by Dawn Steele
I am outside the third deck or thereabouts, polishing a peculiarly resistant piece of smudge which has gotten on one porthole, when a shadow obstructs my light.
“Hi,” says a female voice.
I turn. “Hi.”
She is a brightly dressed teenager. Flouncing blonde hair, nice teeth, freckles and she is wearing a pair of those colorful Adidas sneakers with the rainbow laces. Her tank top is neon pink and her tight cut-off pants are a bright blue. Talk about color overkill.
Teenagers are a rarity on a cruise ship filled with senior denizens, and I have been besieged by two who recognize me already.
“You are Kurt Taylor,” she says breathlessly. “I read about you. Can I have your autograph?”
She is carrying nothing but an iPod Mini which is hooked on her belt. It is connected to her ears by a pair of headphones.
“Sure, but you don’t have something I can autograph.”
“Oh, I do.” She smiles and peels down the neckline of her halter top. Her pert little breasts jut out.
I get a good look at her cleavage.
“Uh, you want me to sign where?”
“Here, right here.” She points at the swell of her breasts. Then she giggles ecstatically. “I want someone to take a picture of you signing my tits. I can’t want to Tweet it.”
Oh gawd.
“I don’t have a pen,” I say, stalling.
“That’s OK. I’ll ask this nice lady here. Hey, lady!” The teen turns to a fifty-something-year-old woman who is jogging on the deck. “Do you have a pen so that Kurt Taylor here can sign my tits?”
I wish the deck would open up a hole to bury me.
The lady stops. Her expression is severe. She appears very fit in her track suit and she is barely winded.
“How old are you, young lady?” she says imperiously. Then she favors me with a glare reserved for pedophiles and pederasts. “And just what do you think you are doing, young man?”
Before I can reply, the clack of heels on the deck comes closer. Rebecca Hall approaches us, a funny look on her face that is more apparent when she loom up. It is as though she has eaten something bad from the buffet at breakfast and she is trying to hold in her runs.
Fuck.
There is nowhere for me to run.
Or is there? There is always the ocean. I’m a good swimmer. I can swim to shore. I think.
“Good morning,” Rebecca says pleasantly. Her voice comes out funny too – kind of half-strangled. She nods at the lady jogger and the teenager. “Good morning.”
Huh? She directed at least one ‘Good morning’ to me? She hasn’t said ‘Good morning’ to me in years. Decades. Eons.
Rebecca turns to me again and goes on in that strangled voice of hers, “Uh, may I speak with you?”
“Hey, lady.” The teenager pouts. “I was asking him to autograph my tits. Get in line.”
Before Rebecca can turn a funny mottled color, I quickly say, “I wasn’t going to autograph your tits. I really wasn’t.”
Talk about being between a rock and a hard place. I am surrounded by three females, all in varying states of agitation. And their angst seems to be directed at me.
“I could report you,” threatens the jogger. “I know who you are. You are that rocker who molested that bunch of sailors.”
Huh?
Even the teenager’s eyes go round with that?
“I did?” I say, perplexed.
“You did?” the teenager says, equally perplexed.
Rebecca’s mouth is a funny twist of half-contained mirth and apoplexy. (I suspect she gets a blood clot just looking at me.)
“Kurt Taylor,” she says, “you are wanted at the Captain’s office.”
“I am?”
What did I do this time?
“Come with me,” Rebecca says in a firm tone that brooks no discussion.
I don’t really want to go anywhere with Rebecca Hall. I suspect she will arrange a convenient ‘accident’ for me sometime between here and the Captain’s office. But I find myself picking up my cleaning kit anyway and tailing after. The teenager whips out her cellphone and takes a picture of our retreating backs. Great, that photo will be all over the Internet by sundown.
I wonder what the Captain wants with me. And why he sent Rebecca to fetch me, of all people. I still haven’t fingered what Rebecca’s job on this ship is. Cruise director? At her age? Tour guide? People terrorizer?
As we walk briskly away – she surging ahead, me trailing with my cleaning paraphernalia – I can’t help admiring the way her red curls tumble behind her back, caught by the wind. I am reminded of that redhead in the SoHo club that I fucked.
No.
Mustn’t think of Rebecca and fucking in the same sentence.
Once we are out of sight from the jogger and the teenager, Rebecca whirls on me.
“Let’s get one thing straight. The Captain is making me do this,” she says.
“Huh?”
I am brought up short. I almost bump into her. Luckily, I manage to put the brakes on myself in time. Wouldn’t do to have any body contact with Rebecca Hall.
She twists her mouth into a funny but cute thin line. “I mean . . . dinner tonight.”
“What dinner tonight?”
So far, I have been having all my dinners by myself. It’s too awkward to mix with the rest of the crew. Too many questions. So I have been packing my meals and eating them by myself in my cabin.
She stands there awkwardly, and then decides to fold her arms, kind of like a barrier between us.
“I mean . . . I’m supposed to invite you to dinner tonight.”
“With the Captain?”
She rolls her eyes exasperatedly. “No, silly. With me.”
I am thunderstruck.
“Why would you want to have dinner with me?” I ask. And then I correct myself. “Why would I want to have dinner with you?”
She scrunches up her face and lifts her chin. “Well, don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to have dinner with you either. But – ”
She pauses.
“But?” I inquire.
“The Captain thought I should apologize to you.” This came out as if I were pulling teeth from her.
“Apologize?” I raise my eyebrows. “You?”
She clenches her teeth.
“Look, don’t make this harder on both of us than it really is. I apologize, OK?”
“For what?”
A couple passes us. The woman turns to stare at me.
Uh oh. I don’t want to be recognized again. Rebecca realizes this and jerks her hand towards the shade. She doesn’t touch me as we troop there. I know I must have cooties to her or something, but I’ll admit I don’t have the same avoidance reaction to her touching me.
I should have, but I don’t.
She turns on me again. Her face is flushed from all the exertion.
“I apologize for throwing water all over you. It was wrong of me, OK?”
“Yes, it was.”
“You don’t have to rub it in.”
“Splash it in would be the more appropriate word.”
She bridles. Her nostrils flare. She is quite magnificent when she is angry.
“So is my apology accepted?”
“For throwing water all over me? Yes.”
“Good. Then we don’t have to have dinner together.”
“I didn’t say that.”
She is astonished. “You want to have dinner with me?”
“I want you to apologize for treating me like the dog’s dinner all those years ago.”
Her vivid green eyes flash. “Never!”
“Then I retract my acceptance of your apology.”
She looks desperate. “Look, the Captain wants us to make up, or he is going to tell my manager at the retirement home that I did what I did to you, and that will be a black mark against me.”
“Fine.” It’s my turn to fold my arms. “Then you apologize for what you said to me all those years ago
.”
The vein on her temple starts to bulge.
“No,” she splutters, and then seems to swallow her words.
“Dinner tonight at the Clarion,” I press on. “You can apologize then. Be there at seven thirty sharp.”
I pick up my cleaning kit, shoot her a glare, and walk off. I can feel the heat of Rebecca’s stare burn into my back.
REBECCA
The last person I want to have dinner with is Kurt Taylor.
But I have to.
I have to because it’s the right thing to do. I promised the Captain I would make things right with Kurt, and I always keep my promises.
Whatever possessed me to promise the Captain something like that? What on Earth made me say the words? It wasn’t the unspoken threat of him telling my superiors that I screwed up in my quest to be a psychologist specializing in the elderly. It certainly wasn’t the Captain’s smoldering grey eyes. I have resisted men far more attractive than he.
Believe me, I have.
So why am I dressing up for my forced dinner with Kurt Taylor?
I gaze at my reflection in the mirror. I am still in my cabin, wondering if I should layer on a red bead necklace above my green dress, which brings out the color of my eyes. My hair is impeccably swept up in a chignon, and my ears are decked with sparkly turquoise drops.
Why am I doing this?
My cabin mate, Natasha, comes out of our bathroom. She is clad in a bath towel and her black hair is wet.
“Woah,” she says, taking a step back in surprise.
Natasha is a bathroom hogger. She spends an inordinate amount of time doing anything bathroom related, or maybe she’s just doing it to piss me off. Natasha is a tour guide, though she has nothing more to do onboard than make sure all her charges are fed and put to bed. Her real work begins in the Bahamas, so it seems.
“You dress up good,” she says admiringly. “Hot date tonight?”
“Not really.”
“Come on, dish. We’re roomies. Roomies know everything about each other.” She sprawls herself down on her bunk and picks up the nail clipper. She proceeds to clip off her fingernails. I hate it when she does that because her nail clippings get under my feet and embedded into my skin.
“Natasha, how many times have I told you not to do that?” I grab the wastebasket from a corner of the little cabin and plunk it beside the bed.
“Tosh,” she says. “So now tell me, who are you going out with?” She gives me a sly grin. “Don’t tell me it’s that hunky captain. Is that why he called you his office? To ask you out?”
Gad. Does everyone on this ship know about that?
“No, it’s not the Captain.” And it’s none of anyone’s business, I want to tell her. But I’m too polite to.
The night is young, however. There’s plenty of time for me to explode.
The ship lurches a little, and we can feel the deck move beneath our feet.
“Woah,” Natasha says. ‘Woah’ seems to be her favorite word. “There’s a storm coming. A big one too. You better not go out on the sun deck.”
“Thanks, Mom.” I return to the vanity table mirror to check my look. I don’t intend to go anywhere near the two sun decks tonight. I am going to be ensconced in the Clarion, which is the best restaurant in the entire ship. And I’m going to be paying that pretty penny for dinner.
I hope I’ll get seasick and throw up all over Kurt Taylor’s plate. That is . . . assuming he actually shows up.
What if he doesn’t show up?
He just might pull off a stunt like that, you know. Get me all riled up and apologetic and then conveniently not show up. That is just the sort of thing he would do.
Damn him.
“Anyway, I hear you had a tangle with another hot guy,” Natasha says, curling her toes. She throws herself back on the bed, wet hair and all. Ewww, I wonder how people can do that.
“Who?”
“Kurt Taylor.” She giggles. “Isn’t it exciting that he’s on this ship with us? I’ve seen him, and I can well imagine him out of those overalls. So I hear you have some sort of history with him. Come on, girlfriend, spill.”
Girlfriend? I hardly have known her for three days and she’s already calling me ‘girlfriend’?
“He’s just someone I knew in school,” I say shortly.
“Really? Was he as gorgeous in school as he is today?”
I’m ready to go and dispense with all this gossipy chit-chat. I know Natasha. Her eyes are bright and eager and she’s squirming in her bed, all juiced up. If I tell her anything, she would only spread it around like wildfire and it will be the talk of this cruise ship by dawn tomorrow.
“He was OK. I have to go now. Bye.”
I purposefully make a show of walking out of the door.
“Tell me everything when you get back!” she calls after me gleefully.
As if.
*
I arrive at the Clarion at seven thirty sharp. Now let’s see Kurt Taylor show up.
The Clarion is a posh restaurant – all gleaming cherry wood and polished timbers and swaying ornate brass lamps. Or at least, the lamps are swaying because the ship is being buffered by waves higher than normal. I don’t know how high they are – I don’t intend to go out on deck to see them.
There are not many diners here tonight. Maybe the shaky floorboards are putting them off. But then, the Clarion is a reservation only sort of place with a dinner jacket required for the men. Needless to say, you are not allowed to wear swimsuits and flip flops into it.
The maître‘d comes forward.
“And do you have a reservation, Miss?”
“I do. For two. Under Ms. Hall.”
He thumbs his reservation book. “Ah yes, table for two. Step this way, please, Ms. Hall.”
“Is my dining companion here yet?”
“I’m afraid not, Ms. Hall.”
Figures. He really might stand me up.
I lift my chin and follow the maître‘d to the table he had reserved for us. It’s situated in a quiet little corner, away from the main thoroughfare. The table is lit with a single candle and decked with a vase of fresh flowers. Gleaming silver cutlery is laid on neatly folded white napkins.
The maître‘d draws my chair and fusses over me as I sit down.
“Would you care for some drinks while waiting for your companion, Ms. Hall?”
Why not? It might be a long wait. I’ll give Kurt Taylor thirty minutes. If he doesn’t show up, I’m out of here.
“Yes. Can I see the menu, please?”
“Certainly.”
The maître‘d goes off. A waiter arrives with the drinks menu and I take my time perusing it. Now, what shall I drink to drown my sorrows?
“Are you ready to order, Ms.?” the waiter says.
“Yes. Give me a margarita, please.”
“Very well.” He walks off, and the entire restaurant quivers again, causing my empty wine glass to slide an inch to the right. No wonder not many people are dining tonight. Many of them are bound to be throwing up in their cabin toilets.
I lean back. I consider letting my hair down and relaxing. I take out my cellphone to note if I have any missed calls. Naturally, I don’t encourage anyone to call me when I’m out here at sea, seeing as the costs would be astronomical. I consider starting a round of ‘Plants vs Zombies’, when a presence at my table registers itself.
“I’m here. Bet you thought I wouldn’t show up, right?”
Kurt Taylor seats himself without being invited. My jaw drops, and I quickly shut it again. He is resplendent in a white dinner jacket and a black bow tie. His pants are black. I never knew he would look so good. Wait. I remember him at our prom. He looked good enough to eat too, especially when he was crowned prom king.
His auburn hair is neatly combed but left to trail in a tousled mane all across his broad shoulders. It is certainly a lot longer than I remembered it. I seem to be remembering a lot of how it used to be between the three of us – Kurt, Adel
ine and myself.
The rage bubbles within me again and my fingers curl around the stem of my wine glass. A few diners from the other tables around us turn to glance at Kurt Taylor in admiring recognition. He soaks all this in.
The waiter comes to our table again, smiling.
“Would you like to have the menu now?” he says.
“Yes, please,” Kurt replies. “And bring me your wine menu as well. What’s the most expensive wine you have on the house?”
Uh oh. I can sense where this is going.
“That would be the Chateau Haut Brion Pessac-Lognan, sir. From Bordeaux, sir.”
“What year is it?”
“1982,” the waiter replies without missing a beat.
I’ll bet he thinks Kurt Taylor is going to pay for it and that this is a normal date.
Argggh!!
“Bring a bottle of it,” Kurt says with a wave.
Yeah, I’ll bet he’s used to doing this a lot too. Money would be nothing to him now, and I’m still scrounging along in my beat-up Ford and my shared apartment. I glance at my menu. The particular red he named is $600 a bottle!
As the waiter leaves, Kurt slyly glances at me.
“You’re buying, aren’t you?” he says. “That was the deal.”
I grit my teeth. “Yes,” I hiss.
“Good.” His fingers dance over the menu. When the waiter returns, he says, “I’ve made up my mind what I want for dinner tonight.”
I cringe. How much of my monthly paycheck is this going to cost me? This is the Captain’s fault. He doesn’t know Kurt Taylor the way I do. Kurt Taylor is selfish, self-absorbed and vainglorious. He thinks the world revolves around him.
Kurt announces, “For starters, I would like the lobster bisque with foie gras on the side.”
Figures. He orders two starters – both the most expensive on the menu.
“For the entrée, give me the Wagyu tenderloin, medium rare, with potatoes gratin and creamed spinach on the side.”
I glance at the price and my heart sinks. I don’t even know where Wagyu beef is from, but it sounds expensive.
“And throw in a tub of your Beluga caviar,” Kurt adds. He looks at my drained face and says, grinning, “I’m hungry tonight.”