Leaving the Sea: Stories by Ben Marcus Page A

said. “What are you guys up to?”
    You two?
You two?
And here was Britt pulling on him and laughing as if they were together. He extricated himself, again, but Britt threw an arm around him and told Helen it was nothing, a silly joke, and they were just hanging out watching the ocean go by. Wasn’t the ocean amazing?
    Helen looked out at the water, frowned, and carefully agreed that it was. It seemed she was on the fence about it. This ocean, she told them, reminded her of a story, in fact, a very long story, slowly told, that got hung up in a complicated preamble about the first time she had told the story and who was there and why it had been a sort of hard story to tell. Apparently it still was. The old story about a story trick. An act of sheer violence to its audience. Fleming wanted to turn to dust.
    He begged off, saying that he needed to go work, which wasn’t true. He had no intention of doing any writing on this boat, but maybe there was something good on cable. Or something bad on cable. Or maybe the wall in his room was doing some interesting shit that he could stare at while he held his balls. Anyway it was clear that if he wanted to escape his students—yes, yes, he wanted to—about the only place he could do that was in his room. But as he left the pool area he heard Britt shouting his name. She caught up, breathless. It was just that she was curious what room he was in, on what level, because such-and-such was her room number, on the such-and-such level, you know, just in case, and was he going to be around at the bar later?
    Fleming told Erin about it over the phone. This was the best way to defuse all prospects. Confess before it happens, then it won’t happen.
    “It was so awkward. And on the first day! Right on the ship railing where everyone could see us.”
    “What am I supposed to say?” asked Erin, sounding tired. “That it’s cool a student is attracted to you? Good for you?”
    “No, of course not. I think it’s funny. I mean, me. She can’t really be attracted to
me
.”
    Erin let that one go. Apparently she agreed.
    “Okay,” she said, in the classic way she ended her phone calls. As in, Okay, I’ve had enough, this is over.
    “Well, I miss you,” challenged Fleming. The phone was sweaty against his head. He wanted out of this conversation, too. But it seemed dimly important for them to exchange intimacy.
    Nothing.
    He broke. “You can’t say one nice thing?”
    “I can say many nice things.”
    Just not to
you,
being the implication.
    “All right, well, I don’t know what I did, but I’m sorry.”
    “How can you apologize if you don’t know what you did?”
    Here we go.
    “I’m not sure how, Erin. But I apologize, I really do.”
    “We’ll talk when you get back.”
    “Let’s talk now.”
    “I really, really, really, really can’t.”
    Really?
he wanted to say. But he couldn’t honestly blame her, because he didn’t want to talk, either.
    “I’ll call you tomorrow,” Fleming said. “I hope you feel better.”
    Fleming was asleep when someone knocked on his door. He tried to ignore it. What time was it, anyway? The knocking persisted. It was a quiet knock, which he found sort of queer, because there was nothing polite about being woken up in your
cabin
. Ever since he’d boarded this ship he’d been systematically chased into a corner as he searched for privacy. Now they’d found his corner, too, and he was left with—and here he modulated his interior voice into something menacing—
nowhere to hide
. He laughed out loud. Clichés like this were perfectly acceptable when you thought them to yourself, particularly in theatrical voices.
    The knocking continued. The knock of someone who knew he was in here. The knock of someone who wasn’t going away. The knock, no doubt, of a crazy if highly attractive person named Britt. A powerful, yet subtle knock. Tomorrow in class they should critique knocking styles. He hadn’t told Britt his room number, but it