Chapter 5 Captain Dave back in New Orleans
Musical theme; Don’t say that you Love Me by Fleetwood Mac
Dave was wandering around the reception, stunned. He had done it. Marcie gave him a strange look. He couldn’t figure it out. There might have been some lust in it, but that did not seem to be the major part of it. High spirited people went past him in every direction. He got sort of overloaded, and went out on the porch.
He sat on a chair there. Jainie sat beside him. “So now you are really mine. But you aren’t cheerful. Of all the times for you to be unhappy, I would have preferred some other one. What’s wrong?”
“Not anything I can figure out.”
“You just married me. I hope you aren’t unhappy about that.’
“That was a long time coming.”
“No, it was lightning. But I have instant divorce in my purse. A Colt Kodiak .44 Magnum revolver. If you’ve changed your mind about me, I’ll hand it to you and you can kill me.”
“I thought we were going to forget that idea.”
“Do you love me, Dave?”
“Is the ocean wet?”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m not so sure I should be with you. I know I don’t deserve you. But beyond that, I don’t see how I am good enough for you anyway.”
“I just married you, Dave, so that is just so impossibly stupid.”
“Maybe I did something, somehow, to cloud your judgment.”
“That’s what you did. You treated me like a princess, and most women have never been treated any better than whores by men in their entire lives and so I know you are a prince, and I fell for you, and you asked me to marry you, and I did, and that is it!”
“You’re right, Princess Jillian.”
She laid down and put her head in his lap. He started to stroke her hair, and she took his hand. “You don’t think you deserve to have a princess.”
“I don’t.”
“Dave, you are probably the most noble prince I have ever met. OK, I bought my own ring, but that isn’t anything.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“So do you concede that you are my prince, and you belong to me, forever, and unconditionally?”
“I’m your prince. Time and conditions mean nothing.”
Danielle came out on the porch. “Everyone is asking where you two are, except those who assume you are taking a nap.” She put her hands gently on Dave. “Prince Dave, everyone wants to see you and Princess Jillian.” She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “I wish it as me.” She whispered.
She led them back inside. They were cheered as if they had accomplished something. Danielle bowed, and brought them back in.
They went to the champagne. Dave picked up a glass for each of them and handed one to Jillian. “I guess this is what we do.”
“Do you wish you were somewhere else, with someone else, doing something else?”
“Somewhere, yes, someone no, something else, yes.”
“You wish you and I were up there in the Bering sea with the Clarissa Marlene?”
“Is that what you want to do, fish the Bering sea?”
It was, so after the reception, she admitted to having bought the Clarissa Marlene. They took a trip on her, and Jillian ran around the deck like an out of control child, jumping over outgoing lines and standing on haul cables. Dave came up to the bridge, and told Blake to take her in and put his wife ashore.
“I would have done it already if I was signed on as master.”
“She has no idea how dangerous it is up here.”
The boat went to port, and a deckhand drove them to the airport.
Jainie was very subdued. “I guess you have a reason for this. I buy a boat and you throw me off.”
“I don’t want to see you hauled over the side by a loop in the line into the Bering Sea, where you would be dead from the cold water faster than you could drown. Since I have the master’s license and you don’t, you can’t stop me from keeping you from dying out there.”