Ah, what would the anthology be without a romance to join our SF, mystery, historical, and gritty realism?  And a nice beginning it is, too.  J

 

The Cruise

by

Lisa Bajer

 

Rebecca knew she shouldn’t have come on this cruise. All Mavis wanted was to find Rebecca a man. Like she needed someone to complicate her life.  She unpacked her suitcase.  Already, she missed the activity from the hospital, missed joking with the doctors and nurses.  Okay so it wasn’t an important job, like Mavis had, but she liked it.  Nothing wrong with being a receptionist.

“Let’s go to the pool,” Mavis said.

Right the pool, like she was going to put on a bathing suit. Not in this lifetime. “Go ahead, I’ll come later.”

Mavis slammed Rebecca’s suitcase closed. “You can do that later. We’re here to have fun remember?”

Yeah, fun. Rebecca shrugged and grabbed her swimsuit. She’d put it on, but there was no way she’d let anyone see her in it.  

“Come on, quit stalling.” Mavis nudged her. Rebecca pulled the wrap around her and followed Mavis.  Dumb idea, this whole thing.

Rebecca saw one lone man sat on the edge of the pool. Something about this felt like a set-up. He looked familiar.

“Guy!” Mavis waved at the man.  “Guy Adams is that really you?”

Rebecca groaned, not Guy Adams of all people. She had the biggest crush on him in high school.  Of course he’d never remember the geeky fat girl who sat next to him in Chemistry. 

He stood up and walked toward them. “Mavis Arnold?”

Of course everyone remembered Mavis, her gorgeous, blond sister. Rebecca swore she must have been adopted. With her dark hair and almost black eyes, she didn’t resemble anyone in the family.

 “Rebecca, is that you?”  Guy smiled at her.

Rebecca wanted the ground to swallow her. “Yeah it’s me.”

“So what have you been doing with yourself these past five years?” Guy put his arm on her back and led her to a chair.

 “I work at Parma Hospital.” Rebecca looked around. Mavis had disappeared. 

“Ah I should have known. I figured you’d go into the medical field. Nurse, Doctor?”

Rebecca laughed. She loved the way Guy smiled at her “Are you kidding, too much schooling for me. I had all I could do to get through high school.”

“You won’t believe how many times I almost asked you to tutor me.” Guy said.

Rebecca leaned forward in her chair. “Yeah right, Guy, you aced the course.”

“Actually I really wanted to ask you out.  But I was afraid you’d turn down a goofball like me.”

If only he knew how she fantasized about him. His sense of humor was one of the things that attracted her.  “You wanted to go out with me?”

“Why does that surprise you?  I used to stare at you hoping you’d look my way but you never did.”

Rebecca shook her head. This couldn’t be true. Was this some kind of joke?

“Really, Beck, will you have dinner with me?”

“I guess, I mean, okay, yeah.”  Maybe this cruise was the start of something good, after all…