by Maile Meloy
“Yes!” Liv said. “We’re going outside.”
Perla looked pleased, and Liv was embarrassed that they’d been such homebodies. Ship-bodies.
She knocked at Nora’s door and Nora said yes to the zip-line tour. “I invited the Argentinians to join us for dinner,” Nora said. “Gunther and Camila.”
“Great!” Liv said. “See, we’re sophisticated people of the world. We have international friends! We zip-line!”
At dinner, Camila sat between Benjamin and Raymond, wearing a black dress and a gold necklace as thick as Liv’s little finger. Gunther sat on Liv’s right, and leaned forward to say, “Did you see this video in the cabin? The crew interviews?”
“Yes!” Benjamin said. “Who signed off on that?”
“I think it must be a joke,” Camila said. “Someone in the publicity department is taking revenge. And no one has noticed.”
Gunther said, “If there is class war on this ship, I am telling you, we are outnumbered.”
Yuri arrived with a bottle of Chilean red that Gunther had ordered, and they straightened in their chairs. Yuri poured the first taste for Gunther.
“It is fine,” Gunther said, waving his hand over the glass. To Liv, he said, “All this sniffing, the wine is always fine.”
With a barely perceptible frown, Yuri started to pour. Liv sensed that he didn’t approve of Gunther invading their table. She looked to Raymond, who gave her an equally perceptible smile.
“Have you always lived in Argentina?” she asked Gunther, thinking of Nazis—she couldn’t help thinking of Nazis.
“Of course,” he said. “Since my grandfather’s grandfather came from the Volga.”
She didn’t know exactly where the Volga was, but Marcus would know. She could quiz him later. An endive salad arrived. “Did a lot of Germans migrate there?” she asked.
“Also Italian and French,” he said. “You know this joke? ‘An Argentine is an Italian who speaks Spanish and thinks he is English.’”
She didn’t know the joke. “What about the indigenous people?”
“They are there, too.”
“But not in your family?”
“Are they in yours?” Gunther asked, with a meaningful smile at her pale hair.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I mean, I haven’t done a cheek swab. I’m Norwegian and Swedish and a little Irish.”
“It is the same for us,” Gunther said. “We are immigrants. There is a pride in my country in not being mixed with the indios, like our neighbor countries. It’s not a nice thing, this pride.”
“They say they are taking the zip-line tour tomorrow,” Camila reported, across the table.
“Oh, this is terrible!” Gunther said, putting down his wine glass. “You will be thrown from tree to tree like a sack of potatoes!”
“Have you done it?” Nora asked.
“Never!”
“He hates all shore excursions,” Camila said. “We went swimming with dolphins and he despised it.”
“Animal abuse!” Gunther said. “These noble creatures do not want to see ugly tourists in bathing suits.”
“Wait,” Benjamin said. “Do you think dolphins have aesthetic taste in human beings?”
“Of course,” Gunther said. “They must jump and clap and sing for us, and humiliate themselves. Prostitution. They are being pimped. Let them go.”
“You think dolphins feel humiliated?” Benjamin asked.
“Dogs feel shame,” Gunther said. “You see it in the body, when someone puts a hat on them, or a sweater. The hanging of the head. And dolphin brains are much bigger.”
“But aren’t we anthropomorphizing?” Benjamin persisted. “We don’t actually know what they’re thinking.”
“I know what my dog is thinking,” Gunther said.
“But you never know what I am thinking,” Camila said, one eyebrow arched, and Liv thought again what good work she’d had done on her face.
Gunther turned to the men. “Listen to me,” he said. “I have an English friend in this city. He invites me to the golf club tomorrow. Do you golf?”
Raymond turned to Nora, his face alight.
Nora leaned back in her chair. “I’ve just lost my husband.”
Gunther clapped his hands together. “Excellent,” he said. “This is gracious living. Benjamin?”
“Sure,” he said. “If there’s room for me.”
“Of course!”
“So I guess we’re on our own for the zip line,” Liv said.
“A hen party,” Gunther said, grinning. “I’m sure you girls will have a very pleasant time on your potato-sack trip.” He turned to signal Yuri for more wine. Yuri poured, but didn’t stay to talk.
In bed that night, after the children were asleep, Liv said, “You don’t even like golf.”
“Not enough to pay for a membership,” Benjamin said. “But I like a ritualized stroll on a vast lawn.”
“Maybe he’s lying about his grandfather’s grandfather, and he’s descended from Nazis in hiding.”
“Then they would’ve named him Antonio,” Benjamin said.
“Or O’Hara.”
“It could be interesting,” he said. “Maybe I’ll learn something about the country.”
“You didn’t even want to go ashore,” she said. She knew she should let it go.
“Should I beg off?”
“No,” she said. “Just don’t come crying to me when you don’t see any coatimundis at the golf course.”
He smiled in the dark. “I promise.”
“Yuri doesn’t like Gunther.”
“Operation Barbarossa,” he said. “Old wounds.”
In the morning she checked her work email on the annoyingly slow connection, then packed sunblock, hand sanitizer, bug repellent, water bottles. At the last minute she threw in the new Christmas swimsuits, just in case. They all ventured forth, blinking in the sunlight, from the cocoon of the giant ship. Gunther’s friend pulled into the taxi area, in a boxy black military-looking Mercedes SUV. The husbands piled in and were off.
Marcus and Sebastian wandered away to look at the giant bollards the ship was tied to. Junie held Nora’s hand. Penny, not fully awake, leaned against Liv. It was already too hot for clinging kids. Liv wasn’t sure where to go.
“It’s so early,” Penny said. “Can’t we just stay on the ship?”
A woman with a clipboard directed them to a smiling young man. He was slight, in his twenties, with a handsome, friendly face.
“I am Pedro,” he said. “Welcome to my country. I will be your guide.”
He gave Nora an extra-welcoming smile, which made Liv look at her cousin. Nora was wearing white shorts, a bright blue tank top, and aviator sunglasses, and she looked trim and sporty and young. Pedro led them all to a van with a toucan painted on the side. He offered his hand to Nora to help her in, and Nora gave him a funny look, then took it.
He offered the same help to Liv. “No thanks,” she said.
Camila had signed up at the last minute, and boarded with her kids: Hector in madras shorts and a polo shirt, Isabel in a sundress with her hair loose. The teenagers looked like they’d come from a photo shoot, attractive and long-limbed, with sun-streaked hair and clear, tan skin. Liv wanted to ask Camila if they had some fancy European or Argentine acne product that could help Penny through the awkward years. The children clustered at the back of the van.
“Seatbelts!” Liv called.
“So, you work for a local company that contracts with the ship?” Nora asked Pedro, when they were under way, on a winding road.
“Exacto,” Pedro said.
“Do you think we’ll see monkeys?”
“So many monkeys!”
“Do they ever attack people?”
“No! They are very shy.”
“You hear those stories about chimps,” Nora said.
“Chimps live in Africa,” Pedro said. “These are howler monkeys. Maybe a few capuchinos, if we’re lucky.”
“Cappuccino like the coffee?” Nora asked.
“Like the monk. They wear a little cap.” He clasped his hands over his own head to demonstrate.
“Oh, of course,” Nora said. “Capuchins.”
Nora’s cheeks had gone pink, and Liv looked again at Pedro. Was he that appealing? The idea of a twenty-five-year-old just made her kind of tired.
Just then there was a sharp blast, and the van jerked sideways. There were small screams from the back, and Liv looked to see her children’s eyes wide on hers, seeking reassurance. The van hobbled down the road, tilting to the left.
“The tire,” Pedro said. “It’s okay.”
“Car!” Nora said.
A green car was coming toward them, and there was a jarring crash, and the van was spinning, flying. The children were really screaming now. The world was full of noise. “Hang on,” Liv heard herself saying into the din. “Just hang on.”
When they came to a stop, there was a strange stillness. Liv’s heart raced. She had to get her seatbelt off. If she could only reach her children, she could protect them. But her hands shook and she fumbled at the clasp.
“Is okay,” Pedro was saying. “Is okay.”
Leaves and branches pressed against the windows. Liv got herself free of the seatbelt and made her way to the back. Her legs trembled. She clutched her children to her. They were crying. Nora was there, too.
Marcus had his hands over his ears.
“It’s all right,” Nora told him. “It’s all fine.”
“Will the engine explode?” Marcus asked.
“No,” Pedro said, without conviction.
“That’s only in movies,” Liv said.
“Everyone out!” Nora said. “Now!”
They trooped off the van and surveyed the damage. The front left tire had blown, leaving ragged edges of fibrous rubber around the wheel well. They must have veered into the oncoming lane, where the other car hit them. The van’s right front corner was mangled and crushed. The other car, small and green and crumpled, had parked on the shoulder, and the two drivers were talking near it. Pedro climbed back into the van to use the radio.
Liv and Camila took out their phones, but neither of them could get a signal.
“I called my company,” Pedro said when he emerged. “There is no other van now.”
He had hit his head and was definitely bleeding. Nora fished a hand wipe out of her bag and gently cleaned the blood away.
“I asked for three taxis,” he said. “It will take a long time, on a ship day. They are all busy. There is a bus at four o’clock.”
“Four o’clock!” Liv heard the desperation in her own voice. “We can’t stand here on the side of the road all day.”
Pedro lifted his shoulders, then frowned across the road in thought. “Do you have your swimming clothes?”
“Yes,” the women said.
“I think there is a beach,” Pedro said.
“Are there sharks?” Liv asked.
“No,” Pedro said. “There is a reef.”
“Anything else that’s dangerous?” Nora asked.
“You could trip and break your leg,” he said. “Or the coatimundis could take your lunch.”
“We were supposed to get lunch at the zip line,” Nora said.
“I have snacks,” Pedro said. He pronounced it “ess-nacks.”
Camila asked him something in rapid Spanish that Liv didn’t follow, and they had a short conversation. Then Camila pressed her lips together.
“I think we go to swim,” she said. “It is boring to wait. The children will complain. And this road is very dangerous.”
“You’re sure this is a good place?” Liv asked Pedro. “No riptide?”
“It is very protected,” he said. “Very calm and safe. A river comes out to the sea.”
So Liv and Nora shouldered their bags. Pedro pulled a cooler and three inner tubes out of the back of the van. He passed one to Hector and one to Marcus. “We go to another river sometimes,” he said.
There were ten of them: Liv, Penny, Sebastian, Nora and her children, Camila and the Argentinian teens, all following Pedro. Liv thought they must look absurd, trooping along on the shoulder, carrying inner tubes. But a trail soon veered off from the road, and Pedro led them into the trees. The undergrowth seemed ready to reclaim the trail the moment humans stopped trampling it.
Pedro stopped, and Nora bumped into him. Marcus, holding an inner tube, bumped into Nora, and Liv bumped into Marcus.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Up there,” Pedro whispered, pointing. A magnificent bird was perched on a branch above them, green with a blue head and a black mask. It had a long double tail with teardrop blue feathers at the end. It turned its head, revealing an orangey-brown throat.
“What is it?” Nora whispered.
“Blue-crowned motmot.”
“See the bird?” Liv whispered to Penny and Sebastian, and they ooohed appropriately. How had evolution made that? The bird flew off, trailing its ludicrous tail. Real nature! Her kids were too protected. This unexpected adventure would be good for them.
They trooped on. Nora and Pedro chatted about birds. Sebastian and June scampered ahead.
The trees opened and they walked out onto a pretty little beach at the mouth of a river, just as Pedro had promised. They could see the protective reef in the distance, and no surf made it inside. It was perfect. The children clamored for their bathing suits.
“Where do we change?” Penny asked.
“Right here,” Liv said.
Penny looked doubtful, but she wasn’t going to miss swimming for the sake of modesty. Hector peeled off his polo shirt. Isabel was already in a yellow bikini, her adolescent hips and small breasts resplendent in it. She must have had it on under her sundress. Liv averted her eyes and checked her phone again. Still no signal.
She held up a towel for the children to change, and smeared more sunscreen on their faces and shoulders while they squirmed and squinted. She removed Sebastian’s insulin pump and sealed the port with its plastic cap. Then she looked to Pedro.
“You promise there’s nothing dangerous in that water?”
“I go in first,” Pedro said.
He had stripped down to nylon hiking shorts. He had an interesting scar on the side of his belly, like a deep thumbprint—appendix? And the pale sunburst of a smallpox vaccination above his brown tricep. Those were not first-world scars, Liv thought. He waded into the water and she was happy to see that it was shallow for a long way. He stepped carefully forward.
When he was chest deep, he screamed and was yanked under, leaving a small splash at the surface.
“Oh, shit!” Liv said, leaping to her feet.
Isabel screamed.
“Mommy!” June cried.
Pedro surfaced, smiling, then looked at their appalled faces and grew serious. “I am so sorry,” he said. “This was not a good joke. Everything is fine, you see?” He stood, waist deep, and held up his hands. His shining hair and his smooth bare chest dripped with water. He looked cool as they sweltered. Liv wanted to strangle him.
“Oh my God,” Nora said.
Camila said something angry, in fast Spanish. Pedro apologized again.
Liv’s children looked to her, uncertain. There was no point in showing her rage. She breathed and smiled. Be calm. Be reassuring. “He was just teasing us for being afraid,” she said. “It was a joke. There’s nothing dangerous. Do you want to swim?”
They nodded. It was much too hot not to want to swim.
Liv was conscious of her pale thighs in her swimsuit, after feeling so attractive and young on the ship. W
as it because Pedro was here? Was it because he clearly liked Nora? Why did she care about the idiot guide? She’d thought motherhood had cauterized her vanity. She tugged down the leg holes of the suit and tried to shake the feeling off. “Okay, you two,” she said to Sebastian and Penny. “Race you in.”
The water was warm, and the children played on the three inner tubes, their happy cries piercing the air. Liv swam alongside them for a while. She felt no current, and the water was barely salty, because of the fresh water from the river. When she was tired of swimming, she told Penny to keep an eye on her brother.
“I’m okay,” Sebastian said.
“I know,” she said lightly. “Just come in if you feel tired.”
She knew Penny understood what she was asking, but she also knew her daughter would have rolled her eyes if she’d thought she could get away with it. She got out and toweled off. The kids kept swimming and shrieking.
Pedro produced some frozen rum drink from two thermos bottles and poured it into plastic cups. It was slushy and sweet in the heat, and felt decadent, but it was so deliciously cold. The drinks were supposed to be for after the zip line, he said. The taste reminded Liv of a spring break in her lost youth, sand on her sun-warmed body, a cute boy from Arizona she had hardly known, with a compact body like the guide’s.
Pedro played some music on his phone, a man rapping and a woman singing. He leaned back on his elbows in the sand, singing to the girl’s part. Liv didn’t need a translation—it was all about sex—but Nora asked for one.
“The man says she’s so beautiful,” Pedro said. “She says, ‘Don’t try it. I know what you want.’”
“Got it,” Nora said, smiling out at the water.
This flirtation was the kind of thing Liv might have shared a glance with Nora about, if it had been someone else flirting, but she couldn’t because it was Nora. It was disorienting. She flipped through a New Yorker from her bag.
Nora’s shadow came over her. “Will you keep an eye on the kids?” she asked. “Pedro heard some special bird call.”