me and I maintained more than a healthy fear and respect for them.
Cut to the Captain’s formal dinner evening. I wore a stunning pale pink iridescent gargantuan dress with hoop skirt crinoline underneath. Perhaps I thought I was headed to a southern cotillion or on the verge of drinking a virgin mint julep, if it were even possible to manage such a thing. Either way, I was struggling to fit through the tiny cabin doors and down the narrow hallways. This being the eighties, sharing that space with the shoulder pads on the formal wear of the other passengers provided additional spatial challenges. I kept a smile on my face as my fabric was smashed, turning my round hoop skirt into more of an oblong or oval, and did my best Scarlett O’Hara interpretation as I descended the grand staircase in the lobby of the ship.
At that exact moment, a great “Oooohhh” escaped the crowd assembled below, but it was not due to my immense loveliness. Instead, the ship had careened into a large stormy wave and I tumbled into the rail and down a few steps, bouncing and flailing all the way down. It’s a good thing I had all those extra layers. The bruises could have been ugly. The ship photographer was kind enough to stop taking photos temporarily; a relief, since my parents had a penchant for purchasing all pictures taken of us by the cruise ship staff, whether good or bad, and I certainly didn’t need one of me splayed on the stairs like a large dropped cupcake; dress puffed around my neck like a demented layer of icing.
I regained my composure and my slight, but regal, upright stature, and attempted to glide gracefully into the dining room with only a minor limp. We sat down at the table and watched our water glasses as ice and water sloshed over the tops of the rims, darkening the peach-colored tablecloths. With each pitch or roll, my stomach gurgled a little, but I was a child. I would be fine. These sorts of things don’t affect children, right? Adults get seasick but not kids. I drank the remainder of the water in my glass and imbibed in a buttery plate of escargot, with a large lobster tail on the side. I loved the way you could order food on a ship; bits and pieces of your favorite things, or simply multiple entrees without thinking twice about consequence. I could get used to this type of decadence. I rubbed my hands together in eager anticipation for dessert. Focusing on the food made me forget about my stomach troubles.
Belly full and mouth a little shiny, I headed out to the main lounge for some dancing. My father taught me to ballroom dance at an early age and he took every chance he could to show off my skills. They weren’t competition worthy or anything, but I could hold my own, be led easily by someone with skill, and amaze the older crowd with my mediocre footwork. My dad had been a cotillion escort during his younger days in the south and found the skill to be of utmost importance. In his eyes, the youth of my generation were suffering from severe ballroom dancing inadequacy; a condition he equated to bad breath and limp handshakes; unforgiveable.
We took the stage. My mother snapped photos. I noticed the curtains, navy blue velvet with millions of embedded pieces of glitter, catching the stage lights and disco ball in a way that lit the room. I also noticed that the curtains were swaying so violently that they rarely touched the ground, but instead, kicked up into the air like the waves outside. As we box-stepped, a step back turned into five as we fell to the rhythm towards the ocean with the listing ship. Then we’d spring back in the other direction, attempting to make our little rapid steps appear to be part of the dance. At one point we spun and lost our balance as the ship plunged over a watery precipice, but my father’s strength kept me afoot, his fingers digging into my back to hold us both steady. A few people walked out. I hoped it wasn’t because of our sloppy performance. I don’t like to disappoint a crowd. But I had a feeling it was because they needed to quickly find a place to lose their dinner. I was starting to feel the same way.
“I think I need to go to the room,” I said. I swear I could see the green of my face reflected in my father’s eyes.
I excused myself rapidly and tried to find my way back to our stateroom, a difficult task when all hallways look basically the same, like low-ceilinged hamster habitrails. Desperation took over. Wait. I’m an even-numbered cabin and this is the side of the ship with the odd-numbered cabins. Please let me make it back. I slammed into the wall as the ship fell to the side, and ping-ponged into the other wall of the hallway as the boat righted itself. I kept envisioning the enormous waves outside, and our ship as a tiny plastic boat like the kind I played with in the bathtub as a child. Except this tub held dark water, miles deep, and had man-eating sharks. I might have been having a panic attack but was too young to realize it. That was least of my troubles though, as my intestines were now almost in full rebellion.
I made it back to the cabin in time. I won’t inflict you with the details of what happened next, but suffice it to say, escargot might not have been the best choice for a rocky night on the ship. The snails traveled out of me faster than they ever could have traveled during their time alive. Strangely, this memory has not stopped me from eating the delicacy on later sailings. While there have been other food and alcohol overindulgences that make me shy away forever, even at a passing glance or whiff, I can’t refuse the escargot. Those slimy little suckers in all their garlic butter glory have a warm, welcome place in my stomach any time. I just make sure that I am on dry land or that the seas are generally calm first.
Since then, my “ocean issues” have not receded with the tides. I have a hard time fathoming the, well, dark fathoms of the sea. There are all sorts of crazy, creepy, large-toothed, spiky, slimy things down there that scare the heck out of me. Surprisingly, this hasn’t stopped me from cruising. I’ve since been on over a dozen more. I wasn’t sure if those adventures would stop once I left the sea-bound confines of my parental home and started travelling on my own. It hasn’t. I’ve dragged my husband on a few as well. He enjoys a good steam room, a feature commonly found on today’s cruise ships. As long as he can jog on deck, take a steam every day, eat plentifully and drink copiously, then what’s not to like? I happen to agree. Throw in a good trivia contest, or a passenger newlywed game show and you have the ingredients for a perfectly relaxing, if a bit cheesy, vacation. We are having a ball.
Hypochondriac Travel Tip #2
Feeling apprehensive about new people? Overcome it and break the ice with a rousing game of Capture the Flag.
2
Finding My Parent Trap Twin
I’ve always dreamed of being Haley Mills. I watched the Parent Trap approximately 386 times as a child. That’s a rough estimate. I can recite that movie word for word, and I do a heck of a take on the song, “Let’s Get Together, Yeah Yeah Yeah.” At the time that I first fell in love with that movie, I was about eight years old and an only child. But I knew. She was out there. My twin was waiting for me at a luxurious all girls’ camp. We might not get along at first because of our uncanny resemblance, but we would eventually bond over a picture of a favorite boy singer and become best friends. Past that point, the story in my mind got a little fuzzy, since my parents were together and happily married. I had no parents to trap! But I knew I couldn’t have been the only child.
Perhaps there had been a mix up at the hospital and they thought she was dead. I could bring her home from camp and we could all be reunited. Or maybe they saw us both and just liked me better and thought two was too many. In that case, I would need to think carefully about bringing her back home. Either way, she was at that camp, a specific camp that had not yet been chosen, and Fate patiently waited to bring us together.
• • •
“How much? $1,800? Are you crazy?” My mother looked at my father like he had just asked her to go to a swinger’s party. “You must be out of your mind. I’m spending $1,800 for Kat to go to summer camp for three weeks? She’s only eleven for Christ’s sake. I don’t even spend that much for my vacations.” My mother grew up poor, in a two bedroom house packed with twelve people. I guess I could see where she was coming from. My dad, however, grew up in Florence, South Carolina, in somewhat high society. He escorted girls to cotillions, had maids, and had actually attended the boys’ camp on the other side of the mountain from the expensive girls’ camp in question. They had trouble seeing eye to eye on the matter. I sat back quietly to watch it all unfold, already knowing that my mother would concede. She handled the money, but my dad talked her into most things.
“I had this