Red Sand (2 page)

“I hope I look like you someday.”

“Thank you, Ashley. That’s a wonderful complement. “

Sharon bit her lip.

Max Boring kept his eyes on his own plate, as if the beautiful woman in red were a figment of everyone’s imagination. The glassy eyes of a half-eaten trout stared back at him. He pricked at the white meat with his fork and flipped it over.

This animated the Captain. “Hey!”

Max looked up. “What? What did I do?”

“Old Chinese fishermen believe that turning a cooked fish over on your plate is bad luck. It represents a shipwreck.”

Mr. Boring glared at the remains of his fish. “No offense to your chef, but it tastes a bit off. All I have here is a fishwreck.”

Emily fidgeted. “These modern cruise ships don’t sink, though, do they, Captain?” She cast an accusing eye on Max Boring as if any future shipwreck would be his fault.

“No, no. Of course not. I’m not saying they’re unsinkable, mind you, but it’s highly unlikely.”

“What about the Costa Concordia, or the Sea Diamond?”

“Those ships ran aground. We’re in the middle of the ocean.”

“What about icebergs, like the Titanic?”

“Warm water.”

“….hijacking, like the Achille Lauro, and the fire that sank it later?”

“Look, Emily, we run this route seven times a year. I’ve been doing it for three years. There’s nothing to worry about out here.”

“What about the Prince Edward?”

The Captain studied her. His gravity drew everyone’s undivided attention.

He waited so long to respond that Max Boring piped in, “What
about
the Prince Edward?”

Emily filled in the blanks. “I read online that the Prince Edward
went missing on this same line six years ago. It didn’t crash; it didn’t sink; it just disappeared. No survivors.”

The Captain laughed. “That’s ridiculous. The Prince Edward was stolen. The cruise line faced bankruptcy at the time, so the owner ordered the Captain to take the ship off course. He planned a rendezvous with sea pirates to sell the whole ship to breakers on the Ivory Coast. The insurance payout might have saved him, but the insurance company discovered the whole plot. He’s in jail now.”

“He was the owner of
this
cruise line,” Emily clarified.

“Former owner. We were bought out shortly afterward.”

“So what happened to the passengers?” Max Boring was interested now.

“They were dropped off in the Canary Islands and flown home.”

“That’s not what the internet said,” Emily interrupted. “It said no ever heard from the survivors.”

The Captain sighed. “Well, you can read about it in the legitimate papers. There were a few people who decided to stay in Europe and just never came home. That’s not a conspiracy.”

Emily wouldn’t let it go. “It was a half-full, end-of-the-season cruise filled with senior citizens from a home outside of Maryland, most of whom didn’t have families waiting for them. None of them reported back to the senior citizen’s center, which subsequently closed for financial reasons. None of the crew returned either.” Her eyes were wide with simple fear and wonder.

“And I read that’s not the only ship that disappeared out here. There have been dozens of private crafts, fishing boats, tankers, even a science vessel – the Benthic Polymath. All were lost at sea.”

The captain looked exasperated. “I don’t know where you’re getting all this.”

“I looked it up online before the cruise. I was very thorough.”

Sharon started in on her. “You knew this, and you came on the cruise anyway? If you were so paranoid, why come at all?”

It was Emily’s turn to study her plate. She pushed around a few peas and mumbled something.

“What?”

“I won it. I won the cruise in an office pool. I couldn’t
not
go. It would have looked… bad.”

“What kind of pool?” Ashley asked.

“Do you know how cold it is in Minnesota right now?” she continued, defensively.

“Well, internet rumors aside, you’ve nothing to worry about out here. Not while I’m Captain.”

Bailey didn’t feel comfortable with the conversations tonight. First murders, then shipwrecks. The night was a total downer.
I need to find someone normal.
“I have complete faith in you, Captain my Captain,” she said, standing up. “I’d stand up on my chair but it’s not safe in six inch heels.” She laughed. As the men joined in, she cast a wicked glance at Sharon.

For the coup de grace, Bailey pushed her fork off the table, bending over lasciviously to fetch it. The mixed reactions of admiration, shock and lust in the faces of her companions were like dessert to her. She remained standing. “I’m going to cast off as I aim to get three sheets to the wind.” They entreated her to stay, or, rather, the men did, but she shrugged them off. “It was nice meeting you all. Oh, and Ashley…” she turned, sliding her hand across the Captain’s shoulder, “good luck with the tits.”

Only two men hugged the bar at the moment. Only one was worthy. Near her age, with a full head of hair, slightly shaggy, he dressed in a Polo shirt and True Religion jeans with loafers, no socks. She took a seat two stools away and flagged the bartender. “Get me another Makers double, neat,” she said to the bartender over her shoulder as she flashed a “give it your best shot” smile at her target.

He glanced her way, looked at his drink, glanced back, struggling with the decision to talk to her. Finally, he opened with, “I’ve got no opening line for you, and from what I read, that doesn’t matter.”

That was novel. “What you read? How pedantic,” she said with a laugh.

“I don’t have much, well, any recent experience picking up women, so the only thing I have to go on is the internet, the Pickup Artist, Cosmopolitan, and other misogynistic sources.”

“And what do they say, Shakespeare?”

“They say a woman makes up her mind to sleep with a man within five seconds of meeting him. So it really doesn’t matter what his opening line is. He could speak in tongues. The trick, they say, is not what a man says, but that he has the confidence to say something, anything, to start that conversation.”

“So a woman will sleep with a driveling moron.”

“If she chooses.”

“If she chooses.”

Long pause. He swilled his beer and tried not to look at her. He picked up his coaster and examined it, while he said, “But what’s the point of that?”

“The point of what, sleeping with him?”

“Sure. Well, with a stranger I mean. It’s great for the moment. Good for a distraction. But then they have to have awkward conversation, decide if they want to see each other again. Maybe they do, so they move on to a relationship, meet the parents, marriage, kids, the whole nine yards. Eventually they’re bored with each other but tied to a mortgage and two ungrateful brats. They want to start over, so they start talking to strangers again, but this time with guilt, in secret.”

Bailey began to feel that everyone was on to her. First the talk of crimes of passion, then this guy bemoaning affairs. Still, he was cute. And easy. She covered her ring finger.

“Sounds like you’ve had more experience than you’re letting on,” she said.

He shook his bottle. “Four of these and I get unduly philosophical. Anyway, that’s what I was thinking about.”

“That’s not what you really want to know.”

“What do I want to know?”

“You want to know what I thought after the first five seconds.”

She was obviously right, because he stalled. “The funny thing is that it takes women five seconds, but it takes men only one, and they can do it blindfolded.” He met her eyes. They understood each other.

She finished her drink without breaking eye contact. “You have somewhere we can go?”

The fastest way to his cabin was over the upper deck. She held his hand as they ran up the stairs. Two whiskeys and the sweet appletini lightened her blood stream. She felt giddy already.

“Wait, wait,” she said, and pulled him into a shadow. She found his warm lips waiting, and he didn’t seem too philosophical about where he put his hands. She pulled back and smiled, pulling him out into the light again. “This is fun,” she said, and regretted it immediately.

“Hey,” she said, leaning against the railing. “Did you know people fall overboard on cruise ships, never to be seen again?”

“Really?”

She laughed with candor, delighted that she had found a light use for the morbid conversation. The fascination on his face was worth it. “Oh, yeah. All the time. There was this one woman, 37, won a trip, and leaned against a railing just like this…” She planted one foot on the rail and sat up on the top rung, hanging tightly. She let her leg dangle over the edge. The ship seemed so steady. The sea stretched out calm and smooth, reflecting the moon. More than anything, she worried about losing one precious Louboutin.

“Hey, careful, c’mon,” he said, reaching for her.

She laughed. “She was with her boyfriend, and asked him to take her picture.” She was getting the stories mixed up, but she didn’t care. “And over she fell.” She reveled in the genuine glow of concern this man had for her. This man, not her husband, a complete stranger, cared whether she lived or died. He put his arm around her. She kissed him and felt the thrill of that place between death and passion. Gradually she put her weight on him as he eased her down. “What,” she said, “you don’t want me to die?”

“Then you wouldn’t see my room,” he breathed in her ear. Disappointing. Was he really concerned about her, or just in heat? She drunk kissed him to find out, and soon it didn’t matter.

“You’re still awake?”

“Yeah.”

Bailey rolled over to look at him in the darkness. Moonlight glowed through a porthole, illuminating his face. He was smiling.

“We didn’t formally meet,” he said. “I’m Mason.”

“Bailey,” she said, shaking his hand.

She felt guilty all of a sudden, not because she had cheated on her husband, but because she had led this innocent young man to believe she was single.

“I have to go.”

“You can spend the night here. I don’t mind.”

“No, I have to go. I’m…”
what the hell
… “I’m married.”

“I know,” he said.

“You know?”

“I saw you with your husband when we got on the ship. That and your ring finger has a tan mark. Anything else you want to get off your chest?”

This time she didn’t think. It just came out. “I’m pregnant.”

“That’s a good one.”

“And it’s not my husband’s.”

“I’m glad I wore protection.”

She punched him in the shoulder.

“Ow! I’m sorry. Does he know?”

Emotion swept over her. “Oh my god. What am I doing?” She buried her face in his sore shoulder. He cradled her head, holding her silently while she cried. She appreciated that he asked no questions.

Her head whipped up when the door splintered open. Light from the hallway silhouetted Eddie and glinted off the barrel of his .357. She didn’t hear the shots, but rather felt them as each slug knocked the wind out of her lungs and pushed her, like lead weights, into the mattress.  She felt a warm splash five times, and then the world turned upside down. A bright flash lit up the room.  Time slowed. She opened her eyes.

The room lost all orientation. It bent in impossible ways, the bed no longer perpendicular to the door. Everything that should have been on the floor now rushed toward the ceiling. A lampshade flattened against the closet door. A flower vase smashed against the porthole. Three books fluttered overhead like birds. A suitcase tumbled over the bed, spraying clothes. The writing table upended. Water jetted from the faucet, the toilet, and the wall simultaneously. She caught a glimpse of one of those dumb monkey towels floating in mid-air as she herself tumbled out of bed. Blood choked up into her throat until she couldn’t breathe, and her mind, so utterly confused, had time for just one thought before the floor rose up to crush her.
What’s wrong?

Howard picked apart the events that landed him in the Atlantic Ocean, at night, amidst the debris of a dead ship. His life had time to flash before his eyes again and again, not from his resilience in the face of death, but because his bulk kept him buoyant long after he stopped swimming.

Howie never intended to have two wives. It just happened. Like the ocean, life allowed him to float without any effort.

He met Barbara while working the desk at an automobile repair shop. After three months of dating she decided they should get married. He went along.

Barbara's father owned a manufacturing company selling veterinary utensils. Howie didn't know anything about veterinary utensils but nepotism goes a long way. They put him in sales. He didn’t have to be a good salesman. The veterinarians usually knew what they wanted when they called. Over time, customers knew him and asked for him. He'd invite them in, listen carefully to their lives, add an anecdote here and there, and take their order.

If he thought about it, (he didn't, of course, but if he did) he'd realize people liked him because they liked themselves. They could paint their own portrait on his blank canvas, a very large canvas, with room for embellishment.

Life could not be easier.

Barbara convinced herself early on that Howie was a nincompoop. Maybe he was. He'd never had the chance in life to find out. First his mother mothered him, and then his wife.

Did she ever. She fussed over his morning attire, fixed him lunch, reminded him of his appointments, nagged him about the things she needed fixing or bought, called him three times a day to pester him some more, cooked him a big dinner every night (with the direct consequence of his immense weight gain), and practically tucked him in at night.

When she wanted kids, they had kids. Then they had sex, and rarely after.

This is not why he found a second wife.

At some point (it's hard to pinpoint how long ago in a life devoid of milestones) Howie went abroad. The Company decided they needed to expand overseas, and who better to send than their star salesman. "Star" being code for "son-in-law of the boss". Howie’s father-in-law was never fond of him. He maintained his daughter could have done better. Howie felt this every time he dealt with the man, which was thankfully limited to staff meetings and holiday dinners. Barbara’s father looked almost delighted when he granted Howie the overseas position.

Howie found himself in a desk in a new city, inviting clients into his office, letting them talk about their life, adding a few anecdotes, and taking orders. He spent half the year there, every year. Barbara called him three times a day, pestered him with questions, reminded him of his appointments, told him what needed to be bought, and then grilled him about his eating habits. If it weren’t for the time difference that left a few hours of silence, it would be identical to his life at home. He missed her during those quiet hours.

Although Howie was quite capable of putting on his own clothes, he didn't have the first clue how to cook. He viewed a kitchen the way engineers view the moon, a place requiring a great deal of specialized equipment and fraught with danger. Consequently, he ate out. He became a regular at the first restaurant he found on his first day there.

Women love bad boys and chumps. When they tire of mistreatment, they seek out the sad sacks of the world. That mothering instinct is too strong. And so it happened. While eating lunch with a group of company consultants, one of them, Maria, a woman with roughly the same shape as his wife back home, which is to say rectangular, took pity on him. Tomorrow, she promised, she would bring something for him, something home-made. She did.

Innocently oblivious of the danger he put himself in, he mentioned the incident to his wife on her afternoon call.  Perhaps sensing a babe in the woods, she took control of the situation. She asked him for the woman's phone number. She meant to chew the woman up and spit her out. Instead, they hit it off. By the end of the call, she was detailing for Maria exactly what Howie likes to eat.

They both agreed that Howie was a nincompoop, and from this common ground they formed a friendship. Things progressed from there. The two women talked daily. When Howie moved in with Maria, it was Barbara's idea. Barbara never believed he could dress himself. She worried about him, like a mother.

Maria’s culture forbade her from living with Howie without a marriage.  They held a small civil ceremony, exchanged rings whose budget had been pre-approved by Barbara, and went home. Nothing changed for Howie, and now life was complete.

The next morning, Maria fussed with his morning attire, fixed him lunch, reminded him of his appointments, nagged him about the things she needed fixed or needed bought, called him three times a day to pester him some more, cooked him a big dinner every night (with the direct consequence of his maintaining his immense weight), and practically tucked him in at night.

Maria didn't want children. She said she was too old. They didn't have sex, and that was that.

Every few months, Howie boarded a plane from one life to the other. Barbara got used to being called Maria, and Maria got used to being called Barbara. Women are remarkably adaptable when they have a common cause. Life went on like that for over a decade, and Howie began to think nothing would ever change.

Until Barbara died.

An aneurism stole her with no preamble. When Howie left for work, she was alive. When she didn't make her morning call, he knew to be worried. Thankfully he was in-country.

Barbara's father brought him into the conference room to break the news. Howie remembered how Barbara's father wouldn’t face him; just stared at a wilted, potted peace lily by the window, never looking him in the eye. Howie sensed that this was his fault, somehow.  That week, at the funeral, Howie stood with his two children like a dog left outside the back door too long.

The next week Barbara's father called him into the conference room again. There was only one reason he'd kept Howie on so long, and he told him so. "I never saw what Barbara saw in you, Howard. I never liked the idea of you taking a second wife. I thought of bringing you off that account when I heard about it, but Barbara wouldn't let me. Now that she's gone, well..." he trailed off. He stared at the plant again. "Now that Barbara's gone, I'm taking you off your accounts here. You’ve been loyal to the company, at least, and that means a lot to me, Howard. So I'm letting you stay on with the foreign accounts. Seems right, somehow."

Howie didn't know what to say. He had no anecdotes for this.

Barbara's father slapped an envelope on the table. He slid it over to Howie.

Howie’s hands shook as he opened it. There was nothing inside but a single ticket for a cruise line.

"That was in Barbara's will. I don't know when she wrote it. She said when she died you'd need some time off, to recover. She wanted you to take a cruise."

"But..." Howie stammered. "Alone?" He felt foolish and recovered saying, "There's only one ticket. What about the kids?"

"I bought them a flight. Barbara stipulated that Maria take custody of them. They need a mother now, not a cruise." He said "cruise" rather contemptuously.

Barbara's father waited for Howie to say something, rapped his fingers on the table, checked to make sure the plant was still there, and then stood up. "Well," he said, and stuck out his hand. "I guess this is goodbye.” Then he added, with menace or good will, Howie couldn’t tell which,
“Break a leg."

Howie dipped into a trough in the ocean’s waves, dropped into a bowl of moonlight. The troughs were much larger at the surface than they looked from the top deck. Now even small waves dropped Howie’s body so low he couldn’t see over them. They came at him from different angles, too. No sooner had he drifted over one to take a breath than another surprised him in the back of the head. Still, he knew this was a calm sea, and this struck him as odd. There was no storm. It was too warm for icebergs. Even in the dark, he could tell they were nowhere near land. The ship disappeared completely. Why?

Perhaps it simply decided now was the time to fall apart, as if ships could make that decision. "Yes," thought the ship, "This is a good spot."

He was talking to himself, in the voice of a cruise ship. He must be losing it. He needed to think of something else.

He decided to fixate on sharks. How long would it be before sharks hunted the survivors? He couldn't remember anything he was supposed to do. Splash? Don't splash? Hit it in the nose? He could never summon enough courage to punch a shark in the nose while maintaining a perfectly pitched high-C scream.

Howie could hear other people in the water crying, shouting. Someone blew a whistle. He never drifted close to them, though. He hoped the sharks would get them first so he’d have time to warm up his vocal chords.

Debris floated all around him. Howie marveled at how much of a ship floats. Bits of wood, plastic flowers, a patch of glass bottles saved for recycling, a man's hat, tennis shoes, chairs, a green rubber duck.
  Nothing useful, of course, like a life preserver.

Something wrapped around his leg. He kicked frantically, but it held tight. Struggling and splashing, he managed to pull it free. A bright yellow smiley face stared placidly at his own panicky face. “Have a nice day,” it said. It was a plastic bag from the gift shop.

Every few minutes, objects bumped into him. He imagined they were shark noses nudging him, getting a good whiff of his buttery hide. The next second they would strike. They never did. This intermittent terror was like Chinese water torture. Bump. Pause. Bump. Pause. Bump.

He paddled in the wreckage for what seemed an eternity. The night surrendered no clues to the passage of time. He worried how long he could remain afloat, so he desperately latched on to a five gallon bucket that miraculously popped up in front of him. As long as he kept it upside down, it captured enough air to hold him. He leaned over the top of it, capsized several times, and barely caught it as it slipped beneath the waves.

During his constant vigilance for sharks, he noticed a rhythmic beating sound. It drew closer. It sounded like someone in flip flops slapping past the pool. That didn't make sense. Delirium gripped him again.

An inflated plastic garbage bag hid the source of the sound from view. He started to back paddle, putting some distance between himself and the bag. With his eyes on the bag, something smacked him in the back of the head. He turned to tousle with a plastic deck chair for a moment before he got his bearings.

An enormous shadow approached the bag. A triangular shape smashed through, black, headed right for him.

The prow of the lifeboat pushed the bag under. It was so close that, looking up, he couldn't see who was inside. He let out a woefully ineffective scream, not at all what he’d been practicing. The prow swerved. Strong hands reached out, took hold of him, and hauled him on-board. 

For five minutes, he was just glad to be out of the water. He gasped as if he’d been dog paddling the whole time. There were four survivors already in the boat – two women and two men. He thanked them, laughing, smiling. He recognized one of them as the Steward who’d shared his table only a few hours before. “Carter, isn’t it?”

“Yes, and you’re Howard, right?”

“What happened?”

“How should I know?”

“Aren’t you on the crew?”

“I was sleeping in my quarters. Next thing I know, I’m in the water and these boys are fishing me out.” Carter tossed his thumb toward their mysterious saviors.

Two men paddled the boat through the wreckage.  They spoke not a word.
Don’t lifeboats have motors?

At first glance, under the circumstances, Howie expected to find some kind of natives. Under the moonlight, their tanned hides and woven hats might have given him that impression. He quickly realized they were not. First of all, both men had white hair. They looked too young for white hair. Second, they were Caucasian. They obviously got plenty of sunlight. Their skin was tight as a belt, but their wide eyes and sharp noses gave them away. These were not people borne of sunny climes. Then there was the clothing. Tucked under the benches, their feet were shod in tennis shoes. In fact, just now the man in front reached over to toss a floating shoe into the boat.
Now they’re rescuing shoes?
Their tattered clothes were definitely manufactured. One wore what appeared to have been jeans in a former life. The other sported a Speedo. It actually still said "Speedo". They wore t-shirts. Most telling of all, their wide-brimmed hats were not of straw, but braided plastic strips. Some of them still bore an imprint that looked like potato chip bags.

“I can’t thank you enough for saving us,” he said to the man paddling in the prow. “What brings you way out here anyway?”

Silence.

“Well, I see you’re busy and I appreciate it. I’d love to thank you properly when you have time. What’s your name?”

Silence. The man wouldn’t even turn toward him. “Maybe you don’t speak my language. I hope I can make myself clear when I say…” The words caught in his throat. The man turned to reveal a leathery face with unnatural wrinkles. A black maw opened, hissing. Cavities dotted stained teeth, and a foul odor emanated from engorged tonsils. Inside that dark, moist space was a stump of black flesh where a tongue should have been. Spit pooled below the stump. Wild yellow eyes stood out to create a most horrifying effect. Howie shrank back, and the man turned back to his rowing.