“Great idea,” I say too loudly, clapping my hands together.
“No, no,” the Wallaces insist, shaking their heads.
“Perhaps after dinner,” Lorrie says.
“Oh come on,” I say, turning to Marina. “It’ll be like a souvenir.”
“Victor, no,” Marina says. “Not right now.”
“Yes, Victor,” Stephen says. “Perhaps later.”
The photographer crouches at the table, waiting for a decision.
“Well, damnit,” I say. “Come on, guys. Oh, just take it,” I tell the photographer. “Just do it.”
“Victor, please,” the Wallaces say in unison.
“I’m not feeling very photogenic right now,” Marina adds improbably.
“Well, I’m camera-ready, babies,” I exclaim. “Go for it, dude.”
Just as the flash goes off I try to lean into Marina, who backs slightly away toward the maitre d’, who has stepped aside, waiting patiently to continue serving the caviar.
The Wallaces glare at me sternly while I give the photographer my name and cabin number and ask for four copies. As he walks away, the captain announces over the intercom that the QE2 will be stopping in a matter of minutes and to please stay seated, that there’s really no need to get up since the fog will probably obliterate the view and we’ll be moving again shortly. But most of the hoi polloi in the Queen’s Grill ignore the captain’s suggestion and drift from their tables to the starboard side, including—thankfully—the Wallaces, though it just seems like an excuse to confer with the director. The maitre d’ finishes serving the caviar and moves away. I’m pouring myself a glass of white wine from one of the carafes when Marina touches my shoulder.
“Victor,” she says.
“I think they’re mad at me,” I say. “I don’t think they liked having their picture taken. The fucking English, y’know? Jesus Christ. I mean, I know that you and I are used to it, but—”
“Victor,” she says again.
“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” I say. “But baby, you look gorgeous.”
“Victor, you’re drunk,” she says.
“And you’re gorgeous—”
“Victor, I have to talk to you.”
“And I have to talk to you, baby.” I grab her hand beneath the table.
“No, I’m serious,” she says, pulling away.
“And so am I,” I say, leaning toward her.
“Victor, stop it,” she says. “You have got to sober up.”
“Baby, you’re—”
“I have to leave,” she says, glancing over at the Wallaces. “Call me when you’re through with dinner.”
“No-no-no-no,” I say, immediately sobering up. “No way, baby. You’ve got to stay. Don’t leave me with—”
“I’m leaving and you’re calling me in my cabin when you’re through with dinner,” Marina explains patiently.
“Why can’t I come with you?” I ask. “What’s the story? What’s wrong?”
“I have to leave,” she says, starting to get up.
“I’m coming too,” I say, holding on to her arm. “I’ll pretend I’m sick.”
“No, that’s not possible,” she says. “Let go.”
“Baby, come on—”
“It’s imperative that you call me immediately after dinner,” she says, pulling away from the table. “Do you know what ‘imperative’ means?”
“That I”—I squint up at her—“that I … have to call you after dinner?”
“Okay,” she says, semi-relieved.
“Baby, what’s happening?”
“There’s no time to go into it now.”
The Wallaces start heading back along with most of the other passengers, murmurs of disappointment floating around the dining room about what—that they didn’t catch a glimpse of a diabetic seaman? I am so lost.
“Baby,” I start. “I’m not comprehending this—”
“Tell them good night for me,” Marina says, walking quickly out of the restaurant.
I watch as she disappears down a corridor, then notice a nearby waiter who takes in the expression on my face and shrugs sadly, sympathizing with me.
“Too bloody foggy,” Stephen says, pulling Lorrie’s chair out.
“Where did your friend go?” Lorrie asks, sitting down.
“I don’t know,” I sigh. “She’s freaking out about something.”
“I hope we didn’t upset her,” Lorrie says.
“Darling, eat your caviar,” Stephen says.
Later the Wallaces insist I join them at a karaoke party in Club Lido but I’m drunk and the details surrounding me are swimming out of focus in front of my eyes and before I bolt for my cabin the camera moves in on dessert: a gold-rimmed plate, raspberries, blueberries, two scoops of vanilla mousse bordering a chocolate bonsai tree.
7
Back in my room pretty much totally sloshed I dial Marina Gibson’s cabin but there’s no answer. When I ask the operator to make sure she’s ringing the right room, she pitches a snotty reply and I hang up on her and then scrounge around the minibar for a split of champagne, drinking it out of the bottle, foam cascading out of the head all over my hands which I wipe off on my complimentary QE2 bathrobe. I look for a copy of the script, can’t find it, give up, tumble around the room, light cigarettes, the view from the prow of the ship on the TV screen almost totally obscured by fog. The phone rings.
“Victor?” Marina sounds as if she’s been crying.
“Hey baby,” I say soothingly. “Did like Gavin call? What’s the story? You sound bummed.”
“We have to talk.”
“Great,” I say, sitting up. “How about my room?”
“No.”
“Okay, okay,” I say, then, guessing, “How about … your room?”
“I don’t think it’s safe,” she whispers.
I pause, considering this. “Marina,” I say softly. “I have condoms.”
She hangs up.
I immediately dial her room back.
She picks up midway through the first ring.
“Hey baby, it’s me,” I say.
“This isn’t going to work,” she mutters to herself, sounding vaguely panicked.
“What do you mean?” I’m asking. “Do … you have condoms?”
“That isn’t what I’m talking about!” she shouts.
“Whoa, baby,” I start, holding the phone away, then bringing it back to my ear. “What isn’t?”
“Victor, something’s happening that needs to be explained to you.”
“Listen, I’m sorry I’m rushing things,” I apologize. “I’ll read the rest of the script, we’ll get to know each other, whatever.”
“You’re in fucking danger, Victor,” she cries.
“Now don’t go psycho on me, baby—”
“Victor, did anyone give you something to bring with you to London?” she asks breathlessly.
“What do you mean, baby?” I’m checking my hair in the mirror above the dressing table.
“Did anyone tell you to bring something—a package, an envelope, anything—to London?” she asks again, straining to calm down.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” she moans. “A gift or something. Something to bring someone.”
“Oh yeah, right,” I say, as if it’s slowly dawning on me.
“What? What was it?” she asks in a rush.
I pause before giggling. “Just my beautiful self, baby.”
“Damnit, Victor,” Marina shouts. “Are you sure? Think carefully.”
“At this point I don’t think I can.”
“Victor, please, you’ve got to sober up.”
“I’m coming over to your room,” I tell her. “You sound stressed. You need a massage. Let me administer my famous stress-reducing—”
“Just meet me in Club Lido–now.”
“Baby, why not your room?” I whine, disappointed.
“Because it isn’t safe,” she says. “Because we have to
meet where there are other people around.”
“Hey baby—”
She hangs up. I’m supposed to look at the phone and shrug, which I do.
6
Cold water splashed on my face doesn’t really hasten my sobriety so I just try not to lurch my way to Club Lido, which is actually close enough to my cabin that I’m able to get there without any passing out or major tripping going down. And Club Lido isn’t crowded since the karaoke party the Wallaces mentioned has moved on to Mr. Kusoboshi’s cabin, the bartender tells me when I take a seat and restrain myself from ordering a martini, sipping a light beer instead, occasionally staring out the large window that looks over the fog-shrouded deck and a small, shallow pool where steam rising from the lit water mixes in with all that fog. A crew member, exasperated, points out someone standing by the railing, the fog sometimes swirling around but mostly just a heavy wall of vaguely transparent granite sitting there, the figure lost within. I sloppily sign a bill for the beer then head outside.
On deck it’s quiet, the sounds of the dry-ice machines churning out huge enveloping clouds of fog the only real noise, and the boat seems to be moving more slowly than usual. Marina’s back is to me and she’s wearing a very cool oversized hooded Prada wool jacket and when I touch her shoulder she automatically stiffens, still looking away, and I’m shivering and damp and she seems even taller and I try to bend down to check if she’s wearing heels but oddly enough she has Nikes on her feet, which also look larger, though since I don’t really remember ever seeing her feet what the hell am I talking about?
“Marina?” I’m asking. “Marina—is that you?”
There’s a pause, then the hood nods.
“Hey, are you okay?” I squint, uselessly waving bad-smelling fake fog away. “What’s the story? Did Gavin call you? What happened?”
“You can’t go to Paris with me,” she whispers, her voice raspy, as if she’s been crying. “You have to go to London.”
“Hey baby, why the change of heart?” I say, gripping her shoulder. “Hey, look at me.”
The hood shakes its head.
“Victor,” she says, pulling away, her back still to me. “You’re drunk.”
“How can you tell if you won’t look at me?” I plead.
“I can smell it,” the voice coughs.
“Hey baby, get closer,” I murmur, leaning in. “I wanna come to Paris with you.”
“Victor, you’re drunk,” the voice protests, moving away.
“I need a better excuse,” I say. “You could at least—ahem—do me the honor of a more intelligent excuse.” This is followed by an enormous belch, which I follow with an apology. I keep trying to get her to face me but she keeps pulling away, tightening the hooded jacket around her.
“Just go,” she coughs, then mumbles something else.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say.
“Victor, please—”
“You wanted to talk to me,” I point out. “I’m here. I’m ready. I’m in a fairly responsive mood.”
“I just wanted to tell you that you can’t come to Paris—”
“Hey baby, please look at me,” I tell her. “Let’s go into the bar and I’ll order some coffee, a nice cappuccino, huh?”
Reaching around, she grabs my hand without turning to face me and whispers something about my room.
“What? What did you say, baby?” I whisper back, leaning into her, suddenly woozy with the prospect of sex, all the champagne, the smells coming off the Prada overcoat.
“Let’s go to your room.” She breathes in, her voice husky and thick.
“Baby,” I start. “That is such a good—”
Still holding my hand, she turns and walks away, cutting a path through the fog along the deck, and it’s hard to keep up with the long, wide strides she’s taking and I’m mumbling “Baby, baby, slow down” but I just let her pull me along, rushing toward my cabin.
Once at my door, giggling and out of breath, I pull a key out of my pocket and drop it—laughing “You’re taxing my mind-eye coordination, baby”—and I reach down, fumbling for the key, but she grabs it first and I try to grab her hand but when I finally stand up straight, gasping, she has already pushed the door open and is walking into the room, dragging me along and switching off all the lights, her back still to me. I fall onto the bed, reaching out for her leg as she walks by.
“I’ll just be a minute,” she says from the bathroom before closing the door.
Grunting, I sit up and slip my shoes off, hearing them drop by the side of the bed, and then reach over to turn some of the lights back on but I can’t reach them and quickly realize I’m just too tired and too drunk to really do anything right now.
“Hey baby?” I call out. “Can we keep the lights on?” I fall back onto the bed. “Honey?”
The bathroom door opens and Marina briefly stands in the entrance, the hood now draped over her shoulders, but even by squinting I can’t make out her features since she’s backlit in the doorway, just a dark shape moving toward me, the door slowly closing partway behind her, and it’s so freezing in the cabin that my breath steams in the half-light coming from the bathroom and she drops down onto the floor, her hair covering her face, and she proceeds to yank down my tuxedo pants along with the Calvin Klein boxer-jockeys and tosses them in the corner and with both hands on my thighs spreads my legs open, moving in between them until her head is at my waist, and my dick—amazingly—is rock hard and she starts rolling her tongue around the head while sucking on it at the same time, her hand gripping the base and then, keeping the head in her mouth, she starts sliding her hand up and down the shaft.
“I want to kiss you,” I groan, hooking my hands underneath her arms, trying to pull her on top of me, but her arms are bound up in the bulky jacket, which I finally manage to move down a little, revealing muscular pale shoulders and what looks like a tattoo, partly covered by the strap of a white tank top, on the right shoulder blade. Reaching out, I try to touch the tattoo. “Come on,” I groan, “take your clothes off,” but she keeps pushing me back, my cock moving in and out of her mouth, her hair hanging down, brushing across my hips, her tongue expertly sliding up the shaft, and then I’m angling myself so I can push the entire dick back into her mouth and with both hands holding my hips she starts swallowing it over and over and I’m making soft moaning noises, pulling my shirt up, not wanting to come on it, and I start jacking myself off while she eats my balls, a finger pressing against my asshole that I keep brushing away but she slips it in and I start coming and afterwards, panting, things spinning away from me, through a blurry lens I notice her moving around the room opening drawers and I’m murmuring “Why are you wearing a wig?” before I pass out, which I don’t want to do because there are so many things I need to show her.
5
The noon whistle is what stops the dreaming. In the middle of the night I was wrapped in blankets after I passed out but no one removed the tuxedo shirt and bow tie. Unable to stay motionless in the tightly curled fetal position I’m in—due to a great deal of pain—I reach for the phone but in mid-reach realize I’ve missed brunch and there’s no possibility I could keep anything down anyway so I nix room service. In desperate need of water, I stumble up, stagger to the bathroom in pain, squealing “Spare me, spare me,” and drink greedily from the sink, which tastes awful, and then I stare at my reflection in the mirror, utterly confused: my face looks completely dehydrated and splotchy, the hair on my head is sticking up at weird angles in a totally ungroovy ’80s kind of way and below that the sparse hair on my stomach is matted with dried semen. After a shower the day seems halfway salvageable and much less grim. I get dressed, take three Advil, flush my eyes with Visine, then fall into a violent heap on the bed. I call Marina’s room but there’s no answer.
4
I find Marina’s room and knock on the door but there’s no answer and, predictably, it’s locked. I knock again, place my ear against the door: silence. While lingering in the corridor,
out of it, still hazy, wondering what I should do after I apologize for being drunk, I notice maids five doors down cleaning rooms, moving slowly this way. I take a walk along the starboard deck but end up pacing just one small stretch of it, sunglasses on, mumbling to myself, the wind off the Atlantic causing me to weave around, until I move back to Marina’s hall. Her door is open now and a maid is given her cue to enter, leaving in the open doorway a giant canvas hamper piled high with laundry.
I knock, peering in, clearing my throat, causing the maid to look up while she’s stripping the bed. Without smiling and with some sort of bossy Scottish accent, she asks, “May I help you?”
“Hello,” I say, trying to be genial and totally failing. “I’m just looking for the girl whose room this is.”
“Yes?” the maid asks, waiting, holding the bundle of sheets.
“I, um, left something here,” I say, moving into the cabin, noticing an unopened fruit basket, knocked over, on the dressing table, the phone Marina used to call me on the floor in the corner next to the bed instead of the nightstand, as if whoever was last talking on it was huddled down on the floor, hiding behind the bed.
“Sir—” the maid begins impatiently.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I’m saying. “She’s my girlfriend.”
“Sir, you should come back later,” the maid says.
“No, no, it’s okay,” I’m saying, realizing that the room seems totally unlived in. I move past the maid to the closet and open it.
“Sir, you should wait until—”
I hold up a hand. “I said it’s okay,” I murmur.
The closet is completely empty: no clothes, no luggage, not even any hangers. I close the closet door and move past the maid over to the dressing table and start opening drawers. All of those are empty too.
“Sir, I’m asking you to leave,” the maid says, looking me over unfavorably. “If you don’t leave I’m going to have to call Security.”
Ignoring her, I notice that the wall safe is open and a Prada handbag—nylon with the trademark metal triangle—is halfway hidden inside. As I move toward the safe, behind me the maid walks out of the cabin.