Chapter Fourteen
Mari didn’t expect to have such a good time.
Maybe it was the sea air. Or the fact no one was around to judge her on any level. Not her children. Not her friend. Not neighbors that quietly watched what everyone on the street was doing and went on to tell anyone who would listen about what they saw.
James caught on to Ping-Pong but really didn’t stand a chance.
Mari forgot how competitive she was. As a mother, she often let her children win. That is, until they were adults. Learning that life wasn’t always a win started with family games.
Gio mastered Monopoly. Chloe had trivia down pat. And Luca excelled at anything physical. From Ping-Pong to basketball. Not that a lot of basketball was played when you lived in apartments above a restaurant.
The fact that James lost with humor said a lot about him.
“It isn’t how you win that shows your character but how you lose,” she’d told her children. “Never let someone win when you first meet them. How they react will tell you if you want to continue getting to know them.”
James passed.
When they put away the paddles, James told her that he never anticipated going on a cruise and coming away with a new sport.
He had every intention of buying a table so he could give her a run for the money.
That only sparked her intention of practicing with Luca when she returned home.
They spent an hour playing bingo, where James won twenty dollars.
In one of the lounges, two parties of people were playing a musical trivia game. Mari and James answered among themselves. Proving that they’d both grown up in the ’80s.
Mari had more pop hits in her memories, whereas James apparently listened to heavy metal.
“If we were on the same team, we’d be winning the grand prize,” she said.
“Next time.”
Mari smiled at him as he placed a hand on her back to lead her away from the lounge.
That simple hand put a smile on her face and a tiny skip in her chest.
They found the onboard mini-golf on a top deck. But by then, the seas were becoming increasingly choppy, and hitting a small ball into a small hole wasn’t a game either of them wanted to play.
Late in the afternoon, they returned to his stateroom to change for dinner.
Mari called Rosa to learn that the toss of the boat on the water had increased the previous evening’s nausea.
“I’m so sorry,” Rosa pleaded.
“Don’t be. Just get better,” Mari encouraged.
Mari disconnected the call and looked at James. “Looks like you have me for another night.”
Amusement met his eyes long before his slow smile spread.
“My friend is sick,” she told him. Attempting to put the situation into focus.
James dropped his smile. “And that’s awful.”
Mari attempted a glare.
Only his smile had her lips lifting.
“You shouldn’t look so pleased.”
He blinked a couple of times as if he were trying to find the right response. “Sad for her. Pleased for me.”
Mari clicked her tongue and quickly turned away before he could see her blush.
“Are you having a good time?”
James made a call home while Mari took a shower to get ready for the night.
Madison was better at answering her phone than Ellie, so he tried her cell first.
“I am. There is a lot to do on this ship.”
“You’re calling from the boat?” she asked.
“In the middle of the ocean.”
“Must be a satellite,” Madison said.
“No idea. Is our house still standing?” he asked, teasing.
Madison laughed but didn’t answer the question. “Have you met anyone?”
Wow, he wasn’t expecting that right off the bat. “I’ve met all kinds of people.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
The sound of the shower stopped, directing his attention to the door between him and Mari.
“Do you really want to hear about your dad’s love life?”
Madison hesitated. “Yeah, actually. I do.”
He smirked. “Have you heard from any of the colleges?”
“Nice change of subject, Dad.”
“Well?”
“No. Nothing yet. I did ace my Physics test.”
“Of course you did.”
“Nothing ‘of course’ about it. That stuff was hard,” she told him.
“You make it look easy.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
He smiled. “Is your sister around?”
“No. She stayed after practice. I think Trevor is going to ask her to prom.”
James lost his smile. He didn’t like Trevor or his motorcycle. “Ugh.”
“He’s not that bad, Dad.”
“He’s not that good either.”
“You say that about every guy.”
James stared out the window at the waves. “Boys want one thing.”
“Not all of them,” Madison argued.
“Yes, all of them. I know. I was one.”
Madison laughed like she always did when this subject came up. “What are you going to do when we’re away at college?”
“You’re both getting chastity belts.”
He heard a noise behind him and turned to see Mari standing in the doorway.
She’d changed into a fresh linen pantsuit, a hairbrush in her hand.
“Yeah, yeah,” Madison said.
“Tell your sister I said no Trevor at the house when I’m not there.”
“You’ve already said that.”
“Tell her again,” James insisted.
“She has a phone.”
Mari was smiling.
James lost his train of thought.
“You can tell her.”
“Tell her what?” he asked.
“Ellie and Trevor?”
Watching Mari brush her hair had a kind of intimacy that he missed.
“What about them?”
“Dad! Are you okay?”
“I hear static. I should let you go.”
“I hear you loud and clear.”
Mari shook her head.
“I’ll call you later,” he said.
“Fine. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
He hung up and turned his full attention to the woman standing in his room.
“Chastity belts?” she asked.
“It’s better than locking them in a tower.”
She ran the brush through her hair as she talked. “You’re protective. It’s a good quality in a father.”
“Like Paulo and your sons?”
Mari waved the brush in the air. “The way Chloe put up a fight. Their arguments could be heard over the noise in the restaurant. If my sons didn’t approve of the boy, he didn’t stand a chance.”
“Did they approve of any?”
Mari looked at the ceiling as if it held the answer. “No. And remember, they didn’t even approve of their best friend . . . until they did.”
James grumbled, “Can’t we skip the Trevors?”
Mari set her brush down. “You should have had a son.”
“Ugh.”
Sometime during the night, Rosa’s health started to improve.
The morning call to Rosa before James and Mari set off for a day in Saint Thomas suggested that Mari would be able to return to her stateroom by nightfall.
As they stepped off the ship, James took her hand and said, “I have you to myself until dinner.”
They walked in and out of shops on the island. They found tourist trinkets that Mari picked up for her grandchildren, and James took advantage of the discounted jewelry prices to find graduation presents for his girls.
“Ellie’s favorite color is blue, Madison’s is green,” he told her when they walked into the first store.
“What are you thinking?”
James stood over a brightly lit case with plenty of glitter displayed beneath the glass.
“I don’t know. What do you think is appropriate?” he asked her.
Mari skipped past the cases with large chunks of diamonds and several carats of gemstones and over to a much more understated display.
“What about something like these?” She pointed to several pendants on simple chains.
Everything from circle shapes to hearts.
Three stones increasing in size in a simple line.
“These are pretty small.”
“Your girls are seventeen.”
“So?”
A shop attendant walked over and asked if they wanted to see anything.
“These,” Mari pointed out.
While the attendant removed the necklaces from the case, Mari turned to James. “There will be plenty of time to spoil your girls. Graduations. Weddings. Grandchildren.”
In the end, James picked an emerald necklace for Madison and a duplicate in sapphires for Ellie.
“What about you?” James asked.
“What about me?”
He lifted a finger to her ear, where a simple silver hoop dangled.
“I don’t wear a lot of jewelry.”
“You don’t like to, or . . .”
“Rings and bracelets get in the way of cooking.”
“What about when you’re not in the kitchen?”
Mari waved a hand in front of him. “I don’t need a lot of glitter.”
They walked along the street, stopping in front of windows. “Did Paulo buy you jewelry?” James asked.
“We didn’t have money for things like this. About the time we had extra, the doctor bills started rolling in.” She turned to him and shook a finger in the air. “And no.”
“No what?”
“We hardly know each other. You’re not buying me jewelry.”
James stopped walking and pointed at a display in a storefront window. “Not even a little something?” he asked.
She tugged on his arm. “You’re ridiculous.”
“But gift giving is my love language.”
Mari burst out laughing. “And barking orders is mine. No!”
The fact she was barking at him put a grin on his face. “Do you have a favorite color?”
“No.”
“Everyone has a favorite color.”
“Not while we’re walking around this island, I don’t.”
He wasn’t serious about buying her anything. She was right in that they hardly knew each other. But it was fun watching her march them away from the stores and bark at him.
“Not even a small pair of earrings? They don’t get caught up in pasta making.”
She narrowed her eyes before turning to the next display and pointing. “Those.”
His gaze drifted to a pair of god-awful skull earrings the size of quarters. They were filled with black and white diamonds, with red stones as eyes. They were the kind of thing James was happy his girls never got into.
“I didn’t see you being into goth.”
“You should see my costumes for Halloween.”
For a second, he stared. Not one hundred percent sure she was kidding. The woman had a stellar poker face.
Another few seconds passed before Mari rolled her eyes and tugged on his arm again. “I’m hungry. I’ll let you buy me lunch.”
“Okay. But if we see skulls in yellow diamonds . . .”
In the grand scheme of things, two nights and three solid days isn’t a significant amount of time. And yet while Mari packed up the things she’d spread around James’s space, she felt a strange kind of loss.