The waitress brought us a third round of drinks, and I’d just taken my first sip when the cruise director came on stage. “Okay, so the next sign up we have is… Charlotte from Arizona, singing Material Girl, by Madonna.”
I looked around. There was another Charlotte from Arizona? What a strange coincidence.
Sam elbowed me and was smiling like a maniac. “That’s you,” she said.
“Me?” Sam had signed me up to sing. “I’m not standing up here and singing in front of everyone.”
“Go on. Do it!”
The cruise director called my name again. “Charlotte from Arizona? Are you still here?”
Sam leaned over to me and said, “If you do it, I’ll do something you tell me to do. No questions asked.”
Oh, that was too sweet to pass up. We’d been playing this game since middle school.
“Deal.” I took a giant sip of my drink and got off the barstool to go up. “I’m here!” I said, raising my hand.
All of a sudden I felt a little woozy and head-spinny. We were on a moving ship, I rationalized, as I climbed the steps to the stage. I whispered something to the person setting up the songs and then got up on the bright stage.
I stood there for a minute while the guy put on my requested song. Someone from the audience yelled, “Nice shirt!”
Looking down to see what I was wearing, I realized that it was the shirt I’d picked up off the floor of the cabin. It said, “Vegans like it rough (age)” with the picture of a woman getting spanked on the ass with a celery stick. Where the hell did Sam get this shirt?
A moment later, the song began. I’d never sung karaoke before and wasn’t sure where to look to get the lyrics. Honestly, I was such a bad singer and Madonna was not my key, but when I sang, “I made it through the wilderness…” the crowd went wild and I really started getting into it.
I don’t know if it was the drinks or the crowd, or being on this stage, but I lost all inhibition. I started dancing and singing to Like a Virgin, knowing that only Sam knew I really was a virgin. I even locked eyes with some hot guy in a UCLA cap as I sang, “touched for the very first time…” That was so unlike me.
Mr. UCLA was in the shadows, but I could still make out his features. It looked like he had a strong jawline and high cheekbones. His stare was intense, and an amused smile crept up his full lips. Honestly, the vibe between us drove me wild, and I wanted to sing for him. Everything else faded away, and I sang just for the sexy man in the back of the room.
The song ended, and I felt breathless and energized. What a rush! I was hot and sweaty and needed to cool down. Maybe I’d head outside for a bit. Check out the night sea.
I headed back to Sam, grabbed my drink, and said, “I’ll be right back. Need to get some fresh air for a minute.” I nodded my head to Kevin and asked her, “Will you be okay?”
“Yeah, I think he’ll be singing soon.”
“Okay, I’ll be back in a few. Text me if you need me.”
I made my way past Mr. UCLA and winked at him as I walked out of the bar.
Who are you, Charlie? What has gotten into you?
10
Dean: All Hands on Deck
What the hell did I just see?
I’d been sitting in the back of the bar, drinking one of Sergei’s famous martinis, delivered by the ever-discreet Crystal, and was watching some guy do a really bad rendition of Start Me Up. He was strutting around like a fat Mick Jagger and it was all very amusing.
The two martinis did the trick, and I was feeling loose and happy and not thinking about my problems at all.
Then, Elizabeth called this girl up on stage. Charlotte. From Arizona. All of a sudden I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.
She was short and had blonde hair and looked a bit like that American actress… what was her name? Dakota Fanning. At first, she looked petrified up there, but then someone made a comment about her shirt and she started singing and, my god, it was the cutest thing I’ve seen in years.
I had to smile. This tiny American woman was singing Like a Virgin, but she was so off-key that if Madonna heard the song, she would have pulled her off the stage.
The way she looked, with those jeans and her nipples poking through the fabric of her shirt… I started to feel firm in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. When she sang, it felt like she was singing directly to me. Touched for the very first time, indeed.
As she got off the stage and said something to her friend, I had to fight the urge to go over there and find out who she was. I was undercover and needed to stay that way. Captains aren’t allowed to mingle with passengers the way I wanted to mingle with her, and it was just as well that I leave her alone.
But then she walked past me and winked… I almost lost it. Thoughts of pinning her against the wall and crushing her with my mouth came to mind. It was crazy and almost impossible to resist.
What did Sergei put in this martini?
Figuring I’d better get back to my quarters, I threw some money on the table and pulled down my UCLA cap. The way things were going, I might need to take a cold shower before bed. I honestly hadn’t felt a connection like that in years.
Pushing the side doors open, I figured the cool breeze would do me some good. Calm things down, if you know what I mean.
I was walking by the buffet dining room, and I could see passengers lined up for late-night pizzas, desserts, and soft serve. Our all-night menu was very popular with the guests.
This family with three kids came walking my way, with plates piled brownies and cake and cookies and pizza. The young ones had ice cream all over their faces. It definitely made me happy to see everyone enjoying the best our cruise had to offer.
But, I needed to make sure they didn’t see their undercover captain, so I looked down and away.
Turning my head out to sea so as not to be seen, I was struck by how calm the ocean looked. Moonlight reflected off the gentle black waves, casting an icy glow to the water. Grey clouds dotted the horizon, and I knew that we would soon be able to see the lights of the Virgin Islands.
I was just about to duck inside when I saw someone standing over by the lifeboats. They were gripping the rail and leaning over strangely, so I decided to go check it out.
“Hey, are you okay…” I recognized her. “Oh! It’s you. Like a Virgin.” I couldn’t remember what Elizabeth had said her name was when she called her to stage.
She wobbled a little as she turned to me. “Oh. Hey. UCLA Guy. You have an accent.” She smiled at me and I felt it like a lightning bolt straight into my gut. Who was she?
“I do. Are you alright?” I stepped closer to be able to catch her if she wobbled too far. The boat wasn’t swaying much, but for someone new to sailing it could be disconcerting. I was close enough to smell her, her scent was a combination of fruit, alcohol, and vanilla.
“Oh yeah. Just getting my sea legs. That’s all.” She tried to stand up, but wobbled a little and then stuck her hand out to hold the railing.
I almost started to laugh, as she looked like a girl trying to stand in high heels for the first time. She was trying so hard to look nonchalant, and it was incredibly endearing. I wondered how old she was… Maybe mid-twenties? She looked sort of familiar, but I guessed it was just because of her resemblance to that actress.
I’d seen quite a few seasick people in my day and was impressed, really, at how good she looked. Most folks looked like death warmed over.
Like a Virgin turned her back against the railing and leaned back. The breeze caught her hair, and it looked incredibly soft. Her breasts were jutting out, nipples at attention and that same feeling of wanting to kiss her came over me. I’d better get out of here before something really bad happened.
“Okay, that’s good. Well, you have a good night,” I said, as I walked past her.
“You toooooo…” She tried to stand and stumbled right into my arms. She looked up at me and wrinkled her freckled nose. “Uh oh.”
Seeing her this cl
ose, I had to laugh. She wasn’t seasick. She was drunk off her ass. From what I could tell it was a sexy ass at that.
With her in my arms like this, those breasts pressed against my chest, and those blue eyes looking up at me, I got an instant hard-on. It would be so easy to just bend down and kiss those lips. Just lean in, and…
“Hey… is she okay?” The woman’s friend came rushing up. “I got a text that she wasn’t feeling well and I had to use Find My Friends to find her.”
The friend looked concerned, but when Like a Virgin saw her, she turned in her direction and smiled.
“Heyyyyy Sammie. How d’ya find me?” She tried to walk over to her friend, but her knees started to buckle. “This is my friend…” she looked at me and frowned, “UCLA Guy. And he caught me from falling overboard.”
I shook my head. “She was in no danger of falling over this four-foot railing.” This Sammie person peered over the railing. Not only was it practically impossible to fall over it unless you were climbing on it, but if you did, you’d just fall into a lifeboat on the deck below. No one was in actual danger, except for the raging hangover that was going to be here in a few hours.
“But she does need some help to get back to her room. Do you want me to call someone?” There was no way I was going to risk being seen in civilian clothes helping a drunk passenger back to her cabin.
“No, I think we’ve got it,” Sammie said. “Can you walk?”
“Of course I can walk!” She gave it a valiant effort, but Sammie had to come and take her from me.
I wasn’t too sure how they were going to get back to their room, but I also knew that we had crew on duty who would help them get back to their cabins safely.
“Thanks for helping her,” Sammie said as they wobbled away.
“Yeah, thank you, Mr. UCLA. You’re really hot…”
I smiled and shook my head as I headed back to my quarters. I hadn’t been called “hot” in a really long time. Let alone from a woman as sexy as that one.
Maybe being single again wouldn’t be too bad.
11
Charlie: Talk Dirty to Me
What was that sound? My head was buried under my pillow and I was hearing this noise that sounded like tap dancing. Who was tap dancing in my bedroom?
Oh god. I wasn’t in my room at home. I was on a ship in the middle of the ocean. And I’d made a fool of myself last night.
I groaned and rolled over.
“Good morning, Charlotte.” Sam’s voice was sing-songy and too damn perky, coming from the kitchen. “How is our celebrity speaker today?”
Oh shit. I had to give that talk today.
I peeked my head out to see why Sam was tap dancing and saw her sitting on a kitchen stool with her laptop on the counter. She wasn’t tap dancing, she was typing.
I groaned and put the pillow back over my ears. How was I ever going to give a motivational talk today? Maybe I could call out sick?
You’re not sick, Charlie. You’re hungover. And this is why we don’t drink hard liquor.
“What was in those things we were drinking?” I asked loud enough so she could hear me in the kitchen. “I thought they were low-alcohol.”
Sam laughed. “No, honey. Those things are extra potent. They just taste like a kids’ drink.”
“I am never drinking alcohol again.” My lips were chapped for some reason and my tongue felt like it was sticking to the top of my mouth. I didn’t have a headache, but that was probably because I still had too much alcohol in my system.
“Sure, Charlie. You say that now. But the next time someone hands you a microphone and sticks you in front of a karaoke machine, you’ll be pounding shots like a 21-year-old on Spring Break.”
I doubted that. “Do we have coffee?” The idea of coffee was nauseating, but I really did have a talk to give in a few hours. After that, I could get back in bed and spend the rest of the cruise here.
“We do. I ordered some up before we went to bed last night.” Sam looked perfectly normal, sitting cross-legged on the stool tapping away on her keyboard. Why wasn’t she hungover too?
“How did we get back here?” I had no memory of coming back to the room. The last thing I remembered was… Oh god. Did I tell that guy in the UCLA hat I thought he was hot?
“I told you that we were practicing to be Rockettes, and we linked arms and kicked our way back to the elevator.”
“Are you serious?” How could I forget something like that?
“I am. You were even doing jazz hands at the people walking by us.” She grinned at me. “Something tells me your talk is going to be packed today. A full house of folks who want to see the motivational speaker who lost a ton of weight and is living her best life. You seem like a lot of fun.”
I was mortified. This was not the kind of professional image I wanted to project. I wasn’t some partying vacationer, I was a paid speaker on the cruise. There was going to be some serious damage control needed.
“Don’t forget about that Captain’s Dinner tomorrow night.” Sam was waving an envelope at me. “It’s in his private quarters.”
I got up and realized I was still wearing the t-shirt, but no pants. Where were my pants? I went out to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee first. “Do we have to go?”
“It’s not ‘do we have to go,’ it’s that we get to go. He only selects a few people each cruise for this dinner and it’s an honor.”
I had no interest in sitting around eating unhealthy food and talking with a stuffy ship captain and the other guests. It sounded more like a punishment than an honor.
But, given what I’d done last night, if I ever wanted to be invited on another cruise I figured I should go.
Luckily, that was a problem for another day. I took a huge gulp of warm coffee and headed back to my room. I needed a shower, more coffee, and to go over my talk. I felt like shit, but I needed to get it together for just a few hours.
“Okay, okay. We’ll go.” I poured another cup of coffee and debated warming it up in the microwave, but figured it was fine.
“We should take some of that shipboard credit they gave us and book a spa day after we get back from port tomorrow,” Sam said.
Honestly, a massage and a facial sounded fantastic. “I love that idea. Can you book it for us?”
“What are best friends for?” She then smiled and did jazz hands.
Somehow I knew I would be living last night down for a long, long, time.
“See? I told you the place would be packed.” Sam whispered to me as she peeked out from the curtain.
Honestly, I couldn’t even think about how many people were out there. I was standing off stage, dressed in a pair of knee-high boots, with dark blue jeans tucked into them, and my favorite blue and brown halter top. I couldn’t tell if I was nauseous from the hangover or from nerves. Whatever it was, I was afraid I was going to puke.
Elizabeth the cruise director was introducing me. “Hey everyone, well, the Allure has a very special treat for you today. And judging from the full house, it seems like you already know what it is.” She stood in front of the packed crowd reading my bio from a piece of paper.
“Charlie Miller grew up in a small town in Arizona on the Colorado River. Like many kids her age, she fell into eating junk food. Too much Taco Bell, too many tubs of ice cream, and not enough exercise caused her to gain a significant amount of weight. This led to being bullied, which led to more emotional eating.
But it wasn’t until she was older that she started to realize that being healthy is an inside job. So she looked at the psychological reasons for the weight and worked through them. She recorded her journey on her YouTube channel, Whole Healthy Living with Charlie Miller.”
The crowd erupted in applause. “We love you Charlie!” someone shouted.
“Last year, her book ‘Anchor Management: Lose the weight to lose the weight’ spent sixteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Now, she’s here to talk to us today about the ten dirty foods we shoul
d never put in our mouths.”
Let’s put our hands together for a big Allure welcome to…. Charlie Miller!”
I took a deep breath, put on a big smile, and pushed back the curtain. It was showtime.
From what I could tell, things were going really well. Not too many people got up and left, which is always a risk on a cruise ship. Or so I’d been told. With a million different things competing for the passengers’ attention, you had to be pretty commanding on stage to get them to stay.
“Okay, now that we’ve covered the basics of Dirty Food, let’s have a little fun. I want three volunteers to come up on stage and play a little game called, ‘Should I Put This In My Mouth?’ Participants will all get signed copies of my book, ‘Anchor Management’ AND the overall winner will get a signed copy of my next book, ‘Now What? When Weight Loss Doesn’t Make You Happy.’
Hands started shooting up from people who wanted to volunteer, and Sam went into the audience to help bring the ones I’d picked up on stage.
I put my hand over my eyes and peered into the crowd in the hopes of finding UCLA Guy. Sadly, I didn’t see him. I did see that guy Kevin waving his arms frantically. I wondered how things ended with him last night when I never came back from my “fresh air” walk.
Either way, I didn’t want to pick him. I pointed to an older looking woman wearing a flower-print shirt, a guy that looked like a Seattle hipster, and a middle-aged Asian man.
Sam escorted everyone up on stage to the three chairs that were set facing the audience. After some brief introductions, I handed everyone a whiteboard and a marker.
“Okay. I’m going to say something, and you’re going to write down whether you’d put it in your mouth.”
We’d spent the past twenty minutes talking about organic versus non-organic, meat and dairy versus plant-based, and the power of healthy foods.
“Are you ready?”
They nodded.
I then looked at the audience and said, “All right. Now I want you to help them. Shout out the right answer!”
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