Bunny and Shark (4 page)

Ready to give yourself up, ready to beg forgiveness and to be let back in . . . when a face appears, the black hole of a face draped by a falling blonde bob, so close you can smell the cloy of her perfume. It finds you and goes still. You will your ghostly shell to sink lower into the dark oil of the waters. She stays there wondering what to do because she is not seeing a stranger floating at the base of the ladder, she is seeing you.

She knows you, your white putty face. Only a woman knows the face of another woman without her makeup. What follows is the frozen impasse of neither one of you knowing what to do next. Holding your breath, it's like you are waiting for the high-pitched whistle to go off. But the hole, and what appears to you to be no more than a blonde wig floating against some celestial pattern of night sky, says nothing. Rather, you watch a red-tipped finger, attached to a disembodied white arm, point. The wig that turns away – you catch sight of its fullness, its lovely golden streaks, you recognize the stylist's work, you know the salon – swooshes back at you again, so that you understand she has checked the deck to ensure her discovery is hers alone. Then the black hole is sliced through with that white finger aimed at her lips. “Ssssshhh,” you hear, ever so gently whispered. You glimpse the pursed red lips. Then as suddenly as she came, she is gone.

Your hand slips. The bastard's voice is booming in sync with several other voices, all responding to a splash not a metre from you.

“Did you think I wouldn't?” yells the Italian. You turn your head away from him, trying to become the very shape of the underside of the boat itself. He calls out again and you sense people leaning over the edge to jeer at him. You make out the sharp scent of the perfumed woman. Is she blocking you from their view? You're on the brink of identifying the exact label of the perfume when the swimmer calls out again. It's not the bastard beside you in the water, or Coke-Bottle, but some other guest who now begins a hard swim, full of splashes, making his way back to the ladder. As his enormous hands grasp at the bottom rung, your hand falls away, as if two hands having nothing to do with one an other just miss a fateful meeting. Your hand goes slowly, so slowly, down, not to arouse any attention. You let all of yourself go under, gently fluttering your body away from the undercurrent made by the man who jumped. You pray he won't retain some flash-memory of that hand.

Moving away, raising your ear out of the water, you hear the jumper hauled back up, followed by a wet slap of approval on his back. You make your way around the boat to where fewer Christmas lights dangle away from the mast. The quieter side of the boat. And there is the parked dinghy, to hang on to. Just barely able to. To get up into unseen. You squeeze yourself into the square stern, folding yourself as best you can under the bench, pulling the tarp overtop of you with the very last of your energy. You sink into the pocket of warm air made by your breath. Eventually the soft sound of your breath fills the space and coils around your body in comforting wafts. You have never felt so chilled in the Caribbean. Or so trapped. Or so lost. Or so free.

Day four dead

(In which Bunny becomes a stow-

away on a superyacht)

H
OURS LATER
, when you've dried off and slept – it must be 4 a.m. – a couple stumbles into the dinghy. The man is singing absentmindedly. The boat goes topsy-turvy when he gets in, he is laughing, she is silent. Of course it's her: the one. That perfume. The woman with the black hole for a face, who peered down at you, who decided it was okay for you to stay invisible. You don't move despite her bottom's weight pressing onto the bench where you huddle. Her navy-and-white leather pumps. You saw them a week ago, half-price at the plaza. At least she doesn't shop in Miami. You feel a tenderness for these plump calves and swollen feet that bulge around the opening of the shoe.

How this acquaintance, whose face you cannot place, might be your ally.

“Jablonsky,” sings the man, “are you there? Not like you to be this qui-et.” He emphasizes each syllable, like he is seducing everything, the woman and the water. He ignores her when she doesn't answer. He hums and continues to row against the light, dawn-coloured waves. “I suppose you'll want to go back to the house now instead?” You sense that he is looking right at her. Which means, inadvertently, looking right at you.

“The boat is fine,” she answers. You know her by her voice and her accent. She is the Frenchwoman with the Polish name who works real estate. More a friend to Coke-Bottle than a friend to you and the bastard. Nondescript and nice, a standoffish saleswoman who stood in stark contrast to the other island agents. Vultures, all of them, except maybe for her. You figured her to be independently wealthy, too refined for you and your gang. She wore understated, well-cut clothes, and yet never scoffed at all the bling and island flash. You had barely noticed her really, preferring the company of the gang of men who ruled this tiny empire of villas.

Now you wish, more than anything, to reach out to her, to whisper to her that you are there. She's on your side, not theirs. Instead, you let the boat rock you a little longer.

/ / /

Their boat is a private cruise ship, a superyacht, run by a crew of eight. Two of the crew, appearing sleepy-eyed in white T-shirts, buff and twenty-something, usher in the dinghy and extend a hand to the shaky Jablonsky. Oh god, this is it. I have nothing to bribe them with once they pull back the tarp. You debate whether the NAUI card with your name on it is an asset or a liability. Will it be better to be known or unknown?

Jablonsky stays put.

“Leave me be for a moment, will you? I'm a little drunk still, not ready to come in.” She laughs a deep-throat kind of laugh that you would kill to have imitated in your Playboy days.

What's going on, Jablonsky? you ask without a word. Give me a sign. What am I supposed to do here? And you listen to Jablonsky in the delightful process of smoking a cigarette at dawn. You imagine her running through private thoughts about what she saw that night as she quietly peered over the sailboat edge, having no idea that now she is partially crushing you, her stowaway. She kicks the tarp out of her way when she's done smoking, sending its hard edges ruffling up against your skin. You almost grab her leg, you feel violent towards her now. We had a deal babe! But as she steps out of the boat with ease, you realize the deal was all in your head, and you're back to square one, and the deck boys will be coming any minute to pull this vessel into the tender launch: the foldaway garage of this small ship.

You shimmy yourself out, making way too much noise. Then you stand, shaking all over, and sit back down on the bench. Then stand again and fall over, and catch yourself as the boat tips and you throw your leg back to the other side to make things even again, just in time. If you can hide out here you'll have access to food, clothes, a phone. Just make your stiff body do what it's told. Pull on the rope to draw your dinghy in to the side of the cruiser.

On board the sleek white lower deck you experience the familiarity of luxury. You let yourself fall into the hard, plastic angles, a kind of scramble and clutch that places you firmly on board. You face the bristling white emery surface, the ship's jaw edge. You exhale and moan. And feel your cheek flab press deeply into the grains, like you'd give up your entire weight into this one cheek if you could just stay there and get discovered. Be served a filet mignon with a side of blue cheese and be put to bed by the stewardess. But you are running now, stepping up onto the main deck and moving along the narrow ledge past the design-improved porthole windows of the crew rooms. They could be anywhere, this crew. You want to get gorgeous again, before anything else. It might happen with Jablonsky and her king.

You feel shifts underfoot from plastic decking to plush, brown carpeting. The expanse of the main deck lays itself out before you: multiple rooms joined by loft-style partitions, mirrors of all sizes speckled with gold, decorative cabinetry of dark wood. A bachelor's den at sea. Mirrors and screens reflect the spaces in confusing ways – advantageously, you see right away, as there will be many places to hide. This becomes immediately necessary as you hear voices coming from a joining room, a bathroom. The husband enters, wearing a robe, Jablonsky next, wearing nothing. You see her from the back. You tuck yourself into a closet to watch them through the crack. You slide yourself down on the carpet. You can smell yourself against this tobacco-on-new-car smell: you have serious anxiety B.O. and the kind of bad breath that comes from not having eaten in awhile.

They are getting ready to spend the day in bed.

The maid arrives with a tray full of food: carved fruits, eggs, and toast with melted butter on top. Starving, you almost declare yourself as they settle under their feather duvets, clean and fresh. They eat, and smoke cigarettes at the same time. The husband flicks on the TV. You hear a sports announcer and smell the pineapple juice that drips down Jablonsky's face and onto the bed. Her tapered fingers hold everything so precariously that it falls out of her hands. You merge with her as she sighs deeply, satisfied, breathing in time with her until she coughs, looks at her breasts, then brushes the crumbs from them daintily onto the ground. Soon after, they both fall asleep. You stand up, look both ways from the closet and walk soundlessly over to the bed, stub out husband's cigarette and turn the TV up a few notches louder. You down a glass of juice, followed by all the coffee, gathering as much pineapple and toast as you can and shuffle back into the closet. You regret having to listen to the game while you eat. You wonder if they'd notice if you went back for a cigarette and smoked it through the crack. You are in a good mood, feeling like some good can come of this now that you've been fed.

/ / /

Jablonsky and her husband sleep all day, as do you, seated upright in their closet with your bum squished into their shoes. When you look through the crack, you see the food tray has been taken away from the side of their bed and been replaced by a new one full of stainless-steel covered plates. The TV has gone silent. The whole place is hushed and you sense it is evening. Urgency now, to get out of here before they wake, to find a bathroom and clean up. You move your body to a hovering position and push the door against the plush carpet. Then stand there ridiculous and uncertain for a moment, shuffling stiff-limbed here and there around the partitions, trying to decide which way to go. Your tapes trail, they are covered in fuzz and feathers from a stole or costume of Jablonsky's, it all hisses behind you, your NAUI card slapping at your spine as you find the stairs.

On the lower decks things become less luxurious, the gold and brown is replaced with standard white and blue plastic. You hear plates and cutlery placed on a galley table. The crew is there about to eat supper. You slip into one of the small bedrooms: a narrow space with a slim bed, everything in place except for a white T-shirt crumpled on the floor.

In the bathroom you pummel the toilet with pee. You aim the stream to hit the front side of the bowl so it makes less noise, at the same time grabbing the dark, wet face cloth at the sink to scour your face. You taste the salt in your pores come to life. A strange, alkaline odour fills your nostrils as you drop the cloth and lower the toilet seat, pulling a small makeup kit from the back of the toilet into your chest. The shower floor, still wet and giving off steam, is so enticing, you want to get in there and blast yourself with scalding water, but you reject it instantly. Too noisy. Instead you look for scissors in the kit, hands shaky, not finding anything but a nail clipper, and with that you begin ripping and breaking the tapes that encircle your body. They've become stiff, knotted with strings and covered in crap from Jablonsky's closet-floor carpet. You only half unravel them, fraying the edges without actually managing to disentangle yourself. Drop that and move on. Panic chiselling away at you.

You prioritize: put on makeup, find clothes. You turn to the mirror for the first time, one hand in the makeup bag already feeling for the sequence of application: foundation, eyes, lips last. And you notice your favourite: British Red. Then what you see reflected back at you in the misty mirror turns your heart cold. Staying perfectly still, you start to cry.

You've transformed into everything a Playboy Bunny fears but strives to keep at bay. Wrinkles, pouches, white roots straight as an axe running up against your greasy blonde locks. Snot fills your system along with the flash flood of tears that pushes through you. “Christ!” you whisper as loud as you dare: not only have you slipped into the world of old women within a few days, but the cloth you just wiped your face with was covered in hair dye. “Old woman” and, on top of it, a clownish mask. Two precise lines run through the middle of each cheek where tears fall.

Once, in your girlfriend Denise, you saw how a Bunny had crossed over into that nebulous place where beauty of a saleable kind is lost forever. This odd shared thing: nobody likes to say they were a Bunny once they're old. Bunnies don't admit to what they once were. Because then ageing gets measured ruthlessly. So they all go invisible and change their names until you can't find them anymore.

You get up off the floor and brusquely wash the black dye off your face. Which is pointless. Dye is dye; the question is, how long will it last? You swat at the bloody tapes that slap at your legs but they just fly around and chafe more. You are enraged with the irritation of it. The itch. Your inability to calm down enough to hold tight to one and carefully nibble your way through it with the small jaw of the nail clipper. Centimetre by centimetre until, again, you give up. Set your shoulders square, firm your mouth and smear foundation over the lot. You work quickly until it turns your face sludge-colour. Then add more to make an alien complexion. Followed by shimmering white, green, and gold eyeshadows brushed in bold strokes over your un-punched eyelid. It's funny to you how the other fat, slitted eye matches the peacock eye. Twins, but sadly, one got all the looks. Both eyes are streaked by a waterfall of Pierrot tears. You dab here and there, and wind your hair, thick with salt, upwards on top of your head where it holds itself. As you are about to return to the punched eye, to approach it from another angle, you hear what is clearly the end of supper for the crew. You catch sight of yourself in the mirror: half-turned and listening, unrecognizable. But you've run out of time to feel sorry for yourself so you re-zip the makeup bag and slip out the door.

/ / /

And yet, hasn't your body become more malleable and lithe? Able to go behind, around and under spaces, unseen? You feel like just another shadow. Your getaways are getting narrower but somehow you remain protected. Has the skin of the dolphin rubbed its myth onto you? Of kingliness, of resurrection? Of being able to be in two worlds at once? When you look in the mirror you see how the garish makeup makes you more crazy, more outsider. More inhuman. How quickly you get used to it, your new state, yet at the same time how quickly your future becomes less and less tangible. It gets away from you. It becomes difficult to see what drives you.

You crouch among the pipes and other metal things that make up the domain of the on-board engineer, not far from the crew rooms. You nestle yourself into a nest of rope. Young people are returning to their rooms and then going to each other's rooms. You hear games and groping and snores.

Sluggish heat blows off the blocks of metal, you are sweating, and the hums and inner workings of the cruiser reverberate through you, like you and the ship are some great, slow fever.

You doze off then wake to things roaring up for the night. Laughter and bottles cracking. Upstairs, Jablonsky and her husband must be awake now, ready to begin their party all over again. How posh that would feel, to shake off the hangover with an early evening cocktail in the bath. You think of the life you made with the bastard. How much you want it all back now. You had a deal, and both of you knew that the quality of the love wouldn't last, but that the game would sustain you both. And the money. By sharing one conscience you halved the guilt for what you did. Some nights in bed, you'd curled up together and the heat of your bodies erased everything, all the bad you'd ever done, and as this weight disappeared, as other possibilities looked like they might open up – that you would stop it all for good – your complicity was rekindled. Into the indulgent first sip of champagne, then the next glass, then, “Let's have another.” Then, “Let's go out on Coke-Bottle's boat tonight, and stop at the Cavalia. All our friends will be there.”

You squeeze your pained eyes together, feeling all kinds of new thicknesses and creases, the animal-hoof smell of old makeup.