Princess Charming

by Jane Heller

  “Hey,” he said abruptly, as if forcing himself to lighten his mood. “What do you say we go for a run, have something to eat, and get over to Isle de Swan before the day’s over?”

  “Sure, let’s get started,” I said. And after a few stretching exercises, we did.

  Sam and I ran our four miles, had a quick breakfast in the Glass Slipper, and decided to meet over on the island, instead of trying to hook up and ride the tender together. I wanted to check in with Pat and Jackie to see what they had in mind for our visit to our first port of call.

  When I got to Deck 8, I found both of my friends glued to the television set in Pat’s cabin, watching the cruise director on the Princess Charming Channel as he described the activities available to us on Isle de Swan. They were both dressed in T-shirts and shorts, their Princess Charming tote bags filled with their bathing suits, sunscreen, books, etc.

  “Jackie,” I said, heartened to see her up and around. “Are you feeling better?”

  “Better enough to take a five-minute ride over to one of those beaches out there,” she said, nodding at the porthole. She still looked pale, weak, not herself. “If you think I’m gonna sit in my room while the two of you are out there playing ‘Baywatch,’ you can forget about it.”

  “But to spend hours in the hot sun when you’ve just…” I didn’t finish the sentence. I knew I was being a nag. Instead, I gazed out at Isle de Swan through Pat’s porthole. Since hers was minus the lifeboat, the view of it was unobstructed and absolutely glorious. You could easily see the vibrant pinks and purples of the bougainvillea blossoms, the cream-colored sandy beaches, the blues and greens of the shimmering, clear water.

  “I’ll be okay,” Jackie said. “If I’m not, I’ll take the tender back. No big deal.”

  “All right. So what’s the plan?” I asked. “Do you both want to go to the island now?”

  Jackie said a quick yes. Pat replied that she had to telephone Albert Mullins’s stateroom first, to coordinate their schedules. I had forgotten that both she and Albert had signed up for one of the cruise’s excursion packages—a series of drawing lessons or “art safaris,” as they were called, led by an acclaimed artist from South Florida named Ginger Smith Baldwin. At each port of call, the ten to fifteen people in Baldwin’s group would be trooping to a designated site, given the necessary art supplies, and then receive instruction on how best to capture the mood. Their tableaux could then be brought home and either framed and hung or simply shared with friends and family, the way one shares snapshots or videos. Since I was severely artistically challenged and Jackie was more interested in water sports than watercolors, Pat was taking the series with Albert.

  “He’s looking forward to drawing birds,” Pat explained as she dialed his extension.

  I went back to my cabin to take a quick shower and change, then rejoined the others in Pat’s room.

  “We’re meeting Albert and the rest of Ginger’s art class at the elevator on Deck 2,” she explained.

  We took the elevator down to the second level of the ship and waited in the loading area, along with at least two hundred other passengers. One of them was Henry Prichard. Another of them was Ingrid, his fetching friend from the previous evening. If Jackie was disappointed that Henry had attached himself to another woman while she was in her cabin fending off stomach cramps, she didn’t let on. She simply turned to Pat and me and said stoically, “Looks like the car salesman got away.”

  “I’m sorry, Jackie,” I said. “I know you had hopes for the two of you.”

  “I had hopes of getting some action, that’s all,” she said. “I guess that’s the deal with these cruises. You’re out of commission for one day and there’s another babe to take your place. But hey, Henry’s not the only guy on this ship. I’m not throwing the diaphragm overboard just yet.”

  “That’s the spirit,” I said, patting her on the back, which made her cough, unfortunately.

  “Has the bug moved to your chest?” Pat asked her. “I hear some congestion in your lungs.”

  “I’m fine,” Jackie said, waving both of us off. “Now, where’s the rest of your art class, Pat?”

  Pat looked among the throngs of people and spotted Albert. She waved. He bowed. We made our way through the crowd over to where he was standing in line for the tender.

  “A very good morning to you all,” he said, doffing his tan safari hat. He was also wearing a T-shirt and shorts, and had both a camera and a pair of heavy binoculars dangling from braided cords around his scrawny neck. One wrong move and he’s going to choke himself, I thought.

  “Good morning, Albert,” said Pat. “Are you ready to create a work of art today?”

  “Most certainly,” he said in that arch, fussy, faux-British manner of his. “I’ve never tried to express my feelings for birds in terms of the visual arts, but I’m game to give it a go!”

  Pip pip.

  Standing a few bodies away from Albert was Gayle Cone, from Table 186. She was wearing a chic little sundress over her bathing suit, carried a Prada bag instead of the Princess Charming totes we were all toting, and had substituted her diamonds and emeralds for ivory, her idea of the perfect, island-y accessory, I presumed, the animal rights activists be damned.

  “Kenneth and I have a Baldwin,” she gushed to Jackie and me, while Pat chatted with Albert.

  “So? My mother and father have a Steinway,” Jackie countered.

  “No, no. I wasn’t talking about a piano, darling. I was talking about an oil painting. By Ginger Smith Baldwin. We bought it last year at a gallery in Soho.” Gayle shook her head at Jackie, as if she couldn’t believe someone could be so hopelessly out of touch. “And now I’m actually signed up for her series of art safaris! Can you stand it? My friends in New Jersey will be green, absolutely green!”

  “What about Kenneth?” I asked, not seeing him anywhere. “Isn’t he going over to the island today?”

  “Oh, he’s already there,” she explained. “We operate on entirely different schedules, Kenneth and I. I suppose that’s why we’ve been together so long. He stays awake until all hours of the night and then gets up and goes gallivanting at the shriek of dawn. I tell you, the man never sleeps, whereas I’m out like a light by nine-thirty or ten.” She paused, pulling us closer, drawing us into her confidence. “I’ve been taking melatonin,” she whispered. “I know it’s an unregulated hormone and I’ll probably grow a beard or something, but it makes me sleep like a dead woman. Kenneth could tap dance on the ceiling and I wouldn’t move a muscle.”

  A dead woman, I shuddered, reminded once again of the dreaded phone call. At least Gayle didn’t have to worry about the hit man, since she wasn’t an ex-wife. She and Kenneth had been married just once: to each other.

  “Anyhow,” she said, “Kenneth’s probably out there snorkeling or scuba diving—don’t ask me which is which—or baking on the beach. We’re going to meet for lunch. After my art class with Ginger.”

  Speaking of Ginger, a striking woman bearing a name tag that read Ginger Smith Baldwin appeared. She was dressed in sandals, cut-off blue jeans, and a tie-dyed T-shirt. Wavy reddish-brown hair flowed down her back. Long, triangular-shaped, silver-and-turquoise earrings hung from her earlobes. And she had eyes as blue as Sam’s and dimples that framed her friendly smile. She was both attractive and approachable, nothing like the brittle artiste I had envisioned when Gayle had spoken of her.

  She introduced herself to the small group that had huddled around her and asked for their tickets, verifying that they had each paid for the series of art lessons.

  “Ticket?” she asked me.

  “No. Sorry. I’m not signed up,” I said. “I can’t even draw a stick figure.” Maybe because I’d always thought I looked like one.

  Ginger was understanding. “Art isn’t about perfection,” she said with a throaty laugh. “It’s about expressing yourself, putting your emotional response to a scene on a canvas or sheet of drawing paper. When I work, I let the picture tell me what
I should be doing. Sometimes I put people in my paintings—stick figures, even—and sometimes I end up scrubbing them out. I really believe that art is a matter of addition and subtraction. You have to bring in the groceries before you can take out the garbage, you know?”

  No, I didn’t know. But I liked Ginger Smith Baldwin immediately and thought: Why couldn’t I have had an art teacher like this woman when I was in school, instead of the boring old fart I was stuck with?

  I wondered if Ginger had a PR agent and whether she’d consider becoming a client of Pearson & Strulley. I made a mental note to write her one of my famous “pitch” letters when I got back to New York. I was sure I could book her on the weekend edition of the “Today” show, at the very least.

  The tender ride to Isle de Swan took about five minutes. When the barge-like ferry arrived at the island’s little dock, a battalion of Haitians helped the two hundred of us off the boat and pointed us in the direction of the beaches. That’s what Isle de Swan was, it turned out: a maze of beaches, some rocky and windswept and more suitable for painting or reading than swimming or sailing; others wide and sandy and heavily populated with lounge chairs, sunbathers, and waiters carrying trays of rum drinks. There was also a cluster of boutiques in the center of the island, sort of a Caribbean version of a mall. Each shop sold essentially the same merchandise—native crafts such as wooden voodoo masks, brightly colored ceramic pieces, and anything in batik.

  Ginger’s group went to the northernmost beach on the island, a rugged promontory that overlooked both the sea and another smaller island known as Bird Heaven. Albert was in heaven when he caught his first glimpse of a roseate spoonbill.

  Jackie and I waved goodbye to Pat, Albert, Gayle, and the others, and went off to a beach called Jewel Cove, where you could rent Hobie Cats and wind surfing equipment and snorkeling gear—Jackie’s idea of heaven. I plunked myself down in a lounge chair, under the shade of a large palm tree, while she went in search of the person in charge of the water sports concession. It was about eleven o’clock by then. Almost time for another meal.

  I squelched my hunger pangs, stretched out with my paperback spy novel, and scanned, first the beach, then the water, for Sam. I didn’t see him. Instead, I spotted that hot new twosome, Henry and Ingrid, diving in and out of the sea like dolphins, and Skip Jamison, standing ankle-deep in the water in his tight black bikini and having a mind-body experience with his table mates, Donna and Tori. I also saw Dorothy Thayer, who had brought along some of the croissants that were served at breakfast and was tearing them into little pieces and feeding them to both the seagulls and her husband, Lloyd. And then there was Lenny Lubin, out there in the water, right smack in the middle of all the swimmers, climbing repeatedly onto a wind surfing board and then slipping off again. Poor guy. His wind surfing was as pathetic as his karaoke singing.

  As I watched Lenny make a fool of himself, I remembered that when Sam and I were about to leave the disco the night before, Lenny was about to leave too: to go back to his room and change out of his tuxedo, he’d told us. It dawned on me that it could have been Lenny who’d made the phone call to the ex-husband who wanted his former wife dead. He had the opportunity, as they say on those cop shows. But then so did Skip. So did hundreds of other men on the ship, for all I knew. Even Henry, who could easily have left Ingrid for a quick trip to his cabin to “take his pills,” could have had the opportunity. And what about Albert who, while we were all riding over to the island on the tender, happened to mention that he had turned in early the night before, at about nine-fifteen, to be exact? He didn’t fit my image of a hit man, but what experience did I have with hit men?

  Jackie came back to tell me that all the water sports equipment had already been rented, so she was going swimming.

  “You’re still pretty weak, don’t forget,” I cautioned.

  “Elaine,” she growled. “I didn’t come all the way down here from the frigid Northeast to just look at the water, ya know?”

  She went down to the sea, dove in, and swam for close to a half an hour. When she reappeared at our chairs, she looked absolutely worn out.

  “Was it really necessary to be Esther Williams today?” I said. “You don’t look so hot.”

  “To tell you the truth, I don’t feel so hot,” she admitted, then qualified the statement. “Actually, I do feel hot. I think I’ve got a temperature.”

  I reached over and felt her forehead. She was definitely feverish.

  “That’s it. We’re going back to the ship,” I said, packing up my tote bag.

  “Shit,” she moaned. “I really needed this vacation, Elaine. You don’t know how much.”

  Her lower lip quivered.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Nothing. I hate whining,” she said, trying to shrug off whatever was bothering her.

  “You won’t be whining if you tell me. You’ll just be telling me.”

  She smiled weakly. “It’s just the whole thing with Peter,” she said. “The way he’s been pressuring me about the nursery. What really gets me is that he wants to make the place his little kingdom and yet he’s hardly ever there now. I swear, he’s turned into this fucking little yuppie who dresses up in a bow tie and suspenders and drives his Beemer into the city for meetings.”

  “Meetings? Who with?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t have a clue. We barely talk anymore. Maybe he’s seeing plastic surgeons about getting his dick enlarged.”

  I laughed. “Even when you’re sick, you’re sick, Jackie.”

  I patted her hand. Her skin felt hot and clammy, even though she was shivering.

  “You know, I hate to cut you off if you’re up to talking, but maybe Henry Prichard isn’t the only one who should be on antibiotics,” I suggested. “The ship’s doctor could start you on something, and you’d be feeling better in twenty-four hours. Then you could really enjoy the vacation.”

  “All right, already. I hear ya,” she said. “I’ll go to the damn doctor.” She started to get up, but was so dizzy she fell back into the chair.

  “Tell you what,” I said, concerned about her. “Let me find Pat, tell her what we’re doing, and then we’ll go straight to the doctor, okay?”

  “You’ll miss the beach barbecue,” Jackie said.

  “I’ll live,” I said, hoping I would. Hoping all three of us would.

  I trudged over to the beach where the members of Ginger’s art group were busily interpreting the scene before them; some using colored pencils, others paintbrushes. Albert, I noticed, was doing a rendering of the stork that he had spotted through his binoculars over on Bird Heaven. The drawing looked exactly like one of my stick figures.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” I told everybody, then knelt down where Pat was seated. Her creation was more abstract than Albert’s; it was a series of blue lines and pink squiggles, and it reminded me of Lucy Kovecky’s pictures that were always magnetized to the door of the family refrigerator.

  I told Pat that Jackie had a fever and that I was taking her back to the ship, to the doctor on board.

  “I should come with you,” she said, putting down her pencils.

  “I think I can handle this one alone,” I said. “You stay here and create.”

  She giggled, then whispered, “Albert says I have the makings of a real Renault.”

  “Renoir,” I corrected her. “Renault’s a car.”

  “I guess he didn’t realize,” she said. “If I didn’t know better, Elaine, I would think he’s becoming rather attached to me. Imagine.”

  “Imagine,” I smiled.

  “Unfortunately, the person I want to become attached to me is Bill,” she sighed. “But in the meantime, Albert’s a nice companion. We’re going hiking together after our art class. Unless, of course, you want me to help with Jackie?”

  “I may not be anyone’s idea of Florence Nightingale, but I can at least get Jackie back to the ship,” I assured her. “Have fun.”

  “I will.”

 
; I walked Jackie back to the tender and helped her on board. We had to wait fifteen minutes in the hot sun while the cruise staff loaded more passengers onto the boat. When we finally shoved off, we were a full house.

  So much for Isle de Swan, I thought as we motored away from the island. I hoped things would go better in San Juan, our next stop, where, at the very least, I’d be reunited with my suitcase.

  We were several hundred feet away from the Princess Charming when another tender was being launched, taking an additional two hundred people over to Isle de Swan, just in time for lunch.

  “Hey!” someone called out from the other boat as it was passing ours.

  I turned to find the voice and there was Sam, standing against the railing and waving at us.

  “Where’re you headed?” he yelled, looking disappointed that we were going in opposite directions.

  “Jackie’s not feeling well so we’re going to the doctor,” I called out to him.

  “Can’t hear you!” he shouted.

  “Jackie’s not…” I stopped when I realized that between the diesels of the two tenders, the steel drums, and all the people noise, he’d never be able to hear me. “See you at dinner,” I yelled, waving goodbye, heavy with a sense of missed opportunities. I’d always thought the expression about two ships passing in the night was a bunch of romantic crap, but at that precise moment it really resonated. “Goodbye!” I called out again, draping myself over the railing. “Until tonight!”

  “Oh, brother,” Jackie muttered, shaking her head at me. “So I was right about you and this guy.”

  I lowered my head and nodded, like a guilty kid.

  “You’re completely shitfaced over him, is that it?” she asked, incredulous.

  “I think so, Jackie,” I confessed. “God help me, I think so.”

  11

  I had expected the ship’s infirmary to be a modest little affair, reminiscent of the one at my summer camp—a white room, smelling of rubbing alcohol and furnished with a couple of rickety chairs, a scale, tongue depressors, and adhesive tape. But the Princess Charming’s infirmary was more like the Mayo Clinic—a big-city, state-of-the-art hospital complete with examining rooms and operating rooms and a full-fledged pharmacy.