Her eyes opened. “Theodore my bear, please mind your fur…”

  It took three moments and two blinks to bring the pink bear into focus. “Did I put you in my lap? Never mind.” She glanced at her watch—six thirty. Dinner would be in full swing. “What about it?” she asked. “I am going to get something to eat, Theodore. You may remain here if you prefer, or—”

  He might blow away.

  “Inside on my bed, I mean. Or you may escort me. Which will it be?”

  She pulled the string.

  “I’d like that,” the pink bear said distinctly.

  “I thought you would. Dinner it is.”

  The Grand Dining Salon (as the ship called it) was at the stern on Deck Two. It was, as its name implied, very grand indeed. Wide glass doors in a glass wall opened on a spacious chamber resembling an amphitheater, wherein white-coated gladiators wrestled valiantly with laden trays. Spotless white tablecloths were embraced by massive chairs of wood well-carved—chairs that should, as Viola reflected at each meal, make excellent life preservers.

  Five persons were already seated at the table to which she was brought to fill the last chair. She glanced at the faces of the three men as she took her seat, expecting signs of disappointment. There were none, and she smiled.

  A blonde smiled in return and offered her hand, “Lenore Doucette.”

  Viola accepted it and introduced herself.

  “I love musical names,” the other woman said. She was meager and almost swarthy, with the hard, secretive eyes of a professional gambler. “I have one, too. I’m Raga.”

  Bone and a hank of hair, Viola thought. Aloud she murmured, “Pleased to meet you, Raga.”

  Lenore was looking at the pink bear. “Do you always carry that with you?” Her somewhat attractive face had the tight-skinned look that bespeaks plastic surgery.

  “Only on the ship. Theodore’s my bodyguard.”

  “Since the men will not introduce themselves—”

  “Perhaps he’ll let me do it.” Viola smiled again, more relaxed than she had been at any of her previous meals. “What about it, Theodore? May I introduce you?” She pulled the string.

  “I am Viola’s bear,” the pink bear said distinctly. “You may call me Theodore.”

  “You’ve more vocabulary than I thought,” Viola muttered from behind her menu.

  The round-headed, round-shouldered man seated on the farther side of Lenore said, “Don Partlowe,” as if he were a little ashamed of it, to which the big, heavily handsome man on his left added, “Blake Morrison.”

  The waiter arrived, and Viola told him, “Five oh five four, and I’ll have the split pea and the roast beef.”

  The man to Viola’s immediate right coughed. “T—Tim Tucker, Miss Neudorf.” He was small and looked (Viola thought) like a spike buck caught in the headlights.

  “You have to call her Viola,” Lenore instructed him. “Rules of the ship.”

  Raga smirked. “Another rule of the ship is that no more than six may eat at one table. I’m afraid that means you’re out of luck, Viola. What would your bear like?”

  “Honey,” Viola told her firmly. “As in mind your manners, honey.”

  There was a brief, pained silence before Don said, “That’s not on the menu, Viola. I’m afraid you’ll have to eat for him.”

  The big man, Blake, leaned toward her. “Can he say honey?”

  “He doesn’t have to. I know his tastes.”

  Lenore tapped her wineglass. “I believe the score is Viola three and Table nothing. Would anybody else like to try?”

  “I would,” Tim whispered. The whisper was so soft, and his lips were so near Viola’s ear, that no one else could possibly have heard it.

  When dinner was over and she returned to her cabin, Viola dropped the bear on the bed and kicked the door shut behind her. “I’m fed up,” she told him, “and do you know who I’m fed up with?”

  An accusatory forefinger stabbed at her considerable chest. “Me, that’s who. Baked Alaska! I ordered baked Alaska, and I ate it, too. When I had finished mine, I ate half of poor Tim’s.”

  With a violence that threatened to tear it, she pulled her blouse over her head. “I should go to the show tonight and watch for Bellatrix, and what am I going to do instead? I’m going to sit right here, by myself, and hate myself.”

  A step took her to the mirror. “Look at that tummy! What’s the use of paying a thousand dollars for a singles cruise with a tummy like that?” She was sitting on her bed trying to wipe away the tears when she felt a small, soft embrace. For the next two hundred rollings of the ship, she hugged her bear and, occasionally, sniffled.

  When the hugging and sniffling were over, she sat the bear on her lap and addressed him in the tone those near to tears generally use. “I love you, Theodore. I do. You’re a—a much nicer toy than anybody has a right to expect. I… Well, I didn’t even know… You’re the—the most wonderful bear in the whole darned world, and I certainly don’t deserve you.”

  Quite distinctly, the pink bear’s head moved from side to side.

  “I don’t! I—I want people to like me.”

  Soft pink paws touched the pink bear’s own well rounded middle.

  “Yes, you do. I know that. You’ve proved it. Can—will you tell me what I can do to make other people like me, too?”

  Kindly, dark eyes opened, closed, and opened again, and the bear’s large, pink head nodded.

  “You can?” Viola pulled the string.

  Distinctly, the bear said, “Smile.”

  “I do! I did! I was smiling all through dinner and nobody liked me.”

  Again the bear’s head swung from side to side.

  “All right, Tim did, and I imposed on him. Nobody else.”

  No signed the bear, and Viola pulled the string again.

  “Lenore likes you.”

  “I don’t believe it.” Another pull of the string.

  “Don liked you, too,” the bear said distinctly. “She did not like that.”

  “He did not !” Viola insisted.

  There was a knock at her door.

  “Wait a minute!” Her robe was pink, too. As she knotted the sash she wondered vaguely whether the bear would approve.

  “Miss… Viola?”

  It was Tim. She nodded, groped her mind frantically for something to say, and settled for “Hi.”

  “I… You’re—uh—getting ready for bed? I, um, there’s a nice little—uh—cocktail lounge. The Seastar. It’s—uh…”

  “On this deck.” Viola felt the need to speed things up.

  “And I—uh—thought perhaps… But you’re—”

  She gave the smile her best try. “Why I’d love to have you buy me a drink, Tim. Could I meet you there in ten minutes or so?”

  Tim gulped audibly.

  “I won’t bring Theodore. That’s a promise.”

  “Oh, no!” Tim’s eyes had flown wide. “I didn’t mean that at all. Bring him, please. I—uh—I—uh…”

  Smile again, Viola told herself firmly. Remember what Theodore said. “Then we’ll both meet you there in ten or twelve minutes.”

  Tim’s words rushed upon her like terrified birds. “It’s-not-him-I’m-scared-of-it’s-you.” And Tim fled.

  “Toward the bar,” Viola, reflected. “I wonder how many he’ll have before I get there.”

  It seemed wise to hurry and she did, resuming the blouse she had discarded and spending no more than five minutes touching up her hair and makeup.

  Tim was at a table near the all-glass wall. He stood and waved the moment she came in, then pulled the table out for her. It was a very small table, bare save for an ashtray and an almost-empty glass that had probably held a Tom Collins. Smiling, she accepted the offered chair, arranged the pink bear on the chair next to her own, and smiled some more.

  “You’re such a nice person,” Tim said without a single uh. “I wanted to tell you that, and at dinner I couldn’t.”

  A soft paw tapped her thigh; and she nodded, although only very slightly. “I know how you feel,” she told Tim. “It’s hard say things like that to—to anybody. Hardest of all when you’ve just met the person. At dinner I had to try very hard to look at the others, and not just at you all the time.”

  What remained of the Tom Collins vanished in a single swallow that brought a bowing, foreign-looking waiter. Viola ordered Dry Sack up, while Tim handed over his glass and said (in a voice that squeaked a trifle), “Do it again.”

  He turned to Viola. “That was one thing I wanted to tell you. This is the other. I hated this cruise for the first two days. Hated it right up till dinner tonight. All these women shopping for men as if they were at a white sale.” All these men hoping to get laid by a woman they can forget about as soon as the cruise is over. “I… I—uh—I came… I came looking for—uh…”

  She whispered it. “Love.”

  “Yes. I knew you’d know. You—you’re—you’re not married?”

  “No. Of course not.” Viola held out her left hand.

  Tim almost took it. “Neither am I. A lot of these men are. Did you know that?”

  “Are they?” It was a new thought. “I thought they were divorced.”

  “There’s a lot of that, too. A lot more, actually. And nearly all the women are divorced.”

  The question hung in the air until Viola said, “I’m not. I’ve never been married. Once I thought—but it didn’t work out.”

  “I haven’t been either.” Tim’s smile was small and brave. (Like Tim, Viola told herself.) “I write software, Viola, and I’m good at it—really, I am. I’m not good with people.” He drew a deep breath. “Even if this doesn’t work, I’ll always, always remember you the way you are right now with the purple sea behind you and stars in your hair and the moon building a road across the water to you that only angels can follow.”

  As their drinks arrived, Viola murmured, “You’re good with me.”

  On their way back to her cabin, the pink bear had to nudge her twice and point to keep her from getting lost. “I’m high, Theodore,” she told him as she slipped her key card into the lock. “One little glass of wine, and I’m higher than—than any angel.”

  Her cabin was in the same, rather confused, state she had left it, her pink robe flung on the bed and makeup scattered across the top of the tiny dresser. She dropped the pink bear on the bed, too, sat there herself in utter disregard of her robe, and positioned him on one crowded knee. “He’s never been married, Theodore, he’s not dating anybody, and he has his own little software company. Did you see the way he looked when I told him I was a systems analyst? Did you?”

  Distinctly, the pick bear nodded.

  “We go together like ham and eggs, milk and cookies, roast pork and apple sauce.” Viola paused to consider the final pairing. “I’m the pork, but I don’t care.”

  There was a sound behind her, which she ignored. “I’m going to quit my job and move to New Orleans, Theodore. I didn’t tell Tim that, but I am. This is not going to slip away. I won’t let it. I’m—”

  “Going to get hurt if you scream.” The voice was deep and soft, carried on a gust of warm sea air. Half the lights in the cabin came on as the verandah door closed.

  For a second she failed to recognize the big man in the aloha shirt, perhaps because so much of her attention was focused on the blue steel automatic he held.

  “You’re keeping quiet,” Blake Morrison said. “That’s good. That’s smart. Now just relax and let me tell you how it’s going to be between you and me.”

  Viola held up both hands. “If you think I’ve got a lot of jewelry, you’re wrong. You can take what I’ve got. I’ll tell you where everything is.”

  If the big man with the blue steel automatic had heard her, he gave no sign of it. “You’re going to take off your clothes. All of them. You’re going to do everything I tell you—and I mean everything—and you’re going to act like you enjoy it. You’re going to beg for more. Have you got that?”

  “I guess I do, Blake.” She nodded reluctantly.

  “I’m leaving the gun here.” He laid it on the seat of the chair nearest the window. “That will let me use both hands on you. If you try to edge over toward this side of the bed, you’re going to get hurt a lot worse than you would otherwise. And no ventriloquism, understand? You’re good. I’ll give you that. But nothing you try is going to fool me.”

  Where was Theodore? As inconspicuously as she could, Viola felt for him with her feet. Nothing.

  The big man was unbuttoning his aloha shirt. “You think you’re going to report all this when it’s over?”

  Sensing the safe reply, she shook her head.

  “I’ll say it was consensual. How many couples do think are having consensual sex on this ship tonight?”

  Still wondering desperately what had become of the pink bear, she raised her shoulders and let them drop.

  “Half. Maybe more. You and me will be in that half, just for tonight. But let me tell you this, if you do report it, something very, very ugly is going to happen to you. And quick. So you’d better take it like a little soldier and try to forget it as fast as you can. Maybe you’re wondering how I found out which cabin you’re in.”

  “No, Blake.” She was trying hard to keep her voice from shaking, trying hard to blink away the tears. “You learned it the same way Tim did. You have to—I had to—give my cabin number to the waiter when I ordered.” It seemed worth a try. “Tim has already been here tonight, and he’s coming back.”

  “Sure he is. Noises off, as the actors say.”

  A plump pink arm was reaching for the blue steel automatic on the chair seat.

  A half step nearer than that blue steel automatic, the big man had dropped his jeans. “Take a look. You like it, right?”

  Shuddering, she shook her head. “You want me scared, d—don’t you? You want me t—terrified. Okay! Okay, I’m scared out of my wits. You did it. But—”

  The big man edged nearer her, stepping out the jeans and blocking her view of the empty chair. “Take off that skirt!”

  Slowly she stood, finding her knees so weak she nearly fell, and fumbled with the hook and the zipper. “I’m f—f—fat. You’ll see. I’m v—very f—fat and—and ugly.”

  “Look lower,” the big man told her, “and you’ll see somebody who doesn’t think so.”

  As though conjured by the big man’s words, the pink bear rose beside Viola. Both plump pink forepaws were wrapped around the blue steel automatic.

  The big man’s jaw dropped.

  So did Viola, sitting on the bed once more. When she had caught her breath, she turned so she could watch the big man and said, “Theodore will shoot if I tell him to.” Her voice, she found, had somehow steadied itself. “Maybe even if I don’t.”

  The big man’s mouth worked soundlessly.

  “Maybe you should lie down on the floor, or maybe just go without making any more trouble. I’m not sure which.”

  “Please!” the big man said. “Oh, please!”

  “Please is nicer, Blake.” Viola’s smile was shaky, but it was a smile. “I like please. Wait a minute. Let’s see what Theodore has to say to you.” She found the ring on the pink bear’s back and pulled the cord.

  The pink bear lifted the blue steel automatic an inch or so, aiming it or appearing to aim it. Quite distinctly he said, “Want to close your eyes?”

  The On-Deck Circle

  “My motto was always to keep swinging.

  Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off

  the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging.”

  —Hank Aaron,

  MLB Hall of Famer, Milwaukee Braves

  Standing near the on-deck circle with the rest, Scooter Scarlata, late of the Pirates, watched the ball come in—a ball with roaring engines and blazing blue lights. A ball that was, in fact, a big speedboat.

  “Fast ball.” The tall man standing next to him spoke in the portentous tones of the self-anointed expert.

  Scooter nodded absently. The fastball was almost straight up, its creamy white wake more visible than its blue aura from where they stood. “I hate night games,” he muttered.

  The player in the on-deck circle lisped, “Don’t you thee?” She was a blonde in a capacious pink halter and white shorts. “Ith got to be at night, Thcooter, for live TV. We’re in prime time.”

  “We could play somewheres else.” He had played winter ball in Japan in… ? The year had slipped quietly away. Forty-five, maybe. Or forty-four. Could have been forty-three.

  “Fog’s closing in,” the expert said.

  “I hate fog, too,” Scooter told him. He had played in fog. Nobody hit except by dumb luck. Nobody caught a fly either, except by dumb luck. Pop-ups plopping out of a dirty-yellow cloud so close you could almost touch it.

  “Tho we’ve got to have the gameth—” the blonde in the pink halter began. Then the ball raced into the brilliant, plate-shaped sea created by spotlights below the surface. The player in the batting box flung his bat at it, failing by twenty feet to lead the flying blue boat sufficiently. Everyone sighed. To his surprise, Scooter discovered that he had sighed, too. “Stupid game,” he muttered.

  “STRIKE THREE!” boomed the speakers of the huge screen forward. “NUMBER SIXTY-SIX, LISA LOCKLIN, WILL BE OUR NEXT BATTER!” Obediently, the blonde jiggled away.

  “Scarlata?” It was an assistant director, the tall one who wore polo shirts.

  Scooter turned to him. “She’s got as much chance as a pigeon with a peanut shell out there.”

  “Get in the circle, Scarlata.” The assistant director was looking toward the pitcher’s mound, where the stately M.S. Charlotte Amalie readied the next pitch while rolling ever so slightly on a column of rising water. After a moment he added, “She’s window dressing—big blue eyes and tits. You can’t have a hit show without sex.”

  “The World Series—”

  “That’s different. This was the top-rated show last season. Did you know that?”

  People had said the same thing at least twenty times; Scooter said nothing.