Bird Walk

Alex and I met Barb and Ben, the four of us lagging behind the others on a Monterey bird walk. "Anne and Alex, Barb and Ben, Birding Team AA and Birding Team BB," as Alex phrased it. The ranger's expertise was impressive, I suppose, but her bird jokes made the event fun for us not-ornithologists.

Why does a stork stand on one leg? If he lifts it, he'll fall over.

The four of us walked, me beside Ben, and Alex beside Barb, AB and BA, in my husband's parlance. Ben and I had jobs in personnel, me more into workplace discrimination, him, leadership development. Our spouses worked in finance. It's fun to bird-walk with someone who knows what you do.

After the ranger's call for environmental stewardship, the four of us decided to go for coffee. "We found this little place over by the bike rentals. You'll love it, Anne, how they do the lattes." Barb's suggestion.

From that came a rendezvous where the guys could keep an eye on the playoffs. Our table a corner one -- Ben and me getting the benches along the wall -- was why the two of us touched knees.

And from that came a restaurant where we girls could wear something nice. "Totally casual, you know, but I packed pearls, just in case. You did, too, Anne? What fun!" The place was so great that we kissed both guys afterward.

More fundamentally in common was not having kids. Barb and I had this conversation early, as girls can read each other. Same as our results, Barb's and Ben's exams found nothing out of whack, just maybe the propensity of sperm and egg to miss their rendezvous.

When I joked to Barb -- it best not to let it get you down -- "At least no hassle about contraceptives," she came back with, "which has its own advantages." Girl-talk.

When the four of us parted ways, agreeing that meeting each other had been great, Alex kissed Barb goodbye, and Ben, me. I'd probably not have noticed how close she'd been to my husband's mouth if her husband hadn't been the same with me.

***

The travel feature on Todos Santos said the place was less booked after Christmas, a small plus for those of us without kids. Foreign, but they take dollars. Very safe.

"Let's see if Barb and Ben are interested," I told Alex. "Split a condo, maybe."

Barb got back right away. They'd love to. We'd have a ball. Kick back. Maybe try a bird walk, us being old hands at it. Work on our tans. Our husbands' turn to choose dinner, grill up some local catch. Our turn, a place with strolling mariachis.

***

In reuniting, everybody kissed. Well, not between the guys, of course, and not with our spouses. Alex's kiss was so sweet that I pushed up against him to make it longer. The other two seemed equally pleased. We girls pick up on this sort of thing.

Condos being close quarters, I could later hear the thumping from the other room and I supposed they heard the same from ours.

***

Next morning, figuring I'm up before the others, I go to make coffee. Not that I'm not dressed, but it's one of Alex's tees, and how am I to know that Ben's already in the kitchen? As for a morning kiss; it's what you do when you're living with somebody

A new kitchen's always a challenge, me squeezing against his back in search of the filters. They're behind the toaster.

A bonus to our looking left by a previous guest: in the back of the top shelf, an almost-full box of chocolate-covered nuts. I said they might be spoiled, but Ben thought not and tried one to see. Perfectly good, so I ate one as well.

What's plugged in where requires some switching, as I don't want to brew our coffee on top of the microwave. I can't be sure where his eyes are when I bend over to change the plugs, but so what? We're housemates.

Midway in all of it, Barb appears, like me, not dressed to go out. "And look who just woke up," she laughs when my husband at last presents himself, kissing him good morning, her hand behind his head.

"How 'bout helping me peel some fruit," Barb asks him, and then to all of us, "Kitchen Teams AB and BA, how we'll do it."

Made sense to me. If everything were AA and BB, it wouldn't be much of a vacation.

You can look at her, Alex, I'd like to say, him trying to appear not to be looking at Barb's sway. If we just noticed the one we saw at home, we'd hardly notice anything.

***

Todos Santos is reputed for its sea turtles. They mate in the water and the mommas return to the shore to lay their eggs. If you're lucky, you can watch the newborns crack out. We each have our husband behind us when we start watching a baby head for the sea, but by the time it finds the water, who we're watching with has changed.

From there we do our own bird walk, Ben and me, the reunited Birding Team AB in the lead, BA somewhere behind. To not startle a pair of crows flapping their wings at each other, Ben holds my shoulders to keep me motionless.

When Team BA catches up, they've seen a pair of pelicans do the same, and done likewise.

***

Leather goods being a bargain, and me needing a purse, Ben, a belt, off the two of us go. As I help him put on his purchase, they probably think me to be his wife, tucking the free end into a loop. It feels chic to exit the shop, a snazzy bag on one arm, my other arm on his.

Catching me eying at a camisole in a postage-stamp-sized shop, Ben says I should try it on. As the place lacks a dressing room, I try it on the back and he's the curtain, facing away. Not sure that he does that, but it's fun.

"You look great," as he pays without asking me.

I'd not so often pull myself against his arm if it weren't for the sidewalk. I know he doesn't mind, by how he holds his arm as we inspect statuary in which we've no interest.

When we meet up with the others, Barb on Alex much as I'm on Ben. "Ben's quite the shopper, isn't he?" notes Barb. "Alex helped me buy these shorts. Place like this, anybody could see us trying things on if it weren't for our guys."

***

We all agree it would be fun to hit that bar with the oldies band. To make the outing seem more exotic, we girls wear red lipstick and a rose in our hair.

"Wooly Bully," according to Ben, was actually a US hit by a Mexican band.

As for "Besame Mucho," "Clear the way for Dancing Team AA with four left feet," I warn Barb and Ben in mid-floor, to which Barb responds, "Four right ones for BB. AB and BA would balance us better."

Two lefts now dancing with two rights don't resolve the footwork, but the song makes us dance close -- every girl knows what that means -- and of course at the end we have to do a besame mucho. As Ben's makes me feel sexy, I practice my Spanish R sound where you flick your tongue.

Come time to leave, I offer Ben the remainder of my margarita, a smudge of red on the glass, and Barb has Alex finish her Sex on the Beach.

Before heading to our rooms, we share another besame mucho. Barb backed against the wall by Alex, and me against the doorframe by Ben. It's like in a Latin romance.

The thumpings afterward are more than those of the night before.

***

I park myself under an umbrella and open an Amish romance, the cover, a virtuous-looking girl in a white bonnet. An Amish woman surely hadn't written the thing, but no matter.

"Good book?" It's Ben, sitting himself beside me.

"It's about the Amish. They do better at farming than my brother with his John Deere."

"Lots of kids to help," the type of remark that I find generally thoughtless, but less so from one also in Alex's and my situation.

"They out-produce us -- well, of course, us, but I mean all of us -- because if there's some medical problem, the wife can up her chances by sleeping with someone else. Against their rules, of course, but what they do,"

"Is this in that book?"

"You've got to read between the lines. Everybody knows, but it's a closed community. I read another one where her husband's sister is married to her brother and the four of them go to Florida by bus. It just said when the stars came out, they threw care to the wind, except it also said that when leaving, they had to sort out whose bonnet ended up in which room."

"You're saying a brother and a sister marry a sister and a brother and then they?"

"It's not that big of an issue when you're all genetically similar, anyway." The Amish," I go on, "they allow their young people to move to the city and live like the English -- what they call us -- so they'll appreciate what they've got. If she gets pregnant, they raise it to be one of them and she can go ahead and marry her cousin as planned."

"Sounds like a practical theology."

"I wouldn't want to wear those dresses, though. When they're courting, they can sleep together -- 'bundling,' they call it -- but they're not supposed to have sex."

I like talking with you about sex, Ben, I want to say. Did you hear me last night?

***

Not just little kids like to jump waves, Barb tells us, and Alex volunteers to be her lifeguard.

I spread my towel. "We starfish can park here, Ben."

Warning that his feet might burn, I lotion them, but as I've squeezed too much from the tube, I flop on my stomach for him to use the rest on me.

"Can't let Amish Anne get sunburned," he agrees.

"Amish Anne's forgotten her long dress," I explain.

Ben does my neck, then my back, remarking that he'd found the book interesting, especially the part about going to the city. As we speculate about life without a telephone, he does my calves. I hope I didn't feel too flabby.

"Enough to do the rest of this Amish lass?" I ask, rolling over, as I knew there was.

When last I'd looked seaward, Alex had been steadying Barb's ribs, but now he's all the way around her. More stable. Seeing me watching, she waves and I wave back.

As Ben does my shoulders, then my collar, I imagine an Amish Anne coming to the city to learn bookkeeping. Her father grows organic produce. She meets this boy who by how he says "neh," she can tell he's of Amish background. It turns out that he's Benjamin, the son of her father's brother who years ago went to the city and never came back.

Benjamin wants to learn about his roots, but when she tells him it's permitted for him to sleep with her, she forgets the part about not having sex. As son-in-law/nephew, he ends up becoming her father's second-in-command at the farm and she has her MBA. I'd want to chat with some actual Amish girls about orgasms while bundling.

Doing my belly, the edge of Ben's finger first runs along the bottom of my top and then along the top of my bottoms. When he does the outsides of my thighs, he runs up and over the fabric.

But it's just an almost.

A seagull swoops by, perhaps thinking those in the water to be dolphins, and those on the sand, seals. Or maybe just vacationers between bird walks.

I pull my hat over my eyes, and, "Looks like they're doing OK out there," I hear him say.

"Hope they don't meet a stingray," all I can think to reply.

"So tell me," he wonders as he moves back up, back and forth just below my top. "Can an Amish girl maybe wear a swimsuit under her dress when she goes off to a city near the ocean?"

"I'll find out. There are lots of books," I manage, my nipples like beach pebbles, his fingertips like scurrying baby crabs.

When the others return from their wave jumping, "That hubby of mine save you from the sun?" Barb asks.

"Did mine save you from the sharks?"

The gull watching us reminds me of a joke from Monterey. What do you call a seagull in Nebraska? I challenge her, but she doesn't remember. Lost.

At sunset, the four of us hold hands at the water's edge in an effort to stop the tide. Ben, Barb, Alex and me, for a moment a combined Beach Team BBAA, but I switch ends to better see up the beach, making us ABBA.

After a bit, though, Ben and Barb let go in the middle, making it Team AB and Team BA, and a few moments later, AB heads up the beach,

"Where are they going?" I ask.

"I think Barb wants to show him where there might be turtles. There's a log you can sit back against where you might see some."

We of BA head back to the unit.

As for what we do when we get there, it's really nothing, nothing more than what might happen sitting on a couch while waiting for the others. A little cuddling is all.

I get up, go to my room and return in Alex's tee, and the two of us cuddle some more, but this time him above me, me thinking about the belt we bought him, when we hear the others at the door, Barb loudly having difficulty with the key.

When I ask about the turtles. Alex seems confused and Barb says they weren't that many, and it's but a few minutes after we part for our rooms as AA and BB, before the thumping sounds once more intermingle in the corridor.

***

How do you get a seagull to stop calling? Take away its cell phone.

How do you know that seagulls are cleverer than chickens? Have you ever heard of Kentucky-fried seagull?

What do seagulls fly over the sea? If they flew over the bay, they'd be bagels.

In honor of my last one, Ben finds us bagels for breakfast before the guys head out to jog. You can do that at home, I tell them, but they still take off.

"I heard you last night," Barb says as she and I straighten things up.

"What?"

"You imagining that Alex was Ben, and him, that you were me. When Alex and I were out in the ocean, the bird was watching you two get so close to doing it."

"What?"

"Last night Ben was thinking of you and I was thinking of Alex. Even Steven."

"Really?"

Tonight there'd again be thumping sounds, but this time not AA and BB.

We hear the gulls above us.

***

"Guess who that was?" I tell Alex as I hung up the phone

"Don't know," buried in the sports page.

"Barb, and guess what? They're expecting, too!"

"Really?"

"Same week as us, actually," which causes him to look up, ours due nine months post-vacation. Marriage-wise, our reproductive systems maybe weren't in sync, but paired the other way, maybe our biologies were better aligned.

How a child turns out is mostly environment, and in terms of features, our guys aren't dissimilar.

Which leads to my next topic, something Barb and I have been working on -- our next vacation.

We both have girlfriends, married ones, who are having affairs, but why do something so risky? Just wait until vacation where nobody knows you, and when it's over, it's over until your next vacation.

Barb and I had been thinking of the Caribbean, but with kids, our plans need adjustment.

"We should maybe do one of those resorts that cater to couples with babies," I tell Alex. "They have bassinets, baby food, snuggles, whatever you need. Breastfeed wherever.

"Niche marketing," he judges.

"You bring Barb a smoothie while she feeds them, and Ben gets me one when it's me."

"Fair enough."

"We'll do our own Amish bird walk. I'll get a book for the bird part.

"Amish bird walk?"

"When they see two turtle doves, they stop their milking and increasing their own brood."

"Really?"

"In the novel I'm writing, anyway. The girl in my story likes to try a lot."

"You're writing a novel?"

"Got to talk to some Amish girls first, though, to pick up some details about the barn."

"OK."

"These resorts have certified babysitters, but Ben and I can watch theirs while you two are together, and you two can watch ours when I'm with Ben. Saves hiring one."

"Right."

"Get a unit with a super king-size. You and Barb, one side, Alex and me, the other. Bassinets on the gal's side. I made the deposit."

"You girls have it all figured out."

"We both want another one."

***

What do we and birds other than the Atlantic Puffin, the Bald Eagle, the Black Vulture, the California Condor, the Laysan Albatross, the Mute Swan, the Scarlet Macaw and the Whooping Crane have in common? Nuptial options.