“Please don’t wait for us to invite you. Just consider the fourth chair yours anytime you see us,” Minnie said.
“Thank you so much.” Ava picked up the menu and had already made her choice when the waiter reached their table.
When they had all ordered, Ava picked up her glassof water and took a long drink. “So, what’s on your agenda for this first day we’re at sea?”
“The same as all our first days,” Sookie said. “We go out on the deck, watch the people, and make up stories about them until midmorning, when we have an order of fries and a milkshake for a snack.”
“After that, we go back to our lounges and plan whether or not we’ll do any excursions on this cruise,” Minnie chimed in.
The waiter returned with four cups and a full carafe of coffee that he left on the table.
Dotty poured for all of them, and said, “After lunch, we go to our cabins for our afternoon nap or to sit on the balcony and read. Then we meet up on the lido deck to watch the pool people and have an afternoon drink.”
“And you, darlin’, are welcome to join us anytime that you want,” Dotty told her.
“Or while these twooldladies nap and read, you can join me in the exercise room,” Sookie offered. “I run up and down the stairs from the first floor to the ninth a total of three times. It’s kind of like running bleachers at the football field. That way, I can eat like I want to and not have to worry about the calories or buying bigger clothes.”
“Thank you. I just might have a run with you, Sookie. Now, what’s this about stories?” Ava put a package of artificial sweetener and a little container of skim milk in her coffee.
“I’ll show you rather than explain,” Sookie said in a low voice. “See that couple over there by the window? The woman is wearing a yellow sundress.”
Ava nodded, and remembered a little green sundress a lot like that one that she’d worn the first time she met Vince.
“Notice that they’re both wearing wedding rings,” Sookie said, “but he keeps looking around at other women coming and going. If I’m reading his lips right, he’s telling her about how beautiful each one is.”
Dotty added a package of sugar to her coffee and then poured in half-and-half from a tiny pitcher. “His wife has gone to the trouble to curl her hair, put on a pretty sundress, and…” She leaned over to better see the couple. “Yep, and even shave her legs. The expression on her face is screaming, ‘Look at me,’ but her husband is stone-cold blind to her.”
“From the looks of them, they’ve been married maybe twenty-five years”—Dotty picked up on the story—“and their marriage has gone flat. Their kids are off to college and she’s wanting to rekindle the love they used to have, but it ain’t goin’ to happen on this ship unless he wakes up and sees her.”
Ava bit back tears and took a couple of drinks of her coffee to swallow the lump in her throat. She wished Vince would think about something other than making money. She pointed to another couple across the room. “What about them?”
“Oh, darlin’.” Dotty grinned. “They aren’t married—yet—but he’s going to propose on this cruise. She comes from money, and he’s a poor boy. Kind of like she’s a princess who lives on a big horse-training estate, and he’s the stable boy. He’s saved his money for two years to bring her on this cruise so he can give her a romantic proposal.”
“Y’all should be writing romance novels.” Ava visualized the night that Vince proposed to her. He’d taken her to a fancy resort in the Bahamas for the weekend. The same one where they’d met at her college roommate’s wedding. Back then, she had been the poor elementary school teacher, and he had been the prince—so to speak. After a dinner that probably cost as much as half her monthly salary, they’d taken a walk in the gardens and he’d proposed under a full moon with stars dancing around it. She would never forget the feeling in her heart that night as he’d slipped the diamond ring on her finger and they’d talked about their plans to move away from Texas—maybe to another country. Their future was bright. Vince had just passed the bar exam and he loved her. She loved him. Nothing could change that.
Yeah, right,the voice in her head said.Five years later, the future is dim. His family’s acceptance of you and his obsession with his job have changed everything you had in the beginning.
Ava looked down at her naked ring finger. “Is she going to accept the young man’s proposal?”
“Of course,” Sookie answered. “This is the love ship where miracles happen, and there’s always a happy-ever-after.”
“What about that couple that’s been married twenty-five years, and the husband is ignoring his wife?” she asked.
They all glanced over that way in time to see the woman stand up, lean across the table, and say something to the guy. He shook his head in denial, and she removed her rings and laid them beside his plate. Then she walked away.
“That doesn’t look like a happy-ever-after,” Ava said.
“Yes, darlin’,” Dotty said with a smile, “it is. You just got to look at it in the right way. If he comes to his senses, it’s a happy-ever-after for them both. If he doesn’t, it’s a happy-ever-after for her, because she can move on with her life and find someone who will treat her the way a woman should be treated and appreciated.”
“Someone who will have eyes for her and seeherinstead of looking at every other pretty woman on this ship,” Sookie added.
That’s exactly where she was with Vince these days in their relationship—on a fence and trying to figure out which way to fall. Only it wasn’t a woman that Ava was battling; it was the two M’s, as she’d begun to think of them—money and mother.
Ava had three choices really. Number one was to go on living in a world where she was just a fixture in a big,fancy house. Number two was to make Vince understand that time with her wasn’t time wasted, and money wasn’t the most important thing in the world. Number three was to start divorce proceedings. She couldn’t bear to open door number one. What was behind door number two was what she wanted most, but Vince had proven that his job at his dad’s big firm came first in his life. Door number three beckoned to her like a shot of whiskey to an alcoholic. Just end the misery and move on with her life in hopes that there was someone out there who would treat her as an equal and not see her as a poor little kitten he had picked up on the side of the road and was now ready to take to the animal shelter because she wasn’t cute and cuddly anymore.
“You look like you’re about to cry,” Minnie said.
“I thought I’d cried out all my tears, but it seems like my body keeps producing more,” Ava declared.
