Read Online Beautiful Girls by Beth Ann Bauman - Free Book Online Page A

trees. He’s a vegetarian. He’s also boyish and compact and a tad persnickety.
    Eve is a dark-eyed, woolly-haired carnivore who likes to chomp on the turkey leg on Thanksgiving. She’s a dreamy, occasionally crabby person. She’s a clothes buyer for Lord & Taylor and lives in New York City and has been on many bad blind dates this year.
    On day two of the trip Adam and Eve unofficially meet in Zanzibar. It’s sunrise and they’re the only two on the deck as the ship heads for the lush palm tree-covered island. Wooden dhows dip and sway in the pulse of the water. There’s a heavy scent of cloves. Adam and Eve sniff the air and give each other the once-over.
    They officially meet on the island of Mayotte, where they swim with turtles and drip dry under the ylang-ylang trees. Adam plucks a flower, crushes it, and puts his fragrant fingers beneath Eve’s nose. “Smell this,” he says. It’s the most gorgeous scent that’s ever filled her nose, and she almost drops to her knees in the sand. She takes this as a sign from God—a sign of what she isn’t quite sure.
    It isn’t long before Adam and Eve are sneaking around the ship in the wee hours. She sticks her tongue in his ear in the library; he feels her up in the engine room; they get half-naked on the Lido Deckafter midnight, where the warm wind makes them shiver. Adam has dark, wet eyes and a tidy ponytail. He has a way of tilting his head and gazing at her full strength as if he can see her down to her bones. “Your hair,” he murmurs, “is crazy fantastic.” And it is! In New York her hair is all wrong, her curls often a fuzzy, startled nest. But here on the Indian Ocean she has loose, snaky tendrils—a voluptuous seaweed head.
    Eve gallops along the deck at sunset, past all the retirees out for a stroll. The sky is scorched with color. Love, love, love, she whispers out to sea. Oh,
love
, she thinks mistily—I can’t wait to get to know this Adam guy.
    But she knows this isn’t love, only her desire to love and be loved in return. The trouble is she’s gone too long without feeling special. She’s gone too long without gazing into the eyes of someone dear. She’s been out with one too many drips. She’s had a major drought and is ready for a little drizzle.
    During their days at sea Adam and Eve loll in the saltwater pool, mute as driftwood. The sun beats down on Eve’s head, and she realizes she hasn’t been thinking complete thoughts. She looks south and thinks there’s only water between us and Antarctica. There: a complete thought. Everything on this journey is about pleasure. The pleasure of sunshine, powdery white sand, the blue-green sea; the pleasure of hands and hair and bellies. Just last week she wasplowing through Midtown, jaywalking, dodging taxis and buses—tense as a skyscraper, a 5’2” nerve ending. Here her limbs are splayed and bare, idle as a jellyfish.
    There is the problem of ditching their moms. Adam and Eve gobble through their respective dinners and then sit with their mothers in the Diamond Lady Lounge for the tango show or an evening with the Sea Dynasty singers and dancers. Later when their moms have gone to bed, they meet up at the Water Hole or the Tip Top Bar for cigars under the stars. Adam hugs Eve tightly, cigar smoke twisting above their heads. She swoons. “Adam,” she whispers.
    “Eve,” he whispers back.
    Not that it’s perfect, though it almost is. He rubs her back and pulls the label out of her tank top. “What is this? Acrylic?” he asks.
    “It’s microfiber. Like it?”
    “I like natural fibers,” he says.
    When the sky begins to lighten they sneak back to their respective cabins, waking their respective moms, who eye their respective clocks.
    Adam phones Eve at eight-thirty one morning. “Come quick,” he says. His mom is going to the beauty salon in the bowels of the ship. “How long does a pedicure take?” he asks. Eve throws on a bikini and shorts and grabs her key.
    “I thought we