One Dance

When I ponder the 80s, a chill runs down my spine; I get all tingly inside.  After all, this was MY decade, my experience, my life.  Hell, I was a black jack dealer on a cruise ship in the 80’s, sucking up all the fun I possibly could, absorbing the sea, salt on my tongue, parting all night, sleeping all day, grinding pink sand between my toes. I was immortal.  I was Madonna in a tuxedo dealing cards to old men in designer suits; old farts that had young chicks standing alongside them like bubbly-blonde trophies. What I mean by Madonna is, I dressed like her with big-aqua-net-hair and wore my makeup all smoky and charcoal and bold.  If you are from the 80’s, you’ll get this image immediately, and perhaps feel a slight tinge of nostalgia.   If not, Google, baby, Google.

So I’m home one day and think, “What the sam hell are you going to do with your life, Kim?” And a light bulb goes off, an epiphany.  “Sure, I’ll go work on one of those cruise ships!”  I mean, what else would one do with when she’s nineteen, out of work, and drifting down hills to the university because she has no gasoline in her car?  I write to Carnival Cruise Lines and no kidding, I have an interview the following Friday.  IN MIAMI.  Today I’d be scared shitless (what happens to us?) but at nineteen I packed up my suitcase with a few essentials, looked at my mom and dad, and said, “Well, I guess I’ll be working on the Love Boat.”  My mom says she still remembers her little girl getting on that airplane as if I were taking a walk around the block.  Not a care in the world.  I want that feeling bottled up so I can use it when I need it.

I get to the Miami office and this slight red headed woman extends out her hand to me.  “You must be Kim.” She tells me to sit down while she grabs my resume, which is not a resume at all, but a bunch of scribbling on a piece of paper.  You see, at nineteen, I really didn’t give a crap about having all of my ducks in a row.  “So, you want to work for Carnival Cruise Lines, huh?”  I’m thinkin,’ well I sure hope so; I just spent a couple hundred bucks to fly here and a taxi ride from hell with some Cuban guy.  “Oh, I really want to!”  I blurt out.  “And I see on your application you’d like to be an Activity Director.”  She looks at me with a slight smirk, a smirk that says, are you friggen kiddin me? ACTIVITY DIRECTOR?  Who do you think you are, Julie McCoy? (For the young chicks, she was on the Love Boat)  “Honey, we have openings for Black Jack Dealers. If you know how to count, you can be a Dealer. “   All rightie, then.

Any woo, that’s how I ended up working for Carnival. That’s where I learned to count.  Fast.  That’s where I lived on the edge. Literally. And that’s where I met my husband.  Me with my big 80’s hair and charcoal Madonna eyes; me with my excessively red lips; me blowing kisses to this British guy (my husband) across the bar with one hand, while holding a Pina Colada in the other. 

Destiny.

I worked on the “Mardi Gras” Ship. The Casino Girls had four rules to follow: we had to wear nail polish, makeup, tuxedoes, and we could not, under any circumstance, DANCE in the club.   I found this quite sexist since the captain and all of his “male “staff could dance; one of their duties, honestly, was to find single women on the cruise, whom need dancing partners and good looking Italian guys for their pleasure.  I had also heard, and I know it’s true, that the men in white, (a very deceiving color) had a large chart on the bottom deck with the names of women  they’ve screwed, bedded, made-love, fu%#ed, whatever you prefer to call it.  Now, this really pissed me off, cause I heard my name was on it.  NOOO WAAAY IN HELL!

I’m a good girl.

After work one night I lift and tease my hair Madonna Style, line my eyes with charcoal.    I’ve followed all of the other rules, damn it, and now I’m going to have a dance.  Of course, several of the men in white are doing their Italian Stallion thing with the single passengers, whom are swooning and batting their long eyelashes, and apparently having dry organisms inside their underwear.  It is a sad sight, and you had assumed they were nice boys, didn’t you, like Richard Gere from “An Officer and The Gentlemen?”

Officers, yes.  Gentlemen, NO!

I notice the British dude (my husband) drinking beers with some of the other British dudes, and he pretends he doesn’t see me.   Of course, he does.  I walk up to him and ask him to dance.  We dance.  I think I’m in love, in lust, in a dream.  I want his babies.  All of these sensations in a simple dance. 

Love.

I didn’t get caught that time.  Dancing that is.  But the “men in white” knew exactly who I was, one of the Casino Girls. They could’ve gotten me fired, but they never uttered a word about my sin, and even though most of them were male chauvinist pigs, I felt a little tinge of gratitude about their silence.  Possibly, they were observing—out of their deep brown Italian eyes that I was melting on that dance floor, falling fast, captivated, and changed forever because of one dance. 

Still Dancing…