First Class Voyage

5.

DAY 3 – AT SEA

This was not the first cruise Peter and Maureen had ventured on. In fact, since Peter retired over ten years ago, they had taken several cruises all over the globe. So when it came to days when they were at sea, Maureen knew exactly how to spend the day…Trivia games. Not only were the cruise lines excellent at buffets and transporting passengers from one port to another, they had excellent staff that filled the days at sea with activities and trivia was right up Maureen’s alley.

There was no family breakfast today so Maureen came back to her cabin after a delicious plate of Eggs Benedict and began calling each cabin that housed a member of her family. They were to meet in the piano bar at precisely 10:55am to begin the days’ trivia games. Maureen was a challenge to the other players all on her own, but with her family by her side, she was sure they could not be beaten.

“We will win every game,” she stated as Peter was putting on his shoes.

“You hope,” he chuckled.

“Oh no! We WILL win. Who could beat us?”

And with that they exited their suite and headed to the piano bar to take on the rest of the ship.

*****

Andrew and Rory, Janie and Matt, Katy and Mark, and Paul and David sat with their parents waiting for the trivia to start. Rory was the only one happy to be playing.

“Oh, come on,” he insisted. “It’ll be fun!”

Maureen smiled at her son-in-law and inspected her pencils, making sure they were sharp and ready to fill in the answer sheet. She had three pencils, in case the first two became blunt.

The crew member stood by the piano and explained the rules of the game. They were playing “Name That Tune” from the hits of the 1950’s. Everyone rolled their eyes and sighed.

“No point me being here,” said Katy.

“Me either,” chimed in Mark.

Janie and Matt frowned, knowing they would also be absolutely no help at all to their mother’s victory quest.

Maureen shooshed them all and the first piece of music began. They had to name the song and the artist. David and Paul took out their phones and began playing a game. Andrew leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. Mark and Katy were talking and Janie was trying hard to listen to the music, and Matt was amused by the intense look on her face.

Rory leaned in to Maureen and whispered in her ear.

“Oh yes!” Maureen beamed. “Brilliant!”

Andrew turned to his husband, eyebrows raised.

“I do know some music from that era,” Rory grinned.

The next piece of music began and Peter and Maureen had immediate recognition in their expression and so it went. For twenty songs everyone but Rory, Maureen and Peter sat twiddling their thumbs, only remaining because Maureen would be devastated if they left. And after twenty songs and the answers being given, Maureen lost by one point to a gentlemen in a wheelchair and an oxygen tank. She was mortified.

As the crowd disbursed, Maureen sat in the chair, head hung low, shamed by her loss.

“I should have won,” she muttered to herself.

Janie and Matt, though finding her mood rather melodramatic, felt bad and offered to come back in the afternoon for the next game. Maureen’s head lifted and a giant smile appeared, obviously lifting her spirits dramatically. Mark and Katy felt guilted into offering to come too, as did Andrew, although Rory was only too happy to try again.

“Okay then,” Maureen beamed. “One o’clock we meet back here to win this time!”

*****

Matt and Janie spent lunch on the lido deck with Ella. Christopher was a bit fussy so Patty stayed with him in her cabin. They had hamburgers and fries and an apple and Ella chatted happily the whole time they ate. It was obvious to whoever saw them that Ella was the apple of Matt’s eye and he doted on her with more love than he could ever have imagined having for a child. He didn’t think he could love Janie any more than he did but the love for a child was very different than the love one has for a spouse and he understood that now.

As he listened to Ella chat away about absolutely nothing in particular, he watched Janie watch their daughter and he could see it in her eyes too. How very lucky I am, he thought. How grateful I am for her, he smiled at his wife.

Adam and Tyler interrupted his thoughts as they slid onto the bench next to their mom.

“Hey!” Janie smiled brightly at her boys.

“Hi!” Adam kissed his mom’s cheek. “Hello Ella,” he grinned.

“A’am!” she grinned. “I ate my boogah!”

“Yes you did,” he laughed. “I’m glad I’m almost fluent in Ella.”

“There is a three-on-three tournament starting this afternoon. You wanna play?” Tyler asked Matt.

“Nah, thanks, but check with Mark. He’s always up for a game.”

“Will do,” Tyler replied and then inhaled his hamburger.

With lunch finished, Matt and Janie took Ella to Patty so they could, once again, go to the piano bar in support of Maureen.

“Do you know what subject this one is?” Matt asked as they stood in the elevator.

“Celebrity something,” she smiled.

“Great. So I won’t know any of these answers either,” Matt frowned.

“You never know. You may have dated one of them in your previous life,” Janie smirked.

Matt grabbed her by the waist and bent her backwards and laid a huge juicy kiss on her in a very romantic style. The elevator dinged and the doors opened to a group of women. They cheered loudly as Matt let his wife up and pronounced for all to hear, “There was nobody of consequence before you!”

The women all but swooned as he ushered his wife past them.

“If only I could find one of those,” they heard as they headed to meet Maureen.

*****

Everyone was there but Paul. He was in the gym working out and decided to skip this round, according to David. Maureen gathered her brood together to give them a pep talk.

“I know you think that this is a bit ridiculous, but I’d really like to win this time,” she encouraged. “Please do your best.”

Katy stifled a snicker and Mark bit his lip to stop from laughing. Andrew rolled his eyes and Rory patted Maureen’s hand and said he would try his hardest.

This game involved looking at photos of famous people and writing down their names. Janie didn’t think it sounded too hard. She watched movies and listened to music so she was hopeful that maybe this time she could contribute.

The family wrestled with the other participants trying to get close enough to the photos to make their guesses. After the first two, John Travolta and Harrison Ford, Janie was feeling quite confident, that is until she came to picture number three, then four and five.

“I have no idea who these people are,” she whined to Katy who was standing beside her.

“Me either,” she commiserated. “I think Maureen will think twice before asking me to play again.”

They slowly made their way through all twenty photographs and looked at their paper. They only had thirteen names. Maureen would not be happy. They made their way back to the table where the family was gathering to compare notes, Maureen writing down the names on the ‘official’ paper they would score from. As they compared their lists and Maureen recorded their final answers, they realized there were only two that they could not agree on. Numbers eleven and seventeen were giving them trouble.

“I think eleven is Lionel Ritchie,” Rory said.

Maureen frowned. “I thought it looked like Denzel Washington.”

Janie decided not to say anything. Katy looked around at the puzzled expressions, “It’s neither. It’s Billy Ocean. I’m sure.”

Maureen looked at Katy, skeptical. “It looks like Denzel. I have seen a few of his movies.”

Katy just shook her head and pursed her lips.

“How about number seventeen?” Andrew said.

Mark offered his opinion. “I think it’s Criss Cross. You know those rapper kids from the nineties?”

Nobody else had an answer so Maureen scribbled down Mark’s suggestion.

“Silly name,” she muttered as she wrote.

The staff member called time and the answers began. People were yelling out their guesses from all over the lounge and Maureen looked happier with each correct answer she had.

They came to number eleven and the young lady leading the game said on her last three cruises nobody had gotten the next answer correct. Katy sat back and folded her arms. She had watched Maureen write down Denzel Washington on the paper.

“Any guesses?” came the voice through the microphone.

Several names were called out, both Denzel and Lionel amongst them. They were told they were all wrong. Finally, Katy had had enough.

“Billy Ocean,” she yelled.

“Correct!” came the reply. “Well done!”

Maureen’s eyes flew open wide and she looked up at Katy then back at her paper.

“Good job!” Mark grinned and kissed her on the cheek.

Everyone had moved on to number twelve.

“Told ya!” Katy pouted. “But your mother doesn’t listen to me!”

On through the list they went to number seventeen, the other questionable answer they had.

“Kid ‘n Play,” came the voice from the other side of the room.

“Yep. That’s it!” said the young lady with the microphone.

The entire room seemed to groan all at the same time.

“Oh well,” Maureen patronized Mark. “That was a hard one.”

Katy folded her arms and looked at Mark. He shrugged and tried to hide his grin.

By the end of the game, Maureen had eighteen answers correct and again lost by one to the team that had answered number seventeen correctly. She wasn’t happy.

“Oh come on!” she said. “We should be killing these other teams. There isn’t a smarter group of people on this ship than you lot right here!” She really wasn’t happy at all. “Andrew, you need to step it up next game. And Janie? I know you’re a smart girl. Now come on! Next game is in an hour. Let’s do this!”

Mark led Katy by the hand out of the bar before any incidents happened. He was fighting his grin all the way to the coffee bar where he ordered two drinks.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Katy snapped. “NO mention of the fact she would have at least tied with the other team if she had just listened to me, ONCE!”

“It’s just a game. A stupid game,” Mark tried to calm her down.

“I know that!” she snapped back. “But your mother doesn’t. Not a word about that fact that I had the right answer.”

“It’s not personal,” Mark said.

“Oh yes it is! Rory is wonderful. Janie is perfect. But me? I don’t count for anything. We’ve been together for three years. Three years and she still doesn’t…doesn’t…” She really didn’t know what Maureen thought.

The coffees were ready and Mark signed the receipt and took them from the counter, handing one to Katy. “Well, let’s redeem ourselves at the next one shall we?”

“Hmph!”

*****

The third and final round of trivia for the day was to take place in the lobby. The family gathered as requested and waited for their hopeful redemption to begin. This trivia game was to name the movie from a quote. The same young lady from the last game would read a quote and the players had to guess the name of the movie.

“Sounds easy enough,” Maureen smiled.

“Only if it’s a John Wayne movie,” added Peter.

The family circled around their mother, determined to get a win so that they could stop playing these ridiculous games.

“Okay, here’s number one,” said Amy, the staff member. “Bueller.”

Janie and Katy looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“We know this one,” they chimed.

And so it went. Numbers one through nine went incredibly well for the Lathems. At least one of them was absolutely confident they knew each of the first nine movies. That is until it came to number ten.

Amy had repeated the quote three times. “Call my name. Bastian, please! Save us!”

Not one of them had a clue. Finally, Katy leaned forward and whispered very quietly.

“It’s only a guess, but maybe it’s The Neverending Story?”

“Well,” said Maureen, “Nobody else has a guess so let’s go with your answer then.” She smiled at Katy and wrote it down on the paper.

Katy was shocked, downright speechless. Mark just smiled as the next quote was read.

Finally it was number twenty and they could be done, although Katy had to admit that she was slightly enjoying this game. Peter knew every movie made before 1980 and Rory knew almost every movie made after 1990, so it was just one decade that they had made a couple of guesses on.

“You want to talk to God? Let’s go see him together, I’ve got nothing better to do.” Amy repeated the quote again. “And,” she added, “I need the exact title of the movie.”

“It’s Indiana Jones,” said Andrew. “I’m sure.”

“But which one?” asked Matt.

Nobody knew for sure.

“Should we guess?” asked Maureen.

“Just put down Raiders of the Lost Ark,” said Matt. “And then keep your fingers crossed.”

Everyone agreed and Maureen scribbled down their answer and waited for the answers to begin.

As they went through the quotes again, one by one, Maureen was ticking off the correct answers. When they came to number ten, they were nine for nine.

“Call my name. Bastian, please! Save us!”

A couple of answers were yelled out and Amy said they were both wrong. Maureen raised her hand and gave Katy’s answer, The Neverending Story.

“That’s it!” smiled Amy.

“Yay!” their group cheered. They all congratulated Katy on her great guess.

All the way up to number twenty and they had a perfect score.

“Fingers crossed,” grinned Matt.

The answer was indeed Indiana Jones, but which one? Amy held them in suspense for several seconds until she confirmed it was indeed Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The Lathem family jumped up and cheered wildly. They had a perfect score and had won the trivia game. Amy presented Maureen with a cheap plastic trophy and everyone present would have thought it was an Olympic gold medal or an Oscar the way she accepted the Chinese-made dollar store piece of crap. She turned to her family and smiled. As everyone else in the lobby filed past them, off to do something else, Maureen offered her acceptance speech.

“Oh, thank you so much for helping me win this. This is a wonderful thing. Thank you all.”

Katy and Mark’s shoulders were shaking violently as they desperately tried to control their laughing. Andrew, once again, rolled his eyes and Rory hugged Maureen. Peter muttered he was glad she had finally won and now could let them all off the hook for another game, and Matt and Janie looked at the other passengers, hoping none of them had overheard.

Maureen caressed the plastic and headed back to her suite.