Prize Winner
Writing a memoir has forced me into the past, I’m remembering all sorts of things, like the time I won Sales Rep of the Year. The company I worked for had a barter arrangement with a luxury cruise line, and my reward was a trip anywhere I wanted. David was reluctant, but after I threatened to take someone else, he agreed. We picked a trip from Istanbul to Venice, with lots of stops along the way. We rented him a tuxedo, I found a cocktail dress at a thrift shop in Fairfield County, the “Gold Coast” of CT, where high-end clothing pickings were to be found, and off we went.
The ship had 79 passengers and 69 crew members (tiny compared to the gigantic ocean liners that block out the sky when in port). This was our first—and only—cruise, and probably the last time I will ever be around so many really wealthy people. We were country bumpkins compared to our shipmates.
At the first port of call, one woman, the wife of the CEO of a large pharmaceutical company, purchased 8 oriental carpets for her multiple homes, while David and I obsessed and dithered over the tiny 3x5 rug we ended up buying. We spent most of the. trip hanging out with a young woman with the fabulous name of Fiona Peacock and her companion, a Scotsman, who owned a chain of supermarkets, plus a gay couple from San Francisco, and a very chic Frenchwoman and her mother.
The most startling coincidence occurred midway through the voyage. There were two middle-aged men, one tall, heavy-set, the other slightly built, always in the company of an attractive young blond woman and a boy of about 9 years old. Chatting one day poolside, it turned out that the gay couple, which is what they were, were also from New York City, and the tall man, whose last name I recognized, grew up in the same apartment building as I did, and his mother had been friends with my mother! His partner was a doctor, the child was their adopted son, and the girl—a Scandinavian nanny.
It was the most luxurious holiday we ever took. The rug and a green glass vase from Murano that I carried home on the plane, swaddled in bubblewrap, remind me of that magical adventure every day.