by Pat Murphy
“Very interesting,” Charles said. “Do you think that’s the case?”
He was hoping, Tom knew, that Max would say yes.
Max set down his glass. “No, I have my own theory,” he said. “It’s really quite simple. I’m surprised more people haven’t figured it out. But I suppose the truth is always difficult to see.”
Tom saw Charles and Bill exchange glances. They were in league now, ready to be amused.
Max smiled at them, then said simply, “People lie.”
“What?” Charles exclaimed, as if stung. “What do you mean?”
“People make up stories. They lie.” Max studied Charles with an air of benign puzzlement. “Surely it can’t come as a shock to you. As a banker, you must come across this all the time.”
“Well, yes, of course.” Charles was sputtering now. “People lie when it’s to their advantage. But there’s no advantage to lying about things like this. Why would they?”
Tom grinned as he watched Max tilt his head and study Charles. It was clear who had the upper hand. The banker was uncomfortable now; Max took his time.
“People are always lying,” Max said. “They lie for fun. They lie to make a better story. The crew of the Mary Celeste probably abandoned ship in the lifeboat and then were lost in a storm. There’s a lot of evidence to support that. All that business about the table being set for breakfast, the ship being in perfect shape—all that was added later on. The historical record shows that the ships lifeboat was missing, and that the ship had endured some heavy weather. The cargo was a couple of thousand barrels of unrefined alcohol—and there’s some evidence that a few barrels exploded. So you can understand why the crew might have abandoned ship.
“But Conan Doyle got a hold of the story of the Mary Celeste, wove it into one of his books, and made it much more interesting. Doyle was an excellent liar, you know. People liked the story he told better than the truth, so that’s what they remembered.”
Max picked up his menu and smiled innocently. “Fiction writers are all liars,” he said. “People tend to forget that.”
SEVEN
“You say I’m a liar? I say you’re a liar. And who’s to say we aren’t both right.”
—from Here Be Dragons
by Mary Maxwell
“So what are we supposed to do here?” Susan said. She and Pat stood by the spiral staircase on the uppermost deck of the Atrium, leaning against the railing and looking down. Their position gave them a good view of the deck below.
“This is the ‘Welcome Aboard’ party,” Pat said. “We’re supposed to mingle and have a good time. We can meet the captain if you like. There he is, right over there.”
Susan glanced in the direction that Pat had nodded. The captain was surrounded by well-dressed women and their husbands. He was smiling and nodding, but Susan thought he looked bored. She didn’t see any reason to meet him. “What else can we do?”
“We can get our picture taken by the ship’s photographer.” Pat gestured to the photographer at the bottom of the stairs. A matronly woman in a gold lame dress posed on the stairs, showing a fearsome array of teeth. The photographer snapped her photograph, then she continued down the stairs and a matronly woman wrapped in flowered silk took her place. “Apparently they always take people’s pictures at these things. Later, they sell the print to you for five bucks. You can look at the prints in the photo gallery, down near the theater. Have you seen that yet? They’ve got a photo of you, that one they snapped when you were getting aboard.”
Susan shook her head. She remembered being asked to pose beside a big cardboard cutout of a palm tree while someone official had snapped her picture, but she’d been in a rush and hadn’t asked why. She hadn’t seen the photo gallery and hadn’t found the theater yet. She was still having some trouble finding her way around the ship. Restaurants and shops and pools and corridors—it was all very confusing. She found it difficult to remember sometimes that she was on board a ship. It felt more like an enormous hotel.
On the far side of the lower deck, she saw a flurry of activity surrounding a man in a cowboy hat. Light glittered on the silver star he wore on his chest. As the crowd shifted, she saw a woman dressed in an historic gown and a man in a top hat. She saw a flash of light as another photographer snapped a picture.
“What’s going on over there?” she said, staring at the group below. “Some folks from the show that’s playing tomorrow night in the Singing Sirens Theater,” Pat said. “Some kind of musical melodrama set in Gold Rush California.” Susan stared at her.
“Hey, don’t look at me. I don’t make this up. Apparently there are a bunch of California historians on board—some kind of convention.”
“How do you know this stuff?”
“It’s all in the Ship’s Log,” Pat said. “Hey, there’s Tom.” Susan saw Tom moving through the crowd below. “Want to go down and say hi?”
Susan shook her head. “He looks busy.”
Pat gave her an appraising look. Pat had commented on Tom more than once, and Susan knew that her friend thought Susan and Tom would make a good couple.
“There’s Ian,” Susan said, waving at the computer programmer. He was watching the couples on the dance floor.
“You want to go see what he’s up to?” Pat asked.
“You go. I’ll meet you later.” Susan could tell that Pat really wanted to get to know Ian a little better.
“What are you going to do?”
Susan shrugged. “Explore the ship a little. Maybe I’ll go check out the photo gallery. If I don’t run into you later, I’ll meet you in the stateroom.”
“Are you sure?” Pat asked. “Absolutely.”
Pat shrugged. “If you say so.” Pat headed downstairs, pausing at the photographer to have her picture taken. Susan stayed where she was, watching the crowd below.
She saw Charles and Lily Rafferty making their way toward the captain. Of course, Charles would want to introduce himself. She hadn’t seen Bill and Alberta yet; she was hoping to avoid them if she did. At dinner, conversation had focused on the Bermuda Triangle and she hadn’t had to answer any questions about herself. She was still thinking about Max's suggestion that she lie. He made it sound like such harmless fun. Reinvent yourself.
She thought about heading down the spiral staircase, but then she saw Alberta and Bill coming up. She turned away before they could see her and headed toward the bow of the ship to look for the photo gallery that Pat had mentioned.
It took a while, but she found her way to the photo gallery, one deck down and toward the bow of the ship. The gallery was in a corridor near Aphrodite’s Alehouse. The walls of the corridor were covered with photos under glass—hundreds of photos of passengers standing beside that silly cardboard palm tree, teeth bared in insincere smiles. The counter where you ordered copies of your photo was closed, and no one else was in the gallery. A placard at the end of the corridor pointed the way to the Singing Sirens Theater, where a magician and a comic were currently performing.
Susan could hear music from the Alehouse—a woman singing a Barbara Streisand song about people who need people. Susan thought about going to the bar for a drink. She had long since finished her rum swizzle from the cocktail party. But she didn’t want to sit in a bar alone.
Susan studied the walls of photos, idly looking for herself. In most of the photos, a couple or a group of people stood by the silly palm, grinning at the camera or at each other. There were, she thought, so few photos of solitary travelers. So many couples and family groups and groups of friends. She stared at one photo—a balding man in his fifties and his chubby wife. They looked genuinely happy, she thought. The woman was leaning on the man’s shoulder and they were both smiling. A little tired from waiting to board, but she was sure that they hadn’t been snapping at each other while they waited. No, they had been doing their best to be cheerful. They had probably been chatting amiably with the other folks who were waiting.
She and Harry had not been a
happy couple. She did not know why they hadn’t been happy. She thought they should have been. When they were in college, Harry had said he loved her. He had asked her to marry him, and she had said yes. She couldn’t remember exactly how she felt when she said yes, but she thought that she must have been happy.
Her memories of her wedding day were hazy. She remembered her mother fussing with her hair; she remembered her father walking her down the aisle; she remembered a reception filled with people, all admiring her dress, all wishing her the best of luck. She remembered feeling dazed. She remembered feeling that she was there, but not quite there—as if this were happening to someone else.
They must have been happy then. But if they had been, it hadn’t lasted. Somewhere along the way, Harry had grown impatient with her. She didn’t understand why. He became an ambitious lawyer. Maybe a bookish librarian was not the ideal wife for him.
It seemed to her that Harry was always angry. He was angry with the other lawyers in his practice, angry at other drivers, angry when they had to wait in line—always angry. Sometimes, he was angry with her, but she tried not to give him any reason for that.
It hadn’t been a terrible marriage. Harry was a civilized man—he rarely raised his voice, never raised his hand in anger. But even when he wasn’t angry over anything in particular, she had been aware of anger simmering just below the surface, waiting to boil over. It wasn’t easy and comfortable being with Harry.
She studied the picture of the balding man and his chubby wife. They looked happy. She couldn’t imagine Harry smiling, however wearily, after waiting to board the Odyssey.
She touched her left hand, aware once again of the absence of a wedding ring. It had been silly to throw it overboard, she thought. The ring had been expensive—she remembered Harry telling her so. Throwing it overboard was a foolish and extravagant gesture, but thinking about it, she smiled.
“Over here,” a man’s voice said. She glanced toward the sound. She hadn’t noticed the man entering the gallery. “You were looking for your picture, weren’t you?”
She nodded, a little startled. “Right here,” he said.
He was in his late forties—a man with a thin face, a neatly trimmed mustache, and curly brown hair. Not handsome, exactly, but attractive in a roguish sort of way. Blue eyes that studied her with just a little too much interest. She thought he looked a bit like the sort of fellow Pat tended to date.
He was wearing khaki pants and a polo shirt—not exactly cruise wear. She imagined that he had skipped the Captain’s Welcome Party; he was a bit too casually dressed for that. He looked a little out of place, as if he didn’t really belong on a cruise. She could sympathize with that.
She hesitated, feeling uncomfortable, but not willing to be rude. Reluctantly, she stepped over to him and glanced at the photo he indicated. It was her all right. She remembered that moment now—her cab from the airport had been caught traffic and she had been late, rushed, a bit panicked. In the photo, her hair was a mess. She had smiled when the photographer said, “Say cheese,” but just barely. She was looking past the camera at the gangway, her eyes wide and distracted.
“Oh, dear,” she said.
“It’s not that bad,” the man said pleasantly. “It looks like you were in a bit of a rush, that’s all.”
“I was late,” she said. “I was meeting my fiancé on board. I knew he’d be worried.”
It was an experiment. When she started the sentence, she had intended to say “my friend,” rather than “my fiancé.” But she wanted to discourage this man if he was thinking what she was afraid he might be thinking. And she didn’t want to insult him if he was just a helpful fellow with no ulterior motives. Max had said she needed to learn to lie, so she was giving it a try.
The man laughed sympathetically. “Your fiancé will get used to it. My wife is late all the time.” His tone, when he mentioned his wife, was affectionate.
Susan returned the man’s smile. He was married; she could relax. “Maybe yours turned out better,” she said, glancing at the photo wall.
He shook his head. “I doubt that. Haven’t had any luck finding it anyway.”
She turned to the photo wall to see if she could spot his picture. Instead, she saw a photo of Max. He was standing by the cardboard palm tree, looking extremely uncomfortable. He hadn’t even bothered to smile. “There’s Max,” she said without thinking.
“Your fiancé?” The man peered at the photo and frowned.
“Oh, no. That’s Max Merriwell. He’s teaching a writing workshop on board. He writes books as Max Merriwell, Mary Maxwell, and Weldon Merrimax.”
“How interesting,” the man said. “Are you attending this workshop he’s teaching?”
“Oh, yes.”
“You’re a writer, then?”
She shook her head. “No, I just thought it would be interesting. I love Max’s books.”
The man glanced toward the Alehouse and Susan realized that the singing had stopped. “Sounds like the musicians are taking a break,” he said. “Its safe to get a beer.”
She laughed. “Low tolerance for lounge music?”
“Low tolerance for cruise ship entertainment in general,” he said. “My wife is watching the magician. Card tricks and bad jokes.” He made a face. “I told her I’d meet her in the bar when he was done. So where’s your fiancé? What’s he thinking, letting you wander around by yourself?”
“He’s a little under the weather.” She didn’t hesitate to lie a second time. Maybe Max was right. There were times when lying was a fine idea. It was fun—and she was starting to feel a bit like a woman with a fiancé. She remembered how wonderful it had been to be engaged. Everyone had been so happy for her.
“He’s seasick?”
“Just a little queasy. I stayed with him for a while, but I got restless.”
The man nodded, studying her face. “Let me hazard a guess about something and make a suggestion. Maybe you’d like a drink, but you know that if you go into the bar unattended you’ll get some guy hitting on you and you don’t want that. If you let me buy you a drink, I’ll protect you from the other guys and you can keep me company until that magician pulls the last rabbit from his hat and my wife comes to claim me.”
Susan blinked, startled at how well he had guessed her thoughts. “That’s a very good guess,” she said slowly.
“So will you join me for a drink? You can tell me about this writing workshop.”
She smiled with the confidence of a happily engaged woman, almost believing for a moment that that’s who she was. “All right. But only if you let me buy the drinks. After all, you’re serving as my bodyguard.”
The Alehouse wasn’t crowded. They found a table that was near the fireplace and as far as they could get from the stage and the dance floor.
“So tell me about Max Merriwell’s work. You seem to like his books.”
“Oh, yes. I’ve read all Max’s science fiction novels. Rollicking adventures about people blasting off across the galaxy. And I’ve read all the books he’s written as Mary Maxwell. Great action adventure stories about young women.”
He nodded. “And the books by Weldon Merrimax?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t read any of those. They’re gritty, urban thrillers. Not my sort of thing.”
“Not your sort of thing,” the man repeated. The firelight flickered over his face. He frowned. “But you like the rest of his work so much. I would think you’d at least give Weldon’s work a try.”
She shrugged. “I’ve taken a look at some of the books. But they’re all dark and depressing. All about sleazy criminals cheating people and committing crimes. I don’t want to read about that.”
“You’d rather read about people blasting off across the galaxy.” Susan thought he sounded angry. But that didn’t make sense. Why would he care that Susan hadn’t read Weldon Merrimax’s work. “So tell me about this writing workshop,” he said. “What have you learned?”
“Well,” she sa
id hesitantly. “There’s only been one meeting so far. Max talked about the creative process. He talked about how the writer creates his own world. He’s a god in his own universe. He said that the advantage of writing science fiction is that you have to make everything up. And the disadvantage is that you have to make everything up.”
“Interesting,” the man said.
“And he told us that a writer has to be a good observer. He told us that we needed to watch the people around us, to consider their gestures, their body language. We need to learn to read them so that we can describe them in our work. He gave us that as a homework assignment.”
“Have you done your homework yet?” the man asked.
Susan laughed. “Not yet.”
“Well, I’ve always thought bars were great places to watch people.” He looked around the room, then jerked his head toward a couple sitting two tables away. “So what do you make of them?”
Susan glanced in the direction he had gestured and saw a heavy set man with dark hair sitting with a thin blonde woman. They were both in their mid-twenties. She was wearing a silk shirt and a skirt that matched and he was in a Hawaiian shirt and Dockers. The waitress had just brought their drinks: a beer for him and a frothy pink drink with an umbrella and a shish kabob of fruit for her. The man smiled at the waitress as she walked away; the woman sipped her drink.
“I don’t know,” she said. “A young couple on their first cruise, I guess.”
The man smiled. “Oh, I think we can figure out more than that. Take a look at their hands.”
Susan glanced at the couple again. The woman was laughing at something the man had said. She was playing with her wedding ring, twisting it on her finger. “She’s playing with her ring,” Susan said. “And she has a nice manicure,” she said.