Casteel 05 Web of Dreams (6 page)

"I was showing Tony the ship," she explained, with a giggle. "Well, I'm glad there's no grease on your elbows this time."
"Daddy just wants me to understand things."
"You pay people to understand things for you. That's the point in being the owner," she replied. She kept gazing Tony's way, clearly waiting for him to turn toward her. It wasn't like her not to circulate among all the guests, I thought. Usually, for all her complaining, she enjoyed being the owner's wife and helping to decide who would be invited to the captain's table later on in the voyage. Momma saw the way I was staring at her.
"Why are you gorging on all this food?" she asked me. "It's never too early to start worrying about your figure."
"I'm not gorging, Momma. I haven't eaten very much all day and I just look . . ."
Suddenly, her face got funny and cold and her eyes got small. "How do I really look tonight, Leigh? Do I look prettier than any woman here? Have you seen anyone who looks younger or more beautiful?" She seemed almost in a frenzy. Then her voice changed. "You can tell me the truth," she purred. But her eyes were still hard, like ice chips. She gripped my arm hurtingly.
"Momma," I began, but she didn't hear me.
"Just look at some of these women," she said, nodding toward the party crowd. "Some have become so fat, they've lost all their femininity. No wonder their husbands hover about me like panting dogs." Her face softened back to the mother I was used to. She looked back at Tony and he turned her way. Even across the vast room, they seemed to be able to communicate, for she turned back to me to say she would see me later and hurried off to join him.
I watched them for a while. Daddy brought over some people to introduce to me and then I stayed with him until he went back to talk to the head chef. I was standing by myself feeling a little lost when suddenly, someone tapped me on the shoulder and I turned to look into Tony's blue eyes.
"Time for our dance," he said and held out his arms.
"Oh, but I'm not good at ballroom dancing," I pleaded, even as he took me in his powerful arms and swept me onto the floor.
"Nonsense. Just follow my lead."
I caught a glimpse of Momma off to the side, standing with some people and smiling, but I felt so nervous and stiff, I was sure I looked silly out on the dance floor.
"I'm happy you decided to wear my gift tonight," Tony said. "It looks so pretty on you."
"Thank you." My heart was pounding. i was sure everyone was looking at me and laughing because I looked so awkward in his arms. He was so tall and graceful and sure and I moved like a girl who had been crippled all her life. It was hard to relax on a dance floor with all these elegantly dressed adults around me. This was nothing like a school dance.
"This is a wonderful party," he said. "I can't imagine what it must have been like for you growing up in all this."
"It's a very hard business," I replied, thinking of my daddy. "Especially these days."
"Oh, I see." He smiled as if he had to humor me. "You're thinking of becoming a businesswoman then?"
"There's no reason why a woman can't." I knew I was being rude, but for some reason I couldn't stop myself.
"No, none at all." His eyes brightened and he laughed. I was glad when the music ended and he bowed and thanked me. He disappeared in the crowd and left me standing there, feeling even more selfconscious. I retreated to a corner of the ballroom. A little while later the cast of
The Pajama Game
performed. They were as wonderful as they had been on the stage. After the show, many people began to leave. By the time the horn was sounded for the visitors to depart, many already had. The ship's staff began to clear away some tables. I joined Daddy, who was speaking with the captain and the first officer, just as the band announced its final number, which was to be a waltz.
Suddenly, I saw Daddy's eyes grow small and his lips tighten so that a whiteness formed under them. When I turned about, I saw what had caught his attention. Momma and Tony were practically the only couple left dancing and they were dancing so gracefully and so closely, all the remaining guests and visitors had their eyes on them.
I couldn't help but feel sorry for Daddy because Momma and Tony did look so beautiful together, moving as if they had been dancing together for years and years. Momma seemed to bloom in Tony's arms. Never had she looked more radiant, and tonight she looked so young. I hadn't realized until this moment how young she looked in contrast to Daddy. The years between them had never seemed so vast as they suddenly did.
Daddy appeared to sense that too, for he looked tired, resigned, defeated, as if he had just aged an additional ten years. Oh, there, was such sadness in my daddy's handsome face. He saw the way I was gazing at him and he forced a smile. Then he leaned over to me and shook his head.
"Somehow or another, your mother is always the life of the party, isn't she, Leigh?"
I nodded. He didn't sound angry; he sounded melancholy. I was relieved when the music finally ended and Momma and Tony stopped dancing. Tony followed Momma back to our table to say good night.
"It was a wonderful party," he said. "Best of luck on your maiden voyage."
"Thank you," Daddy replied, his voice sounding neither bitter nor pleasant. "I'm glad you enjoyed yourself."
"Leigh," Tony said turning to me, "don't get too sunburned. Good night." He turned to Momma. "Jillian," he said nodding.
"I'll walk you to the gate," she offered and followed him out.
Daddy watched them with cold eyes.
Instinctively, I reached across the table and squeezed his hand. He smiled at me as if to say "I'm all right." lut I couldn't keep my heart from pounding out its ominous warnings. Like some old seafaring soul, I sensed an impending storm over the horizon and felt the need to batten down the hatches.
A
little over a year ago, Momma decided that if Daddy wanted us to go along on his cruises, he would have to permit her to redecorate the suites we would have on the liners. She designed the suites in only two ships before losing interest, but one of the two was, of course,
The Jillian.
In one of her fashion magazines, Momma had seen a spread done on a celebrity's New York apartment and she decided to model her shipboard suite after it. Our suite was decorated in serene neutrals, taupes and honeyed beiges with bleached light-colored woods that all provided the perfect backdrop for Momma's cool blond good looks.
The liner was a floating resort. On one level there were all sorts of shops, including beauty shops and barber shops, drugstores, and boutiques featuring the latest fashions from home and abroad. There was a continuous schedule of activities for guests, including dance instruction, exercise classes, art exhibits and lectures, teas, endless meals, games of competition, shuffleboard, and, of course, once we sailed into the warm weather, swimming in one of the three pools on
The Jillian.
At night there were dances with
entertainment provided by singers and comedians, and even first-run movies.
Momma slept late every morning, so that Daddy and I usually went to breakfast without her. We always ate with the captain, so when he wasn't available, the first officer, plus guests. Some days, Momma didn't come out of her suite until early afternoon and had her breakfast brought in. Usually she had only a small glass of juice, one poached egg and one piece of toast.
She was very disciplined about how much she would expose herself to sunlight, actually timing it so she would just have some slight color on her face. She had read somewhere that sunlight hastened wrinkling and nothing terrified Momma more than the possibility of a wrinkle appearing. Her vanity table was covered with every skin cream and -dy lotion available, especially the ones that promised eternal youthfulness. Most of her morning was taken up with working creams into her skin and preparing her makeup. She was often in the steam room and scheduled herself a massage every day and a facial once a week.
From the day we left Boston Harbor, Momma complained continually about the devastating effect the salty sea air was having on her hair. She had to go to the beauty parlor almost every day to keep her hair from "kinking." She said the sea air robbed her hair of its softness and chapped her skin because her face was too sensitive. She was rarely on deck in the evening, even when we had sailed into the warmer climate and the evenings were tepid. I thought there were few sights as beautiful as the calm ocean on a warm night with the moonlight painted over the water. The waves bobbed under an unobstructed night sky so dazzling it took my breath away. I was always trying to get Momma out on the deck with me to look at it, but she told me she could see it through the windows whenever she wanted.
Although Daddy was busier than usual on this voyage because it was a maiden voyage establishing a new cruise, he made every effort to spend more time with both Momma and me, always promising to meet us here or there. Momma didn't seem to care if he was with her or not. Whenever he had time to do something with us, she always found something else to do. Daddy and I spent many evenings without her, watching a movie or attending one of the shows. She would promise to join us, but never appear. When I inquired, she told me she was too tired or had a headache. I would find her in bed reading one of her many magazines or scribbling letters. Whenever I asked her to whom she was writing, she would simply reply, "Just friends," and put everything away as if she had become instantaneously bored with what she had been doing.
Even when I sat on her bed and described the singers and the comedians and the activities, she seemed very distracted and not very interested, so I knew she wasn't very happy. And then, one night nearly a week after our cruise had begun, I was awakened by the sound of Momma and Daddy shouting at each other.
"I do everything you ask of me," Daddy complained, "but still you act as if you're suffering. You wanted to remake the suite, I let you and spent the money; foolishly, I thought, but spent it anyway. You're the owner's wife, but do you attend to some of our more important guests? No. And when you do come to the dining room to sit with me and the captain and one of the guests you yourself chose, what do you do . . complain about the sea and living on board a liner as if you were some Negro slave being brought over from Africa and kept chained below.
"How do you think that makes luxury liner travel seem . . . my own wife despises it!"
"I'm not built to be confined," she retorted.
"That's your own choosing. I don't tell you you can't come out of this room. Why don't you enjoy the activities more, enjoy what the ship has to offer?"
"I told you how the sea air affects me, but you don't care about me; you care only about your precious ship and your business. You would sacrifice me to it, endanger my beauty, my looks and health, just to use me as some sort of public relations person."
"That's not fair! You were the one who suggested this cruise."
"I didn't suggest we take it."
"But . . . I thought . . . you always wanted me to take you to Jamaica," Daddy blurted in confusion. "Honestly, Jillian, you're driving me mad. I don't know what you want and don't want anymore."
"I don't want to stay up all night arguing. I need my rest to combat the elements," she said and there was a deep silence. When Daddy spoke, he sounded so frustrated and angry. What was happening to them? I wondered. Was it because of the pressures of the business?
There was an uneasy peace between them for a day or so afterward and then one morning I went with Daddy down to his engine room when the chief engineer reported a problem. I was wearing one of the new outfits Momma had bought me for the cruise. It was a pair of knee-length white shorts with a matching blue and white sailor blouse. The shorts had blue embroidery over the pockets.
I always enjoyed going down to the engine room to see the great machines that made so large a ship move through the ocean. Some of the
passageways were quite narrow, as was the
scaffolding, but I found it adventurous and fun. I knew the men who worked down there were amused by my interest in their work, but they were all quite friendly and eager to describe their responsibilities and explain the purposes of different gauges and levers and wheels.
One of our engines had to be shut down for repair, but the others could pick up the slack for the time it would take. I listened to the questions Daddy asked the chief engineer and followed him about to see what the problems were. I lost myself in the discussions and didn't realize I was leaning up against a very greasy railing until we came up from the engine room and met Momma in the corridor by our suite. She was just coming out to have some breakfast and she looked fresh and exuberant for the first time since we had left Boston.
But the moment she set eyes on me, she froze in the corridor and screamed so hard and so viciously, she frightened me.
"Where have you been? Look at the grease on your arms and on your outfit!" She pointed and I looked down to see a thick line of engine grease along the side and front of my shorts. She looked up at Daddy accusingly. "Where have you taken her, you fool?" she demanded.
A shiver raced down my spine. I told myself over and over it's all right. It's all right.
Daddy's face turned crimson. I had never heard her call him a name to his face before, and I knew he was especially embarrassed because she had done it in front of me. He snapped his head back as if she had actually slapped him across the face, but his reaction didn't slow her down.
"I picked out this outfit for her at one of the more expensive Boston department stores because I wanted her to look like a young lady in fashion, not a grease monkey. You continually sabotage my efforts to teach her the finer things, to help her realize her potential as a woman. You insist on trying to make her into a tomboy," she accused.
"Now, just hold on there, Jillian ."
"Don't tell me to hold on there. Leigh, get to your room and clean yourself up.I'll have the maid take that outfit to the laundry immediately to see if it can be salvaged."
"Momma, it wasn't Daddy's fault. I just wasn't careful,
"Of course it was his fault," she insisted, glaring at him. "If he hadn't taken you to where he had taken you, it wouldn't have happened."
"But I wanted to go, Momma. I wanted to see the engines and . ."
"You wanted to see the engines?" She rolled her eyes. "Look at what you are turning her into," she said, her palms out toward me as if I had changed into some sort of creature on the spot. Daddy closed and opened his eyes patiently.