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raft, the sun was no longer at its peak but still klieg-light intense. Her shirt clung to her. The breeze did little to cool her; she was still overheated from the adrenaline rush. She tugged off the Mariners cap, set it on her knee, wiped her forehead. Jay held up his hand as a target, and she flipped him his hat, which he dipped overboard and pulled on.
    The others chatted and joked, but she didn’t feel like joining in. The jungle scrolled by, and she drew a deep breath, held it, trying to dissipate the knot in her chest. As they neared the broad bend, she cast a final backward look at the shoal.
    Barely visible in the shadows, floating a step back from where the trail buried itself in a tangle of vines, a seam of cheek caught an edge of ambient light. A frayed curve of beard disintegrated into the scrambled flesh of a jawline. Eyes glinted like dimes.
    She blinked, and the face was gone.

 
    Chapter 6
    Beneath the thatched veranda of the cantina, the light of the tiki torches flickered over picnic tables. As Eve approached, a faint breeze blew through her long, sleeveless dress, making her skin feel bare. The blunt edge of her wet hair lay cool across her neck. She was the last to heed the dinner bell, taking extra time to shower off the fear that had gripped her as she’d crouched behind that fallen log in the jungle. Any threat—imagined or otherwise—seemed distant now in the happy glow of the group.
    Baby Boomer Sue was finishing another story: “… so I told her, I don’t care how important you think you are—not on my shift you don’t. Well, my girlfriend from my women’s group just about died. ”
    Sue’s tales referencing various clubs and societies and leagues painted her as a woman interwoven seamlessly into her community. Eve felt a pang of yearning for the social contentedness that this implied, the sense of belonging that somehow always seemed to evade her. It occurred to her just how out of her element she felt here, crowbarred from her protective shell and plopped onto a new backdrop that seemed to highlight her contrasts and insecurities.
    As Eve neared, Sue’s husband looked up, his eyes flashing immediately to her chest. He caught her catching him and colored slightly, his gaze darting away.
    How refreshingly simple it must be to look at one readily visible feature and decide whether someone turned you on. When it came to men, Eve found there were so many other things. Their hands. The way their eyes crinkled when they laughed. One boyfriend in college could trickle his fingers along her ribs and it would put a charge through her whole damn spinal cord. But no: Harry of Omaha, Looking at Boobs. A still life.
    She reached the group, and Will stood up too quickly, knocking his thighs against the table. His T-shirt fitted, his hair mussed just so. He offered her the seat next to him, holding eye contact for an extra beat as she moved past him, and she wondered if her gaydar was broken or just momentarily jammed by his unreasonable good looks. Claire observed them, her own eyes gleaming with dark interest.
    Sue kept on, undeterred: “Can we serve?” A loving hand on her husband’s back. “He gets low blood sugar. I have to carry snacks in my purse. I’m married to the Cookie Monster. Who wants to be married to the Cookie Monster?”
    Harry laughed and kissed her neck.
    The table overflowed with exotic dishes. Halved pineapples stuffed with shrimp and melted gouda. Squid cooked in its own ink. Chicken slathered in red mole sauce. Montejo beer bottles rose from an ice-filled cooler, as well as a plastic two-liter of Mountain Dew. Breathing in the rich scents, Eve sat, setting down by her plate the book she hoped to read in a hammock after dessert.
    Gay Jay zeroed in on it right away. “You brought Moby-Dick as a vacation read?”
    She glanced down at the brick-size paperback, the spine unbroken. “Been meaning to read it since college, but I never get to it.”
    Will said, “ Moby-Dick is