Chapter 39: Jake

Opening the door to the dining room, I looked inside. Michelle had left a good looking buffet set out on the sideboard. Asian spinach salad, unagi sushi, a few kinds of sashimi, lots of spider rolls which are my favorite; and various raw vegetables and fruits, cut into beautiful shapes. I tapped myself a Fiji Baby, got a plate and took probably more than my fair share, but maybe not. I knew a lot of people weren't going to be dining onboard tonight.

Joanne was gone, Kate was staying off-ship, Michelle was out trying yet another restaurant, and Sid and Ingrid were out for dinner and a Bollywood movie. I assumed Saralinda and Moira were with Gary somewhere, but I hadn't seen them.

Everyone else was already here. Simone, Tori, and Henri were in a corner, and from what I could overhear, they were discussing the demise of Tori's infamous uncle, and what it might mean for the future of Tori's family. Simone caught my eye, and managed to both say hi and to request that I not join them, through a slight smile and an apologetic shake of the head. I acknowledged her with a nod.

At another table, the captain was eating with Carol and Lin, and they were talking shop. I don't know anything about ship maintenance, nor do I want to know.

So, I sat down alone, resigning myself to a solitary meal, during which I would try to figure out what to do with the rest of my evening.

I was surprised when Saralinda walked in, glanced around the room, smiled at me, and went to get her food.

"Um, Jake? Help?"

Her small voice came from behind me. I got up and joined her at the buffet.

"Um, like, what is all this? What'll I like? Those rolls with the tentacles look kind of gross..."

"Calm down, calm down. This is Michelle's cooking, remember? It's all great. The greens are spinach with soy sauce, sesame seeds, and sesame oil, I think. It's one of my favorites. Those aren't tentacles – it's soft-shelled crab, deep fried, and absolutely delicious." I did not tell her they were called spider rolls, though. "And you'd like those ones," I said, pointing to the eel, " ... and maybe the pink ones. I think they're tuna. Unless you like things that taste really fishy, you should probably skip the mackerel – the ones with the stripes. And you can figure out the veggies and fruit, can't you?

She sighed. "Okay, okay. I'm being a baby. It's just that I was hoping for something simple tonight, like mac & cheese."

I left her to fill her plate and went back to my own dinner. When she sat down with me, I saw she'd at least tried some of everything I'd recommended. I was surprised to find her with a pint of beer, though.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Nurse Jake here. I thought Dr. Anna had requested that you limit your alcohol consumption..."

"It's 'lite' beer," she retorted.

"Huh? We don't have light beer."

"Oh, Jake. You're probably going to think I'm being really gross. But I've found out I like the Mac&Jack's if I mix it 50:50 with water and put in a little lemon juice. So I'm only drinking, like, eight ounces of beer here."

I looked at her skeptically, then reached a hand towards her mug, with eyes asking her if I could take a sip. She nodded, and I tried some, attempting to keep an open mind about it. If I remembered to suppress my outrage at the ruining a great amber, it wasn't terrible. It was better than Coors, or MGD, and certainly better than Coors Light.

"Okay, I guess that's acceptable, since you're only having a half-pint of beer."

She raised her eyebrows at me. "I'm glad it meets with your approval," she said, somewhat bitingly.

I reached out and touched her hand. "Look, Saralinda. This wasn't a case of Jake lording things over Saralinda. This was Nurse Jake trying to make sure you weren't going to run into problems with your medications. It's something I promised Doctor Anna that I'd keep an eye on. It's my job, and it's your safety that I'm concerned about."

She pouted. "Oh, Jake. You're right, of course. It's just that I'm trying to be more of an adult; trying not to be the 'kid'. And then I go and act like a little baby at the buffet, so I was already feeling foolish. Your comments about my beer just made me feel defensive. I'm sorry. You were right to check up on me about this. It's all no fair. I like alcohol..."

I smiled at her and gave her hand a squeeze, and she smiled back, and we turned to our dinners again.

She took a bite of the spinach salad, and looked to approve of the flavor. She watched me put some teriyaki sauce on my eel before taking a bite, and then she put a bit on hers. She was eating with a fork (I, of course, was using chopsticks), and it was funny to see her try and cut the sushi in two with her fork.

"You really ought to learn how to use chopsticks," I told her, as kindly as I could. "A lot of this stuff is actually easier to eat with them than with a fork."

She looked up at me, pouting again. "Next time, maybe."

I decided that maybe I should change the subject before I actually annoyed her.

"I thought you'd be with Moira and Gary tonight?"

She finished chewing a piece of spider roll before she answered. "Um, those are good. I didn't realize they'd be crunchy."

"Try dipping them in some of the teriyaki sauce," I suggested. "They're even better that way."

She did, and really seemed to enjoy her next bite. I thought she might have forgotten my question, or was ignoring it. But after she took a sip of her beer, she finally answered me.

"Gary needs to be alone with Moira tonight. Maybe more than just tonight..."

"Oh?..."

"Gary's afraid of losing her too, I think. And he needs to figure out, like, what to do about it. I think they should get married."

I practically spit out the sip of beer I was taking. I had to take a moment to cough into my napkin before I could respond.

"Married? Gary?"

"He should marry Kate, too. So maybe married isn't really quite the right word. But he needs to do something, like, to show that they're not just..."

" ... just some of The Girls," I finished for her, when she didn't.

"Exactly. But Gary's also got to be willing to admit to himself just how much he cares about them. He's the one that needs to make the commitment, you know what I mean? And maybe let Moira and Kate have a real say in what goes on around here. Mmm. These ugani ones are good with the teriyaki sauce, too," she added, forking half of a sushi piece.

I waited until she'd put it in her mouth and she'd started chewing. "It's unagi, not ugani, " I corrected her. "And it's eel."

She froze in the middle of a bite. I smiled at her. Eventually, she began chewing again, swallowed, then took a sip of her watered beer.

"You are a horribly mean bastard, Jake," she said.

"Whaaaat?" I mock-protested.

"Gary told you all about our dinner in Hawaii, didn't he? He told you about my reaction to eel, right?

I thought about denying it, but I could tell she wasn't really truly mad at me, so I kind of shrugged an admission.

"Men!" she hissed, but then she smiled and took the other half of the eel piece on her fork, dipped it in the teriyaki sauce, and ate it with obvious relish. "I'll have to admit to Gary that he was right about eel," she said afterwards, somewhat ruefully.

I turned my thoughts back to what we'd been discussing.

"I can't see it happening," I told her. I think I surprised her by dropping back into the previous conversation without preamble.

"Hmm? Oh, Gary, you mean? You can't see what happening?"

"I don't know," I told her. "I've been here less than a year, but I talked with Burt about it before I agreed to work for Gary, and I've talked with Kate and Michelle about stuff since. Gary's always just had a changing bunch of women, friendly with all, but not getting too close to any. Kate being a special case, of course. And he so carefully set things up that way, with the vesting pension plan he has set up for The Girls."

"The what?"

"Oh, nobody's mentioned that to you? I forgot that you're not official, yet. There are contracts and everything. The Girls only get given some spending money, really, while they're with Gary. But based on how long they stay, they get bigger and bigger pensions for afterwards, up to a point. Burt told me he couldn't tell me the exact numbers or anything, and Kate actually writes the contracts and she wouldn't tell me a thing. But I think it's something like $500,000 after 6 months, with another $500,000 every six months after that until the pension is something like two-and-a-half million dollars. That's after only three years. It doesn't grow after that. So, often a woman will leave after she's got her full pension, and Gary just goes and finds another woman to take her place."

Saralinda actually paled, and she pushed the rest of her dinner away and sat back in her chair. "That's, like, sick," she said. I shrugged, not really wanting to decide if I agreed with her. "So, Moira's, like, a prostitute?"

I glanced around the room. I hadn't really been paying attention, but I was glad to see that the others had finished their dinners and left, and Saralinda and I were alone.

"No," I said, as firmly and uncompromisingly as I could. "I probably shouldn't have been so hard on Gary there. It actually has to be set up something like this. It's basically like a pre-nup, and it's designed to make a palimony suit impossible."

Her blank look made it pretty clear that I'd lost her at the turn.

"Okay, here's how it is. A rich guy has to worry – whether he's getting married or even just living with someone – that if they break up, the woman might try and sue him for her share of his money. Washington is a common property state, meaning that all income earned by either party during the marriage is considered to be jointly owned by both the husband and wife. Gary's investments earn way lots of money, and even half of one year's income would be enormous.

"But if you're getting married, you can make up a pre-nuptial agreement, where it's agreed-to ahead of time just how much money would go to the wife – or husband I guess – in case of a divorce. A guy in Gary's position has to be really careful that the woman isn't just marrying him in order to snag a bunch of his dough. The pre-nup is a way to limit the damage, and limit the incentive. It may not be worth it to some golddigger to have to put up with the rich old bugger for three whole years and only end up with two or three million dollars. There'd be a whole lot more golddiggers if they could marry some rich stiff, divorce him six months later, and come away with, say, a hundred million.