The Floating Feldmans

by Elyssa Friedland

  “Actually, this isn’t the time to discuss this. And not because of my headache. You might think it’s cute that you showed up here under an assumed name and snuck into my room—”

  Roger put up a hand.

  “I did not sneak,” he said. “I found Lindsay and she let me in. Though I have to say I met the head chef when I was in your office and he had literally zero recognition when I introduced myself to him, and he said he’s worked with you for the past six years. Do you ever talk about me?”

  “I like to keep my personal life personal. Sue me. Let’s say what this is really about, Rog. I shut down the marriage conversation the night before I left. I’m skittish. But do you have any idea what I see on the boat day in and day out? Tired couples desperate to revive their lifeless marriages. Families that can’t stand each other, trying to pretend otherwise, but, trust me, by the third or fourth day the jig is up. I trust you saw the little explosion tonight. The gloves come off even earlier if the seas are rough. You need to believe me that making it official, slapping on a label, is not all it’s cracked up to be.”

  Julian’s vision suddenly zigzagged, as happened from time to time during his attacks, and he saw Roger as fractured, his face a million different planes.

  “I’m sorry. I knew it was a risk, but every time I try to talk to you about it you say you’re leaving for a—”

  “Listen, I have stuff to deal with,” Julian said abruptly. “Don’t wait up for me.” He stood up, even though his vision was still shot, everything around him wavy and with a halo effect. He left the room and let the door slam shut behind him, the sound like an icepick to his skull.

  * * *

  —

  Julian wasn’t sure where to go when he left the room, but he knew he needed distraction and darkness. His first choice would have been the yoga room, which was usually free in the evenings and smelled like aromatherapy oils, but he remembered that it was booked by the Seattle chapter of Claustrophobics Anonymous for a private event. The CA folks had been coming on board for a while now, as part of an experimental immersive therapy. Julian didn’t think it was working too well because he still had to reserve a private elevator for them and open the breakfast buffet an hour early for their exclusive use.

  Deck Three had an Irish-style pub called the Salty Anchor that was always kept dim, lit indirectly by the neon beer signs behind the counter. If he kept his back to it, Julian could be safe from the light, which was kryptonite to his migraines. Unlike everything else on the ship, carnivalesque and flashy, the Salty Anchor was intentionally mellow, serving as an escape room for people who needed time away from the action or their traveling companions. It was the perfect spot to nurse, or chug (no judgment from Julian), a drink in peace. He wasn’t supposed to drink when he took his headache meds, so he planned to order a tea, find a small table in a corner, and wait for relief. He was friendly with Jimmy, the bartender, who wouldn’t give him any guff for skipping out on a pint. If things were quiet, Jimmy might keep him company. Jimmy was straighter than a ruler, but he had a chiseled jaw, long floppy hair, and a sexy Cockney accent, so Julian was willing to overlook his disappointing preference for women.

  It must have been Roger that he’d seen out of the corner of his eye at the chocolate fountain. He still couldn’t believe his boyfriend—partner, whatever—had booked himself on the Ocean Queen under an assumed name. It was true they often played little tricks on each other. Roger once put a picture of Julian as a pimply teenager with Coke-bottle glasses on the JumboTron at a Dolphins home game. Julian, knowing Roger had a major phobia of insects, once convinced him that their apartment had bedbugs and didn’t confess it was a joke until half of their clothing had been sealed in plastic bags. But this latest didn’t feel like April Fool’s one-upmanship. This felt like an ambush. Julian had often deflected conversations about their future by saying he was leaving soon for a cruise. So Roger had brought the discussion to sea, where the closest thing Julian had to a getaway route was to sign up for the daily Escape-the-Room challenge at eleven.

  “Well, well, if it isn’t our fearless cruise director,” Jimmy said when Julian entered the Salty Anchor. “I heard there was a little episode at cocktails. The medi guys were pissed because they were in the middle of a Ping-Pong tournament when they got buzzed.”

  “Nothing I couldn’t handle,” Julian said and looked around for an empty seat. Tonight the place was jam-packed with guests, rumpled in their formal wear but not ready to call it a night. Bow ties were discarded and French twists were set free and everyone seemed to be speaking two notches above the appropriate decibel level. Julian almost turned to leave but realized that any place he sought out was going to be mobbed after the formal evening. He plopped himself in an empty chair near the bar’s front entrance.

  “Tea, please. Herbal,” he mouthed to Jimmy, who nodded his understanding.

  A waitress he didn’t recognize set the mug and a box of assorted teas down in front of him a moment later. The cruise ship had many long-standing employees: Jimmy, the barkeep from central casting; Oxana, the cabaret dancer who claimed she wouldn’t retire until her boobs were too saggy to hold up her pineapple bra; and Ralphie, the head of security on the casino floor, a tough guy who could spot a card counter with one eye closed. But the rest of them: the bellmen, the greeters, the shop clerks, the maintenance guys, and the Purell pumpers, they were like a revolving door of cast members. Julian formed few attachments because just as soon as he developed an inside joke with the maître d’ at the Italian restaurant or the gym manager learned which treadmill he preferred to use, they were gone. When the boat’s senior hairdresser went all Sweeney Todd on him last year, lopping off two inches instead of two centimeters (measurements were a constant source of confusion because the staff hailed from both the metric and imperial systems), Julian barely had time to give him the stink eye before he announced his return to Sri Lanka.

  Julian liked it just fine this way. He was never, ever lonely, because you simply couldn’t be when you were surrounded by thousands of people with whom making small talk was your occupation. But he didn’t bother with close entanglements. Which was why Roger was totally overreacting about the head chef not knowing about him. Roger just didn’t get boat life. It wasn’t like at the Dolphins, where the same group of lawyers and accountants went to eat the same salads and turkey sandwiches in the cafeteria every day, sitting at the same table and complaining about the same annoying coworkers three tables over. Maybe that was why Roger wanted to come on board, to observe firsthand this major part of Julian’s life.

  “Excuse me,” came a timid voice just as he was taking his first sip of tea. Julian looked up and saw Mrs. Feldman of the Fighting Feldmans. He couldn’t suppress a groan, but she didn’t seem to hear it over the din.

  “I just wanted to say how sorry I am about the commotion earlier. I feel terrible if it made things difficult for you.” Whereas earlier Mrs. Feldman had looked rather attractive for an older woman, like one of those regal-bearing matriarchs on cable TV, now she appeared drained and haggard. If it was possible to age a decade in an hour, Mrs. Feldman had done so.

  “It’s fine,” Julian said, hoping to sound reassuring. “These incidents aren’t as uncommon as you’d think.”

  “Really?” Annette said, a glimpse of hopefulness spreading across the planes of her anguished face. “We really aren’t the types of people to cause a scene. We’re . . . We’re . . . I don’t know.” Her voice caught.

  Julian smiled. “The boat brings out the best and worst in people. It’s a lot of togetherness.” He thought of Roger. Was he still sitting on his bed, waiting? Or had he gone to find wherever Julian was secreting himself?

  Julian considered if being at sea together for the first time would bring out the best or the worst for him and Roger once their initial scuffle subsided and Julian was headache free. He tried to lighten his own mood with a favorite, if not a bit tired
, joke among the crew: If the boat’s a-rocking, don’t come a-knocking. It would be uniquely intimate to be with Roger in his cabin, the private sphere that many a chorus boy had intimated they would gladly enter. He may not have advertised Roger to the crew, like the women who bored everyone with endless cell phone pictures of their families back home, but he did something far more important. He’d resisted the temptation that hung in every particle of air, that moved with every hip sway, that dripped like sweat off the beautiful bodies. The Ocean Queen was a gay man’s delight, but Julian had only looked, never touched.

  “It’s okay,” Julian said and pushed out the chair opposite him. “Want to sit down?” Mrs. Feldman looked like a woman who really wished she could trade her heels for Keds right about now.

  “Are you sure?” she asked, but she sat down before he could answer.

  “Want to talk about it?” he asked.

  He was rarely curious about the passengers. When you saw so many different walks of life routinely, each bizarre situation you encountered became less intriguing. He’d seen body piercings in places he’d thought biologically impregnable, love hexagons that made your basic love triangle milquetoast, and family situations that Jerry Springer wouldn’t put on his couch. But the drug revelation with the Feldmans, the fact that the Jewish Pablo Escobar might be on board, now that got his attention.

  Mrs. Feldman raised her eyebrows and her forehead creased with a dozen horizontal ravines. The lines gave her face a softness and a sense of character. Julian had already frozen the muscles in his forehead and around his eyes so that his skin was as smooth as the inside of a seashell. The only benefit of his migraines was that his Botox was now covered by insurance. He wondered, looking at Mrs. Feldman, why he was so afraid to get older.

  “Not really,” she said. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

  A flash of light cut through the space between Julian and Mrs. Feldman and he winced, dropping the sugar packet he was fidgeting with right into the hot liquid.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Yes. I get migraines,” he managed.

  “You poor thing. I can’t imagine it’s easy to have a migraine with all this mayhem around you. You should go lie down in your cabin.”

  “I can’t,” he said. “I mean, I can. But I don’t want to. It’s complicated.”

  She smiled warmly and Julian noticed an endearing smudge of pink lipstick on her teeth. “I think you’ve seen that I’m rather familiar with complicated. No judgments,” she said and began to laugh, almost hysterically.

  “What’s so funny?” Julian scrutinized Mrs. Feldman. She looked kind of crazy, if he was being honest.

  “Oh, it’s just that my kids would say that I’m the most judgmental person they know. So if they heard me say ‘no judgments’ to you, they’d have a fit.”

  “You seem very nice, Mrs. Feldman. I’m sorry your family is giving you a hard time.” He could see how much it meant to her when he said their family drama was nothing he hadn’t seen before, so he took the opportunity to reassure her again that a few punches and shoves were practically commonplace on the Ocean Queen.

  “So why is it that you can’t go back to your cabin?” Annette asked. She’d admonished him not to call her Mrs. Feldman. As if I don’t feel old enough, she had said, which struck a chord.

  “My partner, Roger, surprised me by coming on the ship. He was waiting for me in the room.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?” Annette asked.

  “Not bad per se. It’s just that this boat has always only belonged to me and it’s uncomfortable to have him in my space. We’ve been together for three years. We have a dog, share an apartment, the same friends. Roger wants us to get married and I just can’t see the need for the label. I’m a witness to all these people who come on board to celebrate the life cycle events: anniversaries, birthdays, retirements. And they are under so much pressure to maximize the fun and make sure everyone they’ve brought along is happy. But you know who is always having the best time? The people who, when I ask them why they decided to take a cruise, just look at me and say, ‘Because we felt like it.’ No special occasion, no reason for forcing a good time. I’m not sure Roger gets that. He wants a label. Like those personalized shirts you see the groups wearing around the boat, especially on the first day. It’s like he wants us to have I’m with him T-shirts with arrows pointing at each other.”

  “I understand,” Annette said. “Regrettably, I’m one of those people who tried to force the togetherness. And the owner of a personalized sweatshirt. I was instructing my children and grandchildren: You will make memories together and you will like it. You can see how well it’s working out for us. But I have to tell you, forced or not forced, label or no label, I like having people that are bound to me in some way. The older you get, the lonelier life becomes.”

  Her voice quavered and Julian motioned for Jimmy to bring her a hot drink.

  “I’m turning seventy tomorrow and I get to have all of my closest relatives around me. Yes, I have friends. Many of them. And they love to get together for parties and be there when times are good. But for them, and for me too, family will always come first, especially if and when—pardon my French—the shit hits the fan. The ladies I have lunch with might make me laugh more than my own children. They certainly laugh at my jokes more. The nurses and doctors I used to work with—I was the office manager in my husband’s medical office—respected me a heck of a lot more than my grandchildren do. Although I seem to be making some headway with my grandson. But what can I say? I’d rather be around my family, even if they don’t think I’m particularly funny or clever or interesting. Even if it’s obligation that brought us all together, I’m glad we’re here. Having a family brings obligation. There’s no doubt about it. But through fulfilling obligation, I think can come great joy.”

  She took a grateful sip of the hot water with lemon that was set before her and continued.

  “It’s kind of like the sky. You know how there are so many stars on a clear night that you can’t begin to count them? The people who make up our worlds—the friends, the coworkers, the ones we pass on the street who smile at us—they are those stars. They brighten our lives. But there are nights when it’s so cloudy that you can’t see any stars. Our family members are the stars we can call on to shine when we need a little light. And they have no choice but to turn on, even if they are far away, even if they would rather be doing other things.” She paused for a beat, squeezing more lemon into her mug. “Do I sound wise or just crazy? As you get older, it’s hard to tell.”

  “Definitely not crazy. Have a very happy birthday, Annette. You deserve it,” Julian said, rising from his seat. “I’m suddenly feeling very tired and like I need to go back to my room.”

  She gave him a warm smile and dismissed him with the wave of a liver-spotted hand.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  “How do you know about Austin, you little weasel?” Rachel demanded when she and Darius were back in their cabin. “I can’t believe you would spy on me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Darius blurted out. “I shouldn’t have said anything in front of Mom and Dad. But your papers fell out of your bag when I was getting ready. It’s not exactly like there’s a lot of room to move around this place.”

  “Well, you didn’t have to read them.” Rachel pouted. “I would never do that to you. If I found your personal things, I would put them back exactly where I found them and try my very best not to read a thing.” Rachel found herself getting more upset with her brother as she yelled at him, because every bit of what she was saying was true. She wouldn’t snoop on him. Darius was sneakier. Rachel remembered that even as a child, her little brother loved spy kits. He was always trying to take her fingerprints and installing toy cameras in the hallways that could see around the corner. Creepy.

  “That’s because you don’t care about me in the slightest.
If I leave my email open on the kitchen computer, you X out of it without even glancing. That’s how little interest you have in me.”

  Rachel felt her ears burning, like what was supposed to happen when people talk behind your back. But Darius was speaking right to her face, telling her what he thought of her. That she was selfish. A shit sibling. She racked her brain for a rebuttal.

  “Remember when you were five and Mom was backing out of the garage while you were riding your bike in the driveway? I ran and pulled you out of the way, even though I could have gotten hit too.”

  “Rachel, that was forever ago. And what does that prove? That you didn’t want me dead? I agree with that. You would prefer that I stay alive. But have you asked me once what’s going on with me? About school. My friends. My college search. Nada. It’s fine, by the way. I’m totally used to it.”

  Rachel bit down, pressing her top teeth into a blister on her bottom lip. She always did that when she was thinking hard. Austin had noticed it. He loved to tease her about her habits: everything from the complicated Starbucks orders to her weird need to wash her hands before they had sex. What were Darius’s habits that she should have picked up on? People who care about each other know their quirks and mannerisms. Her brother chewed with his mouth open exclusively. He cut his toenails over the toilet and then never flushed. But those were both negative! She was also pretty sure he had gotten himself fired from his lifeguard job, but that was another bad thing. Ah, she had something! When they sat down in the den to watch TV, he always asked her what she wanted to watch, even if he got to the remote first. And another thing! He was really clever at naming things. He christened their goldfish Fishtopher, the ficus in the living room Plantricia, their father’s black Honda the Accordian.