Bon Bon Voyage (9 page)

First—big surprise—we looked at the casino. Very fancy. I don't mind gambling once in a while. The Tiguas used to have a casino, Speaking Rock, in El Paso until all the tightassed, Republican born-again Protestants in the legislature got together in Austin and closed it down. In the old days, you could have a great birthday party with margaritas and cake at Speaking Rock and then shoot some craps.

Carolyn wasn't much impressed. She said, “I have never been able to see the fun in feeding money into a noisy slot machine, or attempting to remember all the cards that have been played in a series of blackjack games—although at least you get to sit on a chair for that—or pretending that you know what is going on at the craps table, which is truly a dreadful name for a game of any sort.”

I offered to teach her to shoot craps, since it's the one thing you're likely to break even on if you know what you're doing, but she wasn't interested, even when I told her that reading a book on the math and stuff was pretty interesting. She said she'd never liked math, and some years back Jason had given her a long, boring mathematical lecture on shooting craps that put her to sleep. She'd gone straight to bed in their Las Vegas hotel room and refused to join him in the casino. Poor guy. He may not have liked me much the one time we met, but I felt sort of sorry for him.

While we were in the casino, that Mrs. Gross, who'd horned in on my clothes giveaway, said, “Don't ever gamble on a ship. The games are crooked.” Our guide was really insulted and looked like she might burst out crying.

The gym really pissed me off—all those extra-fit, good-looking kids supervising senior citizens, who were sweating it out on a bunch of machines that would have crippled me for the rest of the trip. Vera said that she'd had enough of gyms to last a lifetime since her heart attack and had no intention of ever visiting this one again. Of course, Carolyn reminded her that she was supposed to take regular exercise. That went over like finding a scorpion in your shower. Vera reminded her that she was going to get her exercise walking the decks in the fresh air with me. I think Carolyn was hurt not to be invited along.

Then Miss Perky in formfitting spandex bounced over and asked if I'd like to try out a machine. I gave her the Spanish designer routine, and Vera translated it, “She says no woman of fashion would sweat on fine clothes.” Perky girl turned red, and twelve sweating blue-hairs jumped off bicycles and treadmills to prove that they, too, were “women of fashion” with “fine clothes.” Vera added, “Señorita Vallejo wants to know what exercise you recommend.” Actually, I used to like working out at Central Regional Command with my fellow cops, mostly guys, but those days were long gone.

Then the trainer, who had bigger boobs than you'd expect of someone who worked out, came up with the idea that I could lie on a mat raising my arms and legs in a leisurely fashion and avoiding unfashionable sweat. “I can do that in my own living room,” I muttered.

“Señorita Vallejo says you should consider breast reduction so that you can wear fashionable clothing,” Vera translated.

That woman was a hoot.

“Large breasts are only attractive to infantile men who still long for the mother's nipple,” Vera added for good measure. Blushing down to her cleavage, the kid claimed someone needed her advice and rushed off to encourage a fat guy who was puffing away on a stair-stepper.

Carolyn asked if I'd really said that, because she didn't think it was a kind thing to say. “Hell, no,” I told her. “Would I embarrass a girl who probably has a bra size bigger than her IQ?” But I had to wonder whether Carolyn thought her mother-in-law was translating comments that I'd actually made. Good thing Carolyn didn't understand Spanish. She wouldn't have liked what I said in Spanish any better than what I said in English.

After that we headed for the library, which was full of soft leather chairs I'd never be able to get out of and way too many books. “Who-oa,” I murmured to Carolyn, “not much like the library downtown, is it? No smelly homeless guys coming in out of the heat.”

Carolyn whispered back, “Luz, homelessness is a tragedy and a terrible social problem in our society.” She was scanning the fiction section and yanked out a book, which she handed to me. “You should read this. It narrates the lives of three women, one of whom is a formerly middle-class lady who ended up homeless in Boston, working as a maid and sleeping wherever she could, often in the homes of employers who were out of town. It's a terrifying situation into which any woman could fall if her husband divorced her and she had no particular skills. Until I began writing my column, it could have been me, had Jason and I fallen out.”

“Which is just why you should have been working instead of staying home cleaning house and cooking,” said Vera, who had been looking over another section of books. “I don't think they've got a single feminist publication in here.”

I looked at the book in my hand. Marge Piercy.
The Longings of Women.
Reading about a homeless woman sounded like a downer to me. I could have been homeless if I hadn't had my police pension. Of course my family would have taken me in, and we'd have driven each other crazy. I put the book back on the shelf while Carolyn was off looking for a book on Morocco.

After the library, we visited the spa, where I was kind of interested in a capsule where you were supposed to lie down and stretch out. The top part closed over you, like a coffin, only rounded, and then some spa woman turned it on so the capsule could do God knows what to you and pop you out in twenty minutes feeling as if you'd had a “refreshing, full night's sleep.” The full night's sleep bit sounded good to me, but Carolyn told me that spa services weren't free and were undoubtedly extremely expensive. When Vera asked, “What if you got stuck in there?” the spa attendant showed her the release latch inside.

Too bad they don't have more release latches in Juárez,
I thought.
Then all those
maquila
girls who get thrown in trunks,
driven out of town to the desert, raped, strangled, and dumped would have a fighting chance to get away. Wouldn't matter, though. The drug dealers, gangs, rich guys' sons, or whoever was doing it would just tear the latches out.

“Carolyn, don't take that copy of the price list,” Vera ordered when the attendant offered one. “Just because you put it on your account and it gets charged to your credit card doesn't mean Jason won't have to pay for it next month.”

“I know that,” said Carolyn, looking indignant. “And I can pay my own bills, thank you, Vera. I make money writing my column. If I want to give myself a Mother's Day spa treatment while my husband is attending expensive scientific conferences on the plains of Canada . . .”

They argued all the way to the lecture hall where we were reunited with the guys. Their tour included looking at the ship's engines and navigational stuff. Commander Levinson gave us a sarcastic description of the bridge and the captain in his pretty uniform and his fancy
Star Wars
captain's chair. After that, Barney had insisted on seeing the real engines and not some movie, and Froder, the engineering officer, complained about having passengers wandering around his engine room.

Barney summarized the tour by announcing that we were paying big money to ride around on a fancy, oceangoing barge, not a ship. Thank God I wasn't paying big money. In fact, I figured I might be making a profit. Food and drink free and all these clothes. As long as I didn't sweat on them and have to pay dry-cleaning bills, it was a pretty good deal.

Then we all sat down, for which my knees gave thanks, and listened to a really boring lecture and slide show on Tangier, the Arab place we were going tomorrow. They'd have done better to give self-defense lessons to all those clueless millionaires.

13

Once our tour was over, I planned to write a column. Several of the dishes at lunch were certainly worth my attention, especially the desserts. I don't know what got into me. I ate two. It was probably the stress. I never knew what Vera and Luz were going to say next. I did get a few paragraphs completed, sitting on the balcony with the laptop on my knees. However, the sound of people chatting on the balcony next to ours, which was separated only by a sort of plastic divider, was distracting, not to mention the smoke from their cigarettes. The
Bountiful Feast
was supposed to be a nonsmoking ship with only a few areas reserved for smokers. Maybe balconies were among those areas, although I didn't see why they should be since the smoke drifted in my direction into my nonsmoking space.

Finally I gave up on writing and went in to take a nap. Luz had had the right idea. She was fast asleep in her underwear. I noticed that she'd even hung up her new clothes, but surely they'd provided her with a nightgown she could have worn. I also noticed a dreadful scar on her thigh and her puffy knees. Was that the arthritis? Vera had gone off to take a walk around the deck with the submariner. I'd heard him saying as they departed that it was nice, in some ways, to be on a ship that had enough room to walk around, unlike a submarine, where you couldn't walk three feet without ducking to miss a pipe or a hatch frame.

“Probably doesn't smell too good on a submarine either,” said my mother-in-law. “Bunch of men sweating in an enclosed space. Now that I think of it, no woman would want to be assigned to a submarine.”

“You're right,” replied the commander. “My wife always complained that my clothes came home smelling like a men's locker room. Made me throw them in the shed with the lawnmowers until I got a chance to take them to one of those Laundromats that do the washing for you. Can't say that I blamed her.” And that was the last I heard as I drifted into a nice nap.

Vera woke us both up and told us to get ready for dinner— formal. Luz looked very stylish in an amazing blue gown and silver heels that must have been very uncomfortable. Vera and I were less stylish. She had on a long skirt and a jacket she probably wore to teach, and although my low-heeled sandals were more dressy than her flats, my long skirt and top were dress-down formal, chosen so I wouldn't make Luz feel uncomfortable in the clothes she'd bought at Ross, all now lost in Lisbon. I have to admit that I felt a bit peeved. I could have packed fancier evening wear if I'd known Luz was going to reap a fashion bonanza because of that thieving Luis at the Lisbon airport. Well, at least my feet didn't hurt. Luz would be sorry about those high-heeled sandals when she had to dance with the left-footed doctor.

I'll swear that Dr. Beau's mouth dropped open when he saw me in my blue dress. Babette had insisted that I take this bra that pushed my boobs up above the neckline. The damn thing was so frigging uncomfortable I was expecting to feel a rib give way when I sat down to dinner, and then there were the shoes. I'd have been better off in work boots with steel toes. I noticed that Mrs. Gross, wearing that ugly brown sparkle outfit again, didn't put up with high heels or exposed toes. She'd been the one to insist on these silver heels; I'd only stood up in them for about a minute in front of a mirror. Walking in the suckers was hell.

And dancing? I'd never make it, but the way the medical examiner was looking at me, I figured he was going to insist on more dancing. Problem was I liked him well enough, but I sure as hell didn't want to dance with him again. Lucky me. Harriet Barber took him in hand for the first dance and gave him some lessons—prefaced by, “If you step on my feet, young man, I'm going to step on yours. How do you like that?” I had to admire her determination.

By the time he got to me, he wasn't very good, but he didn't mash my toes. I'd threatened to knee him if he did. He laughed heartily and said, “An' after that, what, sugah? You gonna shoot me?” Then he pulled me in real close and didn't make any dangerous foot moves. Kind of nice. It had been a while since I'd been pressed flat up against a man, especially one that was taller than me, even in those frigging shoes.

Dinner was pretty good too—except I was beginning to have jalapeño withdrawal symptoms. Should have had my mother pack me up some emergency Tex-Mex to take along.

I had an excellent tilapia dish with a black-bean, corn, and mild-chili relish for dinner while Mr. Marshand told me about the wonderful motorized golf cart he'd given his late wife for her seventieth birthday. “Right,” said the commander. “Greg took it out one day when his was in the shop and damned if it didn't run away with him. He jumped ship, and the cart ended up in the lake.”

“I had it fixed,” protested the cereal king.

“Oh sure,” Commander Levinson retorted, “but it never was the same. Alicia was furious. I always figured the stroke that killed her was brought on by that golf cart that kept stalling.”

“Alicia died of pure frustration after she three-putted on a par-four hole,” snapped Marshand. “She was a very excitable woman, and she took her golf seriously.”

Commander Levinson then asked my mother-in-law to dance, and she said, “I don't know. Probably not if you're the kind of Jew who expects women to wear wigs and spend all their time washing multiple sets of dishes.”

I was so embarrassed that I accepted a second dessert when it was offered, a lovely chocolate cup filled with lemon curd and drizzled with raspberry coulis.
I'll never maintain my size 10 figure if I keep on like this,
I thought, but with less regret than I should have felt about my own gluttony. Still, it was hard to feel regret when the chocolate and lemon curd had been so tasty.

Much as I like chocolate, I came to the conclusion on the cruise that any dessert provided relief from stress. This recipe is delicious and easy to prepare if you don't insist on making all the ingredients from scratch when you can buy them in a supermarket. Also, it does have some chocolate.