by Atonia
Chapter 8
“I’m not doing that again Alex or no Alex,” Steve struggled up the steps and headed toward Lisa’s cabin with her right behind him.
Neither of them had hardly slept all night, sex was fun, but after that a little sleep would have been nice. Steve’s back hurt and Lisa’s arm was still asleep.
“Tonight’s their last night anyway.” She opened her door and they came in to shower and dress.
“Let’s find something low key to do, I don’t feel like bouncing all over this ship today.”
“Like sleep?”
“I can’t even sleep in peace. Are you sure we can both fit in here?” They showered together turning as a unit. Steve was just as worried as Lisa was about Alex returning but he hadn’t said it outright.
They went up to the Veranda Grill for breakfast and walked around for a while but the wind was too strong to enjoy that.
“Let’s go to the library, it’s warm and quiet and we can research the ship.” Lisa suggested.
“Warm and quiet and we can find a place to sleep…maybe.”
Steve had his camera bag with him and Lisa her leather bag with her notebook. They chatted with the librarian for a while and with a stack of books found a table and sat down. Lisa got out her notebook and Steve helped her find the facts and figures that she copied down about the ship’s history.
He looked over at her notes, “You haven’t written down the references you used.”
“I can do that later.”
“No, you’ll forget, I’ll record it.” He pulled out his little battery powered tape recorder and began recording her reference materials.
“You just wanted to use your new toy.”
“Hey it works…there was another book what did you do with it?”
“It’s on the return tray.”
Steve got up to go get it and Lisa turned a page in the book she had and was scanning it when she heard a book hit the table.
“This is what I was looking for,” Alex said and opened an atlas.
Lisa dropped her pen.
She watched while he flipped through the pages and found a map of the US. “This is New Jersey and Hoboken is…right here so that’s where you’re going. And San Diego is way over here on the other coast…here. It’s a big country Brenda nothing like England at all.” He looked up and met her eyes.
What was she supposed to say? “It’s a long way from Hoboken to San Diego.”
She watched his eyes change, “Yes…it is.”
Lisa wondered why Brenda was going to Hoboken when she loved Alex. “I’d like to go to San Diego.”
“I wish you could.” He closed the book.
Lisa sat back in her chair, poor Steve they’d tried so hard, who would have thought the library…
She tried something different, “You might be surprised to know I live in San Diego.”
“I want to buy you something, something small you can keep.”
“Diamond ring?” she smirked.
He reached over and took her hand, “Come with me.”
“Wait a minute,” she began cramming things in her bag and picked up Steve’s camera and his tape recorder which she noticed was still on and she slipped that in her leather bag. He waited patiently for her to finish and come around the table.
“Did you find it, Mr. Ross?” the librarian asked as they passed her desk.
Lisa did a double take and looked pleadingly at the librarian who was smiling at Ross. “No he didn’t” she said but was ignored.
“You don’t have to buy me anything, Alex, I’d rather you didn’t”
“I want to, something you can keep for yourself and know what it is.” He took her into a shop with a display of jewelry.
He bought her a gold locket and placed it around her neck. “It’s not much, just a little thing,” he smiled.
“I’ll need something to put inside it. I know it calls for a photo but I can’t do that. I want something of you.”
“I’m afraid I won’t fit in there.”
“I wish you could. Hmm what could it be, a lock of your hair?”
“I rather like my locks”
“Only a small one, I’ll be discreet.” She smiled and led him to the barbershop for a pair of scissors. The barber smiled while she selected just the right curl and clipped it off. Alex wound it up and placed it in her locket.
“I should give you something.” She said
“You’ve given me more than I ever had a right to hope for.” He pulled her behind a potted palm and kissed her.
“We aren’t crying today are we?”
“Absolutely not,”
“I’d almost forgotten.” She wiped a tear.
“What next, shuffleboard?”
“I’m not sure I know how?”
“Well then you’ll learn,”
“Where did you learn?”
“On the Queen Elizabeth when I came over to join up.”
“I’ll bet you were a wide eyed innocent then.”
“Not so innocent,” he smiled down at her as they reached the sundeck. Alex explained the game to her and they played around for a little while and then played another couple.
“Oh, we lost,” she said.
“But it was fun wasn’t it, it was good to laugh even if we lost.”
“Yes it was…it was good to laugh.”
They moved over to the rail, “Look dolphins.” He pointed
“Oh I see, it looks like they’re having a good time,” she laughed.
They moved into the Veranda Grill and he ordered her a sandwich and a cup of tea.
“This is good you should have ordered the chicken salad.”
“Nah, I’ve never liked chicken salad, not ever sure what’s in it.”
“What’s your favorite food?”
“A nice grilled steak…and you?”
“ A roast chicken.”
He put his elbow on the table and rested his chin in his hand a smile in his eyes and he watched her as she finished her tea. “You are so lovely. God must have smiled when you were born.”
“And you, Alex, are a beautiful man.”
“Ah, men aren’t beautiful they’re rugged and handsome or…”
“It comes from inside and just spills out all over your face.”
“Ask me if I love you.”
“Alex…”
They spent part of the afternoon in the lounge and part of it in her cabin. He left her and went to his room to change for dinner and afterward walked her to her cabin door.
“I won’t see you tomorrow, I think it’s best we say good bye tonight. That way I won’t see you go.”
“Oh, Alex, this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”
“No it isn’t you had to say goodbye to your family when they were killed, to your father when his ship blew up, this isn’t that hard for you.”
“But for a little while I loved…you.”
“It was a lifetime.” He kissed her for the last time and walked away.
Steve found himself out in the corridor near Lisa’s room, he’d lost his camera bag, he walked down to her room and knocked.
“Steve,” she threw her arms around his neck.
“Are you okay I’ve lost the whole day, Lisa.”
“I know, so have I.”
“Why are you crying; did that jerk do something?” he came in the room and closed the door.
“No…Steve I want you to listen to something.”
“You found my camera bag…my tape player.”
“I had to replace the batteries, they ran out you’ve got to listen to this and maybe you’ll understand.”
She played the tape with tears streaming down her face. “That’s all, the batteries ran out while they were having lunch. I say THEY because that wasn’t me. I don’t remember any of that. The last thing she said was…Alex.
Steve ran his hand through his hair, “You think they’re gone?”
“They will be tomorrow but I think they’re gone from us. It’s so sad. I saw him leave, he was walking down the hallway toward the steps and I closed the door.”
“I hope it’s over, Lisa for both our sakes.” He put his arms around her, “I missed you today.”
“I missed you too.”
“Glad you thought about my camera bag, no way I could afford to replace that camera.”
“I’m always thinking about you.” She smiled.
“Except when I was Alex, you liked him didn’t you?”
“Yes I did, I liked him a lot.”
“Think we can safely sleep up here in comfort tonight?”
“I think we could give it a try if you promise to be Steve.”
The night passed without a problem and they went up for breakfast and walked out onto the sundeck for a moment.
“That’s her,” Steve said pointing to a woman coming up the steps.
“Who?”
“Mrs. Roboski the one we were looking for, do you still want to talk to her?”
“Yeah, you do the intos.”
Lisa was introduced and Mrs. Roboski was happy to talk to her and had something to show her if she could meet her in the lounge a little later. They set a time and Steve and Lisa went down to the cabin to get her notebook and his camera.
“I thought you might like to see this, I’ve been receiving things from so many friends we met on that voyage over the years.” She spread out a scrapbook.
“Oh this is wonderful that you kept in touch,” Lisa began turning the pages as Mrs. Roboski explained and talked about it. Steve was recording.
“Joe said you asked about a particular couple, I have something here,” she flipped through the book.
“You never know about people but it seems she was a married woman,” she said lowering her voice.
Lisa turned the book around it was a clipping from a newspaper about her death. She’d walked in front of a bus three weeks after she’d arrived in the US.
“Oh,” Lisa’s hand went to her mouth, “she was so young.”
“Yes she was and the gentleman,” she turned the page, Alex Ross, war hero killed in accident.
Lisa read the clipping wiping tears.
“It was so sad, and they died only a week apart. They were such a lovely couple and so in love, of course we had no way of knowing about her marriage. I have a picture somewhere of them, if you’re interested you can have it, I have more than one…here it is, just the two of them on the dance floor, I don’t remember who took that, one of the girls at our table I believe.”
Lisa cleared her throat, “Thank you, Mrs. Roboski, this means a lot to me.” She accepted the picture.
Steve had been quiet through the interview but he was touched by their deaths. Later when he and Lisa had moved away and found their own chairs.
“What are you going to do with that picture?”
“I don’t know,” she looked down at it.
“I think we should give them a burial at sea, that little book and this picture. Let them rest.”
“Really?”
“Really…twenty years is long enough for them to haunt this ship.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Today. They left the ship today let’s do it before they come back.”
She ran her finger over the photo…Alex. “You’re right, let’s go get the book.”
They stood at the railing on the lower deck and Lisa took one last look at the photo and placed it in the book of sonnets next to the rose.
“Do we want to say any words?” she asked.
Steve took it from her hands, “Rest in peace,” he said and tossed it into the sea.
“That was cold,”
“What you wanted a sermon?”
“Well we could have said goodbye.”
“We just did.”
Lisa sighed as it disappeared into the water, “What do you want to do now?”
“I dunno, we’ve got a month to figure it out.”
“Figure what out?”
“What we’re gonna do, I got a roommate I could get rid of.”
“I got an apartment with no roommate.”
“Yeah but it’s on the wrong side of the US.”
“It’s not you’ll have to move.”
“To California…me?”
“I’m not moving to New York.”
“Maybe we could meet in the middle?”
“There’s no ocean.”
“We have to have an ocean?”
“Yes we do,” she smiled and touched the gold locket around her neck.