Ms. Conception

The bar of the Alaska Hotel was straight out of the nineteenth century. It combined genteel bordello furnishings with frontier raucousness, flocked Victorian wallpaper, ornate flowered carpeting and gold filigreed mirrors in the hall. The bar was large and dim. But the people inside all glowed from a mixture of alcohol and exertion

“I’ve booked a sauna and hot tub,” Steve told me over the music.

“What?”

“A sauna and a hot tub. In half an hour. For us. It’s the tradition after a long kayak trip.”

I didn’t say no.

He led me along the floral covered carpet up to the second floor where we encountered a surprising number of half naked people walking through the halls in towels. They were travelling between the saunas and hot tubs and their hotel rooms as we entered a private room where the hot tub was bubbling.

“I’ve got something to tell you,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve had a mastectomy.”

“Really?”

“So I ’m going to slip in under all these bubbles first. Don’t turn around.”

His face betrayed nothing as he turned away.

Like a flora-dora girl, I sat there camouflaged in the bubbles, waiting as he turned back. He appeared unaffected, cool, poker faced. I felt reassured that this hot tub was, as it appeared, to be completely friendly and innocent. Still, I’d always heard that investment bankers were consumate negotiators accustomed to brokering deals.

“I’m married. And I have a young son,” he said, to reassure me.

He’s a conservative Christian, I thought to myself. Between my mastectomy and his marriage and mindset, this ought to be fine. The hot water felt fabulous, already making me ever so slightly relaxed and drowsy.

“You have no problem reconciling this hot tub with your religious beliefs?” I asked.

Without actually answering my question, Steve simply took off his towel. He slipped nakedly into the water opposite me. There was something about his unapologetic disrobing that made me wonder if he was at least considering boiling in hell.

“What do you think of Alaska so far?” he asked.

“I feel like I’ve landed in the world primeval. Or at least the new world, circa 1600. It’s profound. The order of things is so unmistakable here.”

“What is this? A spiritual awakening?” he teased.

“I see it more as waking up to life as it is – life as necessities, like survival and reproduction. I keep thinking nature is trying to tell me something.” I put my head back and closed my eyes.

“Let’s have dinner,” Steve said.

“My hostel closes soon. I’ll be locked out,” I answered.

“Have dinner. You can stay with me.”

“In your hotel room?” I asked, opening my eyes to look at him.

“There’s space. You’ll be safe.”

I closed my eyes again. Now what? The hot water felt so good. I knew that by the time I reopened my eyes and actually stirred, that the hostel would be closed. I relaxed and relaxed until I had relaxed myself into a corner in the round tub. I soaked my chill and tired bones until it was too late to run up the hill in my steel-toed hiking boots to claim my place.