Princess Charming Read online

  Eventually, I heard her voice—barely.

  “Leah? It’s Elaine,” I shouted.

  “Who?” she asked.

  “Elaine. Elaine Zimmerman.” It was the lousy connection, I told myself. They couldn’t have forgotten me already.

  “Elaine. I can hardly hear you.”

  “That’s because I’m in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.” I paused and waited for a wave of static to clear. “So, is anything going on with my clients?”

  “Yes. Plenty.”

  “What? Tell me.”

  “Which do you want first: the good news or the bad news?”

  “You’ve worked for me a long time, Leah. You know the rules.”

  “Right. Sorry. Bad news first. Dina Witherspoon was arrested for shoplifting a gold bracelet from the jewelry counter at Neiman Marcus. The SEC is investigating Mini-Shades for securities fraud. And a Santa Monica man is suing The Aromatic Bean for $2.5 million, claiming the cappuccino he spilled on his arm caused second-degree burns.”

  I couldn’t believe it. I was gone twenty-four hours and what happened? A public relations nightmare! Three public relations nightmares! Nightmares that would be next to impossible for me to contain from my stateroom on the Princess Charming!

  “Are you there, Elaine?” asked Leah.

  “Unfortunately,” I said after waiting for more static to clear. “You mentioned that there was good news. What is it?”

  “That you can relax and enjoy your vacation, because I’m taking care of everything here.”

  “You are?”

  “Yes. Harold promoted me this morning. I’m an account executive now.”

  Harold Teitlebaum was the group vice president of Pearson & Strulley, the man to whom I reported. He hadn’t mentioned anything to me about wanting to promote Leah. Not a word.

  “I don’t think I heard you,” I said, hearing her perfectly.

  “I said, Harold promoted me. I’m not your assistant anymore.”

  I took a minute to let all this sink in. A ten-dollar minute.

  “I’m happy for you, Leah, but Dina Witherspoon, Mini-Shades, and The Aromatic Bean are my clients,” I said, wanting to make it quite clear to this Israeli Eve Harrington that I was still in charge.

  “Oh, absolutely. I’m only covering for you until you’re back from vacation. Then, Harold will assign me my own clients. He says he’s already got a few in mind.”

  “Harold’s been a busy boy,” I said dryly.

  “You sound angry, Elaine.”

  “Angry?” I didn’t feel angry, exactly. I felt left out, shut out, out of the loop. I was stuck on a ship in the middle of nowhere and couldn’t come to my clients’ rescue or my own. “I’m fine. Just fine,” I said from between clenched teeth.

  “Listen, Elaine. I’ve really got to go. Harold wants me to fax Liz Smith a press release explaining that Dina Witherspoon wasn’t shoplifting that gold bracelet; she was only lifting it, to see how heavy it was, and it happened to fall into her bag without her realizing it.”

  Harold wanted Leah to fax Liz Smith a press release? About my client?

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” Leah added before rushing off to do my job. “You had a call from your ex-husband first thing this morning.”

  “Eric? What in the world did he want?” As I’ve already indicated, Eric and I were not one of those divorced couples that made even the slightest attempt at cordiality.

  “It was a little strange,” said Leah. “He said he heard you were taking a cruise.”

  “Sure, he heard I was taking a cruise. I told him the last time he called to yell at me.”

  “He said he wanted to confirm your trip.”

  “Confirm it? That is strange, even for Eric. Why would he give a damn about my travel plans?”

  “I have no idea. But what’s even stranger is that when I asked him if he wanted you to return his call when you got home from the cruise, he started laughing.”

  “Laughing?”

  “Yes. As if I’d said something hysterically funny.”

  “But Eric never laughs. He spends most of his time with corpses and they’re not known for their witty repartee.”

  “Well, I’m sure you and he will figure out whatever has to be figured out. In the meantime, I really should get back to work.”

  “While I sit here playing shuffleboard, you mean?”

  “Face it, Elaine. You’re on a cruise and I’m in the office. Which of us is in a better position to handle things here?”

  She was. But still.

  “I’m in complete control,” she said, as if I was supposed to find that reassuring instead of threatening. “Now, run off and have fun.”

  “But I really think I should be the one to—”

  “I can’t hear you, Elaine,” she interrupted as the static returned to the phone line.

  “It’s just as well,” I said and hung up.

  6

  At ten-fifteen, I called Harold to discuss his unilateral decision to promote my assistant. But when the call went through, his assistant told me he was in a meeting. I gave her the ship’s phone number as well as the number of my stateroom and asked that he call me back. He did not. At ten forty-five, I called again and was told Harold was in another meeting. At eleven forty-five, I called a third time and was told Harold had gone to lunch. All the while, Kingsley kept knocking at my door and asking when he could make up the room. Each time I said, “Later,” and each time he said, “No problem.” At eleven-fifty, I put Kingsley out of his misery and vacated the cabin.

  My first stop was Jackie’s room. The do not disturb sign was hanging outside, but when I put my ear to the door, I could hear that the television was on, so I knocked lightly.

  “It’s Elaine, Jackie,” I said. “I just wanted to see if you were alive.”

  I listened for some signs of life and was relieved when I heard a rustling of sheets, then a shuffling of footsteps. After a few minutes, Jackie appeared, holding her stomach and grimacing in pain.

  She was, obviously, not well. Her skin had a yellowish tint and her eyes were milky. Even her short, spiky blond hair looked wilted. I had never seen her in such bad shape, not in the six years we’d known each other. Because she worked outdoors, she’d always had a healthy, ruddy complexion and seemed the antithesis of the fragile flower. Not that she took great care of herself. She ate junk food and drank more than most women I knew and had smoked a pack of Marlboros a day until four years before, when she’d given up cigarettes for biting her nails down to the cuticles. She’d have an occasional hangover and her back acted up every now and then, but she gave the impression she was immune to colds and flus. “I’m too mean for those germs,” she’d laugh when the subject would come up. I’d always believed her. Until now.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she groaned, flipping off the TV with the remote control. “I feel horrible enough already.”

  “Do you think you’re seasick?” I asked.

  “Me? Peter and I used to go deep sea fishing. Besides, you can barely feel the waves on this ship. Half the time I forget I’m even on the water.”

  “Then what do you think is the problem?” I asked, gently taking hold of her elbow and guiding her back to bed.

  She smiled weakly. “You tell me, Elaine. You’re the hypochondriac. What’s the disease of the week?”

  “Actually, there was a cruise ship where the passengers got Legionnaires’ disease.”

  “Yeah, well. What I’ve got isn’t that exotic. It’s just your basic gotta-run-to-the-bathroom-every-five-minutes bug. Or maybe I ate something that didn’t agree with me.”

  “But you felt fine at dinner,” I pointed out, “and when we were up in Pat’s room. Were you okay when you were having a drink with Henry?”

  “Sure. This thing didn’t hit me until about two o’clock this morning. And then, boom.”

  “Well, why don’t you lie back and I’ll tell you a bedtime story,” I said, fluffing her pillows.

 
She shook her head. “Your stories are always about those criminals you call clients, or how this bitch at Pearson & Strulley is trying to steal that bitch’s job. I don’t think I’m up to one of those stories.”

  Well, that ruled out my telling Jackie about Leah. “All right. Instead of my telling you a story, why don’t you tell me about your drink with Henry?”

  “It was nice,” she said. “No big fireworks or anything. Just nice to sit and hang out with a guy. A guy I’m not business partners with.”

  “What’s he like?” I asked. “He seemed very outgoing.”

  “He is. He’s a sports fan and we talked about baseball, basketball, football, and hockey.”

  “What? No bobsled racing?” I was not a sports enthusiast, even though I ran every day. Sports were frivolous, as far as I was concerned; running was medicinal.

  “No, but we did spend ten minutes or so on bowling. Henry has his own ball and shoes and is in a league.”

  Just then, Jackie winced in pain.

  “More cramps?” I said.

  She nodded and held her breath for several seconds, waiting for them to pass. “What were we saying?”

  “How you and Henry talked about sports,” I reminded her.

  “Right.”

  “Listen, you’re probably exhausted, Jackie. Why don’t I let you rest, so this bug can work its way out of your system. I’m supposed to meet Pat for lunch—”

  “Lunch. Ugh. I can’t even think about food.”

  “Sorry.” I stood up. “Can I go down to the ship’s infirmary for you and get some Kaopectate, Imodium, anything?”

  “Pat’s already given me her entire supply of Dr. Bill’s samples. I think they were part of her divorce settlement.”

  “That’s more than I got from Eric. But then I didn’t want anything from Eric. Not even a free coffin.”

  “But I bet you do want something from Sam Peck.”

  “Who?” The remark caught me completely off guard. I had trouble swallowing.

  “Come on, Elaine. I saw the way you looked at him last night.”

  I walked toward the door. “I’ll check on you later,” I said, avoiding having to address the issue.

  “Okay, but you know how paranoid you are about catching things,” she warned. “The next time you come, you’d better wear a surgical mask.”

  “I’ll see if the Perky Princess sells them,” I said, blew her a kiss, and left.

  I made it to the restaurant right at noon, just as Captain Solberg was giving the first of his daily orations over the PA system. The Glass Slipper, as it was called, was on Deck 11, the Sun Deck, where the ship’s two swimming pools were located. It was a café with an informal ambiance, a place where it was perfectly acceptable to stand on the buffet line in bare feet and a soaking wet bathing suit and drip all over your fellow passengers. (I was not wearing a bathing suit, wet or otherwise, because my bathing suits were in the famous lost suitcase. I was, therefore, forced to wear yet another Perky Princess creation: a red, white, and blue caftan emblazoned with a gold sequined anchor.) As for the buffet itself, the offerings were cafeteria-style fare: hamburger patties as tender and juicy as hockey pucks; greasy french fries; mayonnaise-y coleslaw; and a salad bar whose produce looked and smelled as if it had been decomposing in the hot sun for several days. I ended up heaping my tray with the only things I thought were safe: prepackaged Saltines.

  I spotted Pat and Albert Mullins at a table for four overlooking the water. They were sitting across from each other, with Albert chatting and gesturing and Pat trying to eat and listen at the same time. Even from a distance, I could see that her trip to the beauty salon was a success: her wild, frizzy hair had been trimmed, shaped, tamed; her skin had been scrubbed and cleansed and toned into a rosy, post-facial glow; and her nails had been painted a snappy shade of coral. She looked as healthy as Jackie looked ill.

  “Hi, you two,” I greeted them.

  Albert immediately rose from his chair with the rectitude of a soldier. I half expected him to salute me.

  “Please, sit down, Albert,” I said, sitting down myself, next to Pat.

  Albert sat. “And how are you this fine afternoon, Elaine?” he asked.

  “I’m swell, thanks.” I turned to Pat. “But I just left Jackie’s room. She’s really sick.”

  “I know,” Pat sighed. “I wish there was something we could do. Bill always took such good care of the children when they’d get stomach things. He knew how to make them more comfortable somehow.”

  I was tempted to point out that one of the reasons Pat divorced Bill was that in the last years of their marriage, he was rarely home, rarely there for his kids, sick or well; that perhaps she was allowing herself a little revisionist history. But I changed the subject.

  “So, Albert,” I said. “Seen any exciting birds yet?”

  “They’re all exciting to me, Elaine,” he said as he took tiny bites of his hamburger, dabbing at the corners of his mouth with the napkin on his lap so as not to drip any ketchup—or grease—on himself or the table. Apparently, Albert’s obsession with having Pat’s blouse dry-cleaned was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to his fastidiousness. He had tucked another napkin inside the collar of his white T-shirt and had placed an entire stack of napkins beside his water glass, as backup. “I’ve seen pelicans and blue herons and seagulls, of course. Nothing you wouldn’t expect to see out over the ocean in this part of the world. But I’m looking forward to tomorrow, when we get to our first port of call. I’m anticipating that there will be some very exciting species on that island.”

  Our first port of call was Isle de Swan, a two hundred-acre island owned by Sea Swan Cruises. Just off the northwestern coast of Haiti, it was an example of what had become a trend in the cruise industry: cruise lines buying large parcels of land from Third World and, therefore, cash-starved countries, developing these parcels, and converting them into stops on their ships’ itineraries. They were good investments. The land was cheap and so was the local labor hired to wait on the passengers when they came ashore. We were due to arrive at Isle de Swan at seven-thirty the next morning.

  “As I think I mentioned yesterday,” Pat said in between forkfuls of coleslaw, “my ex-husband sometimes takes our children bird watching during the summer. I believe they’ve spotted red-bellied woodpeckers and hooded warblers, even a tufted titmouse.”

  The “tit” in titmouse caused both Pat and Albert a moment of extreme embarrassment, during which they each made a mad grab for their water glass and drank with intensity.

  “Tell me, Albert,” I said as I scarfed down my Saltines, “were you always interested in birds? Even as a young boy?”

  “Yes,” he nodded animatedly. “I wasn’t much of an athlete. While the other boys were picked for the various teams in school, I became interested in birds. Why birds, I have no idea. I suppose I identify with them in some way. Or perhaps, it’s that I live vicariously through them.”

  “What do you mean, Albert?” Pat asked.

  “How many of us would like to escape our lives, our very selves, by simply spreading our wings and taking flight?” he said wistfully. “Birds can migrate from one breeding ground to another, follow the seasons. We humans are stuck with our lots, aren’t we.” It was not a question. “So I guess, in a nutshell, I envy the freedom birds have. But I must say, since I embarked on this cruise, I do feel as free as a bird. To be able to glide over the ocean like this, without a care in the world, is truly a joy. The Sea Swan people take care of absolutely everything for you—your meals, your entertainment, your companionship”—he smiled at Pat—“and I don’t remember ever being so utterly without responsibilities, obligations, problems.”

  My, another of Albert’s impassioned speeches.

  “You mentioned responsibilities and obligations. I wondered if you lived alone,” Pat ventured, while I wondered what sort of problems Albert might be referring to.

  He nodded. “I suppose I’m what’s commonly known as a lone
r.”

  A loner, I thought, immediately associating the word with murder and mayhem. Well, why not? Every single time a guy arms himself with a rifle, climbs to the top of a tower, and shoots a parking lot full of innocent people, his neighbors turn up on the Evening News and describe him as a loner. Perhaps Albert’s “problems” involved law enforcement officials.

  “What about your family?” asked Pat. “Do they live in Manhattan? Or in Connecticut?”

  “Actually, I have no family,” said Albert. “Everybody’s died off. It doesn’t look as if I’m going to have any children—male or otherwise—anytime soon, so the Mullins name will probably end with me.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Pat, ever upbeat. “You never can predict what will happen in life. My mother always said I’d never marry and have children—my sister, Diana, was the femme fatale when we were growing up and I was rather shy—but I not only married—a doctor, of all things!—I gave birth to five children, four of them boys.”

  “What does your mother say now?” asked Albert, sounding indignant on Pat’s behalf.

  “Oh, she and I have both come around in our thinking,” Pat confessed. “She’s starting to see that you can’t put siblings in boxes and label them.” She turned to me. “I actually worked up the nerve to say to her recently, ‘You were wrong to plagiarize me all those years, Mother.’”

  “Patronize, Pat,” I corrected her. “She was wrong to patronize you.”

  “Yes, she was.”

  Albert nodded and pulled a packet of Handi-Wipes out of his pants pocket, then cleaned his hands thoroughly with the moistened towelettes. For all I knew, he showered after every meal.

  “My mother was a bit of a patronizer, too, may she rest in peace,” said Albert. I wondered if Albert’s poor, deceased mother was the source of his money. A week on the Princess Charming wasn’t cheap, and he didn’t have a real (as in, paying) job, so I guessed that if he was the only surviving member of his family, he made his money the old-fashioned way: he inherited it.

  We chatted a bit longer. Pat talked about her mother. Albert talked about his mother. I talked about my mother, even though she, like my father, was not one of my favorite subjects. She wasn’t a horror or anything—she made terrific potato pancakes, for example. It’s just that a part of me blamed her for my father’s abandonment of our family. If she had been different somehow, more interesting or alluring, maybe he wouldn’t have left us for the redhead. But who knows what makes people do the things they do?