Princess Charming

by Jane Heller

  I inhaled deeply. I was prepared for Sam to kiss me this time. “No. I wouldn’t mind at all,” I whispered.

  Sam drew his body next to mine. He tilted my chin up slightly, to place me in post position, and lowered his face. Lowered it. Lowered it. Lowered it. He was several inches taller than I was, but it seemed to take forever before his lips finally made contact with mine. And as his mouth made the excruciatingly slow descent onto my own, I kept wondering: Will his glasses get in the way of the kiss? Will my nose? Will he stick his tongue in my mouth? Do I let him? It had been so long since I’d kissed a man that I honestly couldn’t remember who was supposed to do what. In the end, though, it all came back to me.

  Sam’s lips were buttery soft, juicy, succulent. He must have thought mine were okay too, because we kissed each other out on that Promenade Deck, under the moon and the stars and the sky, for two solid hours! I had never imagined that kissing could be so exciting. But it was—beyond anything I’d ever done in my life. Sam and I clung to each other—noses, chins, mouths, lips, tongues, everything moving as if part of a perfectly choreographed dance.

  “Elaine,” he murmured, during a rare break in the action. The mere utterance of my name at that particular moment—he had his face in my hair, next to my right ear—sent me into an absolute fever, and in response I kissed him with a ferociousness of which I had never thought myself capable.

  “Yes,” I murmured back. “Oh, yes.”

  Now, lest I leave the impression that all we did was kiss, I must admit, for the record, that there was also a good deal of bodily groping, once our initial shyness wore off. We groped and fondled and pressed against each other with barely a thought of who might be watching or disapproving or getting a vicarious thrill.

  So this is why people think sex is such a big deal, I thought at one point—the very point, as it turned out, that Sam pulled away from me.

  “We’ve got a decision to make,” he said, his lips raw, his cheeks flushed with more than his sunburn.

  “What kind of a decision?” I asked breathlessly.

  “We can’t stay out here all night, Slim,” he said. “The question is: Do we want to keep this going, in one of our staterooms, or pace ourselves for the rest of the trip, give ourselves something to look forward to?”

  He’s asking me if I’m ready to sleep with him, I realized, thinking it was an excellent question. On one hand, I was no spring chicken and opportunities like this didn’t come along every day. On the other hand, we were only coming to the end of our third night of the cruise. Sam and I would have a few more days to get to know each other better. We could ease into a more serious sexual involvement, wait until we were sure it was what we both wanted, avoid doing something we might be sorry for later.

  Yes, I decided, gathering myself together—my hair, my sweater, my skirt, all of which were askew. We should hold off. Exercise self-control. Wait another day or so before plunging in, so to speak. This was the nineties, after all. People weren’t supposed to just fall into bed anymore.

  I kissed Sam on the cheek and said, “Let’s pace ourselves.”

  He nodded reluctantly but didn’t try to talk me out of my decision.

  He took my hand and we started walking back inside the ship.

  This is the right thing to do, I told myself as I tried to settle down. Sam’s not going anywhere; he’s stuck on this ship for four more days. It won’t kill him to wait a little longer. It won’t kill me either.

  Day Four: Wednesday, February 13

  13

  The first thing I did when I woke up that Wednesday morning was rush to the mirror and look at my face, at my mouth, in particular. I examined it, ran my fingers over my lips, tried to recreate the exquisite sensations that kissing Sam had triggered throughout my body, attempted to put the evening in some kind of perspective. The fact that I had gone through over forty years of life without ever knowing such pleasure saddened me enormously. To have missed out in such a major way, to have trudged through all those weeks and months and years without meeting a man I’d even felt like kissing the way I’d kissed Sam, was tragic. But now I had met such a man. I had discovered what all the fuss was about. I had finally caught up to the rest of the world. I was so happy I actually cried.

  I didn’t have a lot of time to cry, though, because I was supposed to meet Sam on the Promenade Deck in fifteen minutes for our four-mile run. Afterward, we were going to visit Jackie.

  I had called the hospital when I’d gotten back to my cabin the night before, to check on her, and the nurse on duty—not Nurse Wimple, thank God—had told me “the patient’s vitals” were improving; that Jackie was still running a fever but was resting comfortably; and that Dr. Johansson had been in to see her after dinner and seemed pleased with her progress.

  As for Pat, I knocked gently on her cabin door on my way to meet Sam at seven-thirty, but there was no answer. I guessed that she was still out cold from the Valium.

  I rushed to the elevator, realizing that I had completely forgotten to comb my hair, when I found Skip Jamison standing there.

  “You’re up early,” I remarked, as we were joined at the elevator by two elderly women in hair curlers.

  “Today’s my meeting with the folks at Crubanno Rum,” Skip explained. “As soon as we get to San Juan, I’ll be into my ad agency mode. Gotta get revved, gotta change my mindset, ya know?”

  “Sure,” I said, remembering that Crubanno was based in San Juan. “Will you be spending the entire time with the Crubanno executives, scouting locations for photo shoots?”

  “That’s the plan. No fun and games today. Not for moi.”

  “Just work work work.”

  “You got it. I guarantee I won’t be having anything close to the kind of fun you were having last night. Man, you and Mr. Albany were really going at it.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Hey, don’t be embarrassed. I really think it’s cool the way you give off that edgy Manhattan thing one minute and then turn it on full tilt when a guy gets you hot. You and Mr. Albany should videotape yourselves next time. Burn up the VCR, right?”

  It wasn’t just the familiar way Skip had spoken to me that upset me. Or even the fact that someone had seen Sam and me embracing. We hadn’t exactly been discreet. No, I was bothered that it was Skip who had seen us; that he always seemed to be wherever I was; that he was like my little shadow, showing up at the elevator, hanging out by the pool, lurking, forever lurking.

  “Listen, I’m happy for you, Elaine,” he said when the elevator arrived and we started to descend. “You’re doing just what you should be doing.”

  “What I should be doing?”

  “Yeah. You should be making the best of these last few days.”

  “Making the best…of these last few days?” I stammered as a thin line of perspiration formed above my upper lip.

  “Yeah, of the cruise. If I were you, I’d make them the best fucking days of my life.”

  The women in the hair curlers frowned at Skip’s crude language. I frowned too, but for a different reason. I’d been so wrapped up with Sam that I had actually forgotten about the hit man for a few hours. But now I wondered: Was Skip really an art director at a major advertising agency or was that just a cover? Could art directors at major advertising agencies be hit men too? Had Eric, that dopey, anal-retentive, tight-sphinctered ex-husband of mine, actually hired Skip to kill me?

  No, I told myself as I got off the elevator on the Promenade Deck. If Eric wanted to kill me, he would have done it years ago. Not only that, he would have done it himself, instead of hiring someone else to do it. Eric had trouble delegating, as the people who worked for him knew well. It was one of the very few things we had in common.

  I hurried to the spot where Sam and I had agreed to meet. He was there, waiting for me.

  “Good morning,” he said, immediately pulling me toward him and kissing me.

  God, here we go again, I thought as I felt my legs buckle. “We’re s
hameless,” I said between gasps for air. “Doing this in broad daylight.”

  “Want to stop?” Sam asked as he continued to kiss me.

  “No,” I said and locked my lips on his.

  The next time we took a breathing break, Sam commented on my uncombed hair.

  “It looks good that way,” he said. “Wild. Untamed.”

  “Oh, please. It looks exactly the way it always looks when I don’t have time to wash it, let alone comb it. It’s so much trouble to keep up I should send it out to be dry-cleaned.”

  Sam laughed and said, “Come here.”

  He drew me into yet another embrace. We went at it for a few minutes more when I finally pulled away.

  “Look, I’m as big a fan of all this kissing as you are,” I said, “but I’ve got a full day ahead. I’ve got to run four miles, call my office, visit Jackie in the hospital, see how Pat’s doing, go sightseeing in San Juan, find my lost luggage, stop at the police department—”

  “The police department? What for?”

  Damn. That had slipped out. I hadn’t planned to tell Sam about the murder plot. Not when I hadn’t even told my friends.

  “I meant, the post office, not the police department,” I said, tapping my forehead as if I’d simply mixed up my public servants. “I want to dash off some postcards. You know. Wish you were here, and all that?”

  “But you don’t have to go to the post office in San Juan. There’s one on the ship. Deck 5.”

  “Oh. Well, that’ll save some time right there. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Sam was about to kiss me again when I pulled away and asked, “Does all this ardor mean that you’ve decided I’m the ‘find’ of the century as opposed to a pain in the ass?”

  “It means that I’m coming closer to a decision,” he said.

  “When do you think you’ll know for sure?”

  “Soon.” He grabbed for me.

  Two can play coy, I said to myself as I evaded his grasp, waved goodbye, and darted onto the running track, leaving Sam in the dust.

  We did our four miles, had a quick breakfast, and then went down to the hospital to see Jackie—or rather, I went to see Jackie while Sam waited outside. We had decided that, given how sick she was, she might not be ready for visitors she hardly knew. She had only met Sam once, after all.

  When I got to her room, she was sitting up in bed, flipping through a copy of Better Homes & Gardens and muttering that she thought the pachysandra in one of the photographs looked wilted.

  “Something tells me you’re feeling better,” I smiled as I approached her bed and bent down to give her a hug.

  “Much,” she said. “Per really knows his stuff.”

  “Per?”

  “Dr. Johansson.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “So we’re on a first-name basis with our physician, are we?”

  “We are. He’s a great guy. We really hit it off last night.”

  “That’s right. The nurse mentioned that he had been in to see you.”

  “Yeah, he came by and we talked. It turns out, he’s an American citizen, since his ex-wife is American. He’s thinking of quitting the ship and setting up a medical practice in the States. He asked me where I was from and I gave him a real estate agent’s speech about Bedford—how good the schools are, how quaint the village is, how close to New York City it is without being on top of it. He asked me if I thought he would like Bedford. I said it probably wasn’t anything like Helsinki but it had its charms.”

  “There isn’t much skiing in Bedford,” I pointed out.

  “I know,” she said. “I told him that the only ski jumps in Westchester County are bad nose jobs. He thought that was hilarious.”

  I shook my head in amazement. “When I visited you yesterday, Dr. Johansson said you were very weak and that I shouldn’t tire you out. How come he spent so much time with you?”

  “He’s the doctor. I guess he thought it was okay. He’s got me on antibiotics, plus Tylenol for the fever, and I’m almost as good as new now.”

  “Jackie, that’s great,” I said, relieved. “Does he know what’s wrong with you?”

  “He said he thinks it’s a couple of things: a stomach virus and a middle-ear infection, brought on by the sinus infection I never took care of back home. I’m still pretty dehydrated and I have to be on intravenous fluids for another day or so. But I’m gonna be fine. Thanks to Per.”

  “When does Per think you can leave the hospital? Or does he want you to stay here indefinitely, so he can keep a closer eye on you?” I teased. I was delighted that Jackie had become friends with Dr. Johansson. I had liked him almost immediately.

  “Hopefully, I can get out of here in another thirty-six hours,” she replied. “Let’s see: that means I’ll miss San Juan today and Saint Croix tomorrow, but I’ll probably catch our last port of call. Nassau, isn’t it?”

  I nodded. “I’m sorry about all this,” I said. “You must feel so cheated.”

  “I thought I would, but right now I’m just happy to be feeling better,” she said cheerfully. “Now. Enough about me. Did you take my advice?”

  “About what?”

  “About Sam. I told you to have at him last night. Did you?”

  I laughed.

  “Is that a yes?” Jackie asked.

  “It’s a yes,” I conceded, “although a more accurate answer is that we had at each other.”

  Jackie’s eyes widened. “You mean you and Sam slept together?”

  “No. We came close, but we decided to wait,” I said, sounding like a horny but levelheaded teenager.

  “Wait for what, for Christ’s sake?” Jackie demanded. “Till your first issue of Modern Maturity comes in the mail?”

  “There’s still tomorrow or the next night,” I said.

  “Sure, but what about tonight?” she urged.

  She had a point.

  Pat was alert, conscious, still bruised and limping, but determined to carry on with the cruise. She said she intended to go with the other members of Ginger Smith Baldwin’s art safari when the ship docked in San Juan, even if she had to go by wheelchair.

  “I don’t want you to spend time alone with Albert,” I said, knowing he’d insist on being right by Pat’s side before and after the art class.

  “Why not? He’s been so attentive,” she said.

  “Let him be a little less attentive,” I suggested, picturing him pushing her off the pier in her wheelchair. “What if you skipped today’s art safari and went sightseeing with Sam Peck and me? I’d like you to get to know him better, Pat.”

  “Elaine,” she sighed. “Bill’s the only man for me. You know that.”

  I laughed. Pat could be so Gracie Allen sometimes. “No, dear. I’m the one who’s interested in Sam. I’d love it if you’d spend time with us. It would mean a lot to me. What do you say?”

  She took her customary eternity to render a decision, agreeing to spend the afternoon with us, only after she telephoned Albert and made her apologies.

  Fine, I thought. You talk to Albert while I go to the police station.

  The Princess Charming motored into the port of Puerto Rico’s capital city at one o’clock. I told Pat and Sam I’d meet them at Pat’s cabin at two, figuring I would then have an hour to try Harold again at the office, check with the Purser’s Office on my suitcase, and visit the local police.

  Harold was unavailable. No surprise there. The purser had actually located my suitcase and was having it delivered to my cabin within the hour. Big surprise there.

  Then came my adventure at the police station.

  It was a five-minute taxi ride from the pier—a right turn, a couple of traffic lights, and there I was.

  The first thing I did when I entered the station was to inform the officer on duty that I did not speak Spanish; that I was an American named Elaine Zimmerman; and that I was in trouble.

  “What kind of trouble?” asked the officer, a nice-looking, middle-aged man named Rona
ld Morales.

  “I’m a passenger on the Princess Charming,” I began, nodding in the direction of the marina where we had just docked.

  “Ju were robbed when ju got off the ship?” Officer Morales asked, grabbing a pad and pen and making a few notes.

  “No, nothing like that,” I said. “It happened on the ship. While we were at sea.”

  He looked relieved that I would not be running back to America complaining about the crime in Puerto Rico and putting a dent in the country’s tourist industry. “If ju were robbed on the ship, it’s not my jurisdiction,” he said. “Ju should talk to jour captain.”

  “I tried that,” I explained. “Why don’t I just tell you what happened and maybe you’ll change your mind about helping me.”

  Officer Morales shrugged, and so I told him about overhearing the fateful phone call.

  He smiled. “We hear a lot of stories about the passengers on those big cruise ships. They get a little bit crazy with the drinks, huh?”

  “Well, you’re always going to have your people who can hold their liquor and your people who can’t, if that’s what you mean,” I said. “But the call I overheard didn’t sound like a conversation between two partied-out drunks.”

  “I wasn’t talking about the men ju heard on the phone,” said the officer. “I was talking about ju.”

  “Me?”

  He shrugged again.

  “Look, I don’t drink,” I said defensively. “Well, except for the red wine. For my heart.”

  “Ju have a problem with the heart?” asked Officer Morales.

  “No, but I will if nobody takes my story seriously,” I said. “You don’t believe me about the hit man, do you?”

  “I didn’t say that. I only said there’s nothing that I can do for ju.” He paused, his expression softening slightly. “If the guy you’re so worried about murders the lady here in San Juan, then ju come back to the station, okay?”