Princess Charming

by Jane Heller

“He’s very thorough, I’ll tell you that. He asked me a million questions—whether I’d eaten any bad shellfish, been bitten by a deer tick, come in contact with any poisonous—”

  “Poisonous what?” I interrupted. Could Jackie have been poisoned? Did Henry Prichard plop something into her drink the other night when she wasn’t looking? Was he the man on the phone and she the ex-wife he’d been hired to kill? I was off and running again.

  “Poisonous substances,” she continued. “I told him I work at a nursery, where we’ve got the occasional bag of toxic chemicals. As I said, Dr. Johansson’s very thorough.”

  “I’m glad,” I said, pulling myself back to reality.

  “And you know what?” she said. “He’s a sports fan.”

  “Jackie, how on earth do you know that?”

  “Because when he got through asking me a million questions, I asked him a few. Like where he was from, how he came to be a ship’s doctor, the basics. He’s Finnish, born and raised in Helsinki, did his medical training in London, was divorced about ten years ago, and decided to take the job with Sea Swan Cruises when a buddy of his, a doctor who used to work for the cruise line, retired.”

  I laughed. “Sounds like Dr. Johansson wasn’t the only one doing the examining. You even managed to find out he likes baseball?”

  “Not baseball, Elaine. He’s from Finland, for Christ’s sake. He skis.”

  “Well, I’m delighted that you and Dr. Johansson both ski,” I said. “That’ll give you something to talk about while he’s lifting your hospital gown and pressing that ice-cold stethoscope to your chest.”

  She smiled.

  “He did ask me not to stay long,” I remembered. “I should probably get going.”

  Jackie nodded glumly. “I can’t believe this happened on our vacation.”

  “I know,” I said, taking her hand and patting it. “But there will be other vacations, other trips together. We can go where we want to go, do what we want to do.”

  “Mamas and the Papas. Nineteen-sixty-something. Peter liked that song.”

  “Bully for Peter.” Could Peter have hired Henry Prichard to murder Jackie? I wondered. So she wouldn’t be able to stand in the way of his plans for the nursery?

  I had to stop this. I was driving myself crazy. It was probably some other woman whose ex-husband wanted her dead. I made up my mind that the very instant I got to San Juan—well, the very instant after I retrieved my lost luggage in San Juan—I would contact the authorities there, tell them the story, and hope that they would be more inclined to take action than Captain Solberg had been.

  “The important thing is for you to get well,” I told Jackie.

  “I guess so. Just think of me every now and then, when you and Pat are out there partying.”

  “I don’t think Pat’s going to be doing any partying,” I said, then reported on our friend’s travails on Isle de Swan. “At least, not tonight.”

  “Poor Pat,” she said. “Send her my love, okay?”

  “I will. I’m sure she’ll come to visit you in the morning. She just has to be off her feet for the next few hours.”

  Jackie smiled.

  “What?” I asked.

  “With Pat and me out of commission, that’s two less single women at the dinner table tonight. Which means you’ll have Sam all to yourself, girl. Go for it.”

  Kingsley helped me get Pat into her stateroom, onto her bed, after Dr. Johansson had taped her ankle, cleaned and bandaged her cuts and scrapes, given her a healthy dose of Valium, and sent her on her way. I handed Kingsley my last five-dollar bill and sent him on his way.

  “How’re you feeling now?” I asked Pat when we were alone.

  “A little woozy,” she said, sufficiently woozy that the soreness in her chin no longer restricted her speech.

  “Good. Why don’t I help you undress, tuck you in, and let you sleep the pain away?”

  She looked up at me, her eyes slightly crossed from the medication. Then she reached out her left hand and combed my hair away from my face, just like my mother did when I was little.

  “I love you, Elaine,” she said.

  “I love you too, Pat,” I said as I tried, first to get her T-shirt over her head, then to pull her shorts over her bad ankle. “Let me know if I’m hurting you, okay?”

  “I love you, Elaine,” she said again.

  “I love you too, Pat,” I said again and went ahead and undressed her. She was so out of it from the Valium that she told me she loved me several more times. “I know, Pat. I know,” I said each time.

  “No, you don’t,” she said dreamily as I helped her under the covers. “I never have the nerve to say what’s in my heart. Have always been too shy. But you have been a wonderful friend to me, Elaine, a wonderful friend. You’re so sophisticated and smart about everything, so pretty too. I wanted to tell you. I admire you as well as love you.”

  A lump the size of a meatball formed in my throat. I was thoroughly touched by Pat’s declaration, Valium or no Valium. I leaned down and kissed her cheek.

  “I didn’t tell Bill I loved him for the longest time,” she sighed, her eyelids fluttering and then closing shut.

  “I’m sure he sensed it,” I said softly as I turned off the lamp by her bed.

  “I love Bill,” she said and drifted off.

  “I know,” I said and closed the door behind me.

  It was six o’clock by the time I got back to my stateroom—only a half-hour until dinner. I thought about trying to call Harold at the office but figured he’d be on his way home by then. I also thought about calling Leah, to find out how my clients were faring with their various legal problems, but decided my time would be better spent showering, dressing, and primping for Sam.

  I hurriedly washed and blow-dried my hair, applied my makeup, and put on what I hoped would be the last of my Perky Princess purchases: a too-short white skirt and a peach-colored knit sweater emblazoned with two gold palm trees, one across each breast. Very tasteful. As it was Caribbean Night in the dining room and we were all told to dress in West Indian garb, I assumed my outfit wouldn’t be any tackier than anybody else’s.

  Feeling naked without Jackie and Pat beside me, I walked into the enormous dining room, toward Table 186, my heart pounding as I scanned the table for Sam. Typically, he had not arrived yet.

  “Hello, everybody,” I said, taking the empty chair next to Kenneth Cone, who was dressed in white slacks and a lively, multicolored shirt, his brown hair slicked back in the current Eurotrash fashion, his complexion now a deep bronze.

  “Elaine,” he said, eyeing my palm trees. “Jackie and Pat coming?”

  “No. Now they’re both not feeling well,” I explained. “Jackie’s virus has landed her in the infirmary and Pat took a tumble over on the island today and sprained her ankle. She’s resting in her room.”

  “What rotten luck,” Gayle said in a tone that did not ring out with sincerity. She was wearing a pert little pink-and-green suit, more Palm Beach than Caribbean. Her jewelry this evening was sterling silver.

  “Yes, it certainly is,” Dorothy agreed. “None of us wants to have medical problems when we’re away from home.”

  “What’s that, Dorothy?” asked Lloyd. He and his wife were dressed in identical outfits: Isle de Swan T-shirts and blue jeans. Dorothy’s jeans fit her perfectly. Lloyd’s rode up so high the waistband was just under his armpits.

  Dorothy turned to him and repeated what I’d said about Jackie and Pat, what Gayle had said about Jackie and Pat, and what she had said about Jackie and Pat.

  “Tell them to get well soon,” Lloyd bellowed in my direction. It was the first nice thing he’d said in three days.

  “From us too,” said Brianna, elbowing Rick, who grunted a less-than-heartfelt: “Yeah, right.” Brianna wore a T-shirt that read Caribbean queen. Rick’s T-shirt said jerk pork. I couldn’t have described him better.

  Sam ambled along eventually, and apologized for being late as he always did. He was wear
ing the khaki slacks from the first night, along with a bright blue shirt that perfectly matched his eyes. He had gotten quite a sunburn on the island, I noticed, and the redness of his nose and cheeks made him look younger, like a little boy.

  “Forget the sunscreen today?” I teased.

  “’Fraid so. I got off to such a late start that I had to rush to make the tender. I ended up forgetting the sunscreen and missing the chance to spend the afternoon with you. Why’d you go back to the ship so early?”

  I related the whole, sorry saga.

  “Can we get in to see Jackie after dinner?” he asked, seeming genuinely concerned about both her and Pat.

  I shook my head. “The visiting hours at the hospital are over at six. We can see her in the morning though. After our run?”

  “It’s a date.” Sam reached under the table and gave my hand an affectionate squeeze. My cheeks flamed the color of his.

  Just then, Ismet showed up to recite the specials. His personal recommendation was the Caribbean lobster with white rice and pigeon peas.

  Rick leaned over and said to Brianna, loud enough for all of us to hear him, “Did Ishmael just say they were making us eat pigeon piss? For all the money I’m spending on this honeymoon?”

  “Pigeon peas are a staple of the Caribbean, sir,” Ismet said, remaining polite in the face of Rick’s persistent boorishness. “They’re not very different from the peas you have in America.”

  “I hate peas,” Rick grumbled. “Carrots too.”

  “Then have the lobster without the vegetable, honeybun,” Brianna suggested delicately. It seemed that she was back where Rick thought she belonged: in the role of June Cleaver.

  “Yeah, that’s what I’ll do,” Rick told the waiter. “Bring me a lobster and some French fries, okay, Ishmael?” Ismet nodded while he noted the order on his little pad. “And don’t forget the ketchup for the fries and some tartar sauce for the lobster, huh?”

  Sam squeezed my hand again, as if to say, “What planet did this guy come from?” I squeezed his back, as if to say, “I don’t have a clue, but I don’t care because I’m with you.” I was so smitten, it was sickening.

  During dinner, while we all went one-on-one with our lobsters, sending fragments of meat flying and empty shells clattering, Sam chatted with Dorothy and I talked to Kenneth and Gayle—or tried to. The Cones and I had little in common, really. In addition to the fact that they were married and wealthy and I was single and a working girl, I didn’t have an historic, architecturally important, 6,000-square-foot house I was redoing, had never heard of their interior designer, despite Gayle’s insistence that his work was published in “A.D.” several times a year, and was not even remotely interested in the challenge of preserving a building’s integrity while tweaking it to the max with items from the Sharper Image catalog. At one point, Gayle went on and on about the house’s dentil moldings, and all I could think of were teeth and scalings and many, many shots of novocaine.

  Eventually, I gave up on Gayle, or vice versa, and attempted to draw Kenneth out, hoping he’d make conversation between chomps on his cigar. What I learned from him right away was that his marriage was a success because he and Gayle each understood their function and never strayed from it: his was to work; hers was to spend. He told me that he had been a stockbroker for several years at one of the big firms—Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, I can’t remember which—and had done so well that he’d decided to set up his own investment business, first with a partner, then by himself.

  “You don’t mind working alone now?” I asked, knowing it would be a tough transition for me to go from a huge organization like Pearson & Strulley to an office of my own.

  “No, I’m not much for the corporate Christmas party and all that,” he said. “It’s the trading I enjoy. I’m happiest when I’m buying and selling, watching the market, playing the game.”

  Some game, I thought, remembering the crash of ’87.

  “And of course, I’m happy making Gayle happy,” he added, nodding at his wife, who was daintily trying to keep the peas and rice from sliding off her fork as the food made its way to her mouth. “She’s a little high-maintenance but you’ve gotta love her.”

  No, buddy, you do, I said to myself, imagining the bills Gayle piled up every month.

  “Do the two of you have children?” I asked, as neither Gayle nor Kenneth had mentioned any.

  Kenneth shook his head. “We’ve got three Shih Tzus.” He pulled a photograph of the dogs out of his wallet and handed it to me. I nodded and said, “Awww, they’re adorable,” the way you’re supposed to when you’re handed a photograph of small dogs or small children. “Gayle was very eager for them, so I went along with it,” Kenneth explained as he put the picture back in the wallet. “They’re show dogs. Not inexpensive, obviously.”

  “Obviously.”

  “But at least I don’t have to send them all to Ivy League colleges,” Kenneth chuckled.

  “That is a savings,” I agreed.

  “Anyway, they’re Gayle’s prize puppies. When she’s happy, I’m happy.”

  I looked over at Gayle, at her jewels and her clothes and her perfectly coiffed red hair, and thought what a sucker Kenneth was. He worked his ass off so he could keep his wife in money and dogs? What did he get out of the deal? Not sex, judging by Gayle’s description earlier in the day of their very different sleeping habits. And not respect; she barely paid any attention to the man. Then what? I wondered. Was it the trophy thing? Was her high-maintenance image a shimmering testament to his canniness about the stock market? To his abilities as a provider? To his masculinity? Who could tell with men?

  I turned to study Sam, while Kenneth finished his lobster. I tried to imagine him and his fiancée—Jillian—in a lopsided relationship like Kenneth and Gayle’s and couldn’t. Sam was deeper than all that glitz and glitter, more down to earth. Never mind what Jackie had said the other night about men not having an essence. Sam Peck had an essence. I was sure of it.

  After dinner, everyone coupled off, which, of course, left Sam and me to each other.

  “So? What’s your pleasure?” he asked as we stood outside the dining room, a violinist serenading us.

  “What are my options?” I asked. It was only eight-thirty. Too early to turn in.

  Sam took the schedule of evening activities out of his pants pocket, unfolded it, and read it to me. “Well, there’s the show. Tonight’s lineup is a fifteen-piece big band orchestra, a Glenn Miller type of thing.”

  “What else is there?” I asked. I’d heard enough renditions of “In the Mood” to last me a lifetime.

  “There’s Pajama Bingorama, where the best set of PJs wins five hundred dollars’ worth of merchandise from the boutiques at Isle de Swan.”

  “I don’t consider that an option. Go on.”

  “There’s a demonstration by a couple of martial arts experts, a lecture on duty-free shopping in San Juan, and a Ping-Pong tournament.”

  “None of those jump out at me.”

  “Of course, there’s always a moonlit walk on the Promenade Deck.”

  “You wouldn’t be bored? I mean, since we did that last night?”

  “You’re not boring, Slim. Trust me.”

  “I never trust people who say—”

  “Let’s go,” said Sam as he grabbed my hand and led me upstairs to the Promenade Deck.

  It was a magnificent night—moonlit, starry, warm, fragrant. As the Princess Charming headed south to Puerto Rico, the sea was a gentle roll beneath us, a magic carpet ride taking us deeper into the Caribbean. Sam and I strolled the deck, his arm at my elbow, until we reached the stern of the ship, where we stopped, in the identical spot we’d occupied the previous night, and grabbed hold of the railing. We each looked down at the tremendous wake below us and didn’t speak for several minutes, entranced by the sounds and swirls the water was churning up.

  “It’s easy to forget how high up we are,” I said finally, glancing at Sam. The breeze was making
his loose-fitting blue shirt billow out like a sail.

  “Fourteen stories high, according to the brochure,” he said. “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”

  “Not with the same intensity that you’re afraid of airplanes,” I teased.

  Sam didn’t smile or even respond right away. He just directed his attention back to the sea, almost as if I hadn’t made the remark at all. Maybe he doesn’t like to joke about his fear of flying, I thought. Or maybe he doesn’t like me. As much as I’d hoped, anyway.

  His expression had definitely turned serious, his body language tense. I wondered what was going on in his mind as he watched the waves lap against the side of the ship.

  “Anything wrong?” I asked, trying to figure out what had changed Sam’s mood. He’d been lighthearted and affectionate only moments before.

  He shook his head but continued to stare at the ocean, rigid, fixed, only moving his index finger occasionally to push his eyeglasses back toward the bridge of his nose.

  Fine. So he doesn’t want to talk all of a sudden, I thought, assuming Sam’s silence was just some Iron-John, man-communing-with-nature thing.

  Then Captain Solberg’s voice boomed over the PA system and brought Sam out of his funk.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” said Svein. “Dis is da nine o’clock veather report and update of our current position. Da temperature is eighty-two degrees, da sky is clear—perfect for all of you who are interested in viewing da stars. Ve are traveling south at about tventy knots and expect to reach da pier in San Juan at our scheduled arrival time: von o’clock tomorrow afternoon. I vish you all a safe and happy good night.”

  “‘Safe’ is right,” I muttered, reminded of the hit man and his poor prey.

  “What did you say?” Sam asked. “Something about safe?”

  “It wasn’t important,” I said. “Just that I feel safe with you. Even fourteen stories high.”

  He smiled at me, his gloominess receding.

  “Slim?” he asked.

  “Uh-huh?” I said.

  “Would you mind if I kissed you? I thought I’d ask this time, given last night’s experience at the elevator.” His tone was teasing, carefree again. I was relieved. Whatever had been bothering him wasn’t me, apparently.