by Jane Heller
“I will if the lady isn’t me,” I said and headed back to the ship.
14
“Where’ve you been?” Sam asked when I finally showed up at Pat’s stateroom a half-hour after we’d agreed to meet there.
“Unpacking,” I lied. “Now that I have all my clothes, I can’t believe how much stuff I crammed into that suitcase. Next time I’m traveling light.”
“How do you like Pat’s wheels?” Sam asked proudly, nodding at the wheelchair he had arranged to have brought to her cabin.
I regarded Pat seated on her special chair, her injured ankle wrapped and elevated on one of the foot rests. She was wearing a batik dress, which she had bought at Isle de Swan, and several native bracelets, also courtesy of one of the boutiques there. Her wild, frizzy blond hair protruded from beneath a wide-brimmed straw hat, yet another island purchase. Despite her bruises, she looked comfortable, relaxed, a seasoned, albeit slightly disabled, traveler.
“You remind me of a queen on a throne in that chair,” I told her.
“I feel a little like royalty,” she admitted with a giggle. “First the chair. Then the flowers.”
“Flowers?” I asked.
She pointed to the enormous, utterly ostentatious arrangement on the dresser. I couldn’t imagine how I’d missed it when I’d first entered the room. I glanced at Sam.
“Not me,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m chivalrous, but not that chivalrous.”
“They’re from Albert,” Pat explained. “Dear Albert. They arrived after I’d called to tell him I wasn’t coming along on today’s art safari.”
“How thoughtful,” I said. “And subtle.”
“Albert is very solicitory,” Pat said.
“Solicitous,” I corrected her.
“There was a lovely card that accompanied the flowers,” she added. “‘A get-well gift for a courageous lady,’ it read.”
“If I were you, Pat, I’d beware of geeks bearing gifts,” I said.
Sam laughed. He had met Albert.
“I’m not kidding,” I said. “Let’s not forget that he may have pushed you down those stairs yesterday.”
“Pushed her down the stairs?” Sam asked, then turned to Pat. “Is that what happened?”
“I don’t remember exactly what happened,” she said. “It’s all so fuzzy now. There was a great crush of people.”
“You see?” I said. “It could have been Albert.”
“Elaine,” Pat sighed. “No one is plotting to hurt me, least of all Albert.”
“Look, Pat. Just do me a favor,” I said. “Don’t spend a lot of time alone with him, okay?” Within the span of only twenty-four hours, I had pinned the label of “hit man” on Skip, Henry, Lenny, and Albert. I was becoming obsessed.
“Well, I won’t be alone with him today,” Pat replied. “When I told him I wasn’t taking the art safari, he said he wasn’t either. Instead, he’s taking the excursion to El Yunque.”
“El Whatie?” I asked.
“El Yunque is a 28,000-acre park, about a twenty-five-mile drive from here,” said Sam. “It’s the only tropical rain forest in the U.S. National Forest System and it’s got 250 different species of trees, lots of hiking trails, and a bird sanctuary. Albert’s probably going to see the parrots. They’re a big attraction.”
I turned to Sam. “You really are an expert on this cruise for someone who never took one before. Maybe you should be a travel agent instead of an insurance agent.”
“It’s all in the brochure,” he reminded me. “The one you never deign to read. Which reminds me.” He checked his watch. “Weren’t we going sightseeing this afternoon?”
I glanced at Pat. “Should we place our fate in this man’s hands and let him take us sightseeing?” I asked her.
“Yes, let’s,” she said enthusiastically.
Sam released the brakes on her wheels, pushed the chair gently through the cabin door, and off we went.
We decided to confine our sightseeing to Old San Juan, the charming, old-world section of the city that was close to the port where all the cruise ships docked. With its narrow, winding streets and huge crowds of tourists, wheeling Pat around was an adventure, but we were able to get to most of the monuments and historical sites without a problem. For example, we visited Casa de los Contrafuertes (aka the House of the Flying Buttresses), a building dating back to the early 1700s that currently housed a fascinating recreation of a nineteenth-century apothecary. We toured Casa Blanca, the house that was built in 1521 for Ponce de Leon before he went off to Florida in search of the “Fountain of Youth.” And we stopped at the San Juan Cathedral, the sixteenth-century edifice in which de Leon’s remains are ensconced in a marble tomb. I had been enjoying myself immensely until the “remains” thing forced me to refocus on the murder plot, this time with myself as the victim. It was a natural segue: Eric was in the remains business.
“Let’s check out the shops,” I suggested breezily, trying to jolly myself out of my morbid thoughts.
Sam and Pat agreed, so we wandered over to Fortaleza Street, Old San Juan’s version of Worth Avenue. The street was jam-packed with shops, most of which sold jewelry at “rock bottom” prices to gullible cruise ship passengers. We went inside one of them, a shop with the no-nonsense name of The Jewelry Store, where Pat bought a gold pin in the shape of a dog for Lucy, whose tenth birthday was Friday. I bought Lucy a birthday present too—a gold locket in the shape of a heart. (My feelings for Sam had turned me into a romantic sap, not to mention impacted on my taste in jewelry.) As we were paying for the merchandise, I spotted Lenny Lubin at another counter, trying on dozens of gold chains. He had so many of them draped across his chest, he looked like an overly tinseled Christmas tree.
We all exchanged hellos.
“Well, what do ya know. If it isn’t the insurance agent and the three lovelies—minus one,” he said. “And what happened to this lovely?”
“I took a little tumble yesterday at Isle de Swan,” Pat explained.
“So you hurt that swell-looking gam of yours, huh?” he said, eyeing Pat’s elevated leg.
“It’s not so painful when I’m in the wheelchair,” she reassured him. “Besides, I have a wonderful driver.” She looked appreciatively at Sam. So did I.
“And what’s with the other one?” Lenny asked.
“The other leg feels fine, thank you,” Pat said.
“No, the other lovely,” Lenny said. “How long’s she gonna be in the hospital?”
“How did you know Jackie was in the hospital?” I said quickly. I knew I hadn’t told Lenny. I didn’t think Pat had either.
Lenny shrugged his shoulders, which caused his chains to rise and fall. “Somebody on the ship musta said something to me about it. I got wind of it, that’s all.”
Or maybe you’ve been spying on Jackie, on all three of us, I thought, recalling the morning I’d caught Lenny lurking outside our staterooms, drunk and, supposedly, spent from his torrid night with the doll face.
“You know how people talk on cruises,” Sam said to me, as a way of explaining how Lenny had probably heard about Jackie’s hospitalization. “There’s not much else to do on a ship but gossip. And eat.”
“Yes, I’d like to,” Pat said, entering the discussion.
“Like to what?” I asked.
“Eat,” she said. “It’s way past lunchtime.”
“We could try that little café across the street,” I said. “Just for a quick snack, so we won’t spoil our appetite for dinner.”
Sam nodded. “Lenny? Do you want to join us?”
Lenny looked absolutely flabbergasted that he had actually been invited somewhere.
“Thanks but no thanks,” he said. “I’ve got thirteen more stores to hit.” Hit. There was that word again.
We had a light snack in a pretty little café on the second floor of an art gallery. The food was delicious—much better than the Princess Charming’s—and the company even better. Sam and I made goo-goo eyes at each other every time ther
e was a lull in the conversation, and Pat sat there beaming because I seemed so happy. The one negative occurred when Henry Prichard entered the restaurant, with Ingrid, and the only empty table was the one next to ours. I no longer suspected Henry of poisoning Jackie, but I still didn’t like the way he’d been so friendly to her at first and then forgotten all about her.
Then came an even bigger affront: he’d forgotten all about Pat and me too.
When Pat leaned over to say hello once he and Ingrid were seated, he smiled but didn’t acknowledge ever having met either of us.
“It was at the terminal in Miami,” she reminded him. “On Sunday, the day we boarded the ship.”
“Yes,” I said. “I was using one of the pay phones in the terminal and you were talking on the phone next to mine. We finished our calls at about the same time and struck up a conversation. Is it coming back to you now?”
“Oh, sure. Absolutely,” said Henry, flashing us a salesman’s smile. His teeth looked very white against his tanned skin. “The sun must have melted my brain or something. How are you enjoying the trip so far?”
It was a thoroughly impersonal remark, without a word about where’s Jackie or why is Pat in a wheelchair. It was almost as if the guy didn’t want to remember having had contact with us—or didn’t want to be seen having contact with us. Maybe he didn’t want there to be a link. Maybe the person he was on the phone with that day in the terminal was the same person he was on the phone with the other night on the ship: one of our ex-husbands.
“Nice to see you again,” Pat called out to him as we were leaving the café.
“Nice to see you too,” said Henry.
Yeah, I’ll bet, I thought.
We got back to the ship at about five o’clock, in time to visit Jackie, then shower and dress for dinner.
She was not alone when we got to her hospital room, nor was she receiving visitors at that precise moment. Dr. Johansson had the white curtain pulled around her bed and was, evidently, examining her. I laughed when I imagined them discussing the joys of downhill skiing while he felt her lymph nodes.
When he finished his examination, swept the curtain back, and waved us into the room, Jackie was sitting up in bed. The IV needle was still in her arm, but her color was much better and her eyes a lot clearer. Pat and I told her she was beginning to look like her old self again.
“Watch the ‘old,’ would ya?” she barked.
“You’re hardly old,” volunteered Dr. Johansson with an affectionate chuckle.
“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Sam offered. “Pretty soon, you’ll be back with your buddies.”
“Yeah, but it’s nice to know you’ve been filling in while I’m gone,” she said, giving me a knowing look. “Per says I’ll be out of here tomorrow, with any luck. I’m not supposed to get off the ship when we’re in Saint Croix though, right, Doc?”
Dr. Johansson shook his head. “You’ll be leaving da hospital to rest,” he cautioned her. “Not to sightsee. Den maybe vhen ve get to da Bahamas, you can do da normal things.”
“What’s on your schedule for tonight?” I asked Jackie. There were no televisions in the hospital rooms.
“I’ll be eating my first solid foods,” she said. “If you consider Jell-O and chicken broth solid. Then the nurse will probably come around and take another vial or two of my blood. And if I’m a really good girl, Per will visit and tell me more about this ship. He’s incredibly knowledgeable about what goes on around here.”
“What goes on around here?” I asked with particular interest.
“Yes, do tell,” Pat said.
“Well,” Jackie began, “since Per has worked on the Princess Charming for so long, he knows all kinds of Trivial Pursuit-type things.” Dr. Johansson smiled modestly. “Like: Did you know that the refrigeration department of the ship produces twenty tons of ice cubes a day?”
“No,” I said, disappointed that the doctor’s tidbits weren’t of a more gossipy—i.e. useful—nature.
“It’s true. And here’s another factoid that’ll knock you out,” said Jackie, pulling a sheet of paper off the small table next to her bed and reading what was written on it. “The kitchen staff prepares about 25,000 meals each week, which includes three sit-down meals, room-service items, and midnight buffets.”
“So cruises are a floating cafeteria,” I said.
Jackie ignored me and went right on reading. “They serve about 90,000 eggs, 40,000 pounds of beef, 25,000 pints of milk, 165,000 pieces of bread, 230,000 cups of coffee, and—get this—20,000 piña coladas!”
“Yeah, and I’ll bet Lenny Lubin will drink 19,000 of them,” I whispered to Sam.
“What’s more,” Jackie informed us, “the ship’s washing machines do about 290,000 pieces of linen—sheets, towels, pillow cases, tablecloths, napkins, etc. And that’s just on a typical, seven-day cruise.”
There’s nothing typical about this seven-day cruise, I wanted to tell Jackie and all the rest of them. Not by a long shot.
15
“So this is the real Elaine Zimmerman,” Sam mused, eyeing me, his mouth forming a sexy half-smile.
“No more Perky Princess gems,” I nodded triumphantly. As I had previously announced to Sam, now that my luggage was back in my possession, I was appearing for the first time on the Princess Charming in my own clothes: a sleeveless black sheath and a white, double-breasted blazer. He was wearing a navy blue jacket with brass buttons, a fresh pair of khaki slacks, a light blue shirt, and a blue-and-white striped tie. If I do say so myself, we were a handsome couple. A tall couple, anyway.
We were standing in front of the Crown Room, the lounge that had doubled as a Mustering Station the first day of the cruise. On this, our fourth night on the ship, the lounge was the setting for the Captain’s Cocktail Party, which, other than enabling the passengers to meet and shake hands with Captain Solberg, was just another ploy to get us to buy drinks. Sam and I had decided to put in a brief appearance before dinner; Pat was tired from her outing in Old San Juan and had planned to have dinner in her cabin.
“You look terrific,” said Sam, still assessing me. “So terrific I think I’ll—”
He didn’t finish his sentence. Instead, he grabbed me and kissed me. I did not resist.
I had been waiting all day to kiss him, and I couldn’t miss his eagerness to kiss me. There was almost a hunger about the way he reached for me, a yearning. Was it possible that, in spite of his attractiveness and the fact that men who traveled all the time were the leading practitioners of the one-night stand, he hadn’t been with a woman since Jillian? Had he somehow been holding out for me, just as I’d been waiting all my life for him?
“Sam. We’re making a spectacle of ourselves,” I laughed when we pulled apart after a long embrace.
“Can’t help it. This is the first chance I’ve had to be alone with you all day.” He held me at arm’s length, letting his eyes roam approvingly over my body, his face full of lust. I felt—God help me—transformed. Ever since Sam had begun to lavish his attention on me, I seemed to myself to be softer, less brittle, as if I’d had my rough edges planed, smoothed, evened. I actually walked differently when I was around him, stood up straighter, didn’t round my shoulders, smiled as I walked. Of course, part of the reason for the new and improved walk was that I felt less self-conscious about my height next to him. Sure, there were guys back in New York who were taller than Sam, but they all played for the Knicks.
“Listen, I want to thank you for being so nice to Pat today,” I said. “Jackie too.”
“It was easy. I like your friends,” he said, still holding me around the waist.
“I’m glad,” I said, thinking how important it was for the man in a woman’s life to like her friends. And vice versa.
“How about taking a quick swing around the room, shaking hands with the captain, and then going to dinner?” Sam suggested.
Before I could disagree with the “shaking hands with the captain” part, Sam had taken m
y hand and swept me into the Crown Room. There was a short receiving line to meet Captain Solberg and suddenly Sam and I were on it.
“We don’t want to actually meet the captain, do we?” I whispered. “I mean, do you stand in line to shake hands with the engineer of every train you take? Do I attend cocktail parties with the driver of the Hampton Jitney?” I didn’t want Sam to know that I had already met Captain Solberg. Then I’d have to explain why I’d met him, and I wasn’t prepared to do that. Not yet. Not until I was sure that Sam, unlike Pat and Jackie and Svein himself, wouldn’t think I was delusional.
“Oh, come on,” he coaxed. “It’ll be fun to put the face with the voice that booms over the PA system at nine o’clock every night.”
“But we’ve seen him on the Princess Charming Channel,” I protested.
“Yeah, but you’re in PR, Slim. You work with the media. You know people don’t look the same in person as they do on TV. It’ll be fun to see the guy up close and personal.”
I couldn’t talk Sam out of it. Before I knew it, he and I were next in line to shake the hand of Captain Solberg.
“Good evening. I hope you are enjoying da cruise. Thank you for sailing with Sea Svan,” the captain said mechanically after Sam introduced himself.
“I’m having a great time,” Sam said, moving me into the captain’s view. “And so is my friend, Elaine Zimmerman.”
“Ah, Mrs. Zimmerman,” said Captain Solberg, recognizing me right away. “You are feeling much better, I see. No more murderer chasing you around da ship?”
“Murderer?” Sam asked, looking startled.
“I think it’s the language barrier,” I said breezily to Sam. “I was introduced to Captain Solberg yesterday morning and happened to mention that it must be murder to run a ship of this size. Obviously, he misunderstood the colloquial use of the word.”
Sam bought it, but Captain Solberg regarded me exactly the way he had that morning in his office—as if he thought he was in the presence of a basket case. I knew in that single instant that I had just lost whatever credibility I might have had with him. In other words, if the time came when I really needed his help, I’d never get it.