Penthouse Suite (14 page)

“What have you done to me, Kate? I’ve just spent days in meetings where I didn’t hear half of the discussion. My appointment book is blank. I haven’t even set up my weekly schedule. When I walk through the lobby, every woman I see is you. And you’ve got me mopping bathrooms, giving baths to birds, and watching old movies.”

“I don’t know,” she said, sighing happily, “and I don’t want to worry about it. All I want right now is this beautiful morning and breakfast with the man of my moment.” What she wanted to do was sit and look at him, drink in the sight of him, believe that it was all real.

“That’s a strange way to put it. I thought the phrase was the man of
the
moment.”

“Maybe, but this is my moment, and for now, for today, you’re the man I want to share it with. How about this breakfast you promised me?”

A sea gull called out shrilly, and Max jerked his gaze away, shaking his head. “In the bag. You’re holding it. Ah, to hell with breakfast,” he said gruffly, taking the bag and swinging it outside onto the roof of the car. “I don’t want food. What I want is you, to kiss you and to touch you and to feel you against me for just a few minutes while we’re still alone.”

He did, and Kate opened her mouth and drank in the essence of him. And then they shifted to the back seat. She felt herself slip down, slide back against the door rest, the weight of his body pressing against her. He groaned and shifted his position, pushing the front seat forward into the car horn, which began to blare.

“Damn!” As Max struggled back across the seat, his knee knocked the gear into neutral, and the car began to roll backward slowly down the incline toward the water.

Kate sat up, watching Max wildly trying to untangle their legs and position his feet on the brake to bring the car to a stop. The horn continued to blow. He put the car in park, got out, and lifted up the hood.

The scene was too much. Kate began to laugh. When Max finally managed to jerk loose the wiring that controlled the insistent blare, he lifted his head, cracking the hood against the back of his neck.

“Shoot! If this isn’t something straight out of a Steve Martin movie, I don’t know what is.” He began to laugh, too, and Kate found him even more endearing. By the time he’d gotten back
inside the car, she had returned to the front seat. She leaned over to rub his head in exaggerated concern.

“Well, your few minutes were up, anyway.”

“You go by your watch, and I’ll go by mine. I feel injured.” He assumed a sad pose.

“Ah, and I told you I’d teach you to have fun. Want me to kiss it and make it well?”

“Your kisses were what started all this,” he said with mock anger. “Can’t you be passionate without us ending up in the Gulf? What is it about you and water?”

“When a mere mortal dares to make love to a sea nymph, he gets in trouble.”

“We’ll settle this later,” Max promised as he planted a whisper of a kiss on her lips. “I promise. Sea nymph or not, I’m too old to start making out in the back seat of a car. I have someplace more comfortable in mind when this mortal makes love to this sea nymph.”

“Now?” Kate inquired with put-on innocence, “on an empty stomach?”

“No, later. Now we have a date with a preacher, and as our breakfast is floating away with the tide, we’ll have to stop down the beach and eat real food.”

“A preacher?”

“The Blessing of the Fleet, remember?”

“Oh, phooey. I thought Dorothea had made good her threat.”

“You’ve never been married, have you, Kate?”

“No. You?”

“No. I never thought that I’d consider marriage. Ever.”

Kate felt her heart make a funny little quiver. Did he mean that he was thinking about marriage now?

The fluttery feeling that had come over her when he’d mentioned marriage was still with her when Max pulled into the parking lot of a famous pancake house. Kate never even tasted the strawberry pancakes she ordered. Soon they were leaving, and it seemed as if they’d just arrived. At least that’s what Kate thought, until she looked at her watch and saw that they’d been there for nearly two hours.

Kate smiled. Max whistled. And the day seemed full of promise.

“There was a church service earlier,” Max explained as they made their way down the pier thronged with boisterous onlookers. “Now the boat captains, along with their families and crews, go to their boats and pass by the dock one at a time to receive the blessing.”

The serious young minister stood at the end of the pier. Suddenly his black robe was caught by the breeze, and it ballooned up like great bat wings, revealing dark socks and red and black jogging shoes. Kate giggled out loud.

“Your minister either has a heavy schedule, or he believes in being prepared.”

“What do you mean?” Max questioned.

“Look at his feet.”

Max watched, waiting until the next gust of wind revealed the source of Kate’s amusement.

“If you’d been here last year, you’d appreciate that even more. Most of the time our weather is clear and hot. But last year a sudden rainstorm
blew up, and just as Reverend Knight blessed the last boat, the wind got under his robe and lifted him out into the water like a flying squirrel with no place to land.”

“What he needed was flippers.”

“You’re right about that. His swimming was no better than his flying, and he nearly drowned. Eventually they hauled him up in Carlos’s fishing net. I think there is still a picture on the church bulletin board proclaiming Reverend Knight as the prize catch of the year.”

Kate examined Reverend Knight more closely. The robe was suspiciously bulky. She decided that the deck shoes weren’t the only precaution the Reverend had taken. He was obviously wearing a life jacket under that robe.

The crowd began to swell, and Kate felt Max’s arm move protectively around her, pulling her close. The gaily decorated boats began to move, one by one, past the end of the dock. The minister raised his hand and said the special blessing.

“Kate?” Max whispered in her left ear, innocently nibbling little teasing bites along her neck. “Let’s get away from this crowd. I want to take you on board one of the boats. I’ve arranged for Carlos Herrera to pick us up a bit further down.”

They moved out of the crowd and down the dock to where a shorter pier reached out into the bay. In a few minutes a small, brightly painted boat strung with colored flags chugged up to where they were waiting.

“Kate. I’m glad you’re going out with us,” Helen Stevens called from on board. “Hello, Mr. Sorrenson.” Her voice dropped a bit, as though she were not quite sure how to respond to her employer.

“Nice to see you, Helen. I didn’t know you’d be
here,” Max answered easily as he helped Kate step down into the gently rocking boat. “This is Carlos, the captain of this floating birthday cake. Carlos used to work for me.”

“What Mr. Sorrenson means is that this boat used to belong to him. It’s partly mine now.”

“Yeah, Carlos offered me a deal I couldn’t turn down. We’re partners now. He’s going to let us share a traditional Feast Day celebration. All you need is candles on this thing, Carlos.”

“Glad you could come, sir,” Carlos said, “and Helen’s with me. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Today I don’t mind anything, Carlos. Today is a grand day for … having friends.”

Helen looked curiously at her employer and then back at Carlos. “You’re going to love this, Kate,” she said proudly. “All the boats move out into the bay and drop anchor side by side. Then each of us spreads out our picnic, so to speak, and we all move from boat to boat and share our feasts.”

“And whatever kind of alcoholic brew these pirates have concocted,” Max added. “And don’t call me ‘sir.’ Today I’m Max.”

There was no mistaking Carlos’s startled look. But Helen’s friendliness made up for the awkwardness, and soon they were all chatting freely.

There were three other crew members on board, along with wives and sweethearts. In jeans and deck shoes, Max fit right in with the others, and Kate felt comfortable too.

Max stood, his arm draped lazily but possessively around Kate’s waist. Occasionally he would whisper in Kate’s ear. The crew quickly accepted Kate as his girl, and she began to accept it too. His private comments and constant touching made her glow.

“We make our way to the middle of the lagoon,” Max explained, “where the other boats are already circled like a wagon train ready to stave off an Indian attack. Then comes the food, drink, fun, and sex.”

“Sex?” Kate gasped.

“Oh, that’s later. A private party, just me and you.”

He was putting her on notice, and her body quivered.

“Hold on, darling, don’t let your eagerness show.”

“The boat moved,” she insisted, moving out of Max’s reach.

“Yeah,” he agreed with a smile. “I felt it too.”

Helen and the other women quickly began to spread out red and white checked cloths and open their baskets. There were chilled bottles of wine, homemade bread, chunks of thick sliced meats, even a broiled stuffed chicken that looked suspiciously like the one she’d seen in the hotel kitchen earlier. She was told that the other boats would have boiled shrimp and other kinds of fish, chowders, stews, and tasty pastries.

“Max.” Carlos motioned to a boat approaching their circle. It was a smaller boat, neat and clean, but not nearly as well kept. “I think there will be trouble here, my friend. The skipper is one of the newcomers.”

“No,” Max said quietly, and motioned for the boat captain to pull up alongside Carlos’s boat. The others were silent and all eyes were turned to the newcomer. When the vessels were side by side, Max smiled and leapt lightly across the short expanse of water between them.

“Will you share our food?” the thin man asked with a hesitant smile.

“He’s from Louisiana, where an oil spill killed off all the fish,” Helen whispered. “He came here three months ago, and since then the other fishermen have been out of their minds with worry that he’s only the first.”

“Does Max know him?”

“Probably not,” Helen whispered. “But at least Max has the reputation of being willing to examine all sides of an issue. This boat isn’t really much in the way of competition; it’s the possibility of more competition that Carlos and the others are afraid of.”

Kate vaguely remembered watching something on television about the oil spill and the subsequent pollution that had killed the fish in the area. Local fishermen had been forced to move or find other means of earning a living. Kate couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for the stoop-shouldered little man and his wife who were timidly holding out pots of food.

Kate considered the rocking boats for a moment, then caught the side of the rail and cautiously stepped across to stand beside Max. When she smiled and looked into the pot with what she hoped was an expression of delight, she heard Max’s satisfied sigh.

In a few minutes, Helen followed Kate’s lead and came over to bring fried chicken to the strangers and sample the creole dish they’d offered. Soon one of the other boats pulled alongside and two burly looking, weather-beaten old men came aboard, tasted the food, left a bottle of wine, and moved on to the next boat.

Finally the newcomers shook Max’s hand and waved to Kate and Helen as they moved back to Carlos’ boat.

“Thank you, Kate.” Max said simply, the pride in his voice giving way to something deeper. He moved nearer and put his arm around her, pulling her close once more.

“I feel sorry for those people. Pollution hurts all of us, but the little guy is often crushed. The larger fleets have more power. They can sell for higher prices, and because they buy more, they can get their supplies for less too. The others have to fish twice as much to make a living. Carlos is right. Trouble is brewing,” Max said.

“Too bad they can’t all join together,” Kate commented, thinking how kind Max really was. “I mean, if they were all equal, the owners of the small boats wouldn’t have to fish so much. They could set some kind of rules or something.”

The sun was dropping behind a bank of purple clouds just above the edge of the ocean, and the wind had begun to blow. Kate shivered, not entirely as a result of the cool night air, and moved deeper into the circle of Max’s arms.

From the other boats, the sound of guitars and concertinas began and the fishermen started to sing. Max and Kate sat on the deck listening in the darkness.

It was very late when they made their way back to the dock.

“Thank you, Max,” Kate whispered, “for a lovely day.”

“I haven’t forgotten my promise,” he said as he put his arm around her, and they walked slowly to the parking area.

“Oh, and what was that?”

“Breakfast and a sunrise, especially ordered, privately for two.”

“Max, you’ve already fulfilled both parts. The
sunrise was spectacular and the breakfast was too.”

They reached the car, and Max reluctantly started the engine. Kate leaned her head against the seat and closed her eyes. She’d never had such a day. She hadn’t believed it was possible. At the close, she didn’t want to think of anything that might spoil it. The light fragrance of flowers mingled with the faint woodsy odor of Max’s cologne, and Kate felt very good.

They drove for some time in comfortable silence before Max spoke. “Today was nice, Kate. You’re easy to be with—no pretense, nothing phony. You didn’t look down on the fishermen. I think I like that very much.”

Kate didn’t answer. She took a deep breath and turned toward him, feeling a sharp pain cut into her. He was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen, and she wanted so much to reach out and touch him. She wanted to tell him that she felt good with him. But she knew that this couldn’t be real, not the forever kind of real.

“Oh, Max, I’m not so special. You don’t really know anything about me. You’re seeing me through … special eyes.”

“Oh? You have six children, a Great Aunt Bertha who’s a bookie, and a great dane named Spot who hates men? No matter.”

“No, none of those. I’m a blue-collar worker, Max. That’s why I fit in with those people. They’re like me. You were one of them today. But back at the hotel, in everyday life, you live in the penthouse. Don’t make either of us something we’re not. Let’s just enjoy what we have for now. No promises, Okay?”