Кейт Кристенсен - The Last Cruise

He didn’t hesitate. “With you. Can you come to my place? We can’t live near Isaac. We should get married, anything you like.”

Her chest warm with joy, she said, “As a proposal, it’s maybe a little casual. But as a proposition, I accept.”

A little while later, they got out of bed and dressed without showering, looking at each other’s bodies with childlike curiosity and unabashed love.

“I remember in the 1970s, at the Dead Sea,” said Sasha. “Remember? You wore that black bathing suit. So sexy! Like Sophia Loren. For Sonia’s sake I had to look away. You look exactly the same to me now. I can’t believe I finally get to see you like this. I finally get to sleep with you.”

She waved away the compliment, laughing.

“Tonight,” he said seriously. “Tonight, I promise to make love to you. Don’t worry, I still can. With you, I can do anything.”

Dressed, their hair combed, but without any other attention to their appearance, they ventured into the hallway hand in hand. They didn’t say so, but they both hoped they could spare Isaac the sight of them together, so soon.

Isaac was nowhere to be seen. But there was Rivka Weiss, of all people, coming toward them along the hallway, wearing a tailored white silk pantsuit, her hair impeccably mussed under a broad white hat.

Miriam saw her first, then Sasha. Then Rivka saw the two of them, coming out of the same stateroom hand in hand, looking rumpled in the manner of people who have been naked together carnally and recently. People who, in Rivka’s eyes, had absolutely no business doing so.

“Oh!” she cried, her sculpted eyebrows raised as high into her taut forehead as her recent Botox treatments would allow, which wasn’t very. “Where is Isaac? I was—I was just looking for him. To see if he wanted to take a walk along the promenade before the talent show.”

“Good evening, Rivka,” said Miriam calmly. “I have no idea where Isaac is, I’m sorry.”

“All right,” said Rivka, still looking askance at Miriam.

“By the way, we got divorced more than twenty years ago,” Miriam added in her own defense, but Rivka didn’t hear her. She had dashed off on her spidery legs, teetering on her wedge sandals, fleeing from the sight of these wicked adulterers, from such insurrection on the part of her very own musicians.

When Christine and Valerie arrived just after dinner, the air-conditioned Starlight Lounge was already half full of mostly gray heads and hands fanning programs, chattering voices rising from the small tables and semicircular booths. The lounge was a large interior room with no windows; it was on the promenade deck, but it felt underground, louche. The small raised stage had a sparkly linoleum floor that resembled ersatz starlight, its blue faux-velvet curtains parted, footlights beaming upward. Waiters circulated with trays held high, serving fancy, colorful cocktails in giant glasses garnished with tiny paper parasols and wedges of exotic fruit. Paddle fans turned overhead.

The talent show wouldn’t start for a while, but there were plenty of people to watch in the meantime. The other passengers had proved to be an odd and entertaining group, Christine thought: mostly older American couples, the usual suspects on any cruise, but there was a wide variety even in this normally homogeneous assemblage: a gaggle of California hippies; several well-preserved glamour babes and their younger male companions; a few dignified black couples who looked out of place only because they were so well dressed and conservatively elegant compared to everyone else; and quite a number of gay pairs, both male and female. There were also, of course, a number of fat, pinkish human adults in mass-produced clothing, but fewer of these than Christine had expected, because she had expected an entire boatful.

“This should be fun,” said Valerie. “I predict five drunk stripteases, four lip-synching drag queens, three bad comedians, two okay musicians, and a semiprofessional emcee.”

“Are these seats taken?” said a voice.

Christine looked up. “Miriam! Have a seat.”

She hadn’t seen Miriam since the captain’s table dinner, and hadn’t been able to speak to her. But she seemed like a different person now. An unmistakable glowing aura radiated from her.

“This is Sasha,” Miriam said, gesturing at the handsome gentleman at her side. He had black eyes and a well-shaped nose, broad shoulders and a full head of salt-and-pepper hair. He wore a cotton button-down shirt and blue jeans. He was sexy, no matter how old he was. “Sasha, this is my new friend, Christine.”

“I’m happy to meet you,” said Sasha as they seated themselves in the two other chairs at the table.

Christine widened her eyes at Miriam, and Miriam twinkled her eyes back at her. “And you must be the friend Christine has told me so much about,” she said, turning to Valerie. “Forgive me, I’ve forgotten your name.”

“Valerie,” said Valerie, who couldn’t hide the fact that she had no idea who these old people were and didn’t care.

“And what are you young ladies doing on this boat full of old people?” asked Sasha. He had a low, gravelly voice tinged with an accent.

“Oh, I’m trying to get a little work done,” said Valerie. “I’m a writer.”

“I’m on vacation,” said Christine.

“What do you do?” Sasha asked.

“I’m a farmer,” said Christine. She was getting a little tired of saying this every time she met someone. She wished she had something more interesting to offer about herself.

“Great combination,” said Sasha. “A writer and a farmer.”

“Oh. We’re not together,” said Valerie. “Though if I had to marry a girl, it would totally be Christine.”

“I used to be a writer,” Christine said, feeling defensive. “In New York.”

“So how long have you two been married?” Valerie asked in a skeptical voice. Miriam and Sasha exchanged an amused look.

“I was married for forty-three years, and my wife passed away last January,” said Sasha. “Miriam and I have just fallen in love after more than half a century of friendship and working together.”

“Oh,” said Valerie. She looked consternated by this for some reason.

“That’s amazing,” said Christine. “I’m so happy for you, Miriam. Both of you.”

Their drinks arrived, tropical and festooned, tart with just the right amount of sweet. Kimmi flew onto the stage out of the velvety darkness and grabbed a microphone. “Thanks for coming, everybody! So I’d like to introduce tonight’s first act, a singer from Brazil. Give it up for Beatriz Oliveira! Accompanied by our very own house band, the Kool-Tones!”

The jazz quintet off to the side raised gleaming horns in a salute, the drummer simmered his sticks on the floor tom, and Valerie’s friend Beatriz took the stage in a skintight fuchsia dress.

“I’m feeling mighty lonesome,” she sang in a smoky whisper. “Haven’t slept a wink…” Her interpretation of “Black Coffee” began with all the appropriate pathos, but as it went along, she sounded increasingly defiant, like a woman who was not resigned yet to her fate. Her face opened like a flower in water, blooming, her eyes alight with a glinting, self-possessed sexual straightforwardness that belonged to the present-day era, her own time. “My nerves have gone to pieces, my hair is turning gray…” As she sang, Christine watched Miriam and Sasha out of the corner of her eye. They were holding hands on top of the table, leaning into each other with abstracted yet fully awake expressions. He drew her in close, Miriam looked giddy with joy, and Christine felt a pang of vicarious envy. She missed being in love. Marriage wasn’t about heady, swooning romance and it never had been, she knew that full well and accepted it, but the small whiffs of vicarious helium she was breathing in were enough to set up a powerful and irrational yearning for it, just once more, in some small way, the way a reformed alcoholic seated next to a happy drunk at a dinner party might crave some booze.