1
Endless sea, endless time.
Fourteen days at sea was a long time. I planned three auctions during the span, though honestly didn't have enough art onboard to justify even two. I'd been selling off the good stuff for months. I'd requested many art reloads from Sundance, but had yet to hear back from them. No doubt they were waiting for the Surf to hit the Caribbean before shipping out several tons of art. Luckily, even with my short supply, on the very first auction I cleared all my goals. Thus I had a week and a half of leisurely cruising with not much to do.
Life under sail in the trade winds was so blissfully uneventful that sunset became the most dramatic moment of the day. Nothing but blue in all directions. Blue up, blue down. No clouds. No ships. I'd never been at sea for more than a day and not seen another ship. But Wind Surf was sailing the old trade wind route, first used by Columbus himself. The trade winds, first discovered by the Portuguese, began beyond the western edge of the Iberian peninsula. The winds reliably lifted a sailing vessel southward and west. The route was longer than the northward parabola that modern ships used to cross the Atlantic, but still the better choice. For Wind Surf sailed faster under sail than on engine. That's still not saying much, by modern standards of impatience. Wind Surf maxed out her engines at a measly twelve knots. Under sail she could push as high as fourteen. Still beats the hell out of Columbus' month-long journey.
"But for seamen, change comes with port. It boards suddenly, from the shore. Any sea voyage is an emotional whole, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. At the middle there is a solid center of self-sufficient life at sea into which everyone on the ships I have known settles comfortably; so comfortably, at times, that poses drop and psychological armor slips. It is hard to keep up every affectation on an ocean."
So said Joseph Conrad. He was quite right. For the first time drifting the high seas, I was truly comfortable in every sense of the word. And, with the next port, it would come to an end. All good things must come to an end. After nearly three years of auctioneering, I had finally found a ship that was unmistakably mine. I had stayed on her longer than the usual contract for auctioneers, so organizing my vacation seemed prudent. Sundance was happy to send me back to the world's largest sailing vessel, 'cause I was killin' it. So how cool was that? A week and a half to relax before my vacation. After six weeks I'd be back with the family. Yes, I unabashedly referred to my fellow Wind Surfers as family.
Nothing but blue, blue, blue. It's like being in a prison cell: nothing to change the view, hour after hour, day after day, week after week. Some people just couldn't handle the lack of distraction. One such person was Jeff, the auctioneer I'd taken Wind Surf from. He had worked two week-long cruises in the Caribbean, then the two-week crossing. After only seven sea days he'd already sent in his resignation.
One poor soul who had trouble handling the confining crossing was Nigel. Oh, he had no problem whatsoever with the quiet. In fact, that's all he wanted. He just couldn't get it. For poor, poor Nigel was hounded day and night by Mr. 101. This bizarre passenger made his presence known on the very first day of the cruise. During a pause between sets, the heavyset, balding man rushed up to the keyboard and jabbed his hand into Nigel's face.
"You're the keyboard player?" he asked—stating the obvious—"I'm something of a musician myself. I have composed one hundred and one songs."
"That's wonderful," Nigel said. "I'm always happy to meet a fellow music enthus—"
"A hundred and one!"
"Indeed."
"We should get together and listen to them," the rotund man said. "Where is the band's after party?"
Nigel was a proper Englishman, which meant he was unfailingly polite. He tried desperately to parry Mr. 101's blustering self-invitations, but was unable to shake him. By the end of that first night he had already accepted a CD of songs and promised to find a way to integrate them into their musical sets. To say that the music was amateurish was an understatement of gross proportions. It was so incredibly horrible that it brought the listener to tears. The next day Nigel, who always shared music with me, played the first track of the CD for me.
"Listen to the whole thing in its entirety," Nigel guided. "You'll think it's hideously repetitive and boring—which it is—but at the end... well, listen."
One didn't need to be a musician to see just how right Nigel was. The odd mixture of synthesized sounds were indeed repetitive—and noisy. It was like a child had thrown a tantrum on an electronic keyboard, then hit repeat. It was so absurd I couldn't help but laugh. But it got worse. Just when the stupid thing was over, Mr. 101 added his special touch: duck quacks. I'm not kidding. It was freakin' hilarious.
"I promised to use some of his music for the fashion show," Nigel sighed. "It was the only way to get him out of my face. Needless to say, I won't."
Nigel never told me how he got out of it—for Mr. 101 was in attendance, puffed up and proudly waiting for his moment to shine. When I later pressed him, Nigel just smiled.
Yes, Mel did another fashion show, another 'look your fantasy life'. She was incredibly nervous, just as Janie was before her. Alas, Barney was not available for Mr. Cool, so this time I played it. What did I wear? What else? What I wore every day, accoutered complete with cigar and martini. Mel showed me exactly as I was. That's when it really struck me.
I was living my fantasy life. Whoa!
My time at sea had been filled with so many different types of trials and tribulations, I'd rarely had a chance to slow down and reflect on whether or not I was happy. Had I been pressed, most of the time I'd have probably admitted 'no'. I'm not a negative person, by any stretch of the imagination, but was always struggling for loftier goals, always just out of reach. But not any more. On Wind Surf I was really, truly happy. I loved what I was doing—for a change—and certainly loved where I was doing it. And I felt loved.
Love, of course, is what got me here in the first place. I would not have gone out to sea for anything less. After four years, I finally found it. Not in the way I had hoped, but as part of a family. Can't complain about that!
No, no longer was I chasing a woman who made me happy. True, our highs were higher than anything I'd seen outside of Hollywood, and our lows commensurate. Actually, after the initial horror of being a political pawn in the restaurants of Carnival Cruise Lines, there really weren't any lows. Just gaps. Long gaps. In the end, they were too long. So while I started out at sea for Bianca, I ended up at sea for me. That's what let me heal, and heal quickly. I didn't regret a minute of my journey, though certainly the chase was not a way to live a life. Happiness cannot be given, though it must be accepted. And now, finally, I was following my own advice: make yourself happy first, then find someone to share it with.
Whodathunkit?
While the fashion show was silly fun enjoyed by all, the great highlight of the Transatlantic cruise was surely the Captain's Ball. Captain Turner himself, having recently returned from vacation and in the company of Mrs. Turner, was to personally host the gathering. Everyone came out in their finest formalwear. This was only the second time I'd worn my tuxedo—a good thing, too, because it was in sore need of justifying its expense. The main lounge managed to somehow pack in every guest aboard. In that chaos, a small cluster of the ship's elite hovered near the bar.
"Brian!" Francois called to me from the crowd. He waved me over with a flash of gold. "Join us for something special."
Noting how he was attended by Captain and Mrs. Turner, Chief Officer Emmet, and the cruise director, Fabrice, it was hard to refuse such an invitation.
"I presume you've never tasted Rémy Martin's Louis XIII cognac," Francois said. He indicated a gorgeous bottle cradled gently in the white gloved hands of the bartender. "A blend of France's very best grapes from the Champagne region, aged in centuries-old oak casks. Named after the king enthroned at the time Rémy Martin first moved to Champagne, King Louis XIII."
With great flair, Francois took up a snifter from the bar and, tapping it with a nail, held it up to my ear. The sound resonating was the most pure note I'd ever heard in my entire life.
"Only the best crystal," Francois said proudly, "For a cognac designed and blended for kings—who, incidentally, are about the only ones who can afford it!"
The bartender poured me a glass. I swirled it lovingly, noting the legs were thick and delicious to the eyes. The flavor was stunning. There was no mistaking that it was designed for royalty. It was head and shoulders better than anything I had ever imagined. I had been sure Francois only invited me over because I was in my tuxedo. Now I could definitely say it had paid for itself, fitting and all.
"Note zee bottle," Fabrice said. "Zee crystal notches on zee side deter theft. Ze bottle alone is worth many hundreds of dollairs."
Captain Turner nosed his snifter delicately. After a moment, he mused, "Being that this is not single malt scotch, I defer to the nose of our resident Frenchmen."
"Ees vairy complicated bouquet," Fabrice offered. "Ze tongue ees vairy sweet, vairy mellow. But ze parfoom ees bold, with 'ints of jasmine and sandalwood."
"What do you think, love?" Captain Turner asked his wife.
"It does remind me of jasmine," Mrs. Turner agreed. With a self-effacing laugh, she added, "But only because Fabrice said it first!"
Suddenly Rick materialized from the crowd. He was not dressed in formalwear, but in an old T-shirt that barely stretched over his beer belly. He moved with the greatly emphasized gestures of someone three sheets to the wind and trying to hide it. Every gesture was grandly—and comically—overcompensated. He marched stiffly right up to the bar, no doubt unaware of elbowing us all out of the way. He reached out and plucked the crystal bottle off the bar. As he pulled back, his entire body wavered alarmingly. All eyes were on the expensive bottle as Rick careened backward. Several of us tensed, ready to make a grab for it should he let it fall.
But Rick didn't let it fall. He brought the bottle up to sniff the bouquet, even accidentally sticking his nose in it. When he pulled back, nose dripping with cognac, he raised his eyebrows all the way up into his hairline in an effort to appear reflective.
"Amazing!" he blurted. "I detect leather. Yes, leather, but with a hint of something else... something special."
He closed his eyes and inhaled very, very deeply.
"Yeeessss," he breathed, as if in a trance. "Lady saddle."
Mrs. Turner gasped. Without missing a beat Captain Turner, placing an arm around her, guided his wife away. They disappeared into the crowd, leaving the rest of us staring at Rick in shock. He was about to guzzle some Louis XIII straight from the bottle when Francois snatched it from his hand. Though the hotel director was obviously furious, he managed to control his temper.
"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded of the gleefully unaware drunkard.
"I don't do parties," Rick slurred back happily, "Least not any I've been invited to!"
Emmet, meanwhile, had quietly motioned for security. Moments later Rick was being escorted away. I watched them go and Emmet, on his way past, said contemptuously to me, "Next time control your friend."
I stared after them, almost as aghast as Mrs. Turner. Francois recapped the cognac and handed it over to the bartender. After giving me a meaningful look, he, too, walked away. I wasn't sure what had just happened. Was I somehow being held responsible for this incident? Turns out, yes. The mysterious lurker of Wind Surf was about to reach out from the shadows to strike again—to strike me.
2
The following morning Francois called me to his office. Though I was absolutely comfortable with Francois, being called into his office gave me a hint of nerves. Whenever a figure with authority called me into their inner sanctum, something was triggered, something deep in the reptilian part of my brain: fight or flight. Of course he was going to talk about last night. But was I going to be somehow held accountable? That's what it felt like. But I wasn't the drunk, crass idiot who came uninvited!
Francois sat behind his desk casually. He motioned for me to take a seat. After a rattle of golden bracelets, he clasped his hands and leaned forward.
"I need your help," he said. "I'm having trouble communicating with Rick. I've been watching him for awhile, but last night was an unacceptable escalation."
"I quite agree, but I'm not sure how I can help you."
After a moment of musing, Francois leaned back and said, "Unlike some of my colleagues, I don't think Rick is just an undisciplined child. I don't know exactly why. He's pathetic, yes, but not a man to be dismissed. To do so would be to dismiss whatever so haunted him, and he is indeed a man haunted. All that said, though, have you any idea how to handle him? You're his friend."
"Friend?" I said, surprised. "I wouldn't go that far."
"I see you drinking with him a lot," Francois pointed out.
"Well, I'll have a social drink with him, for sure. And obviously he has begun continuing on toward excess. I have nothing to do with that, and have never really understood alcoholism. I don't like being around it any more than any other man."
"Yet you judge a man by the company he keeps."
There it was again. Emmet had said something the night before in a very similar vein. I didn't like being classified in such a manner. Why not judge me on my work performance? My volunteerism? Why must I be judged by something I can't control and doesn't adversely affect anything?
"I wish I could help you," I said, rather dismissively. "I don't know how to reach Rick. All I know is that someone with an alcohol problem on ships is like a bull in a china shop."
"Or a lamb to the slaughter," Francois corrected.
I left, swallowing hard. For the first time I was worried Francois didn't think much of me. That was a shame. Yet I, too, judged a man by the company he kept. I resolved to stop doing that because, upon reflection, I'd spent most of my ship time with a rogue's gallery! But flirting with the dark side, and being surrounded by others who succumb to it, doesn't mean I was out of control. Since escaping the Carnival Cruise Lines restaurants, I was a social drinker; nothing more. In the words of the great Sir Winston Churchill, "I've gotten more out of alcohol than alcohol's gotten out of me." Yet, as stated, those around me did succumb. Rick cracked during the Transatlantic. Upon setting foot ashore, he shattered.
Rick didn't make it back from our first port of call, Barbados. He'd gone on a bender and passed out. Wind Surf sailed without him. Oh, he got aboard the next day by taking a ferry to the next port, St. Lucia, but it was too late by then. He was fired on the spot. His departure wasn't cause for concern. It was inevitable. This wasn't like the mysterious firing of Janie and Eddie and the attempted firing of Yoyo. No, Rick wasn't a victim of the phantom firer.
I was.
The chief officer ordered me into his office at six o'clock in the morning. At first I thought it might have something to do with Rick as well, but why would he call me in so early? Six sharp in the a.m. could easily be considered punishment. His office was not large, though it was significantly bigger than anyone else's save Francois'. Unlike the hotel director, however, Emmet shared his office with two other senior officers. They were not present at the early hour, though their inhabitance was clearly visible from all the dirty coffee mugs. Emmet's desk was overwhelmed with paperwork filed, paperwork not filed, and stacked binders of still more paper.
"Good morning, Emmet," I said cheerily. I was always at my most chipper in the morning.
"Have a seat," he said, indicating a small wooden chair. "You missed boat drill."
"Boat drill?" I repeated, surprised. "I've never done boat drill."
"Your predecessor surely informed you that it is required prior to transferring to a new part of the world?"
"I see," I replied. "No, he didn't. His handover was an insult. I'm sorry."
"I'm sure you can understand why someone in your position needs to be certified," Emmet explained with his usual kindness. "Well, not certified, but on a small ship we need everyone. You obviously understand that because you help out with fire drills and shore excursions and such. Not to mention a lot of the guys here are foreigners and having a native English speaker is a huge asset in a crisis."
"Of course, of course," I said. "When I return I'll make sure I'm on top of it."
I wasn't particularly happy to do boat drill—who was? But Emmet was being cool about the whole thing. No big deal. I waited for him to continue, but he paused to ponder. After a few moments I tentatively asked, "... is there anything I need to do? Or is that all?"
Emmet's expression turned sour. His entire demeanor changed before my very eyes. In a tight voice he commented, "I'm tired of you shirking your duties."
"Shirking my duties?" I repeated, surprised. "I'm not aware—"
"How could you be?" Emmet interjected. "How could you be aware of anything when you're busy playing video games?"
Now with obvious confusion, I asked, "Video games? I haven't played a video game in years. I have no idea what you're talking about."
"So many things you could be doing and aren't," Emmet continued with an incredibly derogatory tone. I was sure he wasn't talking about failure to eat my vegetables first. "You're a bad influence on the crew."
"I'm a bad influence on the crew?" I repeated, shocked. "What, for volunteering my free time to multiple other departments? You just mentioned fire drills and shore excursions. I also help out on the sports deck—"
"Were you there when Eddie nearly killed two passengers?" Emmet pressed, most cruelly. "Or were you too busy playing video games then, too?"
"What is with this video game shit?" I asked, utterly flabbergasted. I couldn't believe Emmet was laying into me like this.
"You sit comfortably in the lounge all day long, playing on your computer," the chief officer said in both explanation and rebuke.
"You think that just because I'm on the computer... I'm playing games?" I asked, incredulous. "Why on Earth... because I'm wearing headphones? That's a crazy assumption!"
"You're not working," Emmet calmly retorted. "Or you'd be sitting at your desk, selling art. I have serious difficulty with your contract, considering how much you work. I don't understand your role here."
"My role is to bring in revenue," I said firmly. "And I do it without a desk. I bring in more revenue than the casino or the gift shop or the bar."
"Those are necessary ship systems," Emmet dismissed with a wave.
"And bringing in money isn't necessary? If you felt that way, why didn't you attack the previous auctioneer? He sold two thousand dollars worth of art last crossing. I've already sold over seventeen!"
But Emmet didn't seem to hear a word I said. He just continued irritably, "I don't want my hard working crew seeing you relaxing in the lounge all day and having drinks every night. Why don't you help me paint the rails? There's plenty to do."
"So my volunteering for three extra departments isn't good enough for you?" I retorted, now very much angry. "You need me to do manual labor as well? How 'bout old Gertie? You ask her to pitch in, too? Oh, that's right. She never made her goals even once in years. But there's that horrible Brian, exceeding sales goals and volunteering to give Barney's family a personal tour of Positano."
Emmet asked quietly, "Did you take them to a bar?"
I stared at him, mouth agape like a fish.
"Did you take them to a bar?" he repeated.
It was all clear after that, of course.
"I just don't get it, Emmet. We've had a great rapport—or so I thought. Just because I am an acquaintance of Rick doesn't mean—"
"Acquaintance?" Emmet scoffed. "Birds of a feather, more likely. You are dismissed."
Feeling unbalanced and hurt after the meeting with Emmet, I went to the bridge to talk to the second officer. I asked Barney to show me where I was to be stationed and what I was supposed to be doing during the boat drill I missed. He replied there hadn't been any boat drill and, even if there had been, auctioneers weren't involved.
3
It was a shame to have such a falling out with the chief officer. I really liked the guy. I resolved to work on our relationship when I returned from vacation. I didn't realize just how badly our relationship had torn, and that the loose threads were already unraveling. In fact, within just one day, everything would fall apart.
That afternoon I received a frantic message from my Sundance fleet manager. A surprise art swap was planned for Wind Surf's arrival in Barbados—tomorrow. That was the day I was signing off! Art swaps were major events that took a week of preparation. First and foremost, it required receiving a shipment of oversized boxes in advance. Safely boxing several thousand works of art for multinational shipping takes a long, long time. I hadn't received any such boxes.
Astoundingly, Sundance expected me to unload the boxes of fresh art and reload them with old art simultaneously. The logistics of that operation were staggering. It was clearly impossible to do safely without a large staff and amount of space. I had neither. But in true Sundance fashion, it was do it or be fired. Why they waited so late to inform me was a mystery. In order for thirty pallets of art to be waiting for me in Barbados, they would have to have been shipped out of Miami days ago.
In all my four years at sea—through all the trials and tribulations, all the slave labor and demeaning work, the crushing stress, the lies, the jealousies, the cheating—the next thirty-six hours were the worst. Just when I thought things were going so well!
Only one crane existed to load the pallets of fresh art onto Wind Surf. It did not drop loads into a hold, but instead onto a narrow, exposed strip of deck just behind the bridge. There was no staging area. I would have to work fifty feet away in a wide stairwell—a blatant violation of fire code, of course. I discussed the situation with Francois, who noted we'd need permission from the chief officer for any such action. After hearing of Emmet's and my blowout, Francois mercifully promised to run interference.
I began immediately. It was about six o'clock in the evening.
Because we were at sea, everybody I knew was working. No bodies were available to assist me except, perhaps, Yoyo. After careful consideration I decided he would just slow me down. So I transported my thousands of works of art up the two flights of stairs myself, one cart load at a time, load after load, hour after hour, all night long. The pile on the landing quickly grew too large and artwork had to be stacked outside on the deck. Of course there was no one to guard the artwork during any of this operation. I just had to hope nobody walking by stole anything.
Night fell. Darkness became a crippling issue. Because this was the bridge deck, no exterior lights were permitted. I began stacking more and more artwork outside—I had no choice—in the dark. The wind grew stronger and the night grew colder, but I'd long since been sweating from the labor.
Just after midnight I thought I'd catch a break. Wind Surf docked in Barbados. No longer did officers need to worry about a collision with anything in the dark. Emmet, however, refused to allow even a single damn lightbulb to be lit for me. Not one. Onward into the black night I labored.
The good news was that since we docked, the casino closed. Aurelia, now free, volunteered to help. Of course, I barely had enough muscle to haul a fully laden art cart, so what could little one hundred pound Aurelia do? Even so, her offer of help gave me hope. By 2 a.m., it looked like we were about halfway through.
Then came the squall.
Yes, as if I didn't have enough of a nightmare, a freakin' tropical storm blew in. Barbados was the easternmost island of the Caribbean, after all—outermost of the Windward Isles—and subject to the caprice of thousands of miles of open ocean.
The storm winds whipped artwork out of my hands, sent it skittering down the deck and nearly blew it overboard. As sheets of rain walloped the open deck, Aurelia frantically ran after fleeing, flying art again and again. There was no way to secure any of the hundreds of loose works of framed art stowed outside, no way to stop the wind from lashing, the rain from soaking. Even artwork inside the stairwell was wrecked, tumbling down the stairs with each swell, each list. Untold thousands of dollars in damage—much of it irreparable—was done. But then, Sundance was sloppy like that and used to paying such.
The storm was powerful but short. At about three o'clock it stopped. Having been hard at work since six, I needed to take a short break. Both Aurelia and I were soaked to the skin and shivering. A hot shower helped revive me. During that time Aurelia picked up the proverbial pieces of my livelihood. I thanked her and ordered her to bed. Onward I slogged, load after load, hour after hour. Only once did I stop, at 4:30 a.m., for a cup of coffee. The hard physical labor of transporting the old art to the crane took a whopping fifteen hours. It was finally completed at 9:30 a.m.—just in time for the hard part to begin.
Of course, I was supposed to sign off on vacation any minute. According to international law I was not allowed on the ship after 11 a.m. The new guy would have to finish. But he didn't show up.
Figures.
An hour of frantic paperwork shuffling was required to keep me legally aboard. Certainly it would take nothing short of being arrested to get me off the ship with the art in that condition. There was several million dollars worth of art spread out in the open all over the bridge deck, and I was liable for every penny!
Francois signed off on my immigration paperwork without issue, but Emmet was another matter. He refused to sign. He wanted me gone. He didn't think I was part of the family. Only after he personally verified with Francois that the new auctioneer would not arrive until tomorrow—apparently I was now a liar, as well—only then did he reluctantly sign the papers.
Quickly I had to cancel my taxi, cancel my flights from Barbados to Miami and Miami to Chicago and Chicago to Cedar Rapids. Then I had to rearrange a flight from St. Lucia all the way through to C.R. After that joyous hour of 'rest', it was time to start haulin' ass on the art swap.
Each crane load brought up one giant box of new art. I had to unload it, set the contents aside on the exposed deck in inclement weather, and reload the same box with old—now old and wet—art. Then I'd have it craned back down and repeat the whole procedure.
Loading huge, heavily framed art in those boxes meant bending entirely over and supporting all the weight with your lower back. There was no other way. It would have been brutal work even had I been fresh. But I was not fresh. I was already sixteen hours in. By six o'clock that evening—a full twenty-four hours of solid labor since I began, the second part of the job was complete.
Last came removing the new art from the raining, open deck and overloaded stairwell down to my art locker. That alone promised to take another fifteen hours. But I also had to remove the protective cardboard corners from each and every work of art. Otherwise they wouldn't fit in my locker!
Aurelia, despite my orders, stayed at my side the whole time. She wasn't a trooper; she was freakin' special forces. That second all-nighter was where she really saved me. She ripped off those corners hour after hour after hour, deep into the night. Her fingertips were a bloody wreck from ripping out all those staples. After 10 p.m. Daniel, the fitness trainer, helped out, and after 1 a.m. Nigel and Neil did, too. With their help, by sunrise everything was stowed away.
The art swap had taken a nonstop thirty-six hours. All that was left to do was clean up the eight or so thousand cardboard corners and the tens of thousands of staples littering the stairwell.
"We did it," I said to Aurelia, giving her a heartfelt hug. My back was so sore I literally couldn't feel her slender arms around me. All I felt was one intense, throbbing ache. "It could have been a disaster. Instead it just sucked beyond belief. There's some killer art to sell when I return, though. That's good news."
"No, it was a disaster," Aurelia said firmly.
"What?"
"You didn't see the deck?"
"What?" I repeated, growing concerned.
She led me outside to the open deck. As the sun rose orange, warm rays highlighted dozens upon dozens of scratches in the teak deck. Many had been scraped and re-scraped so many times that they compounded into deep gouges. The entire area around the crane was absolutely trashed. Because I'd been working in the dark, in the storm, I hadn't known we were causing damage. I hadn't known to alter our procedure. I hadn't seen a thing.
You could bet your sweet ass Emmet would.
4
The handover to the new guy, Hugh, went smoothly. Because of the art swap there was no time-taxing inventory. Because the Surf was so small there was no tour. There was no staff. Obviously Sundance had sent a newbie to the smallest ship in all the combined fleets. He was only a placeholder, after all, and we both understood this. Even so, the kid stared around with his mouth open, thinking the ship was a lot to handle. Poor kid had no clue.
No flights out of St. Lucia had been available on such short notice. I had been forced to book a room at a resort. Trying, I know. Aurelia joined me for the afternoon and evening, not having to return until 10 p.m. The vibe was sad, but not really. After all, I was already scheduled for a return in six weeks. Still, there were a lot of hugs and a few tears. And frogs.
After a lazy afternoon napping in each others' arms in a hammock, rocked gently by the warm, damp Caribbean wind, we took a walk. The grounds were lush with all manner of green things. As the sun set behind a screen of palms and a strip of beach, we found ourselves upon a wide, sloping lawn at the edge of a rainforest. We sat in the grass and were accosted by frogs. Lots and lots of frogs. Hordes of frogs. Big frogs, little frogs, pushy frogs. They were very demanding of our attention, like a house pet nudging your hand for a pat on the head. In this case, they jumped onto our bodies and wouldn't jump off. I had no idea frogs could be so tenacious. No wonder Kermit stuck with the exasperating Ms. Piggy all those years.
Darkness settled in. It was a wonderful, lingering moment in a place of charm, a place for a connection of hearts. The beautiful night and surroundings were a group hug. I didn't want to leave any of it. It was the first time I'd been anxious to return to a ship and pick back up right where I left off.