“The ship will be rolling slightly in the sea. Enjoy the departure from wonderful Copenhagen.” The captain’s voice crackled through the in-room channel broadcasting into their suite. He followed this public announcement with a navigation and weather update interspersed with points of interest about their next port of call.
Hallelujah, hardly winded after the Panoramic Copenhagen with Less Walking tour (she and Polly preferred to ride the tour bus), looked at the leftover foreign currency on the bedspread. “How many Danish Krone to the dollar again?”
Alexander stepped into the suite from the balcony and flashed a wide grin. He was good with numbers. Ask him any question about a currency or an economic principle, and he was your man. When it came to demystifying the wonder of women, in particular the wonder that was Hallelujah, not so much.
“Now, there’s where I shine. If the rate is 50 DKK, that’s about seven dollars.”
“I hate math.”
“You can’t hate math. Math makes sense. It is supremely logical. You probably just don’t understand it.”
“Exactly. That’s why I hate it. And I don’t want to understand it. I got a D in geometry in the fifth grade. I don’t need math to do what I do.”
“Math is fascinating.”
“If you say so. How many more miles until we get to Visby?”
“Two hundred and eighty nautical miles. To convert to statute miles, multiply nautical miles by 1.15.”
Knowing that fact seemed to make Alexander ecstatic. TMI. But whatever floats your boat, or rather, ship. She picked up the ship’s daily newsletter and read about the city that was called “Gotland’s jewel in the crown” and “the city of ruins and roses.” She liked roses, but ruins not so much.
Funny, she’d never even heard of Visby. It was apparently somewhere in Sweden. She read the description: “The island of Gotland is considered by many to be one of Northern Europe’s most lovely. A mere fifty-five miles from the Swedish mainland, Gotland is richly forested, dotted with medieval towers, and blessed with a climate that is the envy of its neighbors.” Not exactly a tourist haven. More like a home for Viking detritus. And she was sure there would be saunas. Just what she needed to see, another sauna. The Scandinavians were crazy about them. It seemed that every home had one. Roasting in saunas was apparently a family sport.
“What kind of money do we need in Sweden?”
“The Swedish Krona (SEK),” said Alexander. “And remember, we’re sailing into a new time zone tonight, so we need to set our clocks and watches an hour forward.”
“Is there anything you don’t know?”
“I know everything we need to know,” answered Alexander, placing a firm grip on Hallelujah’s hand. “Now let’s explore the ship.”
“Aren’t you afraid someone will see us?”
“That’s the beauty of my plan. No one knows we’re here.”
“You said you were being followed. Could you be mistaken?”
“No. I’m not imagining it. I don’t have much of an imagination. The hedge fund business is pretty cut-and-dried. ‘What’s up?’ ”
“What do you mean, ‘What’s up?’ ”
“It’s a joke. Come on. ‘What’s up?’ ”
“Okay, ‘What’s up?’ ”
“The stock market.”
Hallelujah stared blankly at Alexander.
“Just a bit of hedge fund humor.”
Hallelujah didn’t find the joke the least bit funny. Apparently it appealed to his German sense of humor.
A stampede rushed past the corridor and stomped onto the stairs outside their cabin.
Alexander turned toward the door. “What was that? It sounded like a bunch of banshees.”
“It’s Ivan the Terrible, his brother Vlad the Impaler, and his other brother Vlad,” Hallelujah announced. She’d already given names to the horde of unruly children.
“Does the whole family live in the next cabin?”
“I think it’s two families, cousins and aunts and uncles, and they’re taking up the two rooms on either side of us. But the parents are nowhere to be seen. They’re letting their kids run wild.”
“Do you think they’re the ones who rang our bell in the middle of the night?”
“My guess is yes.” Hallelujah squeezed his hand. “Let’s go up to Palm Cove and have afternoon tea.”
Hallelujah and Alex took the elevator to the top deck, where a jazz band was playing. The server hovered nearby, waiting to take their order as the ship slowly pulled out of the harbor of Denmark’s capital, largest city, and largest port. The union mark, the Danish royal coat of arms, was flying, its blue background with three gold crowns clear against a burnished sky. It was a beautiful evening.
A sultry singer in a silky chartreuse knee-length dress and black heels sang and swayed as the jazz band played “I’ve Got Rhythm,” “True Love,” and “Witchcraft,” followed by “I Love Her.” This was the kind of music Hallelujah enjoyed and that her father had taught her to dance to.
She studied the menu and gave her order to the server. “I’ll have the verbena mint organic tea.”
Alexander ordered a light beer.
Birds glided across the sun-kissed sea, which sparkled like diamonds. Like the diamonds Alexander was storing in their stateroom.
“Do you want to dance?” Alexander asked.
Hallelujah nodded, and they took to the floor.
They were playing “Till,” one of her favorite songs by The Vogues. “You are my reason to live…” she sang to herself, and hugged Alexander tighter. There was something about that song. It was over-the-top romantic. And the boy had moves. He was smooth, like Parker. When the song was almost over, she whispered against his cheek, “You’re a good partner.”
Alexander flushed. Most girls considered him dull as dirt, a less than exciting companion, not worth a second look.
“You’ll have to thank my mother for that. Mom taught me to dance before I came over here, in case I got an opportunity to dance with a beautiful woman in Berlin.”
Hallelujah’s face colored at the compliment. He thought she was beautiful. She hadn’t heard that for a long time. The more discouraged she was about her own life, the more emotion she poured into her scripts, which was why Parker and Polly sizzled on the small screen. She was beginning to feel something for Alexander, but she didn’t quite trust it. It was too soon after her own debacle of a marriage. Maybe she was jumping back into the frying pan prematurely. A good way to get burned, again. Every time she thought about Lloyd and his betrayal, she seethed. Why hadn’t she seen it coming? Was she so involved with Parker and Polly that she couldn’t see the forest for the trees? Had she let Lloyd get away? Was she somehow responsible for their breakup? Maybe she wasn’t enough to satisfy her own husband. Or was Lloyd just a shallow horndog?
Alexander whirled her around the dance floor. “Why did your parents name you Hallelujah?”
Still moving in his arms, she answered, “Aside from the obvious fact that my father is a rabbi, he told me once that every life in the Holocaust comes back in the spirit of another human being. There was a picture of a little girl in a Holocaust Museum he had visited in Europe that haunted him long after he’d left the continent. Her name was Hallelujah. He named me for her. Perhaps I’m her sister spirit, the sister of her soul.”
“That’s a lovely thought.”
“Also, my parents didn’t think they could have children, so when I finally came along, I was their miracle. The name just seemed to fit.”
Alexander danced them back to their seats by the picture window, where a plate of scones, both plain and raisin, was waiting, along with clotted cream and a mixture of fruit. Hallelujah steeped her teabag and stirred in two packages of brown sugar crystals.
“I don’t know how we’ll ever figure out who we should return those diamonds to,” Alexander said before he bit into his scone.
Hallelujah had been mulling over the matter ever since Alexander had told her about find
ing the cache of gems in his house during the remodeling project.
“Mr. Hedge Fund Manager, did you ever think to track down the person who paid for the stumble stones in honor of the Hirschfeld family? Follow the money trail?”
Alexander placed his scone on the dessert plate in front of him. “That’s a great idea. Why didn’t I think of that? We’ll do that as soon as we get back to the room, if the Internet connection is working.”
Hallelujah’s eyes followed the dips and swells of the waves, whitecap spray under a darkening sky. Totally relaxed in her wing chair, she swayed to the tug and pull of the ship as it sliced across the sea. From her seat in the lounge, she observed the sea traffic and the glitter of lights from other ships. The scene had a magical, romantic quality. Alexander had a speck of clotted cream on his upper lip that she wanted to lick off or wipe away, but it seemed too forward.
She knew next to nothing about the man, except that he was devilishly handsome, if not a tad bit proper and still hurting from Sigrid’s betrayal. He was nothing like Lloyd. But she wanted to know more. Something about him spoke to her. Something magnetic. She was falling for a man she hardly knew.
“Tell me something about yourself that most people don’t know,” Hallelujah posed.
“Let me see,” began Alexander. “When I was growing up, I wanted to be in a band.”
“Did you have a particular musical talent?”
“No, but I remembered that story about the orchestra that played on the deck of the Titanic as it went down.”
Hallelujah laughed. “You have a strange sense of humor bringing that up while we’re in the middle of the Baltic.” But she secretly considered him brave to want to distract the passengers on the doomed ship.
Alexander reached for Hallelujah’s hand to help her out of her chair. The spark sizzled like an electric connection.
“Let’s go back to the room and get ready for dinner. I know how much you like Italian food. I can’t take you to Italy, but we’re going to eat in the Italian specialty restaurant.”
Hallelujah was up for that. Her love affair with pasta had begun when she studied abroad in Florence, Italy, during her senior year in college. Since then, she’d been in search of the perfect dish of pasta. An eternal optimist, she hoped she would find it tonight. Most restaurants were extreme disappointments. Cooks in the U.S. weren’t great at al dente and were heavy handed with the cream sauce. She and Polly preferred linguine and white clam sauce or spaghetti aglio e olio. Polly was molta cosmopolitana.
Was she also looking for the perfect man? She’d been disappointed before. Could this be the start of a love affair?
Alexander continued to hold her hand as they waited for the elevator that would take them to their suite. He’d insisted on holding hands and stealing kisses when they were in public to give credence to the idea that they were a real couple. And even though she was playing a role, she melted at his drugging kisses and wanted more.
The “hordes” rushed by them down the staircase, making a ruckus as they went and breaking into her reverie.
“I hope they wear themselves out so they don’t disturb us tonight,” Alexander commented as he opened the door to their suite.
“What’s tonight?” Hallelujah asked.
“You’ll see,” he said, smiling broadly.
With Alexander you always knew where you stood. He was an open book, not good at hiding his emotions.
It was hard to maneuver in their ridiculously ship-sized bathroom, which she knew was larger than most, since it was reserved for honeymooners. At least there were two sinks. After her failed marriage, Hallelujah had discovered she liked having her own space.
She couldn’t remember the last time she had applied makeup or undressed in front of someone who wasn’t Lloyd. Now, alone in the room with Alexander, she was self-conscious.
When she’d first entered the suite, the first thing she noticed was the bed, which played a starring role in the room. Luckily, it was huge, but it was also round, and there was a mirror above it. Where did Alexander think he was going to bunk? What did he have in mind? It turned out he was going to bunk with her, but he kept pretty much to his side of the circular bed. Lloyd, like Parker, was a bed hog.
She should have seen the train wreck that was Lloyd coming. But she’d had faith in Lloyd’s fidelity—or maybe she didn’t care enough after she found out. Someone had to be blamed for the breakup, and she preferred to blame Lloyd, although that hussy Liv could have instigated it. Even their names sounded right together. Liv and Lloyd. Liv’s foot was the perfect fit to Prince Lloyd’s glass slipper. Did he call her by a pet name—Livvie or Livia—or better yet, her whole name, Olivia? No, that took too much time, and Lloyd was always in a hurry.
Alexander looked over at Hallelujah while he shaved. “I never asked what you do for a living.”
“I write for a soap opera.”
“As the Wind Blows?”
“Ha. Ha. It’s actually As the Planet Spins.”
“No, seriously, I like soap operas. My grandmother used to watch a show, and she got me hooked. I think it was called The Old and the Infirm.”
“Laugh all you want. Our show has some of the highest ratings in Berlin. I’m surprised you never heard of it.”
“No, really, I didn’t mean to make light of it. It sounds like interesting work. But I don’t have time to watch soap operas.”
Hallelujah nodded her agreement as she finished applying her makeup.
“It must be confusing to write for all those characters—keeping them all straight.”
“No, actually I only write dialogue for the two central characters, Parker and Polly Winthrop. I know them intimately. I know what they’re thinking before they do. As a matter of fact, whenever I’m in an awkward social situation and at a loss for words, I crawl inside my characters’ heads and imagine what Polly would say.”
Hallelujah could write Parker and Polly out of any situation, but somehow she hadn’t been able to write a happy ending to her own disastrous marriage. Parker and Polly had been through a lot—marriages, remarriages to themselves and others, affairs, pregnancies, comas, and kidnappings, and they always ended up back together. When push came to shove, after the failure of her own marriage, Hallelujah did the most unimaginative thing she could. She bolted. And now she was running for her life.
What if Parker and Polly were being chased by unknown killers? How would they handle it?
Hallelujah tapped her chin and studied her reflection in the mirror. They’d probably do what Alexander had done. Hop aboard a luxury cruise ship and sail away. It was epic Parker and Polly.
Alexander interrupted her reverie. “And after dinner, we’re going to be married in the ship’s chapel.”
Hallelujah spun around, nearly knocking Alexander into the shower stall. He grabbed hold of the white curtains and the towel bar and caught himself in time.
“What did you say?”
“Weren’t you listening? I said we’re going to get married.”
“Married?” she sputtered.
“I told you that was the plan,” Alexander said. “The ship is registered in Moldavia. Therefore, the captain can marry us without a license in international waters.”
“Is that legal?”
“It is.”
Hallelujah placed her hand on Alexander’s arm and breathed in his scent. “You know this isn’t for real, don’t you?”
He shrugged. “It’s going to happen, unless the ship gets boarded by pirates.”
Hallelujah expelled a breath. Alexander was very sure of himself. “Polly got kidnapped by pirates once. Then the twin sister no one knew she had took her place, and it took Parker quite a number of episodes to discover he was sleeping with the wrong sister. Not so uncommon in the soaps.”
Alexander smiled.
“Are you making fun of me again?”
“No, actually, I’m intrigued and turned on. My life is pretty boring. Money, stocks, bonds, ups, downs. This is t
he most fun I’ve had in ages.”
“Since Sigrid, you mean?”
“I don’t want to talk about her.”
“Speaking of aging, I remember when Polly’s daughter, Vanessa, was six years old. She went away to boarding school in Switzerland and when she came back to her hometown of Milano, she was a hormonal teenager. It’s what we call Rapid Aging Syndrome in the business.”
“Have Parker and Polly ever gotten married aboard a ship?”
“Not since I’ve been writing them, but I’m going to incorporate that story line into the script. Art imitates life.”
“Well, I’ve arranged our wedding with the Master Captain and the ship’s event coordinator. We’re even going to have live ceremony music and decorations, including a monogrammed aisle runner and a bridal bouquet. And a cake. Oh, and they’re going to decorate our cabin. And we get a bottle of champagne and two keepsake flutes.”
“Nice,” murmured Hallelujah as she hurried out of the bathroom. Was this really happening?
“They threw in a photographer.”
Hallelujah turned around slowly and nodded. “Mmm.”
“There was a sleek modern black-and-white option, a tea party-inspired option, a beachy option, and a traditional white wedding option,” Alexander rambled. “I chose the traditional because I thought you were a traditional kind of girl.”
“I like traditional.”
“And sure, I know it’s not for real,” Alexander conceded. “So, no commitment. That’s the catch. Any marriages performed by the captain are valid for the duration of the voyage only.”
“That’s good, since we hardly know each other.”
“Of course, we could follow up and have a legal ceremony when we get home.” Alexander hesitated, adding, “If we want to.”
Hallelujah’s raised an eyebrow, signaling that he was pushing it. She took a deep breath and filled herself with air…and hope.
Was Alexander potential husband material? Could he squash bugs and scoop hair out of the drain? Could he fix a leaky faucet? Was he callous or cuddly? Could he be counted on? It might be interesting to find out. Parker was the type of man to sweep a woman off her feet, not the type to sweep up in the kitchen. Alexander seemed to be taking a page from Parker’s book. And she was taking a page from Polly’s book.
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