"You're so bad!"
"That's what makes me so good!"
"Maybe later this week. It will have to be very, very dark, though, and very, very late!", she answered. Still, she was smiling at the thought, and that made me smile, too.
We were on our second drink, when it became time for dinner, so I stood, and Marilyn said, "What about our drinks?"
"Take them."
"We can leave with the glasses?"
"Sure. Where are we going to go? When you're done, somebody will take it back to the dishwasher, and it will eventually end up back in the bar, right?", I answered.
"I never thought of that."
"Stick with me, kid, and see the world!".
"You're full of shit, you know."
"So I've been told. So I've been told." I took Marilyn's hand and we rode the elevator down to the restaurant deck, which was a little forward of where we were. We actually ended up going down a deck, moving forward, and then up a deck, in order to get there. We joined the crowd waiting at the doors.
The main restaurant on a cruise ship is a little odd. At breakfast and lunch, it's just like a normal restaurant. You show up whenever you want to at the door and wait for somebody to seat you. Dinner is a lot more structured. There are two seatings, because nobody can build a restaurant big enough for everybody to eat together. On the newest boats, you can have well over 5,000 passengers on a cruise! So they split it in two, an early session for people with children or ancient people who might not last until later without falling asleep, and a late seating for the sophisticates. Well, that's the theory anyway. I prefer the late seating and Marilyn prefers the early. However, she didn't know that yet!
In order to make this all work, they run the evening meal with ruthless efficiency. Everybody crowds up to the doors to the restaurant and waits for them to be opened. Then you rush off to your assigned seating. We were at table 114, but beyond that, we weren't sure. Tables could be two-person, four-person, or even larger groups, the theory being that they can mix people up and introduce them around. Sometimes that works better than others, but it had never been a problem for us the first time.
At 2000, the doors to the restaurant swung open (two sets of double fire doors all gilded to make them fancy - a lot of that sort of thing is on these ships) and we moved inside to find our table. After a bit of searching, we found ourselves at a four-person table, but the only ones there. "Pick a seat, hun.", I told Marilyn. She slid onto one that was facing the center of the room, and I held it for her, and then slid into the one next to her also facing the center.
"Do you think we're by ourselves?", asked Marilyn.
"Not a clue. I guess we'll find out, though." There were probably a half dozen places to eat on board, so it wasn't guaranteed that we would actually see our tablemates every night in any case. We hadn't in my previous trip through.
We weren't alone. About a minute later another couple came up to the table. He was a tall fellow, about my height and size, with a bronze tan, fashionably long curly brown hair, and absolutely perfect teeth. She was almost as tall as he was, at least in heels, slim and sleek, blonde and blue eyed, darkly tanned. They were both in their mid to late twenties, about five years older than Marilyn and me. They obviously worked out, but probably at a health club somewhere. Those tans were too even to be natural. "114?", he asked.
I stood up. "114. Welcome." I held out my hand to him.
He shook it firmly. "Thank you. I'm Harrison Blakewell, and this is my wife."
"Melissa Hockney-Blakewell.", she said, reaching out to shake my hand.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Carl Buckman and this is my wife Marilyn." They both shook Marilyn's hand as well, although she didn't rise, and they settled themselves across from us, with Harrison facing me and Melissa facing my wife.
"Well, it's nice to meet you, too.", said Harrison. "We weren't sure who we'd be seated with. Where are you folks from?"
"I'm from Utica.", answered Marilyn.
Melissa looked at her husband. "Utica, that's upstate somewhere, isn't it?"
"Yes, I think so." He glanced at me. "Utica's in New York, right?"
I nodded. "It's about halfway between Albany and Syracuse, on the Mohawk River. I gather you must live downstate."
"Oh, yes. We have a home in White Plains. We work in the city of course." The way he said 'the city', you just knew he meant Manhattan.
"Sure." I looked over at Marilyn and said, "They're way downstate, in Westchester County."
"And you work in New York? I could never live or work in a big city like that.", commented Marilyn. I smiled at that. Marilyn really would go nuts in any sort of urban setting. Hell, she wasn't all that thrilled living downtown in Albany when she went to St. Rose!
"Oh, I'd never want to work anywhere else!", gushed Melissa. "Of course, in our jobs, if you're not in the city, you're really nowhere."
I looked at them curiously. "Oh? What do you do?"
We were interrupted at that point by an Asian waiter asking for our drink orders. Marilyn ordered a whiskey sour while I ordered a gin and tonic; our tablemates both ordered vodka martinis. "Hmm, what was that?", asked Harrison.
"I was just curious what you do, if you have to do it in New York."
"Oh, yes, certainly. Well, I'm a consultant with McKinsey and Company. Strategic planning, that sort of thing."
"And I'm a stock analyst with Merrill Lynch!", announced Melissa. "Airlines mostly. What about you? What do you do?"
"Well, nothing yet. I just graduated with my teaching degree though, so I'm going to try and get a job teaching.", answered Marilyn.
"Oh, a school teacher! That's wonderful. That's such an important job!" Melissa said this with the sincerest smile and the most insincere tone, as if it was definitely an unimportant job. School teachers were nice, since the public schools needed them, to teach the less fortunate. When they had children, if they had children, they would be sent to private academies, where they would be instructed by educators.
Marilyn really didn't pick up on it, but she was simply a nice girl who had never met anybody like this pair before. She asked, "What's a stock ... well, whatever ... do?"
"I work on Wall Street, of course, determining what stocks are really worth and reporting to our investors and clients. Private clients, really.", she replied. As opposed to the regular clients.
We both glanced over at Harrison. "I advise corporations, you know, the Fortune 500 types, on five and ten year strategies and planning, that sort of thing." He was very pleased with himself.
"Sounds interesting.", I agreed. Corporate consulting - if we can't make money solving your problem, we can certainly make money prolonging it!
It was fascinating watching these two. They were some of the most self absorbed baby boomer yuppie pond scum you could imagine! Quite a bit of their attitude was going right over Marilyn's head, but not all of it. I just sat there nodding and making encouraging remarks as they talked about themselves through dinner. They were Important People, moving up the ladder to become More Important People, and in the due course of time, they would become Very Important People. This went on all through the soup and salad courses, and almost through the end of the entrée.