When You Look Like Your Passport Photo, It's Time To Go Home (6 page)

My husband observed, “Look at that! All that water and not one person has a line in.”

You know how you can't get a song out of your mind? For the next three days I went around singing “Eatin' what you want and doin' what you choose.” For a long time I had wondered what kind of people we'd be away from the daily routine of sorting socks and filling up ice cube trays. We had taken vacations, but they always ended up somewhere between a church camp and elective surgery. What would it be like to live in elegance for a couple of weeks? To sweep into a dining room in a long gown or strike up a conversation at a ship's railing with a mysterious stranger wearing an ascot?

I had seen enough episodes of “The Love Boat” to know that no one came off a cruise ship the same person as when he boarded one. I looked upon it as a Club Bed, so to speak, with everyone dressing up each evening like he was going to the prom, throwing confetti at one another, and drinking champagne out of glasses that didn't smell like creme rinse.

“How do you feel about an adventure on water?” I whispered softly to my husband one night.

“Did your contacts fall down the commode again?”

“I'm talking about a cruise. We need a cruise.”

“Why?”

“Because we are in a rut. We need some romance in our lives.”

“And a cruise is going to make the difference,” he said flatly.

“Evelyn Grimshaw told me that lovemaking burns a hundred and twenty-five calories. She and Dan came home from the Caribbean and both looked absolutely anorexic.”

“If you believe that,” he said, “you believe that Gilligan set out on a three-hour trip from Hawaii with enough luggage to last Lovey and Thurston Howell III and Ginger for seven seasons.”

“With cork luggage? It could happen,” I said stubbornly.

After a couple of months of serious whining, I finally convinced him that a cruise would be a relaxing vacation for both of us. There would be no packing and unpacking clothes, no on and off buses, no road maps or rental cars, delayed airline flights or pesky tipping. For one-price-pays-all, we could just relax and rediscover one another.

We booked passage on a Norwegian ship leaving Copenhagen. For two weeks we would cruise through the fjords of Norway before returning to port. On the second two-week leg, we'd visit Sweden, Finland, Germany, and Russia, for a total of one month.

From the moment we stepped across the gangplank at Copenhagen, I experienced a feeling I had not had before . . . acute insecurity. I really couldn't explain it. As I looked around at the elegance and the efficiency, I knew that my husband and I were the only two people left on the planet who had never been on a cruise ship before. Everyone was richer, thinner, and smarter than us.

I knew in my heart they carried passports dog-eared from use, had new underwear and old money. Face it, we were the only couple aboard who paid for the trip with a credit union check and carried borrowed luggage full of borrowed clothes that carried a warning, “Sweat in it and you clean it.” Not a word was spoken, but everyone I talked to had signed up for the nine p.m. dinner seating. I knew we would be the only two peasants eating alone at seven in that huge dining room.

Romance was going to be a challenge. Especially when you're married to a man who lists dressing up every night right up there with a root canal. Not to mention the downside of washing out his only ruffled evening shirt every night in the basin and hanging it in the shower to dry.

Then there was the motion problem. When I threw up in a standing ashtray filled with sand just outside the dining room before we left the dock, I knew we would never whisper anything in one another's ear except, “Get me a cold towel.”

The ship was commanded by Captain Gunther, whose English was limited. All he ever said to me was, “I am Norwegian. There is no immediate danger.” He always smiled when he said it.

I have to admit the first couple of days aboard the floating cookie were special. The fjords were stunning, the Norwegian people were a delight, and I was beginning to get over my low self-esteem. Also, we could still zip up our clothes. Life doesn't get any better than that.

However, by the time we made port at Tromso, the capital of the Arctic, I bought maternity underwear. My clothes were getting a little snug and the cabin seemed to be closing in on us. Every time we turned around we kept bumping into each other. Actually, we were closing in on it.

One day at lunch, I said to my husband, “Why are you wearing a life preserver?” He said, “I'm not. That's me.”

As the lazy days wore on, there was a rush at the gift shop for the racks of Diane Freis dresses. (This is a designer who specializes in dresses that are wildly colorful, never wrinkle, are one-size-fits-all, and have elastic waistbands.) On the day we docked at Bergen to watch a group of Norwegian folk dancers, more than a dozen of us wore them ashore. We looked like the next act.

Late one night as the alarm by the bed went off, my husband turned sleepily and asked, “Is it morning already?”

“Get up,” I ordered. “It's time for the midnight buffet on the promenade deck. They're serving Scarlet Ox Tongue in Jelly and Vendolhoo Indian Lamb Curry.”

He swung his feet to the side of his bed and rubbed his eyes. “Again!” he snapped. “Why can't they just serve plain old Roast Cornish Hen Montmorency or Cretan Potatoes?” As he pulled on his sweats, he continued, “This has got to stop.”

“What has got to stop?”

“How many meals are we eating a day?”

“Seventeen . . . eighteen, tops,” I said defensively. “Is that a problem?”

“If we keep this up, we'll have our own zip code.”

“At the early bird, all we have is a roll and coffee.”

“Followed by an eight-course breakfast,” he added.

“No one forces you to have a bouillon break just before lunch.”

“Who had a gun at your head for the tea with the sandwiches and cookies?” he countered.

“It wasn't me who pigged out at the happy hour with all those hot canapes and hors d'oeuvres.”

“And I didn't see it ruining your dinner ... or the pizza party or the predawn breakfast afterward.”

“Look,” I said, “if you think I'm gaining weight, just say so.”

“Let me put it this way. If someone wants to show home movies, all you have to do is wear white slacks and bend over.”

He slammed out of the stateroom.

I looked in the mirror. He was right. I was beginning to dress like the Statue of Liberty. I held out my arms and fanned the skin that hung like a stage curtain. It was only a matter of time before fourteen tourists would fit in my arm. I couldn't go home like this.

When I joined him at the buffet, I had a plan. From here on in, we would take advantage of all the activities aboard the ship and maybe work off some of the food. He agreed.

If there's anything a cruise ship does and does well, it keeps you busy. And they certainly have the staff for it. When I went to Fitness on the Fantail with Jennifer, my

husband went to the library with Carole for the ship's daily quiz. When I learned how to make rosettes out of radishes with Chef Andre, my husband was in a shuffle-board tournament with Bruce. I danced the tango with Fern and Phillipe. He practiced golf swings with Phil.

I wanted him to tour the bridge one afternoon with Captain Gunther, but he was busy playing bingo with Hal and Barbara.

We were like two ships passing one another in the dark. When he was at table tennis with Sibyl and the gang, I was doing calligraphy with Lotus Flower. He went off trapshooting with Hank while I played bridge.

One night when I joined Debbie Sunshine at the piano in the Mediterranean Lounge, I met my husband by chance. “I miss you,” I said.

“Me too,” he responded.

“I won at bingo today,” I said.

“You want to go to the casino?”

“I'd love to,” I said, "but I have a rehearsal. The passengers are doing The Sound of Music. I'm one of

the nuns."

“Perfect casting,” he snapped and walked away.

We rarely saw each other, but one night as I whipped into the stateroom from my needlepoint class, my husband was stretched out on the bed. I asked him what he was doing in the room.

“I'm exhausted,” he said. “Do you suppose that for one night I wouldn't have to put on a tuxedo and tie and go to the dining room and eat shrimp out of a carved ice swan and dance until one A.M.?”

I sat on the bed beside him. “Tonight you can forget the tux,” I said softly. “This is the evening of the ship's costume party, remember? Everyone is supposed to appear in a costume made from stuff you have on hand.”

“You're kidding,” he said.

“Not to worry. I have a costume for you. You are going to wear my green tights and green aerobics leotard and go as a zucchini.”

By the time we returned to Copenhagen, we were barely speaking to each other. Familiarity did not breed children as Mark Twain once remarked. It bred irritability and sniping. We were sluggish from carrying around extra pounds and exhausted from all that leisure.

The last night at sea before we docked, we both sat stiffly at the captain's table and sipped the complimentary wine provided with our dinner.

I looked around the table. All of us had talked one another to death. We had eaten at least one hundred and ninety-six meals with these people. We had heard all their stories, relived their travels, laughed at their jokes, and perused their brag albums of grandchildren. We had spent more time with them on buses and land tours than we had with our families. The cruise crowd didn't have the same staple manifest as the guided tour, but there were stereotypes.

There was Edith Purge, the dessert queen. She was traveling alone, and because she ate everything that didn't attack her first, she wore caftans to bed. Her philosophy was, “You're paying through the nose for all of this, honey, so you might just as well eat it.” When the maitre d' asked if she wanted the seven or the nine o'clock dinner seating, she answered, “Yes.” She took three rolls of film one day—all of the dessert table.

There were the Tweeds, a no-nonsense couple from Maine. They were both into fitness and felt their mission in life was to ruin your appreciation of food. I can't enjoy a hot dog today without thinking of their pig-lips lecture. Every morning at six the Tweeds hit the decks, and heaven help anyone who interfered with their brisk, goose-stepping walk.

The Borings, Winston and Charlotte, appeared every evening like they were shot full of Novocain. The only time they spoke was to drop another name of a country they had traveled. They had been to all the African nations before the name changes and were the only couple at the table who knew how to wield a fish knife. That appeared to be their only talent.

The Craigs were an interesting couple. He drank and she changed clothes eight or ten times a day. One night I noted a seasickness patch behind her ear. I swear it had a G for Gucci on it. We get a Christmas card from them every year. Our name is misspelled.

At the farewell dinner, Captain Gunther summoned our wine steward, who brought a bottle of aquavit to the table. The steward explained it was a strong Norwegian drink. You slug down a shot of it and chase it with a sip of beer. Two of them, he said, and you would forget who you came with. The captain had slugged down the first round when I leaned over and said, “I read where you weren't supposed to mix wine with aquavit.”

The captain looked at me blankly, then broke into a smile. “I am Norwegian. There is no immediate danger.”

My father always said, “There's no such thing as a free lunch.” I figured what did he know. My father never went on a cruise ship where he ate fifteen meals a day without so much as dropping a single dime under the plate. He never had people fluffing up his pillow, taking an empty glass out of his hand, putting up a deck chair for him without a palm extended. Everything was included in the package.

On the last day aboard the cruise ship, I realized my father was right. There is a moment when you have to pay the piper for letting you dance around the decks without a checkbook.

Just before you make port, you are encouraged to show your appreciation to all those people who befriended you.

You leave a tip for the deck chair steward who raced to open your chair every morning, for the towel steward who stood around like a midwife waiting to wipe beads of perspiration from your forehead, and for the cocktail steward who brought you liquids stuck to a little napkin.

You put a little something in an envelope for the maitre d' who showed you to your table each evening,

to the wine steward who helped you select “something fruity but not pretentious,” and to your waiter who remembered your name from day one . . . such a nice boy.

You tip the bread server and the busboy, the luggage handler and the bartender, your favorite cocktail waitress and the girl singer with the band who led the group singing “Happy Birthday.”

You tip the young girl who turned down your bed and the one who made it and cleaned the room each day. You tip the beautician who did your hair and the room steward who served you dinner in your room several nights and the croupier in the casino.

As my husband returned his flat wallet to his pocket, he said, “I hope we have enough left for cab fare home.”

“Look at it this way,” I said.“It took two inches off your hips.”

Shopping

Everyone has role models.

Mine is a dream team of shoppers who have become known as the Four Horsemen of the National Shopping League (NSL):

Imelda Marcos, formerly of the Philippines

Nancy Reagan, United States

Michele Duvalier, Haiti

Jacqueline Onassis, United States

I tell you there is nothing that gets my heart beating faster than to watch a team of shoppers who are physically fit, mentally alert, and professionally trained put their talents to work in the store aisles.

We're not talking amateurs here who play in the Discount Bowls and fumble around fifteen minutes to read price tags. No siree, we're talking world-class competitors who spend $10,430 on bed sheets in one day and who buy two hundred twenty place settings of dishes at $952 a crack. They're the stuff of which musicals are made, where you come out of the theater humming, “Don't Cry for Me Valentino.”