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

Toots Number One, the feisty one, looked at all three of us in turn. “We’re lesbians. We don’t like men,” she proclaimed, staring down from her stony little eyes set high above her thin, pointed nose. Her hair was a shade of red not often seen in real life.


Herb winked at her. Actually, I think his eye was just twitching but whatever. He licked his lips. “Ah, ze feisty chat es feisty! My name, My Damn Moselle, is Hercule Poirot! I am at your service, my beauty. Oh, say,” he added, dropping the charm, “I’m in interior decorating. Might one inquire if the building is for sale, and if perhaps, the carpet matches the drapes?”


Everyone turned at stared at Herb. Me with total shock because I had invented those very lines decades ago in my former life. He winked at me then. I smiled. After all, plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery, right?


Chapter 29