Hearts Ahoy

by Stephanie Taylor

  “Did you see that?” Julia asked Martin incredulously. “People take this ‘love boat’ thing so seriously!”

  Martin handed her a plate with two pancakes so that she could dish up her own sauce to top it off. “Yeah,” he said, glancing at her as he spooned strawberry jam onto his pancakes. “People definitely do. I met some ladies who’ve been on this cruise like three times now.”

  Julia stopped what she was doing. “Are you kidding? They keep coming back and trying to find love even when they’ve been unsuccessful the other times?”

  Martin chuckled. “Sure. People work hard at this, Julia. And there’s no guarantee—I know people who’ve gone their entire lives and not found anyone who completes them.”

  Julia took her plate and sat at a bistro table for two over by the windows. Beyond the glass, the sea was placid and blue and they glided across the water so smoothly that she couldn’t even feel the motion. Martin joined her, setting his plate on the table and sliding into the chair across from hers. Julia gave him a long look.

  “I feel weird starting the ‘so tell me about why you’re here’ talk over breakfast,” she finally said, picking up her fork and knife, “but I guess I have to ask what your motivations are in terms of this cruise. You know—purely out of neighborly curiosity,” she added with a smile as she cut into her pancakes.

  “Purely out of neighborly curiosity, huh?” Martin’s dark hair fell across his brow as he bent forward and took a huge bite of his breakfast.

  “I guess I can go first,” Julia said, watching as he chewed. His chiseled cheekbones really were something, and the twinkle of mirth never left his eyes, whether he was eating, teasing her, or slow-dancing to Elvis. “I won this cruise from a radio station in Portland, and I decided to go for it. I’ve been a widow for three years now, and my daughter, Christina, thought it was time for me to do something about my love life.”

  Martin stopped chewing and stared at her. “Julia. I’m so sorry,” he said after he swallowed. “I had no idea.”

  Julia rested her elbow on the table and set her chin in her hand, forgetting all about her pancakes for the moment. “It’s okay—you didn’t know.” She watched him intently. “And I have to be honest, dancing with you the other night…well, it was the first time I’d been that close to a man since Will died, and it kind of threw me for a minute.”

  Martin set his silverware on the edges of his plate and rested his hands in his lap as he leaned back in his chair, watching her with interest. “Totally understandable,” he said. “And Will was a lucky man,” he added, his eyes looking sincere and serious for once rather than playful.

  “Thank you.” Julia looked out the window at the water. “And I know it’s human nature to wonder, so I’ll just tell you—it was an aneurysm. No warning. Our daughter was seventeen, and she and I were left in complete shock. I have no idea how she finished her senior year or got through her college applications. She’s an amazing girl.”

  “Sure, the shock would be overwhelming, I can imagine.”

  Julia nodded. “It was. We’d been together for twenty years, and I honestly just—“ she threw her hands up on both sides of her face, “I gave up. I assumed I’d never find someone else, and I didn’t even bother trying. It just hasn’t felt like the right thing to do.”

  “So you haven’t dated? Or even considered it?”

  Julia shook her head and put her palms flat on the table. “I have not. And to be perfectly honest, I’m not all that lonely. But I am still young, and I can’t see myself living alone with a cat for the next fifty years…so. I don’t know. I’m here.” Her face flushed as she realized how vulnerable she’d made herself with this admission.

  “Yes. Young. We both are,” Martin said with a wink.

  “Well, relatively speaking.” Julia picked up her silverware and went back to cutting up her pancakes. “So far on this cruise, other than you, my closest friend is eighty-one, and he’s done a bang-up job of making me feel like a kid again.”

  Martin picked up his own knife and fork again and refocused his attention on his breakfast. “My story is less interesting. Fairly routine, actually.”

  Julia was listening.

  “Married the wrong person for the wrong reasons, got kicked out of the house when things went south, and now here I am, fifty and single.” He gave her a smile that wasn’t quite as warm as the ones she was used to seeing on his face.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Julia said. She could feel her walls close in just a little bit. It wasn’t that she didn’t feel sympathy for a divorced man of fifty, but she did wonder briefly what he’d done to get kicked out. “Do you have children?”

  Martin sighed and reached for his coffee. “No children with my ex-wife, but I did have a little boy with a girlfriend before I got married. He’s lives in Los Angeles, near his mother.”

  “Wow.” Julia picked up her coffee mug and watched his face.

  “He has two kids of his own, so you’re technically having breakfast with a grandpa.” The lines around Martin’s eyes creased as he gazed out at the water, thinking of his son and grandchildren.

  “Do you get to see them much? Since you live in Florida and they’re in L.A.?” Julia was aware that she was treading on tender ground, prying into the details of the life of a man she barely knew, but she couldn’t resist asking. After all, this cruise was only going to last fifteen days—there wasn’t time to waste when it came to getting to know someone of interest.

  Martin’s face closed in as he stabbed at his pancakes with the fork. “I saw my son several years ago, but he’s chosen to go his own way. He doesn’t agree with all my life choices. And my grandkids are young, so I haven’t had the chance to meet them. But my son’s mother is kind enough to send photos every so often.”

  “Oh!” Julia felt a wave of relief; Martin couldn’t be all bad if his son’s mother still reached out and shared photos of their grandchildren.

  The very idea that he was a grandfather seemed so incongruent with the man who sat before her that she couldn’t help but stare. His dark hair was just barely flecked with gray, and his physique was toned and youthful. She’d never gotten the chance to see Will as a grandfather, and she wasn’t in a position to even contemplate herself as a grandmother, so it all held the tinge of novelty for her.

  “Anyway, now that we’ve got the basics covered, I think we should talk about our future together,” Martin said, shooting her a playful look.

  “Our future together?” Julia laughed, putting a small triangle of pancake in her mouth and chewing with a smile.

  “Yeah. We definitely need to discuss our long-term vision for whether we want jugglers or harpists at our wedding reception, and we need some idea of what we’ll name our eight Chihuahuas, but I’m talking mostly our immediate future. Like what kinds of activities do they have for us today?” He forked in another bite of pancake and reached for a pot of syrup, which he poured over the remainder of his breakfast, drowning the fluffy pancakes and strawberry jam with sticky maple liquid.

  “So if we’re only talking immediate future,” Julia said, reaching into the bag that was hanging from the back of her chair and pulling out the day’s itinerary, “I think our best bet for now is to go to the hula class.”

  Martin groaned and turned his eyes to the ceiling like a teenager who’d just been told he had to go to visit his grandparents on a Friday night. “Hula? Doesn’t that involve a lot of hip-swaying and coconut bra wearing?”

  “You don’t want to see me in a coconut bra?” Julia glanced up from the paper and gave him her best disappointed teacher face.

  “Wait—you’re changing into coconuts? Why didn’t you lead with that?”

  “Sorry, next time I’ll give you all the facts up front,” Julia promised.

  “You two did a great job,” the chef said to them as he passed their table. “You should come back tomorrow when we make sushi.”

  “Thank you.” Julia smiled at him. “That sounds like fun.”<
br />
  The chef paused next to their table. “Nothing brings a couple closer than exploring the sensuality of foods together,” he said, watching them intently. “But maybe you want to mix things up? Try cooking with other people? It’s only the third day of the cruise.” The chef raised one eyebrow in suggestion.

  Martin scooted back his chair and stood up. “Breakfast was amazing—thank you. We’ll check our schedule tomorrow and think about the sushi.” Julia followed his lead and stood up, gathering her purse and setting the white linen napkin from her lap next to her plate. “But for now, there’s a pair of ripe coconuts calling this lady’s name.”

  Julia couldn’t hold in her surprised laugh as the chef’s brow knitted together; he clearly thought that Martin was making some sort of innuendo.

  “Well, go get ‘em, tiger,” the chef said, holding a fist in the air in solidarity as Martin led a laughing Julia out of the kitchen.

  8

  “So, now you’ve met some people, you’ve mingled, you’ve mixed,” Blaine said, holding one hand out as he stood next to Julia’s closet, flipping through the dresses she had hanging there, “and now it’s time for you to mate.”

  “Mate?” Julia spluttered, setting down the glass of water she held in one hand. “Did you really just say that?”

  “Listen, girl,” Blaine walked away from the closet and sat at the end of Julia’s bed without being invited to do so. He crossed his legs primly. “I’m giving you my undivided attention here because I can see your potential. I think this cruise can really work for you.”

  Julia tightened her robe around her as she assessed her own wardrobe, flipping through the dresses with more careful consideration than Blaine had given her clothing.

  “Are there people who this cruise won’t work for—is that what you’re getting at?” she asked lightly.

  “Honey,” Blaine swung his foot back and forth as he watched Julia pick out a dress for dinner. “Between you and me and the fencepost, there are some hopeless individuals who show up here looking for a miracle. God love them all,” he said, waving his hand back and forth and shaking his head, “because no one else is going to.”

  Julia couldn’t help it—she laughed. “Blaine!” she admonished. “That’s so mean!”

  Blaine continued to swing his foot as he inspected his fingernails. “No, that’s just honest.”

  Julia’s phone began to buzz on the nightstand and Blaine reached for it. “Christina,” he said, looking at the name on the screen. “She wants to FaceTime.”

  Julia reached over and nearly grabbed the phone from him. For some reason, Blaine had taken a shine to her over the past couple of days and invested his time and personal attention to being her cupid in ways that she didn’t see him doing with other people.

  “Will you excuse me? It’s my daughter,” Julia said, holding the phone to her chest and waiting for him to politely get up and leave.

  “Sure,” Blaine said, looking at his fingernails again and not making a move to go, “no worries.”

  Julia rolled her eyes and answered the call, and though she hadn’t expected it, tears sprang to her eyes when she saw her daughter’s face. The connection was a bit glitchy, but it was Christina nonetheless.

  “Hi, kid!” she nearly shouted, grinning from ear-to-ear. “You look great!”

  Christina frowned and leaned closer to the phone screen. “You look…like you’re in a bathrobe in your room. What’s happening, Mom? Because either you’re holed up in there with chocolate and wine and you’re hiding out from all the men, or you have a man in there with you—OH MY GOD, MOM, DO YOU HAVE A MAN IN THERE WITH YOU?” Christina shouted.

  “Shhh, no!” Julia said, giving Blaine a look over her shoulder. “I mean,” she shrugged at him apologetically, “I do have a man in here, but—“

  Blaine stood up and crossed the room in three steps, shoving his face into view over Julia’s left shoulder. “Hi, doll. What she’s trying to say is that she does have a man in here,” Blaine explained, “but an incredibly gay one. I’m Blaine—I’m your mom’s cupid.”

  Christina looked confused. “Her what?”

  Without asking, Blaine took the iPhone from Julia’s hand and walked over to the balcony door. “I’m her cupid. There are about eight of us, and we’re all assigned certain people on each cruise to oversee.”

  “You’re overseeing my mom? On a vacation?” Christina’s puzzlement made Julia laugh out loud.

  Blaine glanced back at Julia, who stood in the middle of the stateroom, hands at her sides, looking amused. “I don’t need to oversee her, so much, as I need to help manage her love life. Do you read me?”

  “Ohhhh,” Christina said. “I read you. Loud and clear.”

  “Listen,” Blaine made a face and held up a finger at Julia to let her know he’d just be a minute, “I’m going out on the balcony with you so we can have a talk out of earshot. Julia,” he instructed her, “get dressed, okay, love?”

  The sliding glass door closed behind him before she could respond. Julia stood there, watching as Blaine chatted with her daughter via FaceTime about her love life—or lack thereof.

  “Unbelievable,” she muttered, yanking a dress from a hanger in the closet and leaving all the other hangers swaying in its wake. She took the knit jersey dress into her small bathroom and locked the door behind her. When she emerged, Julia had left the terry cloth robe on a hook and wrapped herself in a tight, flowered fabric that knotted at the waist, creating a v-neck that showed off a bit of cleavage. She’d put on gold hoop earrings and lipgloss, and pulled her wavy hair into a loose knot with some careless pieces left free around her face. A couple of days of sun had given her face a healthy glow, and overall, she felt pretty and relaxed.

  Blaine gave a low whistle as he walked back in from the balcony and set her phone on the dresser. “You look fabulous, darling, and your daughter is a dream.”

  Julia felt a flush of pride at the compliments. “Thank you. Oh, did Christina have to go?” She looked at the black phone screen with disappointment.

  “No,” Blaine said simply, “but you do.” He glanced at his watch. “We have a date in fifteen minutes?”

  “We do?”

  A mischievous smile spread across Blaine’s face. “Well, you do.”

  Julia had protested all the way down in the elevator, but Blaine would hear none of it.

  “You two are perfectly matched,” he promised. “I’ve done this a million times.”

  “But I already met someone I kind of like,” she argued, feeling the desperation in her own voice. “What if he sees me out with some other guy?”

  Blaine turned around to look her squarely in the eye. “He has a cupid too, you know.”

  “So?” Julia shrugged. “What does that mean?”

  “It means,” Blaine said slowly, speaking to her as if she might have a bit of a delay, “that his cupid most likely has him going out on dates with other women as we speak.”

  “Oh.” Julia was taken aback. Of course Martin would be going out with other women—why wouldn’t he be? Was she really so out of the dating game that she’d expect a man she barely knew to become her guy in just a matter of days? She tried to paste a knowing look on her face, like “Obviously he’d be seeing other women,” but inside she felt like a teenage girl who just realized the guy who’d taken her out Friday night had taken out a different girl on Saturday night.

  “Anyway,” Blaine went on, leading her toward a ballroom at the center of the ship, “I handpicked Gil for you, and I think you two are really going to hit it off.”

  “Gil, as in…Gilbert?” Julia asked, trying to keep her nose from wrinkling.

  “Yes, Miss Smartypants, it’s short for Gilbert.”

  Julia took a deep breath and let it out, mentally preparing herself. “Alright,” she said. “I guess.”

  “Give yourself over to the process, Julia,” Blaine said, addressing her with a deeply serious face. “The whole idea of coming here is to try your
hand at something you’ve never done before, right?”

  “Blaine,” she said, lowering her voice. “I haven’t dated anyone since about 1995. I don’t understand dating apps, I don’t know the first thing about how to ‘hook up,’ and I am completely lost when it comes to how to be a grown woman in a casual relationship.”

  “Whoa.” Blaine stopped and stared at her. “You’re not kidding?”

  “I am not kidding,” she assured him.

  It was Blaine’s turn to take in a breath and release it. “I’ve got my work cut out for me—but it’s not like I’ve never been in a situation like this before.” He was essentially talking to himself under his breath, giving himself a pep talk of sorts. “I can do this.”

  “Can you?” Julia laughed. “Because I feel like the real issue here is whether I can do this.”

  Blaine looked her up and down and then reached out a hand. “May I?” he asked.

  “Be my guest.” Julia held her arms out to the sides and waited patiently as Blaine adjusted the knot on her wrapdress, tightening the fabric even more so that it hugged her body. Next, he reached up and mussed her hair just a little, setting a few more tendrils loose to fall around her face.

  “Now smack your lips like this," he said, giving an exaggerated tutorial that made him look like RuPaul blotting her lips before taking charge of the catwalk. “Yeah, like that. Lick them for me.”

  “Blaine,” Julia protested, cutting a glance around to see if anyone was watching.

  “DO IT,” he ordered. Julia obeyed.

  “Now, Gil is inside wearing a purple lei that he made today at the lei-making session, which you missed, I might add.” He gave her an arch look.

  “I was reading a book by the pool.”

  “Girl, you need to put the books away, or the boys are gonna look away,” Blaine said with pursed lips.

  “You can’t honestly be telling a teacher not to read,” Julia said, tucking the fallen tendrils of hair behind her ears.