Princess Charming

by Jane Heller

  “Oh, come on, Elaine. It’s his job. Let him take one of us,” said Jackie, grabbing Pat and me around our waists and pulling us into a tight group shot.

  Pat whispered to me. “I was hoping the ship would have a photographer. I forgot my camera and I really want to bring home pictures for the children.”

  The children. My heart lurched as it always did when I thought of little Lucy Kovecky. Of her wary brown eyes and curly blond hair and hesitant, poignant expression. Of whether she was happy to be spending the week with her father while her mother was away or whether it hurt too much to see him at all. I ached when I imagined how ambivalent she must be. Or was I projecting? Was I imagining how I would feel if my mother had left me in the custody of my adulterous, no-account father for a week so she could go sailing off to the Caribbean with her friends? Then I quickly reminded myself that Bill Kovecky was no Fred Zimmerman; Bill may have allowed his medical career to come before his family, but he was no philanderer, just another doctor with an ego that needed lancing.

  “On second thought, go ahead and take the picture,” I told the photographer. “Take a couple.” Maybe I’d get one especially for Lucy, I decided. From her Aunt Elaine.

  We said “Cheese,” the photographer got his shots, and we finally made our way onto the ship, only to be nearly trampled by phalanxes of waiters carrying trays of complimentary “Welcome Drinks”—foamy, yellow concoctions adorned with pink umbrellas and maraschino cherries.

  “How about a nice cool Miami Whammy?” one of the waiters offered.

  “What’s in it?” I asked, forever on the alert for egg yolks, heavy cream, and other agents of death.

  “What’s the difference? It’s on the house,” said Jackie, snatching one off the tray and belting it down.

  “The drink is on the house. The glass isn’t,” the waiter explained. “It’s our special souvenir glass. Only five dollars.”

  Five dollars? The glass was strictly hotel bar stuff, except that it bore the Princess Charming’s tacky logo: a red, high-heeled shoe perched atop a gold crown.

  “Want a drink, Pat?” Jackie asked before the waiter disappeared.

  She could tell by the look on my face that I was taking a pass.

  Pat waited her customary ten seconds before making her decision.

  “Yes,” she said, and the waiter handed her a Miami Whammy. She thanked him and said appreciatively, “The glass will make a wonderful souvenir for the children.” Pat’s rule of thumb when it came to our vacations was that everything that wasn’t nailed down was souvenir material for the children—photographs, glasses, cocktail napkins, plastic drink stirrers, notepads, menus, and especially those chocolate mints that the better hotels leave on your pillow at night. I often wondered what the kids actually did with the stuff once Pat schlepped it home.

  She was about to take her first sip of her Miami Whammy when a man walking hurriedly past us whammed into her, causing her to spill most of her drink on herself.

  “Oops,” she said, embarrassed, as though it were somehow her fault. She reached into her purse for a tissue and began blotting the soiled spot on her blouse when the man who’d committed the offense realized what he’d done, came running back, and started apologizing profusely.

  “Please, forgive me,” he said to Pat, practically getting down on his knees and beseeching her. “I’m so clumsy sometimes. I’m profoundly sorry.”

  “Oh, that’s quite all right,” said Pat, flushing slightly. “I’m sure you didn’t mean it.”

  “I didn’t mean it. Not at all,” he rushed on, speaking so fast he gave me palpitations and rubbing his hands together in true Uriah Heep fashion. “I don’t go around knocking women over—or their drinks. It’s just that I’ve never been on a cruise before and so when they said we were supposed to board the ship by one o’clock, I took them at their word and didn’t want to be late. So you see, I wasn’t trying to barrel into you or do you any harm. Please, believe me.”

  What a speech, I thought. The man was positively breathless with remorse. And how terribly hot he must be, what with that dark, three-piece suit he had on. He was dressed like a banker, not a cruise ship passenger.

  He was short and wiry, with thin lips and a thin mustache. His hair was shoe-polish-black and blunt-cut, with bangs: the “Buster Brown” look. Fortysomething, I guessed. Or maybe early fifties.

  “I’m Albert Mullins,” he said as Pat continued to dab at her ample, Miami Whammy-soaked bosom. “Why don’t you let me help—”

  Completely unthinking, he reached out and nearly placed his hand on Pat’s breast in an effort to be of some assistance, then realized he was about to do something socially unacceptable and turned crimson, which, in turn, made Pat turn crimson.

  “I’ll have the blouse dry-cleaned,” she said, recovering. “Please don’t worry about it.” She took a deep breath and told him her name and then Jackie’s and mine.

  He nodded. “Pleasure to meet all of you, although I would have preferred for you to meet me when I wasn’t at my most boorish.”

  Albert then glanced down at his own clothes and remarked, apropos of nothing, “I’m terribly overdressed, aren’t I?”

  “We hadn’t noticed,” Jackie said with a touch of sarcasm.

  “It was just that the Princess Charming seemed so formal from the brochures,” he explained. “I felt I should wear my Sunday best.”

  “You look great, honey. Just great,” Jackie said, rolling her eyes when he turned his head. Apparently, he didn’t stir her passion the way Henry Prichard had. He was too fussy for her, too fey, too lightweight. She preferred big, brawny types—men whose size, power, and authority rivaled those of a backhoe.

  “Where are you from?” I asked Albert.

  “Manhattan,” he replied. “Although I have a weekend house in Connecticut.”

  “Connecticut? Where?” Pat piped up.

  “Ridgefield,” he said.

  “Oh, goodness!” she fluttered. “I’m from Weston! Only twenty minutes from you!”

  Such talk was bold, for Pat. Positively brazen.

  “What do you do, Albert?” I asked. My interest in the man was strictly career-motivated. Perhaps he was in a field that required public relations.

  “I write books,” he said.

  “Really,” I said with growing respect for Albert. “Novels?”

  “No,” he said. “Field guides. To bird watching.”

  Bird watching. I doubted that I could get him on a “Barbara Walters Special,” but there were other network outlets. That Sunday morning show on CBS was always doing nature stuff. “Who’s your publisher?” I asked.

  “I don’t have one, I’m afraid,” he said. “I write for myself. I love birds, so I keep little journals full of notes about the species I see in Connecticut and elsewhere.”

  So the guy was an eccentric. Probably had a trust fund too, if he had places in Manhattan and Ridgefield and could still afford to take this cruise.

  “I booked passage on the Princess Charming in the hope of seeing a lot of tropical birds during the trip,” Albert continued.

  “What a lovely idea,” said Pat, who had given up on her blouse and was now sipping what was left of her Miami Whammy. “My children and their father often go bird watching in the summer. When he takes time off from his medical practice, that is.”

  “Your husband is a doctor?” asked Albert.

  “My ex-husband. Yes, he’s a gastroenterologist.”

  “Ex-husband. I see.” Albert turned crimson again, as if he had just uncovered some intensely personal piece of information. But Pat’s revelation must have liberated him because he then revealed, “I, myself, have never endured a divorce, although I did live through an annulment.” He paused to collect himself. “I’ve been traveling alone ever since.”

  “Tell you what, Al. We’ve got seven whole days to trade war stories, right?” Jackie said, giving Albert what was meant to be a parting pat on the back but was more like a karate chop. She was
as obvious when she wasn’t interested in a man as when she was.

  Albert got the point. It was time to wind things up.

  “Yes, absolutely,” he said. “I propose that we move along so we can all get settled in our staterooms.”

  I was aching to get settled in my stateroom. I hadn’t gotten much sleep, what with all the last-minute, pre-vacation, middle-of-the-night memos I kept e-mailing to my assistant at Pearson & Strulley, and I was running out of gas.

  “And once again, Mrs. Kovecky—may I call you Pat?” Albert interrupted himself to ask permission.

  “Yes, of course,” she said after a second or two, in what was, for her, a snap decision.

  “Good. Then, Pat, won’t you please accept my apologies about spilling the drink?” Albert asked. “One more time?”

  Ye Gods, you two. Enough already, I thought, feeling as if I’d stepped into a Jane Austen novel, what with all the apologizing and demurring and May-I-call-you-by-your-first-name posturing. I assumed we were finished with Albert when he said suddenly, to Pat, “You know, it’s only right that I pay for the dry cleaning of your blouse. It’s such a lovely blouse. It certainly does become you.”

  Pat flushed again and looked down at the ground. “Thanks for the compliment but I’m really not one to tout my own horn.” She paused. “I mean, toot. My own horn, that is.” She giggled.

  “Well, as I was saying, the moment I’m in my cabin, I’ll call and have them pick up the blouse and dry-clean it,” Albert pledged. “What did you say your cabin number was?”

  “She didn’t say,” I said quickly.

  “I’m in Cabin 8022,” said Pat, in spite of my blinking and throat clearing and other attempts at catching her eye. I did not like the idea of my friends giving out our cabin numbers or even our deck numbers to men they knew little about. In Manhattan, you didn’t give a man your home address unless he was a bona fide cable TV repairman.

  “Excellent,” said Albert. “I’ll take care of everything. At once.”

  We said goodbye to Albert Mullins and entered the ship’s dramatic, four-story atrium—a dazzling chrome-and-glass affair, reminiscent of a hotel lobby. A member of the Princess Charming’s staff welcomed us on board, glanced at our tickets, and pointed us in the direction of the elevator. We rode up another six floors and got off at Deck 8, where a dark-skinned man in a starched gold uniform was waiting for us.

  “Welcome to the M/S Princess Charming,” he said in a lilting Jamaican accent. “I’m Kingsley, your cabin steward, and I’ll be taking care of you this week. Anything you want, no problem.”

  We all smiled and nodded and placed ourselves in Kingsley’s hands as he walked us to our staterooms, where our luggage was waiting outside the cabin doors. At least, some of our luggage was.

  “My suitcase isn’t here,” I said with dread. In all my years of traveling, I had never lost my luggage. I knew my streak had to end sometime, but did it have to end now? In only a matter of hours, I’d be smack in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, where there wasn’t exactly a Bloomingdale’s on every corner.

  Kingsley shared my pain, shaking his head and saying, “Tsk tsk.”

  “I came down to Miami on your air/sea package, so I assume the airline must have lost my bag,” I said.

  Kingsley nodded wearily as if he’d seen this all before. “No problem. We’ll find it and fly it to San Juan. You’ll get it back when we dock there.”

  “But Puerto Rico is our second port of call. We’re not due there until Wednesday,” I pointed out. “Today is Sunday. What am I supposed to wear for the next three days?”

  Jackie and Pat looked at me helplessly. They knew better than to offer me their own clothes. I was a positive giantess compared to them. A giantess and a beanpole. What’s more, my taste in clothes was far more tailored than theirs, far more designer-driven. No, I was too tall, too thin, too Nancy Kissinger to borrow from my friends.

  “What will you wear? That’s no problem,” said Kingsley.

  Everything that was a problem was “no problem,” according to him. “There’s a boutique on Deck 2 of the ship. Right off the atrium where you first came on board. They sell beautiful clothes for the ladies.”

  Kingsley added that I should telephone the purser, who would probably give me a cash allowance toward whatever clothes I bought in the ship’s boutique. Then he handed each of us our keys and showed us our cabins.

  When he opened the door to mine, I stood there, appraising No. 8024 and wondering how the travel agent had conned us into paying for rooms the size of phone booths. Oh, 8024 was an outside cabin, all right. If you’re going to take a cruise, you might as well have a view of the ocean, we’d all decided. The problem was that there was no view. Not much of one, anyway.

  I trudged over to the measly porthole, a pathetic little round window that was no bigger than the one on the door of my Maytag dryer, and fingered the glass. Then I turned and surveyed the dated, mauve-and-turquoise decor of the stateroom, the FTD-looking arrangement of flowers on the dresser, the little white card next to the flowers with the sweet but impersonal message whose sole purpose was to elicit a tip—Have a pleasant cruise. I’m at your service. [Signed] Kingsley, your cabin steward—and heaved a deep sigh. All I’d really wanted from the room, from the cruise, was a soothing look at the sea. Sea? What sea? Not only was my porthole the size of a buttonhole, it looked right out onto the lifeboat that was mounted directly in front of it, obstructing whatever ocean view I might have had.

  “I hate to trouble you, Kingsley, but I’d like to change staterooms,” I told him as he was filling my ice bucket.

  “Your friends seem satisfied with theirs,” he said a bit defensively.

  “My friends probably don’t plan to spend as much time in their rooms as I do,” I said. “Besides, they don’t have to look out at an emergency vessel that conjures up images of the Titanic.”

  Jackie’s and Pat’s cabins had the same puny porthole as mine, but they could actually see out of theirs.

  “Look, Kingsley,” I said. “This is no reflection on you, believe me. The room is spotless, very nice. It’s just that I was counting on a view and my travel agent promised that—”

  “You can call the purser,” he nodded as if this, too, had come up before in his career as a cabin steward. He pointed to the mauve phone that hung on the wall near the dresser along with a ship-to-ship directory. There were also instructions for making ship-to-shore calls—at a cost of ten dollars per minute.

  While Kingsley looked on, I dialed the extension of the purser and spoke to a woman with a clipped British accent. I told her about my missing luggage, and she promised I’d have it when we got to Puerto Rico. She said nothing about a clothes allowance. When I complained about my stateroom, she explained that the rest of the ship’s outside cabins were sold out.

  “I could downgrade you to one of the smaller, inside cabins,” she offered.

  Now, there was an option.

  “I guess I’ll stay where I am,” I told her.

  Kingsley beamed, walked over to the offending porthole, and pulled the drapes closed. “No problem now, right?”

  “No problem,” I said and handed him the aforementioned tip as he walked out the door.

  Alone at last, I sank onto the couch that for the next seven nights Kingsley would be making up as my bed and tried not to sulk, tried not to be a washout when it came to life’s little adversities. I yearned to be someone who rolled with the punches, looked on the bright side of things, made cheery remarks like: “Oh, well. At least I have my health.” But it was hard for me to see the glass as half full. Very hard. I tended to dwell on the negative side of things, tended to see the danger, the evil that lurked. The expression “pleasant surprise” was an oxymoron, as far as I was concerned. The day my father walked out of our house was the day it dawned on me not only that disaster could strike if you weren’t careful, but that it did strike if you weren’t careful. I had evolved from a trusting child who believed in S
anta Claus and the Tooth Fairy and parents who would love each other forever and ever into a woman who believed in very little, a woman who viewed life as something to be feared, a woman who couldn’t distinguish between minor problems and genuine calamities. After Eric turned out to be the lying bastard my father was—and history, therefore, repeated itself—I came to the conclusion that it’s best to expect calamities, rehearse for them. That way, you’re never caught off guard, never disappointed. Unfortunately, the strategy doesn’t work, I thought as I listened to the ocean lapping against our mighty, stationary ship. You can’t stave off calamity any more than you can hold back the tide. I understood the concept, intellectually. I just wasn’t so hot at living it.

  Since I had nothing to unpack except the contents of my carry-on bag, I poked around the cabin. On my dresser was the week’s schedule of activities. I kicked off my shoes and lay down on the bed to read it.

  Let’s see, there were movies, all of which I’d seen. There was bingo, bridge, basketball, none of which I played. There were lectures on napkin folding, perfume appreciation, baton twirling, and the Macarena. And then there were contests, lots of contests: the International Beer-Chugging Contest, the Bad Hair Day Contest, the Male Bellyflop Contest, among others.

  I tried not to panic, I really did, but I felt as if I’d wandered onto the set of some horribly low-brow game show. I mean, why draw the line at the Male Bellyflop Contest? What about a Seasick Passengers’ Puking Contest? What on earth was I supposed to do for seven days?

  Calm down, I told myself. You brought plenty of books, so you’ll find a nice, quiet lounge chair and read. And you’ll jog around the Promenade Deck every morning and spend time with your friends.

  I sighed with relief until I remembered that my books, running clothes, and sneakers were in my suitcase, which was probably on its way to Alaska.

  Thank God, I have Jackie and Pat to keep me company, I thought, knowing what a good time we ended up having on our vacations, even the ones I hadn’t been especially looking forward to. Jackie’s unhysterical, just-do-it style was a tonic for me, always nudging me back to reality whenever my neurotic nature got the best of me. And Pat’s giggly innocence and wholesome values were such a breath of fresh air; nobody I worked with at Pearson & Strulley had giggly innocence or wholesome values. What did I bring to the table when the three of us were together? I really couldn’t say, but Jackie and Pat kept taking trips with me, so I must have contributed something.