"Tell them you are Canadian," Laurent explained. He had an adorable way of talking in English.   Overdoing his French accent, he sounded simple minded and pleasant.   He blinked his long eyelashes and smiled at Lou.

            Lou was short for Louise, but she never felt like a Louise.   She tended to behave more like a Lou. "Who should I tell I'm Canadian," she asked.

            "You know the people of Egypt."

            "You mean immigration?   As I hand them my U.S. passport, I should tell them I'm Canadian?"

            "No, no," Laurent cuddled Lou, pressing his face into her neck, "of course not." There were ten minutes before the plane made its descent.   The captain announced the wonderful view of the pyramids just left outside of the aircraft.   Most of the passengers rushed to the windows, but Lou held Laurent's hand keeping him in his seat. "Somebody needs to stay on this side," she pulled him dramatically to her, "if we don't want the plane to tip over." Laurent laughed and pushed Lou away playfully.

            A few minutes later they spoke of real concerns, not imaginary ones.

            "Just anybody in Hurghada who asks you.   The persons on the street."

            "People," Lou corrected.

            "Thank you.   You know I forget how to speak English sometimes. Better not to correct them though.   I think already they don't like your country."

            "Who?" Lou demanded, "All the people?"

            "Egyptians, yes.   I don't think the American's are so popular there right now."

            Lou gave up and looked out the window on to the small desert towns.   They were like villages she had made in sandboxes as a child.   She remembered building one in Washington Square Park in Manhattan when she was ten years old.   The buildings were round domes, the same shape as muffins. She was still a Louise back then and she had spent an entire morning expanding her village until it took up the entire sandbox.   When she was done, she had run across the playground to where her mother eyed her cautiously.

            "I finished the town! I finished the town!" she had shouted at her mother.   Grabbing her mother's hand, Louise pulled her to the sandbox only to discover that an older girl with long silky blonde hair had stomped out every dome in her absence.

            "But it was perfect!" Louise had cried.   Her mother pulled her away from the scene and the girl with the silky hair positioned herself in the middle of the sand box and sat down on the last remaining dome.

            Now, as the airplane passed over one of the small Egyptian villages, Lou imagined that same girl walking like Godzilla, aimlessly without any idea of the consequences, over the village.   Complete destruction in minutes.

            "I think I will tell people I'm Canadian," Lou said.

            "You'd better to," Laurent agreed and snuck his hand under the hem of Lou's shirt. "I wouldn't want them to kill you."

            If only it was that easy, Lou thought.   To cease being something you were born into and raised as - American.   It was just a word but lately it had become such a dirty one.   When she was home, she didn't feel American.   Now she felt as if she had it tattooed on her forehead.   American.   Loud.   Entitled.   Ignorant.

            "Am I ignorant?" Lou asked.

            "Yes," continued Laurent, "you are my ignorant little American."

            Lou grabbed the back of the seat in front of her as the plane jolted. Laurent laughed out loud and added, "my scared little American."

            "Fuck it," said Lou, "I just want to drink beer and swim in the blue blue sea."   She looked out the window and saw the dull aqua waters extending in the distance past the beige of the desert.   "Complacency," she thought, "is so much easier."  

            "You know Lou Lou," said Laurent, "It's not The Red Sea, not The Blue Sea."

            The plane fishtailed to the right and then lurched forward.   As it came to a stop, the passengers roared with applause.   The French certainly are enthusiastic travelers, Lou noticed.   Laurent closed his book and collected his bag.   Lou saw that he hadn't advanced a single page since take-off.   "Are you reading that book?" she asked him.

            "I'm trying," Laurent tapped his fingers on the top of the cover, "It's not so good."

            "Too bad for you."

            "Yes," he sighed, "too bad for me."

            Both of them were patient people.   They would rather wait on a plane for eternity than be absorbed into the mob forcing themselves down the aisle and out the side door of the plane.   One passenger caught Lou's attention.   A large and heavily built man with the dark tan of a professional tourist rose from his seat before all the others and forced a path through the crowd for him and his family.   His cotton shirt was unbuttoned to his sternum exposing his graying chest hair.   His wife and   daughter held on to his hands as he pulled them to the front of the cabin where the stewardesses were just beginning to unlock the door.   In French, he asked the least confident of them, "Where do we go for The Mirage travel package?"  

            Lou looked at Laurent.   He was watching now too.   "Which group are we with?" Lou asked him desperately.   Laurent smiled.  

            "The Mirage."

            The stewardess directed the imposing gentleman and his family toward the immigration building with a tone indicating he had more important things to take care of before finding his tour group.   With no time to spare, the man grabbed the hands of his wife and daughter and trampled the doorway with them.

            "Jesus." Lou said.

            "He is like a sportsman, the way he dresses," Laurent decided.

            The Egyptian immigration officer, a friendly man in his fifties, believed that Lou and Laurent were married.   Lou let him believe this and kind of enjoyed it herself, knowing that this was their last week together.   "Maybe they won't be so quick to kill me now that they think I'm your wife," Lou whispered in Laurent's ear.   Married or not married, however, there was no hiding from the officer that she was the only American arriving on a plane full of French citizens.   The officer pulled her out from the crowd as if she was a deer lost among a pack of zebras and he might relocate her to her own kind.    She was asked a series of aseptic questions ending with, "Who are you traveling with?"   That's when they pulled out Laurent, and the two of them were assumed newlyweds.

            "Maybe it will just make them feel better about killing me, being your husband," Laurent pondered.    Sensing they were focusing on the subject too much, he tried to lighten up, "We should die in Egypt.   I think it would be a nice ending."

            "What about Las Vegas?" asked Lou.

            The night before; their last night in Paris together, Laurent had asked Lou to marry him.

            His tone had been more serious than usual but Lou was used to his sarcasm.   Translations were sometimes tricky and what sounded serious often was not and so she had laughed.   They had both enjoyed a good chuckle over that one, but Lou had never discovered if he was serious or not.   She knew that if he had been and she had known it, she might have said yes.

            Now it was different.   They would be back in Paris in a week and twelve hours later she would be on a plane to New York.   Lou would have no more money left and Laurent would have no more time off.   They were both flexible people, but neither one of them was flexible enough.   Neither one of them had gained the power of flight to overcome the expanse of an entire ocean.

            The morning arrived and the sun bled quickly through the bent plastic blinds of their hotel room.   Lou sat up uncomfortably.   It was over ninety degrees in the room.   She walked over to the thermostat.   It read sixty-five.  

            Lou walked over to the patio door and unlatched it.   She kicked the bottom of the door and it burst open letting the sunlight flood the room along with fresh desert air and the sound of applause.   Lou stepped on to the porch and glanced over the railing.   Across the street was desert as far as she could see and below her along the side of the house were several members of the Mirage Tour Group applauding a little girl riding a camel.

            Laurent moaned from the bed and propped himself up on one elbow.   His hair stuck out to the left. "What the fuck is going on out there?"

            "It's a little girl on a camel," Lou said.   She leaned over a little more to get a better look. "Oh," she said, "it's that man's daughter."

            "What man?" Laurent asked.

            "The man from the plane; the Sportsman."   Lou watched him show off his beautiful daughter.   Her blonde hair was braided into two perfect buns.   The Sportsman turned to the crowd and instigated more applause as if his little girl was a circus performer doing a handstand on an elephant.   His daughter produced a manicured smile, but then as the camel suddenly jerked to the side, she produced a sincere shriek of panic.   The owner of the camel, a local Egyptian in his thirties grabbed hold of the camel and led the animal up and down the small path along the hotel.   He stopped when a woman in a sarong stepped in front of the camel with a camera.   The man began yelling at her in Arabic.   He was obviously trying to prevent the woman from being trampled, but she took offense at being yelled at.   Clearly, she didn't like being yelled at in a language she didn't understand so she yelled back at the man in a language he couldn't understand.     

            "It's the wife," Lou said to Laurent and motioned for him to hurry to the window.   He hopped out of bed and the two of them stood silently together in their underwear watching the Sportsman in his aqua shirt and athletic shorts pull his daughter off the camel while the Sportsman's wife shouted at anyone who would listen.

            "What is she shouting about?" Lou asked quietly.

            "Some stupid shit,"   Laurent said and leaned on the railing.   He watched the sportsman's wife retie her sarong.   "How old do you think she is?"

            "The man was just telling her not to stand in front of the camel."

            "She looks like she's not even thirty yet.   Do you think the girl is really her daughter?"   Laurent asked.   The sportsman held the hand of his daughter and turned to his wife.   He said something in French and the woman stopped yelling.            

            "Good for you Sportsman," Laurent said ridiculously.   "That sure made her stop being the fool's ass." He walked back into the room, pulled off his underwear and stood naked at the foot of the bed scanning the floor for his bathing suit.   "Let's find a different hotel to go swimming in.   Where is the closest hotel?" he asked.

            "About ten minutes down the avenue," Lou remembered, "It's called The Egyptian Dream."

            They walked about half a mile down the dirt avenue that stretched along the coast in front of their hotel and arrived at The Egyptian Dream just before eleven in the morning.   Lou's bartender was right; this resort was much better than The Intercontinental.

            The first noticeable difference was that the lobby was the size of a small mall.   It was filled with boutiques and gift shops and at the end of one of the halls was an ATM.

            "Do you think it is because of their ATM that they are the best place in Hurghada?" Laurent asked.

            "Probably," Lou observed, "everybody from the other resorts has to come here to get money."

            "Do you think the other resorts know about this?"

            "Probably," Lou said.

            "Then why don't they get an ATM too?   If you need an ATM to be fantastic, get an ATM, don't you think?"

  Lou giggled unnaturally and looped her arm through Laurent's.  

"What are you doing?" he asked.

            "Pretend like we're having a great time and we're just coming back from a morning walk."

            "Where is the pool?" Laurent asked and pulled away from Lou.   He made a right past the concierge and disappeared around a corner.   Lou caught up with him outside.  

            The pool was enormous with two bars attached.   Lou noted that the bartenders could walk in and out of their bars freely without getting wet.   Basketball nets were hung above each end of the pool and a game of pool ball was in full force.   Poolside waiters rushed around to help guests scattered under umbrellas.   Off the pool stretched three paths.   One of them led to a volley ball court, another led to a seaside stand for kayaks and scuba gear.   The third path led toward the main beach area.   There were no waves in The Red Sea and the water was actually blue and green.   Lou heard a loud splash and noticed the pool slide that twisted around in the corner of the pool.   A little boy spun around it and laughed as he hit the water.

            "We found it," Lou said.

            "Paradise," Laurent agreed.   Both of them held on to each other and Laurent looked toward the bar.   "What do you want to drink?"

            "A daiquiri," Lou said, "or maybe a pina colata."

            "A Long Island Ice Tea," Laurent laughed.   It was his new favorite drink.

            "Something fruity," Lou imagined, "I'm so thirsty."

            Suddenly, a man's voice erupted in French behind them, "What a pool!" he said magnificently.   Lou and Laurent both froze and The Sportsman walked stoically past them, holding his wife by one hand and his daughter by the other.   The three of them stopped at the pool's edge and The Sportsman picked up his little girl triumphantly like she was the prize pig and threw her in the water.   The girl giggled with delight and obediently swam off toward the other children where she was immediately popular.   The Sportsman's wife strolled to the bar flipping the edges of her sarong back and forth with her hand while The Sportsman made himself comfortable in one of the reclining faux bamboo chairs.   He unbuttoned his aqua shirt the rest of the way and peeled it off his broad shoulders.   He pulled a bottle of tanning oil out from his bathing suit pocket.   The Sportsman rubbed the oil over his prominent and tan belly.   Laurent and Lou watched him first and then each of them, in their own way became aware of their pasty white bodies.

            "How does he know?" Laurent asked.   "I thought only we knew about this place.

            "It's the ATM," Lou reminded him.   She watched The Sportsman massage his chest with the oil.

            "And what?   Now he behaves as if it is his home.   How does he know to stay?   Who told him to stay?" Laurent looked over to the pool, "Look at his daughter."

            Lou looked to the pool.   The Sportsman's daughter was shouting at the other children in French as she held the foam basketball above her head.

            "I don't want to play the pool game with she," Laurent complained.

            "With her," Lou corrected.  

            "Do you think he will remember us?" Laurent asked.

            "I don't know."

            The Sportsman's wife walked over to him and traded one of the drinks for the bottle of tanning oil.   The Sportsman leaned forward while his wife spread the oil on his back.   He sipped his drink and pointed at his daughter before shouting in French and applauding.

            "I hate The Sportsman," Laurent decided.

            Laurent was convinced that, should The Sportsman spot the two of them, he might turn them in and get them kicked out of the new resort.   So, Laurent and Lou spent the first half of the day hiding on the beach while The Sportsman stayed by the pool.   Lou enjoyed the ocean water.   It was a little warm but the sand was soft and she could see everything beneath the surface.   Laurent spent twenty minutes in the ocean with her until a strange fish swam past his leg.   He paddled his way quickly to shore and hung out on his towel the rest of the afternoon watching Lou perform handstands and summersaults.   It didn't take long for him to become bored.

            "I want to swim in the pool.   Do you think The Sportsman is gone home?" Laurent shouted to Lou.  

            Lou moved herself slowly toward the beach.   "You can swim in the ocean."

            "I don't like the ocean," Laurent decided.   "I want to play with the ball and drink a beer at the bar."

            "OK." Lou walked on to the beach.   She was filled with salty water, "Let's go.   He has probably left."

            Laurent stood up like a hyper active child and fished through his backpack for something. "I've been waiting to use this." He pulled out a disposable underwater camera and showed it to Lou.   "It will be perfect in the pool."  

            They walked up the stone pathway, past the hut filled with scuba gear.   Kayaks leaned against the side and a hotel employee stood barefoot in the sand and tightened the straps of a life jacket on a petite woman.   Laurent peered over the horizon of the small hill and stopped.   Lou caught up and looked toward the pool with him.   The Sportsman stood at the side of the pool in his bathing suit.    A whistle hung from his mouth and he blew on it frequently.   A group of middle-aged tourists stood in the shallow end of the pool with the Nerf ball.   The Sportsman barked orders at them in French and waved his arms in all directions.   The men and woman in the pool followed his directions and swam from one end of the shallow end to the other, tossing the ball every which way.

            "Look at that," Laurent said, "he is the king."

            "Do you want to play?" Lou asked.

            "He is the king of our new hotel.   He has followed us all the way from Paris to be king of our hotel."