Ride the Titanic! Read Free Page A

ship not a boat, and forget the ocean, what if my ride happened in Las Vegas?’
    I can’t help myself, I pitch it again while Fiona nibbles on a piece of toast, head down, seemingly somewhere else, but I can tell she’s listening because her feet stop jiggling. Normally she’s ‘Brownian Motion,’ darting here and there in random unpredictable directions, impelled by invisible forces. Not today. A good sign. When I finish she looks straight at me.
    ‘You on the real with this?’
    ‘Straight up.’
    Fiona and her friends use street slang to communicate. I struggle to keep up with them, but most of the time my phrases are instantly outdated because they change constantly, which prompts gales of derisive laughter. But better to share my daughter’s world as a bumbling court jester, than to be cut off like a despot-king.
    ‘Bangin’?’ she says.
    ‘Mad. Totally.’
    She smiles but doesn’t laugh.
    ‘Said it wrong, right?’
    ‘No, it’s okay.’ She nibbles her toast. ‘You just sound funny when you talk like that.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘The part about sliding into the water sounds rad.’
    ‘Only for the two night rides. Rest of the time it’s exit through retail.’
    She shrugs. ‘I wonder if instead of. . .’
    Her smartphone ‘plinks’ she glances down and blushes.
    ‘Adam?’ I say.
    ‘Sort of.’
    ‘Is or it isn’t.’
    ‘Such a pest.’ She slides the phone away, but glances at it like her boyfriend is hiding inside.
    ‘You two down low?’
    Her face flushes. ‘Course not.’
    ‘Good. Last time I checked the calendar you’re twelve, not twenty.’
    ‘Who’s twelve?’ Geena bustles into the kitchen, twins in arms, heads swiveling in unison like bobble-head dolls.
    ‘Eggs got hard. Made you an egg sandwich. That okay?’
    ‘Great. Trade you two babies who need changing – again.’
    ‘Shit happens.’
    ‘Very funny. Gotta’ roll.’
    Fiona says brightly, ‘Daddy told me about his Titanic thing.’
    Geena’s smile fades as her warm brown eyes turn to ice. ‘Michael?’
    Once again my heart chills at the thought of huddling inside a rabbit-warren of cubicles, wearing a short-sleeve shirt and tie, fiddling with CAD software nine-to-five. Despite this sinking feeling, I heft the babies and try to sound convincing.
    ‘Once I get the kids down for their nap, I’ll make the call.’
    ‘Hope to God you get it.’
    Want the details? I’m a finalist with an Orlando-based construction company that needs a systems manager. So. . .during the first interview I make a big deal of my theme park ride background as a ‘relevant asset.’ Having Disney on the resume doesn’t hurt. Never does in this town. Neither does the fact that I am by profession a mechanical engineer and can grab a stack of HVAC system blueprints and plot an energy recovery curve without using a calculator. Anyhow, my shtick works because the company falls in love with me and schedules a final, ‘formality’ interview.
    Today.
    But changing careers in mid-life is like asking an oil tanker to hang a sharp left, or an ocean liner like the Titanic for that matter, and I’m off again, daydreaming about doing my ride in Vegas and feeling a hot rush of sensations as vibrant and thrilling as the first time I saw the Indiana Jones stunt guy jump over the fire pit.
    Growing up, I dreamed of building bridges all over the world. Sleeves rolled up over my muscular arms, hammering steel, battling malaria, gorgeous native women hanging on my arms, adoring my every move, I would unite cultures and advance civilizations left and right by spanning impossible gaps with graceful, elegant bridges. Lost in the library stacks, nose buried in a book describing Roebling’s iconic Brooklyn Bridge, I imagined the Queen of England tapping her sword on my shoulders.
    ‘Arise, Sir Michael Sullivan, the greatest bridge builder of them all.’
    But the only real bridge I ever worked on was the aluminum, carbon fiber, and steel one used in