It was clumsy and cute, him telling her where to stand. The moment was over almost as soon as it had begun.
“Send it to me?” she asked as they walked toward the boat launch.
“Okay.”
Her phone pinged a moment later with two photos: one a full-body shot of Monique in her blue T-shirt and white maxi skirt, minuscule against the expanse of sky and sea behind her; the other a head-and-shoulders shot of her and the lamplight reflecting golden in her eyes and moonbeams swirling in her hair.
She gasped. “Wow.”
Maurice walked in silence beside her, one hand in his pocket and the other carrying her bag. Awareness of him, of how he was aware of her, pulsed through her body.
Her phone buzzed with another check-in from home. His phone, she realized, had been silent for a while.
“There they are,” Tommie hollered, drawing every eye to their approach. “We thought you two ran off somewhere.”
“Cut it out, T.” Maurice’s voice conveyed no nonsense, and Tommie sobered.
From the boat launch, the guide announced, “We’ve got five boats tonight. One for los viejitos, and one for each of our tortolitos.”
“The who and what?” Maurice asked as they inched along the queue.
Monique laughed and shook her head. “Basically, he called them”—she pointed at the old folks being helped onto a boat that easily sat twenty—“his old friends, old buddies. And he called the rest of uslovebirds.”
Maurice made a choking kind of sound but recovered quickly. “You’re pretty fluent, huh?”
“I live on the West Side of Chicago, and my mail route is in a predominantly Latine community, so I’ve picked up some things over the years.” She didn’t add theused to bepart. She missed her route and those stoop-sitting elders still standing guard against the siege of gentrification.
“No wonder you seem so comfortable here.”
“You seem comfortable here too.”
He stiffened, his attention drifting far off into the darkness.
“What happens when you do that?” she asked.
He furrowed his brow. “What do I do?”
“You don’t know? That… what can I call it? Disassociation? It’s like you short-circuit for a minute.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize to me. I’m just trying to get to know you, Mo.” She listened to the guide’s instructions, pulled on a life vest, and climbed aboard, catching Aldonia and Tommie grinning stupid at them.
Their boat was small. Intimate. Two bench seats facing each other and a guide at the rear. They all shoved off in a flotilla of lives lived together.
And then there was her and Maurice.
They floated along in the quiet. Just the soft splash of the oars against the water and their breaths. The melodic rhythm of the blades against the sea joined the chorus of animals in the bordering trees, creating a symphony of sounds.
“The bay is home to thousands of species of fish and crustaceans. We have used these waters to sustain ourselves for millennia,” their guide said.
The boat rocked gently, and the world faded away into the black water.
“Are you upset?”
“Hmm? Upset about what?” Monique asked.
“Them. This thing they’re trying to pull with you.”