The Ups and Downs of Being Dead (26 page)

“You’re probably right,” Suzanne said with a laugh as they
strolled along the deck. “And what is your opinion of ‘public display of
affection’?”

“It has no place in public.”

She laughed again.

“I never saw much affection between my parents,” Suzanne
said, “even at home. But they were .
 
.
 
. tender with each other.
Gentle things they said to each other, small touches.”

“Oh, there was no PDA when I was growing up. At times, it
seemed like they could barely stand to be in the same room.”

“So who were you closer to, your mom or your dad?”

“Definitely my mother,” Robert said. “I think that’s one of
the reasons why I thought the relationship between Robbie and Amanda was
normal. I had no use for my dad.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, you’ll love this,” Robert said. “He was too busy with
work to pay much attention to me.”

“History repeating itself with Robbie?” she asked with a
smile.

“Definitely.”

Robert strolled nearly the whole length of the ship in
silence, noting how the passengers were slowly drifting back to their rooms.
Most of the stragglers on deck were still buzzed with alcohol and feeling
rowdy.

As he and Suzanne rounded the bow of the ship, he said,
“After my mom killed herself, I hated my dad.”

“You think he drove her to it?”

“I know he did. She was already obsessed with Audrey
Hepburn, but when My Fair Lady came out in the movie theater, my mom got a
little crazy. She started trying to make hats like Audrey wore in the movie.
They were a disaster, all lopsided and gaudy. But what the hell, it was just a
hat.

“Then one Sunday morning she put one on like she was going
to wear it to church. My dad went ballistic. He dragged her in front of the
mirror and pointed out all the flaws: the uneven bow, the goofy bird she’d
tried to wire to the hat, the misshapen felt. And once he got going he just
couldn’t stop. He criticized her clothes, the way she wore her hair like
Audrey, everything.”

Robert stopped to let the catch in his throat ease. “He told
her to wake up.”

“Oh, my,” Suzanne sighed.

“Yeah. It was like he took away her dream. And evidently,
her reason for living, because a week later she drove into that telephone
pole.”

The first day at sea, and already Robert was bored. He and
Suzanne had wandered through the casino, mocking gamblers who were losing at
eight o’clock in the morning. They’d also perused the paintings in a gallery
that were going up for auction that afternoon.

Next on the agenda was shopping the boutiques in the massive
atrium, and it wasn’t even noon yet.

“I never wanted to go on a cruise because I didn’t want to
take time off from work,” Robert said. “But it’s much worse than I imagined.
There’s nothing to do but eat and spend money. And on what?” He tried to flick
a dangling price tag. “Over-priced Tommy Bahama? Please.”

“We’ll be in Georgetown tomorrow,” Suzanne said, using a
tone of voice Robert suspected she’d used on sulking students. “And this
afternoon, there’s a travel talk in the grand salon to tell us all the things
we can do on shore.”

“Are you going to pat my head now and tell me to be
patient?”

She winked an eye closed. “I’m thinking about it.”

Just as she headed for the shop door, Robert heard a
blustery voice bellow, “You ain’t gonna get away wit dis!”

The sexy bimbo from yesterday strolled into the shop on the
arm of Guido, the boyfriend. Today she wore a tropical print mini skirt and
matching halter-top, with high-heel sandals that laced to her knees. The
boyfriend sported a skin-tight muscle shirt in turquoise with khaki shorts.

“Sooner or later, somebody’s gonna figure out what youse
did,” the mechanic yelled as he followed them into the store. “You and dis
cocksucker are gonna pay!”

Suzanne skittered out of the store and across the atrium to
a perfume shop. As she browsed bottles in a bargain bin, she continued glancing
across at the apparel shop.

“What an awful man,” she whispered. “No wonder she left
him.”

“I’m guessing wifey and her boyfriend bumped him off.”

“Really?”

“Men like him don’t let go easily,” Robert said. “She
probably thought her only escape was to kill him. I just don’t know if the
boyfriend was involved.”

He took another look at the woman from across the atrium.

“By the looks of those legs,” he said, “I’m pretty sure
Guido would do anything she asked.”

“But evidently they got away with it, because here they
are.”

“Or they’re on the run. Maybe they’re planning to jump ship
in Mexico.”

The mechanic let loose with another string of profanities
that carried all through the atrium.

“Let’s go back up on deck,” Robert sighed. “I’d rather walk
in circles than listen to this.”

According to the schedule, the captain’s dinner was that
evening.

“Makes sense,” Robert said. “The women have had all day to
get their hair done or whatever. And they want to be able to squeeze into
whatever evening dress they brought for the occasion. God knows by Friday,
it’ll be too tight.”

“Let’s go,” Suzanne said. “I’d love to see everyone dressed
up.”

The dinner crowd did look elegant. Men, mostly in tuxedos,
escorted ladies in an endless variation of the ‘black dress’. Robert enjoyed
scrutinizing the crowd for Audrey fashions. He was pleasantly surprised at how
many women were sporting his merchandise.

“Hey,” he scolded as a stylish woman walked by. “That was in
our evening line three years ago.”

“So what,” Suzanne said. “I’m sure no one here has seen that
dress. I say good for her.”

“You, my dear,” Robert glowered, “Are not the kind of
customer Audrey’s caters to.”

“You miserable, cheating slut!”

With a groan, Robert turned to see the bimbo and Guido
entering the dining room. She was wearing a trendy strapless number in teal,
with elastic shirring down the middle of the front. The gathered look displayed
her magnificent 36 double-D bust. The skirt barely covered her ass.

Robert involuntarily sucked in a breath and blew it out with
a short huff.

“You find her attractive?” Suzanne said. “I agree with the
husband, she looks like a slut. And they look like they’re going to the high
school prom. His cumberbund matches her dress.”

“You fucking whore!” the mechanic shouted, standing smack in
front of his wife. “You never dressed like that for me!”

She pranced right through him, her chin jutted up, her
breasts front and center for everyone in the room to admire.

“That guy is making this cruise even more unbearable,”
Robert said.

“How long do you think he’ll keep trying to get through to
them?”

“Who knows? The man Maggie and I met in Florida had been
trying to haunt his brother for months.”

As the wife and her boyfriend took their seats, the mechanic
jumped up onto the table and tried to kick a goblet of water in her direction.
Then he rose into the air and tried to slam down on the vase of flowers in the
center of the table. When nothing worked, he simply stood with hands clenched
and screamed.

“Maybe I’ll try Maggie’s technique,” Robert said.

“Wait a minute,” Suzanne said. “Where are you going?”

Robert waved a confident hand over his shoulder as he
crossed the room.

He looked up at the mechanic on the table.

“Excuse me, sir.”

The blustering mechanic stopped in mid-screech, his eyes
darting around the room beyond Robert.

“You appear to be quite angry at this woman,” Robert said.
“Am I correct that she was responsible for your death?”

The man tilted his head, like he still couldn’t understand
what was happening. But his eyes finally focused on Robert’s.

“Fuck off!”

There was no reason for Robert to back away. Even though the
man looked like a thug, and probably outweighed Robert by a good fifty pounds,
he posed no threat. And Robert had seen how Maggie had diffused Stan’s anger by
commiserating with him.

“How long have you been trying to make contact with your
wife?” he asked.

Without warning, the husky man leaped at Robert, a primal
scream drowning out the din of conversation in the room. Robert actually felt
an impact, and then an overwhelming sense of drowning, like he and the mechanic
had fallen overboard.

Down, down they went, deeper into a chasm of darkness. All
sound stopped. Robert tried to fight, to push himself away, but his arms and
legs seemed to be paralyzed.

The sensation of not being able to breathe caused Robert to
panic, and he struggled harder. He tried to cry out, his mouth gaping open, but
nothing happened. Frantically, his eyes skittered back and forth, searching for
familiarity, but all he saw was swirling darkness, like smoke.

A feeling of light-headedness swept over Robert, and he
thought he was going to pass out. Or worse. There was a moment when he might
have actually lost consciousness, because even the black shroud he was under
disappeared. Illogically, he considered that he might be dead.

And then a laugh burst from him. Of course he was dead!

The ridiculousness of the situation eased the tension across
his chest. Looking up, he thought he saw a glimmer of light, like the sun
shining down through deep, deep water.

He kicked with both feet, like a mermaid, and seemed to move
a bit closer to the surface. Concentrating on his arms, he managed to wriggle
one free. He pushed against a force that reminded him of holding his hand out
the window of a moving car and shoving the wind back.

His other arm broke free, and with hard, steady strokes, he
pulled away from the tendrils holding him to the bottom. He moved faster toward
the light and away from the murky depths.

An instant of panic gripped him when he thought he might not
make it in time, that feeling of running out of air, but he shook off the
irrational fear and lunged for the surface.

When he broke through, he gasped.

“Oh, my God, oh, my God!” Suzanne screamed.

She was on her knees, hunched over Robert. And she was
crying. Her shaking hands tried to touch his face.

“What happened?” he croaked.

“I don’t know!” she cried. “All of a sudden you both just
disappeared. I thought you were gone!”

Her head jerked as she glanced away from him.

“Get up!” she said, “Get up! We’ve got to get out of here!”

She looked past him again, and grew even more agitated.

“Get up, Robert! Hurry!”

She even tried to pull him to his feet.

He was too groggy to understand the urgency. “What’s wrong?”

“He’s going to wake up,” she moaned. “GET…UP!”

Rolling to his knees, Robert wobbled to stand. That’s when
he saw the mechanic on the floor just a few feet away, his arms splayed.

“Let’s go,” Suzanne urged. “Just start walking.”

Robert took a tentative step and thought he might tumble
back to the floor. All he wanted to do was sleep.

“That’s right,” Suzanne coaxed. “A little more, a little
more.”

A crazy notion made Robert smile. Had his tangle with the
mechanic scared everyone away? There was no one in the room but waitstaff,
clearing away dishes.

At the first cabin they came to, Suzanne motioned for Robert
to go inside. But he couldn’t clear his mind to concentrate.

“Go!” she cried from behind him. “Go! Go! Go!”

Groaning like an old man, Robert forced his way through the
door and into an empty cabin. He immediately collapsed on the bed.

Light was streaming through a window when Robert slowly
eased open his eyes. Suzanne lay stretched out beside him, her face in the same
worried furrows he’d seen when Angie lie unconscious at the hospital.

He offered a weak smile.

“Did I die again?” he asked.

Suzanne blubbered out a nervous giggle.

“I don’t know what you did,” she said, “but don’t you
ever
do it again.”

He rolled his eyes around the room.

“Something’s different.” He sat up. “We’ve stopped.”

“We pulled into port about thirty minutes ago. We’re in
Georgetown.”

“I’ve been out all this time?”

She nodded. “I was beginning to think you weren’t going to
wake up.”

Slowly, Robert rose to a sitting position.

“That was bizarre.”

“Oh, really? Which part? The part where you and that oaf
turned into a bag of gas? Or the part where you were gone for more than three
hours.”

“Three hours?”

“Then when you finally reappeared, he did, too. And you both
started twitching. I thought you’d go at it again if I didn’t get you out of
there.”

Robert stood and stretched. Then he looked around the tiny
berth, at the small porthole.

“What happened to our stateroom?”

Suzanne’s eyes flared. “All I wanted to do was get you out
of the hallway. I swear that idiot was right behind us.”

“I don’t mind telling you that scared me. I was afraid that
bonehead and I were both going to tumble into some alternate universe
somewhere. I tried to get away, but my arms and legs were all tied up, like I
was in a spider web or something.”

“You were laughing.”

“Yeah, well once I stopped hyperventilating like a little
girl, I understood nothing was going to happen. We’re both already dead. I
can’t disappear. I tried that back at the center. Suddenly, it all seemed
funny.”

“Well, as soon as you’re able, I want to get off this ship.
I don’t ever want to see that jerk again.”

The cruise director had explained that Georgetown had no
dock, so passengers wanting to go ashore were to meet at the gangplank door at
the lower level, and ride a tender to the island.