Chapter 35
First Day of the Cruise—Aboard Empress of the Seas
Nora was glad she’d bought Keith from the travel office lunch last week. She’d spent the whole hour interrogating him about every detail of cruising, and it was paying off now.
“Yes, Greg. Really. That’s it. That one little card is all you need on the ship.
” They’d finally gotten to the front of the check-in line, and her boyfriend was having trouble believing that one magnetic card was not only their key to every door on the ship, but also the way they’d pay for everything aboard.
“So do we just get a bill at the end of the cruise?”
Nora reached into her purse for her wallet, and pulled out her American Express card.
“No. I give them this,” she handed it to the woman behind the counter, “and everything gets billed to it.” She laughed.
“Technically, I guess you’re right, I will get a bill at the end of the cruise.
And don’t argue—I’m the one who asked you to come, so we’re using my credit card. ”
She didn’t want him to argue—mostly. There was a little part of her that hoped he would.
And an even smaller voice in the very back of her mind, hoping the check-in clerk would hand her card back and tell her that Daniel—no, Greg!
—had already arranged ahead of time for everything to be charged to his card.
Why had she thought of Daniel?
Because that’s absolutely what Daniel would have done. If they’d managed to make it as a couple long enough to be able to afford a cruise together.
Daniel , an hour later
“You were right, there was barely any line at all,” Leanne said. Daniel had figured—correctly, as it turned out—that most people would rush to check in early, even though boarding didn’t start until ten-thirty and continued until three o’clock in the afternoon.
Instead of spending an hour in a slow-moving line, they’d enjoyed a leisurely breakfast at the hotel, with two trips each to the omelet station. And now, at the cruise terminal, they’d only been in line five minutes when they were called up to the check-in desk.
The clerk took their tickets, typed away at her computer, and handed them each their SeaPass cards. “And I see you’ve already given us a credit card, Mr. Keller. Thank you. Enjoy the cruise.”
“Daniel, when did you—we never talked about whose card to use!”
They walked away from check-in and towards the boarding area.
“We split the cost for the tickets, but I wanted to do this for you, Leanne. There was a number to call for pre-boarding, and I gave them my card. I hope you’re not angry—I know maybe we should have discussed it, but I wanted to surprise you. ”
She smiled—almost as brightly and joyfully as Nora used to. “I’m surprised. And—I like it. I’m just not used to anyone doing something so… I don’t know. Gallant?”
Nora had called him that once, too.
Nora , two hours later
“Here we go. Room 3146. You ready?” Nora inserted her SeaPass card, heard the little click, and pushed the door open.
She climbed in, with Greg a couple of steps behind her. She was glad all over again that she’d spent that hour with Keith; she knew to expect that the room would seem very small at first glance.
Sure enough, that was the first thing Greg noticed. “This is tiny! There’s barely enough room to turn around in here.”
Nora stepped away from him and did a twirl. “See? I can turn around just fine.” He almost laughed; that was a good sign. “Really, it’s bigger than it seems. And anyway, like Keith said, we’re not going to be doing much in here besides sleep, so it doesn’t make much difference how big it is.”
He didn’t say anything at first, just mouthed, “Keith?”
“Oh, he’s in the travel office at work. I figured he’d know all about cruises, so I harassed him over lunch last week about it.
I just wanted to be prepared.” He nodded.
“By the way, one thing he said—we already saw it a little when we boarded—they’re always trying to sell you something.
He said to just tune it out. If you let it get to you, you won’t have a good time onboard. ”
Of course, she had let it get to her almost immediately; she gave her SeaPass card to the first person who asked.
It was a woman in a snappy Royal Caribbean uniform at a little table in the Atrium selling the specialty dining package—three dinners in the specialty restaurants aboard ship, supposedly at a discounted fee.
“If you’ll pardon the pun, that ship has sailed already, hasn’t it? ”
He said it with a smile, but she wondered—just for a moment, then she dismissed the thought—if Daniel would have said it at all.
Daniel , two hours later
They were wandering the halls of the ship, not going anywhere in particular.
“I just had a thought,” Leanne said, “They must have a doctor on the ship, right?”
Daniel stopped in his tracks. She hadn’t said anything about feeling bad; had he missed some sign? He looked her up and down, and there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with her. “Are you okay?”
She put a hand on his arm and laughed gently. “No. It’s just—you can take the girl out of the hospital, but you can’t take the hospital out of the girl, I guess.”
Why hadn’t he thought of that? Of course as a nurse, she’d be curious about medical care onboard. “There was a map by the elevators,” he said, and let her through the corridors of deck three to the nearest elevator bank. Leanne stopped him in front of a stateroom door.
“Oh, that’s cute!”
There was a handmade sign on the door, held on by magnets: Caution: Unsupervised Couple on Vacation! And a couple of little heart magnets on either side of it.
“I wish I’d thought of that,” Daniel said. It would have been a nice little extra surprise for Leanne. “They’ve definitely got the right idea.”
“So do we,” Leanne said. “Maybe if they’re lucky, they’ll have as good a time as we’re going to have.”
He took her hand and led her the rest of the way to the elevators. “There,” he said, pointing at the map of the ship. “The sickbay is on deck one. Looks like the only thing that’s there.” That, and all the machinery and everything else needed to keep the passengers comfortable for ten days.
“We don’t need to go down there, I just wanted to know. Just in case.”
As she said that, Daniel thought he was hearing something in her voice now. Just a tiny hint of—what? Maybe just fatigue. Or hunger—they hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast and it was almost four o’clock now. That was probably all it was.
“Makes sense,” he agreed. “I think I heard someone say they’ve got a little café up in the Solarium. You want to go up there, sit out on a beach chair and have a little something? Dinner isn’t for another three hours.”
“Sure,” she said, and was she forcing more certainty into her voice than she felt? Or was he just hearing things? “The elevator is right here, let’s go.”
Up they went. Maybe some cookies, or a sandwich or whatever they had for snacks would sort her out. If there even was anything to sort out.
Nora , two hours later
“We can’t eat now, we’ll spoil our dinner,” Greg said.
He was right. Nora knew he was, but she didn’t care.
“Dinner isn’t until seven-thirty. I’m hungry now. Let’s go up to the Solarium. Keith said they’ve got snacks there all day long.”
Greg shook his head. “Nora, dinner is at the steakhouse tonight. We’re going to be eating the whole world.”
He was just being reasonable. Rational. Maybe some other words starting with “R.” That’s all it was.
There was no call to tell him that whether she ate herself out of fitting into her bathing suit was her problem, not his; or that she was the one paying for the steak dinner.
That would be hostile, and hateful and probably some other words starting with “H.”
“I know. Just a little snack to tide me over. And the spa is up there, too, we can check out what they’re offering. Maybe there’ll be a sale, too—you know, two massages for the price of one, something like that.”
He rolled his eyes. “You’re the one who told me to ignore them trying to sell us something everywhere we go on the ship.
” Then he paused, collected himself. “I don’t need any of that, Nora.
I just want to spend time with you. That’s what this trip is about for me, not where we eat, or what kind of massages we can get or anything. ”
She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. He responded, leaning into her, but only for a moment, then he pulled back. “I’m glad you feel the same way,” he said, panting a bit. “But let’s save that sort of thing for our cabin. There must be a hundred people here watching us.”
She didn’t care. He shouldn’t, either. All they were doing was kissing—people did that all the time in public. What did it matter who saw them?
No—that wasn’t fair, was it? He was entitled to his feelings, and if he was uncomfortable doing anything more than holding hands in public, then that’s all they’d do outside of their cabin.
“I understand,” she said. “I was just—it really meant a lot to me, what you said. I wanted to make sure you knew.” That was the third thought she had.
The first one had been, I guess we can’t ever get married, if you can’t kiss me in front of a crowd.
The second, much worse one, was, Daniel wouldn’t have cared if everybody on the ship, and the Captain, was watching. He probably would’ve taken a bow afterwards.
Daniel , around seven o’clock
They walked down the stairs to the floor of the Main Dining Room, and Daniel had three thoughts.
The first, and best one, was that Leanne looked absolutely stunning in her shimmery blue dress that perfectly set off her eyes, and with her long blonde hair pinned up just so.
The second, and sort of disturbing one, was that walking down the staircase made him think of the scene from the trailer for Titanic that they played before Event Horizon when he’d gone to see it back in September.
There’d been a shot of a grand, ornate staircase flooding as the ship sank, and that was definitely not something he wanted to think about now.
Not that there were likely to be any icebergs in the Caribbean, so really it was just a stupid thought rather than a legitimately worrying one.
The third, and by far the worst, was that the last time he’d been with a beautiful woman in a dress—not counting dancing with Bianca at cousin Frank’s wedding last year—was with Nora at the Valentine’s Day dance back in 1989.
Maybe it was the necklace. He still wore it, every day. How could Nora not keep pushing her way into his thoughts when there was a constant physical reminder of her right above his heart?
He hadn’t even taken it off the first time he and Leanne had made love, back in July. They’d had a long weekend planned. They were going to rent a cabin on the shore of Lake Norman, half an hour north of Charlotte. July 4 th had been a Friday, and she was supposed to have four days off.
She never showed up at his condo on Friday morning; it wasn’t until the afternoon that she left an apologetic voicemail—it sounded as though she’d been in tears, telling him that the whole weekend was shot, there was a crisis at the hospital and she’d be working all day Friday, and also Sunday and Monday.
She knocked on his door Saturday morning, and she was in tears. He’d led her straight into the bedroom, got her under the covers, let her sleep for six hours and then brought her lunch in bed.
That night—after the one glass of wine she allowed herself, since she had to be back at the hospital by six the next morning—was their first time. And his first time since the night before his graduation.
“Daniel? Hey, are you okay?”
He’d been so lost in those thoughts he hadn’t noticed they were at their table and already sitting down.
“I was just—I was thinking about July 4 th . About us. I’m so glad we’re here. And I was also thinking how lucky I am, to be with the most beautiful woman on the whole ship.”
The second part was true.
And maybe—if he kept saying it enough—he could convince himself the first part was, too.
Nora , eight o’clock
“I thought for a minute about renting a tuxedo for the cruise,” Greg said, looking around at their fellow diners.
It wouldn’t have been out of place—maybe half of the couples in the steakhouse were in formalwear. The men didn’t all wear tuxedos, but most of the ones who didn’t wore well-tailored suits instead.
Greg’s suit was—well, he’d had it dry-cleaned, anyway.
That counted for a lot. Didn’t it? He could just as easily not have packed a suit at all.
There were a few men here in sweaters, a couple in polo shirts and one—his wife, or girlfriend or whatever she was didn’t look happy about it—wore a T-shirt.
She wore a green dress; the same one she’d worn eight years ago, at the Valentine’s Day dance with Daniel.
That had been the last time she’d worn it; she was shocked to find it in the back of her closet when she’d been packing for the cruise.
The only thing missing was the elbow-length gloves. She wondered what happened to them.
Maybe they’d fallen into the back of her dorm room closet after she and Daniel had gotten back from the dance, and a few months later, whichever freshman girl had gotten her room the next year claimed them for herself.
Nora hoped she—whoever she was—had gotten good use, or at least a good laugh, out of them.
“Nora?”
She shook her head to clear it. “Sorry, I was thinking—I really do like that suit on you.” It wasn’t totally a lie.
“I was just asking, mashed potatoes or macaroni and cheese for our side?”
He did say earlier that they’d be “eating the world,” didn’t he?
“Why do we need to choose? I heard the waiter say to that table,”—she waved a hand in the direction of an older man and a redheaded woman maybe half his age—“we can order as many sides as we want, there’s no extra charge.”
“I guess so,” Greg said, but there was a hesitation in his voice she couldn’t quite place. “Still kind of wasteful, isn’t it?”
Normally, she liked that Greg thought about things like that. She tried to be mindful of herself and not buy food she wasn’t pretty sure she’d eat. But this was a vacation. How would they know if they liked the mashed potatoes or the mac and cheese better if they didn’t try both?
“Let’s do it anyway, just this once. I bet they’re both really good.”
He gave in with reasonably good grace. She just hoped he wouldn’t be glaring at her later if she didn’t clean her plate.
Daniel never would’ve minded. He’d have ordered all the sides just to see her try them.