Page 6 of Reel Love

Mom:Shave that. Pronto. I want grandbabies someday, and you’re far too handsome to have that kind of cringe interfering with your rizz.

I chuckle. It’s relatively pathetic when a thirty-year-old man needs to consult Urban Dictionary just to converse with his fifty-something-year-old mother, but here we are.

Cringe explains itself.

Rizz? I have no clue.

I look at Ben. I might as well ask.

“What’s the meaning of the word rizz?” I whisper in a confidential tone.

Ben laughs. “Rizz!”

He nearly shouts the word. All eight sets of eyes turn toward us.

And he doesn’t stop there. “Rizz is what you have in spades, man. It’s when women basically faint at the mere sight of you. Live it up dude. You’re the king of rizz. Am I right, ladies?”

The women collectively giggle and stare at me like I’m a brand new Boston Whaler on the auction block.

And now we’ve got two hours on the ocean with my unofficial coronation as our send off.

Needless to say, a marine biology tour is not a fit for this group. They squeal and shriek when Ben and I drag the net to pull up various smaller sea creatures for them to interact with up close. The animals, mostly the size of my fist or smaller, are transferred temporarily into large paint buckets filled with ocean water and a rectangular glass aquarium in the center of the back end of my boat.

We’ve placed a sample of the ocean water on a slide under the microscope at the front of the boat so my passengers can view ocean dwelling microorganisms. I man that station while Ben passes the animals around for the women to admire.

They don’t.

Most of them wince and cower as if the nudibranch (aka sea slug) is going to jump from the clear bowl Ben is holding and attack them. I turn my attention to the first woman to approach the microscope. I’m mere inches away, bent over with her as she peers through the scope at the slide where the microorganisms swirl and swim in their miniature universe.

She lifts her head, looks me in the eyes, then places her hand on my bicep and gives it an unmistakable squeeze.

Then she says, “Thank you. I think your eyes are far more captivating than anything else we’ve seen today.”

I’m sure she means it as a compliment. I smile politely and shout toward the back of the boat, “Next!”

Six out of eight women use my proximity to attempt their own form of marine exploration—of me. The next female passenger blatantly rubs circles on my back while keeping her eye fully pressed to the ocular lens. I step away, causing her hand to drop to her side. One woman even gets so bold as to pretend the boat is rocking when we’re nearly as steady as if we were docked in the harbor. She wobbles and tips, landing flush against me. Then she uses my cheek to brace her fake fall with her palm. Once she’s touching me, she runs her handalong my jawline and hums. It’s so bold a move I nearly blush.

Some men would eat this up. Six women all eager to see if they could have a chance with me? It’s a man’s dream—on paper. In real life, I grew a mustache to avoid this kind of interaction. A mustache that is failing me horribly in my mission to put distance between me and any unwarranted advances. Maybe I’ll start wearing a dive suit on tours, flippers and all. Or I might curate one of those old copper dive helmets. I could go heavy on the Axe body spray. That did the trick in Junior High when I actually wanted to attract a girlfriend. No one in my grade went within five feet of me during my Axe phase. I feel like shouting, Eureka! Axe is actually woman repellant. I think I’m on to something.

Ben shoots me a concerned look from the back of the boat where he’s supposed to be carefully passing around a vellela vellela in a small dish of ocean water. Instead, he’s looking in my direction at the woman who just ran her hand down my jawline, “Ladies, why don’t we all gather at the back of the boat to see what we’ve dragged in today.”

After Ben bails me out, I escort the exuberant passenger toward the bench seats that span the stern where the rest of her friends are sitting.

No one wants to hold any of the limpets or spiny brittle stars we placed into the specimen buckets after trawling the ocean. I’m baffled as to why these women scheduled a marine tour instead of one of the glass bottom excursions or a twilight cruise. I might have an uncanny grasp of the natural world. My expertise doesn’t always transfer to an understanding of human behavior—especially the females of our species.

After two hours touring with the equivalent of theReal Housewives of Orange County, we dock and send the ladies on their way. At least they were generous in making contributions to my “Save the Oceans” dropbox at the stern near the spot where they exit. They have no idea what my secret project is, and I’m certain they couldn’t care less. Once one woman opened her purseand dropped in several hundred dollar bills, they all followed suit, one woman even asked if I take PayPal. I do now.

After another tour with a much more interested group—an extended family of ten—I head to my bungalow four blocks from the beach. I live in a small white wood beach cottage with one bedroom, one bathroom and a modest living room.

I’m drained in the sort of way only tours like my first one this morning can render me. The ocean and its creatures are my passion. I know I’m on one end of a spectrum when it comes to my enthusiasm for sea cucumbers and bottom feeders like the leopard shark. I prefer taking people on my boat who want to discover the mysteries of the ocean and marvel at the vast world beneath the surface.

I make my way through my house into my back yard, shucking my shoes along the way and falling into the hammock. The afternoon breeze blows gently through the branches overhead. The sound of gulls and the faintest whoosh and crash of the tides hitting the distant rocks along the shore relax me as they always have.

I don’t remember drifting off to sleep, but when I wake, the sun has dipped lower, giving a golden glow to my tiny back yard and the surrounding trees.

It’s not quite dinner time, but I’m already hungry, so I warm some leftovers in the microwave. Then I pull out my phone and open thePlay on Wordsapp while I sit at my dining table to eat.

Is it wrong to hope SaturdayIslandGirl will be online? I play with other competitors, but our games are the ones I look forward to the most. She doesn’t know what I look like, or anything about me, really. I can be myself with her in ways I can’t in the real world.

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