Princess Charming Page 8

  “What did you figure me for, a trapeze artist?” I asked, throwing back his remark from the night before.

  He laughed. “Score one for Elaine.”

  So he remembered my name. Score two for Elaine.

  “I run four miles every morning,” I explained, still processing what I considered to be a compliment.

  “Before work?”

  “Yes. I get up at five and run until six-thirty. I’m in the office by eight.”

  “I’m impressed. I’m not nearly that disciplined. I just run when I can, in between business trips, to keep myself in reasonably good shape.”

  I should be in such reasonably good shape, I thought as I stole a quick glance at Sam’s hard, flat stomach.

  “You said last night that you do a lot of traveling for business,” I said as we chugged along, “but I don’t remember you mentioning which insurance company you work for.”

  “Dickerson Life Insurance.”

  “Dickerson Life Insurance?”

  “Yeah, up in Albany.”

  “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Albany?”

  “No, Dickerson Life Insurance.” He was teasing me again.

  “They’re a publicly traded company. I’ve been with them for fifteen years,” he said.

  “Fifteen years. That’s a long time to do anything,” I said. “At least, that’s what people tell me. I’ve been in public relations for sixteen years.”

  “I guess we’re a couple of lifers.”

  “I guess so. What made you go into the insurance business in the first place?”

  “My father was an executive with Travelers. He’s retired now, but insurance must be in my genes.”

  I wouldn’t mind being in your jeans, I thought, shocked by my emerging lasciviousness.

  “What about your mother? Did she work?” I asked, refocusing.

  “Yeah, but she was a ballerina. I couldn’t see myself in a tutu, so I went with the insurance business.”

  “Probably a wise choice.”

  “But let’s get back to you,” said Sam. “You’re at your office by eight, you work a full day, and then what?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What happens after work? What do you do for fun?”

  “I do what most single career women in Manhattan do for fun: I either work late at the office, nuke a frozen dinner at home, or go out for dinner with other single career women and put the tab on one of our expense accounts.”

  “What about men?”

  “What about them?”

  “Aren’t there any in Manhattan?”

  “Sure, there are men in Manhattan. But they’re either married, married to their jobs, or married to their mothers.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Worse.”

  Sam laughed. Score another one for my team.

  “You said last night that you’re divorced,” he went on. He was much chattier than he’d been the night before. I found all these questions extremely flattering.

  “Yes, I am divorced,” I said.

  “Are you still in touch with your ex?”

  “Only when he calls to verbally abuse me. About a week ago, he issued his first death threat.”

  “Doesn’t sound very chummy. Did you take his threat seriously?”

  “Hardly,” I scoffed. “Eric is in the funeral home business. His expertise is in dealing with people who are already dead. He wouldn’t know how to actually cause someone to be dead. He’d need a manual. Or he’d have to hire someone else to do it for him.”

  “Why would he want to kill you at all?” Sam asked, moving away from me slightly.

  I smiled. “Don’t be alarmed. I’m making it sound more dramatic than it really is. I do that sometimes.”

  “Then tell me the real reason your ex is so angry at you.”

  “Eric had an affair with Lola, the makeup artist who worked for his funeral homes. There was an ugly divorce. A few months later, I started doing PR for his chief business rival. Eric wasn’t happy about it. I think it’s a macho thing with him at this point. Men don’t like to be shown up by a woman, an ex-wife in particular.”

  “People don’t like to be shown up by people. Period.”

  “True, but I think it’s especially galling for a man to be outdone by a woman who doesn’t have to lie or cheat or offer up her body—a woman who uses her talent and ingenuity to accomplish her goals.”

  Sam smiled. “Wow. You must be terrific at public relations. You talk like a press release.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Positive spins aside, I think death threats from a former spouse are a little extreme. I, for example, have only threatened to break a woman’s kneecaps.”

  I laughed. “Was this woman your ex-wife? I don’t think you mentioned last night at dinner whether you’d ever been married.”

  I had turned to look at Sam when I’d asked the question and so I saw the sudden blankness, the detachment, the aloofness—the same look he’d arrived at the dinner table with the night before—return to his expression. It was as if a curtain had descended across his handsome face, obscuring the teasing, intelligent eyes, the wry, sexy smile, all of it. I waited for him to say something, to answer my question, but he just continued to run alongside me, silently, staring straight ahead. It was awkward, to say the least. I was about to rush in to fill the dead air, to ask if he’d gone to the show last night, played the slot machines in the casino, anything, when he finally spoke.

  “I was almost married,” he said, so softly the words were barely audible.

  Oh, I get it, I thought. Sam Peck is one of those men who can’t commit, can’t stand intimacy, can’t pull the trigger; the type who’s out the door the minute the woman hears wedding bells. And he’s ashamed to admit it.

  “You don’t have to talk about it,” I said, looking out over the ocean as we ran. I tried to sound nonchalant, but I was crushed, figuring that if I were to fall in love with Sam, the relationship would never go anywhere, never be more than a clichéd shipboard romance, certainly never get to the living-together stage or, God forbid, the altar. Wait! Perhaps I can change him, I thought, falling right down into the pit into which scores of women throughout the ages have fallen—that insane fantasy where we allow ourselves to believe that we and we alone can cure his addictions, smooth the rough edges of his personality, convert him into our very own Prince Charming. It’s so tempting to believe such things, but look what happened when I’d tried to convert Eric from a frog into a prince: I ended up with a frog who turned into a weasel.

  “My fiancée died a week before our wedding.”

  Sam said something, but I couldn’t hear him over the din of the ocean. I turned to look at him.

  “What was that?” I asked. His eyes were sorrowful, haunted. “I didn’t—”

  “The woman I was supposed to marry died right before the wedding. About two years ago.”

  I was stunned. Sam Peck had had a fiancée? A fiancée who died? How? Why? Under what circumstances? I was dying to ask, was flooded with questions, but said instead, “Oh, Sam. I’m so sorry.” And I was. Sorry for Sam. Sorry for the woman he was supposed to marry. Sorry I was always so quick to prejudge, to assume the worst about everything and everyone.

  “Thanks,” he said. “The first few months were hell, but I’m rebounding. Slowly but surely.”

  “Is this cruise part of the healing process? The fact that you’re taking time off from work, I mean?”

  “All the traveling I do helps. I’m never in one place long enough to dwell on anything. And I’m certainly not in one place long enough to get a serious relationship going with someone else.”

  “I understand,” I said and nodded, a small lump forming in my throat. Poor Sam. Poor me. If Sam got a serious relationship going with me, that would make me a transitional woman and who wanted to be one of those? But in time, with patience, perhaps—

  “I didn’t mean to drag the conversation down,” said Sam, his
face brightening a little, the curtain beginning to lift. “I’d much rather listen to you tell one of your stories. You make me laugh, Elaine. Did you know that?”

  “No. Well, not—”

  “You do,” he said. “That stuff you told me about some of your clients last night at dinner was great material.”

  “It was all true.”

  “And you know what else?”

  “No.”

  “You’re tall.”

  “You noticed that.”

  “Yeah, and it’s a relief. Usually, I have to look down at women when they’re standing next to me. Way down. We’re talking nose bleeds here.”

  “But your nose doesn’t bleed with me, is that it?”

  “That’s it.”

  It wasn’t: “I love you, Elaine.” But we were getting somewhere, I thought.

  Our conversation drifted away from ourselves and we talked about Jackie and Pat, the Caribbean, the Princess Charming. I asked Sam if he had gone to the show last night.

  “I went for a half-hour or so, in time to catch the guy who walked barefoot on hot coals.”

  “Was it fun?”

  “Not exactly. The guy’s manager forgot the coals, so they had to use briquets.”

  “And people think the entertainment on cruise ships is amateurish.”

  “Actually, tonight’s show could be even better entertainment,” he said with his tongue in his cheek. “They’re having an Elvis revue. Six Presley lookalikes will sing ‘Love Me Tender’ and the audience will vote on which one did the best impression of The King.”

  “Sounds deadlier than watching Captain Solberg on the Princess Charming Channel.”

  “Oh, you’re a fan too?”

  I nodded enthusiastically. “I love his weather reports. He could be the next Willard Scott.”

  Sam laughed.

  We made more small talk, but it’s hard to run and talk without getting a little winded, so at some point we stopped the chitchat and just ran together. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that people were observing us as we ran, assuming we were a couple. And this time, I didn’t shrink from the assumption. There are worse things than being linked with Sam Peck, I thought. Much worse things.

  At eight-thirty, we called it quits.

  “Time for breakfast,” Sam announced. “Want to join me?”

  An invitation. I was thrilled. But duty called: I always checked in with my office first thing in the morning when I was out of town. Yes, I was nursing a serious infatuation with Sam. But men came and went; my job was my anchor, my security.

  “Thanks, Sam, but I’ve got to go back to my cabin to phone my office.”

  “Are you kidding? Those ship-to-shore calls are ten dollars a minute. Why not wait until Wednesday when we get to San Juan?”

  “Money’s not an issue. My expense account will pay for it.”

  “Fine, but why are you calling your office? You’re on vacation, remember?”

  “I call my office every day. In case there’s a problem with one of my clients.”

  “Pearson & Strulley is a huge PR firm. Can’t someone else there handle your clients while you’re away? Like your assistant?”

  Obviously, Sam didn’t understand how indispensable I was to Pearson & Strulley.

  “My assistant is wonderful. An absolute gem,” I said. “Her name is Leah and she’s from Jerusalem, and before she came to work for me she was a soldier in the Israeli army. I figured that if she could survive the conflict in the Middle East, she could survive me. I’m not an easy person to work for.”

  “I guessed that, somehow.”

  “She’s incredibly organized and approaches even the most menial task as if it were a military maneuver. Best of all, she loves to work. The woman puts in almost as many hours as I do.”

  “Then why not let her cover for you while you’re away?”

  “Leah is not an account executive,” I said. “Perhaps someday she’ll grow into the position. With a few more years under her belt. Under my tutelage.” I was laying it on a little thick, but I wanted to impress Sam. The truth was, Leah was more than capable of doing my job, which is why I called the office even when I was on vacation: to make sure she hadn’t stolen my job.

  “Well, I’m starved,” said Sam. “If you change your mind, I’ll be in the Glass Slipper.”

  “The what?”

  “That’s the name of the café by the pool. They serve buffet breakfasts and lunches. Sure you won’t join me?”

  I shook my head. “I’ll see you later though,” I said, moving away from Sam but not wanting to. “At dinner.”

  “At dinner,” he said, pushing his eyeglasses back up the bridge of his nose with his index finger. They’d kept sliding down during our run.

  “At dinner,” I repeated with a little wave as I backed inside the ship. When I was inside, out of Sam’s sight, I mimicked Jackie and pumped my fist in triumph.

  “Yessss,” I said, feeling as if I’d truly scored a victory. I had never imagined that I would meet a man on the ship, a man as good-looking and personable as Sam Peck. And yet that’s exactly what had happened. I wasn’t just an anonymous passenger to him now, some divorcée he got stuck with at dinner. I was Elaine. The one who made him laugh.

  Suddenly, the cruise was looking better and better to me. I was actually glad that Jackie and Pat had suggested it.

  I was inserting my key into my cabin door when I heard someone coming out of the stateroom two doors down from mine: 8026. I was dying to catch a glimpse of the “doll face” who had so enthralled Lenny Lubin, so I stood there for a few seconds, pretending to fumble with my key, and waited for her to appear in the hall.

  Come on, where are you, honey? I don’t have all day, I thought as she seemed to be taking her sweet time.

  Finally, someone emerged from 8026, but not the someone I had pictured. He was in his nineties and in a wheelchair, and while he was in pretty good shape for a ninety-year-old, he was no doll face. I rushed over to help him maneuver the wheels over the door’s threshold, and he thanked me and told me I reminded him of Susan Anton. I thanked him and told him he must have an excellent memory because hardly anyone remembered Susan Anton.

  When I got inside my stateroom, it hit me that Lenny had lied about what he was doing on Deck 8 so early in the morning. The question was: Why?

  Immediately, my overactive imagination kicked in, and I began to assign all sorts of sinister motives to Lenny’s appearance in our hall. Perhaps he wasn’t the benign old lecher he made himself out to be. Perhaps he was involved in some kind of conspiracy.

  Oh, boy, there I go, I thought, chiding myself. As my friends were well aware, I believed deeply in conspiracies—the Russians killed JFK, the Mafia killed RFK, the cops framed OJ, and all the rest. It was all part of my unfortunate mind-set that, when push came to shove, people weren’t to be trusted.

  I laughed at my own idiocy. Lenny Lubin was a harmless lush, who wanted everyone to think he was a stud. So he probably made up all that stuff about the doll face in 8026 because he couldn’t face the fact that he hadn’t gotten laid in years.

  I felt for Lenny. I hadn’t gotten laid in years either.

  Of course, there was still the question of why he had chosen a stateroom on our hallway to lie about. But I didn’t have time to play Agatha Christie. It was nearly nine o’clock and I hadn’t even placed my first call to the office.

  I took a quick shower and was about to call New York when Pat knocked on the door. She was on her way to breakfast, and was then planning on having a haircut, a facial, and a manicure.

  “Are you booked for lunch?” I asked.

  “Sort of,” she said. “Somebody did ask me to join him.”

  “Him? Who?”

  “Albert Mullins. The one who insisted on having my blouse dry-cleaned.”

  “The bird watcher.”

  “Yes. He called first thing this morning and invited me to meet him at the Glass Slipper around noon.”

 
; “What did you tell him?” I asked, picturing Pat wrestling with the decision.

  “I said that I’d probably be eating with you and Jackie but that he was welcome to join us. Now it turns out that Jackie is under the weather.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Pat shrugged. “She woke me up this morning, asking if I had anything for a bad stomach. You know how Bill always likes me to travel with a healthy supply of stomach medicines.”

  “Yes, Pat. I know. But tell me more about Jackie.”

  “She said she had a nice drink with Henry Prichard, that they stayed in the Crown Room until about ten-thirty and then went to bed.”

  “Together?”

  “No.” Pat giggled. “Jackie said Henry was the perfect gentleman.”

  “She must have been devastated.”

  “Elaine. In any case, now she’s got these terrible cramps and episodes of nausea and she feels dizzy too.”

  “It must have been something she ate,” I reasoned. “Although she and I both had the veal and I feel fine.”

  “It’s probably a bug of some sort. I ordered her some hot tea and dry toast from room service. I think she’s resting now.”

  “Then I’ll check in on her later. I really hope it’s just a twenty-four-hour thing. She was really looking forward to this vacation, what with everything that’s going on between her and Peter about the nursery.”

  Pat nodded. “I wondered if the stress of all that might be what’s causing her symptoms.”

  “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Listen, why don’t I meet you and Albert for lunch at noon—and Jackie, too, if she’s up to it? I’ve got a phone call to make now.”

  Pat agreed and went off to breakfast and then on to the ship’s beauty salon. I hoped we didn’t hit a patch of rough seas while she was having her curly blond locks snipped. Talk about a bad hair day.

  I closed the cabin door behind Pat, pulled up a chair by the phone, and read the instructions on the card that was mounted inside the phone’s headset. I gave the operator my credit card number, dialed my number at Pearson & Strulley, and waited for several seconds. Finally, the call went through, although there was a tremendous amount of static on the line.

  At ten dollars a minute, there shouldn’t be all this crackling, I thought while I waited for my assistant to answer the phone.