Part 13 (1/2)
Checking my watch, I realized it was nearly lunch time, and would be a logical reason for Maddy not to be in her stateroom. We were also due into Cobh. I located the lifts and took one up to D-deck.
The dining saloon was already busy, and it took me a moment to locate her. She was seated at a table for two near one of the windows, studying the menu. The sun streamed through the gla.s.s, glinting off the highlights in her auburn hair, making them burn like tiny flames. Her expression was so calm, so placid I began to wonder if she'd really suffered as the bleary-eyed man in steerage had purported.
Realizing I made an odd picture standing in the middle of the saloon floor, I pushed all doubts from my mind and closed the distance between us. She didn't see me until I was right in front of her.
Her smile was tinged with sadness and regret, yet I also detected a hopeful quality, which buoyed my spirits beyond measure. Perhaps the situation was not as bleak as it seemed.
”Hi, Maddy.... Are you okay?”
She nodded. ”I'm better, thanks,” she said. ”Would you like to sit down?”
She indicated the seat opposite her own, and I slid into it, grateful the unpleasant scene I'd antic.i.p.ated had not materialized. And though I was ecstatic to be with her, I restrained myself. Something inside me, call it the voice of bitter experience, told me to play it cool.
An awkward moment pa.s.sed, while she toyed with the swizzle stick of her Gimlet, eyes downcast.
”I want to apologize for what happened, Trevor,” she said, finally meeting my gaze. ”I acted like a silly schoolgirl. Can you forgive me?”
”Of course I can,” I said. ”If you can forgive me.”
She frowned, puzzled. ”For what? You didn't do anything wrong.”
”Then what happened, Maddy? Why'd you act like that?”
We were interrupted by a steward approaching the table to take my drink order. ”Would you like some wine?” I asked her. She nodded, distracted by something outside our window. I turned to the steward.
”Robert Mondavi, Coastal, 2006.”
”Very good, sir,” he said. The steward turned and left, and I leaned closer to Maddy, catching a whiff of her subtle perfume. ”What happened? Tell me.”
She reached across the table and took my hand in hers. ”I guess you took me by surprise when you said you were falling in love with me.”
”And I'd say you amply returned the favor when you kissed me. That still doesn't explain why you ran off.”
The wine came at that moment, and I sat back with growing impatience while the steward opened the bottle. For once I found the whole ritual excruciating.
I waved away the cork and bade him to fill both gla.s.ses, relieved when he finally left the table. I estimated we had five minutes before the steward returned to take our food orders. She sipped her wine and I could tell she was reticent to continue.
”Maddy, if I came on too fast, I'm sorry. I suppose with everything that's gone on, and the romantic mystique inherent with this s.h.i.+p, it didn't seem too out of place to tell you what I was feeling. I forgot we'd just met. To me it seems as if we've always known each other.”
Her hand tightened on mine and she inhaled sharply, her eyes closing. A moment later they opened, focusing their emerald brilliance on me. ”I feel the same way, Trevor. Felt it the moment I first saw you at the bow. And that's why I ran. I came on this voyage to put everything behind me. My life had turned to h.e.l.l, and the last thing I...expected was you.”
”You were about to say 'the last thing I needed,' right?”
”Two days ago, that's what I would have said. Now...I don't know what to think.”
She picked up her gla.s.s and guzzled half its contents in one swallow. If my feelings were mixed before, they were now totally mired in confusion. She was telling me she felt the same way I did, yet she wasn't happy about it, and that disturbed me, profoundly. The man in steerage had called her a flake. Could he have been right?
For a split second I considered standing up and walking out, following the advice of the tiny inner voice that always warned me to run from potentially dangerous situations. The problem was that tiny voice had steered me wrong more than once, and I wasn't about to risk losing something good just because it wasn't easy.
”Can we talk about it?”
She shook her head.
”It's not that important, Trevor. I've come to terms with it. Had the whole night to think it through.”
A vivid image of her lying on the bed in her tiny claustrophobic room flashed through my mind.
”So what do you want to do?” I asked.
”How about we just pick up from before all this happened. Can we do that?”
”I can, if you can,” I said, managing a smile. I decided right then whatever had caused last night's misunderstanding would not happen again. It was obvious to me that she'd suffered some kind of trauma, perhaps even been a.s.saulted by a man. And if that was the case, it was not only understandable that she would be skittish, but also would be unwilling to talk about it. She'd come on the voyage to cleanse herself. And I had no desire to raise the ghosts of the past with her. I only wanted to point the way to a happier future, a future I hoped would see the two of us together.
The waiter arrived with the first course, a lobster salad, and in spite of all that had gone on, and the tension I was feeling, I was hungry.
After a few bites and half a gla.s.s of the Mondavi, I felt comfortable enough to risk some innocent conversation.
”I'm curious about what you do for a living, Maddy. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say you were an artist, maybe a painter or a sculptress.”
”You're not far off,” she said. ”I went to the Parsons School of Design in New York and I had my own business.”
”I'm impressed, an interior decorator.”
She wagged a slender finger at me, her eyes twinkling with humor. ”Shame on you, Mr. Hughes. House painters call themselves 'decorators.' We prefer the term designer. It's more prestigious, and more accurate.”
”I stand corrected, Ms. Designer.”
She giggled, and my heart soared. The happenings of the previous night now seemed even more hazy and unreal.
”So, what kind of designing do you do?”
”Did. Mostly high-end office s.p.a.ce. Companies contacted me when they were moving into new quarters and I would work with them to give them a decor reflecting their corporate image.”
”Sounds rather stifling, creatively, I mean.”
”You'd be surprised,” she said, becoming animated, her hands waving in the air in synch with her words. ”Unlike residential, where one usually has to deal with a wife who thinks she knows everything better than you, the CEOs I worked with gave me a few parameters and let me run with the ball. It was wonderful experience and terrific fun.”
”And they liked what they got?”
Maddy gave me a sly smile. ”It got to the point where I had to turn away business. I suppose I could have hired additional staff, but I didn't want the pressures of running a really large business. I liked the hands-on aspect. It's why I got into it to begin with.”
”I'll bet being on this s.h.i.+p is especially fun for you.”
”You mean because of all the different styles?”
I nodded.
”One of the things I learned at Parsons is what we know as the Victorian and Edwardian styles are amalgamations of everything that came before them. They were great at stealing a little of this and a little of that and reconst.i.tuting those bits and pieces into approximations of their own. This s.h.i.+p is the ultimate expression of that ideal.”
”Whoa, hold on,” I said, laughing. ”What are you talking about?”