Miles Coleman

 Miles Coleman

Algonquin

My wife and I, drunk on martinis, told again the famous story of how we’d met, eighteen months ago, when my wife was still another man’s wife. We were hosting a party on our houseboat when this story was requested by a short man I didn’t know. “And how did you two meet?” the man asked, tonguing an edamame shell. Most of the guests were bored by the question, I guess, and moaned. A few left the room. But the man stayed, and so did a woman and a violinist on break from her concert and sweating. We were all sweating. The day was too long already. We were floating around an inlet, waiting for the sun to go to bed. I was tired too, but we had guests.

This was a housewarming party, that showy affair in which one offers cocktails to acquaintances in exchange for compliments and silverware. Tours were mandatory. Have you ambled the deck? Have you broached our bunks? Sized up the bow? Then I’d offer them a glass of wine or a martini and guide them around some mid-century replica.

I don’t know when the boat was crafted. But its essence felt mature.

In truth, it spooked me slightly.

My wife and I had moved from Manhattan to a small seaside town nestled in the Northwest, a place known for its flat waters and quaint donut shops, where I happened to spend my childhood. I invited everyone I knew from my old town, and some I didn’t, to make the place feel homey. I hired a string quartet and catered with local sushi, sent e-vites to old friends, mass-texted stale contacts, numbers since abandoned and reissued. I wanted to impress my wife with a generous welcome, a good number of friendlyish faces. Twelve or thirteen people showed up. Most I did not recognize. A few I hadn’t seen since high school or one of those spiraling university summers. They looked a little ghastly now. The soft blush of possibility was gone from their cheeks. As teenagers, they could have been anybody. Now they were just themselves.

Beatrice was at my side when the question was put to us. She was wearing a yellow dress I recalled fondly from New York summers. We were drifting somewhere beyond the marina now. A breeze had found us. I’d appointed someone’s child to the stern, fixed a captain’s hat on his head and set the speed to crawl. These were calm waters. I’d told the kid to steer clear of beaches and logs, head northish.

“And how did you two meet?” the short man asked.

“Well,” I said, glad to set my words on some known course, and began.

I recited this familiar voyage with ease. It poured out of me like a ballad, with all our usual embellishments and trimmings. The structure was simple. We had met in Manhattan during a snowstorm. I spotted her alone, underground, waiting for the F Train. We stood several feet apart, peering down the tunnels. After a while, I asked her for the time. The trains were delayed. She told me she was going to Brooklyn to meet her husband. I was heading downtown and we agreed to split a cab. But the roads were no better than the rails. The tires kicked at ice and we exchanged miseries before quitting to wait things out at a nearby hotel: the Algonquin. We sat by the lobby fire and talked, ordered Irish coffees and, later, hot toddies. The lobby was decorated with palm trees and a cat named Matilda. We spoke warmly, loosened from warm drinks, spilled our histories and laughed a little, even danced when Brahms came over the speakers. Beatrice called her husband later, told him the traffic was impossible so she’d stay at a hotel and try again in the morning. When she hung up, we requested two rooms, but there was only one available. A single dorm, two beds. We went upstairs and turned off the lights. Sometime in the dark it got so cold that we pushed the beds together. Nothing happened. Six months later, we were engaged.

After I finished my story, I looked up. My audience was not entertained. Their faces were upset. One fellow had walked out.

“And here we are,” I said, to let them know this was the end. But it was not the end. “What happened to the other man?” the short man asked. “The husband?”

“Who, him?” I said. “Who knows?”

The violinist looked at me funny, then peered away.

“So, you had an affair?” the short man asked.

“I wouldn’t call it that,” I said.

“What, then?”

“An encounter,” I said, lamely.

A silence encumbered us.

“Well,” said the violinist. “I should get back.”

“Can I speak to you privately?” Beatrice said.

She pulled me into our bedroom. It was a tiny, shallow chamber with a small bed and an armoire that took up a wall. I sat on the mattress, between heaps of sweaters and purses from our guests. Beatrice remained standing.

“There was something off,” she said. “The way you told that story. It felt cold.”

“Cold?” I said. “Cold how?”

“I don’t know. I can’t explain it. It was uncomfortable. Didn’t you feel it? It wasn’t a love story. There was no love. It sounded almost horrorlike.”

“How do you mean?”

“I just didn’t like that story, OK? Don’t tell it like that again.”

“It’s our story,” I said.

“I didn’t like it.”

Beatrice peered out the window. I followed her gaze but found nothing of note. The party hummed through the door.

“Just a bad audience,” I said. “It happens. Nothing to worry about.” But I was worried. I felt a chill and shivered. I told her I should get back to the party, mix and mingle, check in on the band, the captain, etc. I kissed her cheek. On my way out, I stepped onto a pile of loose shoes and stumbled into the armoire.

“Too many martinis,” I said, then found the door before she could laugh or not.

Outside, the party was suffering from boredom. The faces seemed to wilt in one another’s company. I thought the quartet would civilize the party, make it feel sophisticated. But the music sounded amateurish. They seemed slightly off-key. I wondered if the heat had loosened some strings. It had loosened the sashimi, I could smell.

Around the corner, I overheard a few women speaking. “Hardly at all,” one said. “Was he the one in band? Or on the row team?”

“He doesn’t look athletic. His shoulders are all crammed. And I heard him humming earlier. Bad ear.”

“I thought he was the Jew.”

I pivoted away and kept my shadow hidden. These were old high school girls, all grown up and harboring the same ugliness. I didn’t recall inviting them, but it was difficult to keep track. In the kitchen, I fixed myself another martini. A meek stack of gifts had collected beside the guestbook. The packages were small, mostly, and appeared hastily wrapped. Some were not wrapped. A buttoned shirt was folded near the top, next to a ballpoint pen. I sifted through the guestbook entries. “Dear host,” one read. “Nice party. The sushi could be fresher. One would think, on a boat and all, etc.” Not signed.

Another read, “To Man and Wife. Bon voyage on your new life.”

One was just a drawing of the Titanic and her iceberg.

Fear lodged itself in my throat.

This was not the first time I’d experienced this kind of ambiguous, matrimonial dread. I believe Beatrice felt it on occasion, too. Its origins remained somewhat submerged. We wanted the same things to different degrees. We had been “trying” for several months. We monitored cycles, rhythms, nutrition, sleep, consulted specialists and acupuncturists, healers. I didn’t pry too much into Beatrice. I am not one of those husbands who believes that marriage requires one to forfeit his or her private thoughts, or to articulate feelings on call. Beatrice was not always forthcoming with her inner life, and I respected this—perhaps too much. I provided generous time and space. Often, she seemed to resolve and resurface after a bad night, arising in the morning as her jubilant and charming self. It could be easy, in other words, to wait things out.

Beatrice has lived an interesting life by most standards. She lived in Rio and Dallas and France, taking odd jobs, living with boyfriends, not staying in one place or with one person for too long. She’s been in rehab once and in movies twice. She got paid five hundred dollars to sit beside a B-lister and say, “I have a boyfriend, but I’ll take that drink.” The other movie just shows her blowing on a cappuccino’s foam. She once dated a motorcyclist before he slid under an eighteen-wheeler and came out different. She’s gone out with old men, young men, women. Her marriage was short and her divorce uncomplicated. There were no major assets to contest, no homes or cars or children. The lawyers parsed through the paperwork and neither party asked for anything unreason- able. I knew little of their relationship and stayed out of the divorce, offered backrubs and ran the odd document to the post office. I knew they had their issues, but not the particulars. I assumed the usual pressures and stresses were too much for a hasty marriage. By the time we waltzed into the Algonquin it was all but over. I thought I could play savior, rescue her into a happy life.

When she said she wanted out of New York, I proposed my hometown. I thought a fresh start would do us well, not to mention the fresh air. She’d never been this far north, and the idea excited her. We could buy land and burrow, twist our roots into a good life. But dirt’s expensive, it turns out. Water’s cheaper. We bought a houseboat sight unseen and spoke of visiting the snow in Alaska, or the salmon jump in Haida Gwaii. Then we arrived at the marina. Beatrice was underwhelmed when she laid eyes on our new home. I’ll admit that our forty-footer looked more sinking in person. I wouldn’t trust it in open waters. But we didn’t speak of it. I hadn’t any real appetite for long voyages anyhow.
I guess this was our honeymoon.

* * *

I stepped onto the deck, looking for an omen, something affirmative along the shore. Homes were half hidden by woods, a few vacant cliffside mansions were ready for renters. Docks jutted from the land, fishing boats and beached canoes glinted. The sun set to port side, and the air was beginning to cool.

“Excuse me,” a woman said. She leaned against the rail, wearing sunglasses and a dark suit. Not a high school acquaintance, I was sure. Her face looked too cutting to be local. “How do you get off this boat? I’ve got a shoot in Gastown in forty minutes.”

“Downtown?” I said. “We’re not stopping downtown.”

The woman took out her phone and stabbed madly at the thing.

“Are you an actress?” I asked.

“Director. Why did we leave the harbor? I thought this was a berthed party.”

This wasn’t the first time I’d heard this complaint. I supposed people wanted off, or at least the option.

“What’s the movie about?” I asked, to change the subject. “My wife acts a little.”

“Film. The premise is something like: what if all men vanished, and women moved back into the forest, in Oregon, in the rain? Built a town up from the earth? Answer: bliss. Except they’re haunted by mysterious creatures. Twist: men still exist. It was all by choice. Creatures turn out to be the Boy Scouts at the next grounds. A post-apocalyptic utopia of sorts, then not.”

“Anyone I know in it?”

“Sarah Godwell-Diane plays the lead cultist.”

“Oh,” I said, not knowing the name.

She took out a skinny cigarette and made a fire in her palm.

“Hey, could I get your thoughts on a plot?” I asked. “I’ll fix you a drink.”

“I’m sober.” She tapped her forearm twice. I didn’t understand the gesture. “But go ahead, shoot.”

I told the story of Beatrice and me, keeping the details straight but changing the names, not that she knew our names. She removed her sunglasses, as if she were listening with her eyes. This made me a little nervous. I told the story as best I could, emphasizing certain passages, making sure to nail down a few practiced lines. When I finished, she was still searching my face.

“What do you think?” I asked.

She lit another slim one.

“What?” I said. “What is it?”

“It’s thin. Missing a part. A whole perspective,” she said. “What kind of story is it? A comedy? It’s not funny. If it’s a tragedy, it needs a new ending. And I don’t buy it as a romance.”

“Why not?”

“Too insecure. You’re afraid of the thing. You’re not getting close enough. Who are these characters? What do they want? I have no idea. Why should I care?”

I massaged the stem of my martini glass.

“Listen, I wouldn’t make it,” she said. “Of course, it’s all subjective, but ultimately not. Hey, I have to get out of here. Who’s the host of this thing anyways?”

I wanted to press her, but she flicked her cigarette into the ocean and returned to the party.

This was a novel time in my life. One year ago I had been in New York, unhappy and alone, staying up to watch televised dating, listening to roommates through walls, and feeling the smallness of my course. Now I was back in the homeland, or near it, with wife and boat. It had all happened in one urgent burst, that heavy gust that blows havoc every decade or so. I still woke up to the facts of the night, on occasion, shivering with the truth. My skin adjusted, my lips and eyes recognized the picture, but it had yet to penetrate that deeper place.

My life and I were not yet merged.

Inside, the mood had worsened. Maybe the sushi had worked its charms, because the guests looked a little sickly. The quartet had gone on break, and the boat sounded of scattered voices. I searched for Beatrice. In the crowd, I saw her speaking to a man in a polo shirt. I took her by the arm.

“Baby, let’s talk,” I said.

The man spoke up. “Can I help you?”

“That’s my wife,” I said, then recognized the face. “Richard? It’s me. Steve. From Cliffmount High?”

“Steve, yes, of course,” he said, and offered his hand. But he didn’t remember. Richard had been a rugby star in high school. Maybe we’d never spoken.

“You two went to high school together?” Beatrice said. “Same year?”

“Yes,” I said. “Can we go someplace and talk?”

But Richard wasn’t done. “Wait, Steve—yes, Steve. You were in band, weren’t you? You played the hell out of the violin. I remember you at the assembly, ripping the national anthem to shreds. Sawing that thing raw.”

“Oh, thanks,” I said.

“You played the violin?” said Beatrice.

“This guy was a wizard,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said.

We escaped Richard and moved to a quiet spot near the hull. Beatrice didn’t speak. Perhaps she was a little hurt from not knowing my talents. I’ll admit that this was heartening. It felt good to move her in any direction. It was true that I’d dabbled, even obsessed for a while, over my little Yamaha. I played and played, but at some point all the fun got sucked out. It started to feel like anything else. Beatrice was looking toward the shoreline.

“Something’s off,” I said. “The whole party is off.”

“The party is fine,” she said. “Everyone is very nice. If something’s off, it’s with you.”

This accusation surprised me. Beatrice was not one to accuse. It was not like her to confront or place blame. I felt we were on slippery and unknown surfaces—surfaces I was not keen to navigate in the company of guests. It seemed crucial to steer us back on course.

“Hey,” I said, thinking on my feet. “Let’s dance.”

“Dance?” she said. “We don’t dance.”

“Yes, we do. Remember? Hold on—wait right there.”

I ran to the quartet and whispered a request.

“How many martinis have you had?” Beatrice asked when I returned.

“As many as you,” I said, and hooked her around the hip. The music started, and I led her to the living room where we moved a little among the guests. Slow dancing, you could call it. Beatrice was stiff and there wasn’t much space to maneuver. A few people paused to observe us. They might have wondered what they were witnessing, whether this spectacle was in the festive spirit of a first dance, or something more casual. No one joined. The weight of Beatrice’s chin was on my shoulder. I wondered if she recognized the Brahms. This number hardly sounded familiar, admittedly. If I hadn’t requested it, I might not have recognized it either. We shuffled around but couldn’t get the speed right. I could feel the guests watching, stepping out of the way as we approached. Beatrice dragged a little. I had a terrible feeling then, a feeling of lifelessness before me, like I was holding up a corpse. I felt a sudden urge to evict my wife from my arms. But I held on and moved my feet.

The boy captain interrupted us with an announcement from the deck. At first, I was relieved. Green lights flared through the windows. The strings went limp. Our audience turned to the waters. Sirens sounded and I made out another motor. Beatrice and I untangled. The guests peered out, excited. Perhaps they thought we were being rescued. The boy captain was still speaking.

“What’d he say?” I said. “A ghost? Ghost something?”

“Ghost?” said Beatrice. “The Coast Guard. He said it’s the Coast Guard.”

I looked out and spotted the vessel.

“Stay here,” I said, and went to the deck. But she followed.

The Coast Guard floated beside us. The boat was a small inflatable thing with rubber bumpers and lifesavers. Its lights were spinning green. A stout figure stood at the edge, his voice shining from a speaker.

“Sir,” he said. “Are you the owner of this vessel?” He was looking at Richard.

“I am,” I called.

He turned to me, a little surprised. “License, please.”

Heads were poking out of the doors now, bodies trickling onto the deck.

One voice from the boat, the director’s, I think, cried, “SOS!”

“What kind of license?” I asked.

“Master operator’s, for starters,” he said. “Then I suppose we can address the lack of personal flotation devices. Is that alcohol? How many persons aboard that vessel? What is your capacity, sir?”

I hesitated. There were no such papers, as far as I knew. No lifejackets, either. We’d only owned the boat for a few weeks. In the darkness, I couldn’t make out the officer’s face. I didn’t recognize these waters and didn’t know where exactly we were floating, or what kind of trouble we’d found. A tiredness overcame me. I did not have the energy to maneuver or resist. I wanted to go to bed.

Beatrice spoke up. “Officer,” she said. Her yellow dress caught a breeze and wrapped around her leg. “May I call you that? We’re very sorry. We just moved to your beautiful town from New York City. We’re having a little party, and we didn’t know the laws. That’s our fault. Now we’re just trying to get home. It won’t happen again.”

The guard paused. “New York City?” he said. “Manhattan?”

“That’s right,” she said.

The guard lightened a little. “I’ve never been,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to go. Have you been up to the Empire State?”

“Many times. It’s lovely up there. But it’s nothing like this.”

The guard was stuck in a dream. After a moment, he straightened up. “And who are you, ma’am?”

“I’m the first mate,” Beatrice said. “His wife. It’s our boat.”

He studied me, then turned back to her. He was trying to put it together. I put my arm around my wife to demonstrate. Ahead was a heavy neck of trees. We were drifting. The inlet grew narrow before it widened again. The guard deliberated and my wife smiled.

“Get yourselves home safe,” he said.

For a while, we’d speak fondly of that night: how Beatrice saved us from fines and rescued the party, revitalizing the guests. Beatrice calls it luck, but I credit her charm. We’d remind each other—or present company—how the Coast Guardsman was softened by his dreams of Manhattan and let us off with a warning, how the scare exhilarated the party and gave it a second life. We’d tell how we sailed back, our guests happy for a while, how the quartet picked up pace and people danced, how we spotted otters clapping over rocks, a few guests hooking up on the hull. We received more logs in the guestbook. Even the sushi came back to life.

People seemed to enjoy this story. Beatrice told it well. But after a while, that story got worn out. It was missing a part.

That night, after we’d said our farewells, Beatrice and I returned to our cabin and stirred. Something was pressing at me. We lay in bed, not quite touching. Beatrice was still.

“You never told me what happened between you and Harold,” I said, after a while.

She opened her eyes a little. “Oh, you don’t want to hear about that.”

“I do,” I said.

Beatrice sighed. She could tell that I didn’t—I was an awful liar—but she told me anyway. Maybe she knew I needed it, or maybe she just wanted the night to end. In any case, she recounted the story of her and Harold. It is not my story to tell, and I won’t share it here, but I will say it’s not an uncommon story and it contained little I hadn’t already known or suspected. There were no victims or villains, no one had wronged the other—not until the very end, perhaps—and it had ended quickly and without undue violence. But as I listened to my wife orate this story the sickness in my stomach expanded. For reasons outside my understanding, I became queasy. I felt seasick. There was nothing I could reasonably be upset about, yet there I was, physically ill and curled into a small fetal ball.

I felt Beatrice against my back. She rubbed my shoulders in an affirming manner. She was warm and soft, almost mothering. I turned to hide my face.

“It’s OK,” she said. “We have each other.”

I nodded, too petty to speak.

“We have our boat,” she said. “We have the Algonquin.”

I parted my lips to a thin drool. I sniffled into my pillow as my wife squeezed my shoulder. She pressed into me, calmly, her warmth a kind of blanket. She caressed my arm and told me everything would be all right. We’d had too many martinis, and it was understood we’d forget all about this in the morning. Beatrice’s breath was tired in my ear, the water lulled us, and then I was asleep. Sometime in the night, I dreamt of my Yamaha. I was on stage at my old school, playing for an audience of a hundred children. They observed as my fingers fell numb and useless. I couldn’t find the notes. These children watched me fail in silence. An anxiety dream, I suppose, but I awoke to a deep, terrifying calm. I reached for Beatrice. She was there. Then I reached for myself. My heart pressed back at me. Outside, everything was still. Even the ocean had gone to bed.