She was sitting on the dark banquette, and her torso being long, she had the appearance of someone with average height. That's why she didn't want to dance!

            "What would you have done if she had said yes?" Harry asked while laughing.

            "I would have danced and danced." I said.

            We seemed to attract trouble even when in high spirits. I'll never forget, the crew was angry with Harry and me at one point when they had an emergency drill, and we were told to put our life vests on and all gather in the appropriate area. During the drill, we decided to do a little shopping inside this charming little Hermes store we discovered on the way to the escape route. I was picking up items and examining them, and Harry looked at me and said "Marc, you should really save your money and get out of debt.”

            "Out of debt?" I replied, in the deserted store in the middle of a sinking ship, "That's like being skinny!"

            One of the cruise staff briskly walked by and looked in at us casually browsing. "That's not where you should be," they snapped, "Get up on deck!" They actually snapped at us!

            We stood out there amongst some of the other passengers, and Harry said, "If we have to wait for the people on this boat to be loaded into the life boats, we're definitely going to be down, under and drowned." I couldn't believe I was laughing, but it was true! "They say women and children first," he continued, "but there aren't any children on this boat, that's for sure. If there are children, that means that the 80 year old women and their 60 year old kids will be getting in the boats faster than we will." We both laughed.

            Finally, the boat reached England, and I felt a bit reborn. In all it was a six day trip. We disembarked, were loaded onto buses, and brought to an area in London where they opened the doors, and, for the most part, said, "Get off." After six days on a boat together, Harry and I needed a break from each other, and so we went to our hotel, he in his room, I in mine. We did our own things. Harry left the next day, and I soon learned it wasn't that he was just a little tired of being around me, but was frankly happy to be rid of me. I stayed two more days in London, I ran into friends, went into some chic places, had dinner at the SOHO house, constantly wafting my hands in the air because people smoke like chimneys over there and I can't stand cigarettes. All the while, I kept calling Beth because I had never being able to reach her. I called and called ...and called. I flew to Prague on the third day to meet my family. All the while, continuing to call, "Beth, Beth, it's Marc." Finally, while in Prague, and a week after leaving the Queen Mary, I reached her. She was very stiff response on the phone.

            "Well hi Beth!" I said.

            There was a long pause and then she said, "I think we need to take a break."

            What are you talking about?" I asked.

            "It's your phone calls. Marc, you're insane. You've called and called and acted as though I did something to you." she half-yelled.

            "Oh no," I said, "you don't understand. I was calling you as a friend!"

            "If that's how you treat your friends," she said, "then perhaps it's better not to be one." and hung up on me.

            I always went on and on to my friends like that in a crisis. I always needed an ear to chew when I had a problem. When I reach out in need, I reach out with octopus arms–everybody hears from me. Beth just didn't know me that well, and she thought I was placing blame specifically on her, accusing her of shoddy arrangements. I wasn't, I just needed a shoulder to cry on.

            How awful, this thing that was supposed to be so lovely, and so much fun, and she was so happy to have done it for me.  No matter how much I tried to think about it or wish, the fact that Beth felt hurt devastated me. I suddenly felt like reaching out to even more friends by phone to console me. Then I decided against it. I suddenly remembered she had given me a noise machine for the trip, which I still use every night to put me to sleep. I don't even know how to set the thing, but the soft sound of crickets puts me to sleep every night to this day, it really was the best new discovery about the entire voyage. I'd need it to get to sleep on the night Beth told me she didn't want to be my friend, that's for sure.

            While I traveled around Prague with my family, we visited castles, palaces, churches... places like that. I finally got to see the famous Infant Jesus of Prague. I was a bit disappointed. When I heard that the statue had spoken in the 17th century, I found out that it was to tell someone that he didn't have his hands, and needed replacements! That was the whole deal! I thought it was something more miraculous than that. He was nothing more than a little Jesus drag queen. He had red garments and purple ones, gold, green, black, white–every kind of gown, with capes and crowns. They would change these little outfits in a succession of feast days or holidays or saints days or different seasons of the Catholic calendar. I remembered back when I had my own little Infant of Prague, my aunt, sly as she was, said, "I know why you have that. It's like a dress-up doll that can't be criticized because it represents our Savior." Now, I thought, "Exactly."

            But even that didn't cheer me up. There I was. Harry was gone and angry. Beth was gone and angry. I'd be going back to London for another two days, feeling sorry for myself, again, and probably humming "A Foggy Day in London Town" even if the city was bright and beautiful. I reluctantly loaded myself and my luggage back onto the jet to head home. The mental baggage was a carry-on. The plane ride ended up being a bit of a surprise. My seat became a bed, and they treated me very well. Some famous rap star was in first class with his posse, and they were having a big celebration, so that made for fun. I slept like a baby.

            The jet landed and I went back to my apartment. I was greeted at the door by my dogs, my precious babies Gomez and Magi (Benny hadn't arrived yet, he hadn't even been born!). Oh, it was never so good to be home. Unpacking was a monumental task that made me want to go on vacation all over again. I needed a forklift to unpack these huge cases full of seersucker suits, navy blazers, white linen trousers, cashmere cardigans, one tuxedo, one dress jacket, twelve different shirts, four different cummerbunds and bow ties, all of those pocket squares, four pairs of shoes, alligator sandals... oh, simply ridiculous!

            I got back into my routine, which wasn't easy. I don't travel on my own, and never leave town for two weeks for anything, other than going to New Orleans to deal with family issues, or client jobs. I discovered I was really out of sorts. It took me three days to get back into the swing. Phone calls to Beth still went unanswered. Harry and I had, of course, patched up our differences in no time flat. One delightful surprise was when he presented me with photographs from our trip. I flipped through them, smiling. There were actually boxes and bags of photos from the entire journey. But the ones we decided were good enough to earn the title "photos of our trip" fit in one small envelope, and there are just twenty one of these.

            The first one shows a woman with her walker.

            The second one, two people dressed formally for dinner, walking in unison on their canes.

            The third one, a man popping a wheelie with his wife in a wheelchair, as he tried to get her into an elevator.

            The fourth one, an enormously fat woman, rolling against the wall as her escort pulled in the opposite direction to keep her balanced. Drunk?

            The fifth one, two little, tiny people, shrunken with age, crawling on two canes each, into the dining room.

            This goes on and on and on for twenty one pictures, ending in a wonderful shot of me in a seersucker suit and Ferrangamo spectator shoes, sitting in a shiny red motorized wheelchair. Such bad taste...but oh, so funny.

            A week after my return, my next door neighbor, a young and handsome twenty-two year old, was telling me his family was going for a cruise on the Queen Mary. I told him, "Oh, I'll show you some photographs when you return."

            "Why can't I see them now?" he asked.

            "Because you should see them when you return." I said simply.

            When he did, he looked through the pack, then looked at me and said, "Man, this is hysterical. This is exactly what it was like!"

            Days after, I finally got into the swing of things. I found I was missing the boat, and the trip in general. It's funny how you always miss what you don't have, and I honestly missed Beth. She'd been fun. She was young and fresh, and had a great outlook. She hadn't worked for the long amount of time that I had, and was still new and enjoying her career. I found that when I was around her, that energy could be shared. I did miss her.

            It wasn't until two years later when she suddenly popped back into my life. I was crossing the street from my apartment, and ran smack into her. It was a bit awkward, but we smiled and I chatted with her, eventually saying, "We should have sushi." She said she'd love to.

            We made a date. I met her in front of our renowned greasy chopstick. We entered the doors, sat down, and ordered our plates. I had the most unhealthy thing you can have from the menu, fried tempura shrimp rolls. She had salmon. We smiled and chit-chatted, laughed, and promised to see each other again, and did. It became a tradition. We were never as close as we were before, of course, but at least now we had the greasy chopstick. We went from knowing each other, and the promise of sharing stories of the Queen Mary II out on the high ocean, to sitting there, really enjoying ourselves and rebuilding our friendship...with raw fish on chopsticks. Actually, those lunches with Beth were more enjoyable than any meal I had on the boat.

            The good thing about the boat was that it gave me something to talk about at cocktail parties, something to laugh about when I had a comparison to make, "Oh yes, well, this reminds me of when on the boat..."

            The best line on the boat was when Harry was talking to someone that neither of us could actually see. There was this very interesting woman who used to sit out on the deck very late at night and smoke cigarettes. She was quite old, so much so that her head had kind of recessed into the shoulders of her parka jacket. She was almost like some sort of ghoulish but friendly sea ghost. We struck up a conversation with her, and Harry said, "My friend has never been on a cruise before, and I've been on several."

            But you're not on one now." the woman said from beneath her coat

            Well," Harry said quizzically, "of course we are."

            "No, my boy." she said, pulling her cigarette up to her collar to take another puff, "We are on a voyage."

            I learned that a voyage is across the sea. A cruise is island-hopping and port-hopping. So, we were on a voyage. We had been on a voyage.

            Life is a voyage, and my life has been, and still is, like that voyage. Full of treats and special wonder, arguments and makeups, dress-ups and dress-downs, real disappointments and funny disappointments, too much food, too much booze, not enough dancing...but still a lot of laughs. I was able to share this reflection with Beth, and she agreed. We smiled as we realized the voyage had served as the catalyst, and a promise, of more lunches at the greasy chopstick to come.