Anchors Aweigh - 6 (3 page)
I made my way back to the Bat Cave—what I’d dubbed the windowless, porthole-less cabin I was sharing with my sister—keeping an eye out for a rather large, heavy-set woman who wore her gun-metal graying hair in a bun and moved like a battleship. I could have kicked myself for not asking Manny for the number of their stateroom; at least that way I’d have some inkling from whence to expect yonder attack.
I shook my head. Just my luck. My first ever cruise, and I had to share tight quarters with a sister who gave every indication of spending every day at sea with her head in a bucket, pretend to be engaged to a mystery man with a suspect past and equally questionable present or risk sending a nice old lady into cardiac arrest, come to terms with how I really felt about Ranger Rick Townsend, and still have time to extract a little payback from Mr. Chicken-Legs of the Sea, the sadistic shrimp who’d cleverly constructed this floating love triangle. Captain Steubing would so not approve.
Following a swift swipe of my key card and a quick check of the hall to my left and to my right, I entered the stateroom and found Taylor pretty much the way I’d left her: flopped face down on her tiny berth, a dark spot of drool darkening the tan comforter near her open mouth.
I threw my own emotionally drained self on the bed next to her and wondered what to do first: unpack, bait my hook for an ancient clownfish, take a nap, or hit one of the many food venues I’d heard so many cruise customers rave about. Two of the more appealing choices made me vulnerable to Wedding Planner Mo. And the others? They were just plain unfulfilling. Or un-filling.
I sighed—an exaggerated, over-the-top, long-suffering sigh.
“Is there a problem?” I heard from the bunk next to me.
I rose up on an elbow. “Maybe,” I said.
“We haven’t even lifted anchor yet,” Taylor pointed out, still prone.
“I know,” I replied.
“That’s quick.”
“You have no idea,” I responded.
Taylor finally sat up. Her complexion had lost some of its deathly pallor, now looking more along the lines of acute anemia. “So, what is it this time? You and Rick aren’t at each other’s throats already, are you?”
I shook my head. A much scrawnier neck figured in my current neck-wringing fantasy.
“It’s complicated,” I said.
“When isn’t it where you’re concerned, Tressa?” Taylor asked.
I considered the wisdom of sharing with my little sister the reason for my sudden angst. Although we love each other, Taylor and I have always seemed at cross-purposes, as different in design as the shiny, sleek, luxury vessel we were about to cruise away on and a gritty, grimy, independent little tugboat who stubbornly goes about its own business, carrying others along for the ride.
Bet you can guess which one of us is the tugboat.
Taylor was the daughter who excelled at academics and extracurriculars and mature behavior, and I was the daughter who consistently scored high marks in screw-ups, madcap mayhem and chronic misadventure.
“I ran into an unexpected fellow passenger,” I told her, sharing a fact that still freaked me out.
“Oh?”
“Manny.”
My sister sat up straighter.
“Manny? Manny DeMarco?” she said. “The fellow you’re fictionally affianced to?”
Affianced?
I did an exaggerated eye roll at my sister’s Jane Austen moment. Next thing I knew she’d be going all
hither and thither
on me.
“One and the same,” I admitted.
“How in the world did he end up on the same cruise as our wedding party?” she asked, giving me a suspicious look. “Tressa. What did you do?”
I looked at her. “Me? I didn’t do anything!” I said. “It was your brand-new step-grandpappy He arranged this little reunion at sea.”
“My
step-grandpappy? He’s yours, too, you know,” Taylor pointed out.
“I refuse to claim him,” I said. “Not after this little shipboard surprise.”
“How do you know Joe is responsible?” she asked.
“Manny told me,” I explained. “He said Joe arranged it after Mike Townsend and his family canceled. But it gets even better. Aunt Mo is here, too.”
Taylor stared. “He brought his aunt? The one who is trying to pin you down on a wedding date?”
I nodded. “Talk about your fantasy cruises, huh?”
“Does Rick know?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I doubt it. If he’d run into Manny or Aunt Mo, we’d have heard the ‘all hands on deck’ call by now.”
“So, what are you going to do, Tressa?”
“I suppose walking the plank is out of the question,” I said, sinking back onto my bed.
“Uh, we’re still in port, remember?” Taylor pointed out. “I don’t think that would work. You could take a long walk off a short pier, I suppose,” she suggested, with the beginnings of a wan smile.
“I’m so glad my situation has managed to do what megadoses of Dramamine couldn’t,” I observed, “and succeeded in pepping you up.”
The sudden chirp of the ship’s PA system got my attention: “Good afternoon. This is Captain Compton. On behalf of Custom Cruise International and the entire crew of
The Epiphany
we’d like to welcome you aboard. We very much hope that you will enjoy your Custom Cruise experience with us. We will be conducting our safety drill at 1730 hours. The safety drill is mandatory for all passengers with no exceptions. Expectations and procedure information can be found on your daily bulletin, as well as in the Custom Cruise leather-bound folder located in each stateroom. You will find the location of your mustering station on the inside door of your stateroom and on the lifejackets located in your cabins. Should you require further information regarding the safety drill, please contact the main desk or consult a steward. Once again, attendance by all passengers is compulsory. Seven short blasts on the ship’s alarm whistle followed by one long blast will be your signal to report to your designated muster station. Custom Cruises appreciates your cooperation as we strive to provide a safe, enjoyable cruise experience. Thank you.”
I rolled over and closed my eyes. Guess it was naptime.
“What are you doing?” Taylor asked. “Didn’t you hear the captain? The safety drill is mandatory for all passengers.”
I flipped back over to look at Taylor. “Are you forgetting who else will be participating in said safety drill?” I asked. “Fuggetaboutit.”
“You can’t stay in here the entire cruise,” Taylor pointed out.
“Of course not. But losing myself on a ship this big with a thousand other merrymakers is bound to be easier than concealing my presence in a small group setting. For all I know, Manny and Mo are assigned the same emergency station we are. Townsend, too, for that matter. No way. I’m staying put. Besides, hunter orange makes my complexion appear sallow.”
Taylor shook her head and donned her brightly colored vest, somehow managing to look trés chic despite her ghostly pale face and jack-o’-lantern colored attire.
“Have it your way,” she said. “You usually do.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“Just that sometimes I think you’ve marched to the beat of your own drum for so long that somehow you’ve let that independent streak define who you are and control what you do and don’t do—often to your own detriment and that of those around you.”
Mrrrowrr!
Taylor was clearly feeling better. The claws were out! And sharp.
“Oh? Is that what three years’ undergraduate study in psychology tells you?” I asked, a reference to Taylor’s field of study before she unexpectedly dropped out last term. “Thanks for the analysis, sis, but if I need my head examined, Dr. Phil gets first crack.”
“It’s an assessment based on years of observation,” she replied. She tossed my lifejacket on my bed. “In case you change your mind,” she remarked, and she moved to the door and opened it.
“You take good notes for me, y’hear?” I hollered out the door after her.
When she was gone, I put my head on the pillow and thought about what Taylor had just said. Could she be right? Was I too independent? Too inclined to go my own way? Did I pursue my own agenda equipped with Tressa Turner tunnel vision so that I failed to take into account the fallout to those around me? Were they, as Taylor insinuated, merely blurs in my peripheral vision?
I made a face. I hated to think of myself in those terms. Hated to think she thought of me that way—that
anybody
might.
I frowned. Hadn’t Ranger Rick made the very same argument over the course of the last year? Hadn’t he repeatedly chewed out my cowgirl tail for keeping him out of the loop and going off on one of my tangents? For continually going off half-cocked?
My independent streak had been the biggest obstacle in our relationship—a streak so big, I was assured, it could be seen from the space shuttle in orbit around the Earth. It was the thing Townsend and I argued over most, the same issue that kept me from hurling caution to the wind and throwing myself into his arms and bed. Frankly, just the idea that someone else could claim a legitimate say in what I did, where I did it, who I did it with and when I did it scared the freakin’ bejeebers out of me.
I closed my eyes. Had I gotten so used to going my own way, doing my own thing, being my own person that the reality of making room for someone else in my life had become as frightening to me as the concept of cellulite to a supermodel? As likely to invoke terror as being marooned on a desert island overrun by creepy crawlies, with no food, no water, no chocolate, and my sole fellow castaway, Rosie O’Donnell? Uh, sorry, Rosie, but the view from here ain’t pretty.
I shifted uncomfortably on the bed.
This vacation was supposed to be fun—a getaway from a life that, over the last couple of years, had spiraled out of control. I’d been looking forward to my first real vacation since my folks and I took a road trip when I was sixteen. Eight years had passed and the mere mention of that particular family outing still had the ability to send my father to the medicine cabinet for a handful of antacid tablets.
This past week’s wedding vacation in Arizona hadn’t worked out much better. In fact, it had morphed into a Southwestern scavenger hunt that, any way you looked at it, was no
Mona Lisa
story. In addition to a Wild West intrigue, Ranger Rick and I two-stepped our way around some serious sexual tension that rivaled a Danielle Steel novel, with me juggling the pros and cons of giving up and giving in to the feelings Rick inspired. Only some freaky twist of fortune had prevented me from setting my feet (and every other body part) down that passionate path of no return. I hadn’t yet decided whether I was frustrated or relieved by that forestalled consummation, but to say I was disappointed at the time is like me saying, “I like chocolate.”
This little oceanic pleasure cruise was supposed to give me an opportunity to take some time to figure out my feelings where Ranger Rick was concerned, to decide once and for all if he was the man for me and I was the cow gal for him. But now, with my “secret love” Manny and his aunt Mo on the ship manifest, the wind had been sucked out of my sails. I wasn’t sure I was adept enough to navigate through the jagged rocks and reefs ahead in my quest to understand and come to terms with my—scary word here, folks—
feelings.
You see, I don’t do feelings well. I never have. Displays of emotion come about as naturally to me as vows of silence would to my gammy. Or abstinence to a call girl. Most of this goes back to a longtime practice of “hiding my light under a bushel,” or in my case, beneath a flaky blonde façade. It was a comfortable persona from which to operate benignly below others’ radars—and one where all I felt required to aspire to was being average. I was your basic class comedienne. The Comedy Club coed. The girl voted most likely to still be living at home at the ten-year reunion, if she was living at all. Hardy har har.
I didn’t appear to take anything seriously, so it was little surprise no one took me seriously. And it didn’t matter that much to me.
Until it suddenly did.
A sudden sharp burst from the PA system sent me shooting off the bed and onto the floor. It was followed by six more abbreviated taps. One more long loud sound of the horn ended the call to muster. I shook my head and sighed and got to my feet.
Great. Taylor had guilted me into leaving the relative safety of my stateroom and risking crossed swords with Marguerite Dishman, all two hundred-plus pounds of her. Somehow I had the feeling Calamity’s cutlass wouldn’t fare too well against Mo’s meat cleaver.
I grudgingly grabbed my orange vest and headed for the door. I’d just opened it a crack and turned to pick up a copy of the daily bulletin when I heard someone outside my cabin door say, “That’s good. Nope. Doesn’t suspect a thing.” The hushed male voice added, “This long-overdue honeymoon cruise idea was sheer genius. The kickoff to a whole new life together. A brand-new beginning.” A dry laugh. “Little does the romantic fool know this will be a farewell cruise. And now that the life insurance policy has been taken care of, all systems are go.”
I froze, stunned.
I chanced opening my door a fraction more, hoping to get a glimpse of the speaker. I put my eye to the crack and peeked out, but all I could see was the back of a big, ugly orange vest. Damn.
“Poor clueless woman,” the voice softly said, after a short pause. “She’ll never in a million years see it coming.”
I swallowed—a loud gulp. Dear God, could I have heard what I thought I heard? Was some guy planning to murder his wife on this cruise? I quickly replayed the one-sided conversation in my head. A farewell cruise. An insurance policy. And one clueless wife. Put ‘em all together and whad-dya got?
A custom cruise to die for.
I chewed my lip and quickly mulled over my options. One, I could confront the guy with what I’d heard. I frowned. Some risk involved there. Two, I could simply forget what I’d heard. I shook my head. I know, you’re shaking yours, too, thinking,
Yeah, right, like that was ever an option.
I know you too well. Guess that works both ways, huh?