Bad Grrlz' Guide to Reality

  “What does Patrick Murphy look like in the novel?” Ian asked.

  “What difference does that make?” Pat asked.

  Ian shrugged. “Just thought it would be interesting if the description matched.”

  “As I recall, he’s a tall guy with a mustache,” Susan said.

  Ian laughed. “That’s perfect. He matches the description of the victim. So a man who doesn’t exist may have stabbed a character out of Mary Maxwell’s novel.”

  When Tom arrived in the Ithaca Dining Room, everyone else was already at the table. Apparently Alberta and Bill had joined an official tour of the island. Alberta seemed miffed that Susan had gone off on her own.

  “Don’t you think it’s dangerous go wandering around in a foreign city alone?” Alberta asked Susan. “Anything could have happened.”

  “There was nothing to be afraid of,” Susan said. Tom noticed that she hadn’t answered Alberta’s question. She had evaded i.t rather neatly by stating a fact, rather than discussing how she felt.

  Alberta had not noticed Susan’s evasion. “Well I would have been afraid,” she said. “I’ve heard so much about purse snatchers and pickpockets. You just can’t wander about here like you can back home.”

  “Actually, armed robbery is more common in most American cities than it is in Hamilton,” Tom interjected. “I had to do some research on the subject when the company was putting together a brochure on shore side safety for passengers. You can wander about in Hamilton and be statistically safer than you are back home.”

  Alberta frowned, shaking her head, but Susan gave him a grateful smile. Then, as was so often the case, the conversation turned to food. Among the appetizers that night was a selection of caviar, which led Charles and Bill into a lengthy and tedious discussion of fish eggs.

  Charles was apparently something of an expert on the subject.

  He treated the table to a prolonged discourse on the caviar of the spoonbill, a peculiar prehistoric fish that thrived in the waters of the Mississippi River. According to Charles, the caviar was quite delectable, but Tom wasn’t convinced. To him, all fish eggs seemed better used as bait than dinner.

  At last, they placed their orders and Charles turned to Tom. “So what was the story with that blackout last night,” he said. “That sort of thing would never happen on Celebrity Lines.”

  “It appears to have been an act of vandalism,” Tom said. “Someone went into a crew area, found a fuse box, and tore all the wires, blacking out three decks for just over an hour.”

  “Long enough to be quite inconvenient,” Charles said.

  “I thought it was fun,” Susan said. “We went to the Apollo Lounge and had hot chocolate. But why would anyone rip out the wires in a fuse box?”

  “I’ll bet it was those dreadful Clampers,” Alberta said. “Clampers?” Susan looked startled, Tom thought. She glanced at Max. “Members of E Clampus Vitus? The society that’s in Wild Angel?”

  Max looked up from his brandy and nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “It seems there’s a group of Clampers on board.”

  “They say they’re interested in history,” Alberta said in a disapproving tone, “but as far as I can tell, they are only interested in drinking.”

  Susan glanced at Max. “I thought you made them up.”

  “No need to do that,” Max said. “The Ancient Order of E Clampus Vitus has been active in California since the Gold Rush. They’re an historic drinking society.”

  “Or a drinking historic society,” Tom said. He had had a few problems with the boisterous group already. “They do seem very fond of drinking.”

  “They were in the casino last night,” Alberta said. “Gambling and drinking and raising a fuss.” She shook her head, looking at Tom as if hoping that he would volunteer to do something about it.

  Tom just smiled and nodded. According to Company Policy, there was nothing wrong with gambling and drinking in the Casino, that being the purpose of the establishment. Whether the Clampers had been “raising a fuss” was a judgment call. Alberta’s judgment as to what constituted an unacceptable fuss clearly differed from that of the security staff.

  Tom leaned on the railing of the Promenade deck, staring out at the waves. He was feeling restless, unsettled, and he thought a stroll might relax him.

  Tom watched the lights of Hamilton sparkling in the distance.

  The pilot boat was gone and the Odyssey was I leaving Bermuda behind, heading for the Azores. Ordinarily, Tom felt a sense of relief when the ship left a port. Usually, he felt most comfortable at sea, where the ship was a self-contained system, isolated from the rest of the world. But this departure was different. He felt uneasy, off-balance.

  After dinner, Pat and Ian went out for a drink. They asked Susan to join them, but she decided to go back to the stateroom. It had been a lovely day. She went to bed early. Rocked by the gentle movement of the ship on the swells, listening to the soft humming of the ship’s engines, she fell asleep.

  She dreamed that she woke up. She did not really wake up, but she dreamed that she did. In her dream, she opened her eyes.

  The stateroom was dark except for the moonlight shining through the glass door leading to the balcony. In the moonlight, she could see the outlines of the stateroom furniture: the desk, the chair, the closet.

  Something wasn’t quite right. Susan lay in bed, trying to figure out what had wakened her. The ship continued its easy rocking; the engines still hummed softly. She heard some people laughing as they walked down the corridor—drunks heading for bed after a late night in the bar, she thought. She looked toward Pat’s bed, but it was still empty. Susan sat up in bed, sniffing the air. She caught a faint scent of flowers—perhaps a floral perfume. Jasmine, she thought; it reminded her of jasmine tea.

  Blinking in the dim light, she saw something draped across the back of the desk chair. She leaned over and switched on the bedside light.

  She was alone in the cabin. A silk scarf hung over the back of the chair. It wasn’t hers and it didn’t look like the sort of thing Pat would wear.

  She noticed that the closet door was ajar, as if someone had dressed in a hurry and not stopped to close it. Through the opening, she could see a brightly colored dress, a blouse patterned with tropical flowers. Not her clothing.

  Tentatively, she got out of bed and picked up the scarf, wanting to reassure herself of its reality. The silk was cool and smooth against her fingers. The sensation increased her unease. She did not belong here. This wasn’t her cabin. How had she gotten into someone else’s cabin?

  She glanced at the papers scattered on the desk, ruled sheets torn from a spiral-bound notebook. The hand writing was sprawling and untidy, with looping, rounded letters that crossed the lines as often as they rested on them.

  One sheet of paper caught her eye. At the top of the page was a set of lines, arranged like this:

  The rest of the page was blank.

  She recognized the lines as another hexagram from the I Ching. On the shelf above the desk, there was a copy of the I Ching, the same book that her college roommate had used to read fortunes. She took it down and found the hexagram. It was titled Chun: Difficulty at the Beginning. The name, the text said, related to a blade of grass, pushing against a stone as it sprouts from the earth.

  She was sitting down in the chair, preparing to read more about this hexagram, when she heard the sound of a hand on the door. Startled, she stood up, just as the door was opening.

  In Susan’s stateroom, the door opened. Susan turned in her sleep, rising toward wakefulness. She could hear Pat saying good night to Ian. For a moment, Susan blinked in the dark stateroom. Her stateroom. Then she closed her eyes and sank back into sleep.

  TWELVE

  “Sometimes dreams are simply dreams,” Gitana said. “And sometimes, they are something more. It all depends on who is doing the dreaming.”

  —from The Twisted Band

  by Max Merriwell

  Ian looked up when someone t
apped on the door. “Come in,” he called. Max Merriwell opened the door and stepped into the office.

  “Hey, Max,” Ian said. “Good to see you.”

  The writer looked surprised to see Ian. “Hello, Ian. I was looking for Tom.”

  “We share an office. He’s making the rounds of the ship. He’ll be back in a few minutes. Sit down. Make yourself at home.”

  Ian was glad to see the writer. He found Max intriguing. “Would you like a cup of coffee?” Ian asked. “Osvaldo just brought a fresh pot. He knows how I like it, so it’s stronger than most of what you get on board.”

  Ian poured Max a cup of coffee. He provided Max with a napkin and insisted that he try a biscotti. “Osvaldo’s decided that I need to eat more, so he always brings cookies when I ask for coffee. Try one.” Max sampled a biscotti. “Wonderful,” he said. “There’s a little Italian deli near my apartment that makes biscotti, and I’ve missed them.” He sighed and considered the cookie in his hand. “It’s a very nice ship, but I do miss being at home.”

  “You live in New York City?” Ian said.

  “In Greenwich Village,” Max said. “I’ve been in the same apartment for twenty years now.”

  Ian imagined Max’s apartment. Tiny, he guessed. Rent-controlled, of course. Crammed with books and papers. In There and Back Again, Bailey Beldon, the main character, lived in a cozy space in a hollowedout asteroid—a warren of rooms packed full of interesting things. Ian imagined that Max’s apartment was similar to that asteroid.

  “Coming on this trip was an experiment. I felt I needed a bit of a change.”

  “Tom told me you were working on a new book,” Ian said.

  Max shrugged. “Still playing with ideas,” he said. “Nothing solid yet.”

  “What brings you to see Tom?”

  “I found another note under my door.” Max pulled a scrap of paper from the pocket of his sports coat and held it out to Ian. “I thought Tom might like to see it. He was very interested in the other note I received.”

  Ian unfolded the paper. It had been torn from a spiral-bound notebook. Beneath a hexagram from the I Ching, a few sentences were scrawled in exuberant, looping handwriting: “A blade of grass pushes against a stone. A first meeting, beset by difficulties. Rain and thunder fill the air. When it is a man’s fate to undertake such new beginnings, any premature move might bring disaster. To overcome the chaos, he needs helpers.”

  “Ah, that’s appropriate,” Ian said. “The lower trigram is K’an, the abysmal. Dark and dangerous water. The upper trigram is Chen, the arousing. Its image is thunder.”

  Max smiled. “You’re a student of the Book of Changes,” he said.

  Ian looked up from the hexagram. “I consult it on occasion. As I recall, the Wilhelm-Baynes edition of the Book of Changes says that this hexagram indicates the way in which heaven and earth bring forth individual beings.”

  “Do you recall the course of action suggested?” Max asked.

  “Let me check.” Ian called up the appropriate hexagram on his computer screen. “The commentary warns that times of growth are beset with difficulties, arising from the profusion of all that is struggling to take form. To bring order out of the confusion, the superior man must seek out helpers.”

  Max nodded. “Interesting,” he said. He did not seem surprised by the note or its interpretation.

  Ian considered the note again. “Do you have any idea who is sending you these notes?” he asked.

  Max rubbed his beard thoughtfully. “Well, yes—I have some idea. I have seen similar handwriting,” he admitted.

  “You have? Where was that?”

  “In my apartment. I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and write notes about whatever I’m working on. In the morning, I never remember writing them.” He chuckled. “Sometimes, the handwriting on those notes doesn’t look like mine.”

  “Sometimes it looks like this?”

  “Sometimes it does. And sometimes it looks like the writing on the other note I got.”

  “So you’re writing notes to yourself?” Ian asked.

  Max shrugged. “In a sense, everything a fiction writer writes is a note to himself. It’s all part of the creative process. Every writer has his own methods. Perhaps mine is more unusual than some.”

  Max glanced at the clock on the wall, then set his coffee cup down, and stood up abruptly. “Look at the time,” he said. “I’ll be late to my own class if I’m not careful.”

  Susan woke up early. She had slept soundly and she was ready for breakfast. Pat was already gone—she had mentioned the night before that she might go for an early morning walk around the promenade deck. That girl had too much energy for her own good. Susan considered going to look for Pat, then decided that she would rather have breakfast by the pool and finish reading Wild Angel before heading for workshop.

  It was early, but the day was already warm. The pool sparkled in the bright sunshine. Susan chose a lounge chair in the shade, ordered a cup of decaffeinated coffee, a fruit plate, and a yogurt from the poolside waitress, and settled down to read her book.

  She read to the end of Wild Angel, then closed it with a sigh. Like all of Mary Maxwell’s books, Wild Angel had a happy ending. The villain was punished and the good were rewarded. The would-be Temperance lecturer ran off with the traveling circus, and Sarah turned her back on civilization, returning to her wolf pack. Susan was glad of that. Sarah belonged with the wolves, she thought.

  She had just set the book on the table beside her when she saw Mary, the woman who had rescued her from the gombey dancers. Mary waved. “Good morning!” she called.

  “Mary! How great to see you!”

  Mary looked elegant and comfortable in shorts, sandals, and a crimson blouse. She carried a canvas beach bag; a scarf patterned with scarlet hibiscus was looped casually around the handle. It looked strangely familiar, but Susan couldn’t place it.

  Mary pulled over a chair from a nearby table and sat down.

  “What’s that you’re reading?”

  Susan handed the book to Mary. “It’s the latest Mary Maxwell book. I think it’s one of her best. Or I guess I should say one of Max’s best. Max described Mary Maxwell so well that it seems like she’s real.”

  Mary leaned back in her chair, an odd expression on her face. “How did he describe her?” she asked.

  “Let’s see. He said she was totally fearless. She likes to travel and she’s always getting into trouble—but she always gets out again. Actually, he said she liked to stir up trouble just for fun. She sounded a bit like my friend Pat.”

  Mary nodded thoughtfully.

  “I’m going to be going to Max’s workshop soon,” Susan went on. “Why don’t you come along? He’s a very interesting speaker.”

  “No thanks,” Mary said. “I have an appointment at the beauty salon in half an hour.” She pushed a hand through her hair. “I’m going to cut this mop off. I’ve heard the salon staff is excellent.”

  Susan pushed her own hair back, making a face. Her hair had once again escaped the clip at the back of her neck. In the warm weather, the curls were turning to frizz. She reached back and used both hands to lift the hair off the back of her neck so that the breeze could cool her. “In this weather, it would be great to have short hair.”

  “I think so. It’s worth a try.” Mary leaned back in her chair, studying Susan’s hair. “Have you ever thought about cutting yours short?” Susan hesitated, her hands full of hair, startled by the question.

  She had been wearing her hair long since she was in college.

  “Let me hazard a guess,” Mary said. “Your husband—your ex-husband, I suppose—liked it long.”

  Susan nodded. “That’s what he said.”

  “Well, he’s no longer entitled to an opinion, is he?” Mary leaned forward in her chair, studying Susan. Susan caught a whiff of her perfume—a familiar, floral scent. Jasmine? “He liked it long, but so what? What do you like?”

  Susan released her hai
r, then pushed another wayward lock out of her eyes. When she was a child, her mother had insisted she keep her hair long. Harry had said her long hair was beautiful. Susan had always gone along with their opinions.

  “I’ve always worn it long,” she said. “I don’t know what it would be like to cut it short.”

  “Unknown territory. Terra incognita. Here be dragons.” Mary was smiling now. “Those are always my favorite parts of explorer’s maps. The unknown seas where the dragons coiled, waiting and watching. You don’t know what might happen, out there in the unknown.”

  Susan smiled back. How wonderful to compare something as simple as a haircut to an adventure into unexplored seas.

  “Of course, you have to keep in mind that there are all kinds of dragons,” Mary went on. “In Western tradition, dragons are generally hostile, devouring maidens and laying waste to kingdoms. The Greeks and Romans didn’t believe that—their dragons lived underground and didn’t make trouble. But Christianity lumped those pagan Greeks and all their dragons together and made them symbolic of sin, grinding them under the heel of Saint George and his pals.” Mary shook her head ruefully. “I prefer the dragon of the Far East, a benevolent, playful creature who flies without wings, a symbol of yang, the principle of heaven. I’ve always admired that sort of dragon.”

  Susan thought about dragons and unknown territory and her ex-husband and the disadvantages of being a good girl. It was definitely time for a change. “Maybe I’ll get my hair cut,” she said softly.

  “I’ve always found that changing my appearance is a useful step when I’m changing my life,” Mary said. “Do you want me to make an appointment for you?”

  “Oh, I can’t put you to that trouble.”

  “Don’t be silly. I’ll be there anyway. What time is that workshop over?”

  “11:30.”

  “I’ll make an appointment for 12. Would you like to join me for lunch, after?”

  “That would be great.”

  Mary glanced at her watch. “I’d better be going. I’ll meet you outside the salon at one.” She headed off to the salon.