Afloat (2 page)

My first night on the island I am alone. The other girls are in their apartments, already friends. I met them all during training, our nametags a strange exercise in alliteration: Brenna, Blue, Bailey. Bell. Blue said her parents let her two-year-old sister choose her name. Brenna, the girl who commented about the yacht, told me that as soon as she gets her first pay check she's getting her roots done.

The bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen don't feel like my own yet. I leave my suitcase closed on the bed, unzipping only the flat compartment at the front to retrieve the last items I packed: the calendar and a box of thumbtacks. I press the month of May firmly to an empty white wall. The carpet's a hotel-shade of pink and each room is adorned with laminated instructions about the fridge, microwave, and kettle, reminders about remembering to lock the front door and close all the windows, a warning about ants. It smells as if other people lived here once but have been away a long time.

Through the open doorway of my suite the grounds are illuminated by old-fashioned lampposts, two of which are working. The long gravel road is lined with weeds and pine trees, the sign at the entrance reads,
MACKINAC PINE SUITES
. The bike racks are full, my father's mountain bike indistinguishable from the rest. There are beer cans in the garden, and it has the atmosphere of a place that is cared for but not invested in, tucked conveniently amongst the trees and away from the eyes of tourists. I wander out a bit further, guessing the long building must hold about thirty apartments and I wonder who else is alone tonight. Directly above me is an apartment on the second floor with a balcony. It's filled with light and people, but the stairs are steep and I wasn't invited. A bare ass appears at one of the windows, followed by shrieks. A silhouette calls out, ‘You're new?'

‘I'm new,' I say.

‘Come on up, grab a beer.'

I climb the cement stairs at a pace that doesn't appear too eager, but when I get to the top he isn't looking at me. On his white T-shirt is a large blue ribbon that says, 1st Place County Fair. There's no hemp necklace or gold chain or earring in one ear, and though his top front teeth are crooked he is passably handsome. He turns, tells me his name, wiping his palm on his jeans before shaking my hand. The accent is from Michigan, and I wonder which part.

‘Want a drink?'

I shrug, smiling, and I still haven't brushed my teeth. I stop smiling. The beer cooler outside the door is full of melting ice, and he gives me a wet can. ‘Thanks.'

I pull the tab, trying to remember when I last drank beer from a can. I think it was in high school, and I hope he doesn't crush the can on his forehead when he's finished. I don't ask about the ribbon.

Leaning our elbows on the metal railing, we stare out over the tops of the trees. He tells me Velvet bought the Pine Suites after someone killed his family in one of the guest rooms, and no one wanted to stay here anymore.

‘Killed them all with an axe,' he says.

We consider this.

‘Imagine bringing an axe with you on vacation,' I say.

He laughs, nodding. ‘Sunglasses, bug spray, unwieldy murder weapon…' He counts the items on his fingers.

The island seems full of things I'd like to discover and it's only been eight hours.

‘Which suite was it?' I ask.

Bryce winks at me. ‘You're in suite eight, right? Just don't be in your bedroom after midnight.'

I punch him in the arm. ‘Fuck off.'

He rubs his arm. ‘He'll be waiting for you.'

Someone inside is yelling for him, and Bryce excuses himself. I stay at the top of the stairs feeling alone, and I should have followed him in, but it's too late now. After a while he returns in a light-blue shirt that buttons down the front, but he hasn't unbuttoned it too far. The county fair ribbon is gone.

‘You want to come down to the bars with us?' he asks.

‘I don't drink,' I say, handing him my empty can.

He puts it in the plastic bag he's allotted for recyclables.

A group gathers and we wander down into town, everyone electing to walk the mile or so instead of riding bikes as there are so many of us. It becomes second nature to sidestep the wet piles of horseshit. They rarely get a chance to harden as there are men employed with brushes and wheelbarrows and shovels to scoop the piles out of sight. Tourists taking pictures of the carriages don't like to smell horseshit, I imagine, not at the prices they've paid to come here. These men are everywhere, wearing gray coveralls and standing beside their rapidly filling wheelbarrows. Bryce tells us that last summer immigration officials took most of these men away. They were chained by their ankles in the middle of the road, and led onto a waiting coast-guard boat. People took pictures. More men arrived to take their place.

One of the girls at the front of the group thinks this is totally sad.

At the bar the couches are leather and I sit by myself, wondering whose bare ass I was witness to earlier. Someone with a pink martini is talking to Bryce, and in the dim light I notice her long luminous nails, legs crossed towards him. He nods encouragingly for a few minutes while I wish for anyone to join me, to save me and talk about their city or cat or the poetry they write in spiral notebooks labelled
POETRY
. Anything so
there isn't empty space around me. When the girl with long nails retreats to the bathroom on wobbly stilettos, Bryce sits beside me.

‘Looks like she forgot to finish getting dressed,' he says, nodding towards her backless top tied with string.

The couch seats two comfortably.

‘Not your favorite person?' I ask.

‘I try and stay away.'

I cross my legs towards him. ‘Why the name Bryce?'

‘It's a canyon in Utah. My family's Mormon.'

‘Just your family?'

‘You can't be Mormon and drink beer at the same time. Cheers.'

I imagine running my hands through his beautiful hay-colored hair as our beers click together. They are huge, bigger than a pint, and I have trouble lifting the glass with one hand. He is drinking Miller Light. I am drinking Labatt Blue.

Seated, Bryce and I are the same height.

The opening night of Velvet's restaurant is a carefully orchestrated event. Soft jazz plays through small expensive speakers mounted near the ceiling. The new menus stand sleek and upright in their leather jackets next to the cream-colored candles, the napkins are folded to look like swans. The air smells of orchid, fresh pesto, and starched linen, and the front door has been propped open with a tiny brass doorstop in the shape of a galloping horse. The sounds of cutlery and tinkling glassware and laughter echo with perfect pitch as the room fills. Nothing is too loud.

In a smooth black skirt and turtleneck, Velvet spends the evening air-kissing her friends and hissing instructions at the staff.

‘Nicole and Alan,
welcome
! Nicole, you look wonderful in that shade of beige, or is it more of an ecru?'

Then turning smoothly, with a sixth sense for incompetence as I pass with my tray, ‘Soup spoon, soup spoon, soup spoon!'

Rummy from Canada is nervous. He lives in apartment seven at the Pine Suites, and when you ask Rummy what time it is, he says things like, ‘time for a beer,' or, ‘time for you to get a watch.'

This makes me think of my father.

He has a round easy face and thick earlobes, not pierced or decorated, and his build reminds me of a baseball player, his thighs solid under his uniform. He confides this is his first job in the hospitality industry – the exchange rate on the American dollar allowing him to maximize his savings for school. With the guests he is enthusiastic because he means it, not because he has to be. The more experienced servers, the ones whose names I cannot yet keep straight, will smack open the swinging door to the kitchen and announce, ‘Water and a main course to
share
.'

They're looking for sympathy, and it's too early to know yet which servers I will wish this fate on,
the cheap table
, so I nod.

Rummy arrives as I'm retrieving my second forgotten soup spoon of the night.

‘Is there a drink called a gin at seven?' he asks.

‘Gin
and
seven. With Seven Up. Why?'

‘Shit. I thought he said, gin
at seven
. And I asked if he wanted his gin at seven o'clock.'

‘You're joking.'

He shakes his head.

Chef Walter, a large African–American man from Kansas, turns to me as I'm laughing. He points a quiet finger at me,
thick and careful, as if not only his kitchen but his body too is disciplined.

‘Which one are you?' he asks.

Before I can tell him my name, he turns back to the hot line, waving me away. ‘I don't even care, just shut the fuck up.'

Mortified, I follow Rummy out into the dining room where my table of two is still finishing their Chilled Cranberry and Raspberry Soup with Grated Nutmeg. They've been enjoying their tiny bowls for thirty-five minutes, but at least the soup is intended to be cold. Next to them, Rummy approaches table five with a gin and seven on his tray. The two men ask Rummy where he's from.

‘Canada, eh?' The first man raises his gin towards Rummy as if making a toast. ‘Our fifty-first state!'

The other man sips his vodka tonic and chuckles, and I think I hear the word
Igloo
. Rummy then points out that their assumptions regarding his enjoyment of the warm Michigan weather are misplaced, as the island is actually five hours north of where he grew up. The men are from Connecticut, and as my table finally finishes their soup I see Rummy using his right hand to show them where exactly his home is in Ontario in relation to Michigan.

He finds me later by the canoe bar as I wait for a Manhattan on the rocks and tells me how, over their dessert of Figs Poached in Cabernet Sauvignon and Served with Almond Ice Cream, one of the men had conceded: ‘You guys got a great prime minister up there though, that Trudeau guy is really something.'

Rummy informed the man that Trudeau died earlier this month.

‘Oh right,' he said. ‘Well, who you got running the place now then?'

We snicker at this, which makes me feel like I can't ask Rummy who Trudeau was. Wanting to know, and annoyed that I don't, I will look it up on the Internet later.

The restaurant fills quickly. Women with bodies that look too sleek to have borne children arrive on the arms of men wearing linen clothing and smelling of pre-dinner cocktails. Each elegant couple raise toasts across their immaculate tables, ordering hors d'oeuvres as well as desserts, and each check is well over one hundred dollars. When I finish at eleven, I feel there will never be enough time in my lifetime to learn everything I need to know about food, wine, and luxury.

The changing room is hot, loud, and crowded with female bodies in bras, wearing socks, putting on lipstick and body spray. The room begins to smell of deodorant, hair gel, and scents like ‘passion' and ‘ocean.' I kick off my black work shoes and strip off my apron, already stained with salad dressing, sauce, and wine. The closet behind me says ‘Tuxedo Shirts' and I take a hanger, buttoning the shirt to the neck and placing it back in the closet for it to be cleaned by a professional laundry service in St. Ignace. This convenience comes out of my pay check.

Tonight Brenna isn't wearing underwear, just a thin black strip of pubic hair visible before she pulls up her pants.

‘I can't stand wearing them,' she claims.

Blue, a tiny girl with dark hair and a delicate silver cross which she wears on the outside of her uniform, disagrees, maintaining that vaginas are like feet.

‘It's like wearing no socks with running shoes,' she says, scrunching her nose. ‘And then your feet start sweating.'

I have never considered
not
wearing panties and, despite this warning, I make up my mind not to wear any tomorrow.

The pub I'd been to on my first night turns out to be the employee bar of choice. Its proper title is the Cockpit Club, but it has obtained an affectionate nickname over the years.

Rummy and I agree to meet at the Cock after work, as it also happens to be the closest bar to the restaurant. The two buildings face one another on Main Street, and the time elapsed from clocking out to having your first sip of beer is about five minutes. It is maybe twenty feet from the door of the Tippecanoe to the front door of the Cock, but I ride my bike anyway, pedaling quickly for ten feet and then coasting the last ten. I park a suitable distance away from the bike I know belongs to Bryce. I do not lock it.

It's a cold northern Michigan night, and I'm wearing a bright sweater the color of a new leaf. He sees me through the glass doors before I open them, and inside the bar is thick with warmth, almost hot. John the bartender doesn't recognize me yet but gives me a nod, and Bryce is standing by the jukebox.

‘Hey, come help me pick songs,' he says. He feeds a bill into the machine. ‘You first,' he tells me.