Tidal Wave (24 page)

The
maître d’
returned and Arabella said, “Good evening, Henri.”

“Madame Crawford. Ah, madame, may I take the liberty of saying you are looking absolutely splendid this evening?”

“How kind of you to say so, Henri. I’m looking for the captain’s party.”

“They are on the lower level, having cocktails.”

He led her to the head of the curved staircase where he unhooked the pale rose-color velvet rope and Arabella descended. She was a few stairs from the bottom when she stopped to admire the glittering scene from a perfect vantage point. As with every carefully planned detail of this magnificent ship, the lavish two-level room with the majestic staircase was designed to enhance the image of graciousness. Each evening the women dressed in their finest and descended the staircase, alone or escorted, making an entrance. Some made an effort to be dazzling, and the impact was impressive. Others were deliberately casual. The elaborate staircase entrance, reminiscent of the great liners of the past decades, was no longer featured on modern ships except the
Tatanya Annanovna
. Arabella observed that in the center of the small room, in the well where the orchestra usually played, was an enormous ice sculpture, seven feet high and seven feet across, of the American eagle. Lights
were playing on the crystal-clear ice. It was amazing. Around the ball of ice on which the eagle perched were bright, healthy, green ferns.

The captain and Nicholas were standing in front of the sculpture receiving the guests. Several people greeted Arabella as they passed her on their way downstairs. A feeling of pride, an extra shot of enthusiasm for life, the world, the power to do good, were all scrambled in her thoughts as she looked out across the room and at Nicholas.

He was giving off the same magnetism that Jack Kennedy had, the intelligence of F.D.R., and the grass-roots honesty of L.B.J. She thought of the many good men with talent and a political understanding of their country and the world. In retrospect they were knights in shining armor. In any case, those days seemed to be the end of a certain kind of strength in America — but one that was waiting just below the surface to rise again, if only the right man were in office to make it happen. Maybe Nicholas Frayne could be that man.

Memories kept surfacing, thoughts of the past that had been stored away as in a memory bank.

She looked at Nicholas with the same sense of sureness she had experienced hundreds of times before about people, deals, future projects and their outcomes, political shifts that would go down in history books. Arabella knew it was possible that Nicholas could be President of the United States someday, and his decision to seek the office of Governor of Rhode Island was a daring step toward that goal.

She was, after all, qualified to judge who would make a good President. Politics were her background, dormant but still in her blood. It occurred to her as she stood viewing the scene below that for eighteen years she had been reading and following the political situation in her country as an interested citizen and storing it away. A woman with as much power as Arabella had in the corporate world was a woman who understood objectively how her own country, the United States, rated in world politics.

Her thoughts were broken by a voice. “Ah’m no cheapskate, Miss Belle,” said a smiling Mike Mackay as he walked past her with his wife, Marcia. They stood a few stairs below Arabella as he went on. “Ah said, ah’m no cheapskate, Arabella. Ah’m not offerin’ ya a penny for your thoughts, ah’m offerin’ ya a thousand dollars!”

She smiled and said, “Hello, Marcia, hello, Mike. Make it ten thousand dollars as a political contribution to Nicholas Frayne, the first political contribution to the next Governor of the State of Rhode Island, and I will tell you.”

He looked down at Nicholas and then turned back to Arabella and said, “You’re sure not askin’ me to back that boy just for that tiny little state? What you are askin’ me, gal? What you got to tell big Mike?”

He looked at Nicholas again and turned back to Arabella. “Ah said ya were a gamblin’ woman. You all really think your thoughts are worth that kind o’ money?”

“Yes, I do. It’s the tip of a lifetime, Mike,” she replied, prettily, teasingly.

Weston Warfield came down the stairs at that moment, greeted them, and took Marcia’s arm. Together they walked down the remaining stairs and into the reception line. Marcia and Mike complemented each other perfectly in style and disposition. Marcia was softspoken and reserved, whereas Mike was gregarious and emotional. Marcia appreciated Mike’s wit and outgoing nature. They understood each other’s behavior and motives although Marcia was more subtle in her actions than her husband. She knew that Mike wanted a few moments with Arabella and used it to her advantage to join the handsome man who appeared at her side at the appropriate moment.

Mike watched them go, then bent forward and said, softly, “Miss Belle, ah’ll go for it. Ten thousand dollars the first contribution to that boy, if y’all tell me what you all was really thinkin’ when ah offered to buy your thoughts. Seems to me that’s a fair bet.”

“Done,” she said. “I was thinking, ‘Arabella Crawford,
you are looking at the next great President of the United States. Too bad he is a Republican.’”

“Hell, girl, what do you mean, too bad he is a Republican? Ah say, thank God he’s a Republican! Thank God again and again, girl, if your prediction comes true.” Mike pulled away from her and looked her up and down and said, “Arabella, don’t tell me you all is a Democrat? Never, no, you all too smart for that.”

She slapped him on the back and mimicked him, “Ah sure am, pardner!” They both laughed. Mike turned away and looked down at Nicholas. He remained silent for a few seconds and then took the stairs to stand next to Arabella.

“Ah’ll be God-damned, girl! He sure does have a look about him! He does have a way about him. When we were skeet-shooting this afternoon, ah said to myself, ‘Mike, there’s somethin’ I like about that boy. There’s somethin’ about that boy that makes me proud to be with him.’ Arabella, ya just may well be right. Ya know, I’ve never had much patience for politicians, but this one may be an exception. Now that you’ve got my ten thousand dollars, what else do ya want me to put behind that boy?”

“Mike, he’s going to need men like you. Men bigger than life, self-made millionaires who believe in him, big corporate men who trust him, oil men who know about energy and where and how to tap it around the world for their country. You stick with him, learn what he has to offer as a world leader, Mike. You have a ten-thousand-dollar investment there.”

“You’re some number, Miss Belle. Ya really took me, didn’t yah? Bought me cheap, hooked me in. Who are ya, ya shrewd, clever devil?
Why
are ya, Arabella Crawford?”

“I’m just a woman called Arabella Crawford. A woman who retired just a few days ago from the world of big business. I sold out for a great deal of money. You are looking at a retired lady, which is what I’m going to be for the rest of my life.”

“Ah wouldn’t bet on it. I think you are playin’ me up, gal. How much did ya sell out for?”

“One hundred million dollars.”

With a deadpan look on his face, Mike asked, “Gross or net?”

“Net.”

“You daredevil! Ah knew it! You clever gal, ah knew it! Ah knew you were somethin’ else.”

Then big Mike Mackay roared with laughter. Arabella could not help it, she loved it, and laughed with him.

“You sure are somethin’, some lady!”

Their laughter caught Nicholas’s attention. He excused himself from the couple he was talking to and went to join them at the foot of the staircase.

Arabella and Mike walked slowly down the last few stairs. Nicholas picked up her hand and kissed it, then he shook Mike’s hand and said, “Good evening, Mike.”

He turned back to Arabella and their eyes met. For a split second the world disappeared for them and they were alone together. Arabella felt her heart skip a beat. She was thinking, Tidal wave … he’s just like that tidal wave. He’s sweeping over me again.

He picked up her hand in his and murmured, “For a minute there I was completely lost, swept away by you.”

Then they smiled at one another, and he said, “I have never seen a woman more beautiful, more elegant. You look like a goddess revisiting earth. I shall never forget you as I see you here now.”

Mike Mackay had been pulling out a giant Havana cigar and lighting it. “Those are pretty words,” Mike said. “Ah’m sorry ah didn’t get ’em out first. Matter of fact ah’m sorry ah didn’t shanghai her that first night out.”

“You were too late even then, Mike,” Arabella said teasingly, as she gave him a peck on the cheek.

Mike held his hands up in a gesture of surrender and said goodnaturedly, “Ah give up, ah give up, ah’m a man who knows when he’s beat.” Then, looking at Arabella, he added, “Nicholas, ma boy, ah would like to make a contribution to your campaign for the governorship of the smallest state in the Union. Where do I send ma check?”

“That’s very generous of you, Mike, but not at all necessary.”

“Yes, it is, boy. Ah’m a straight talker so I might just as well tell ya, I want to see you win, watch how ya handle yourself and, if I like what ya have to say, then ah wouldn’t be a bad guy to have on your side for the big election. Never mind the details, boy, ah see your Kandy man ovah there. Ah’ll find out from him.”

Mike shoved a hand out and the two men shook hands. “Good luck, Nicholas Frayne. As for you, Miss Belle, he’s right — you are one gorgeous-looking woman.” Then he left the two alone.

“Come on,” said Nicholas. Still holding her hand, he walked her over to the captain. The three stood below the great ice eagle and were swamped by the invited guests.

Nicholas’s announcement and the captain’s invitation set the passengers free to pay all the attention and homage they had discreetly held back until now. The three were inundated by well-wishers. Arabella tried to slip away but Nicholas was quick. He unobtrusively grabbed her hand and, holding it tight, was able to keep her at his side.

It was exciting and thrilling for Arabella for the first fifteen minutes but then, suddenly, she had enough. Not enough of Nicholas, supporting him, watching him handle himself with the public. She just had enough of the people, of being the center of attraction, or, to put it more accurately, of standing next to the center of attraction. For someone who had remained in the background for so many years, it was still new to her, this standing in the limelight with a man.

She caught Xu’s attention, giving him a look she had used many times before to say “rescue me at once.” Xu was subtle in whisking her away from Nicholas’s side. Before he realized what had happened, she was on the other side of the room talking to a few guests in a corner.

Eventually the quartet arrived and wandered among the guests, playing the music from the film in which Nicholas won his first Oscar. The waitresses who had been serving
silver platters of pâté and smoked salmon canapés disappeared, and at the same time half a dozen waiters walked among the guests retrieving champagne glasses and asking them to join the captain in the dining room for dinner.

Nicholas found Arabella. Going up the stairs, he said, “After dinner we’ll leave as soon as we can. I’ve arranged for a quiet corner table in the Vanya Bar for us where we can talk. Okay?”

“Yes,” she replied. “That’s very okay.”

The glittering party walked to the dining table in pairs. Nicholas, with Arabella on his arm, was following directly behind the captain so it was not difficult for the captain to overhear their plans for escape. He turned to Nicholas and said, “I’m pleased you have made your arrangements to be together, Nicholas, because she’s mine for dinner.”

Nicholas looked perplexed as the captain handed Millie Merton over to him. Then, taking Arabella by the arm, the captain smiled and said in her ear, “He’s not the only man who would like a little of your company, madame.”

“Come along,” said Millie, leading Nicholas by the arm down the length of the long table to its center, where they were placed. Opposite them were the captain and Arabella.

Arabella looked across the table at Nicholas. He had Millie Merton on one side and the octogenarian Princess Irina Navratalovski on the other. Arabella recognized her as the elegant, elderly woman in the Casino the previous night. He shrugged his shoulders as he and Arabella smiled at each other over the red, white, and blue decorations and soft candlelight, accepting their places with good grace.

The dinner was a great success. Later Nicholas remarked to Arabella how completely surprised he was and entertained by what he thought was just a silly Millie. Princess Irina was enchanting, amusing, and intelligent.

Arabella in turn told him she thought the captain had arranged the seating brilliantly. How during dinner everyone was engrossed in conversation or food and the atmosphere was electric with good cheer. How she was well entertained by Marvin Kandy and how she found Cotille amusing and
kind. She also told Nicholas about the warmth and caring that Dr. St. John dispensed to Cotille.

The company, food, and wine were all enhanced by the excitement of the occasion, and several toasts were made during the meal. There were a few after-dinner speeches organized by the captain. The speakers, including Mike Mackay, John Van Renders, and Marvin Kandy, rose to the occasion admirably.

Eventually the captain rose from his chair and helped Arabella from hers. The party broke up. The guests drifted away, arranging the rest of the evening for themselves after thanking the captain.

Arabella waited with Marvin, Cotille, and Dr. St. John for Nicholas to get around the long table and join them. She could not help hearing Cotille say to Marvin, “Marvin, when I appealed to you for help in the early hours of this morning you really delivered. I’m very happy to be here with you and the others.” She slipped her arm through Dr. St. John’s and added, “Thanks, Marvin.”

With that the couple bade them good night and left. Arabella looked at Marvin and said, “That’s a grateful friend, Marv.”

“Arabella, I love people — all kinds of people, but especially I love ladies. I love to get into ladies, not only sexually, but inside their hearts and their heads. I love the female mind. The way a lady thinks, the way a lady loves, the way a lady is made. I have a neverending love of the female. I love everything about the body of a woman and I know how to make a lady happy. Answer a lady’s needs, give ladies what they want, and they bloom like wildflowers in a field.”