Beth Bauman - Beautiful Girls

Adam phones Eve at eight-thirty one morning. “Come quick,” he says. His mom is going to the beauty salon in the bowels of the ship. “How long does a pedicure take?” he asks. Eve throws on a bikini and shorts and grabs her key.

“I thought we were going to the champagne breakfast,” her mom says, squeezing into a girdle. She squats, hoists, wriggles it up. “You’d rather run all over God’s creation with that hippie than spend time with me.”

Of course I would, Eve thinks. Oh, Mom . Eve wants to be loved deeply, tragically, completely. It shames her, but after all these years she still hopes for the fairy tale. She wants to believe there’s a prince of a guy, tucked into her future, who will one day unfurl like a robust, exotic bloom in the weedy patch of her life. That’s the way it is with Eve—the way it has been since she can remember. “Oh Mom,” she says. “I’ll meet you there. Save me a chocolate croissant.”

Eve flies down two flights to the Laguna Deck and down the skinny corridor to where Adam is putting the “Do Not Disturb” sign on his door. They tumble onto his little twin bed, yanking off clothes and pulling each other close, quick and naughty as if they’re teenagers. “Alone at last,” Eve cries. And just when they are naked and tangled the key turns in the lock.

“I forgot to take my multivitamin!” Adam’s mother cries, as Adam and Eve grab the covers. Adam’s mom snatches the bottle off the dresser and shakes one out. “Really Adam, if you want me to shoo, just tell me to shoo. I’m only paying for this trip.” After she leaves they huddle under the covers, ashamed, quietly playing footsie. Next to the bed is a pair of Adam’s mom’s felt slippers with little button eyes, watching them.

All Eve wants is to have sex in private. She wants to lie down between sheets next to Adam. She wants to rest her head on his chest, pretending he is hers, even though he is not and she doesn’t know him well enough to know if she would want him to be. But still…She wants to see how it might feel, how it might be. This fling has the whiff of something delirious—Vick’s VapoRub, gasoline.

They do what they can. On Nosy Komba, Madagascar, she gives him a hand job on a tree-topped hill while golden-eyed lemurs swing from the branches above them. On Nosy Be, they hump behind a mud hut.

In the Seychelles they attempt underwater intercourse. They swim away from the watchful eyes of the other passengers, toward the reef where they pull off their bathing suits and tread water. But they slide off each other and sink, and Eve’s bikini bottom almost floats away. The trouble is Adam’s too soft, the watery angles are wrong, and they get nosefuls of the salty sea. Finally, they give up. Beneath them the water is clear as light, and there’s a tremulous city of slippery neon fish, downy rocks, and fallopian plant life. They stare down at their reedy, naked legs—pale sea anemones—pumping in the current. Their pubic hair is pulsing and alive. What perfect sea creatures they’ve become!

At $1.75 per minute, Eve e-mails her friends back home. In the subject section she writes, I think I’ve found the one! She tells her friends all about Adam, his lovely yin-yang tattoo. She complains about the lack of privacy, the lack of sexual opportunity, their mothers.

Her mystically inclined friend Miranda e-mails back. “Hip hip hooray! And New Jersey! He’s practically right around the corner. But, honey, how long have you known this guy? A week? Some Native Americans believe the first time with a new partner should take place in the woman’s bed, otherwise little pieces of her spirit are lost, and as far I know they’re not recoverable. This is the way it is with women, unfortunately. I’m only mentioning this because you’re so far from home. Do you really want to lose a piece of yourself on the Indian Ocean? If he’s as delicious as you say, wait. Save intercourse for America—on the Upper West Side in your Murphy bed.”

Eve spends the next five minutes in a gloomy funk because Miranda—wise, dear Miranda—is often right about many things. This could be a potentially irksome quality, but Miranda is a radiant being, charming and self-deprecating, and she pulls off righteousness without too many snags.

Eve hasn’t always had first-time sex in her own bed and wonders if she’s had some soul leakage in the San Fernando Valley, the East Village, Weehawken. She also wonders if soul leakage could be related to the melancholy that sometimes swells inside her like music.

She shoots back an e-mail. “Thanks for the spirit tip. I’ll try to wait, but I’m in paradise…”

She presses Send, and exits the cave-like e-mail center and hangs over the deck’s rail, peering down into the foamy sea. Perhaps her spirit is intact. She breathes deeply and closes her eyes, aware of her galloping pulse, her grumbling stomach, her whirling thoughts. She believes her spirit is of one piece, reasonably whole, quietly yearning, ethereal and unknowable, hanging inside her and flapping against her heart.

They’re headed to the Maldives, south of India, to a tiny uninhabited island that apparently can be circled on foot in ten minutes’ time. The crew needs to foam-wash the carpets and encourages all passengers to go ashore or assemble in the Diamond Lady Lounge for a day of Bingo. Eve packs a small bag with her bikini bottoms and two condoms. She wears a bikini top and a fluttery wrap that swishes against her ankles and feels silky against her naked ass. It’ll be all right. How she wants Adam with his dark, expressive eyes, like a deer trapped in headlights.

The ship’s tenders take them to the uninhabited island, which has a public address system and plumbing. They stand in the barbecue line with their respective mothers, listening to “Surfin’ U.S.A.” over the P.A. “Hey, sexy,” Adam whispers into Eve’s ear, “I can see your ass through that skirt. Can you ditch your mom?”

Eve nods and grins. “Can you ditch yours?” she whispers back.

“Right after I get my soy dog.”

Eve and her mom sway to the music with the other passengers as they munch on hot dogs. Slowly Eve wanders away and pretends to take a stroll. Once she’s out of eyesight she hightails it around the tiny island, reaching into her backpack and tearing open the condom wrapper.

She sees Adam hightailing it toward her from the opposite direction. They run and embrace. Eve suddenly feels shy beneath the sunshine. Adam pulls her behind a shrub and yanks off her bikini top.

“Not so fast.”

“In about five minutes this place is going to be crawling with senior citizens.”

“Tell me something nice,” she coos. “Something sexy.”

“Do you want to do it or not?” he asks.

“Of course.”

They undress and lie on Eve’s wrap and have a quickie, a hot, sweaty quickie while Eve squints into the sun. When it’s over, they lie for a moment like corpses, tangled together. Then Adam pulls out and rolls off the condom. They kneel naked in the sand, fumbling with their bathing suits.

“That’s one way to do it,” Eve says with a small smile.

“Sorry,” Adam says.

“No, no,” Eve says.

“You all right?”

“Uh-huh.”

They hear voices and quickly get dressed and fling themselves into the sea. Fellow passengers stream past them. Some wave. Eve is relieved when Adam swims over and takes her wet hand. “Let’s go back,” he says.

“And here I’m thinking you’re swimming over to whisper sweet nothings in my ear.”

“Sweet,” he whispers into her hair. “Nothings.”

Eve changes back into her wrap skirt while Adam pockets the gooey, sandy condom. Slowly, they start to back away from each other in the directions from which they came.