly. Then I felt bad for using him as a cold shower. So I applied a couple of Trevor’s lemon limbos and tried to convince myself Gerald wasn’t a fire extinguisher. He was more like my favorite bathrobe—not flashy or sexy, but cozy, comfortable, reliable—that only made it worse, since I’d been using him as a shield too. I’d been hit on more than a few times already, including by my tablemate Gums. When I told him I was seeing someone, he had the nerve to smile at me and say, “Sometimes you don’t realize you like steak if you only been eating hamburger.” The way his tongue darted through that gap where there should have been teeth, made me lose my appetite.

  So I redirected my attention to my travel mates and floated the idea that I wouldn’t debark with them the next day in Charlotte Amalie—said I just wanted quiet time to relax. Right. That went over as well as Gums’s rap. So right after breakfast the next morning I was strolling past the harbor and into town with my quintet, talking about diamonds and rubies and pearls, oh my, because this was not a straw-bags-and-T-shirts crowd. I admit I’d been fantasizing about a pair of diamond hoop earrings—very versatile. You can dress them up or down, which makes them sound almost practical, but they were going to have to stay just my ’magination. We were all experienced, extreme shoppers, and from the time we’d booked the trip we’d been anticipating the jewelry-buying opportunities in St. Thomas like mountain climbers lust after Mount Everest. This expedition was not for the faint of heart or wallet, which meant I was at a distinct disadvantage.

  We moved from store to store like a wolf pack on the hunt. Marie came with a list, like she was going to the grocery store, and magazine cutouts of what she wanted. Charm bracelets for her grands—cute ones with ladybugs, clowns, sneakers, hearts—crafted in enamel, gold and precious stones and not priced for kiddies. For her daughter and daughter-in-law she checked out stud earrings in their birth stones—ruby and emerald. She was shopping for diamond studs for herself—two carats each ear, minimum. I told you, they were not playing.

  The day grew hotter, and the pursuit g
rew more intense. We went from store to store, eyeing the offerings, assessing the opportunities. Joyce focused on watches—eighteen carat gold, with diamonds, the better to show how successful she was. She settled on a tank watch that draped casually and expensively on her wrist, then negotiated like a champ, because it was no fun unless she got a deal. I actually think it’s a sport with her. Once they settled on a price, the old watch went in the burgundy leather box, and she spent the rest of the afternoon flopping her hand around so everybody could see it sparkling. And she wouldn’t shut up about what a bargain it was.

  At first Cecily looked lost and sad—said she had mostly shopped for jewelry with Bill. I kept having to nudge her away from the wedding bands, but eventually she lightened up and started trying on ankle bracelets—said she always wanted one. I never would have guessed that. Marie was all over the place: tanzanite pendant here, fire opal ring there—she liked it flashy. And Diane liked quantity. She bought lots of little bracelets, necklaces, things that required lots of boxes and she could wear in multiples.

  I tried on a few things so as not to be conspicuously unconsuming, but clearly my lack of small, shiny shopping bags did not go unnoticed. Truth is, I was usually up there with the heavy hitters. My buddies started pointing out pieces that “looked like me,” like I needed coaxing. They were actually pretty good at it. I was having a hard time finding something wrong with the pieces to avoid buying them.

  After a while their teasing and prodding got a little pointy, like I wasn’t holding up my end of the deal. I got fed up, so I came up with a plan to shut them up. A number of shops sold unstrung pearls, which they would make into a necklace for you or you could take them home to add to a piece you already owned. They had all seen my pearl choker. I said I had always wanted to make it a three-strand necklace, which is true. I always thought that looked classy. So it became a game of finding the right size and color pearls to match.

  Creamy, pink, silvery, iridescent—I never realized pearls came in so many shades and overtones. Seven millimeters or eight—it was so hard to tell. So we came to a consensus and I finally bought a strand—they called it a hank, on one of my emergency cards. I had to make it convincing, right?

  So I finally had a bag to carry that seemed to satisfy everybody enough so that we could go to lunch—where I could launch into part two of the plan. Over conch fritters and plantains I pulled out my purchase and started fretting over whether these pearls would really match my pearl choker. The debate continued through crème caramel and off and on as we wound our way through narrow streets, making sure we hadn’t overlooked any opportunities. I hemmed and hawed and before it was time to go back to the ship I decided to return them. They all looked so disappointed—especially Joyce who said that at fourteen hundred dollars they were a steal. Diane piped in that they were duty free so it would save me even more. Which I myself would have said at another time, but at the moment I needed wiggle room on my revolving charge.

  I did my best depressed pout but said I’d take the pearls back now—which was the plan all along—and bring the necklace with me next time to match them. Genius, right? Except for one small detail: the store did not do cash returns. I almost had a stroke when the demure-looking woman in the elegant chemise and chignon pointed out the sign that read, “Returns for Store Credit Only.” I had missed it during all the color comparisons and consultations. I started sweating while I tried every way I could to convince this woman that she had to give me credit. After all I was getting back on a ship, so store credit was absolutely no good to me. She informed me I could use it the next time—which was a part of my act I had no interest in hearing repeated back to me, but my sales lady was unmoved. I kept talking and Joyce looked at her watch about forty-two times—I wanted to tie her hand behind her back—but finally the others said we really had to leave, which at least saved me my dignity because I was ready to beg.

  I could have kicked myself all the way back to the harbor and up the gang plank. Cecily assured me the pearls were really beautiful. She said, “Too bad you can’t wear them right now. You’d feel better about them.” Wear them? I couldn’t even look at them, and I couldn’t believe I had been so stupid, but the deed was done. I ended up giving them to Amber because I knew I’d never be able to put them around my neck without feeling like they were choking me. She and I had a longstanding “no snow globes, no sombreros” rule, but this was not a tacky mug or a stupid souvenir spoon, so she happily granted me an exception.

  I was pretty quiet during dinner. Gums asked me what was wrong. I might have said something like he should concentrate on chewing his stuffed pork loin with his no-teeth self and leave me alone—which was really wrong—but he left me alone for the rest of the cruise.

  Next day, in honor of Diane’s and Marie’s birthdays, we planned an afternoon of pampering at the ship’s Nirvana spa. I had been planning to splurge on a facial, but after my jewelry fiasco I nixed that. So the girls scheduled sesame-seaweed wraps, Peruvian mud dips and volcanic-ash scrubs to go with the usual nails, facials and massages. No deluxe services for me. I told them I was fighting dermatitis on my back and stomach. It was just starting to heal and I thought it was best not to irritate it. So I had a mani and pedi—which I’d have done at home anyway. I wasn’t lying about the breakout either, except the blotchy red patches came and went at random and still itched and burned like fire. My mother said it was nerves. I didn’t believe her. It was just a coincidence the itching started sometime between not getting that job and the end of my unemployment checks and flared up as soon as I read the “no cash returns” sign. Right.

  Naturally I was done first, so I went looking for the others to say I’d meet them later at Prima. Dinner was at the ship’s fine-dining restaurant—which of course was not covered on our meal plan, another expense I’d planned for—three of us would split the bill with the birthday girls as our guests. Except my budget was blown. I was going to have to resort to the real emergency card and hope nothing else went wrong.

  I stepped behind the waterfall that led to the lounge near the treatment rooms but stopped dead in my pink foam toe separators before I turned the corner. “Does she think she’s fooling anybody?” I’d know Diane’s croak anywhere. “And who was she trying to impress, buying those pearls?…should have kept her broke self at home.” Then Marie chimed in, “…threw that big wedding. Who was she tryin’ to impress?” I got cold, freezing cold, and I couldn’t move any closer, but I couldn’t walk away. I steadied myself against the shelves of fluffy white towels. “I know they had layoffs at her company. You think she even has a job?” It was Joyce. That’s when I heard cackling, and Cecily added, “You mean she doesn’t own the place,” in that sweet-as-syrup voice she has. I think I jumped when one of the attendants came up behind me and asked if I needed help. I was embarrassed, like she knew I was the topic of conversation. I came out of my trance enough to mutter something, then left but not before I heard, “She doesn’t think we’re supposed to pay for her tonight, does she?”

  They were not ragging on some no-name stranger—which we did regularly—they were bad-mouthing me, and I knew it. I felt sick and sorry and mad and sad. Part of me wanted to let them know, but I went with the part that just wanted to escape.

  A blaze of itchy redness blossomed across my chest as I made my way toward the elevator bank. Except with those comments repeating in my head I got on one that didn’t go to my floor. I pushed some button or other and ended up in a corner of the Colossus that I’d never seen. I ducked into La Bibliothèque, where passengers escaped to read, play Scrabble and chess and chill. I plopped in a wingback chair in a quiet corner and stared out the window at the endless ocean until I could breathe again. How was I supposed to laugh and talk and sing “Happy Birthday” that night like nothing had happened?

  You know how sometimes you can feel somebody looking at you? I don’t know how long I’d been sitting there, itching and burning and feeling lost at sea when I finally looked across the r
oom. And there sat Toni, curled up on a sofa, book open in her lap. Not to be dramatic, but at that moment it felt like I got a life preserver. She came over and told me she’d been trying to figure out if it was me or not. We talked about our activities thus far and she asked what I was doing for the evening. She’d been craving a burger and was going to the joint on the Boulevard around eight and then to see Earth, Wind and Fire, and she invited me to join her. Right then I said yes—

  —and spent the next few hours debating how I was going to handle my defection. I’d have to face them eventually—either bring it up or swallow it—but that night I needed to idle in neutral a while longer. So I called Joyce, said I felt like I was coming down with something. That would give them plenty to chew on over dinner.

  So Toni and I played Getting to Know You while waiting for our Swiss burger specials with grilled mushrooms and onions. I went first, and I don’t know why—guess I just felt connected to her from the beginning—but while we sipped our Merlot, I told her why I was there and not dining high on the hog with my posse. Then I did the Reader’s Digest version of my last eight months, which was more to the point than the Fractured Fairy-Tale I had told my family.

  “Not to worry,” she said. “The burgers are on me!” I laughed and accepted, because I felt she was being gracious and kind, not condescending. By the time we’d finished our salads, I’d found out Toni was also a Jersey Girl—living in Hoboken, but originally from Trenton. She worked in Manhattan, headed up the accounting department for a big fashion house. Yes, you would know who they are. And in that small-world category, when she was married she had lived in Princeton—whodathunkit?—right down the way from me. Toni said even after twenty years the town never suited her, too buttoned-up for her taste. So she let her ex buy her out of the house and headed north.