CHAPTER FOUR

Little Diomede

The bar on the Lido deck is where I settled in for the afternoon run out toward the Diomede Islands, just off the Seward Peninsula. Passengers were drinking like proverbial fish and talking like magpies, so it did not take long to learn that our speed approached nine knots. That put our arrival at about eight the following morning.

Marlys was serving behind the bar. She was attired in some sort of blue wrap and looked stunning. It’s not that tough to look fetching when you’re in your early twenties, I ruminated over my cup of coffee.   But she was still fun to look at anyway. She neither spoke to me nor made eye contact. It was as if we had never seen one another. Her necklace had disappeared and her ankles were covered.