excerpt

She was waiting for a table in a Nassau restaurant, a frumpy, frazzled
woman with a peeling snout, saying to him, Haven’t I seen you
on the Sunrise?
They’d returned from the shore excursion together, he lugging
her shopping bags while she propelled her wheel-chaired mother
along the island’s potted beach road. Later that night she turned
up at the piano bar, drained a Mint Julep, then exited. Buddy
sought her out the following day. She invited him along to a lecture
on seabirds.
– Remember what the boss say, Sam cautioned.
The cruise line had always been ambiguous about the help fraternizing
with guests. Inappropriate friendships, as such romances were
called, could be cause for dismissal. But if shipboard dalliances
resulted in the booking of additional holidays— if a passenger went
home with a smile on her face—who’d complain?
This woman wore unfashionable clothes, sensible shoes and little
makeup. While others took elaborate measures to conceal
their weight, she flaunted hers. Had he passed her on the street
Buddy wouldn’t have afforded her a second look. Yet in her presence,
that sunburned nose, the nectar breath, she wielded the
power of a sorceress. For the first time in his life the piano player
was beguiled.
– This one, he confided in Sam, is different.
One morning over coffee he was doodling on a coaster. As though
in a trance, he wrote, Her eyes look inside my head and see everything.
He underlined the last word.
At the card table behind the engine room they had a diagnosis for
Buddy’s affliction: Man Overboard. It’s what they called it when a
player fell for a passenger. So named since a despondent Filipino
waiter, having been rebuked by a flirtatious diner, jumped from …

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/0980897971