Bon Bon Voyage (8 page)

I had eggs Benedict, a small bowl of fresh grapes glazed with sugar, and a mimosa. Vera asked if I'd become an alcoholic since she last saw me. “Champagne with breakfast? I'm sure my son wouldn't approve.” This trip wasn't working out at all as I had anticipated. I felt that my mother-in-law and my friend were ganging up on me. Maybe neither one of them had wanted to come on the cruise. I shouldn't have forced Luz into it, and Jason shouldn't have forced his mother on me. I could have spent Mother's Day by myself, enjoying the good food and being bored speechless by a retired breakfast cereal executive. Why he'd think that I cared what kind of corn made the best boxed cereal was beyond me. Maybe I could get moved to a table away from all of them.

“Is one of you ladies Ms. Vallejo, the famous Spanish fashion designer?” asked a short young woman with blond curls and round cheeks. Luz nodded regally, and the newcomer, after asking permission, plopped down in the fourth seat at our table out on the deck and introduced herself. “Sandy Sechrest. I'm the ship's ombudsman.”

“Woman,” said Vera, sounding huffy. “You're not a man, and you don't have to put up with male gender endings.”

Sandy's blue eyes widened. “How super. Thank you so much. That would make me an ombuds
lady.
I like that much better.” She beamed around our little circle. “Now, as ombudslady, I've come to commiserate with Ms. Vallejo over the loss of her baggage and to escort her to our fine boutique for the fitting of a new wardrobe.”

“You go, girl,” said a loud voice over near the railing. Mrs. Gross, in a dreadful khaki pants suit, was in our midst. She looked none the worse for her two bottles of wine, just similarly wrinkled and skinny.

“Which one of you ladies is Ms. Vallejo?” asked Sandy, looking eagerly from one to the other of us.

“Yo soy Señorita Luz Vallejo,”
said Luz.

“Oh, dear. You don't speak English. Well, never mind. Picking out clothes doesn't require a mutual language. Maybe one of you ladies could—”

“I'm going to meet the chef,” I said hastily.

“Was something wrong with your breakfast?” asked the accommodating Ms. Sechrest, looking alarmed. “I can certainly relay any complaints you might have. That's my job. He's really somewhat—er—volatile.”

“I'm used to volatile men,” I replied, remembering the chairman of the music department at UT El Paso; he had shouted at me repeatedly. “I'm a food columnist. I'm sure we'll get along beautifully.”

“Of course you will,” agreed the ombudslady. “As long as you liked your breakfast, and your dinner last night, and—”

“I did,” I assured her. “And he knows I'm here.” With that I scurried away without any idea whatever of how to find the chef. I was
not
accompanying Luz to the boutique. No telling what she'd do there. We were much better friends, I mused sadly, when we'd each had a few drinks, but obviously my mother-in-law wasn't going to allow that.

11

Like I'm going to find anything I want to wear in a frigging ship's boutique,
I thought, as Vera and I followed the Sechrest woman to the elevator. Carolyn had certainly bustled her proper butt away before she could be shanghaied into this useless expedition. Maybe I should snap up everything in their shop to replace my missing “wardrobe,” which hadn't been that much to begin with. Why not? Then they wouldn't have anything left to sell.

There was one salesgirl in the boutique. Babette. I'd have felt sorry for her, having a name like that, if she hadn't been such an idiot. First, I had to sit down in a chair so soft I'd probably ruin my knees trying to get out of it. Then I had to watch while Babette tottered around on four-inch heels bringing in dresses for me to look at. She even held them up in front of herself and twirled, for Christ's sake. Of course, Ombudslady Sandy thought they were all “gorgeous,” while Vera pointed out which ones she thought had been created solely to make the wearer uncomfortable. More male patriarchy crap, I figured. Actually, some of them looked okay. Nothing I'd ever wear, of course. Nothing I could ever afford.

“Ha. Here you are. You may remember me from the Lisbon airport. I certainly remember you from last night. Since you made it quite clear that you blame me for the loss of your clothes, I thought supervising this expedition was the least I could do. I'm here to make sure that the cruise line doesn't try to cheat you on the replacements.”

It was the withered old lady who always wore ugly colors— camouflage green in Lisbon, brown with sparkles last night, khaki today. She started flipping through the clothes Babette had draped everywhere, checking the price tags.

“Madam,” cried Babette. “I am helping this lady.”

“And being the ombudslady,” Sandy admonished, “I can assure you that Ms. Vallejo will not be cheated. She is, after all, a famous designer from Madrid.”

“My ass,” muttered the old lady, and tossed an evening dress into my lap. Deep blue. I would have picked it out myself if she hadn't butted in. “Go try it on,” ordered the woman.

So that's how it went. Mrs. Gross—that was her name— kept sending me into the dressing room with the most expensive stuff in the store. Babette kept cooing, in what I took to be a fake French accent, about “Madam's” excellent taste, and I had to climb in and out of all these clothes—day dresses, evening dresses, nightgowns, slacks with fancy shirts and sweaters, shoes, scarves, handbags. She expected the ship to provide me with more stuff than I owned, not just in my missing suitcase, but in my closet at home as well. She even wanted to get me into shorts and a swimsuit, but I said I didn't swim. The truth is that I've got a bullet scar on my left thigh that isn't all that pleasant to look at.

I found out something interesting about expensive clothes: They feel great against your skin. All that silk. A black evening gown Mrs. Gross insisted on was as good as having a massage. I had a massage about ten years ago when this big prostitute from Juárez, built like a tank, pushed me off a downtown fire escape and sprained my shoulder. Of course I got right up and broke her arm, she went to jail for attacking a police officer, and I got a commendation and the massage. Not bad for a night's work.

While I was trying stuff on, with Babette's help, Vera was telling Mrs. Gross and Ombudslady Sandy about a policeman she'd slugged in downtown Chicago for trying to arrest some little Chicano girl who was begging on the street, trying to get bus fare home. Generally speaking, I wouldn't approve of hitting a cop, but the one Vera smacked sounded like an ass-hole. Probably hated Chicanos. Good thing I live in El Paso, where we're mostly all Chicanos or illegal Mexicans. If I lived somewhere else, I might be slugging bigoted cops instead of having been a cop myself.

So I ended up with all these clothes in “boutique bags,” lavender and white with a picture of the ship, and Herkule Pipa was called to carry them to the suite for me. Sandy helped him while Vera and I led the parade. Mrs. Gross, who figured she had done enough damage to the ship's bottom line, hustled off in the other direction, probably looking for another bottle of wine.

I had more clothes to hang in my closet than Carolyn had to hang in hers and wondered how she'd feel about that. Turns out she was delighted on the grounds that, looking so classy in my new stuff, I'd naturally give up foul language. Like that was going to happen!

I was wearing slacks and a silk blouse, both of which had to be dry-cleaned, for Christ's sake, because Vera insisted that I change out of my “tatty jeans.” Considering how old she was, she probably never wore jeans, so I forgave her, although my jeans were very comfortable. Pipa, the Albanian, had managed not to shrink them.

The executive chef, Demetrios Kostas el Greco, was volatile, as advertised, but he never shouted at me, only at his underlings. In fact, he greeted me with a hug, the result of which was that his tall hat fell off, spraying the pins that had held it in place hither and yon. He roared, and a female sous-chef dashed over to scoop up the hat and pins and return him to his previous chefly glory. Then he and I paced up and down the aisles of his huge, modern kitchen while he shouted in Greek what I took to be foul language at his employees and chatted with me in English of a sort. The kitchen was a veritable Tower of Babel, different languages assaulting me from every side as they prepared lunch, which I certainly didn't intend to miss.

I was offered a sip of a wonderful melon soup, the melons for which had been flown to Lisbon from Israel; a smidgen of chicken in dill sauce; and a fingerful of frosting for an orange cake, the finger belonging to Demetrios. I can't say that I appreciated having his sticky finger thrust in my face with the demand that I open my mouth, but the frosting, which was red-orange, tasted so smooth and so very orangey with just a touch of brandy, that I forgave him. After all, he probably washed his hands often.

“Blood oranges?” I asked when I had savored the forecast of a dessert to come. “I've read that they were a natural mutation in Sicily.”

“Yes, yes. Absolute. We boil down the orange with the fine brandy, and then fold it by the hands with spoons into the sweet whipped cream.”

“Wonderful,” I exclaimed. “Do you know the myth about the naming of oranges? It's said that in the very distant past in Malaysia, where oranges originated, an elephant discovered an orange tree and ate so many oranges that he exploded and died. Centuries later a human found the bones of the elephant with a grove of orange trees growing from the elephant's former stomach. The man said, ‘What a fine
naga ranga
!' In Sanskrit that meant
fatal indigestion of elephants.
Thus the name.”

Demetrios gave me a puzzled look; perhaps he wasn't interested in culinary history and myth. He kissed my hand, then scooped it into his and whisked me off to his office to discuss the spicy coating on the steaks the night before. Evidently, his minions were forced to beat the chili powder and other ingredients into the steak with special mallets, a process he demonstrated by pounding his desk in between rushes to the door to shout at people in the kitchen. His office was glass, and he didn't miss a thing that happened beyond his windows. Cooking under his direction had to be very stressful for his workers.

Having discussed his steak recipe, he rushed me back out and “let” me wield the wooden spoon with which the brandy was stirred into the orange frosting. Unfortunately, the brandy fumes made me rather dizzy and nauseated. It's a problem I have when making fondue at home. When Demetrios noticed that I had become pale and begun to perspire, he snatched the spoon from my hand, passed it to a waiting pastry chef, and lifted me bodily with both hands around my waist. From the pot to the kitchen door, he hoisted me several inches off the floor and carried me. “Come to visit once more when you are not to vomit. Vomiting in my kitchen is not good.” I was extremely embarrassed as he pushed me—not violently, mind you—out the door.

So much for impressing the chef with my expertise in the kitchen. I took deep breaths all the way to the elevator and was feeling much better by the time I reached our suite, where I found a Luz I hardly recognized. “You look absolutely gorgeous!” I exclaimed.

“Thanks,” she muttered. “Now, will you tell your mother-in-law that I do not want to round up female cops to march in some demonstration in Chicago?”

“Vera,” I said cheerily, “Luz doesn't want to.” I was pleased to note that not only did my friend look very chic, but also she hadn't used foul language. It had to be the clothes. I now wished that I'd given Luis, the inept handler of baggage in Lisbon, a more generous tip.

Out in the hall we could hear Herkule calling, “Is now serving yum-yum lunch in dining room. Chef not likes laggard tardies. He comes from kitchen and barks loudly.”

12

Lunch was pretty good, great if you took Carolyn's word for it. She actually ate two desserts. She was starting on the second and talking about paying a visit to the pastry chef when the fire alarms went off and gave everyone but Carolyn indigestion. She wrapped the piece of cake in her napkin and took it with her when the crew people hustled us off for the fire drill. The worst of it was wearing these Styrofoam life jackets, sitting around listening to a safety lecture, and then answering a roll call while standing under a huge rubber lifeboat. Some computer guy from Silicon Valley said it was like standing under the sword of Damocles, whatever that meant.

The damn Styrofoam was hot as hell and made me sweat on my new clothes. I figured they did it on purpose so we'd have to send our stuff to the ship's dry cleaners, a service that was not free. Carolyn's mother-in-law couldn't even see over the collar of her life jacket and raised a big ruckus about having to walk down stairs as good as blind because we weren't allowed to use the elevators for the fire drill. A steward showed up to help her. Poor guy got an earful about life jackets that might be all right for men, but were dangerous for women, especially older women with fragile bones and hearts that might seize up at any minute. During the lecture, Carolyn scarfed down the whole piece of cake.

After that we had to take the rotten life jackets up to our rooms and stow them before we met for a ladies' tour of the ship so we'd know all the great things it had to offer, especially the ones that would cost us money, “onboard amenities” they called them. I'd have settled for a bigger bathroom. At least I'd managed to make a deal with Vera to use her tub when my knees got bad. The thing has water swishing out holes in the sides and water whirling around in the tub. Pull the plug, and you'd probably wash down the drain. Well, maybe not me, but Vera for sure. In return I promised to walk around the deck with her twice a day so her doctor wouldn't bitch at her when she got back. She said she didn't think Carolyn was much on exercise. I could have told her that.