The most heartwarming of endings

This evening is our last formal night before our arrival in New York, and the ship’s daily program politely suggested black tie for tonight’s festivities. Many of the ladies in the room are wearing cocktail dresses and ball gowns. And like most of the men on board our foursome is wearing tuxedos. On the stage beside the grand staircase a band is playing Gershwin’s “The Man I Love,” and Ed is humming along.

My boyfriend and I are two of the youngest passengers on board. Matthew is thirty-nine, and I turned forty last month. If I had to guess I’d say the average age of the ship’s passengers is sixty-five. Gene and Ed are both seventy, but I never think of them as senior citizens. “Whatever you do, don’t stand behind an old person in line,” Gene instructed us one afternoon at the lunch buffet. “If they have a heart attack you could miss the desserts.”

Gene points to the dance floor as Matthew comes gliding by with one of our tablemates from dinner, a divorced real estate agent from Houston named Laurel. “Would you look at him out there,” Gene says. “That boy really should be on ‘Dancing with the Stars.’”

Matthew first learned to dance from his mother, who taught him how to waltz when he was five years old. Now, more than halfway to New York, my boyfriend has developed quite a following. This morning at breakfast two ladies old enough to be our grandmothers stopped Matthew on our way into the restaurant. “You’re the young man from the ballroom, aren’t you? We love watching you dance.”

(…)

I smile at Gene but the truth is I’ve stopped watching Matthew dance, and I’m now looking at a boy sitting across from us on the other side of the dance floor. He’s thirteen or fourteen years old I’m guessing, by far the youngest person on the ship. He is sitting with a man and woman I assume are his parents; they’re not much older than Matthew and me. I’m watching this boy as he watches Matthew dance, watching as he brushes his mother off when she appears to ask him to dance with her. I’m watching this boy’s eyes follow my boyfriend around the dance floor.

(…)

He’s looking at Matthew the way I looked at him the night we met three years ago, when I saw him dancing shoeless at my cousin Steven’s wedding. Matthew worked with my cousin’s new bride and was seated at a table with a group from their office. When the wedding DJ opened the dance floor I watched him join a bunch of girls from his table in kicking off their shoes. Matt is six-feet-two, but when he’s dancing his height never gets in the way. Matthew doesn’t move in time with the music but one step ahead, as if his body knows where the rhythm is going even before the lyrics. Like the boy, I couldn’t take my eyes off him that night. I never knew gold-toed black socks could be so sexy.

Last night, well past midnight, after Gene and Ed had gone to bed, Matthew and I climbed carpeted steps to the upper decks. Even in June the Atlantic can be too choppy for the heartiest sailor, and outside we had the promenade deck to ourselves. The air blowing up from the sea was cool but we still had our dinner jackets. Matt reached for my hand just as mine went for his.

Matthew walked up to the railing and looked out at the ocean, so dark and mysterious, reflecting stars I’ve never seen so bright. I stepped up behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist. I could feel the soft vibration beneath my shoes as the ship carried our love to America, steady and onward, like a future that couldn’t be stopped. My boyfriend’s scent mixed with the salt air as he turned his head back to me and we kissed. In that moment I cared about nothing else but him.

I look at the boy now and I know what he is thinking. I wish I were dancing with Matthew, too.