Кейт Кристенсен - The Last Cruise

As Christine walked out of the air-conditioned terminal into the balmy, sweet air of Southern California, she inhaled sharply and started to laugh. She might as well have traveled to another planet. It was summer here. The air vibrated with sunlight. Bits of mica glinted in the pavement, making it sparkle. She walked through clumps of people with deep tans wearing shorts and sandals. When she looked down to steer her luggage cart over the curb, she caught a glimpse of the winter pallor of her own skin, dead white.

The cabbie helped her stow her luggage in his trunk. “You brought everything, I guess.”

“I’m going on a cruise,” she told him, trying to temper her giddy elation with apology. In the cab on the way to the hotel, she leaned her head against the back of the seat and watched the palm trees roll by. She wanted to drift on the fumes of the wine she’d drunk on the plane, lose herself in thought, but the cabbie was energetically chatty, with a musical but guttural accent she couldn’t place. He had shining black hair and chalky skin, and he was skeletally skinny. She decided he was a vampire, which added a dreamlike, sinister undertone to his chattiness.

He was also, apparently, a self-appointed ambassador to Long Beach. “We are the seventh-largest city in California,” he was saying. “We are the second-busiest seaport in the United States, as well as the Aquatic Capital of America. There are many boats to charter for excellent dolphin and whale watching. And the beaches. Five and a half miles. You have heard of Misty May-Treanor?”

Christine shook herself awake, trying to focus.

“Olympic gold-medalist beach volleyball star?” He peered at her in the rearview.

“Right,” she said. She added, as if to justify her ignorance of this local celebrity, “I’m only here till tomorrow afternoon.”

“Go to the Aquarium of the Pacific,” he said, undaunted. “It is the second-most popular family destination in Los Angeles after Disneyland. And go aboard the Queen Mary. ”

“I’m about to be on the Queen Isabella for two weeks.”

He was silent, possibly offended at her equating the two ships.

She asked, “How long have you lived here?”

“Eight years,” he said.

“Where are you from?”

“I moved here from Wisconsin.”

“I mean originally?” She peered at his medallion, but his name was obscured by the large plush whale affixed to his dashboard.

He went quiet again, as if she had made another faux pas, this one even worse. Christine had never met a cabdriver in her life who was offended by this question, but of course there was always a first time.

In front of the hotel, under the porte cochere, the driver reached back and took the money she handed him, and when she waved away the change, he nodded with aggrieved gratitude, not meeting her eye.

“I apologize,” she said, her door open, one leg out of the cab, her bag slung across her shoulder. “I shouldn’t have asked where you’re from. That’s none of my business.”

He finally looked directly at her with a small, tight smile. “I am from Wisconsin,” he told her. “Have a nice stay in Long Beach, ma’am.”

Christine had just turned thirty-six; she couldn’t help taking that “ma’am” as a small slap in the face. She glared at the oblivious driver, regretting the guilt-induced generosity of her tip, while a valet transferred her bags from the trunk of the cab to a wheeled cart.

The dim, high-ceilinged lobby looked like the interior of a modern bank, with a polished stone floor and a wall-long desk with several perky young corporate-looking people standing in a row behind it.

“Christine Thorne,” she told the desk clerk, a plump blonde with a smoothly tanned, button-nosed face. “I have a reservation for one night. Under ‘Valerie Chapin.’ ”

“Two queen beds?” said the woman, whose name was Rhonda, according to her nametag.

“That’s right. My friend’s arriving late tonight.”

“No problem. I’ll just need a credit card and ID, please.”

Christine fished out her card and driver’s license and handed them over.

“Wow,” Rhonda said. “You’ve come a long way. Must be cold back there in New Hampshire.”

“I actually live in Maine. Well, right on the border. For some reason, my mail comes through the New Hampshire post office, so that’s officially where I’m a resident. But I’m really from Maine.”

“Is there that much of a difference? Winters are shorter in Maine, or what?”

Christine gave her a look of gentle admonishment, the same look the cabbie had given her, she realized. Maybe all Americans were touchy about their provenance. “They’re just different, I guess,” Christine said. “But I’m definitely a Mainer. Six generations on my father’s side.”

Rhonda was looking at her with a vacant expression of bright interest that suggested another guest was standing behind her, waiting. She handed Christine a key card. “Will you be needing assistance with your bags?”

“Yes please,” Christine replied, looking back at the valet with mild embarrassment. She wasn’t used to people carrying things for her, but those bags were heavy. For a moment, she feared she didn’t have enough cash after the cab fare to tip him. Then she remembered the five she always kept stashed in a side pocket of her shoulder bag; she’d put it there years ago, back when she still lived in New York. She’d never had to use it before.

“So what’s the weather like back east right now?” said the valet as they stood side by side in the elevator. He had the gravelly voice of a heavy smoker, which struck her as odd, since she didn’t think people smoked in Southern California.

“It’s cold and wet,” she said. “We call it mud season.”

“Here, it’s summer year-round,” he said. “I get sick of it, to be honest. Well, only a little.”

In room 712, he set her bags down professionally, one on the luggage rack, the other aligned with the closet door.

“Many thanks,” she said, handing him her emergency fiver.

“Thank you, ” he said.

She kicked off her sturdy walking shoes (brand-new Merrells, free of mud) and padded in bare feet to the window to slide open the stiff drapes. Across from her was a painted mural of a pod of whales or dolphins swimming on the side of an enormous building; maybe that was the famous aquarium. She’d ask about it tomorrow. She owed the cabbie that much, she supposed. Even though he’d called her “ma’am.”

Standing in front of the full-length mirror, she appraised herself honestly. Maybe she did look middle-aged, or at least unfashionable, here in this place of eternal youth and glamour. The cream-colored pedal pushers and long-sleeved black T-shirt that looked spiffy at the Portland Jetport had felt rural and frumpy the instant she’d stepped off the plane in L.A.; almost all the women in the airport wore yoga pants, stretchy low-cut tops, and wedge sandals. And her body, which was serviceably strong, youngish, and healthy, all she needed in Maine, had likewise begun to feel bulky and sexless next to all these super-slender Cali babes with their turbocharged boobs and butts like clenched fists of muscle.

Her cell phone buzzed.

“Hey,” she said, picking it up and flopping onto the bed. “How’s Sukey?”