James Rockton is ready to die. In fact, he plans on it. Having lost his life partner to AIDS, he books the South Pacific cruise Richard didn't live to share. James will spread Richard's ashes at sea, and then slip overboard to join him forever. He’s too old and too heartbroken to continue on alone.<br><br>But James doesn’t count on meeting a young man whose parents constantly put him down. Then there’s the obviously gay young art dealer who ogles a crazy young photographer traveling with an older gay man about James’s own age.<br><br>James and Herb begin spending time together, trying not to laugh too hard or get too involved with these young men, who circle each other in rapidly shrinking orbits. After all, James and Herb are old, with gray hair and less stamina. With time, talk, and martinis, will love manage to find them, too?

Fade to Gray

Our banter was interrupted by the cruise director, John, bounding onstage, screaming into the microphone, “How are you all?”


“How do you make cheddar cheese better?”


“Are you read to party? Here are the Shout Outs!”


The drapes pulled back, and there stood three guitar players, and behind them, a tall young man at a drum set.


“I’ll take the drummer,” I whispered.


Their first two songs were awful; technically correct and in time with each other, no sour notes, just dreadful choices of tunes for this age set. Now, I hate Frank Sinatra, but they didn’t do him, or any of the early fifties that Herb and I grew up with; no, they leapt straight into something that should only have been listened to while completely stoned and wearing flowered-bell bottom pants and an Afro.


Chapter 18