Beautiful Girls

by Beth Ann Bauman

  EDEN

  LET’S CALL OUR COUPLE ADAM AND EVE SINCE THEY’LL be visiting paradise. Both Adam and Eve are accompanying their mothers on a cruise from Africa to India and the islands in between. Four hundred passengers board the ship in Kenya. Adam and Eve haven’t met yet, and they don’t notice each other as they roll their suitcases along the Marina Deck in search of the elevators to their respective cabins, which they’ll share with their respective mothers. Soon—not today—they’ll meet. They’ll learn they both live on the East Coast; that they both have high metabolisms; that they’re both easily exasperated by their mothers; that they’re both flirty yet wary.

  Adam is a hippie who teaches junior high and has two children by two different women and lives in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, where he has an outhouse and fruit trees. He’s a vegetarian. He’s also boyish and compact and a tad persnickety.

  Eve is a dark-eyed, woolly-haired carnivore who likes to chomp on the turkey leg on Thanksgiving. She’s a dreamy, occasionally crabby person. She’s a clothes buyer for Lord & Taylor and lives in New York City and has been on many bad blind dates this year.

  On day two of the trip Adam and Eve unofficially meet in Zanzibar. It’s sunrise and they’re the only two on the deck as the ship heads for the lush palm tree-covered island. Wooden dhows dip and sway in the pulse of the water. There’s a heavy scent of cloves. Adam and Eve sniff the air and give each other the once-over.

  They officially meet on the island of Mayotte, where they swim with turtles and drip dry under the ylang-ylang trees. Adam plucks a flower, crushes it, and puts his fragrant fingers beneath Eve’s nose. “Smell this,” he says. It’s the most gorgeous scent that’s ever filled her nose, and she almost drops to her knees in the sand. She takes this as a sign from God—a sign of what she isn’t quite sure.

  It isn’t long before Adam and Eve are sneaking around the ship in the wee hours. She sticks her tongue in his ear in the library; he feels her up in the engine room; they get half-naked on the Lido Deck after midnight, where the warm wind makes them shiver. Adam has dark, wet eyes and a tidy ponytail. He has a way of tilting his head and gazing at her full strength as if he can see her down to her bones. “Your hair,” he murmurs, “is crazy fantastic.” And it is! In New York her hair is all wrong, her curls often a fuzzy, startled nest. But here on the Indian Ocean she has loose, snaky tendrils—a voluptuous seaweed head.

  Eve gallops along the deck at sunset, past all the retirees out for a stroll. The sky is scorched with color. Love, love, love, she whispers out to sea. Oh, love, she thinks mistily—I can’t wait to get to know this Adam guy.

  But she knows this isn’t love, only her desire to love and be loved in return. The trouble is she’s gone too long without feeling special. She’s gone too long without gazing into the eyes of someone dear. She’s been out with one too many drips. She’s had a major drought and is ready for a little drizzle.

  During their days at sea Adam and Eve loll in the saltwater pool, mute as driftwood. The sun beats down on Eve’s head, and she realizes she hasn’t been thinking complete thoughts. She looks south and thinks there’s only water between us and Antarctica. There: a complete thought. Everything on this journey is about pleasure. The pleasure of sunshine, powdery white sand, the blue-green sea; the pleasure of hands and hair and bellies. Just last week she was plowing through Midtown, jaywalking, dodging taxis and buses—tense as a skyscraper, a 5’2” nerve ending. Here her limbs are splayed and bare, idle as a jellyfish.

  There is the problem of ditching their moms. Adam and Eve gobble through their respective dinners and then sit with their mothers in the Diamond Lady Lounge for the tango show or an evening with the Sea Dynasty singers and dancers. Later when their moms have gone to bed, they meet up at the Water Hole or the Tip Top Bar for cigars under the stars. Adam hugs Eve tightly, cigar smoke twisting above their heads. She swoons. “Adam,” she whispers.

  “Eve,” he whispers back.

  Not that it’s perfect, though it almost is. He rubs her back and pulls the label out of her tank top. “What is this? Acrylic?” he asks.

  “It’s microfiber. Like it?”

  “I like natural fibers,” he says.

  When the sky begins to lighten they sneak back to their respective cabins, waking their respective moms, who eye their respective clocks.

  Adam phones Eve at eight-thirty one morning. “Come quick,” he says. His mom is going to the beauty salon in the bowels of the ship. “How long does a pedicure take?” he asks. Eve throws on a bikini and shorts and grabs her key.

  “I thought we were going to the champagne breakfast,” her mom says, squeezing into a girdle. She squats, hoists, wriggles it up. “You’d rather run all over God’s creation with that hippie than spend time with me.”

  Of course I would, Eve thinks. Oh, Mom. Eve wants to be loved deeply, tragically, completely. It shames her, but after all these years she still hopes for the fairy tale. She wants to believe there’s a prince of a guy, tucked into her future, who will one day unfurl like a robust, exotic bloom in the weedy patch of her life. That’s the way it is with Eve—the way it has been since she can remember. “Oh Mom,” she says. “I’ll meet you there. Save me a chocolate croissant.”

  Eve flies down two flights to the Laguna Deck and down the skinny corridor to where Adam is putting the “Do Not Disturb” sign on his door. They tumble onto his little twin bed, yanking off clothes and pulling each other close, quick and naughty as if they’re teenagers. “Alone at last,” Eve cries. And just when they are naked and tangled the key turns in the lock.

  “I forgot to take my multivitamin!” Adam’s mother cries, as Adam and Eve grab the covers. Adam’s mom snatches the bottle off the dresser and shakes one out. “Really Adam, if you want me to shoo, just tell me to shoo. I’m only paying for this trip.” After she leaves they huddle under the covers, ashamed, quietly playing footsie. Next to the bed is a pair of Adam’s mom’s felt slippers with little button eyes, watching them.

  All Eve wants is to have sex in private. She wants to lie down between sheets next to Adam. She wants to rest her head on his chest, pretending he is hers, even though he is not and she doesn’t know him well enough to know if she would want him to be. But still…She wants to see how it might feel, how it might be. This fling has the whiff of something delirious—Vick’s VapoRub, gasoline.

  They do what they can. On Nosy Komba, Madagascar, she gives him a hand job on a tree-topped hill while golden-eyed lemurs swing from the branches above them. On Nosy Be, they hump behind a mud hut.

  In the Seychelles they attempt underwater intercourse. They swim away from the watchful eyes of the other passengers, toward the reef where they pull off their bathing suits and tread water. But they slide off each other and sink, and Eve’s bikini bottom almost floats away. The trouble is Adam’s too soft, the watery angles are wrong, and they get nosefuls of the salty sea. Finally, they give up. Beneath them the water is clear as light, and there’s a tremulous city of slippery neon fish, downy rocks, and fallopian plant life. They stare down at their reedy, naked legs—pale sea anemones—pumping in the current. Their pubic hair is pulsing and alive. What perfect sea creatures they’ve become!

  At $1.75 per minute, Eve e-mails her friends back home. In the subject section she writes, I think I’ve found the one! She tells her friends all about Adam, his lovely yin-yang tattoo. She complains about the lack of privacy, the lack of sexual opportunity, their mothers.

  Her mystically inclined friend Miranda e-mails back. “Hip hip hooray! And New Jersey! He’s practically right around the corner. But, honey, how long have you known this guy? A week? Some Native Americans believe the first time with a new partner should take place in the woman’s bed, otherwise little pieces of her spirit are lost, and as far I know they’re not recoverable. This is the way it is with women, unfortunately. I’m only mentioning this because you’re so far from home. Do you really want to lose a piece of yourself on the Indian Ocean? If he�
�s as delicious as you say, wait. Save intercourse for America—on the Upper West Side in your Murphy bed.”

  Eve spends the next five minutes in a gloomy funk because Miranda—wise, dear Miranda—is often right about many things. This could be a potentially irksome quality, but Miranda is a radiant being, charming and self-deprecating, and she pulls off righteousness without too many snags.

  Eve hasn’t always had first-time sex in her own bed and wonders if she’s had some soul leakage in the San Fernando Valley, the East Village, Weehawken. She also wonders if soul leakage could be related to the melancholy that sometimes swells inside her like music.

  She shoots back an e-mail. “Thanks for the spirit tip. I’ll try to wait, but I’m in paradise…”

  She presses Send, and exits the cave-like e-mail center and hangs over the deck’s rail, peering down into the foamy sea. Perhaps her spirit is intact. She breathes deeply and closes her eyes, aware of her galloping pulse, her grumbling stomach, her whirling thoughts. She believes her spirit is of one piece, reasonably whole, quietly yearning, ethereal and unknowable, hanging inside her and flapping against her heart.

  They’re headed to the Maldives, south of India, to a tiny uninhabited island that apparently can be circled on foot in ten minutes’ time. The crew needs to foam-wash the carpets and encourages all passengers to go ashore or assemble in the Diamond Lady Lounge for a day of Bingo. Eve packs a small bag with her bikini bottoms and two condoms. She wears a bikini top and a fluttery wrap that swishes against her ankles and feels silky against her naked ass. It’ll be all right. How she wants Adam with his dark, expressive eyes, like a deer trapped in headlights.

  The ship’s tenders take them to the uninhabited island, which has a public address system and plumbing. They stand in the barbecue line with their respective mothers, listening to “Surfin’ U.S.A.” over the P.A. “Hey, sexy,” Adam whispers into Eve’s ear, “I can see your ass through that skirt. Can you ditch your mom?”

  Eve nods and grins. “Can you ditch yours?” she whispers back.

  “Right after I get my soy dog.”

  Eve and her mom sway to the music with the other passengers as they munch on hot dogs. Slowly Eve wanders away and pretends to take a stroll. Once she’s out of eyesight she hightails it around the tiny island, reaching into her backpack and tearing open the condom wrapper.

  She sees Adam hightailing it toward her from the opposite direction. They run and embrace. Eve suddenly feels shy beneath the sunshine. Adam pulls her behind a shrub and yanks off her bikini top.

  “Not so fast.”

  “In about five minutes this place is going to be crawling with senior citizens.”

  “Tell me something nice,” she coos. “Something sexy.”

  “Do you want to do it or not?” he asks.

  “Of course.”

  They undress and lie on Eve’s wrap and have a quickie, a hot, sweaty quickie while Eve squints into the sun. When it’s over, they lie for a moment like corpses, tangled together. Then Adam pulls out and rolls off the condom. They kneel naked in the sand, fumbling with their bathing suits.

  “That’s one way to do it,” Eve says with a small smile.

  “Sorry,” Adam says.

  “No, no,” Eve says.

  “You all right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  They hear voices and quickly get dressed and fling themselves into the sea. Fellow passengers stream past them. Some wave. Eve is relieved when Adam swims over and takes her wet hand. “Let’s go back,” he says.

  “And here I’m thinking you’re swimming over to whisper sweet nothings in my ear.”

  “Sweet,” he whispers into her hair. “Nothings.”

  Eve changes back into her wrap skirt while Adam pockets the gooey, sandy condom. Slowly, they start to back away from each other in the directions from which they came.

  “See ya,” Eve says.

  “Later,” Adam says.

  Facing each other, they creep backwards until Eve wonders who will turn away first. It will be her, she’s ready to turn. Seconds pass, but she doesn’t turn. She becomes very still. If she turns away now she might miss what’s supposed to happen next.

  It’s Adam who turns with a quick wave of his hand. Eve watches him grow smaller as he jogs away.

  Adam has beaten her back to the other end of the island. He’s brought reading material and lounges under a palm tree. Eve sits with her mom, who’s baking under the sun, and they watch Adam slap at the insect circling his head.

  “I thought hippies had gone out of vogue,” her mother murmurs.

  “Hippies are timeless,” Eve says and sighs.

  “They don’t make a lot of money.”

  “Oh Jesus, Mom.”

  “I want a grandchild,” her mother says. “I just think you’re barking up the wrong tree with that one. He probably doesn’t have much of a pot to piss in.”

  “How romantic!”

  “Romance?” her mother says. “You’re almost thirty years old. You need a husband.”

  “I’m having some fun here!” Eve yells.

  “You don’t look like you’re having fun,” her mom says.

  Adam is still swatting the air. He flutters both hands before spinning away in a tizzy. Eve marches over to him and slaps the torturous mosquito against his forehead, leaving a bloody smudge.

  “Fuck!” Adam says.

  She realizes then how pissed off she is, not specifically, but generally; she’s a very pissed-off person. She flicks the mosquito away.

  At dusk the crew builds a bonfire and the passengers form a single-file line and bunny-hop around the flames. The sky is pink and soft, beckoning. Eve gazes into it, transfixed by its perfect beauty and indifference, until she is forced to join the bunny-hopping line, holding onto the fleshy middle of the old man in front of her as they hop across the sand. There they are—fools and bunny-hoppers—hooting and hollering under a glorious sky.

  Adam and Eve take the last tender back to the ship. They smile too widely at each other, and for the first time since she’s met him, which seems a long time ago, she can’t think of anything to say. As they climb onto the floating dock to board the ship, Eve’s aware of her naked ass beneath her wrap. Looking back at the tiny island, she realizes she’s left her bikini bottom behind.

  Later when Adam and Eve meet up in the Water Hole, he is morose and fiddles with the olive in his martini. He hunkers down in his seat and complains about his depreciating Oppenheimer account and one of his exes, who is a ratfink. He gazes too long at the beautiful Asian waitress who brings them fresh drinks. As Eve gets buzzed on fuzzy navels, Adam begins to look strange to her. His head seems perfectly round and he wears the loose-lipped look of a moron. How has she not seen this until now? Adam is a stupid bore. He drones on and on until she screams into his ear, “We’re on the Arabian Sea, for Christ’s sake. The Arabian Sea!”

  He looks at her, alarmed. “Chill,” he says.

  She lets the anger rattle around inside her for a minute, realizing that the air and the sea and the light have seduced them, conspired with them, pushed them toward this moment, toward nothing at all.

  What’s clear is that Adam is a mostly nice guy who’s got some issues and is ultimately not the one; what’s also clear is that she’s not yet ready to know. So she clings, literally, to his arm, pawing him, while they get sloshed in the Water Hole beneath the stars.

  Why has love eluded me? she wonders. Love is such a natural thing, after all. Is she too ridiculous, too cranky, too old, too set in her ways, too lusty, small-minded, immature? Other ridiculous people have found love, like her co-worker Lucy with the sleepy mascara-crusted eyes, who’s addicted to “Drama in Real Life!” stories in Reader’s Digest. Slurping her drink, Eve gazes up at the night sky—so high above her head—and thinks, when will it be my turn? Mine.

  They dock in India, in the port of Goa, and Eve ditches everybody. She ditches her mom, who’s visiting Portuguese cathedrals, and Adam, who’s
visiting Hindu temples, and Adam’s mom, who’s going shopping in Panjim. Instead, Eve hires a taxi and goes to the beach, where cows lie on the red sand looking soulfully at the waves.

  Eve hasn’t lost anything. It’s not her own spirit that concerns her, it’s Adam’s which has attached itself to hers. His ghostly residue is as useless and cumbersome as an extra foot. He’s living inside her, infecting her dreams, her thoughts, her every second. That’s the way it is with Eve. It’s an ancient story. How she wishes she could knock him out with the heel of her hand, like water from her ear.

  So she does what she can. She spends the day swimming in the Arabian Sea, bobbing in the waves. She walks along the shoreline and catches glimpses of shells as the tide rolls out. Digging, she discovers finger-long snail shells—purple and gold—slender tornadoes. Some are broken, most are perfect. Such treasures. As the light begins to change, she lies on the sand near the cows while her taxi driver sits on the hood of the car, reading the newspaper.

  Later she asks him to drive, to just drive. They ride through twisty tree-lined lanes. She stares out at houses the colors of Easter eggs, where chickens, dogs and cows wander through yards. Sparkly clothes hang on clotheslines and catch the last of the light. The taxi zooms with the windows wide open, and the flotsam of Adam embedded in her crocodile brain begins to shed itself like dandelion fluff until she imagines she might be free and clear.

  STEW

  MRS. ALLARD CALLED J.D.’S MOTHER EARLIER IN THE day and asked if he could babysit since their regular girl had the flu. His mom said, of course.

  “Ah, Ma,” he groaned, when he came through the back door and she told him the news.