“I-what? It wasn’t like that at all!” I protested. “We just talked.”
“Mmm hmm,” Marc hummed doubtfully.
“Come on, lots of people are interested in ghost stories. I don’t bring it up to show off.”
“Mmm hmm.”
“I bring it up to get them interested, yes, but about something different, about history.”
“About you,” Marc noted with a smirk.
Just then, Farida approached. I nearly leapt on her for assistance—that is, until she handed me a dog-eared copy of my ghost book. I gaped at it, struck speechless by the timing. I had forgotten that I gave her the only copy I had onboard.
“Hello boys!” she said. “Brian, here’s your book back. I enjoyed it very much, thank you.”
Marc gave a suggestive grunt, waiting patiently for me to confess.
“Oh, you’ve heard the story, haven’t you Marc?” Farida continued, oblivious to what she had stumbled into. “When Brian met his girlfriend, he gave her a personal tour of a haunted Old West town! You’ve read his book haven’t you?”
“Why no, I haven’t,” he replied, snatching the book from my nerveless fingers. Giving me an expressive look, he added, “Funny thing, that. But you know, guys don’t talk about such things to other guys.”
“What an amazing first date that would be, don’t you think?” Farida continued dreamily. “Like stepping into another world. Sunsets over mesas... tall, dark, rugged men... women who drank whiskey with the men...!”
She spun off, swept away by thoughts of romance.
“See, that proves my point,” I said, trying to salvage my situation. “I’m not trying to get on Farida, am I?”
Marc muttered flatly, “Tell me you wouldn’t get on Farida.”
“Oh, no,” I stammered. “Am I, like, one of those creeps now? Who don’t respect women?”
“Yep,” Marc said, perking up in triumph. “One of those creeps.”
He folded his arms behind his back and stalked away, leaving me alone. And creepy.
5
One of Marc’s duties was coordinating with port shops. Prior to the recent advent of the position of port & shopping guide, the cruise director had been responsible for recommending—or more importantly, not recommending—options in port. This had resulted in the illicit flow of monetary bribes to a ship figure who already exuded enormous influence. A single cautionary word would cause sales to plummet, so it was paramount for shop owners to keep cruise directors happy. The ever-vigilant Carnival stepped in, created the new position, and thusly ensured bribes remained safely in the corporate coffers.
This did not mean that savvy entrepreneurs were unable to offer perks, however.
In Costa Maya, Marc and I were chatting with the manager of Diamonds/Tanzanite International. I was relaxed after a secondary encounter with Chiquita the Barbarian. After prostrating myself humbly before her and begging for a gentle touch, she had restored my shredded calf muscle. Marc was relaxed because, well, he was Marc. Yet it was not to last.
“Oh, no,” Marc suddenly groaned. “He’s here. No, don’t look! He’ll see us.”
Both the manager and I immediately spun about. Marc groaned.
A sweating, middle-aged man in glasses approached us. He ran his hand through damp, thinning hair before extending it to us.
“I’ve been looking for you!” he exclaimed triumphantly to Marc.
“Oh, hello again,” Marc greeted as nonchalantly as he could.
“Have you looked into the Home Depot list I asked about?” the man excitedly asked.
Marc stalled, saying, “You see, my normal duties require a lot of face time with the various business owners here.”
“Yes, yes, so they do!” the sweaty man continued. “My point exactly!”
He glanced around the shop approvingly, then set his shiny eyes on the manager. Juan was a slender, handsome youth who dressed very well. His English was marvelous. Juan gave Marc a wry smile.
“Why, indeed he did work his local contacts regarding Home Depot, sir,” Juan said smoothly. “But I cannot fathom why you would choose to go there. Would you not prefer to support local business? It is in our best interest to make you happy on more than one front, and you will find us far more... flexible... than an American corporate mega-store.”
“Why yes!” the man agreed enthusiastically. “That’s what I’ve been telling Marc all week. That is precisely why I asked him for a complete list of stores selling lumber.”
“Lumber, you say?” Juan asked, flashing another glorious smile. “Why buy retail when you can do so much better? I’m so glad that Marc brought you here, my friend. He truly knows his business. My father owns the largest furniture factory in the Yucatan. He has connections to lumber.”
Juan grabbed the New Jersian by the arm and led him away, saying, “We must both truly thank Marc—in writing!—for connecting us so far above and beyond his normal duties...”
Marc stared at me, completely dumbfounded.
“Well done,” I complimented. “My comment cards either ask me to sell cheaper art or say I smell like fish. You, on the other hand, have just been guaranteed a glowing review of your brokering of a Mexican lumber deal!”
6
After another week, I finally received an email from Bianca. My soaring hopes were immediately quashed. What she wrote left me agog. She wanted me to take a work break from Sundance and take a cruise on Valor so we could talk—in two months!
I stared at the email, unable to identify the flurry of emotions sweeping through me. Part of me was sad. She commented that I sounded different, while she was the same. Yeah, I was different. I had a sorrow in my soul from months—nay, years—of unsuccessful toiling to be with her. I was angry at her indecision and had quite literally told her I was running out of patience. A poor choice of words, obviously. Maybe she read that it was too late and I was moving on, when I merely meant that it was time to make it happen!
Especially after the last week, I had never been more certain of what I had with Bianca. I couldn’t tell her why, of course. With every moment I spent with Vela, I honestly couldn’t stop comparing it to my time with Bianca. It was exciting, yet paled in comparison. Such an admission would offend both of them, of course. Yet adding to my confusion was the fact that my last letter to Bianca was before I had even met Vela.
I wanted to send a soothing response, assuring her that our future was my focus. But I couldn’t. I was too angry. As she said, she was the same—handling the situation only on her own terms.
Her proposal was almost as insulting as her suggestion that I follow her on her hostess career. Sundance did not offer work breaks. I had told her that several times. Even if they did, asking for one would be career suicide with so many hungry auctioneers fighting for Sensation. She obviously was not listening to me, nor trying to understand my life—the lifestyle I chose entirely to be with her, the lifestyle we both agreed was our path to being together. Apparently, in our many long months—years!—she had changed her mind.
So she wanted me to take a cruise on her ship, did she? So I could spend thousands of dollars for her to dazzle me in her spare time like I was Tommy the Teddy Bear? What the hell had become of our dream? Had time and real life finally killed it?
7
On the next cruise, I again surpassed all my goals in the first auction. Work was going splendidly. So was life on Sensation. Vela and I had seen each other every day for a week. The chemistry was good. Very good. But more than that, Vela was an incredibly sweet young woman. It was refreshing that she simply wanted to spend time with me.
When the port of Cozumel came around again, Vela joined me for some sun and sand in the morning. As it turned out, too much sun. We both soon returned to Sensation red as lobsters. With her afternoon shift still an hour off, Vela came to my cabin. For the first time, I was happy to have the fish smell. It was terribly unromantic, and that suited me fine. Sort of. I just didn’t know anymore.
We p
layed around, easing our hot skin with some well-placed ice. Play is where we stopped, however. After a while, we lie beside each other and just enjoyed each others’ company. Sometimes a warm embrace was more powerful than sex. As a teen, I would have protested that idea mightily. As a teen, I was naive.
In the dark cabin, I started to drift off to sleep. I awoke at Vela’s touch. She traced her fingertips lightly along the features of my face. Her touch was very delicate, the sensation soothing. I wondered what she was thinking, but didn’t ask. I just enjoyed.
Eventually she asked quietly, with a hint of amusement in her accent, “Am I the youngest woman you’ve been with?”
I chuckled.
“Technically, my dear, we haven’t actually ‘been’ yet. I assumed you would have noticed something like that.”
“Maybe we can work on that,” she said, teasing her fingers through my chest hair. “After work I have Spanish class at ten tonight, but I’m free afterwards. Do you want me to come over?”
“More than just about anything,” I said.
Chapter 15. Thumbprint Rage
1
The new year of 2005 started with a bang. The first good news was that in the final cruise of 2004, I had the highest sales of the year on Sensation. In just a few weeks, I went from zero to hero, as they say.
The second good news, received first thing on New Year’s Day, was even better. At long last, Bianca had obtained in writing a promise that Carnival would hire her back if she were ever so inclined. No more concerns about worst-case scenarios: even if I was suddenly killed in a tragic blimp accident or something, Bianca would be able to care for her family.
Yet such glorious news came with a caveat. She still insisted on transferring to Sensation as a waitress—though right away—so she could transition more slowly to being my assistant. She wanted to transition more slowly after two years?
I was not particularly happy with this plan of hers. I recognized she was making an effort, but it seemed to fly in the face of all that we had been conversing about over the last two months while I was on Sensation. Apparently she felt the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t. I had found in life that jumping in with both feet forced adaptation faster and more completely. Easing in a little at a time brought baggage and hesitation, which led to resistance. But that was me. This was about her.
So I agreed.
I was so eager to get Bianca onboard, I nearly overlooked the obvious. What about Vela? Assuming I had a ship squeeze was one thing, but actually meeting her...? I wanted, I needed, Bianca in my life immediately, but was I setting myself up for a drama?
The subsequent email changed everything. The menacingly bold letters of a Sundance order wrote:
“HANDOVER TO PREVIOUS AUCTIONEER ON JAN 10 - Gene.”
I had lost Sensation. A bang? More like a thermonuclear detonation.
2
When Sensation returned to homeport, Marc and I went out into New Orleans. We strode through the French Quarter, admiring the architecture and history, feeling the dirty vibrance of the Big Easy. Marc had not yet seen the old town, and was exhilarated at the ‘anything goes’ attitude. That is, until he heard the Anglicized pronunciations of the French street names. After finding locals pronounced Burgundy Street as “Ber-GUN-dee”, he began to question such freedom of expression. His spirits were saved at Café Maspero by a steaming mound of expertly fried shrimp tumbling over the sides of a po’ boy sandwich.
“What do you think about Ildi?” Marc asked, as we sat at a thick wooden table amid the bustle and swirl of the lunch hour.
“I think she’s wonderful,” I replied. “Her laugh is contagious, she’s capable and attractive. However, I sense that she’s a bit, I don’t know... desperate? Is that the word?”
Marc nodded.
“Yep, that’s what I thought, too. Whenever I talk to her in Formalities, she’s almost giddy in the hope that I’ll ask her out. I think that would get old pretty fast. Maybe even scary.”
We ate in silence for a while, but finally I felt the need to talk to a friend.
“I’m starting to get in over my head, I think,” I commented.
“Vela?”
“This is going to sound bad, but I truly feel this is the last opportunity I will ever have with another woman, because next time I get Bianca I’m never letting her go. We’ve hit the point where we need to make it happen or go our separate ways. I refuse to let the latter happen. Sensation has been weird from the beginning, not just for me, but for Bianca and me—a hiccup in our relationship that I don’t think really represents our true state of affairs. I think when I failed at the beginning I fed her greatest possible fear. I sent her a letter that first week when I wasn’t selling, and she’s been backpedaling ever since.”
“So ‘next ship’, eh?”
“Sorta like saying ‘I’ll start the diet tomorrow’, isn’t it?” I agreed. “But whether I like it or not, Bianca and I do have a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy. I can do what I want. Just because I chose not to since the beginning doesn’t mean I can’t play around now. But I’m a little scared to open Pandora’s box, you know?”
“Well,” Marc said simply. “Most of us have a ‘ship squeeze’. It’s part of the life.”
“It is,” I agreed. “Bianca’s best friend, Flaviu, had a different girlfriend every contract for years, despite a wife and kids at home. Then suddenly he thought it was love. He divorced, lost his kids, and married his new squeeze. He managed to go almost two whole contracts without sleeping around. Now he has two ex-wives.”
I paused a moment before continuing.
“I’m not saying I’m like Flaviu. He’s a chauvinist pig. I blame both of them for that mess, because obviously his new wife knew he couldn’t stop sleeping around. I’ll never be like that. But I just might kick myself if I don’t play at least a little on ships. It’s like going to college but not living in the dorms: you don’t really get the whole experience. I fought the idea for a long, long time, but now that the opportunity is almost over....”
“Don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone,” Marc intoned.
“Figures, the first time I entertain the idea of playing around, I actually fall for her! Vela is beautiful, obviously—”
“A body to die for,” Marc agreed, interrupting a bit too eagerly.
“But she’s a nice girl, too. Focused. I’ve never met a woman with such a balance of fitness, ambition, and kindness. It’s quite a turn on. Yet whenever we’re together, I think only of Bianca. As good as it is with Vela, it’s just not the earth-shattering stuff I have with Bianca. Strange. I am seriously entertaining the idea that this Romanian cast some sort of spell on me.”
“Much of your dilemma has been taken care of for you,” Marc pointed out. “You are leaving in a week, like it or not. Regardless of your feelings for Vela, you both know you’re parting. Do whatever feels right.”
“That’s the problem. What feels right anymore? It all does! I’ve never had difficulty telling right from wrong before.”
“That’s because there actually is no right or wrong here,” Marc observed. “You are free to do whatever you want, but are still warring with whatever is the reason for your self-denial. Is your concern losing Bianca? Is it hurting Vela? Or do you think you are unworthy of having what you want?”
“I wish I had some 1500 degree coals right now for clarity,” I sighed. “You know, after hot moments with Vela I feel like a little kid. I’m so full of energy and excited and happy, I feel fifteen years younger. How can that feel wrong?”
“Somehow I doubt that fifteen years ago you were a little kid,” Marc noted wryly.
“I’ve never been good at math,” I admitted. I chuckled and teased, “The only math that matters here is that I’m thirty-one and Vela’s twenty-one.”
“You dog,” Marc mumbled over a mouthful of French fries.
“But you know what I write in my diary? Every comment totally reinforces the wond
erful relationship I have with Bianca. Or used to have, or had on vacations, or whatever you call it. My time with Vela is great—probably as good as it gets for the normal realm of us mere mortals. But my chemistry with Bianca is sublime! I’m telling you, everything I’ve been expounding over the last two years is being proven, ironically by another woman! Every fiber of my being resonates with Bianca, and I think of it even when I’m lying with Vela. All things are going so perfectly with Vela, yet it still pales in comparison with that fantastic woman I have fought so hard for.”
“So why,” I finished, “Why can’t I stop with Vela?”
“Yet you will,” Marc said, “But whatever you do, don’t ever, ever tell Bianca. You would only be serving yourself, not her.”
I stared at my shrimp. They had gone cold and weren’t so tasty anymore.
3
I stared at the dark ceiling. My heart had finally settled back to a normal beat, but instead my mind raced. One woman I couldn’t keep my hands off. Another I couldn’t keep my mind off.
What really made me mad was that Bianca was going right down the same old path: planning her life on her own, hoping for a meeting somewhere to pretend she was happy. When I told her I lost Sensation, she almost excitedly asked me to take a cruise on her ship! That way she would not have to rearrange her life at all. Like her insistence on remaining a waitress, this was a last-ditch effort for her to keep her long-term plans with Carnival, not me.
Ships were no longer helping us. They were keeping us apart. Worse, it was almost impossible to make plans with Bianca while she was at sea because she shut down all sense of hope. After my disaster on Legend, I truly empathized. Waiters were in many ways like a shell-shocked soldier: until they got off the front line, even if for just a while, they couldn’t remember normal life. This only reinforced that to really be together, Bianca would have to join me. I wanted to make Sundance work with her, but she wanted me to make it work for her. For the first time, I was beginning to seriously question our relationship.
Unsinkable Mister Brown (Cruise Confidential 3) Page 25