Untitled (20 page)

T
he dining room is beautiful. So glittery. So

    glitzy. Yet elegant, with dramatic chandeliers overhead—Vegas on water. So many plates, so much silverware. So many waiters. We are escorted to our table, which seats six.

    "I could get spoiled by this." Evvie sighs happily as she watches the passengers chatting with one another. "Amazing how they can handle two thousand people on this ship. Wow!"

    "Who's gonna ever want to eat in our tiny little kitchens again?" says Sophie. "Wouldn't it be great to just live on one of these boats forever?"

    "Great idea." Evvie is already nibbling at the huge selection of bread. "When our kids are ready to dump us in a retirement home or in assisted living, we could do this instead." Evvie does the math. "If we found a ship that cost us about five hundred dollars a week, that would be about thirty thousand dollars a year. Hey, you can hardly get a decent retirement place for that price. And they have doctors aboard, too."

    Bella stares around the room, admiring it all. "It's certainly nicer than our dinky continental restaurant."

    "That's for sure," agrees Evvie.

    A waiter appears. I amend that. A drop-dead gorgeous waiter. His name tag tells us he is Antonio from Guatemala. "Champagne, ladies?"

    Who's going to say no to him, or the champagne, though Ida barely sips at hers.

    Evvie asks who is to be seated in the sixth chair. The waiter consults a chart. "No one, madam," he says.

    I think to myself how wonderful it would be sharing this with Jack. Then I tell myself to snap out of it. I made my bed, now I have to lie in it. With two other women. In spite of my sadness, I have to smile at that. I make up my mind that since I'm here I have to be here, really be here. It's not fair to the girls to just keep moping.

    "Do you believe the choice of entrées?" I say, taking part. "I don't know how I can choose."

    "I want two of everything," Sophie says joyously, reading the menu.

    "Don't be ridiculous," Evvie snaps. "You'll never be able to eat it."

    "I will so."

    "You'll make a fool of yourself."

    "Will not."

    Another dreamboat waiter takes our orders. His name tag informs us he is Gustav from Bavaria. I'm beginning to like this particular cruise-ship gimmick. Spitefully, Sophie orders two appetizers, the steamed asparagus and the lobster bisque, and two entrées, sole amandine and poached salmon. Plus, of course, the veggies that come with each.

    Evvie gives her a dirty look.

    "Look who's over there," says Bella, pointing.

    The woman we met earlier in the elevator is seated two tables away from us. She's at a table for four. But so far, she's alone.

    Bella waves and catches her eye. The woman waves back. She doesn't look happy. We are surprised to see her stand up and walk over to us.

    "May I sit down for a moment?"

    We chorus our agreement.

    "I still can't find my bridge partners. We all planned to meet for this tournament and there's still no sign of them."

    I ask, "Did you try the purser?"

    "Yes, but by the time I decided to do so, his office was closed. I'll go to the bridge sign-up in the morning. If they're still not there, then I'll check with the purser."

    "Why don't you join us? No sense eating alone," says Evvie.

    She gratefully nods as we smile our agreement. The waiter comes back and takes her order.

    "I guess we should introduce ourselves," I say.

    We all do so and our new friend introduces herself as Amy Larkin from Miami Beach.

    The first course arrives—appetizer or soup, though Sophie prepares to dig in to both. Evvie shakes her head in disgust.

    "Oooh." A soft but intense sound comes from Ida.

    We look at her and she's gone pale.

    "What?" Evvie asks.

    "Look," she says faintly.

    "What? What are we supposed to see?" says Sophie. "All I see is tomato soup."

    "It's moving!" It is a faint, strangled cry. Ida is clutching her stomach.

    And yes, the soup seems to move very slowly from side to side in her bowl. Ida leaps up, covering her mouth with both hands. Now she looks green. She runs out of the dining room.

    Evvie, alarmed, says, "She's getting seasick. I'll go after her." And she is off.

    For a moment, we are all speechless.

    Bella pokes around her salad. "Well, nothing's moving in here." She starts eating. Sophie follows with gusto.

    Amy and I hesitate, but not for long. The food is delicious. Poor Ida.

    Evvie reports back. "She's sick as a dog and she's got a bucket in front of her. Would you believe? One of the busboys saw her run and he brought out a bucket, a wet towel, and a bottle of club soda. What service!" She stops. "Hmm, I guess I should have tipped him. Anyway, she won't go back to the room. She wants air and I don't blame her. I wrapped her in some deck chair blankets and she said for us to have fun and come and get her when we go downstairs for the night."

    "Poor Ida," says Sophie. She's already finished the salmon and is digging into her sole amandine. She's slowing down, but she doesn't want to give Evvie the satisfaction of being able to say I told you so.

    Evvie watches her closely. By now Sophie is pushing the filet around her plate, pretending to eat.

    Bella giggles. Evvie smirks.

    We chitchat about the various choices of entertainment we'll have on the cruise, and dinner is very pleasant.

    After dessert and coffee, Amy excuses herself. She's retiring for the night. She thanks us for inviting her. And we say we hope she finally finds her friends.

    We, too, decide it's been an exhausting day. We find Ida, who is feeling better, and head for our rooms.

    Sophie gets her door open first, and she lets out a bloodcurdling scream. "Someone's broken into our room!"

    We hurry inside.

    She points at something leaning against her pillow, next to a little square of chocolate. "What is it?"

    I examine it carefully. To me it looks like a towel folded into the shape of a bird.

    Meanwhile, Evvie has opened our door. "In here, too," she calls. We look through the adjoining door. We have three "birds" made out of our towels. But ours are attached to the bathroom door, positioned to look as if their wings were in flight.

    I begin to laugh. Then Evvie joins me. "What's the joke?" demands Sophie.

    "I think this is supposed to be a funny gift from the crew members who turn down our beds." I take one, amused at how cleverly they've been sculpted together.

    Finally the others get it, too, and start laughing.

    Evvie starts to put on her pajamas. "What a day! First we schlepp up and down the whole ship before we find our room, then we almost drop dead running up and down stairs for the fire drill, then we eat too much at dinner, and now we'll have to live on Tums—"

    "And what about me?" pipes in Ida, who is lying against the far wall, a wet cloth on her forehead, and clutching a wastebasket. "I upchucked all those little meatballs and pizza bits and I'm still feeling sick."

    "Then," continues Evvie, "we come back to our rooms so we can get some rest and we're scared out of our wits by towels turned into art."

    As I kneel down onto my mattress, I hear Bella saying from the open door of the other stateroom, "If every day is gonna be like this, I might not survive this trip."

    Ida says, "Bite your tongue."

I
t's eight-thirty in the morning and I already feel like a wreck. Ida didn't sleep a wink, so we didn't sleep much, either. She threw up on and off all night long, including the Dramamine she took, which didn't help. If she wasn't retching into her wastebasket she was climbing off the mattress, jostling the rest of us every time, to run to the bathroom.
Oy!

    We don't want to leave her, but she insists. If she feels better later, she says, she'll come and join us. With instructions to call room service if she needs anything, we leave her curled up fetal-style, groaning.

    We drag our exhausted selves up to the dining room, where we find Miss Perky and Miss Perkette, dressed adorably in matching pink capris and identical pink ruffled cardigan sweaters, under which are their bingo shirts.

    They are stuffing themselves with an enormous breakfast.

    "Sleep well?" Evvie asks, dripping sarcasm.

    "Like on a cloud with the boat rocking us in its arms," says Sophie, waxing poetic as she mixes metaphors.

    "We're supposed to play bingo at nine and we haven't even registered yet. We're definitely going to be late."

    Evvie says to them, "You're done, go over to the big auditorium and pick up our stuff and get us a big table or a booth."

    They look startled. "But we don't know the way," Sophie whines.

    "It's where we went for the orientation meeting," I remind her.

    Now Bella, whiner number two, is heard from. "Who can remember?"

    Evvie points. "Walk out the door, turn left. Go to the very end, and if you fall off the boat and end up in the ocean and drown, you went too far. We'll eat something quickly and meet you there. Try to get us seats up front so we can hear and see."

    Holding hands, they scamper out, looking back at us in terror.

    We hurry through cold cereal and coffee and toast. Evvie doesn't want to miss the start of the tournament.

The auditorium is a mob scene with much pushing and shoving and shouting. Most of the crowd are women in an assortment of bingo shirts with tacky bingo slogans.

    "Oh, boy," says Evvie, "we threw our girls into a lion's pit. I feel guilty."

    We make our way through the crowd, and it isn't easy. There must be about five hundred people jockeying for seats. If they play bingo the way they ram and shove, we're in a lot of trouble.

    "There they are." Evvie looks where I point. I can't believe it. They're actually in a front-row booth.

    When we reach them we have to smile. Their hair's a mess, lipstick smeared, clothes askew. They are grinning with satisfaction. Mission accomplished.

    Evvie congratulates them. "How'd you manage?"

    Bella is proud. "Sophie held me around my middle and just pushed me, and I butted people out of our way. But
they
were really mean. They tried to grab our booth away from us."

    Bella points at the adjoining booth where two tough-looking gals glare at us. They are in their fifties, both wearing bingo shirts and each holding a doll dressed in clothes made out of bingo cards. In front of them is a sign announcing that they are the Bingo Dolls from Tucson.

    The mean-looking woman on the right sneers at us. "That's always our table," she insists.

    Bella straightens to her full four foot ten, puts her hands on her hips, and says, "Oh, yeah, sez who?"

    I try to make peace by introducing us to the Dolls. They tell us they are Judy, who wears a T-shirt that reads "I'm a bingo-holic," and Rose, whose shirt reads "To hell with housework, I'd rather play bingo."

    Apparently, they take this cruise every year. In fact, each of them won a game last time, and they predict one of them is going to be the big winner of this one.

    "Well, we'll see about that," Sophie huffs.

    She and Bella turn their backs on them and the Dolls do the same to us.

    Bella whispers, "I have the same T-shirt as that Judy. I'm gonna wear that one tomorrow."

    "Yeah," says Sophie, "we'll show 'em."

    By now one of the bingo coordinators is onstage, standing in front of the huge lit-up bingo board. He tells a few corny jokes, reads the rules, and it's time to play. Like a football coach in the locker room, he shouts us on. "Are we ready?"

    The crowd screams, "Yes!"

    "Which lucky person is gonna win game one?" And of course there is a roar of "Me" from all over the huge room and a waving of lucky charms that people brought along. Naturally, our unfriendly neighbors are waving their dolls.

    Sophie and Bella are wiggling up and down in the booth.

    "It's every man for himself!" says the male coordinator to the roomful of mostly women. "Let's play bingo!"

    Game packs are passed around; brightly colored daubers are at the ready.

    Evvie and Ida (poor absent Ida must be miserable about not being here) are highly competitive and deadly serious about winning. When they don't win (which is ninety-nine percent of the time), they take it as a personal affront. Bella actually dislikes bingo as much as she dislikes playing cards, because it is much too complicated for her, but the misery is worth it as long as she can be with us.