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They nursed them, figuring they were going to be expensive, and after a while the band started, a local combo called Tweet Tweet. She thought they sounded like a garage band back home.

Ina spotted other girls from the ship and waved and they came over. They pulled their chairs apart to let them in. Then some guys came in, too, but they sat on the other side of the room. An Italian asked Lourdes to dance. She looked alarmed and shook her head no. So then he asked Cobie. He was a good dancer, but he started feeling her up while they were walking back to the table, and she told him to get lost.

They started talking about what was going on aboard the ship. Who was having a fling with who, from the one-night stands to the deep friendships, from the innocent, fantasy crushes to the full-blown affairs. About the rumors about the CO and the XO. One girl said they were always together in his stateroom with the door closed, and when Hotchkiss came out, she looked rumpled and sweaty.

A girl from Operations said, “I hear there’s this one girl down in engineering, she’s like the department whore. If she finds out some other woman has a crush on one of the guys, she goes after him. That’s so pathetic … Her name’s Cobie … Do y’all know who I’m talking about?”

They must have guessed they’d said something wrong, because not long after, they had to go. Cobie sat with her teeth clenched. She’d always liked gossip as much as anybody, but now she wondered how much was made up by evil people. Sharpened like a dagger, and passed along till it reached the person it was meant to kill. God damn Patryce.

“Ooh. Look over there,” said Ina. Cobie followed her gaze reluctantly, figuring she was trying to jolly her up, but still sucked in her breath.

Settling at the table next to them were the two most stunning women she’d ever seen. One brunette, the other blond. Their heels were high, their posture aristocratic, their makeup and hair professionally perfect, their bone structure lovely, their dresses, as they pulled off sheer silk scarves, incredibly revealing of the slender yet curvaceous bodies beneath. Diamonds sparkled. They sat laughing, heads together, as if they had not a care in the world.

“What language is that?” Lourdes whispered.

“I think it’s Russian,” Ina whispered back.

The Americans stared enviously. For a little while Cobie had felt beautiful, as if life might hold someone who’d appreciate her. Now she looked at her hands with sudden clarity, as if these women had sharpened her vision.

Her nails were short and ragged, though she’d done what she could with an emery board. The one on her little finger was an ugly purple, it was coming off, she’d smashed it grabbing for a handhold when the ship rolled and she nearly went down a ladder backward. A burn mark was livid on her left arm. She’d bumped an unlagged piece of starting bleed air piping. It’d burned the shit out of her, she’d probably always have the scar…. She had calluses on her palms, and under the polish on her nails she knew there was a black rim of dirt and grease.

Suddenly she felt common and work-worn, dressed in ugly cheap clothes. Her friends looked drab and intimidated. They didn’t belong in this sophisticated nightclub.

She was putting her hand on Lourdes’s, about to suggest they go, when the waiter bowed over their table, holding a bottle wrapped in a white napkin. “From the gentlemen in the corner,” he said.

“Gentlemen?” said Ina hopefully.

The waiter twisted a teaspoonful into a glass and handed it to her. It was intensely sour. “It’s delicious,” she said, and he poured it all around and left the bottle on the table.

That must have been a signal, because other waiters brought more chairs, and suddenly three men were with them. Their business suits were dark gray or blue, it was hard to tell in the dim flickering. At first she thought they were Spanish. One sat with Lourdes, one with Ina. The man who pulled his chair up to hers was about forty, with light skin and a round face and mustache and a little beard. He looked as if he’d been drinking, but he wasn’t drunk. The ones with Ina and Lourdes didn’t seem to speak much English, but hers said, “So, where are you girls from?”

“We’re from America.”

“The United States? You don’t look American.”

“Well, we are, love,” said Ina, in her best North London accent. He looked at her, at Lourdes; then grinned and snapped his fingers in the air. The waiters came running, and he rapped out orders. “My name’s Hassan, but you can call me Harry,” he said, turning back to her. “This is Ajeel. This big lug here, he’s Jamaal.”

She told him her name and Ina’s and Lourdes’s, and they all shook hands. “So, what brings you to sunny Bahrain?” he said.

“We’re off a ship.”

“The cruise ship?”

“No, the destroyer.”

He looked confused again. “You’re what, the wives of the crew?”