Blue Autumn Cruise (5 page)

I couldn’t believe Lauren had done that. But I knew she’d done it to get back at Diana for telling on us at dinner.

O
h, I couldn’t believe it! How could she have done that? Why did I let her tape me singing that song, anyway? That was so stupid.

I was so mad, I couldn’t even stay at the club for another minute. I jumped to my feet, listening to all the laughter, then I ran out the door and jammed the elevator button with my thumb. Anything to get out of there in the fastest way possible.

Lauren was so mean! I wished we’d never come on
this cruise. I wished Mom had never married Norm. I wished I’d never met Stephanie.

Why couldn’t we just go back to the way things were before? Before we’d gone to the Outer Banks last spring I’d thought if things got bad with Mom, I could just go live with Dad, but now I knew that really wasn’t possible. Dad didn’t want me to live with him. That was pretty obvious. But how could I stand things like this?

There were already kids at school who made fun of me. They would growl at me and call me “annn-i-MAL” when they walked by in the hall. Every time it happened, it was like someone stabbing me in the heart.

The elevator came, and I jumped in and hit the button to close the door. That minute I saw Stephanie and the boy named Guy running out of the club toward me. I hit the Close Door button about five more times, and the doors started to close.

But Stephanie raced across the lobby and stuck her hand between the doors just as they were closing. They started to open up again.

“Diana! Don’t! I can’t believe she did that. I’ll talk to her! Don’t leave, okay?”

“Leave me alone!” I said. “People make fun of me at school. And now they make fun of me in the middle of the ocean too! I am not staying here anymore, with everyone in there laughing their heads off at me.”

“I didn’t laugh,” Stephanie said.

“I didn’t laugh either,” Guy said. “I make it a policy not to make fun of people.”

I punched the Close Door button again, and the doors started to move together.

Stephanie jumped forward again and stopped the doors. “Come on, Diana. It’s not that big a deal. We were just singing and having fun. Nobody thinks anything of it.”

“Just leave me alone!” I said again.

As the doors closed a final time, she said, “What if I get her to apologize?”

I didn’t answer. The elevator headed down to another floor, and then I realized I hadn’t punched the deck number for our room yet. I punched in fourteen.

I stood in front of the doors, my stomach feeling queasy as the elevator dropped, and I realized I was shaking. I thought about what Dr. Shrink had told me. Take deep breaths. Moronic Mood-o-Meter at two.

The doors opened. I was on deck fourteen. I stepped out of the elevator but didn’t know which way to go. I checked my jean pocket for my room card. I had it. But it didn’t have the room number written on it. I wasn’t sure I could remember the room number.

I looked at the map of the ship on the wall to try to figure out which hall to walk down and which way to
go. I had gotten turned around and couldn’t remember whether I had to go toward the back of the ship or the front.

I thought I chose the right direction and started heading down the narrow corridor. My heart was still beating wildly, and I could feel the flush on my cheeks. I wouldn’t speak to Lauren for the rest of the trip, that was for sure. How could Stephanie ever have thought she was “awesome.” She was so mean!

Pretty soon it seemed like the numbers on the doors weren’t going in the right direction and so I turned around and went the other way down the corridor. I passed a few people, and they smiled and said hello.

Maybe Lauren was getting back at me for telling that they were making fun of the way Uncle Ted said “at the end of the day.” I could tell she was mad about that. But so what. She and Stephanie had been making fun of him. It wasn’t my job to keep their secret.

I looked at the numbers on the doors again. I’d gotten to another section of rooms. What was our room number? I had kind of forgotten.

I wondered where Mom was right now. She and Aunt Carol had stayed in the dining room when we left with Norm and Uncle Ted. Maybe all the grown-ups were still sitting there. I didn’t want to see them really, but since I couldn’t remember our room number, I probably needed to find them.

I wasn’t going back to the teen club, that was for sure.

I stood in the hallway, undecided.

“Diana?”

I turned around and saw Grammy Verra walking down the hallway.

“Hi.”

“Are you lost? This is my deck.”

“Your deck?” I must have accidentally remembered Grammy’s deck number instead of ours. “I can’t remember my room number.”

“We just finished talking and having coffee in the restaurant, and I was on my way back to my room,” said Grammy. “I thought you girls were going to spend the evening in the teen club.”

“Not me,” I said. I couldn’t keep the anger out of my voice.

“Oh,” Grammy said, giving me a close look. “Come on, want to see my room? I have all the room numbers written down on a notepad. And you can go out on my balcony if you want to.”

I hesitated. I didn’t know Grammy Verra very well. But I didn’t know where my room was, and I didn’t know where Mom was. “Okay,” I said.

I followed Grammy down the narrow corridor, then Grammy swiped her key card, and I followed her into
her room. It was bigger than ours, with a king-size bed and a sliding-glass door that opened onto a balcony. A novel with a bookmark in it lay on the bedside table, and a pink satin robe lay across the bed.

“Check out my balcony. I’ll find out your room number.”

I pushed open the glass door and walked out onto the balcony, into the cool night air. The lights of the ship shone all around, and I could see people just below me, on a bigger balcony, sitting at a table drinking wine. Sounds of music from somewhere else on the ship wafted up. I could see the choppy waves down below in the cones of light cast from the ship. A rushing sound came from the movement of the ocean. Farther out to sea was blackness.

“Lovely, isn’t it?” came Grammy Verra’s voice.

“Yes.”

“It would be nice to sit out here and talk,” said Grammy. “We talk on the phone but I haven’t really had a chance to get to know you so well in person, Diana.” She sat in one of the two chairs arranged on the balcony and gestured for me to sit in the other one.

“There’s not much to know about me.”

“Oh, I bet that’s not true,” Grammy said. “Everyone has their own story.”

I started to say, “I have to go,” but for some reason I slid down into the other chair.

“Where did you grow up, Diana?”

“Mom and Dad and I used to live outside Washington, D.C.” It made me feel sad to say it. “I lived there until I was in second grade, when they got divorced. Then Dad moved to Florida and Mom and I moved to Charlotte. And then, you know, Mom met Norm.”

“And I’m so glad they did. Your mother has made my son very happy.”

That was weird to think about. Norm was her son, like I was Mom’s daughter.

“What do you think about living in the South?” she asked.

“I think people are too polite down here. They never say what they mean.”

“That’s an interesting observation. I like people to be direct too.”

“And they move too slow.”

Grammy Verra laughed. “Maybe you’re right. The southern way of doing things. Maybe you’ll just have to start taking your time more.” She hesitated. “Do you have a close relationship with your grandparents?”

“On my dad’s side, no. He doesn’t get along with them. They live in Florida, but I’ve only seen them once or twice. It’s always awkward.”

“That’s too bad.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Sure it does. That’s two people who could love you, and you could love them. What about your mom’s side?”

“Neither of my grandparents are still alive.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Grammy hesitated. I could see her glasses glinting in the lights from the ship, but mostly her face was in darkness. “Well, three can be a crowd when it comes to girls. How are you and Lauren and Stephanie getting along?”

“We’re not.”

“What do you mean? Did something happen?”

I hesitated. I wasn’t sure I trusted her. But the fact that I couldn’t really see Grammy’s face made it easier for me to talk. So I told Grammy Verra what had happened with Lauren.

“I never should have let them talk me into singing that stupid song,” I finished.

“But you had fun singing the song, didn’t you?”

“No.”

“You didn’t?”

“Not really.” I knew I wasn’t telling the truth, but I stubbornly stuck to my story. I had wanted to be part of what they were doing. And it had felt really good to be included.

But before that, they had talked about all of Uncle Ted’s sayings, and I’d felt left out.

“Why did you tell at the dinner table about the girls making fun of Uncle Ted’s sayings?”

“Well, they did it,” I said.

“But you had to have known they didn’t want Uncle Ted to know.”

“Well, if they were doing it, he should know.”

“How do you think they felt when you told?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Embarrassed.”

“And do you think that’s what Lauren was doing—to get back at you and embarrass you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” She was saying that part of this was my own fault. It was starting to feel like one of my sessions with Dr. Shrink.

“Okay,” said Grammy Verra. “I just wanted you to see that Lauren was doing the same thing you did. Not that either one of you was right. But when you lash out at another person, you might expect that some of the time that person will strike back and try to hurt you as much as you hurt them.”

We sat in silence for a little while. My heart was beating hard. She was going to tell me to apologize, I knew it.

“As it turns out, Uncle Ted wasn’t hurt, and he doesn’t mind a little teasing. There’s nothing wrong with a little light-spirited teasing.”

“I’m not apologizing,” I blurted out.

Grammy Verra was silent. “We have four more days together. It would be a shame if you girls keep on feuding and ruin your time on the cruise.”

“I’ll hang out with Luke,” I said impulsively.

“I think he’s met a couple of boys to play with.”

The silence drew out between us. I could hear the movement of the water down below. I wondered what Grammy Verra thought of me. She probably thought I was a spoiled brat.

“I better get back to my room,” I said. “Did you find the room numbers?”

“Yes.” Grammy Verra got up and went back inside. I followed her into the room, where she gave me my room number and told me how to get there.

She stood in her doorway as I headed out. Even though she had been kind of hard on me, something made me want to hug her. But I held back and didn’t.

Y
ou embarrassed her, Lauren,” I said, sliding into the chair next to her at the video-editing console. “Why can’t you just apologize?”

Lauren was busy editing some of the footage she’d shot of Manuel when he had been folding towel animals in our room earlier. “She embarrassed
me
, talking about my dad’s sayings right in front of him. She embarrassed you too, Steph!”

“Your dad didn’t really seem to mind. He kind of
made a joke out of it.” The chairs were swivel chairs, and I nervously turned myself around. “I just want everyone to get along.”

“I know, Stephanie. You have always been Miss Fixit, always so worried about people being nice to each other.” She stopped the shot at a still frame of Manuel and stared thoughtfully, then moved the image a few more frames forward.

“So? You make that sound like it’s a bad thing.”

“It’s not bad. It’s just, sometimes people don’t agree.”

“Well, why can’t you apologize?” I said.

It had taken me awhile to talk to her about it. When Guy and I first walked back into the teen club after Diana left, karaoke was starting, and Lauren was already up on the stage picking a song.

“C’mon, let’s you and me sing one!” Lauren had said, waving at me to come with her.

I hesitated. I was mad at her for what she’d done to Diana. I was mad at both of them.

“You do one, and I’ll go next,” I had said.

“C’mon, Steph, let’s do one together,” Lauren had insisted. I felt bad about staying at the teen club. When Diana left, I thought I should go after her. I felt like I was betraying her by staying with Lauren. But what Diana had done had embarrassed me too, and I didn’t want to leave.

So I had gotten up and followed Lauren up on stage, watching the way she tossed back her long hair when she picked up the microphone.

We had looked at the list of songs, and Lauren and I had picked Taylor Swift’s song “Sparks Fly.” Guy and Evan watched us. When we sang the words “Kiss me on the sidewalk,” we had started laughing and were kind of embarrassed. We ended up laughing the rest of the way through the song. It was a blast! I had left the stage feeling all flushed and excited.

“You guys have to do one too!” Lauren had said to the boys after we finished. They went up there, with Evan nervously straightening his collar (he wore his collar up, like a preppie) and Guy tossing his hair back several times. The two of them had decided on John Mayer’s song “Half of My Heart.”

The guys had messed up and forgotten the words even though they were printed right up on the screen, and we all started laughing.

We sat and watched a few other kids do karaoke. Then one girl started hogging the microphone, trying to do two songs in a row, and Josh had come up, taken the microphone, and turned off the speakers.

While that was happening, I had started thinking about the fact that I’d been so worried that Diana and Lauren would have a fight, and now they’d had one. It
had happened. And now I needed to do something to help them make up. They couldn’t be fighting for the rest of our trip! I couldn’t imagine the painful silences in our tiny little room together.

So, anyway, now Lauren was sitting here editing some of the video she’d shot, and I was trying to convince her to apologize to Diana.

“I’m not going to apologize,” she said. “Not unless Diana apologizes first.”

“Why are you being so stubborn?”

Lauren shrugged. “I guess because I don’t think I was wrong.”

“You embarrassed her!”

“If I’d showed video of you singing ‘Aweemaway,’ would you have gotten mad?”

I twirled around in my chair again, thinking. “I would have been mortified but would have laughed it off.”

“See?”

“But Diana’s different.”

Lauren looked at me levelly. “Why do you care so much about her anyway?”

“I care the same about you. I’m going to try to get her to apologize to you too.”

“Like I said, if she apologizes first, I’ll apologize,” Lauren said.

The boys, who had been playing video games, came over and interrupted us. “Hey,” said Evan, “do y’all want to go to the ‘Movie Under the Stars’ that’s showing in a couple of nights? It’s
Pirates of the Caribbean
.”

“Sure,” I said.

Lauren picked up her camera. “Hey, I have an idea. Let’s wander around the ship and find interesting things to videotape. What if we found someone stowing away or something like that?”

“It would be easy to stow away on one of these ships,” said Evan. “You could go through the buffet line ten times a day, and no one would know. They don’t check your ID or anything.”

“Where would you sleep?” I asked.

“You could sleep out by the pool, on a lounge chair. Or maybe on one of the sofas you see sitting around,” said Evan.

“Where would you shower?” I said.

“Just go swimming every day,” said Guy.

“How would you get on board in the first place? They check your passport and everything,” Lauren pointed out.

“If you had a passport, I bet you could get on,” said Evan.

“I bet a lot of people try it,” said Guy. “Want to go searching for stowaways?”

“Now?” I hesitated. My heart started beating hard. The teen club would close in an hour. I was pretty sure Daddy and Uncle Ted were expecting us to stay in the club rather than wander around the ship.

“Yeah!” said Lauren. “I’ve been dying to try to find my way around.”

“I want to check out the rock-climbing wall,” said Evan. “What about you guys?”

I didn’t want to sound like a baby or a goody-goody and be the only one who didn’t want to leave the teen club. So when they got their stuff and got ready to leave, I did too.

As we were leaving, Josh came up to us. “You guys heading out? Were your parents going to come back for you or what?”

“No, they just said to come back to the room when we were ready,” Lauren said.

“Okay, cool. Take it easy; maybe I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

“Let’s walk on the upper deck,” said Evan. We went up two flights of stairs and came out on the upper deck. As we stepped out into the open, the breeze blew our hair and plastered our shirts against our skin.

“Wow, look at the stars!” I said. They were brilliant, spread across the sky like bright diamonds. The movement of the water all around us created a constant wall of sound.

Evan was walking along with Lauren, and I was walking along with Guy.

I started asking Guy about what it was like to be diabetic.

“It’s a definite challenge,” he said. “I found out I had diabetes when I was seven. I had to start testing my blood sugar then. When you’re diabetic, your body doesn’t make its own insulin, so you have to give it to yourself.”

“Do you have to stick yourself?”

“Yes, but the needles are so tiny, you can barely feel it. It doesn’t hurt. You have to learn about blood sugar and what kinds of foods cause it to go up or down, and you have to test your blood sugar about five or six times a day.”

“What kinds of foods cause your blood sugar to go up?”

“Sweets and carbohydrates. Carbohydrates get metabolized into sugar, so you have to watch the carbohydrates you eat … like pizza or chips. Eating a lot of snack food isn’t good. One thing that’s really good for you if you’re diabetic is exercise. It burns up the glucose. But at the same time, you have to be careful not to let your blood sugar get too low.”

“Wow.” I hadn’t ever thought about having to watch so closely everything I ate and did. I thought about the
times we had cheerleading practice and did back tucks until we were about to throw up. None of us worried about our blood sugar. It was a different way of living.

Guy shrugged. “When I was first diagnosed, I felt really sorry for myself. I thought,
why did this have to happen to me?
But you get used to it. If my blood sugar is high, I need to give myself more insulin. If my blood sugar is low, like after exercising, I need to eat or drink something with sugar in it. Like, I just sip Gatorade during soccer practice to keep my blood sugar from falling. I’m not going to let it keep me from doing stuff. I want to play Division I soccer in college, and I’m not going to give that up. I’m not going to let it beat me.”

“That’s great,” I said. I really admired him for that.

“And it’s kind of changed the way I think about the whole world. If I wanted to rebel and not test myself, the only person I’d be hurting would be me. It made me grow up and take responsibility for myself faster. And I’ve noticed that sometimes I feel more protective of kids that are younger than me.”

I sneaked a look at him when he said that. I hadn’t met many boys who talked about responsibility. He had a softness and wistfulness to his face that I liked.

We walked around the ship and talked for an hour. The adults had gone to a show, and when the show let out, we saw some of the performers in their dance
costumes. They were friendly and spoke with all sorts of different accents. By then it was close to our eleven-o’clock curfew, and so we had to say good-bye to the boys. Evan gave us a salute and said maybe they’d see us tomorrow at the teen club or around the boat. Guy said good-bye and then lightly touched my arm. I felt a little tingle when he did that.

When Lauren and I got back to the room, Diana was already curled up on her bunk, asleep. I tried to talk quietly so I wouldn’t wake her. We were kind of giggling about the boys, because Evan was such a mama’s boy. We had been kidding him and asking if his mom ironed his underwear.

What an amazing first day on the cruise! Except for Lauren and Diana’s fight, of course.

The next morning when I woke up, Lauren was still asleep and Diana was gone. I wondered if she’d gone to the buffet for breakfast, and I wanted to try and talk to her. So I got up quietly, got dressed, and tiptoed out.

When I got to the buffet, I looked around at the tables, and what did I see but Diana eating breakfast with Grammy Verra! I suddenly felt jealous. I realized they were both allowed to do whatever they wanted, but I felt a little strange. Diana wasn’t even Grammy Verra’s real granddaughter—but they were sitting
together talking like they were best friends. I had always thought I was Grammy Verra’s favorite!

The buffet was overwhelming. There was every kind of breakfast cereal, bagel and muffin, and fruits of all kinds, just rows of them in all colors like rainbows. There was sausage and an omelette bar. There were pancakes and waffles. There were blintzes, and I didn’t even know what those were! Finally I got a plain omelette with cheese and joined Diana and Grammy Verra. I should have guessed what they’d be talking about: animals. Grammy Verra was telling Diana about her little dog, Botticelli, or Jelly for short.

“So, anyway, when Jelly wants a treat, he’ll stand up on his hind legs and move his short little front legs up and down like he’s begging,” Grammy was saying. “His eyes are big and brown, and they just implore you. It’s so adorable, how can I deny him anything?”

“Grammy’s dog is the most spoiled dog in the world,” I said as I put my tray down on the table. “She gives him everything he wants.”

“Well, and he’s very smart too. He knows at least twenty words,” Grammy said.

“He knows his name, as well as
toy, walk, treat, out, down, sit, stay, …”

“Grammy, he never sits or stays,” I said. “He never does anything you tell him to do.”

“That’s just because he’s so smart. He’s too smart to be bossed around.”

“Too spoiled, you mean,” I said, laughing.

“He’s not going to like knowing that you talked about him like that, Stephanie!” Grammy teased. “You better be careful. He is my precious little boy, is what he is. I wish I could have brought him on the cruise. He keeps me company.”

“I know, Grammy. I’m just giving you a hard time about him.”

“Diana and I have been having some nice talks, haven’t we, Diana?” Grammy said. “I’m enjoying getting to know her better.”

“That’s great,” I said, feeling jealous again but smiling at Diana. She gave a small smile. I didn’t know whether it was sarcastic or not.

“She’s been telling me about her horse, Commanche,” Grammy went on.

“Well, he’s not my horse. He’s the horse I ride when I go to the barn,” Diana explained to Grammy. “I told her that Commanche sticks his head out when I come into the barn. He knows my walk,” said Diana.

“Isn’t that great when an animal knows us? It makes us feel good, doesn’t it?” Grammy said.

“Yeah!” Diana said.

She and Grammy both nodded and laughed. I told
myself that Grammy was just trying to get to know Diana. And I knew Diana wasn’t close to her real grandparents. After that, Daddy and Lynn came and joined us, and then Aunt Carol and Uncle Ted and Luke, so we were all scooting over and making room for people to put their trays on the table, and the conversation was like a three-ring circus. Lauren was the only one who wasn’t there. I figured she was still sleeping. I was worried about what would happen when she and Diana saw each other.

“You girls better go claim spots by the pool before it gets too late,” Daddy said.

I stood up. “Okay, I’m going. Diana, want to come find a spot out by the pool?”

Diana shrugged. “I guess so.”

“We’re going to go to the quiet adult pool,” said Lynn. “You girls are welcome to sit with us or go to the young people’s pool and play games.”

“Young people’s pool!” I said excitedly.

When we got back to the room, Lauren lay with her face turned toward the wall while Diana and I put on our swimsuits.

“Want me to try to save a chair for you, Lauren?” I asked.

“Okay,” she mumbled.

Diana didn’t say anything.

It was a beautiful day, with blue skies above dotted with scattered clouds and the deep-green water surrounding us as far as we could see in every direction. When we looked over the edge of the deck, we could see the lacy, white foam spreading out behind the ship from the engines.

Diana and I claimed lounge chairs far enough away from the pool that we wouldn’t get splashed. I put a towel on the lounge chair on the other side of me for Lauren. I was nervous but also still mad that they weren’t speaking to each other.