Using the door handle for support, he shuffled into his cabin and closed the door behind him.
“Sooo … do you want to stop by my cabin to discuss what happened at dinner?” I asked Jackie as we continued down the corridor.
She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t ever want to talk about it.”
“Okay.”
She sniffed pathetically as she proceeded to talk about it. “The girls don’t like me, Emily. I bet they got a big charge out of giving me the wrong phone numbers. They were in cahoots with each other the whole time, weren’t they? They didn’t want me bugging them in Arromanches, and they don’t want me bugging them anyplace else.”
“Really, Jack, it’s their loss.”
“They lied about who came up with the makeover idea, and they tried to make me look like a slacker in front of Victor.”
We stopped in front of her cabin door. “Do you know what a guy would do if something like this happened to him?”
“What?”
“Nothing! You know why? Because guys don’t do stuff like this to each other! If a dude doesn’t like you, he might let the air out of your tires or beat you to a pulp, but he’d never do anything really mean.”
In a bizarre way, this actually made sense. Jackie could never claim to be a philosophical genius, but her sudden pronouncement struck me as being both powerful and insightful. “Are you implying that … the physical bruises that men inflict on each other heal a lot faster than the psychological ones inflicted by women on other women?”
She stared into space for a long, contemplative moment before shaking her head. “Nah.” Reaching into her shoulder bag, she removed her keycard. “Anyway, I apologize for abandoning you, but I’m going to lock myself in my cabin, crawl under the covers, curl up in a fetal ball”—she flashed a grim smile that reached all the way to her eyes—“and plan my revenge.”
Unh-oh. This wasn’t good. “C’mon, Jack. Let it go. Getting even with them is beneath you.”
“What? And let all the synthetic hormones I’ve knocked back all these years go to waste? Au contraire. I’m one of you now, Emily, and by God, I’m going to act like it.”
Yup. This is exactly what the tour was missing—a six-foot transsexual skulking around the boat like Sylvester Stallone in an old Rambo movie. Oh, God. I hoped she’d have a change of heart, but even more importantly, I hoped she hadn’t packed any wigs.
I walked to the end of the corridor, which opened up into an area like a hotel lobby. After waving to the perky female purser who manned the information desk, I exited the automatic sliding glass doors to starboard and climbed the metal stairs to the sundeck.
For those guests who preferred to experience the sundeck minus UV rays, small groupings of patio tables and chairs were arranged beneath a canopy around midship, kind of like a circus tent without the sides. For guests who preferred their sun with all the trimmings, a double row of chaise lounge chairs sat back to back in the center of the deck, lined up in military order. Pockets of guests were scattered near the rails, drinks in hand, talking, laughing, and gazing toward the town of Caudebec, whose main street paralleled the quay where we were moored.
As I crossed the deck to the port rail, I was surprised by how modern Caudebec looked with its three-story hotels, wrought-iron balconies, flower-filled window boxes, and profusion of satellite dishes. No half-timber houses and cramped alleyways here, just a steady stream of compact cars cruising the waterfront like lowriders cruising Hollywood and Vine.
“I got pictures, dear. You wanna see?”