Model Smile

The boat disembarked with a noise scarcely louder than a microwave. There was no start, no jolt, and no bon voyage from the docks. The vessel left the port as indiscriminately as anything 95 feet in length could. Those in the port, mostly locals and regulars, didn't seem to notice as the Oceanside 95 set out of the harbor.

Eleven souls ventured out with the crew that day. A husband and wife, a mother, father and their two children, and a party of five coworkers loosely affiliated with one another.

She doesn't care for me, the husband thought. She doesn't care one bit. Otherwise she'd be out here with me. I do hope we find a whale. Then maybe she'll be interested.

The wife sat inside the galley of the ship trying to order food the deckhand of the crew didn't know how to prepare, and convincing a daughter from the family aboard to play cards with her.

My damned husband, she thought. His idea of taking me to the beach is to go out on the water and look for whales. What do I want to see a whale for? Doesn't he know I got horribly sea sick that one time?

The wife and the daughter from the family aboard played war, traditional and Egyptian, for two hours. Both the husband and the girl's family cajoled them to come outside, but they were much too interested in the card game, and much too disinterested in the forty-five foot marine mammal whose course they had intercepted, to take a break and come outside.

"Thank you for taking me on this," the wife said to her husband as the Oceanside 95 docked. "I had a great time."