Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine #6

said, turned, and walked quickly away with her father. Had she first mouthed the word later, or had Peter imagined it?

“Well, that was rather abrupt,” Evelyn said. “Rude, if you ask me. Didn’t even introduce himself.”

“They’re foreigners after all,” Ted said. “Did you hear those accents?” He reached across the table and scooped up a dish of Peach Melba. “I guess she won’t need this dessert.”

Peter continued to watch the salon doorway. Did he expect her to return?

“If you want my opinion,” Evelyn said, “I think there’s some kind of trouble between them. That girl looked frightened when he took hold of her arm.”

Peter nodded. He did not want to agree with the biddy. But he had seen it, too, the fear in Maria’s eyes.

“Pretty thing, too,” Evelyn added. “And, if you want my opinion, I think she had her eye on you, doctor.”

“Both of ‘em phony as a three-dollar bill,” Ted said. “Slippery, if you know what I mean. She looked fast, too. Who knows what these people are up to?”

Peter pushed back his chair. “I still have some packing to do. Good night.”

Undeterred, Evelyn said, “Mark my words, there was some trouble there.”

“See you on the dock,” Ted said as Peter walked away. He then reached over and retrieved Peter’s untouched dessert.

----All thoughts of turning in early gone a-glimmering, Peter perched on the edge of his bed. Maria had become a tenant of his mind; she occupied every space. He’d already been intrigued from afar; now her approach at dinner, or what he deemed to be an approach, further piqued his interest. He’d never encountered anyone like her: no one at Oberlin, no one at Ohio State, and surely not Francine. An aura of mystery enfolded her, a sense of melancholy embraced her. Perhaps he’d conjured it all up, but there it was. He wanted to learn more, needed to learn more about Maria, but it appeared her father’s assertive appearance had obliterated any chance to do so.

When he first encountered her on deck, he’d decided Maria was somehow troubled; he later dismissed the notion as the product of an active imagination, an assessment based on no facts. Now, he concluded, she must, in fact, have been