A Commodore of Errors (42 page)

Mitzi was off the davenport by now. She came over to where everybody was sitting.

“Don't you get it, Chief ? Either leverage yourself against the fuel distributor in Algeciras, or buy with cheaper dollars back in the States. Captain Tannenbaume is right.”

Mitzi looked at Captain Tannenbaume and he returned the compliment with a nod of the head. He could see that Mitzi was impressed with his line of reasoning.

“Of course,” Captain Tannenbaume added, “we can always make a futures contract. That may be the smartest play. It's called
arbitrage
, Maggie.”

Actually, Captain Tannenbaume was not sure if it was called arbitrage or not. He wasn't exactly sure what arbitrage was. And he wasn't all that clear on the futures business. But he had read about it once, and he knew that people did those things. He was banking on none of the engineers calling his bluff.

“Arbitrage,” Mitzi repeated, and Captain Tannenbaume heard wonder in her voice. And the way she was looking at him made
him
blush, now.

It was so easy. All a guy had to do was not act so obvious. It seemed to him that the easiest way to a woman's heart was to ignore her. Why had it taken him so long to figure that out?

HANDSOME SMOOTH

M
rs. Tannenbaume felt as if her son had tied her hands behind her back. He had taken away her most important navigational instrument: the ship's whistle. For the last several hours, the
God is Able
maintained a steady bearing/decreasing range with the cruise ship on its starboard side, the classic scenario for a collision at sea. Mrs. Tannenbaume kept waiting for the cruise ship to change course but the darn ship was being stubborn.

“What would you do, Ski?” she asked.

“Come to starboard to pass under her stern.”

“Swifty?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Mrs. Tannenbaume looked over at Sparks and raised her eyebrows.

“I say maintain course and speed until we're almost on top of each other and then blow five short blasts.”

Mrs. Tannenbaume and the others stared at Sparks in disbelief. Sparks, nonplussed by all of the attention, ignored their staring and went back to his cigarettes.

Of course, that's what Mrs. Tannenbaume wanted to do, but she would need the whistle to scare away the other ship, and she didn't dare go against her son's explicit orders to lay off the whistle. Mrs. Tannenbaume stood at the windowsill and brooded over what to do.

The two ships got closer and closer.

Before long, everyone on the bridge was lined up at the sill with Mrs. Tannenbaume, watching the cruise ship getting bigger and bigger in their sights.

When they were within a half a mile of each other, Ski said, “I can't take it any longer. We need to put her in hand steering.”

“Hey. Who has the conn here?” Mrs. Tannenbaume said.

Mrs. Tannenbaume walked out to the wing. She stopped at the far side of the wing and leaned over the side, cupping both hands to her mouth. “Yoo Hoo!”

The cruise ship, at a distance of a quarter of a mile, finally took action to avoid a collision. The ship turned hard to starboard and made a big round turn. The
God is Able
nearly skimmed the port side of the cruise ship as it moved past her. The passengers lined the railing and waved their arms and cheered at the fun maneuver the two ships had just made for their benefit.

When Mrs. Tannenbaume returned to the bridge, the crew gave her a standing ovation.

Mrs. Tannenbaume took their adulation in stride. She had a job to do. She would get the
God is Able
back in time for the unveiling of the Mariners Monument come hell or high water. And if she could not use the whistle, she would have to use her wits.

The ringing telephone silenced the cheering crew. Swifty walked over to answer it, but before he picked up the receiver, he looked back at the others. To Mrs. Tannenbaume it looked as if he was afraid to answer it. She held up her hand to stop him and walked over to answer it herself.

“Wheelhouse. Supernumerary Tannenbaume here,” she said into the phone.

“Mother, were you aware of that cruise ship?”

“Oh. Hi, sonny. Yeah, I saw the cruise ship.”

“I suppose you would have. It would have been hard to miss. Did you make a meeting arrangement with that ship?”

“Of course I made a meeting arrangement.”

“You did? What exactly did you agree to?”

“I said we'd meet starboard . . . ah, port . . . ah . . . what's the difference? I got my point across, didn't I? But anyhow, sonny, what about the bunkers? Are we stopping in Gibraltar?”

She listened as he explained about the exchange rates. She had heard it all before. It was her idea, of course, but she did not want to say “I told you so” to her son in front of the crew, so she played dumb.

“What a clever idea, sonny. Whatever you say. You got it. Straight through the Straits.”

“And, please, Mother, make proper meeting arrangements from now on.”

“I promise I'll talk to every ship. Okay.”

Mrs. Tannenbaume hung up the phone and the crew let out another cheer. She knew that they were not really cheering for her. They were cheering for themselves. The crew had the bridge to themselves again. They knew that Captain Tannenbaume would not bother with the bridge as long as his mother did not blow the whistle.

“Okay, people. Back to work!”

Mrs. Tannenbaume did not have to tell them two times. Swifty had a hot towel on his face before the towel had a chance to get hot. Sylvia was back at her shampoo station, doing Ski's hair. Mitzi worked the phone, calling the engine room to say her salon was back in business again. The engineers dropped their wrenches right were they were working and proceeded to the bridge without changing out of their boilersuits. When they all got to the bridge at the same time, a fistfight broke out between the engineers over who would get their nails done first. While they were fighting, Sparks slipped into the chair at Mitzi's nail station and Mitzi began working on his hands. Sparks looked just like a Dalmatian on top of a fire truck, sitting in that chair.

Mitzi took his hands in hers. “How's my Handsome Smooth doing?”

KICK IT UP A NOTCH

M
rs. Tannenbaume went straight through the Straits of Gibraltar. She kept her course and speed, and not once did she make a single concession for another ship. As Ski said, marveling at her feat afterward, “The woman parted the seas. She just parted the seas, man.” And she did it all simply by walking out to the wing and saying, “Yoo Hoo!” to any ship that got too close. It was a virtuoso performance.

They were now in the open Atlantic but were still in sight of some coastwise traffic coming from the north. At the moment, a tanker was proving particularly nettlesome to Mrs. Tannenbaume. It kept calling on the VHF, asking the ship on its port side (the
God is Able
) to please come to starboard. Because of its immense size, the tanker most likely assumed the smaller ship would eventually get out of the way—the tanker was big enough to saw her son's ‘tween decker in half. But still Mrs. Tannenbaume kept her course and speed. When the two ships were in shouting distance, Mrs. Tannenbaume “yoo hooed” it out of the way.

Mrs. Tannenbaume could tell that Mitzi was watching her closely as she closed the bridge wing door behind her.

“You got
chutzpah
,” Mitzi said.

Mitzi was doing the second engineer's hands. He was particular, like all of the engineers. He wanted a matte finish and it was coming out too glossy.

“So it's Tannenbaume with an E, huh?” Mitzi said. “You're not Jewish? So where did that son of yours get such a
Yiddisha kop
? You should have heard him talking business with the chief. He talked circles around that dopey chief. He's got
saichel
, that son of yours. He understands leverage. Leverage of all things!”

Mrs. Tannenbaume didn't know what to say. Her son Jewish? From Mitzi's mouth to God's ears. She needed him to be Jewish if he was going to be head honcho at the academy. Or she needed him to at least act Jewish.

Mrs. Tannenbaume could not help but notice that Mitzi had been talking about her son all afternoon. Could Mitzi be falling for her sonny? She loved guys with a
Yiddisha kop
, that Mitzi. Most Jewish girls just wanted a
mensch
. Not Mitzi. Her guy had to have some horse sense or she'd run all over him, the way she ran all over Putzie. Mrs. Tannenbaume had to admit that she would not mind it a bit if Mitzi and her sonny spent some more time together. Maybe some of Mitzi would rub off on him.

“So how is Sylvia coming along?” Mrs. Tannenbaume nodded her head toward the young girl, who was at her shampoo station massaging Swifty's head. “You think she's ready for more? Why not let her run things up here for you. See how she does.”

Mitzi finished up with the second. “I have to admit,” Mitzi said when the second was out of earshot. “These engineers are beginning to get to me. They're nothing but a bunch of whiners.”

“Why not take a break? Go below and talk business with my sonny.”

Mrs. Tannenbaume turned away when she said it. She could not bring herself to make eye contact with Mitzi while giving her the green light to cavort with her son, a married man. Then her eye caught Sylvia, not much more than a teenager, caressing Swifty's head like a pro. Some marriage. Her sonny might as well have married a Labradoodle for all he had in common with Sylvia.

“Maybe I will,” Mitzi said, glancing over at Sylvia when she said it. “Maybe Sylvia wouldn't mind it.”

Mrs. Tannenbaume raised her eyebrows.

“Wouldn't mind being in charge up here, I mean,” Mitzi said.

“Oh, no” Mrs. Tannenbaume said quickly. “No, she wouldn't mind. Sylvia would like the responsibility.”

“She doesn't like being told what to do, you know,” Mitzi said. “Have you noticed that? She stopped listening to me a while ago. She stopped getting made-up every day. Stopped her assertiveness training. Stopped all of what I was teaching her. I think I wore the poor girl out.”

“It was the doing-for-others thing. Most people don't get it. She can barely do for herself, forget about doing for others.” It looked to Mrs. Tannenbaume like Mitzi was itching to get off the bridge. “Go, you.”

Mrs. Tannenbaume climbed into the captain's chair after Mitzi left the bridge. It was the first time she had actually sat in the chair. The
God is Able
rose and fell on a long, slow swell out of the north, and the chair was far more comfortable than she realized.

Soon, the easy motion of the ship rocked Mrs. Tannenbaume to sleep.

Mrs. Tannenbaume woke up with a pain in her neck, which always put her in a bad mood. When she checked the GPS and saw how slow they were going, she was in an even worse mood. They had to make better speed if they were to return in time for the unveiling of that monument of the Commodore's. She had been wondering what the Commodore had meant when he said he wanted Captain Tannenbaume to make as big an impression as possible on as many people as possible. Was the Commodore setting her sonny up for a fall?