All Aboard!, page 9
Rhea rolled her eyes and laughed. Rina Maasi was incorrigible.
As they made their way to the dining hall, they met other faces, now familiar, and smiled politely, exchanged pleasantries. Rhea was once again struck by the lack of single people on the cruise. The entire passenger list seemed to be divided evenly between retired people and families and honeymooning couples. Already seated at their allotted table were the Colonel, his son and daughter-in-law.
The Captain’s Gala Dinner was perhaps the most formal night on board the ship. On this occasion, not only would guests on the ship get the opportunity to actually be able to don their shiniest best formals, but also tuck down a meal of iconic levels that would have them sated and spent with gastronomic afterglow. There wasn’t dancing. But there was champagne and the chance to hobnob with the captain and the other main officers of the ship, and get photographed with them.
As they were steered to their table, Rhea noticed Kamal and Naina being directed towards the same direction. Her heart lurched unbecomingly. Damn him, he had absolutely no business looking like a young Brando, with the same half smile, and the-world-is-my-oyster gaze.
As he came up to the table and bent down to greet and hug Maasi, she looked at him discreetly, under her mascaraed lashes. It was endearing, the way he was so gentle and polite with Rina Maasi, she thought. But why did he have to look so delectable? Men like him who were a feast to the eyes should not be allowed to wear dinner jackets and cause an increase in heart rates all around, she thought, gasping for air. Just as she tried to look away, their eyes met for a brief moment, and despite herself, she was drawn back to looking into them. She could feel her breathing going ragged and her stomach began to flutter with nervousness.
Kamal didn’t take his eyes off her, and held out his hand. A customary handshake for all, but the momentary physical contact between the two generated enough electricity to light up the ship. When the contact broke, Rhea felt dazed.
‘Hello, Rhea,’ he said, his eyes drilling holes into her composure, ‘You look lovely!’
She found her throat drying up. ‘Thank you,’ she replied, forcing the words out. ‘You’re not looking too bad yourself,’ she added softly. He caught it and inclined his head jauntily at her. Then he winked, and her heart nearly stopped. All the days of self-control and steeling herself came to naught.
Naina said something but it drowned in the background noise. Rhea rose to air kiss her, as she complimented her on her look and how the newly acquired tan suited her so much. ‘We seem to be at the same table today,’ Naina said affably as she settled down in her chair, looking dainty and delicate in a manner Rhea never could. Dressed in a dusty rose gown with discrete embroidery at the décolletage, her dress probably cost more than Rhea’s entire income from a single editing project. The evening rolled out with champagne being served, and after the cruise director greeted them all at their tables, the service began. It was particularly hard to refuse the champagne that kept flowing into their glasses, and by the end of the second refill, Rhea found herself happier than she should have been under the circumstances. Naina, who was seated by her side, was even happier.
‘Go easy on the champers,’ Kamal whispered to Naina on the side. ‘You know how it affects you.’
‘I’m fine,’ she exclaimed, rather too loudly, causing heads in the immediate vicinity to swirl around. The meal was fabulous, not that Rhea could eat much, keenly aware of Kamal sitting barely a few feet away. He kept staring at her occasionally, with the kind of grim faced, questioning look that set her knees trembling and making her unable to concentrate on anything.
‘Such a bossy big brother,’ Naina said to Rhea over the soup which she was swilling in equal measures with the champagne. ‘But he’s such a wonderful brother, isn’t he?’
Rhea unwittingly looked up to catch Kamal’s eyes across the table. For a moment it felt as if everyone at the table could hear her heartbeat.
She decided to turn her concentration on the array of food. Tuna, salmon and shrimp appetizers, lobster bisque, oven-baked fillet of salmon, followed by a delicious tiramisu—Rhea ate everything, and yet tasted nothing. All she was aware of was Kamal, sitting close by and laughing and chatting with some travellers from Australia who were also seated at their table. Each time his eyes settled on her, she felt it physically, like a touch.
Once they were done with their meals, Kamal leaned across to Naina and cut into the conversation, ‘I’ll just go check on the kids and the babysitter. Will be back in a moment.’
Naina beamed at him with a 100-watt smile and nodded. He strode off with rapid strides that would get him to their cabin in half the time that Naina would take in her high heels. He returned within ten minutes and reported that the kids had raised the right amount of hell and were watching television till their eyes glazed over, but refusing to go to sleep. Naina rolled her eyes, ‘They’re on holiday too. Let them enjoy themselves, I guess.’
The smaller group at the table decided they would watch a Latin Night performance as billed in their newsletter and trotted off en masse to the auditorium.
Rina Maasi sniffed disapprovingly. ‘If I was a little younger and this arthritis hadn’t started making my joints misbehave, I could have shown them how it’s really done.’
There was a minor discussion amongst the rest of them at the table, confused about what they could move on to from the dinner now concluded.
Luckily, her attention was diverted by the arrival of the Colonel. He looked dapper and she cooed in approval, flagging him to her side and telling Rhea in not so many words that she could now consider herself free to hang out with the younger lot.
‘Let’s go to the bar,’ Naina suggested, ‘I feel the need to get totally plastered today and be done with it once on the cruise while we have a babysitter to ensure the kids are tucked in bed.’
Rina Maasi waved them on with her blessings to indulge in hedonistic revelry that would do her proud. ‘You young ones, go on, have fun, this wonderful man here will drop me back to the cabin after the show.’ Rhea handed over the door key card to her with a strict warning not to forget her night time medications.
Naina was already a little unsteady from the champagne during dinner and balanced herself on Kamal’s arm with slow, careful steps. They entered the discotheque to dim lights and loud music. The Colonel’s son and his wife were there and had hit the dance floor already, and so did Naina and Kamal, leaving Rhea standing on the fringe of the tiny floor, looking at the crowd and feeling completely alone. Kamal noticed her and beckoned her to join in. Just as she was about to move towards them, someone came crashing on the floor and embraced Rhea in a bear hug. It was John and he definitely had more alcohol flowing in his veins than mandated.
‘Where have you been!’ he gushed, refusing to let her get out of his embrace. ‘Right here, on this ship. Where have you been hiding?’ she countered with a pleasant smile, disentangling herself from his arms which had begun caressing her bare back. She stepped back politely and realized that Kamal was looking on.
‘Shall we dance?’ he asked her, and without waiting for an affirmative response, dragged her into the handkerchief sized dance floor. ‘Mmmm, you smell good,’ he whispered, drawing her closer to him and nuzzling her neck in a manner that would be considered PG rated in the movies. Rhea felt her back prickle.
But maybe she should loosen up and have some fun, she thought to herself. John looked good—the way the corners of his eyes crinkled into a lattice when he smiled, the tousled, sun bleached golden curls that felt like silk to the touch, the rippled fitness of his body which was sinuous and lithe as it moved to the music, like he really felt the rhythm within him. Perhaps he was just what the doctor ordered to take her mind off depressing thoughts about Samir, and to detach herself from the current obsession with Kamal. They danced for a while when Rhea began to feel that it was enough for the night.
She looked around for Kamal and Naina. They were nowhere to be seen.
‘Want to take this party to my cabin? Take up where we left off that night?’ John put his arms around her waist, drawing her to him.
She pushed him away gently, but firmly. ‘No,’ she shook her head. ‘Not really.’
‘Come on, sweetheart, don’t be such a prude,’ he said, slipping his hand inside her dress. She moved away from him with a start.
A strong hand grabbed her and pulled her away. ‘I’m cutting in on this dance, bro,’ Kamal’s voice said smoothly.
John shrugged and went back to the floor. As she watched, he started dancing with another woman, the same one he had handed a parcel to, and which she had given to someone at the piazza. The details came floating back to her.
The closed air and the loud music started getting to her. ‘You want to go out?’ And before she knew it, she was steered out of the discotheque, into the open, salty air of the deck.
Rhea took off her stilettos and stood barefoot, holding her shoes with one hand and grabbing the railing with the other, in a desperate bid to make the world stop swaying. She leaned over the railing precariously, gasping with sudden nausea, and tried to fill her lungs with some fresh air. Never again so much champagne, she reprimanded herself. It didn’t suit her. She was better off sticking to cocktails and non-alcoholic drinks.
‘Are you all right?’ Kamal asked, holding her elbow gently.
‘Just a little queasy, but I’ll be fine, I just need to get to my cabin.’
He helped her through the post-dinner crowd on the deck, to the elevator bank and down to her deck level. ‘I took the liberty of taking your cabin key card from your aunt since I passed her sitting on the promenade deck with the Colonel,’ he said as he swiped the door open. ‘You were lucky I reached there just in time after dropping Naina to her cabin, or things could have got a little unpleasant with that smooth operator you were dancing with.’
She raised her eyebrows and half turned towards him, bristling with an irritation that was a churning of everything—John, the queasiness from the ship’s movement and too much champagne. ‘Why are you hell-bent on playing my keeper, Kamal Shahani?’ she said, her voice rising a fraction of decibel. ‘Why . . . oops . . .’ She flung her shoes down on the carpet and ran to the bathroom just as the bile rose in her throat, making it in time to have the vomit hit the rim of the wash basin.
Kamal followed swiftly, holding her hair off her face and stroking her back gently as she spewed all the contents of the dinner, and then washed her face carefully and wiped it with the hand towel. She stood trembling, leaning against the basin for support. He took her by the hand as she moved gingerly to the twin bed she occupied, feeling the room whirl around her. He handed her a glass of water and asked if she needed to see a doctor.
‘No,’ she insisted, ‘I’m fine. Something probably just disagreed with me.’
She lay down, unable to keep her head upright. He pulled the covers up to her neck and stroked her hair gently. ‘I’m so embarrassed,’ she said softly.
‘Don’t be,’ he replied. ‘It was probably the prawn, or the champagne, or both. Now close your eyes and sleep it off. I insist.’ She closed her eyes and felt herself drifting off into a void of blackness, a sleep induced by alcohol and giddiness. And that’s when she felt it, a kiss on her forehead. ‘Sleep well,’ he whispered. ‘Sleep well, my darling.’
Soft footsteps moved away from her, and then Rhea heard the door close. When she opened her eyes, she was alone in the room. What was happening to her? Why was she irresistibly being drawn to this man who appeared to be completely out of her league?
EIGHT
Rhea woke to Rina Maasi shaking her gently. Her head was still shaky from the dislodged machinery inside from when she had thrown up. Demons were attacking the back of her eyeballs with a hammer, a couple them intent on prying her eyeballs out or inserting red hot pokers into various corners of her cranium.
‘Hangover?’ Rina Maasi asked pithily.
Rhea nodded ever so slowly, afraid her head would disintegrate if she shook it beyond a millimetre per second.
‘Here,’ she handed across a glass of water. ‘Drink up. You need to hydrate yourself.’
Rhea sat up gingerly, pouring the water down her throat, feeling the water droplets skid and bounce in her bloodstream and then make their way up into her cranium where they began dislodging the hangover demons.
‘Never again,’ she croaked. ‘No champagne.’
‘It wasn’t the champagne,’ Rina Maasi laughed. ‘It was the number of glasses you drank. You were tossing them down the hatch like a veteran alcoholic. I quite admired your smooth wrist action.’
Rhea shuddered. Did she do something horrific while she was out of it? The last she could remember was coming into the cabin with Kamal and him holding her hair off her face while she . . . aargggghhhh . . . she vomited in front of him. She cringed at the memory.
‘How did you get into the cabin?’ she asked.
Kamal had brought the cabin door key back with him and Rina Maasi was informed that she was out of it. ‘He insisted I come back immediately because you were unwell. You were fast asleep when I returned.’ She nodded gingerly and looked down at herself. She was still in the dress she had worn to dinner and it would now need dry cleaning.
Rina Maasi wasn’t quite done with her, though. She insisted Rhea drink some more water and gave her a fizzy antacid to deal with the hangover. ‘You need to be careful of how much you drink, my girl. Anything can happen when you are under its influence, surely you don’t need me to tell you that. Luckily, Kamal is a gentleman and won’t take advantage of a girl who passes out from too much drink. But there’s no telling what could have happened if he wasn’t around.’
Rhea looked down at her hands, abashed. She felt like a nine-year-old getting a good talking to. ‘I won’t let myself get drunk again, Rina Maasi. I promise you that. But then, I am on holiday and I am trying to cheer myself up. But, yes, I will watch the alcohol.’
‘That’s a good girl. Now get up and get ready, we have a shore excursion awaiting us.’
The island of Sicily was the next port of halt. Rhea and Rina Maasi had skipped a couple of shore excursions in the past few days and Rhea had quite enjoyed the quietude of the ship sans the crowds on those days. The pools were empty, the hot tubs didn’t have fist fights breaking out in the queues, and the restaurants had enough vacant tables to be allowed a choice of spot.
A pre-booked excursion to the lovely town of Taormina awaited them at Sicily. Rhea was with Rina Maasi, the Colonel and a couple of other retirees from Milwaukee on their mission to go around the world on a cruise ship. Naina and Kamal weren’t on their van although Naina had come across to say hello while disembarking and grumbled into Rhea’s ear about the telling off she received from her brother about drinking too much the previous night. Rhea hadn’t been able to speak to Kamal except for a polite hello and monosyllabic reply to his ‘How are you feeling today’. This was followed by an awkward silence when she wondered how to thank him for taking her back to her room and tucking her in. Luckily, Rina Maasi and Naina were too engrossed in conversing with each other to listen to what was being said.
The excursion offered a thankful break to the awkwardness, and the walking tour began by exploring the Greco-Roman amphitheatre which had fabulous views of Mount Etna looming ahead in a strangely macabre way something immensely beautiful, yet dangerous, is. Taormina, a medieval baroque town located snug on the hillside, was not meant for aching arthritic knees since a lot of walking was imperative to get anywhere in the town. Rina Maasi, therefore, gave up the effort in a little while, opting instead to sit and wait for the group to reassemble.
It was also probably a touristy day because the town was packed with visitors. Three cruise liners had docked together and all their passengers had spilled over and into the land, causing the town to seem knee-deep in people.
Rhea’s guide, a wonderful Sicilian with earnest black eyes and a mop of shockingly thick black hair, gave them two hours to wander around the place before reassembling right where he had left them. ‘You can finish your shopping now!’ he announced, gesticulating grandly at the stores along the Corso Umberto where Rina Maasi had already scampered off to despite her bad knee, with the Colonel following suit with an amused expression. He also winced every now and then, indicating that all the walking was putting a strain on his leg.
As Rhea stood there, wondering if she should join her aunt in the stores or wander around on her own, she felt a tug at her handbag and then a slitting noise, followed by the sight of a slight, stocky man running away with her handbag. ‘Help, my handbag, stop,’ she yelled as loudly as she could and chasing the thief the fastest she could. Before she could reach the man, Kamal, who happened to be in the path the man had taken, grabbed him by the collar, wrestled him to the ground, and retrieved the bag. A couple of locals and the tour guide called excitedly for the police and the petty thief was handed over to the custody of a local constable.
Rhea couldn’t stop thanking Kamal. He always seemed to know when she needed help. Perhaps it came from keeping his eye constantly on her. If it wasn’t flattering it would have been creepy, she told herself.
She took out her wallet to check for all the cards and money and after putting them back, held on to her handbag as tightly as she could. Unfortunately, one strap had been cut and it hung around aimlessly. There wasn’t much money in her wallet, but her identification cards were in it, as well as her bank cards, and replacing all those would have been hell. Her arms and legs were still trembling with the shock, and Rina Maasi rushed from the store she had entered on spotting the commotion outside.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked, putting her arm around her niece. Rhea nodded, reassuring her aunt that apart from a terrible scare, everything was okay.
‘You need to stick to the group,’ Rina Maasi said, most annoyed.’ Why do you insist on wandering off alone?’
The guide nodded and charmingly explained that while such incidents were rare, they needed to be careful. Kamal, now with Jay hoisted on his shoulders, and Naina with Kiara fell in pace with Rina Maasi and Rhea as they moved down the row of stores in the street.
