TISSUE WARNING! I even made myself cry.
Chapter 37
Not Yours


The final strains of the song ended and their feet stopped if only to allow them to concentrate on the job at hand—committing every particle of it to memory. So they stood in each other’s embrace as their eyes moved slowly fixing each facial feature in their mind. Their ears filtered the noise of the room and recorded only the beat of their hearts and sound of their breathing as their sense of smell captured and bottled the moment forever.

But it was the sense of touch that pushed past these other senses and bullied its way to the front. It was no contest. While the other senses were confined to one specific part of the body, touch was free to roam over every inch of skin. The hardness of muscle, sharpness of bone, and heat of soft skin contrasted with soft wool, slippery silk and starched cotton to create the most lasting sensory imprint of all.

They looked surprised as if woken from a dream as the next song began. Still holding her hand, Urs led Annie Joy between the other couples and back to their table where they made their excuses and left.

“You’re a beautiful dancer, Ers. Thank you,” Annie Joy said leaning into him and linking her arm through his.

“My pleasure,” he smiled back. “I took a few lessons when I lived in Amsterdam. It was in one of my weaker moments,” he added, with a wry smile as he remembered.

“What we do in the name of love eh?”

“How did you…?”

“Face it Ers, how many men wake up one morning and say, ‘Gee I think I’d like to learn to dance?’, unless you’re Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly that is?”

“You got me there, but I guess it wasn’t a total loss. I don’t see you hobbling with any broken toes.”

Naturally Annie Joy couldn’t resist a fake hobble and Urs, being a gentleman, had to put his arm around her in a catch that felt anything but fake. He continued catching her until the elevator opened and they stepped out onto their deck.

As if they needed reminding, the usually empty hall was now littered with suitcases piled outside some of the stateroom doors. Without looking, their hands found each other and they started walking slowly toward Annie Joy’s door.

“It must be getting late,” Annie Joy said stating the obvious.

Urs looked at his watch. “10:00. We still have an hour before they start collecting them.”

“Are you all packed?”

“Just about. Annie Joy are you going to eat breakfast tomorrow?” Urs rushed on nervously, hoping for one last chance to see her.

“You think you can blink one last cinnamon roll out of Marie?” she challenged trying to lighten the mood.

“I’ll do my best,” Urs assured her trying not to sound too eager.

“Then we’d better not disappoint her.”

“Or Saava,” Urs added, for good measure, as they approached her door.

“We dock early and I don’t know what order they’ll be calling the colors to disembark so I’ll bring everything with me to breakfast. They start serving at 6:00. Is that too early?”

Urs’ look said: Nothing is too early. I am always on time. I am Swiss.

“Right, then I’ll meet you at 6:00,” she said a little too brightly and quickly turned and opened her door.

She licked her lips nervously as she turned back to say goodnight. Would he kiss her? Is that what she was waiting for? How could she not want to feel his warm mouth on hers? Too dangerous, those soft lips, his breath so hot and sweet as his tongue danced with hers, exploring.

He gazed at her lips. If only she would lean toward him a bit. One kiss he told himself; that was all he would want, to feel her tongue tracing his lips as their mouths met in a long, deep kiss. But how could one ever be enough?

A door clicked open down the hall and Urs turned in the direction of the noise to see a white-haired man in a bathrobe. At the sound Annie Joy slipped into her room and closed the door. ‘So close, so close.’ She sank weakly onto the bed, trembling, and tried to work out if it was from relief or regret.

The man in the bathrobe shoved two suitcases outside his door. He glanced up to see the young man raise his hand as if to knock on the door then turn on his heel and walk away alone, head down, hands jammed in his pockets. The old man had been sleeping soundly for more than an hour when the young man returned to that same door and bent down to unzip the suitcase.

**********

To Annie Joy it felt as if she’d only been asleep a few minutes before her alarm went off. She quickly pulled on some jeans and stuffed her nightgown inside. She pulled on her boots, grabbed one of the ship’s fuzzy mohair lap blankets, threw her jacket on over her gown and left.

She stood a little apart from the few hardy souls who braved the cold wind on the top deck as the Statue of Liberty welcomed them home.





“I thought you might be up here,” Urs murmured into her ear as he adjusted her blanket more tightly around her and rested his hands on her shoulders.

She answered by leaning slightly into his chest and turning her head to smile up at him. He smoothed her hair and tucked her head under his chin smiling at the perfect fit. Lady Liberty was directly in front of them when she spoke. “I knew that was you, that you would want to be up here to see this.”

“Remember the last time we stood like this?” he asked softly.

“Of course, when we were looking at all those stars, the night of the new moon. That’s when we started our pretend handfasting. We may not have a piece of paper that says we’re married but we did better than the ones who did.”
She turned around to face him. “I want to thank you Ers. You were the best husband I’ve never married,” she began straight-faced but ended up giggling at the end. Before he had time to react she had turned around again.

“You sure do know how to turn a guy’s head, Annie Joy. Just do me a favor and don’t spread it around. I wouldn’t want to ruin my spotless reputation,” he baited her and waited. This time he caught an elbow to his ribs.

They stood for a few minutes watching silently as the statue slid past them before she spoke again. “You know I jokingly called this my Freedom Cruise but in some ways it really was. I get it now. I knew I had the freedom to choose to spend my life in my own way but until now I never had the courage to follow my heart and my intuition. That’s the only real success isn’t it?”

Urs answered by kissing her hair gently as if she were a child giving a prize-winning answer and tightening his arms around her in a brief hug. A few minutes later she gave up her watch to the cold with an involuntary shudder, “Brrrr it’s freezing. I’m going in. I’ll see you at breakfast.”

She barely left Urs time to remind her, “6:00” before she disappeared inside. He decided one time around the deck would allow her enough time to get to her room and set off at a brisk pace just as the pitch black sky began to lighten on the horizon.


Annie Joy’s half of the cinnamon roll was ready and waiting for her when she set her small carryon bag and purse on the floor beside her chair at 6:01.

“Wow, just how many blinks did you give her? Marie really outdid herself today.” Annie Joy ogled her half.

“Just one, honest,” Urs grinned holding up a hand as if to swear an oath.

“They must have a cumulative effect then.”

“May I get you anything else, Miss Annie?” Saava asked as he set a pot of tea and a cup and saucer beside her.

“No, thank you Saava.”

“Then may I wish you both a safe trip to your home.”

“Thank you,” Urs and Annie Joy said almost in unison as Saava gave a little formal bow to her and shook hands with Urs.

Annie Joy slathered butter on her roll and took a big bite. She poured a little milk in her cup, added the tea and took a cautious sip.

“Is that all you’re eating?” Urs asked worriedly. Was she sick or maybe on a diet? Gott forbid!

“Oh no, I’m going to get some museli in a minute. Some Swiss guy I met got me hooked on the stuff, can you imagine?” she fussed, only just managing to keep a straight face.

“Sounds like a wery smart guy. I happen to like it myself.”

Annie Joy looked at his almost empty plate. “Seems like you also happen to like omelets and bacon.”

“Ah yes,” he looked down at his plate and then up at her. “A friend helped me rediscover the joys of a full breakfast.”

**********

They shared the high wing-backed settee in the small library behind the Coffee Connection as they listened for their colors. The only physical contact they could or would allow themselves was the side-by-side closeness of their bodies as they sat and talked these last few minutes. They each nervously fingered one end of Annie Joy’s long white woolen scarf, connecting them like a lifeline.

“I wish we…” Urs began.

“Me too.” Annie Joy finished. “You know for a Swiss your timing sure sucks.”

“Ja, you’re right about that,” he laughed bitterly.

“There’s this sense of unreality on a cruise, like it doesn’t really count, but we both know better,” she sighed. “You know Mary called us two ships that pass in the night.”
She dropped her end of the scarf and touched his arm. “I can’t, I won’t be like that. I’m going to be special, like…like the Titanic. Thank you, Urs, for helping me learn that I deserve that,” she choked out.

You are already special to me Annie Joy. You and your blue eyes and dimples, wery special.

“All passengers with lime green luggage tags may now disembark on Deck 3 Forward. Repeat. All passengers with lime green luggage tags may now disembark on Deck 3 Forward.”

“I guess that’s me,” she smiled apologetically and stood. Urs rose along with her but still held onto her scarf.

“Just remember what happened to the Titanic, Annie Joy,” he cautioned.

He could see a flash of her spirit return as her eyes sparkled, “I remember, Ers, but the band sure gave them a hell of a party till the very end.”

“All passengers with pink luggage tags may now disembark on Deck 3 Aft. Repeat. All passengers with pink luggage tags may now disembark on Deck 3 Aft.”

Urs looked down and winced at the pink tag on his carryon bag.

“I’ll never tell, Ers,” Annie Joy teased.

Their banter stopped.
Their smiles faded.
There was no time left.

Urs leaned down and tipped her chin up with two fingers.
Softly, slowly he kissed the corner of her trembling mouth.
“Goodbye, Annie Joy.”

She wanted to be brave, but her courage deserted her and she took the coward’s way out.
She rested her hands lightly on his shoulders and stretched up to kiss his cheek.
“Goodbye, Urs.”

They shouldered their carryons and walked through the coffee bar.

“No egrets?” Urs asked, remembering the first cartoon she’d given him, but all Annie Joy could trust herself to do was shake her head.

They turned and began walking backward in opposite directions.

“Hang loose, petit Papillion,” he called after her as she swiped at the corner of her eye with the back of her hand.

“You too HL.” He looked to be doing a whole lot of those blinky things. Me too, she thought as she turned and kept on walking.

A sudden startling bolt of desire struck him without warning and he wondered how it could be. Was this some spell, some loss of sanity that overcame people on a cruise? You board, join the cast of perfect strangers, actors on a watery stage, play your part, recite your lines and then the play is over, the curtain falls and you disembark for your real life?

He gave a hollow laugh at the irony of the situation. The last thing Urs saw as Annie Joy turned the corner and disappeared was her uniquely personal luggage tag proclaiming ‘Not Yours’.