The Men I Didn't Marry

by Janice Kaplan

  Holding hands, Kevin and I dive down to the ceremony site. Since it’s a wedding, I think I should fuss, but there’s not a lot to do with the natural habitat. The living coral reef, glittering like a thousand crystals, is more beautiful than any marble altar, and the purple sea fans wafting in the current are more stunning than fifty thousand roses.

  A few minutes later, I see the bride and groom slowly dropping down from the surface to join us at eighty feet. They glide toward us in matching sleek black wet suits, and given the spandex, the masks, the hoses, and the tanks, it’s a little tricky to make out who’s the he and who’s the she. Could be the perfect solution for gay marriage. Don’t ask, and there’s no way to tell.

  Accompanying the couple is Susie, Kevin’s sometime assistant, who will also be presiding over the nuptials. She might have abandoned her banking career when she came to the islands but she definitely kept her business sense. To supplement her services as a master scuba diver, Susie became certified as a justice of the peace and a bartender. Clever career move. Who doesn’t need a drink after a wedding?

  When the couple approaches, the bride (or at least the smaller of the two) grabs some seaweed to hold in front of her as a bouquet. Kevin removes his mouthpiece and blows out musical bubbles.

  “Dum dum da-dum,” he exhales, to the beat of “Here Comes the Bride.” He quickly puts the tube back in his mouth to breathe again. Good thing the bride’s not swimming down the aisle to Wagner or Kevin would pass out before the last note. Musical accompaniment finished, Susie gathers us close, and at last, the wedding is in full swing. A colorful school of parrot fish gathers to witness the holy union and a large loggerhead turtle appears to stand up for the groom.

  With nobody to give the bride away and none of the fish objecting, the proceedings go rather quickly. Kevin starts snapping pictures as Susie performs the ceremony by pointing to the groom, pointing to the bride, and making a question mark with her finger. The groom forms the okay sign by making a circle of his thumb and forefinger, the underwater version of “I do.” Susie reverses the process, and his beloved nods, pledging her troth. I’m sure Susie would never slip anything by her, but how’s an underwater bride to know if she’s agreed just to love and cherish—or also to obey?

  The happy couple mash their masks together, trying to kiss, and as an ultimate sign of oneness, they both take a swig of air from the same tank. In the excitement of the moment, I give the thumbs-up sign, forgetting that for scuba divers, that means it’s time to go back to the surface. Everybody dutifully starts to ascend. Oh, well, the only thing the bride didn’t get to do was throw her bouquet and I didn’t want a face full of seaweed, anyway.

  Kevin and I are the first out of the water, and we pull off our equipment quickly. The newlyweds surface and I hold out a hand to help them ashore.

  Through his mask, the groom looks at me and is so startled, he almost falls back into the water. As I hoist him to land, he quickly scuttles behind his bride.

  “What’s the matter, honey?” she asks, taking off her goggles. She pulls out the elastic band holding her hair in a ponytail and swings her thick red curls. The groom, meanwhile, is whispering in her ear and urgently tugging at her wet suit.

  And suddenly I realize that I know both of them. I’ve met the groom, nervous in my office, and seen the bride naked in a photograph.

  “Mr. Tyler?” I ask incredulously. “Is that you?”

  Instead of answering, he hurriedly grabs the bride—who I can now identify as Melina Marks—and spirits her into a speedboat moored at the beach. He heaves the boat into the water and yanks the cord to start the motor.

  I start to run after them, but they shove off, sending a fine wave of salt water splashing back in my face. Susie joins me at the edge of the water.

  “I hope I didn’t do anything wrong at the ceremony,” she says, watching the couple zoom away.

  “You were perfect,” I promise her. We continue to stare out to sea until the boat is barely a speck in the distance.

  Susie sighs. “I have to fill out the license, and I don’t even know their names. Who was that masked man?”

  All those years watching reruns of The Lone Ranger, and I never thought I’d actually get to answer that question.

  “His name’s Charles Tyler. He’s a client of mine,” I say. “When my boss told me to find him, I figured I should look under every rock, but it never occurred to me to look under an air tank.”

  “Why was he so panicked to see you?”

  I shake my head. “Probably because it’s not too prudent in the middle of a sex discrimination trial to marry the woman you’re accused of sleeping with.”

  I wander around Guana for a while, waiting for the speedboat to reappear, but it never does.

  “You think we should go looking for them?” I ask Kevin.

  “We can try. But they could be anywhere by now—or at least anywhere you can get to on a tank of propane.”

  With no real alternative, I leave a voice message on Mr. Tyler’s cell phone, congratulating him on his wedding—because what else can I say? You stupid idiot, you’re going to lose your career and your new wife is going to lose her job. I beg Mr. Tyler to call me, even though he’s now officially on his honeymoon.

  We leave Guana, and I’m agitated all the way home. As our small boat crashes through the rising waves, the pounding of my butt against the seat is nothing compared to the pounding in my head, courtesy of Mr. Tyler. When we go out to have drinks with Susie and Dave at an outdoor bar that night, it’s all I can talk about.

  “I still don’t understand why you’re so worked up,” says Kevin for about the tenth time.

  “Worked up? I’m not worked up,” I say, getting more worked up at the thought of having to defend my worked up-edness.

  “No, Kev’s right. You’re worked up,” says Dave, who tosses a peanut in the air and catches it in his mouth. “What’s the big deal?”

  “My client’s acting very strangely. I know something’s up with him, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.” I take a gulp of my drink. “It’s driving me nuts not to have a handle on this.”

  “Who cares? End of the day, you have a beer and leave your work behind,” says Dave.

  “My work interests me,” I say, remembering that it once did. “I don’t like to leave it behind. Sometimes it stays with me all night.”

  “My work sometimes stays with me all night, too,” says Dave with a leer. “Always some sexy tourist who wants the scuba master to show her more than the reef. So she comes home with me and I introduce her to the big eel.”

  “Oh, Dave, you’re gross,” says Susie.

  “The big eel?” asks Kevin bemusedly. “Is that what you call it? I thought the last woman who slept with you referred to it as the little squid.”

  I sit back in my chair and shake my head. A few short months— and a lifetime—ago, I was with Bill at dinner parties in Chaddick, sipping Château Margaux and discussing the effects of Amazonian deforestation on environmental change. Now my environment really has changed. I’m swilling whatever’s on tap and discussing whether a man I don’t even like has a little squid or a big eel.

  “So about your case,” says Dave, done discussing his endowments. “This whole sex discrimation thing sounds like bullshit to me. Welcome to the world. Of course you get things because you look good and someone wants to sleep with you. It’s natural selection. Downright Darwinian.”

  I pause, impressed that Diver Dave is referencing Darwin. But not so impressed by his take on the topic.

  Or by Kevin’s.

  “Come on, Hallie. I hire the people I like. Why shouldn’t everybody?”

  “But do you sleep with all the people you hire?”

  There’s an uncomfortable silence at the table. Susie and Kevin exchange a glance.

  “He never slept with me,” says Dave, tossing up another peanut, which bounces off his cheek.

  Susie gets very busy spreading a pat of butter on her bread. �
��Back to Mr. Tyler. Since I’ve just made them husband and wife, doesn’t that help your case, Hallie? I mean, it’s all legal now.”

  “It makes it less sordid, but it doesn’t help the case. Now that he’s married Melina, it’s hard to say he wasn’t favoring her.”

  “Ooh, teacher’s pet, teacher’s pet. What is this, fourth grade?” asks Dave, now holding the edge of his paper napkin into the candle flame and watching it burn. “I’ve had enough with political correctness. It just keeps you from having a good time.”

  “We wouldn’t want anything to get in the way of any of you having a good time,” I say a little too archly.

  Kevin puts his hand on mine and pats it soothingly. “Come on, Hallie. Loosen up. You’re not in New York anymore.”

  “Maybe I should be,” I say softly.

  He shakes his head. “Let’s not argue about this. It’s your job, and I bet you’re good at it.” He kisses me, and as usual at Kevin’s touch, I start to relax. But then he can’t leave well enough alone. “And look at you. I can’t imagine it hurt your career that you’re a great-looking babe.”

  I’m flattered and insulted at the same time. I’m sitting here with a couple of guys who think life is a frat party, but at least one of them calls me cute.

  The next morning while I’m wandering through town, Emily calls my cell phone, sounding a bit too cheerful. Since it’s final exam period at Yale, I expected she’d be a little tenser than this.

  “I just have one ten-page paper left to finish on the rise and fall of Old World civilization,” she explains.

  “It’s only four thousand years of history. You should be able to knock if off in an hour,” I say sardonically.

  A seagull squawks in the background, and I cover the speaker with my hand, hoping Emily won’t hear. If she does, I can always tell her I’m in the subway. Lots of strange birds there. I don’t like to lie, and since I’m not quite ready to admit that I’m hanging out with Kevin, I’m grateful that Emily never thinks to ask me where I am.

  “Any interesting guys at school?” I ask her.

  There’s a long pause. “I’m too busy working to pay attention to guys,” she says.

  “Working is good, but you should still have a little fun at school,” I tell her. “Best years of your life and all that.”

  I hear a strange squawk, but this time it sounds like it’s coming from the receiver. Emily seems to muffle the phone herself, because I can barely hear what she says next.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Don’t worry, I’m having fun,” Emily says, a little clearer now.

  “Good, so what else is going on?” I ask.

  “Real busy. Just wanted to check in and let you know I’m fine.” She pauses, and then adds in that fake-chipper voice again, “If you have trouble reaching me in the next couple of days, just figure I’m holed up in the library.”

  “My poor sweetie. I’ll be thinking about you,” I say as we hang up.

  I feel briefly guilty about my daughter’s working so hard in a chilly library while I’m strolling blissfully in the island sunshine. It was fun to have her down here. Maybe I should have bought her that trinket she liked so much, even though it was too expensive. Leave it to my daughter. On an island where vendors hawk two-dollar puka beads on the beach, she managed to find a freshwater pearl necklace with a Tiffany price tag.

  I turn around and head over to the little shop that had the necklace, looking forward to surprising Emily. But when I get there, the necklace is gone. The shopkeeper Imelda remembers me from my last visit and shrugs when I ask her about it.

  “Sold the pearls this morning,” she says.

  I look chagrined. “Darn, I wanted them for my daughter. She liked the necklace so much when we were here a couple of weeks ago. I should have bought it for her.”

  “Someone else bought it for her,” says the shopkeeper. “She came in with that nice scuba teacher, Nick. What an adorable couple.”

  I stare at her briefly, then shake my head. “If you saw her this morning, it wasn’t my daughter. She’s at college. I just talked to her.”

  “You might have just talked to her, but I just saw her,” says Imelda firmly. “Her name’s Emily, right? We even discussed that she’d been in before with her mom.”

  I stand there, bewildered. Emily already got the necklace? And Nick bought it for her? And they’re an adorable couple?

  “Maybe they were in a few weeks ago,” I say to Imelda, hopefully.

  “It was this morning. What part of ‘this morning’ don’t you understand?” asks Imelda, irritated that I’m doubting her.

  Which part don’t I understand? The part where my daughter called me and said she was writing a paper. The part where I told her to have fun. The part where I worried that she was holed up in a library when apparently she’s holed up with Nick.

  Baffled, I walk out of the store. How could Emily be on the island without my knowing about it? Wouldn’t she have told me? On the other hand, I’m on the island and Emily doesn’t know. But that’s different. I’m the mother; I’m supposed to know everything.

  I head over to the dock to look for Kevin. He’s standing by a diving boat packed with bikini-clad tourists that’s about to go out. I grab him.

  “Do you know where Nick is?” I ask.

  “Nick, the young scuba stud?” he asks. “What do you need him for? Already looking to replace me?”

  “No, I love you,” I say distractedly. “I just need Nick.”

  “You love me?” Kevin asks, surprised.

  I’m suddenly embarrassed, realizing we haven’t used that word with each other yet. “Not really love you,” I say.

  “Then how would you describe it?” Kevin crosses his arms and a small smirk crosses his face as he waits for my answer. A couple of the scuba-ready tourists lean out of the boat to hear more.

  “I like you. I really, really like you. I hope you really, really like me,” I say, flustered. Oh God, this is practically the speech that brought Sally Field down. And it’s probably not going over any better with Kevin and the tourists than it did at the Academy Awards.

  “Oooh, she really, really likes you,” calls out one of the teenage girls who’s hanging over the railing.

  “I really, really like you, too, Kevin,” snorts the captain from the bow. “Now can you get your ass on the boat so we can get moving?”

  Ignoring the hecklers, Kevin wraps his arm around me and gives me a kiss. “I’m glad you love me, because I love you, too. I’ll show you how much tonight,” he says.

  “I can’t wait,” I say, kissing him back and momentarily forgetting why I’d come.

  But Kevin has a job waiting and I have a daughter waiting—somewhere. Though she’s certainly not waiting for me to show up.

  Kevin hops on the boat and then helpfully calls out over the sound of the motor, “Nick’s up at the dive shop. But keep your hands off him!”

  I rush up to the shop and fling open the flimsy screen door.

  “Hallie, baby, how ya’ doin’?” calls out the guy inside.

  Alas, it’s not Nick. Double alas, it’s Diver Dave.

  “Is Nick around here?” I ask him.

  “Nope, just me. Isn’t that good enough?”

  “No,” I say bluntly. “I need Nick.”

  “Whoa! Old Nickerino sure is getting more than his share of the action today.” Dave steps out from behind the counter. “He just went off on his moped with some cute little girl.”

  “That cute little girl’s my daughter!”

  Dave raises an eyebrow. “Couldn’t be. You’re not old enough to have a grown daughter.”

  “Thanks. I started early,” I say. I shake my head. “Anyway, I’m definitely not old enough to have a daughter who’s screwing around with Nick.”

  “No mother’s old enough to face that,” agrees Dave. “Come on, we’ll go find them.”

  He flips the hand-printed sign on the shop door from OPEN to CLOSED. I guess nobody’s going
diving again until we let old Nickerino know that you don’t screw around with somebody’s daughter. Does it ever occur to these guys that everybody is somebody’s daughter?

  I follow Dave out the door to his shiny black-and-silver motorcycle. I’ve never been a biker babe before, but Dave tosses me a beat-up helmet and before he straps on his own, he pulls a black Jerry Garcia T-shirt on over his white tank top.

  “Better image for the Harley,” he explains, straddling the seat and motioning me to sit behind him.

  “I don’t understand why you bikers revere the Grateful Dead,” I say, tentatively approaching the saddle. “I want to make it clear that if we end up dead, I’m not going to be grateful.”

  “Trust me. Every woman’s grateful after she’s been with me,” says Dave, although this time when he winks, it’s more self-knowing than salacious.

  He starts the Harley, and it makes the intimidating VROOM that usually heralds the Hell’s Angels. We jerk forward and I grab onto Dave’s waist. A little scary to be on this thing, not to mention scary to be this close to Little Squid-Big Eel Dave. Though with a name like that, he could be the chief of the Cherokee Nation. The right person to . . .

  “Find my daughter!”

  “Will do! I can catch up to any crummy little moped!” He takes a turn a little too fast, which makes me grab him even tighter.

  Up ahead of us, I see a speck on the road that, sure enough, gets closer and closer. Dave picks up speed, overtakes the moped, then makes a stunning U-turn, completely cutting them off. The moped skids in the dirt and almost falls over.

  “I wanted to find Emily, not kill her,” I squeal.

  “Yeah, but I bet you’d like to kill Nick,” Dave says. Our monster-size Harley and Nick’s miniature moped are both stopped, facing each other across the road, a High Noon standoff.

  From his moped, Nick screams, “Dave, what the fuck are you doing? What do you want?”