Alix Ohlin - Signs and Wonders

Back on the ship, they dressed for dinner. At Laureen’s command, Reena had brought two new outfits, clothing with no past associations. She put on a blue dress, hoping to feel pretty. Her skin felt pleasantly scorched and dry.

In the dining room she and Laureen were seated at separate tables, a procedure designed to encourage further mixing among the guests. Hans, sitting on her right, kept smiling and offering her more wine. He asked what she thought about Martin Scorsese.

“Is he the one who did The Godfather ?” she asked. “Most movies are so violent. I don’t go very much.”

Judging from his expression, this was the wrong answer.

After dinner, the bar stayed open and people milled around, loose and friendly. Reena stepped outside to get some air. She’d spilled some of her dinner on her new dress; it was just that kind of day. A hand touched her arm, and she turned around with a prepared, chipper smile — expecting Laureen — but it was Benjamin Moore.

“Your aunt’s organizing a card game,” he said.

“I’m not big on cards,” Reena said.

“Neither am I. I thought I’d come out and join you. Is that all right?”

“Of course,” Reena said, though it was more confusing than all right.

He inquired in a gentlemanly way about her health, and together they stood looking at the black water and the indecipherable landscape. Darwin, birds, the understanding of our humble origins that science gave us: that was what you were supposed to see. All Reena saw in the dark was water and rocks.

“I have a son who’s twenty-five,” Benjamin said musingly, not looking at her. “He’s gay and he thinks I don’t know it, but I do. It upsets me more than I’d like it to. He’s an actor on a soap opera. It’s on every day at one in the afternoon. He plays what you might call a rake. I have a TV in my office, and every day I sit there eating my lunch and watching my gay son seduce women wearing too much makeup.”

Reena had no idea what to say. Maybe this was part of the cruise-ship experience, along with the dinners and the wildlife tours: you went on board and told strangers the story of your life.

“Sometimes they look like their entire faces are coated in Vaseline,” Benjamin went on. “Why do they do that? Sometimes I think that if I had to look at those women all day and kiss them and such, maybe I’d be gay too.”

“I’m not sure why you’re telling me this, Benjamin,” Reena told him.

“You can call me Ben,” he said affably.

The ensuing silence didn’t appear to make him uncomfortable. It lasted so long that Reena felt compelled to speak.

She took a breath, then said, “I got divorced because I cheated on my husband. Electronically cheated. I started e-mailing my high school boyfriend and we fell in love all over again, and my husband found out, and my high school boyfriend wasn’t interested in leaving his wife, but my husband left me, and I don’t blame him.”

What her mother had said: Reena, you’ve never known how to take care of things. You were always breaking your toys and messing up your clothes. This is the same, only bigger.

What Laureen had said: Well, honey, everything happens for a reason.

What Reena had said: I’m an idiot and a fool.

“This Internet,” Ben said, “it’s changing our lives.”

Reena’s laugh sounded like a bark. “Yeah, it’s definitely the Internet’s fault.”

“That’s not what I said,” he said.

She looked at him. There was no absolution in his voice but no blame, either. She couldn’t figure out what he was doing there with her while her charming, vibrant aunt was off playing cards.

“Everything changes and nothing stays the same,” he said after a while. They stood looking into the darkness as if there were something to see.

By the time Laureen came out to say good night, Reena was by herself; Ben had gone back to his cabin. “You doing okay, kiddo?”

“Better, thanks.”

“I think Hans has a crush on you.”

“Laureen, how old are you?”

“A girl’s never too old for a crush,” she said. This was the kind of statement that made Reena dread the idea of imitating her aunt’s life. Shouldn’t a woman at some point stop being a girl? Shouldn’t there be an end to crushes? It was too terrible to contemplate, all that starting and blushing, over and over again.

“What about Ben, is he your cruise-boyfriend?” she said, trying to shift the focus from herself.

“Maybe,” Laureen said coyly. “He’s awfully cute. But there are a lot of fish in the sea. Or, as we learned in our nature talk, there are many fewer fish than there used to be. But still fish exist and we can fish them.”

“Are you drunk, Aunty Laureen?”

“You bet, honey pie,” her aunt said, and kissed her cheek.

· · ·

Reena woke early, Laureen snoring woozily in the other bed. It wasn’t even five yet. She rose as quietly as she could and went out on deck. The sun was pearly, kind. When she was married, this was the only time of day she’d had completely to herself. Then she’d contaminated that lovely solitude with time spent on the computer and desperate, yearning e-mails she now cringed to think of. The man she’d grown so close to, whose words she’d read so feverishly, she could hardly remember. What she missed was the need of him, how it prickled her skin, how she jonesed and ached, her blood in a kind of fury. She’d ruined her solitude with wanting, and then she was alone in a different way.

This morning she was not alone, as it turned out. Ben was there too. She smiled when she saw him, unexpectedly pleased. He looked as if he had been up for hours, and without speaking he offered her a cup of coffee from the leather-encased thermos by his side. She nodded and sipped. In front of them were islands, behind them were islands. Ancient, inhospitable places. It should have soothed her, seeing them, should have reinforced her smallness in the world. If it didn’t, then it was not the islands’ fault.

Though the day began on a magical note, later it began to unravel. First there were complications with the scheduled activities and logistical delays that went unexplained, and the crew members smiled tight-lipped as they attempted to behave as if nothing was wrong. Then came rain in great torrents, trapping them on the ship and moving them beyond the awkward pleasantries of early acquaintance into the annoyances of familiarity. You could notice the strain in people’s voices, hear previously affectionate couples now snapping and bickering. Everybody agreed that lunch was substandard.

In the afternoon the weather cleared and moods lifted. Scuba diving had for some reason fallen through, and the replacement activity was to visit a beach where sea lions lay napping. Though people complained about the insufficiency of this program—“It’s not like we can look at animals all day ,” Reena heard one woman tell Stavros angrily — they all filed onto the beach, because what else could they do?

Laureen was wearing a white swimsuit bedecked with gold jewelry and a red sarong and she looked like some aging goddess, sensual and distended. In her striped blue T-shirt Reena felt sexless and uptight. They embarked in their small clique — Hans, Ben, and Reiko and Tomo, the Japanese couple. Hans was acting peculiar. Deeply flushed, he kept slapping his hand against the side of his leg; as he was wearing long swim trunks, the nylon made a swishing sound each time. Everyone kept looking at him, but he was too agitated or preoccupied to notice.

Laureen nudged Reena. “I think he’s jealous of you and Ben,” she said happily.

“What do you mean?” Reena said, startled.

“I heard about you two up drinking coffee with the birds. Oh, don’t worry about me. I’ve got lots of opportunities. You play the field, honey. I deed him over to you.”