Princess Charming

by Jane Heller

  I broke the ice. “How’s your steak au poivre?”

  He didn’t answer right away. Gee, he really is aloof, arrogant, full of himself, I thought. Then I realized that I had caught him in the middle of a bite. When he finished chewing, he took a sip of his wine, swallowed, and said, “Let’s just say I’ve had better beef at Burger King.”

  “That good?”

  He nodded. “How about your veal cordon bleu?”

  I rarely ate veal, particularly veal layered with ham and cheese, but I had taken as little time to study the menu as I’d taken to check out the wine list. It wasn’t important what I ate or drank that night; it was only important that I didn’t spill any of it on myself or Sam.

  “How’s your veal?” he repeated, as if I were a dullard.

  “My veal.” I paused, wracking my brain to think of something memorable to say, something that would get a rise out of Mr. Big Chill. “Actually, it has the consistency of a snow tire I once owned.”

  I got the rise. For the second time, Sam peered at me over his glasses, but this time he smiled too.

  “So,” I asked, feeling encouraged, “what do you do for a living?” The old reliable.

  “I’m an insurance agent,” he said, returning to his meal.

  “Really?”

  “You seem surprised. What did you think I was, a trapeze artist?”

  “No. It’s just that I’ve never met an insurance agent who didn’t try to sell me insurance. I’ve been sitting next to you for a whole half hour and you haven’t once used the words ‘term,’ ‘annuity,’ or ‘nonsmoker discount.’”

  He looked up from his food and flat-out laughed. “So you’ve been hanging on my every word, is that it?”

  “Every other.”

  He laughed again. My heart leapt. “Tell me about you,” he said. “What do you do back in…wherever you live?”

  “I’m in public relations. In New York.”

  “Ah, an image consultant.” His tone was mocking. “Who do you work for?”

  “Pearson & Strulley. I’m an account executive.”

  “You specialize in fashion accounts, is that it?”

  “No, why would you say that?”

  “Your dress.” He appraised the gold tasseled number. “It’s so…so…cutting edge.” There was enough sarcasm in his voice to cut through my rubbery veal.

  “The airline lost my luggage,” I said. “This dress was the best the Perky Princess had to offer. This and the two I’ll be wearing over the next couple of nights.”

  “I can hardly wait.” He sipped his wine. I sipped mine, my third glass, which was one glass more than my normal dosage. I knew I’d regret it later, at about three o’clock in the morning when the heartburn would kick in, but people were always preaching about how you were supposed to stop projecting and stay in the moment. At that moment what I wanted was a third glass of wine.

  As I watched Sam wrestle with his steak, I wondered why a guy like him was taking this cruise by himself. He was more than presentable, and he had a credible, albeit banal, job. So where was the girlfriend? The wife? The best buddy from the office?

  “You said you’re a PR person,” he mused, nodding his head at me. He was definitely thawing out. “And you’re on vacation this week, is that it?”

  “Yes. Pat and Jackie and I decided to take a cruise together. We’ve been friends for several years.”

  “That’s nice. I travel so much I’ve lost touch with a lot of my friends.”

  “I didn’t know insurance agents traveled that often. Is this cruise business or pleasure?”

  “Strictly pleasure. I’m a tourist for a change. Like you and your friends.”

  “Why a cruise?”

  “Simple. Ships don’t have wings.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I have a major aversion to airplanes and haven’t flown in years. The last flight I took was a puddle-jumper between two little towns in the Midwest. There was a bad snowstorm and the plane was shaking like a son of a bitch. I said, ‘That’s it. Never again.’ When I travel for business, I drive or take trains. But it’s cold up north in February. I needed a little sun and sand and Caribbean atmosphere. Hence, the cruise.”

  “By yourself?” It slipped out. I hadn’t meant to pry.

  “Yes, but I stopped asking my mother’s permission to go places by myself a number of years ago.”

  “You know what I meant.”

  “Sorry. Yes, I’m traveling alone. I’m not seeing anyone at the moment. I figured, why not sail the high seas solo?” So Sam was unattached presently. I tried to look unfazed by the revelation. “Actually, I enjoy traveling alone,” he went on. “You can do what you want, when you want, without having to worry that you’re neglecting the other person. Do you know what I mean, Arlene?”

  “Elaine.”

  “Sorry.”

  “That’s all right. Stan.” I couldn’t resist.

  “Sam.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I’ll bet.” He smiled again. Now I don’t want to make too much of his smile, because he was fabulous looking even when he wasn’t smiling. But on those rare occasions when he did smile, it was downright impossible not to melt. I kept asking myself, What’s this guy doing on my cruise? At my table? I wasn’t a big believer in luck, but for some reason I felt as if I’d won the lottery.

  There was a brief silence as we chewed our meat. Or attempted to.

  “Tell me more about your work,” I prompted.

  “My work? Come on, the insurance business isn’t nearly as glamorous as public relations.” He was mocking me again, but I didn’t mind. At least I had his attention.

  “You have disdain for public relations, is that it?”

  “No, I just don’t know much about it. Enlighten me.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Tell me about your clients.”

  “Is this a setup or are you really interested?”

  “I’m really interested.”

  I wanted to believe him. So I told him about Dina Witherspoon, the onetime actress/sex kitten who, because she had the temerity to turn sixty, was now endorsing arthritis pain medication; about The Aromatic Bean, the chain of cappuccino bars whose twenty-nine-year-old chairman drank only chamomile tea; about Mini-Shades, the company that manufactured sunglasses for small children and household pets. Sam proved to be a terrific listener. He laughed when I made jokes and became serious when I became serious and asked smart questions about the media instead of the usual, “Is Katie Couric as nice in person as she is on TV?” I was starting to loosen up and enjoy myself, and I assumed Sam was too. But then Ismet came along with the dessert cart, inquiring whether any of us wanted anything, breaking the spell.

  Everybody started talking about chocolate mousse and crème brûlée and how much weight people gain on cruises, which prompted Gayle to reveal that she and Kenneth had a personal trainer who had just landed a bit part in the next Jean-Claude Van Damme movie.

  The remaining minutes at the table were a blur, as Ismet hurried us along so he could set up for the eight-thirty seating. As we were all leaving the dining room, Sam mentioned something about checking out the show—according to the schedule of activities, the evening’s entertainment consisted of a comedian, an opera singer, and a man who walked on hot coals in his bare feet—and then going to bed. The thought of Sam going to bed inspired me to ask, “Which deck are you on, Sam?”

  The minute the words were out of my mouth, I laughed at the irony of them. I, who wouldn’t give my deck number to the ship’s chaplain.

  “Are you all right?” Sam asked. My question hadn’t exactly been a knee slapper.

  “Yes,” I said, still laughing. “I’m fine.”

  He looked at me quizzically, then said, “Deck 7.”

  “One floor down from me. I’m on Deck 8,” I volunteered. Happily.

  “Well,” he said, not reacting to my announcement, “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow. Have a good one.” And off
he went.

  I stood there for a few seconds, watching him from behind. He was a tall, commanding presence as he strode through the hall, past the herd of other passengers on their way into the dining room. It wasn’t until he was well out of sight that Jackie grabbed my arm and asked me if I was drunk.

  “Why would you ask that?” I said.

  “Because you were flirting with that man,” she said. “I’ve known you for six years and I’ve never seen you flirt with a man.”

  “I was flirting?” I asked. “I thought I was only being friendly.”

  “Okay. So you were being friendly. I’ve known you for six years and I’ve never seen you be friendly to a man.”

  “That’s not true,” I said defensively. I turned to Pat. “Is it?”

  She nodded.

  “Oh, look,” Jackie said, pointing to the wall opposite us. The photographs the ship’s photographer had taken earlier that day were displayed there. “Let’s go find ours.”

  We searched through the hundreds of shots on the wall until I finally spotted one of Jackie, Pat, and me. I lifted it from the display case, while my friends looked for the duplicates we had instructed the photographer to take.

  Stepping away from the crush of people, I studied the photograph. There the three of us were, standing arm-in-arm on the gangway, moments before we crossed the threshold of the Princess Charming. My vision wasn’t the greatest, since I’d left my bifocals up in the stateroom so as not to call attention to my advancing years, but I could see that the photo was a pretty good one. (Nobody was blinking or doing something funny with her mouth, for example.) I could also see that we were not the only ones in the picture. Hovering in the background, just over our shoulders, was Sam Peck.

  4

  We all said we were too tired to go to the show. It was still early—eight-twenty or so—but it had been a long day and we wanted to pace ourselves. This was only the first night of the cruise, after all. There were six more to get through.

  Instead, we ended up in Pat’s stateroom. We could tell that Kingsley had been there, as the bed was turned down and there were two chocolate mints on the pillow. Pat lovingly placed the mints in the tote bag she had designated for souvenirs. The other thing we noticed was that her soiled blouse had been picked up to be dry-cleaned, just as Albert Mullins had promised it would be. He had telephoned her room a scant ten minutes after she had unpacked, told her to hang the blouse outside the door of her cabin, and said he would take care of the rest.

  “Looks like Albert’s a man of his word,” Jackie said. “Plus, I think he’s got the hots for you, Pat.”

  Pat giggled. “You think everybody’s got the hots for everybody. You even suggested that Elaine was interested in that man at our table. Elaine, of all people.”

  I couldn’t very well take offense. Like Jackie, Pat had never known me to be interested in a man.

  “You saw her. She is hot for him,” Jackie insisted.

  “Why are you two talking about me as if I’m not here?” I said from the chair in the corner of the room. Pat and Jackie were sitting next to each other on the bed.

  “Well? Aren’t you hot for Sam?” Jackie asked.

  “Of course not. He was a decent dinner companion, that’s all.”

  Usually, I shared everything with my friends. But for some reason I was too reticent to blab about the huge crush I’d developed on Sam. To tell Pat and Jackie how I felt, to say it out loud, to let the words hang in the air, seemed downright scary to me. What if they made fun of me? What if they tried to talk me out of my feelings? What if Jackie wanted Sam for herself? What if? What if? What if? But the worst “what if” of all was: What if I let myself fall for Sam, have a shipboard romance, do the whole “Affair to Remember” thing, and then he turned out to be a louse?

  I decided to deflect the attention away from myself by encouraging my friends to talk about the men in their lives. But since there were no men in their lives, they ended up talking about their ex-husbands.

  “Peter’s really gone off the deep end about the nursery,” Jackie was saying. “He never shuts up about wanting to expand. He talks about his ‘vision’ for the business. Vision, my ass. He just wants me out so he can run everything himself and look like a mogul to his cutie-pie new wife, speaking of a vision.” Jackie rolled her eyes. Trish, Peter’s second wife, was Miss Junior League. She never went anywhere without her pearls, her velvet headbands, or her impeccable manners. She was always syrupy sweet to Jackie when they ran into each other, and Jackie, who was not much on etiquette, always gave her the finger. Behind her back, of course.

  “At least you have an idea of Peter’s needs,” Pat offered, trying out her favorite new word. “You know what they say, Jackie: Forearmed is forelorn.”

  “Forewarned, Pat,” I said.

  “Right. What I mean is, even now, after all these years, Bill doesn’t communicate with me, doesn’t tell me what he wants. And of course, during our entire marriage, he never explained how I was lacking, so there was no way for me to know what or how to change.”

  “What makes you think it was you who was lacking?” I asked, wishing that Pat thought more of herself, that we all thought more of ourselves. Women are always accused of male bashing, but the people we most often bash are ourselves.

  “You’re right, Elaine,” said Pat. “It wasn’t that I was lacking or that Bill was lacking. It was that Bill was busy being a doctor and I was busy being a mother and there was no common ground.”

  “But the children you were busy being a mother to were his children,” I pointed out. “How much common ground does a guy need?”

  Pat shook her head. “I didn’t pay enough attention to him,” she said. “I didn’t.”

  “Why, because you didn’t greet him at the door every night in some slinky Victoria’s Secret number?” Jackie said with disgust. Jeans and a T-shirt were her at-home attire.

  “No, because I didn’t show enough interest in his career,” Pat said. “I was too busy carpooling.”

  Jackie and I had no way of identifying with the conflicts full-time mothers face, but we could easily appreciate the fact that there was only so much energy to go around. How were you supposed to deal with this kid’s gym class and that kid’s piano recital and still act fascinated by your husband’s diagnosis of some eighty-year-old woman’s gallstones? I felt for Pat. For Bill, too.

  “Back in the sixties, Peter and I used to talk about having kids,” Jackie mused. “But we were kids ourselves. ‘Flower children.’ Christ, who knew we’d end up making a successful business out of goddamn flowers.”

  “Who knew,” Pat and I said in unison, like a Greek chorus.

  “The nursery became our kid,” said Jackie. “The problem is, joint custody isn’t working out. At least, not for Peter.”

  “Perhaps you should find out what’s really behind Peter’s striving, what he’s really thinking and feeling,” Pat suggested.

  “Let me tell you something about men,” Jackie said, as if she were an authority. “If you ask them what they’re really thinking and feeling, they get that glazed look, like they don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, like it must be some hormonal thing you’re going through. The truth is, men just aren’t that deep.”

  “You don’t think so?” asked Pat.

  “No, I don’t. Women are always wasting their time trying to get inside a guy’s head, to understand his ‘essence.’ Well, hello? He doesn’t have one.”

  “If you think men are so shallow, Jackie, why are you always talking about having sex with them?” I asked.

  “I’m not always talking about having sex with them,” Jackie maintained. “Sometimes, I talk about falling in love with them, about having what I used to have with Peter. Again.”

  “But Peter left you,” I pointed out. “What’s so wonderful about falling in love with the sort of man who leaves you?”

  “Not all men leave their wives, Elaine,” said Pat. “You mustn’t assume the worst all
the time.”

  “I know,” I conceded. “But I didn’t even love Eric, and it was still like a stick in the eye when he slept with that low rent Elizabeth Arden. Imagine how much it would have hurt if I had loved him? I’d be crazy to fall in love. Any woman would be.”

  I was trying to talk myself out of my obsession with Sam Peck, I knew. But the truth was, I was pretty far gone already—and after only one meal with him. I was at that silly stage in a relationship where all you want to do is say the guy’s name, drop it casually in conversation, use it to illustrate a point, let it roll off your tongue in as many ways as you possibly can. Sam Peck. Sammy Peck. Samuel Pecking Order. Sam and his Peckeroo. Still, I resisted even mentioning his name to Jackie and Pat. I felt too raw, too exposed. It was too soon.

  “It’s not crazy to want to fall in love,” Jackie said, defending her position. “If you’ve had love once, you want it again. It’s only natural. I look back on my marriage and I remember that the early years with Peter were really fantastic. So I say to myself, ‘Jackie, at the very least, you can have really fantastic early years with some other guy.’”

  “What happens when you get to the later years?” I said. “Why go through the early years with somebody, through the courtship, the chase, the hunt, or whatever you want to call it, when it’s inevitable that the good times won’t last? Why waste all that energy?”

  “Because you don’t know at the outset that the good times won’t last,” said Pat. “It’s not a certainty that relationships fail.”

  “Fifty percent of them do,” I said.

  “Fifty percent of them don’t,” Pat said. “Bill and I may be divorced and he may be upset that he has to spend all that money to support an ex-wife and five children, but I still don’t think of our marriage as a failure. I really don’t.”