“Hmm? What?”
“That!” she replied, poking it with a finger.
“That’s my scopolamine patch. It’s for seasickness.”
“You jump out of airplanes and don’t get airsick, but you get seasick?” Marilyn has never gotten any form of motion sickness.
“Go figure,” I replied with a shrug.
“How’s it work?”
It was my turn to shrug. “It’s sort of a Band-Aid, soaked in a seasickness drug. I wear it and then change it once a day. The instructions say to wear them behind the ear, but you can wear them anywhere the skin is thin. Tomorrow I put on a different one, under the other arm.”
“And you have to do this every day?”
“Pretty much.”
“I guess you really wouldn’t do well in the Navy, would you?”
I had to laugh at that. “One time my father was teasing me about it, years ago, and then his father came in. He asked my dad if he wanted to tell me about his time on the PT boats during the war, and my dad shut up big time!”
“No! Your dad was in the Navy and got seasick? That’s too funny!”
“I agree!”
We snuggled a bit longer, and then got up and showered together. Not much happened though, since the showers on that barge were about the size of an airplane bathroom. I know you have to get really friendly to make it in the mile high club that way, but in this case you’d have to be REALLY friendly! Chubby people need not apply.
There were two seatings for dinner, 6:00 and 8:00, and we were in the second seating. It was still early for that, but it would be nice to walk around and see the sights. Marilyn pulled out a halter topped sundress from the closet and pulled that on, but when she went to grab some panties, I made a tsking sound and wagged my finger at her. She giggled and put the panties back in the drawer, and then slipped on some low sandals. When I opened my drawer, I picked up a pair of briefs, but she made the same sound and gesture to me, so I laughed and put them back. I wore my chinos and a flowered shirt, and slipped barefoot into a pair of boat shoes. Then we grabbed our keys and my wallet, and headed out of the room.
One thing I learned when Parker was in the Navy, and that’s no matter how small a ship might seem, they are still damn big places, with about a million miles of corridors and hallways. The bottom three decks were nothing but passenger rooms. The upper decks also had the bars and pools and restaurants and shops. We kept wandering about until we got to the stern, and found a sign pointing the way to the Viking Crown Lounge. This is a hallmark of the Royal Caribbean Line, and all their ships have one. It’s a wraparound bar mounted high up at the rear of the ship. On later vessels it would actually be motorized, and rotate around 360 degrees!
We settled into some very comfortable chairs and a waiter instantly popped up to take our drink orders. Marilyn tucked her dress in carefully, and when I noticed, she blushed. “Don’t mind me,” I told her. “I sort of like the view.”
That earned me another blush, and a “Behave!” comment.
I lowered my voice some. “Too bad you’re not wearing high heels. Imagine, later tonight, after it’s dark, all alone at a dark railing, with me behind you… ummm, wouldn’t that be naughty!”
“You’re so bad!”
“That’s what makes me so good!”
“Maybe later this week. It will have to be very, very dark, though, and very, very late!” she answered. Still, she was smiling at the thought, and that made me smile, too.
We were on our second drink, when it became time for dinner, so I stood, and Marilyn said, “What about our drinks?”
“Take them.”
“We can leave with the glasses?”
“Sure. Where are we going to go? When you’re done, somebody will take it back to the dishwasher, and it will eventually end up back in the bar, right?” I answered.
“I never thought of that.”
“Stick with me, kid, and see the world!”
“You’re full of shit, you know.”
“So I’ve been told. So I’ve been told.” I took Marilyn’s hand and we rode the elevator down to the restaurant deck, which was a little forward of where we were. We actually ended up going down a deck, moving forward, and then up a deck, in order to get there. We joined the crowd waiting at the doors.
The main restaurant on a cruise ship is a little odd. At breakfast and lunch, it’s just like a normal restaurant. You show up whenever you want to at the door and wait for somebody to seat you. Dinner is a lot more structured. There are two seatings, because nobody can build a restaurant big enough for everybody to eat together. On the newest boats, you can have well over 5,000 passengers on a cruise! So they split it in two, an early session for people with children or ancient people who might not last until later without falling asleep, and a late seating for the sophisticates. Well, that’s the theory anyway. I prefer the late seating and Marilyn prefers the early. However, she didn’t know that yet!
In order to make this all work, they run the evening meal with ruthless efficiency. Everybody crowds up to the doors to the restaurant and waits for them to be opened. Then you rush off to your assigned seating. We were at table 114, but beyond that, we weren’t sure. Tables could be two-person, four-person, or even larger groups, the theory being that they can mix people up and introduce them around. Sometimes that works better than others, but it had never been a problem for us the first time.
At 2000, the doors to the restaurant swung open (two sets of double fire doors all gilded to make them fancy — a lot of that sort of thing is on these ships) and we moved inside to find our table. After a bit of searching, we found ourselves at a four-person table, but the only ones there. “Pick a seat, hun,” I told Marilyn. She slid onto one that was facing the center of the room, and I held it for her, and then slid into the one next to her also facing the center.
“Do you think we’re by ourselves?” asked Marilyn.
“Not a clue. I guess we’ll find out, though.” There were probably a half dozen places to eat on board, so it wasn’t guaranteed that we would actually see our tablemates every night in any case. We hadn’t in my previous trip through.
We weren’t alone. About a minute later another couple came up to the table. He was a tall fellow, about my height and size, with a bronze tan, fashionably long curly brown hair, and absolutely perfect teeth. She was almost as tall as he was, at least in heels, slim and sleek, blonde and blue eyed, darkly tanned. They were both in their mid to late twenties, about five years older than Marilyn and me. They obviously worked out, but probably at a health club somewhere. Those tans were too even to be natural. “114?” he asked.
I stood up. “114. Welcome.” I held out my hand to him.
He shook it firmly. “Thank you. I’m Harrison Blakewell, and this is my wife.”
“Melissa Hockney-Blakewell,” she said, reaching out to shake my hand.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Carl Buckman and this is my wife Marilyn.” They both shook Marilyn’s hand as well, although she didn’t rise, and they settled themselves across from us, with Harrison facing me and Melissa facing my wife.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, too,” said Harrison. “We weren’t sure who we’d be seated with. Where are you folks from?”
“I’m from Utica,” answered Marilyn.
Melissa looked at her husband. “Utica, that’s upstate somewhere, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I think so.” He glanced at me. “Utica’s in New York, right?”
I nodded. “It’s about halfway between Albany and Syracuse, on the Mohawk River. I gather you must live downstate.”
“Oh, yes. We have a home in White Plains. We work in the city of course.” The way he said ‘the city’, you just knew he meant Manhattan.