Ghost Lights by Lydia Millet (classic fiction txt) 📕

and again in less than a foot of water. They were small, just a couple of feet long, and being fed by tourists, who tossed in fragments from their own bagged lunches.

Gretel shook her head, worried.

“It is not natural,” she said.

Germans hated it when things were not natural. Hal remembered this from college philosophy. Heidegger or something.

“Sharks have strong stomachs,” he improvised, straining to recall any actual facts. Natural history was not a strong suit, despite his years of watching Nature with Casey. “Great whites have been found with oil barrels in their digestive tracts. Rusty engines. I doubt a few Fig Newtons are going to hurt them.”

“But these are not great whites,” said Gretel, and squatted down on her haunches to see them more closely. “Look! They are like little babies.”

A few paces away the divemaster was already gesturing at them: it was time to head back to the boat. Gretel left the so-called baby sharks reluctantly.

On the windward beach again, lagging behind the rest of the group, Hal looked out beyond the boats and saw a small skiff cruise by, a thin, bearded man standing in the front of the boat leaning into the wind with raised binoculars, one bent leg braced against the prow like a sea captain in books of yore. Hal tried to recall where in the hotel he’d run into him. Then the bohemian woman screeched. She was barefoot and had stepped on a bottle cap.

“You could get lockjaw,” said the bohemian man.

• • • • •

Back at the hotel the Germans pressed him into service for dinner also, as though he could not be trusted to be left on his own. Their two boys left the table in a rush once they had bolted their kiddie menus, running outside to continue the ping-pong tournament.

“We must get organized for tomorrow,” said Hans. “We have the map. I have made many copies. We have many copies also of the photograph of Mr. Stern. The hotel is having them laminated.”

“Nothing left for me to do then, really,” said Hal. “Is there.”

He had a cavalier attitude; he was drinking a margarita, which Gretel had encouraged him to order. She drank one also and her bright-blue eyes were shining.

“Does Mr. Stern have any medical conditions?” asked Hans.

“Not that I know of,” said Hal.

“You should find out the blood type, in case he is located and is injured and requires a transfusion. Also a medical history.”

“Huh,” said Hal, nodding vaguely. “My wife would probably know.” He had ordered the snapper, which was overcooked and too fishy. He decided to leave it mostly uneaten. The margarita tasted far better.

“Also, does his insurance cover helicopter evacuation,” Hans was saying.

Hal was already at the bottom of his glass, and at the far end of the dining room a band was setting up. He was thinking how pleasant it was to be drunk, that he had been missing out all these years in not being drunk far, far more often.

Couples gathered at the edge of a dance floor. There was a drum flourish, bah-da bum. A woman singer in an evening gown said something husky and incomprehensible into a microphone.

Lights sparkled. Yellow and golden in the dining room, now a ballroom. Beyond the large windows, the pool, the chairs, the deep-black sky, the ocean. A room full of people and golden lights, and outside the whole dark world.

Tequila, he thought, made him sad—was it sad, though? Anyway, melancholy. Youth had flown. It wasn’t all bad, though. You couldn’t move as well as you used to, you didn’t look as good, you had either forgotten the dreams of youth or resigned yourself to their disappointment.

But at least you could see more from your new position. You had a longer view.

“Come on, Hal. Why don’t we go dance a little?” asked Gretel, smiling, and cha-cha-cha’d her shoulders. Hans was pushing buttons on a calculator, which seemed to have appeared from nowhere. He waved them to go dance, got up and headed off. Hal watched him buttonhole the maître d’, nod briskly and start dialing the restaurant phone.

“He’s really taken this on, hasn’t he,” said Hal. “This whole search-and-rescue thing.”

“Hans does not like vacations,” said Gretel. “He gets bored. He always needs to have something to do. He’s some kind of genius, people tell me. With his electronics. You know, and he talks to me about his work? But actually I don’t understand it. But always he likes to keep busy.”

“I noticed,” said Hal.

“Dance with me,” said Gretel. It was cheerfully platonic, but he took what he was offered.

“With pleasure,” he said, and set down his margarita glass. The stem of the glass was green and in the shape of a large cactus, the kind you saw in cartoons and Arizona. A margarita was not a manly drink. But more so than a daiquiri.

Heading for the dance floor, he was recalled to reality—the reality that he was a flat-out embarrassing dancer. Among the worst. He had almost forgotten. He was a finger-snapper and a head-nodder. He had no other moves.

“Wait. Only if it’s a slow song,” he added, and hung back. “I’m really bad.”

“What’s important is to have fun,” said Gretel, taking him by the arm. “Express yourself.”

“You don’t want to see that, believe me,” said Hal, feeling the silkiness of her fingers. “Self-expression is a young man’s game.”

“Oh, come on,” she said.

They were on the dance floor, other people around them. She started to move, a couple of feet away. Lithe and elegant, as would be expected. He could not do anything. He was stuck. Then desperation washed over him. He had to cling to some self-respect. He reached out and grabbed her, clamped her to his person.

“Sorry,” he said into her ear. “This is all I can stand to do.”

She drew back, a bit confused, and then smiled. After a few seconds she balanced her arms on his shoulders and let him hold her and sway.

Leaning into her he let himself believe, for