Road Warrior - Barcelona

Author’s Note:

This is the first is a series of stories of those fabled people that travel constantly on their jobs, the Road Warriors. Each story is unique, with different characters, locales and plots. I will consider opening this series up to other authors on request.

An explanatory note: in much of the story the dialog mostly takes place in Spanish. I have attempted to make the English of some of the speakers have the rhythm and words of a person fluent in English, but not necessarily colloquial. So in places it looks like there are grammatical errors but to my ear (fading fast though it is) it represents a lot of what I hear in an extended multicultural family. Mea culpa, please don’t shoot me!

Maybe some day I’ll be brave enough to try a story in Spanish.

Enjoy!

CASTLE ROCK, COLORADO

The sticky note was on the outside of one of those disposable file folders you can get for practically nothing at Wal-Mart. We both traveled so much that we might go weeks at a time without seeing each other. I was Charles Castillo – yeah, I know, I was getting tired of the Mr. Castle living in Castle Rock jokes – but everyone universally called me Charlie. My wife was Candy … that almost kept us from getting married; she was afraid everyone was going to call her Candy Castle of Castle Rock.

We had worked out that whichever one of us came by the house when the other was gone would take care of the mail: dump the junk, pay the bills, etc. Stuff that needed personal handling we would put in one of the folders and leave it on the hallway table. Sometimes we would include little love notes but lately it seemed that I was doing that a lot more than she was.

Charlie,

Please look at the large manila envelope as soon as possible. There is a letter from me explaining everything and some papers that need to be signed and mailed in the enclosed prepaid envelope.

Candy

Damn! She used to always sign at least ‘Love, Candy’ if not something friskier, depending on her mood. Lately it had just been, ‘Candy.’ I looked in the large folder and saw the envelope. It was sealed so I put off looking at it for a while. It was already dark and I’d just gotten home from Mexico City. While I was at the airport waiting for my luggage I got a call from one of the senior partners at the law firm I worked at telling me of an emergency in Barcelona and I need to be there soonest.

I figured I’d grab a shower and send out for a pizza. I was mostly sent to Spanish speaking countries, so sometimes nothing in the world sounded better than a pizza and a couple of beers. I wasn’t going to have time to look at the stuff Candy left me until I got on the plane. United had a flight that left Denver at seven a.m. through Philadelphia and then an overnighter to Barcelona getting there at seven the next morning. I started thinking what time I would have to get up to catch the early morning flight and felt sleepy already.

I called in the order for a small supreme and figured the thirty minutes they told me for delivery would be more like forty-five. I took a shower and finished my first beer before the delivery guy showed up. I took my time with the pizza and repacked my clothes. I did this so much that I had enough extra of everything so that I could do a quick turnaround if I had to and not worry about washing clothes. I figured I’d get five or six hours of sleep if I were lucky.

I lay there in the dark after I went to bed trying to relax. I just had a general outline of the problem so there wasn’t much I could do until I got to the hotel. When I went to Barcelona they always put me up at the Grand Marina Hotel. It was right next to a trade center and convention center and on the waterfront.

The meeting I would be in would be at a conference room at the trade center. The hotel was the closest one to the cruise terminal so there was always an eclectic group of people around the hotel: passengers going to or returning from cruises, trade conventions, groups for meetings. There were people from all over the world at the hotel, which made it a fascinating place.

As I drifted off I wondered what was so important in that manila envelope … it couldn’t have been more important than pizza and beer.

I slept better than expected and check-in for business class was a whiz. I really didn’t feel like looking through the folder in the mail; I left it in my briefcase in the overhead rack. I usually sat by the aisle but there was no one next to me so I moved over to the window. As I looked at the ground moving steadily below I mused about how I’d gotten into this business.

My mom and dad were from Perú and dad had come to Colorado to attend school at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden. He liked the teaching environment and stayed on as a professor and did a lot of research. After he graduated, he had gone back to Lima and married his long time sweetheart. They were the most compatible couple I’d ever seen.

Both of them had always spoken Spanish to me and I had spent every summer in Perú with one or another relative, so I spoke Spanish like a native, even though I’d been born in the US. I had consistently been a good scholar athlete. The grades came easy to me. The fast times less so, but still, I was all state in cross-country, and in track in the mile and half-mile.

That got me a free ride at Stanford where I did a double major in Spanish and International Relations. On the advice of my faculty advisor I went on to The Fisher Graduate School of International Business at the Monterrey Institute of International Studies. I did a double specialization in International Negotiation/Conflict Resolution and Translation and Interpretation with a minor in Portuguese.

What I was interested in – and this came from a paper I’d done at Stanford – was International Conflict Resolution. I found the topic fascinating and spent a lot of time drinking beer with students from all around the world. We would argue until no one had money left for beer and resume a couple of days later. It was fun and I learned a lot – I was motivated so I soaked it up like a sponge.

I met Candy a couple of months before I was to graduate. I wound up two courses short to graduate in the spring after two years so I had to stay for the summer. I was playing golf at the course at Pacific Grove. Their fourth hole was 259 yards from the white tees. I could hit the ball pretty good but I was inconsistent as hell. I’d never come within thirty yards of the green even with the wind. This time I was hitting into a light breeze but somehow everything went just right and I really hammered one.

It hit right at the edge of the green, took one bounce and hit the blonde leaning over sighting her putt in exactly the right place for her to get to her maximum level of being pissed off very quickly. Her shorts were stretched tight as she bent over and the ball bounced off her butt like it was coming off a trampoline! I remember thinking, “Damn, that had to sting!” I ran up to see if she was hurt. I was dazzled by her beauty and was as close to speechless as I’ve ever been.

She was quite short, maybe five-one, with a round, firm body. I figured she was carrying about ten pounds more than ideal for her, but she looked sexy as hell. I stood there staring at her while she ranted and raved at what an idiot I was. This went on for a couple of minutes before she finally figured out I wasn’t listening … I was admiring. Her feminine instincts took over and she gave me a smile that would have done Marilyn Monroe proud.

“I’m Candy Allard. Where are you taking me to dinner?”

I finally woke up and quickly suggested a fine Hungarian place in Carmel. She was in a twosome with a girl friend of hers and I was playing was a friend that was a good professor but a duffer at golf, so we made it a foursome and finished the best of friends. Later that night she showed me her bruise – it was nasty – and she made me rub it. I did a really good job!

She had just finished her law degree at Santa Clara and was taking a cram course in Carmel to prepare for the bar exam. Her specialty, of course, was International Law. Six months later we were married and she was working with a law firm in Denver that did a lot of legal work in petroleum exploration in all the appropriate places around the world.

I took a job with a New York firm doing Conflict Resolution. Most of my work was in Spanish speaking countries, mostly Spain and South America. In addition to actually helping resolve disputes I would sometimes do training to help companies - or once in Madrid a union and a government organization - to work together to resolve conflicts.

With all the travel I did I could live anywhere. When I hired on they actually wanted me to live in Madrid; that, of course, was a non-starter with my new wife, Candy. Not to mention the bonus of being able to see my parents anytime I wanted.

I changed planes in Philadelphia and fell asleep quickly on the overnight leg to Barcelona. When I got checked in at the hotel I was rested and wide awake so I picked up the faxes and after a light breakfast I prepared for the two days of meetings the next day. As I was putting the material back in my briefcase I saw the folder that Candy had left me.

I figured I’d better get to it so I went down by the pool. I figured I might as well enjoy myself. It was such a lovely day I ordered a glass of cava, a sparkling wine, from one of the local producers.

As I took the glass from the waiter a woman was getting out of the pool and she immediately captured my attention. She had on a bikini – not much material as was the European style, and as she pulled herself up the weight of the water made the top part of her suit sag. I could see her breasts, not large but certainly enough for most men, with the nipples erect over the dark pink areolas.

She looked up and saw where I was staring and gave me a megawatt smile as she climbed on out of the pool. She walked over to a nearby lounge under an umbrella. I was always amazed at the more relaxed view women in Europe - especially in the Mediterranean countries – have about showing their bodies. I guess this woman took my interest as a compliment.

She wasn’t what I would call pretty; she had a handsome face with strong bone structure, long dark red hair and a body that was close to being all I could ask for – not that I was asking! Her breasts were slightly small and her hips were slightly wide. But somehow the overall package exuded sex appeal. She was the woman that once seen led to erotic dreams for a lifetime. I nodded to myself: the man that wins her (I’d seen no rings) was better off than if he’d won the lottery.

I shook my head as the woman lay down because she folded her swimsuit bra down to get the sun, barely showing her still erect nipple. Focus, Charlie!

I sipped the slightly sweet cava as I looked through all the stuff in the folder Candy had left me, saving the manila folder for last. I was, finally, getting curious about it. Mostly it was routine: a letter from my tax guy about IRS questions about my expenses, a bonus check for a good result in Santiago, Chile, and several letters from my investment broker. I took out the envelope and slid my finger under the edge to open it up. There was something from our lawyers and a letter from Candy.

I figured I’d better read the letter first to see what it was all about.

Dear Charlie,

I’m sure this is no surprise to you, as we almost never see each other. I wasn’t looking for it but over the last few visits to London I’ve fallen in love with one of the lawyers there.

At this point I dropped my cava with pieces of glass shards flying everywhere. The well-trained staff immediately cleaned it up and brought me a new glass. The woman with the long dark red hair and the perky nipples looked over at me with at first curiosity, then concern, as she slowly unwound her long legs from the lounge and walked over to me.

She asked me in Spanish (all of our subsequent conversations were in Spanish), “Are you okay?”

I mumbled, stuttered, “My wife, she … oh, shit!” I took the new glass of cava and downed it like it was the cheapest rye.

She looked at me in a sad way - I think she kind of figured it out. It was only after the left, giving me one of those lingering, curious but non-intrusive looks that women seem to know how to do from birth. Maybe it was some atavistic instinct having to do with survival of the species. It wasn’t until she had walked away that it dawned on me that her accent was not from Spain, but from Chile.

I waggled my empty glass and started reading again.

I don’t see any problems. I’m moving to London right away; the transfer is already approved. I never liked Denver … it was just too provincial for me. Except for me you would have been working out of Madrid anyway. I guess you will miss your parents, but – well, I don’t know what to say.

I didn’t exactly fall out of love with you; it’s that we were apart so much that you were no longer a habit. Please sign the papers as soon as possible since Llewellyn and I want to get married at Christmas. You remember him, don’t you? We met him last year when he was in town for a meeting.

Yeah, I remembered him. Damn, I thought he was gay!

Do be a dear and don’t ruffle any feathers. I mean, Charlie, what good is it to be civilized if we don’t act that way.

I felt very uncivilized right then.

Please do take care of the money things. Llewellyn is such a darling and his family has so much money that there is no rush for you to clean up the details, but, dear Charlie, we do need to keep things tidy, don’t we?

I’m sorry to do it this way but we just never seemed to see each other. Do take care of yourself, dear.

Candy

Why, that bitch! Why, that goddamned bitch! I didn’t know which I was more of, pissed off or supremely embarrassed. I grabbed my stuff and headed to my room. As I passed the woman, as I was now thinking of her, she gave me such a serious look that I could swear she had read the letter.

I got to the room and threw the folder full of shit against the wall and picked up the phone to order a bottle of fine Spanish brandy. I looked in the mirror and shook my head. No, that was the easy route - I wasn’t going to go that way. Instead I took a small bottle of Lustau Amontillado from the mini-bar and poured it in a glass … slowly sipping it, enjoying the nutty character as my frustration made me feel like hitting something – or someone.

There was no one to yell at. No one to hit up the side of the head. No one to explain what the hell had happened. I didn’t even know what country Candy was in. We both had international cell phones that operated in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Pacific Rim including Australia, plus with the added GSM 1900 frequency, the United States, Canada and a growing part of South America.

I called her cell and to my amazement it rang and she immediately answered it.

“Candy, it that you?”

“Charlie! I was hoping to talk to you. You were a dear and signed the papers, didn’t you?”

“Uh, well, no. I had to immediately come to Barcelona. I’ve just had a chance to read your letter. I haven’t had a chance to look at the papers as yet.”

“Oh, Charlie, you have to sign them. It is just so important. Llewellyn’s family is crazy ready for the wedding. His dad is the sweetest man … he is an Earl or Duke or one of those things. I can’t keep it straight, but he seems totally important and everyone calls him sir!”

I held the phone away from me, giving it a strange look. Had this small piece of plastic and its embedded electronics somehow captured the brilliant lawyer I’d married not so long ago and made her an airhead Valley Girl? Maybe Llewellyn was gay! I couldn’t see how that could really help, but the thought made me feel better.

“Unh, Candy, look, I gotta go. A meeting. Look, I’ll read the papers and see what’s going on.”

“Oh, Charlie, you are so sweet. Thanks, ever so much. Toodle-oo.”

‘Toodle-oo?’ Who the hell was that? Damn, maybe she was gay too?

I took a shower, shaved, and just for the hell of it, took another shower. I felt depressed … depressed and wet and as red as a lobster.

I went down to the restaurant, the Aire de Mar, which was as highly rated as the hotel was. The maitre d’ knew me well and led me back to a quiet corner. As we approached the table I usually sat at, a woman with long dark red hair, the woman, stood up.

“Señor, please sit with me.”

The maitre d’ looked at me and I shrugged, so he pulled out the chair for me.

The woman gave me a generous smile that turned her somewhat plain face into something enchanting.

I smiled back, “I have something to confess, Señorita - not knowing your name I have come to think of you as the woman. I am Charlie Castillo and I can’t just call you that. May I have the pleasure of knowing your name?”

“Of course … Charlie? I’m Ana Gálvez but please call me Ana.”

“Ana, I have to say that you have the loveliest,” here I paused and glanced helplessly at her low cut dress that showed more than enough of the cleavage of her breasts delicately hidden behind the décolletage of her dress to keep me interested, “the loveliest hair that I can ever remember seeing.”

She blushed, faintly – she was after all a woman of the world – but in a manner that made her immediately endearing to me.

I continued, “That dark red color, the color of the tiles at Montserrat, aged by the sun and wind over the centuries. That color makes the light green of the new pastures in Ireland each spring captured in your eyes look even more lovely.”

I was in this strange mood of despair and freedom - from what? - mixed together with the sudden appearance of this charming woman. The hell with Candy! I was going to flirt with this woman, Ana. I felt a release … almost like a drug taking effect and making me as open and easy with this woman as I had ever been with any I’d ever met. I was playing a part and I would play it to the hilt.

“Your Spanish, Charlie, I can’t place it. Where are you from, Charlie?”

I rapidly answered in Castilian Spanish, then the noticeably different Argentine accent, and quickly finishing in the Peruvian Limeño and of the barrio in Santiago. “I’m here tonight to bring a smile to an expatriate woman from Santiago.”

“You … you’re not from Chile, no?”

“No,” I laughed. “My parents are from Lima, I was born in Colorado, but I have an ear for language, for the nuances of place, for the talk of the people.

“I have spoken Spanish all my life but I have also trained hard at it as both a translator and as an interpreter. My friends from college were from most of the Spanish speaking countries. I have, many times, been to Santiago on business.” Looking at her fingers, still no rings to see - not even white lines showing on her well tanned ring finger - I continued, “And I have to say, Señorita, that the loveliest of all women are from Chile.”

She laughed, then responded, “And how much Irish do you have in you … you seem to have more than your fair share of blarney.”

I smiled at that, and then she continued, in a more serious mien.

“Charlie, I … I couldn’t help but notice this afternoon when you dropped the glass. You were fine, flirting with me like you should, then … you changed. What happened, Charlie?”

It was like she had dumped a pitcher of ice water over me. The false gaiety one sometimes assumes in the face of perceived danger was gone as fast as the betting stub of a favored horse finishing ten lengths behind the field. I stood up too suddenly, knocking my chair over backward with a resounding crash, and with a murmured ‘excuse me’ made my way unsteadily to the restroom.

I felt the sudden need to heave my guts out, but couldn’t. I looked in the mirror and was shocked at the pasty gray of my face, the sweat on my forehead looking greasy. I bend down and took several deep breaths, feeling on the verge of passing out. I washed my face for long moments in the cold water, over and over, scrubbing … something away. Trying to scrub it away – whatever it was.

I realized I was in shock and knew I had to go lie down. I made it, stumbled but made it, back to the table with the lovely woman, sitting, now rising, as I approached.

I said in a stiff, formal Spanish, “Please, Señorita Ana, please excuse me.”

I walked, shuffled away, and turned back at the last moment to see her standing there, looking more than anything like she was crying.

I made it to my room and fell on the bed – passing out as much as anything else. In the middle of the night I struggled out of my clothes, fighting with the shoes, and falling quickly, at once into the nothingness of oblivion.

TRANSITIONS

The phone was ringing, calling me, ordering me to wake up. I came up from the depths of hell and nightmares to sit on the side of the bed and looked at the phone for an unknowing moment, then picked it up. An unplanned breakfast meeting … urgent, at once. Someone else will cover your other meetings – leave the faxes at the front desk. I rushed, showered, cut myself shaving, dressed and went down to meet with the client.

I clamped down on my personal problems and had a smile (grimace?) on my face as I walked to the table of Señor Benavidez. It was a catharsis to quickly fall into the known, the routines of business, of life … of the living. I put Candy in some corner of my mind and focused on real things.

The client worked for Royal Cruise Lines and was responsible for hiring contract workers to keep up with turnover. It seemed that there had been some unpleasant advances made on women of various ages by persons furnished from the companies with which he worked. That there were problems was readily apparent from the grim visage of Señor Benavidez.

I listened, nodded as appropriate – this was a customer – then I was startled by his proposition. He wanted me to go on the next cruise ship, in two days, from Barcelona to Miami.

“Yes, Mr. Charlie, we will give you a suite and everything taken care of.”

“Of course, Señor Castillo, the Capitán knows you will be on board and will assist you in any and every way possible.”

“No, Señor Charlie. You have only to observe. We need the truth of the matter. You are the truth!”

“Yes, Mr. Castillo, yes, of course we know that you resolve the conflicts. We must know the truth and you tell us the truth, verdad?”

“Of course, Señor, your company knows what we ask of you. Please, Charlie, the truth, only the truth!”

The ship, the Sea Bright, owned by Royal Cruise Lines was to dock the next day plus one in the morning and I would immediately be boarded and escorted to my suite. It was so sudden and so different that the shock of Candy had been overlaid by a new shock.

I was so stunned by what Señor Benavidez was saying that I just nodded and looked wise. Truth was I had no clue what I was supposed to do. Look for the truth, I guess. I called New York and talked to my boss.

“Damn, Charlie. I don’t know what they want. I just know it’s important to RCL. They are talking of losses in the millions in bookings if they get a bad reputation and women don’t feel safe.”

He gave a deep sigh, and continued, “Just do what you can.”

He went on to tell me that Candy had called him, checking on something or other. “Charlie, don’t worry about it. Just keep your eyes open and … well, I was going to say have fun, but just try to do something to distract yourself.”

There was a long pause, then Gerald came back, “Hey, Charlie, I bet they have shuffleboard on the ship. Glenda and I had so much fun on our cruise to Alaska entering the shuffleboard tournaments.”

He said his goodbyes and I looked at the phone like it was something cursed. I really felt reassured.

After the meeting I went to my room and checked for messages. There was one, so I played it.

“Charlie, this is Ana, the woman,” she added with a laugh that sounded too bubbly for this early in the day. Maybe she was drinking bubbles – that suddenly seemed like a great idea. “If you don’t have any plans for lunch, please meet me by the pool. I’ll save a table for us, and a couple of lounges.”

I couldn’t think of anything better to do for the rest of the day so I changed into my swimsuit and went down to the pool. True to her word she’d had one of the waiters move a table and two lounge chairs apart from everyone else. There was a bottle of wine in an ice bucket on the table and my lounge already had towels on it. Ana was laying on her front trying to spread sun lotion on her back.

She heard me walking up and raised her head. “Charlie, you save my life!”

She handed me the bottle of tanning oil and I rubbed it on her back. She had untied the strings on her top and had only something akin to a bandana doing a less than effective job of covering her well tanned globes. Her skin was hot from the sun and the oil was viscous as I rubbed it up and down her back.

“Charlie, down to here please?” she murmured sleepily as she reached down to her tailbone just above what I was now thinking as her red bandana.

I obediently followed her directions and slowly but firmly rubbed the oil from her shoulders down to her buttocks, making sure I got the sides too. I smiled to myself. No job too tough for Charlie! I was waiting for her to say that was enough. Finally I looked around and saw that she was sound asleep. I started tapering off but I just knew that she would have wanted me to get under the edges of her bikini bottom.

I went to the rest room to wash my hands and came back and swam a few quick laps. I sat on my lounge with the back up so I could look around. Ana had turned a little and I could see the side of her breast with a hint of pink nipple showing. I felt like a voyeur as I frankly admired her almost bare form. For the first time the idle thought came to me, “Candy who?”

After twenty minutes or so Ana woke up and did that – amazing to me – feminine trick of tying the back of the bikini top without lifting up. I wondered if they had a school for girls somewhere that taught them things like that. While Ana had been sleeping a woman across the pool had put a towel over her top, removed the bra part, nursed her baby and reversed everything, all the time revealing nothing. Amazing! From her skin color and her apparent rectitude about showing her body, I guessed she was from the states.

Ana jumped in to cool off and came back waving for a waiter. We had a light lunch of assorted tapas washed down with the bottle of cava the waiter had opened. Ana had more than her share of the food and I had more than my share of the wine. Seemed fair to me. I was still in a funny mood … like I was out of my body watching what was going on.

After lunch we sat in the lounges idly chatting and watching people. I reached out for Ana’s hand and held it as I looked at her. “Ana, while you were asleep I was admiring your body.”

She didn’t seem to look upset, maybe curious with where I was going with my comment. I added softly, “You have a lovely body. I have to say you are a lovely woman.” I paused for a minute looking at her, and then I rubbed my thumb gently over where a wedding ring would be. “Why has no man found out what a treasure you are?”

She looked over at me the glanced away. Quietly, almost with a whisper, she replied, “Later, over dinner.”

I felt I owed her an explanation for last night. “Ana, about what happened at dinner …”

She stopped me by standing up and pulling my hand so I stood beside her. With a slight smile, she repeated, “Later, at dinner,” and pulling my hand we both jumped in the water. We fooled around for a while, splashing water, and she soundly beat me in an impromptu race for a length of the pool.

We got out, dried off a bit with the towels and I walked her to her room. We decided to go out for dinner to a favorite place of mine. It was out on Avenida Diagonal and a ways from the hotel so we took a taxi. It was better known as a businessmen’s lunch place and usually wasn’t too crowded for dinner.

The inside was quite nice with wooden paneled walls aged to a rich patina of dark brown. They specialized in the traditional Castilian asados: Cochinillo and cordero (roast suckling pig and lamb). Ana had not had either in her time in Spain.

“Even though I like meat a lot, the seafood in Barcelona is incredible, so I’ve kind of stuck with that.”

So I told her, “Okay, tonight is meat.”

I gave the order to the waiter and asked for a pitcher of Sangría. For some reason I always liked that with either of these dishes. I’d ordered one of each dish so Ana could try both of them.

My story was simple, so while we were waiting for our food I told what had happened. She was amazed that Candy could be so cold about it.

“I would never do that to you!”

Hmm. That was interesting. Was that a just a general statement of her feelings about the topic or was this something she was actively thinking about? Again, this idle thought eased itself into my consciousness like a thief in the night, “Candy, who?”

Ana was really making an impression on me. It wasn’t just the physical attraction – although that was considerable. We had a connection at so many levels: a common cultural history and language, many common interests, and, as far as I could tell, we were just nice persons.

She really liked both of the dishes and couldn’t decide which she liked best. “So I guess they are both my favorites now.”

They were actually quite good. The skin was crisp and inside they were moist and tender with an almost indescribably delicate flavor.

We were having some sherry after dinner and Ana told me her story.

“I’m now twenty-eight. Eight years ago I married a wonderful man from Bilbao, Aitor Azkarra. He was a political editorial writer for El Correo, one if the newspapers there. Aitor was a passionate Basque but he was tired of the killings. He felt the fighting should stop, that an agreement should be reached with the Spanish government that would still allow a lot of separatism for the Basque homeland, but not full independence.

“To say the least, it wasn’t a popular position in Bilbao.” She bit her lower lip and looked at her glass. I could see tears forming in her eyes. “One night after work, he … they put a bomb in his car. He never knew what happened.

“Afterward – that’s the problem with something like this; there is always an afterward – I had to change back to my maiden name and move to Madrid. I had to stop wearing my rings that Aitor gave me … I just couldn’t afford to have people ask questions. There were threats … his parents and his younger brother and sister moved to Miami. I’m, well, I thinking of moving there too.”

She looked at me, a burning fire in her eyes, “God, Charlie, you can’t say a word of this to anyone! They are so fanatical. It’s sad because Aitor was as much a Basque in his heart as anyone. He was just so … gentle. He wanted peace and died for his beliefs and for the things he said in his columns.”

I took her hand and held it, gently. I brought her hands to my lips and kissed them as softly as I could. I thought about her pain - and thought about mine. His countrymen had betrayed her husband. My wife had betrayed me. There was no way to compare the depth of pain and betrayal in the two cases. For the first time I thought that Candy’s leaving me might be the best thing that ever happened to me.

I took her back to the hotel and she asked me to come to her room. “Charlie, I don’t want to be alone tonight. Can you just … well, hold me?”

She changed clothes and put on a conservative gown. I took my coat and tie and my shoes off and lay beside her. She gave me a short, but serious kiss and turned over and seemed to fall asleep at once. By a serious kiss, I meant that it wasn’t a shallow good night kiss to an acquaintance but a kiss from a woman to a man that says, “Not tonight, but soon.” At least that’s the way it felt to me.

I cuddled up to her in a spoon position and turned the light out. After a bit I put my hand on her hip to make myself more comfortable. She took my hand and placed it on her breast and held it there. She wiggled her butt against me and fell into a deep sleep. After a while I fell into a deep sleep myself.

Later, the clock said it was a little past two-thirty in the morning. I woke up. Some noise on the street, a slamming door, I didn’t know. I had a raging erection and I lay there wide-awake – it just felt too good to lay there and enjoy the pressure of her body against me. I knew, somehow, that if I did what I wanted to it would be the right thing at the wrong time. I felt it was a catharsis for her to tell me about Aitor. Her dreams tonight belonged to her memories.

I knew at that time that we had a future together. I didn’t try to figure it out. I didn’t worry about Candy. Everything about her seemed so … distant, so passé. I eased out of bed, grabbed my stuff and went up to my room. I immediately got the legal papers Candy had given me and signed as marked, dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s. I put everything in the envelope the law firm had provided and put it on the corner of the desk.

That action was like closing the book on a part of my life. As I drifted off to sleep, my last thought was that I needed to find out more about Ana. Was I in love with her? I had no idea. But somehow I realized that I could be happier with Ana than I had ever been with Candy. I slept the sleep of the just; I had no dreams and slept deeply. When I woke with the dawn the next morning I felt refreshed.

I hadn’t been running as much as I wanted so I put on my running shoes and ran for an hour along the waterfront and up and back on Las Ramblas, the defining wide avenue of the city as it was just waking up with the early risers.

I got back to the hotel and felt so good about my run I ordered a simple breakfast from room service: toast, orange juice and coffee. When I dropped the envelope for the divorce papers off at the desk I had a sudden epiphany; this was Candy’s problem, not mine. I had thought it was the love of the ages but now I realized she was more of a sexy habit than anything.

From the time she had me rub that bruise from the golf ball she had held me in thrall with her body. Truth be told, Ana was much better for me no matter which way you looked at it. I was remembering things now about Candy and, truth be told, outside of her unquestioning hot body she was a shallow person. Not dumb, hell, she was much smarter than I was. But her values, the things she wanted out of life were to me the dreams of a shallow person.

I had my closure. I didn’t need to see her and pathetically ask why. I didn’t want, yea, I didn’t need anything from her but finality. I was sitting out on the deck outside my room watching a giant cruise ship debark from Barcelona. The sense that I had was that Candy was on that ship and she was sailing out of my life. Farther out I could see the pilot boat dropping off a pilot to bring in the next load of passengers to ravage the shops and stands and stalls along Las Ramblas and I had the companion image of Ana being on the new ship and was sailing into my life.

The phone rang and, unthinking, I picked it up.

“Hello, Charlie. Are your okay?”

It was Candy. I thought about it for a minute, and answered, “Yeah, Candy, actually I am. I signed the papers and they should be delivered in two days.”

She gushed, “Oh, Charlie, thanks! And Llewellyn thanks you too. Oh, his parents will be so happy. Did I tell you that we are being married at St. Paul’s? Oh, I’m so excited.”

She ran on for a bit and as I listened I asked myself how a woman so smart could be such an airhead? I honestly felt great all of a sudden. I realized that it was my pride that had been injured, not my heart. I finally hung up and turned to take a shower when the phone rang again.

I had been patient, but enough was enough. This was her game and I wasn’t going to play anymore. “God damn it, just leave me alone!” I slammed the phone down, surprised that I didn’t break it.

About ten minutes later there was a soft, tentative knock at the door. Ana stood there looking afraid, like she was going to cut and run.

“Charlie, what did I do? I’m so sorry, but …” and she did. That is she did cut and run.

I chased after her. “No, Ana, it wasn’t you. I’d just talked to Candy and when the phone rang again I thought it was her again. I’m so sorry! I did mail in the papers so in a few months we will be divorced.” I pulled her close and hugged her tight, her tears mingling with the sweat from my run.

“Oh, Charlie, I thought … I don’t know, it was like something died in me.” She looked up at me, the words I’d said coming through to her. “So you will be free again?” This was said with a faint smile.

I pulled her into the room. “There is some coffee left on the balcony. Why don’t you wait out there while I take a shower and get ready? Do you have any plans for the day?”

“Just a wine and cheese thing I’m supposed to go to tonight.”

“Have you ever been to Montserrat?” She turned her head back and forth with a clear no. “Okay, let’s do that.”

Two hours later we took the cable car up the steep route to Montserrat after reaching the end of the line of the interurban train. It really was an incredible place; it was the site of a Benedictine abbey, Santa María de Montserrat. It was perched on the top of a steep hill with incredible views. Its history dated back to 880 AD and there was a fascinating museum.

We spent a fun day climbing around the rocks and had a decent lunch in the cafeteria. We got back to the hotel around five and Ana was adamant that she had to go to the reception. I suddenly felt desperate. I had this quick realization that I might not see her again, that I might lose her. I tried one more time.

“Ana, I have to leave in the morning. I won’t see you again. Ana, I can’t do that … I, you mean a lot to me Ana.”

I could see that she was about to cry, and I didn’t want to do that to her. I reminded her that she had my email address and I gave her a tight hug, and walked away.

Going up the elevator I realized I should have asked her about the party – maybe it was something I could crash. I got to my room and ignoring the flashing red light on my phone I went out to the balcony. I sat there a long time, looking along the waterfront and seeing nothing. I felt despondent; how could I lose Ana so quickly. I felt like I should fight for her but I didn’t know which dragon to slay. The phone rang, and I slowly went in to answer it. The thought that it might be Ana quickened my last few steps.

“Yes,” I answered in the abrupt American manner.

“Señor Castillo? Yes, this is you?”

Recognizing the voice, I responded, “Señor Benavidez, what can I do for you?”

“Ah, Charlie. It is good to hear you. I trust all is well with you.” Without giving me a chance to say if I was well or not, he continued, “I left you a message but I wanted to make sure. The passengers will be meeting for a wine and cheese party in meeting room A at seven-thirty. This is a tradition; about two hundred people that take the cruise usually stay here at the hotel for a day or two. The night before debarkation we give them a party – they seem to like it. I think it would be good if you could attend.”

Distracted, I tossed off, “Yes, sure, Señor, I’ll make sure I go.”

“Señor, Charlie, we hire two types of personnel: crew, which cleans the rooms and so forth, and staff, such as chefs, chief stewards, finance people – all that sort. You must remember that this ship carries about 2000 passengers and about half that many employees. There is always turnover at each port with vacations, turnover and all that. We are adding about twenty low level positions for this cruise and about a dozen of what we call staff. It is the staff that will be at the party tonight.”

I guess he wanted to me to look around. Maybe I could meet some of the contract workers hired by Señor Benavidez. As I was going down the elevator my spirits picked up. Maybe this was the party that Ana was attending?

It was a large room and there were obviously some of the new contract workers plus a number of Royal Cruise Lines local support and management personnel there in uniforms of one kind or another. There were tables of appetizers in addition to a row of tables for tasting wine and cheese at the end of the room.

The room was more crowded than I expected and I had some trouble trying to see if Ana was there. I finally found her pinned in a corner by a slick looking guy in a RCL Uniform. As I got closer I remembered his name from the list Benavidez had provided from me. Aldo Bommarito was from Naples and was a trainer in the gym. I didn’t like his looks and I sure didn’t like the way he was invading Ana’s personal space.

As I came close Ana saw me and stepped around him, giving me a big hug. “You’re here! Are you going on the cruise? Where is your cabin? I have an interior cabin on Deck Eight.”

As long as Aldo was around I didn’t want to tell her where I was, in the Owner’s Suite on Deck Ten. That’s what they had available to stash me and I wasn’t going to argue.

Aldo gave me a kind of smirk, a knowing smile … one gigolo to another. It made me feel unclean. I would certainly look for the truth, the verdad with this guy!

I finally got Ana alone to talk to her. “I didn’t know you were going on this cruise, Ana.”

“Yes, that’s why I’ve been at the hotel. I’m meeting some of my family … and Aitor’s parents in Miami to see if I want to move there. Aitor had some money saved and I wanted to do something different. Are you really going to be on this ship?”

Since she had asked me to hold a confidence, I figured I could trust her. Hell, I didn’t know what I was doing anyway. I took her arm and led her out into the hallway to a sitting area and explained what was going on.

“Would you like to board early? I can probably do that for you.”

“Would I go on with you?”

“Sure, I can probably get you on a ships tour, too. Just a minute and let me check.”

I called his home number – he told me to call if I had any questions. “Señor Benavidez, how are you? This is Charlie Castillo.” I went on to tell him what I wanted to do.

“No problem, Charlie. Listen; when you see the ship dock you and your lady friend take a taxi with your luggage to the dock. They will be expecting you.”

I explained to Ana and she was okay with that. We went back in to the party and circulated. I wanted everyone to think I was just another passenger. I told Ana to be ready around ten the next morning and to sleep well. I gave her a quick kiss and left her to get ready.

THE CRUISE – BARCELONA TO MIAMI

It seemed that I lay down on the bed, fell asleep and woke up instantly. Looking at the clock I could see that I’d slept right at eight hours … and I rarely slept more than six.

I was on my balcony watching the harbor when I saw a cruise ship docking, close to eight-thirty. I couldn’t quite see the name but I could tell from the style that it was a Royal Cruise Lines ship. I had to assume it was the Sea Bright.

I called down to Ana, and after exchanging pleasantries, I asked her, “Could you meet me in the lobby at ten, checked out and with your luggage?”

“Sure, Charlie. Can you really get me aboard early … and get me a tour? I’ve always wondered what it was like to see all the parts that passengers don’t get to see.

I took a shower and packed everything up, and went down to check out.

I walked up to the desk to check out and caught the eye of the assistant manager. I’d gotten to know him over the many stays I’d had at the hotel.

He snapped his fingers for someone to go to my room and pick up the luggage. “Señor Charlie! It was so good to see you again. You have already been checked out … the bill was taken care of.”

I knew when not to argue so I just shook his hand and thanked him for a wonderful stay. Instead of giving him a tip I made a mental note to send something to his wife. I overdid the tip to the bellhop for taking our luggage out to a taxi.

When we got to the ship the passengers were just beginning to trickle off. I saw a ship’s officer standing there so I approached him and introduced myself.

“I’m Charlie Castillo. Señor Benavidez said I would be met by someone.”

“Yes, of course, Señor. I’ll have someone come down immediately.”

A tall, thin – almost cadaverous man of about thirty came out of the ship in a few short minutes.

He introduced himself, formally, “Signor Castillo? My name is Giuseppe Basso, but please call me Joseph.” He nodded towards Ana, “And is this lovely signorina your friend I was told to expect?”

“Yes, Joseph. This is Ana, and I am Charlie.”

“I am the crew purser, which means I directly have all responsibility for all the crew on this ship. Signor Benavidez briefed me by telephone this morning and the ship's captain has received a fax. I am a busy man on such a cruise but I will make whatever time available to you that you may need. However, to make things simple for you, I am providing Terence Dickens to take care of you.”

He snapped his fingers and three men showed up. Actually it was two boys, late teens at the oldest, and a wizened old man at least sixty. He was barely five foot tall, if that. My first impression was that he barely escaped being a gnome.

“I’ll leave you in his capable hands,” Joseph finished as he walked away.

The old man grabbed my hand and shook it with a much greater force than I would have expected. “Aye, mate, I’ll take care of you. Is this the lass?” He had a heavy cockney accent that I think was lost on Ana, as she smiled uncertainly.

“Yes, this is Ana, I’m Charlie.”

“Ma’am, you are booked for an inside cabin on deck seven, right?”

She nodded her agreement to that.

“Okay, here’s the deal. My job is to take care of you for the fifteen days of the cruise. Normally I’m a Floor Supervisor, meaning that I take care of a deck. On this ship that is almost always deck ten. Everyone that has anything to do with the rooms for that deck would be responsible to me. I was supposed to go on vacation now but for a bonus I agreed to this trip.”

“Charlie, I have a suggestion. You were supposed to go into the Royal Suite. One of the Directors from Miami has shown up with a bird, if you know what I mean, all very hush hush. He wanted that suite so I’m going to put you in a Royal Family Suite. It’s only half the size, but …” He looked at Ana, “Well, Ma’am, the Family suite has two bedrooms, each with its own bath and egress to the deck.

“If the two of you could share that cabin it would make it much easier for me. Y’see, Charlie, I was asked to look after the lady also.” He bowed to Ana, “And may I say what a lovely lady she is! And, please, call me Terry.”

And Ana accused me of kissing the blarney stone!

He looked back at me, “Charlie, I know this suite is only half the size of the other one, but it is quite nice. Could you help an old man out and share it?” He had a hopeful look on his face. I could see he was a scoundrel at heart, but apparently, he was my scoundrel.

I looked over at Ana, and with a smile, she nodded her head. Terry saw the movement and waved to the two young men who loaded up our luggage on carts and disappeared.

Terry took us up to the suite and settled us in. It really was even nicer than he had said. Since it wasn’t costing me anything, I thought it was especially great!

Before he left, he said, “I’ve only got the two rooms, yours and the director’s.” With a leer, he continued, “And I don’t think we will see much of him before we leave, if you get my drift.”

He called the young woman that would clean our room. “This is Alma. She is from Cebu in the Philippines. Like me, she has only the two rooms. She will come in a number of times during the day to keep everything neat, but she will knock first.

He seemed like he was leering again, “And if you don’t want to be disturbed, just put the sign out. And I’ll see you for the dinner at the Capitan’s table at eight. I’ll come get you at ten ‘til.”

Both Ana and Alma were blushing. I couldn’t figure out what that was about … ‘”Women,” I sighed to myself.

Alma insisted in unpacking the suitcases, assuming I wanted the larger bedroom with the king size bed. Ana and I went out on the deck and enjoyed watching the activity on the dock. It looked like all the passengers had debarked but the new ones weren’t to come aboard until around 1:00 p.m. Yet the dock was busy with all the activity of restocking supplies and various government agents flitting around.

I looked at Ana – she seemed fascinated by all the activity. “Ana, are you okay with this? I mean staying in this suite?”

“Oh, yes, Charlie. I have my own bedroom.” She looked slyly at me, “And I noticed it has a lock! I feel quite safe, Charlie.”

My face burned pink at that. I stammered a little, “Ana, I didn’t mean, I …”

She gave me a big smile, and added, “Charlie, the other room was on the inside, a tiny place with no light. It was all I could afford. It’s okay; I know you are a gentleman.”

Well, I wasn’t so sure about that … in fact I was slightly offended but I couldn’t quite figure out why. She was looking out at Barcelona, enjoying the view. I thought about the night before, when I thought I’d never see her again. I took her hand but avoided looking at her.

“Ana, last night you said you had to go to the reception. I ... I thought that I’d never see you again. This may not be what you want to hear but I was heartbroken. You are in my heart now, Ana. If you leave there will be a big empty place.” I was still looking straight ahead, afraid to look at her.

Sounding heartbroken herself, she said, “Oh, Charlie. They said it was important to go and meet new friends. Charlie, I … I was going to come up to your room afterwards.”

She took my hand and pulled it so I would look at her. “Charlie, I was going to give myself to you last night. I didn’t know you would be here on this ship and I, too, was afraid to not see you again. I was going to give you the phone numbers for to contact me in Miami. I can do that now.”

Suddenly I knew it was okay between us. Candy had made her decision and sure, my pride was hurt but the rent in my heart was mended and filled so quickly by my feelings for Ana that I never really had time to grieve for a love lost. Something relaxed in me and I knew that everything was okay, with myself and with Ana … and even with Candy.

“No, that’s okay. We have the whole cruise and, well, we will see each other in Miami. Won’t we?” I asked with a slight tremor in my voice.

She squeezed my hand, then came and sat on my lap. “Sure, Charlie, we will see Miami together. And I … I’ll introduce you to Aitor’s parents and my brother and sister. Well, my family.” She looked a bit funny when she said the last part, like she had forgotten something; she seemed a little worried. “My mom and dad are still in Santiago. He is a lawyer looking into the Pinochet abuses.”

I started to ask her about what she was concerned about but she took my head in her hands and gave me a deep kiss, one of commitment. We had forgotten Alma and I barely heard the phone ringing when I heard the sliding door opening. I tried to slide Ana off my lap, but she threw her arms around my neck and laughed at my embarrassment.

“Señor … Charlie, it is Mr. Terry.” I could see she was uncomfortable calling me by my given name but I had insisted.

I took the phone, curious to see what he wanted so soon.

“Charlie, I can do a tour for you at two o’clock. I’ve been told to show you the ship and to take you anywhere on it at any time. You can bring Ana along if you want.” I could hear the leer as he said that. Dirty old man! Knowing that a cruise ship behind the scenes is not at all what the passengers see, I put on a pair of shorts and, remembering what Terry was like, suggested to Ana that she wear slacks.

Terry obviously knew the ship well. He took us first to the bridge and introduced us to the captain, who was going over some papers. He was Norwegian and gave off an aura of competence, and seemed a man that wouldn’t suffer fools gladly.

“Mr. Castillo, welcome to our ship. I know why you are here and I will fully support you in any way that I can. In fact, I am the one that insisted the company do something about what I see becoming more and more a serious problem. One would think that the problems with harassing young women would be by other passengers but it is mostly a crew problem. I think we need to improve our hiring process and I would like to talk to you about that at dinner.”

He turned to Ana, and asked, “And who is this delightful lady?”

“This is my good friend, my very good friend,” I added with a smile, “Ana Gálvez,”

“Please do bring her along to dinner. As a woman she may have insights to the problems we have been having. If she desires, I will make sure she also has unlimited access to the ship.” He looked thoughtful, and added, “I frequently find that women are sometimes more perceptive than men are.”

We chatted for a minute and then continued on the tour of the ship. We saw all the areas accessible to passengers, and then went down into the guts of the ship. I was amazed by the size of the laundry operation. But with just the sheets for twenty-five hundred passengers and half that in crew, I could see it had to be a major operation. I really enjoyed the behind the scenes view.

Candy and I had gone to Waikiki Beach to stay at the Ala Moana for our honeymoon. While we were there, the Peruvian Naval Training ship was in town on a visit to Shanghai and other Pacific places, including Hawaii. I had a cousin from Peru that was an officer of the ship and he gave us a tour. Everything was utilitarian and painted a uniform gray.

This ship was like that: what the passengers saw was ornate; what the crew lived with was spartan. Still, it was fascinating. I particularly enjoyed the engine room. It looked like an operating room. It was very functional but clean and well organized. It was deep in the bowels of the ship and I had to wonder what it would be like to be closed up there in a storm.

After crawling all over the ship, we were tired and went back to our cabin to rest before dinner. We each went to our respective rooms to take a shower. I luxuriated in the hot water, and sleepily, lay on my king size bed covering myself with the light cotton sheet to ward off the air conditioning. I never slept with anything on – even a pair of boxers was a distraction to getting some rest.

I quickly fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. After some indeterminate time ... a minute, an hour; I had no idea ... I felt a slight movement of the bed. I felt a warmth cuddling up to me but I was so far under it never raised the level of my consciousness.

I woke several hours later – it was six and we still had two hours before dinner with the captain. I rolled on my back and felt a weight pushing against my right side. I looked over and saw that it was Ana. Shocked and considerate at the same time, I tried not to move, not to disturb her. I gradually sat up against the pillow and looked at her.

She had on a pink baby doll nightgown that was up to just under her breasts. She wasn’t wearing the bottoms. The gown was so sheer that it didn’t really leave anything to the imagination. I guess she had been too warm to wear anything more. Whatever. I wasn’t about to wake her and ask any questions. I’d seen her breasts before but I’d never had a chance to study them. They were slightly flattened from laying on her back and the dark pink areolas and nipples were puckered from the slight down draft of the air conditioner.

Her stomach was taut; she had mentioned that she worked out regularly, especially swimming a lot. Her bush was trimmed for wearing bikinis and was the dark patina of old red brick. The outer labia were more prominent that I would have expected and I couldn’t help but stare at them. I’d immediately become erect and I knew the smart move would be to wake her up or else to get up and get dressed. I did neither of these.

Her legs were splayed with her right leg bent at the knee and her foot resting against her left calf. As stealthily as I could I slid down the bed, my eyes locked on target. I gently lifted her foot and she straightened out her legs but left them splayed open. I leaned over and sniffed. There was a faint scent of apple in her pubic hair. I had noticed several times that her hair smelled the same way. I assumed she shampooed her bush along with her hair with the same shampoo. On her legs was a delicate scent of lilac – I guess from some body lotion.

I bent a little lower and lightly touched my tongue to her slit, not moving it, just enjoying the smell and texture of her body. She looked dry so I let a small amount of saliva drip on her slit and gently, so gently moved my tongue slowly up and down, opening the folds of the labia majora to get at the labia minora and the opening to her vulva.

She moaned and moved slightly, as in a dream. I continued my stealthy assault, gradually moving my tongue deeper and deeper. She was twisting like one does when one is asleep but a fly or something lands on the body.

At this stage I gave in to my desire and put one, then two fingers in her and gently moved them back and forth on her Gräfenberg spot, behind her pubic bone. I’d moved my tongue up to her clitoris and I started slowly and softly massaging it with my tongue, then increasing the pressure as her body reacted. She woke just as she started a massive orgasm.

“Charlie, what … oh, God! Charlie, what are you doing?”

My answer was not to answer. I moved up and slid into her with one long smooth thrust and kissed her deeply to keep her from asking any more questions. She immediately started shaking again and she pulled me tight then put her legs around me, pulling me in as much as she could.

I knew I wasn’t going to last long – this was just too erotic for me. As I released my sperm deep inside of her the stray thought of birth control came to me. I rolled over with Ana half on top of me and she started crying. I felt bad as I felt her shaking.

I rubbed my hand along her back and whispered in her ear, “I’m sorry, Ana. I woke up to find you next to me, half undressed and I … I just gave in to my lust. Please forgive me.”

“Oh, Charlie. It isn’t that. It’s … you are the first since Aitor and I woke up feeling … oh, please, Charlie, tell me you love me!”

“I do, Ana, I do. I love you.”

We lay like that for a while then she slid down and took me in her mouth. Quicker than I would have thought possible I was erect again and she slip up and sat on top, moving slowly at first then gradually increasing the speed. He eyes were closed and I reached up and lifted the top over her head so I could see her breasts. I held them as she moved up and down, now asking for, demanding release. She came again with a sheer passion, a carnal passion I’d never seen from Candy, and then she collapsed on me.

We lay like that for a long time but when I saw it was seven-fifteen I eased her up and led her in to my oversized shower. I turned the water to lukewarm and we gradually woke up. We were waiting when Terry knocked a few minutes before eight.

As we went down the elevator four levels to the Chops Grill I took Ana’s hand in mine and held it tight. She stared at me in the mirror then turned and kissed me on the cheek … smiling as the wiped the lipstick off. I looked at the image in the mirror – how could I have believed that she was handsome instead of beautiful?

She had on a basic black sheath dress with a high collar. She wore a thin gold necklace close around her neck. For the first time I saw her with her hair up and she had a long elegant neck that reminded me of Helen Hunt with her hair up off her neck. She was quite lovely, all in all.

I’d expected dinner with the Captain would be a command performance, with a lot of hangers on. It wasn’t like that at all. A table had been set aside and it was just the four of us, the captain, Jens Nordgaard, Terry and Ana and myself.

Jens bowed to Ana and shook my hand formally. “Let’s just chat while we eat, then we can talk over coffee.”

This was a steakhouse and it was outstanding. My filet was high quality beef prepared to perfection. I was to find out later that it had nothing to do with the Captain being there; it was just a great place to eat.

I really don’t know what I expected from the captain. He was well versed in current events, sports, the arts, and, of course, with anything related to the sea. He told us several anecdotes illustrating how the cruise business had grown and changed.

I had trouble keeping my eyes off Ana so that finally she had to kick me gently under the table. I smiled at her and paid more attention to what Jens was saying.

“This problem with the crew bothering women has been around for some time, particularly on the Mediterranean cruises. Years ago it was mostly men molesting or taking advantage of young girls, especially when they had too much to drink.

“Now it’s more vicious, more violent. We are seeing various kinds of drugs, including more and more of the date rape stuff. There are threats and pictures taken. There have been several cases of straight rape. The laws of the sea are quite complex and we have crews from a large number of countries. It’s a real mess.

“We are starting to get some bad publicity … deserved I’m ashamed to say. I think the problem is in the hiring process. What I’d personally like you to take a look at is whether you think we could set up some kind of screening process the cruise lines could share with each other. The problem is we have to comply with the labor laws in each country we hire people.

“I don’t expect you to solve the problem. What I’d like from you, with your experience, is to help us to frame the problem so we understand it better.”

We chatted about the issues some more, then the captain excused himself. Terry and I made an appointment to meet for breakfast when he would give me some case histories to study. I took Ana to the Concierge Club on the same deck as our suite. Everyone that was booked into a suite was automatically a member.

There was a woman playing light jazz and Ana and I danced to a few slow numbers. We sat down and enjoyed the peace and quiet after the hustle and noise of the public areas. I had a nice single malt with a splash of water and Ana had a martini.

Ana looked troubled which made me feel bad. “Ana, I’m … sorry what I did. I didn’t give you a chance to say no. If you want to move to another cabin I’ll understand.”

“Oh, Charlie, my dear, dear, Charlie. You must know I love you. It’s not what happened. God, I’ve wanted that since the first time I saw you by the pool.” She smiled … maybe it was a smirk, and continued, “Although, it was a surprise. You, sir, are quite talented. I might just have to keep you around as my slave. Charlie, I think maybe you are better than an alarm clock!”

Looking serious again, she added, “No, there is something else I haven’t told you about. It’s … something important to me that I haven’t told you about – and now I don’t know how. It scares me, Charlie.”

I knew we had moved fast and I had to give her time. I put my arm around her and held her close. “Querida, I do love you. Don’t hurry on account of me.”

Later we were walking around one of the upper decks before we turned in. Suddenly, Ana stopped and grabbed my arm. “Oh, my God, Charlie. I don’t have any birth control pills! I haven’t used them since Aitor died … I haven’t had any reason.”

“Ana, tomorrow we dock in Alicante. You can go ashore to a pharmacy, okay?”

Looking dubious, she nodded and answered, “Yes, okay.”

We got back to out room and got ready for bed. “Ana, you can stay in your room if you want to but I would really like for you to sleep with me. No, not just for the sex – which was great, by the way – but I like you close to me. Okay, querida?”

She was agreeable to that. We didn’t make love that night. I think we were both worn out, emotionally as much as physically. But it felt so good to hold her close in the lonely hours of the night.

In the quiet hour before dawn I could feel the slight vibrations of the boat. I remembered we were to dock in Alicante at seven a.m. I lay there for a long time thinking about Candy. It was frustrating because it was all so remote. I was pissed off at the way she had so cold bloodedly just left me a note.

Damn, she had big balls! I laughed quietly as I tried to figure out if that was an oxymoron. Guess not. Then I wondered if it were more precise to say she had brass balls instead of big balls. Hell, maybe she had big, brass balls. I snorted as I wound up that train of thought: well, if she married Llewellyn, she would be the only one with balls. I almost laughed aloud as I tried to figure out if she could self-impregnate herself.

In a more serious vein, what I had trouble dealing with was trying to understand why, if I was so mad at her for her betrayal, I wasn’t bothered more by it. Had we drifted so far apart without me having a clue about it? Another strange thing about it was that I wasn’t mad at her so much as a person, but for what she had done.

As far as Llewellyn, he was just a cipher as far as I was concerned. I’d met him once or twice and had no real recollection of what he was like, other than bland. The bottom line was that if Candy wanted to leave there was nothing I could do to stop her … and I sure wasn’t going to beg. She was in London and I was on a cruise ship off the coast of Spain. What the hell?

Ana moved next to me and I put my arm around her, pulling her up on my chest, and she fell back asleep. What did I want? If I were honest with myself – and I always tried to be – the soft warmth of Ana in my arms at that moment was giving me more satisfaction and a feeling like … I guess like coming home. I felt like there had been something missing and I had just found it. Kind of like a sailor after a long cruise, coming to his home port and family.

I knew for sure then, right at that moment, that I wanted and needed Ana in my life. I had to ask myself some hard questions, like, was this a rebound thing? It had moved awfully fast. Was I trying to get back at Candy? I thought about these and more questions, falling half asleep, with no real answers but with a feeling of peace seeping into me. I hung my hat on that and fell into a deep sleep until Ana’s getting out of bed woke me up.

I had to get ready to meet with Terry, so I asked Ana, “Do you want me to go into town with you?”

She laughed, “No, I think I can pick up a prescription okay. Besides, I need to pick up some presents for …” she paused for a minute, looking a bit flustered, “… for some of my family in Miami.

I didn’t think anything about what she said and went in to take my shower, preoccupied with my breakfast meeting. I still didn’t have a real clear idea of what they wanted me to do but I had to at least make an attempt.

We met at the Seaview Café two decks up. Terry was there, waiting for me with a carafe of coffee, which suddenly made him my best friend. We had a great view of Alicante as we were closing in to the dock. We were sitting outside and it was already warm with a slight ocean breeze.

I told Terry I just wanted something light and a girl brought me a continental breakfast. There was a stack of folders on the table – much thicker than I had anticipated.

I picked up the first couple and looked at them. The first one was from a sister ship, the Sea Shadow. Each folder had a précis at the front.

The 28-year-old woman said that she was raped on an RCL ship last year by a cruise ship employee. She said she was further victimized when she was told by cruise ship staff to collect evidence of the crime herself.

"The feeling was like nobody was helping me," the woman said. "Everything was slow motion and they were trying to figure out how to protect themselves."

The next one was an assault of a cruise ship employee on the Sea Bright by a passenger.

While she was a cleaning a women's restroom, a drunken male passenger came into a restroom of the ship and asked her to pose for a photo with him. Two ship employees held the restroom door open, and another man clicked a camera. The woman went along with the clowning - until the drunk grabbed her breasts. She was infuriated.

Terry said, “What’s not in these files is that there are a few out and out sexual predators that go from cruise ship to cruise ship. Most of them will use various kinds of threats to keep the women from making a complaint. These range from threats of violence to the woman or a member of her family to taking pictures and using them for blackmail. Too often it’s a simple situation of taking advantage of a woman who is inebriated.”

I sighed and took the stack back to the cabin to read. Ana had already gone ashore so I went out on the balcony with some coffee and went through the stack, making notes and looking for patterns. From what Benavidez had said, I wasn’t to concern myself about the laws, or the police actions, but more on hiring and training practices.

Ana came back about eleven holding a package of birth control pills in one hand and a diaphragm in the other and a big smile on her face.

“I can’t start the pills until my next period starts, which should be about the time we get to Miami. We have to use this in the interim.” She held up the diaphragm and waved it around. “You will still love me when we get to Miami, won’t you?” she teased.

I had been sitting on the sofa in the living area and took her hand and pulled her down on my lap. I kissed her with a quickening hunger and then held her tight. I whispered in her ear, “Querida, I will always love you.”

The next couple of days were uneventful. I wandered around the ship, getting familiar with it and just observing people. Terry would introduce me to one employee or another in different departments. Each of them had been briefed on my task and asked to not tell anyone else. It was interesting getting their various perspectives.

They all agreed that from the passenger perspective it was almost always a problem with booze. I met with Terry and Joseph Basso and we kicked around some ideas. The problem seemed the worst in the bar by the pool area. We talked it over with the bartenders and waiters and asked security to put a video camera in place and keep an eye on things.

Neither of us wanted to get off at Gibraltar so we spent a languid day by the pool, nearly deserted with so many passengers ashore. After a couple of hot hours in the sun we escaped to our cabin and came together with a slow gentle touching, sharing our bodies, enjoying our love. The more I touched her, the more I saw her firm body, the more I wanted her. Not just wanting her for my pleasure but for a pleasure we could share together.

We didn’t talk much of our love. Instinctively realizing how sudden it was and we didn’t want to jinx it. Physically we shared our love fully. Emotionally we moved with a tender slowness, not pushing it … just letting it come.

We were still getting to know each other, our little quirks and habits: the endearing things, the annoying things. She used my razor to shave her legs – I said something and felt repentant at her look of hurt. I admired a leggy blond in a next to nothing bikini and she gave me a dirty look and stomped off to our suite.

She had a lovely way of walking around our room wearing just a bra and panties that kept me in a perpetual state of sexual excitement. I always opened doors, pulled back chairs, all the little signs of respect that flowed from love. Unlike Candy who had expected these things as her due, Ana always let me know she appreciated it with a touch, a soft look, or a bawdy flip of her hips when I put my hand on her ass walking down the hallway.

I was caring less and less about what I was on the ship for. It was pretty clear to me that they mostly needed to tighten up on their hiring practices. The different cruise lines just fired someone when there was a problem but never passed that information on to the police or to other cruise lines. There was what seemed to me to be a blanket of secrecy about the whole thing. Well, I’d make my report, including a suggestion for installing a training program and policies and procedures addressing internal sexual harassment issues.

The customer part, again, I felt that better crew training and some common sense approaches would handle most of the problems. I also did some research and pulled it together in a report I provided. Given the number of incidents and passengers the assault rate was less then half what it was in the resort hotels in Cancun by staff and a fraction of incidents by guests. I made a mental note not to take Ana to Cancun.

The fourth day of the cruise we would be in Lisbon from nine in the morning until eight at night. I took Ana to visit some of the things I loved about the city and we had a great day. We had a small espresso – what they called uma bica with sweet rolls in the Barrio Alto and visited the beautiful church, São Roque with its magnificent baroque interior.

It was a beautiful city, one of my favorites. Ana had never been there so she was like a child at Christmas: no matter how many presents opened, the next one was ever more exciting. We had an early dinner in Alfama, a small place hidden in the twists and turns of the old district. The place was one of those unique to Lisbon, a Beer and Shellfish Tavern. We ordered a huge plate of giant prawns and a side dish of their exquisite ameijoas, those clams that seemed to taste better here than anywhere else in the world.

Tired, sated, and a bit tipsy from the pitcher of beer we made it back to the ship and watched as the ship left Lisbon heading for Funchal, on the incredibly beautiful island of Madeira. The island was basically a mountain sticking out of the sea. It was just less than three hundred square miles spread around the large mountainous interior.

At over six thousand feet, the mountains were surprisingly tall. Covered with clouds the mountains towered over Funchal, which flowed down to the sea in a jumble of red tile roofs, crooked streets and an amazing festival of greenery.

I loved the place and there were a lot of places I wanted to take Ana but we really didn’t have time. We walked around town for a while, sitting occasionally in the park, watching people. We went on a fascinating tour of one of the Madeira houses, finishing with tastes of their different styles. My favorite, a Malmsey, uses a grape that makes one of the richer, sweeter Madeiras. They had it paired with some Roquefort cheese … exquisite!

They had glass cases with screens over them with vintages dating back to the 1770s. I asked Ana her age causing her to look at me in surprise.

“Ana, I just want to buy you a bottle for your birth year.” What is it with women and their ages? I shelled out seventy dollars for a 1979 Rainwater Madeira and got a sweet kiss in return. I felt it was a fair trade.

Back down by the dock area, there were a lot of seafood restaurants so I let her pick one out at random and we had some delicious local fish, along with a bottle of the Portuguese Vinho Verde, the crisp white wine matching perfectly with the food. It is called a green wine not because of its color ... it can be either white or red ... but because it is bottled when it’s young. It typically has just a hint of effervescence to it.

We went on to Tenerife but it was quite hot and we chose to stay aboard. Then we had five days of open sea before we would get to St. Johns. Both of us enjoyed the open sea more than making a lot of stops. Life aboard ship settled into a pleasant, if somewhat humdrum, pace. We felt lazy and just enjoyed the trip. Sometimes we would stay up late and dance in the lounge; other nights we would hit the sack early and enjoy each other, having dinner sent in.

On the nights we retired early, we usually got up early as well. We were in the habit of going up to deck twelve where I would run around the jogging track, sometimes around the deck, while Ana would walk easy, going wherever she saw something interesting. We liked to do this before breakfast to get the juices flowing and wake up. The air was so clear and clean it almost seemed intoxicating. We were about half way between Madeira and St. Johns.

On this morning I’d gotten tired of running around the jogging track and headed to the other end of the ship around where the golf driving range was. I’d just gotten back to the pool area and I saw Ana running towards me, with a scared, urgent look on her face.

“I was walking in from the fitness center to see if they were open when I heard a scream.”

I ran to the front of the gym area – it opened at seven and it was about a quarter to – the door was locked and I put my ear to the glass door. I heard a definite scream and told Ana to go the purser's office and have them send security up.

I thought about kicking the door in and thought what glass shards would do to my leg. I grabbled a nearby table and threw it at the door, shattering the glass. I reached in and unlocked the door, listening for noise. I heard a muffled shout in the area they used for massages – I remembered this from my tour – and I found my old friend Aldo, the one that was bothering Ana at the reception in Barcelona, in the final stages of ripping the clothes off a tiny Philippine girl; she couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds. She was maybe nineteen at the oldest.

I wasn’t that big a guy, maybe five-ten and slim from the years of running. But I had two things going for me; I was highly pissed and I was motivated. I slammed both hands, open, on Aldo’s ears and that immediately took the fight out of him. Just to make sure, I kicked him as hard as I could in the groin area … forgetting my running shoes were on and sprained my big toe. I stumbled over to a stack of towels and wrapped one around the girl just as security showed up, Joseph right behind them.

I explained what had happened and apologized for the door. They asked a few questions and took Aldo away. Ana came in just as they led him out the door. Ana looked at him with such a venomous stare it sent chills down my spine. This, I said to myself, is not a woman to get mad at you. I was sure she was going to spit in his face and moved closer, protectively.

Ana took her sweat jacket and sweat pants off and gave them to the girl. They were big on her, but by rolling up the legs and sleeves she was much more decorous as they took her down to security to take her statement. Joseph told me later he would come to my cabin and I could fill out whatever forms. I asked him about the door, but he just laughed.

I looked at Ana and I had to say she looked much better with just a sports bra and Lycra shorts on. We went down to take a shower then had breakfast with a stop on the way to get my toe taped and get some pain pills.

We got off for shopping and lunch at St. Johns then we were off for Miami, two more days of open ocean then the cruise would be over.

I put together my position papers, had Terry review them, and presented them to Joseph and the captain. I don’t think either was surprised by anything and I had the feeling they knew exactly what to do but hadn’t been able to make their directors understand to the point that they would take action.

A bonus was the director that had taken the owner's suite sat in on the talk and seemed suitably impressed. He shook my hand, apologized for taking my room, and offered me a cruise at a later date as compensation. I wasn’t going to complain and just nodded as if it were my due and shook his hand. I only saw the woman he was with once and I certainly couldn’t fault his taste.

With my responsibilities over, Ana and I relaxed for the last day and a half of the cruise. She seemed worried about something, but I wasn’t sure what. I asked if she was okay but she gave me a wan smile and nodded yes.

That afternoon we went to the room to rest. Well, that had been my intention, anyway. Ana put some light jazz music on, opened the drapes and did a slow, sensuous strip for me.

She looked lovely with the bright sunlight splashing across her through the open curtains of the door to the balcony. There was no way for a person to see inside the window but she seemed excited by the openness. She spun around dancing with her eyes closed, the bright sun highlighting her clothes as they flew to the corners of the room.

She delicately took off her final items, her bra and panties and threw them at me with a laugh and flopped on the bed. She looked wanton, lying there with her legs splayed slightly and her arms reaching for me. The sunlight caught the curly tips of her pubic hair creating a slight halo effect that was very erotic.

I sank down on the bed beside her; my face buried in her hair, smelling the essence of her, the things that made her so desirable. I could hear her breathing, the faint rush of cool air from the ceiling vent, and at some level the throb of the engines deep below in the bowels of the ship a constant.

She rose and sat on my thighs, facing me, slowly rubbing her hands from my abdomen up to my chest – a smile on her face. She raised herself to her hands and knees and, with a frown of concentration on her face, gently drew her brick red bush back and forth over my erection. The slight scratching, back and forth, the tight curls barely touching … made my skin so sensitive I felt like I would explode just from the brush of her hair.

Lowering her pelvis a fraction more I felt her wetness coating my penis. She was moaning and I was ready but I wanted to prolong it – to enjoy our bodies together as one.

I rolled over, pinning her beneath me. Her pupils seemed like pinpoints of black agate, caught as they were in the full sun. They had a playful look but as I stared into them they turned serious and grew wider as she waited for what was to come.

She whispered, trembling, the faintest drop of a tear in the corner of each eye, “Just you and me, Charlie, just you and me.” She took my head in her hands and, pulling me close, kissed me deeply, a kiss of promise and fulfillment.

I slid down to her breasts, one in the sun and one in shadow, sucking one, then the other gently, making it last. I felt her nipples grow hard in my mouth as I gently nibbled them. I slipped on down, my feet now off the bed. I wanted all of her, my tongue flicking out, this secret spot, that concavity, tasting her as I passed her belly.

I heard her gasp in anticipation as I kissed along the inside of her thighs, enjoying the silky texture, kissing them, and barely touching the softness. She shivered as I reached where we both knew I had been heading for, delays in route as the curves of her body provided this taste, that smell.

I moved to the crease between her legs rubbing my face over her hair, enjoying the feel, smelling her unique scent. I parted her outer lips with my fingers and slowly moved my tongue from the bottom to the top flicking her clitoris as its small hood valiantly tried to protect it from the depredations of my tongue.

Feeling her hands running though my hair then pulling me tightly against her as I breathed hotly on her sex, slowly licking in long strokes from the bottom to the top in one motion, always ending at her clit. She shivered as I repeated this over and over until she shuddered, crying out, “Now, Charlie, now, love me, come with me.”

I moved up and slowly entered her; languidly stroked, wanting it to last, for me, for both of us. Her vagina rippled with aftershocks as I drew in and out; established a rhythm with her. Feeling my need … and hers, I increased the pace until with a long, almost violent lunge I came in her, felt her squeezing me tight.

We collapsed on the bed, spent. The sweat of the exertion now cooling as our bodies dried under the tender ministrations of the air conditioner. Pulling a sheet over us we fell into a deep sleep. Hours later, knowing we had to pack for the morning debarkation in Miami, I woke her with a kiss and whispered sweet silly nothings in her ear until she started laughing and then tickling me, she climbed out of bed.

We took a shower and packed, ready for what the morrow would bring. We were excited by the possibilities, scared of the problems that might arise, but comfortable in our love.

That last night of the cruise we had dinner with Captain Jens again, this time in one of the main dining rooms with a mixed coterie of staff and passengers. It was a wonderful meal with wine from Jens private stock. He asked Ana and I to meet him in the engine room for coffee. We did and had a pleasant discussion. He was a fascinating man with a command presence.

He was gracious with Ana and I felt he would be a friend. He had had a picture of him, Ana and myself at dinner and signed it and said we would get it in a nice frame before we departed.

After dinner we danced for a while in one of the lounges, feeling quite mellow. Ana seemed to be in a happy, almost playful mood. She kept teasing me, pushing her hips into mine as we danced.

Finally, I looked at her and asked, “Ana, would you like to go back to the cabin?”

She smiled her agreement, probably thinking I was a bit slow on the uptake. When we got back to the room I wrongly thought that she would have been satiated. Where the afternoon was slow and sensuous, that final night she was wild in her need with an almost desperate air about her. She seemed worried but I assured her of my love and she calmed down.

The next morning we were standing on the deck looking at the clusters of people standing behind the fence. Ana saw a small group off to the side and waved to them … they were all obviously Latin, an older couple, a man with a woman standing close to him, a younger woman, maybe early twenties that looked like she could be Ana’s sister, and two little kids, girls, about five.

We turned to each other at the same time, Ana looking nervous. I’m sure I looked confused.

“Charlie … I never told you about my girls. Because of what happened to Aitor I am extremely protective of my little angels. Then … when I fell in love with you I was afraid that I might lose you, that you wouldn’t want children … another man’s kids. I didn’t know what to do. It was tearing me up!”

“Ana, you are crazy wonderful. I love children and maybe that is what was missing from my life … Candy didn’t want to give up her career.” Looking at the girls, I was suddenly scared; what if the girls wouldn’t accept me?

Ana, reading my mind, smiled, “Charlie, they will love you. Ana Argiñe Galvéz is on the left and María Ariñe Galvéz is on the right. Aitor gave them their first names and I picked their middle names. Argiñe and Ariñe both mean ‘light’ in Basque. When I first saw them it seemed like God’s light was shining on them and those seemed like the right names. Are we okay, then?” she added nervously.

I gave her a hard hug, my heart going out to her. We walked down the dock, went through customs and picked up our luggage. As we walked back outside I stood back a little bit while she was swamped by her family, especially by the two girls. She was crying and so were the little Ana and María and I didn’t want to intrude on such a private, intimate moment. The crush of people trying to get in to customs was heavy and I started getting pushed back.

I heard a loud squeal, shouting, “Charlie,” and so did everyone else. Ana and her family turned to me, curious, as this blond bombshell I recognized as Candy came flying at me, her arms and legs wrapped around me like a leach in heat, and her tongue doing it’s best to give me a tonsillectomy. I had a flash of a horrified Ana staring at me as I lost my balance and fell.

I felt something hard hit behind my ear then my nose exploded in pain. A sudden dizziness overwhelmed me … then blackness enfolded what small awareness I had left.

A dark period took over my life.

BUT NEVER DOUBT I LOVE

Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.

Shakespeare, Hamlet, II,ii,116

The voice was saying something I couldn’t quite make out. There was the timbre of anxiety in the voice; the words filtered as if I had earplugs on. I gradually became aware of my body – my subconscious sending out urgent messages to the organs and extremities asking if they were doing okay.

The right responses must have been sent back because I had a sense of feeling better without knowing why I felt that way. I felt, and then saw one eyelid then the other as they were pulled up, an unpleasant graininess causing discomfort. A blinding flash of light, with that special intensity of a too close bolt of light caused a sudden pain in my eyes. Firm hands holding my head tight … the owner of the hands offering a barely heard, “Easy, okay, easy.”

The soft voice knew somehow – experience? – that my eyes were dry and gently applied two drops of some liquid to each eye. There was instant relief and by squinting I could make out the plain but somehow peaceful face of a nurse looking over at me. Moving my head slightly I saw a short, pot-bellied man who must be the doctor – standing there observing us.

I could also make out a large bandage covering my nose and now, with the sight I knew that pain would arrive shortly. I mumbled, dry mouthed, “What happened?”

The doctor came closer, and looking at me with a smile, said, “Yes, I guess you wouldn’t know.” He pointed at something outside of my range of vision and the nurse held a water bottle with a straw in it to my lips.

“You fell down at the port. Your head hit the sharp corner of the concrete base of a light pole. You had bleeding in your brain. We had to put you in an induced coma and drill a small hole in your skull to clean out the clot. We just now brought you out from under. We will keep you here for a few days for monitoring but you should be able to leave by the end of the week.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Just under two weeks.”

“What happened to my nose?”

“He smiled, “Well, a bit of bad luck there. When you fell your wife fell on top of you and hit your nose with her elbow. “Fraid you aren’t going to be quite as handsome with that new bend in your beak.” He chuckled at what he must have considered a joke.

Sounding stupid, even to myself, I asked, “My wife?”

“Yes, and I must say she is quite lovely. I have never seen a wife as dedicated as her. She has been here almost all day, every day. Sitting by your side, reading to you from a novel. The nurse said she went to the hotel to get some sleep just before I came in to bring you out of the coma.”

“How soon can I travel?”

“Well, I’d say a week from today should be okay. Don’t do anything really strenuous for a couple of weeks. By the way, there is a gentleman waiting to see you, if you feel up to it.”

I asked the nurse to put the back of my bed up some and to let him in.

“Charlie, damn, you look like you got hit by a truck!”

It was my boss from New York, Gerald Adams. “Thanks, Gerald. That makes me feel a lot better. Listen, I’m ready to move closer to the action. I need to work out something. If I can make it happen I want to be based in Miami. That would be best for travel to South America and good connections to Spain and Portugal. Otherwise I’ll go ahead and move to Madrid like you originally wanted me to.”

Gerald stared at me, “I’m a little confused here. Candy told me you guys had patched things up. She also said she was changing her focus to work mostly in the US so she wouldn’t have to travel so much.”

That bitch!

“Well, Gerald, that’s not true. Candy and I are through. We’ve both signed the papers and the divorce is in process.”

“Uh, Charlie, Candy said she tore those papers up.”

That bitch! That damned bitch!

“Well, Gerald, I kept a copy signed by both of us and I’m going to turn it in. If that doesn’t work I’ll move to Nevada for six weeks and do it there. We are clearly incompatible, which is all that Nevada cares about. I have the note that she gave me when she said she was dumping me for Llewellyn. So talk to me about Miami.”

He looked a bit stunned – I didn’t really blame him.

“Well, sure it would be better for us to have you either here or in Madrid. Actually, all things considered here in Miami would be the best. We do have an affiliate office you can work out of when you need to. And I fly through here all the time so it would be much easier for us to meet.”

“Okay, great, Gerald. Look, I need you to do something. Could you call the law firm we work with in Santiago and have them set up an introduction for me in, say, two weeks? A lunch would be great. I need to meet with a guy and I don’t know much about him. His last name is Galvéz and he is a lawyer working on the Pinochet stuff. I know his wife’s maiden name is Pomar, but that’s all I have.”

“Sure, I can do that. How are you feeling? I have to say your nose looks like shit.” He laughed at that.

I told him how everything went on the cruise. I’d already copied him on the reports I’d written.

“Charlie, they were quite impressed with you. I met with Cary Edwards and he gave us a contract to do a feasibility study on your recommendations. He apologized again for taking the room they were going to have you use and told me to tell you he meant what he said about his offer of the suite for you to take a cruise on them. He said it just had to be scheduled. He gave me his secretary’s number here in Miami and you just need to call her when you are ready.”

We chatted for a bit more, and when the nurse came in to do whatever it is that nurses always seem to be doing, he stood up.

“Gerald, I appreciate your not asking anymore about what’s going on. I’ll let you know when I either do or do not get it worked out. Be assured, though, that in any case Candy and I are not getting back together.”

After the nurse left I fell asleep for a couple of hours. When the nurse’s aide came to serve me lunch I saw that Candy was standing there staring at me. From the look on her face she had run into Gerald and heard what I’d had to say about her.

She came over and sat on the edge of the bed. “I screwed up, didn’t I, Charlie?” I looked away for a moment then looked back at her, curious about what she would say. “It was so stupid. I’d gone shopping but I got a headache and came home. I caught him in bed with the guy that was supposed to be the best man.”

She teared up and tried a laugh that didn’t work out quite right, “I guess that was the problem, huh, he really was the best man. It turned out his dad wanted him to get married to make him look more respectable. I guess there is no chance for us?”

Quietly, I replied, “No, Candy, there isn’t. I’ve moved on. I’ve … well, Candy, I’ve found someone new. Someone special I want to live the rest of my life with. She was there, at the dock. Did you see her? She was with two small girls, twins about five.”

“No, Charlie. I only had eyes for you. I stupidly figured we could just start over. I told Gerald that I was going to stay in Denver. But if it’s not going to work out I’ve been offered a partnership in a small firm in Odessa, Texas. There will just be three of us and we will specialize in oil leases.”

She started crying and I did feel some sympathy for her. I’d loved and lived with her for years. I didn’t hate her; just what she had done to us. Forgiving her or not wasn’t an issue. Our lives would go on in different orbits. The way that it had come about left a bad taste in my mouth but that was history now. I was impatient for her to leave, distracted with trying to figure out what had happened to Ana. The only thing that made sense was that Ana had seen Candy kiss me and jumped to the wrong conclusion.

She stood up, “Can you give me a goodbye hug?”

I did but, with no guilt whatsoever, my mind was on Ana.

As she left, Candy added, “I know this doesn’t mean much, but I really am sorry. Not just for what I did but for the small, mean way I did it. I’m not proud of myself. I won’t fight you on the divorce, Charlie. I hope you find that girl. Oh, by the way, there was a man called Terry, an Englishman. He saw you fall and said he would have the cruise line hold your luggage. Just call them and they will have it delivered.

She walked out the door and out of my life. It was ten years before I saw her again, and that was at the airport in Houston … ships passing in the night.

I improved rapidly and that Saturday they let me out of the hospital. The doctor wanted me to wait for another three or four days before traveling. Gerald had called me and told me the meeting was set up. I still had ten days before the meeting in Chile so I made reservations for the next Wednesday to fly to Lima. I figured I’d spend a few days there with my extended family that had remained in Perú. Then I would go on to Santiago for the meeting that I hoped would answer some questions and save my life.

I checked into a hotel room and called to have my luggage delivered. I had everything cleaned and washed, and paid extra to have it done right away. It would be winter in Lima and Santiago so I bought a couple of heavier jackets and several pair of slacks.

I spent my days walking along the beach, thinking of Ana, trying to puzzle out her disappearance. I could see her being upset … more than that, feeling betrayed if she saw Candy kissing me. There wasn’t anyway she could have known that I didn’t want and would have refused the kiss if I had the chance. I loved only Ana and for me it was the last love I would have.

I finally decided she must have seen us and turned at once in shame and anger. Yeah, she did have a fiery temper. I know that she wouldn’t have been able to walk away if she knew that I was hurt.

I didn’t want to sink into depression, I had to fight this and find my love. I was dying of curiosity about the girls and found myself wishing I had had a chance to meet them. I was careful to drink only wine or beer and then only with meals. The solace of alcohol was tempting, but I knew it would ultimately be self-defeating.

The trip to Perú went quite well. Everyone must have thought I looked skinny ‘cause they did their best to fatten me up. It was good to decompress – great and terrible, my life had been chaos for the last month.

A highlight was when my cousin took me to see Cecilia Barraza at a club, Manos Morenas, in Barranco. She had such a lovely voice and the Pisco sours were going down easily. The food was great and the conversation made me realize how important family was. In Perú, family is sometimes a somewhat loose concept and that night included cousins of cousins and several persons that I had no idea of how they fit in.

The next morning, having both a slight headache and a warm feeling from the night before, I flew down to Santiago. The temperature was about the same as Lima but the lower humidity was more comfortable than Lima and it was quite pleasant. In the winter Lima usually has what they call garua, which is a gray mist that settles in over the city to a height of about three hundred feet, for months at a time and is totally depressing. Santiago was cool but sunny, and all in all was quite nice.

My meeting with Ana’s father was set for the next day for lunch at two in the afternoon at a well-known place called Giratorio. It was on the sixteenth floor of the building where Señor Galvéz (it was hard to think of him as Ana’s father) had his law office.

I met him at the restaurant and he wanted to hold off talking until after the meal, which was incredible. Over coffee I told him my story. My nose was obvious and I showed him the still healing scar on my head where they drilled for blood.

I was disappointed with his attitude. I think he pretty much believed me but felt that Ana’s privacy was her business. The most he would agree to do was to take the information on how to contact me and give it to Ana the next time she called.

Despondent and disappointed I walked down to take a taxi back to the hotel. Raúl - that was his name - did agree to walk me down stairs. The doorman of the building waved for a taxi and as we were standing between the taxi and the building I saw a fast movement to my right.

Remembering what Ana had said about the Basque separatists, I must have been subconsciously wound up. Seeing a motorcycle coming fast down the street I saw that the driver and passenger both had stocking caps pulled over their heads and the passenger was pulling a pistol out of his pocket.

Not thinking about it I shoved Ana’s dad to the ground and threw my briefcase, and, just as the pistol started firing, I dropped to the pavement. I heard screeching and a crash. I stood up and the taxi driver told me I had hit the driver in the head with my heavy leather case. The cycle had slid under a bus and it was clear no one survived.

The police, of course, came in short order. It turned out the two guys were Pinochet loyalists and didn’t like what Raúl was doing. Ana’s dad was shook up but took me back in the lobby.

“It’s seems like I owe you something. Look, Charlie, why don’t you come to dinner tonight and meet my wife. You can tell her your story and we’ll see what she has to say.”

So at nine that evening I found myself in front of an attractive, moderately sized house in a nice, quiet neighborhood. As the taxi parked I did notice a police car at each end of the block.

The dinner was both elegant and simple. The wine was from Chile and went well with the meal. Afterwards, we retired to what looked like a library and Raúl poured me a nice brandy. I told my story all over again to Silvia Marcela, Ana’s mother.

She looked at my nose – the swelling and discoloration were gone but it still wasn’t a thing of beauty. She carefully looked at the scar forming over the hole in my head, and looked sad.

She finally finished with her questions and left the room. Raúl shrugged his shoulders and offered me a small, pungent cigar. Everything considered I thought it prudent to go ahead and smoke it.

About ten minutes later Silvia came back into the room. “Señor Charlie, please, the phone.” She said as she pointed towards the instrument setting on a table. She motioned for Raúl to leave the room with her and quietly closed the door. I picked up the phone and instantly heard the click of the extension being replaced.

Really having no idea what was going on, I answered, “This is Charlie.”

I could hear the soft sobs as she answered, “Oh, Charlie! God, I’m so sorry.” She started crying hard – I waited for her to gather herself. “Mom told me about your fall. I just saw Candy kissing you and I thought … Charlie, I thought you weren’t serious about me. I was shocked, I felt betrayed. I grabbed the girls and ran to the car. I didn’t see you fall. Oh, you know I would have come to you … even if, even if you didn’t love me.

“Please don’t hate me – I couldn’t stand that. My girls need you … I need you. Please come to me.”

“Ana, I love you, more than anything. I was so scared because I didn’t know how to find you. I was desperate.”

“Please come to me, Charlie,” she said again.

We talked for a while then I went to find her parents. I gave her mom a hug for helping me out and told her that everything looked okay.

I flew out the next day for Miami. They were living in two rented houses in Ft. Lauderdale until they could figure out what to do. They, consisting of her in-laws, and her brother and his wife were in one house and her sister, Ana and the two girls were in the house next door.

Ana picked me up at the airport in Miami. It was so good to hold her. She felt terrible about not being in the hospital with me, but I just shrugged, “Ana, it’s in the past and we can’t change it. Let’s learn what we can from it, about trusting each other and always talking before we do anything drastic. Being with you now is all that matters to me.”

“Charlie, what you did for my dad, thank you. You risked your life to save his. You are a good man.”

It was late when we got to her house and everyone was asleep. Her sister got up when she heard the door and went right back to bed after Ana introduced us. Ana led us right into her bedroom, which was the master bedroom of the house.

I needed to shower from the trip and as I was soaping up Ana squeezed in with me. It was a lot more crowded than the bathroom we’d had in the suite but I wasn’t complaining. We didn’t really do anything, just soaped each other up and got out.

While I was drying I looked around the bathroom, curious to see if she had the diaphragm on. When I went into the bedroom Ana was already lying down, with a pink gown on, this time with panties.

Not wanting to make a mistake about it, I asked, “Do you have your diaphragm on?”

“No, Charlie, I don’t need it anymore.”

“I guess you started your birth control pills, then?”

“No, Charlie,” she said patiently, “I can’t start the pills until I start my period.”

I swear she was smirking at me. Maybe I was just too tired to understand. “Is something wrong with you?”

“No, love, something is exactly right. I’m expecting!”

I guess I looked confused.

“Charlie, I’m pregnant.”

“You’re pregnant?”

“Yes, honey, I think you finally figured it out.”

“But how? When?”

“Well, the when is obvious ... probably that first time on the ship. The how is a bit more complicated. There are these bees and then there are some birds ...”

I threw the pillow at her and pinned her to the bed. “Really? Honest to God, really?”

I put my ear on her abdomen, listening.

“Baby, you’re hopeless. You can’t hear anything for a long time. But as long as you are down there …”

I took that as an invitation, and after twenty minutes of vigorous activity, we fell into a deep sleep.

About eight the next morning, there was a soft knock on the door, and it opened a crack, “Ana, honey, you have about two minutes to get decent if you aren’t already and then the girls will be coming in.

Ana put a robe on and I pulled on my boxers and a tee shirt. Shortly afterwards, the girls bounded in all excited, and jumped on top of us on the bed.

Ana introduced us and they each gave me a slobbery kiss on the cheek. They were really cute but I didn’t have a clue about how to tell them apart.

Later I made a suggestion to Ana and she agreed. Two days later we drove up to Orlando and Disney World for three days. I thought it would give us time to bond. They loved it and Ana and I had a lot of fun too. We did get to know each other much quicker than we would have otherwise.

Candy sold the house in Castle Rock and sent me a check for half the proceeds. We bought a house closer to Miami so I wouldn’t have to drive too far.

I did start working out of Miami and started doing training sessions there instead of on the road. I was gradually able to plan my trips better and to travel less. The business grew and they hired someone to work in Spain and Portugal and I only needed to travel there for the rare emergency. I traveled mostly in Latin America.

We got married at the parish we went to a week before Christmas. My mom and dad flew out and Ana’s parents came from Chile, and both sets of parents stayed for the holidays.

It was several years before we were finally able to take the cruise. We kept the smaller Royal Family Suite like we had before because of the two bedrooms. Ana’s sister stayed in one, the girls on the sofa bed in the living room, and the baby with us. We flew to Barcelona and took the ship back to Miami.

Terry had retired but Jens was the captain again and was glad to have us aboard. On the second night of the cruise we had dinner with Jens and his first officer. Carolina, Ana’s sister, fell for Jen’s assistant like a ton of bricks, so we were happy to give her a lot of time alone … well, not alone, but not with us.

Occasionally, I look back to that day I read Candy’s note and how I felt at the time – not knowing then it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

The love that Ana and I shared only got better as time passed. We never had any more children after Juan Carlos but he was enough. He grew into a tall, good looking young man with wavy black hair he liked to wear long. His sisters confided in me that all the girls at his school got weak in the knees whenever he passed by.

The twins grew into great beauties … and that led to my premature gray hair.

It was a good life; even a great life and we lived it to the fullest.