Blue Water (27 page)

That night, back at the Pfister, I phoned Cindy Ann at the mill. She didn't seem surprised to hear from me. In fact, she sounded happy I'd called. Amy had taken the girls to a movie. Toby and Mal were off for their honeymoon night in Eau Claire. Cindy Ann herself had just gotten in from a meeting.

“Me and the other town drunks,” she said.

“How do you feel?”

“Right now, okay. That's as far ahead as I'm allowed to think.”

“One day at a time.”

“More like ten minutes. God, it's freezing in here.” I heard water running in the sink, then the splash of liquid in a glass. “That's the one advantage about this place. You don't need to wait for the water to get cold.”

“What if I said I'd found a better place for you all to stay?”

At that moment, it seemed easy, even effortless. My backpack stood, packed and waiting, by the door. In the morning, my mother and I would drive back to Miami. Rex had sent an e-mail with the address of the rigger; as soon as I picked up the whisker poles, I'd return to the Bahamas, weigh anchor, set sail.

“It would make a lot of sense, if you think about it,” I said. “I'd get someone to look after our house. You'd get heat and hot water. But you'd have to do some serious cleaning. The tenant hasn't taken good care of the place.”

“I just worry,” Cindy Ann said, “that he wouldn't want us living there.”

I thought, at first, that she meant Chester. Then Rex. Then I understood.

“Evan wasn't like that,” I said.

“Have you seen him?” she asked. “Since the accident, I mean? Like, in a dream, or—”

I felt myself tense. “No.”

“I haven't either.”

“Why would you?” I said, trying to keep the irritation from my voice.

“Because I was the one who did this to him,” she said. “I'm the one took his life.”

I was suddenly, wildly angry.
You took all of our lives,
I wanted to say. I had to hold the words in, literally, my own hand pressed against my mouth.

“I guess you're right,” I finally said. “It would be too hard on everyone.”

“I'll find you somebody else,” she said, quickly. “I'll ask around at tomorrow's meeting. You've done so much for me, for us—”

“I've done nothing,” I said, and when I hung up the phone, I felt happy to think we'd spoken for the last time. But, in fact, I called her three times more before leaving Florida: from the lanai at the back of my parents' town house; after picking up the whisker poles at the rigger's; after spending the day at Miami Children's, talking with receptionists, chattering groups of technicians, anyone who might recall a brain-injured boy, in a handmade wheelchair, who'd been living aboard a sailboat. Scanning directory after directory, I couldn't find a single pediatric neurologist—or pediatric anything—whose name remotely matched the one that Audrey had remembered. The Coast Guard had no record of
Rubicon
clearing back into the States.

Over the next few months, the letters I'd send to the New Bern PO Box would be returned to my parents' address, each of them red-stamped.

t
he whisker poles were not long and
straight, as I'd imagined. They were two heavy coils of stainless steel, roughly the size of Hula Hoops. For three solid days of travel, throughout one random delay after the next, I'd worn them around my neck like a yoke: slogging between airports, waiting for ferries, checking in at damp-sheeted hotels. By the time I boarded the ferry to Hunter's Cove, it felt as if a permanent groove had been worn into the tops of my shoulders. No matter. Approaching the dock, I saw
Chelone,
anchored across the bay. Even at a distance, her rub rails and hatch covers shone like polished gold. Stretched across the cabin top—where in the world had he found it?—Rex had hung a glittery banner that spelled out the words
WELCOME HOME
.

The moment he caught sight of me, waving from the stern, he was over the safety lines and into the dinghy, jerking at the starter cord: once, twice. And even before I'd wrestled the poles to the edge of the pier, he was buzzing across the quiet harbor, rocking the
other boats with his wake. “I've had that banner up for the last two weeks,” he called, cutting the engine, gliding up against the pier. “People around here are calling you my imaginary wife.”

When he tossed me the line, I missed it. Handing the poles down into the dinghy, I nearly toppled us both. “Got to get your sea legs back, I see,” he said, helping me onto the bench seat. “You're so pale!”

“You're so tan!”

“And your poisonwood's gone!”

“At least where it shows.”

“Let's see.” He was tugging, tickling at my T-shirt.

“Come here,” I said, and kissed him.

He was clean-shaven, clear-eyed, fit. His hair, close-cropped, felt like velvet beneath my hand. The taste of him, the smell of his skin—familiar, yet unexpected—made me immune to the whistles and cheers from the half-dozen men standing around the dockside bar. They wore identical yellow T-shirts, dark blue shorts, and baseball caps. I glanced back at them as we pulled away. “A baseball team?” I asked.

Rex laughed. “The Men's Historical, Cultural and Sociological Expedition Society.”

“Are they from some university?”

“Nope. They just meet here to party once a year. They offered me and Jack an honorary membership, but Nancy wouldn't let us join. Said she would speak on your behalf until you could defend your own territory.” He grinned, then nodded at the streamlined Beneteau anchored fifty yards from
Chelone
. “There's
Nantucket
.” On the forward deck, a handsome, swimsuited couple were hard at work on the stainless steel. “We've been talking about buddy-boating to Tobago—I mean, if we all agree. It would be good to have some company, in case anything goes wrong. And then, when we get there, they could show us around.”

It wasn't what I'd imagined—traveling within sight and sound of another boat—but it was certainly safer, more practical. And blue water was blue water. One little speck on the horizon wouldn't make us feel any less independent of land. “When's the next weather window?”

“The rest of this week doesn't look good, but we've got to install these poles anyway. And I was thinking it wouldn't hurt to have
Chelone
checked out by a professional rigger. By the time we get that done, we should be due for a good high pressure system.”

We'd reached
Chelone,
and as Rex tied up the dinghy, I marveled at all the work he'd done during the weeks I'd been gone. Her hull was freshly waxed, her sails neatly flaked, even her lines exactingly coiled. She looked as new, as energized, as Rex appeared himself, and as I turned toward him, his mouth met mine, and we half stumbled, half crawled down the companionway into the salon. There I lay back on the spotless settee, let him tug off my jeans. Closed my eyes to better feel the good weight of his body. The fit of his hip against my own. The curve of his neck. His firm, freckled shoulders. “Too many clothes,” he said, sitting back to strip away his shorts and T-shirt. Both of us naked in the afternoon light, new lovers, suddenly shy. My upper chest still bore plum-colored markings from places where the poisonwood rash had burned deepest: a painted necklace, a faded tattoo.

“Souvenirs,” Rex murmured, tracing them with his fingers. Then he bent down to kiss me again, his warm breath melting away the weeks of dark, Wisconsin cold.

Afterward, we let the fading sunlight lap the heat from our skins, and when Rex got up to pour us each a glass of wine, I noted it, but did not object. A glass of wine at five in the afternoon was not a double shot of scotch. Besides, it was red wine. Good for the heart.
Certainly, it was good for the disposition. Rex did not ask about Toby's wedding. He did not ask about the settlement. The hard knot of caution in my stomach uncoiled. Once again, we were floating, disconnected, from the dream that had been our lives onshore.

“You ought to see
Nantucket
's wine cellar,” Rex said, sitting back down beside me. “Another good reason to buddy-boat.”

“They have a wine cellar?”

“They have everything. World phone. E-mail. Bread maker. I'm serious! They've even got a washing machine. Okay, so it barely holds three pairs of jeans. But, still.” He balanced his cool, plastic cup on my bare thigh. “They don't own a single thing anywhere else in the world. Nothing to worry about except what's in front of them. Nothing to tie them down, hold them back.”

“No tenants,” I said. “Did you get my e-mail about Chester?”

“I did.”

“You were right about the house,” I said. “I think we should go ahead and sell it.”

“You serious?” He jumped to his feet, began to pace the narrow salon. “God, what a relief it will be, getting out from under that thing! And with the money we can—” He paused, and both of us listened. A dinghy had been approaching; now it idled off our stern. “Probably Jack and Nancy. I'd already invited them for dinner. Are you up for it?”

“Sure,” I said, and I ducked into our stateroom to change into shorts and a fresh T-shirt. Overhead, I could hear the exchange of voices; after a moment,
Chelone
rocked with the weight of additional bodies coming aboard. There'd be plenty of time to catch up, I figured, when Rex and I were on our way to Tobago. There'd be more than enough opportunities, then, to answer all the questions he still hadn't asked.

Rex was laughing as I stepped up into the cockpit to shake hands, first with Nancy, then with Jack, who stood with his foot propped on a large, thumping cooler.

“Show Meg,” Rex said.

“Sure,” Jack said, and he lifted his foot. “Can't hurt to have a second opinion. We caught this little sweetie off Scotland Point. I was just asking Rex if he thinks we ought to eat it.”

“Dare you,” Rex said.

“I can't even look at that thing,” Nancy said.

All of them were watching me now. Jack cracked the lid; I peeked inside. “Good god. What
is
it?”

“Beats me,” Jack said.

It looked like a snake, only thicker. With fins. Fierce bristles jutted from its gills. It smelled unpleasantly of its own oily skin, and I watched for a moment as it writhed and snapped. Beneath it, under a layer of ice, three wide-eyed grouper lay gulping, astonished.

Nancy said, “Have you ever seen anything like it?”

We hadn't. It wasn't even pictured in our field guide. Perhaps it was something old and undiscovered. Perhaps it was something mutant and new. We flipped it back over the side, where it lay, briefly, on the surface. Then it dove with a furious splash and disappeared.

 

For dinner, we grilled the grouper, along with plantains and zucchini Rex had bought from a local garden, fresh coconut he'd picked up along the trails. Jack opened the special bottle of wine he'd been saving, he said, for my return, and we ate in the cockpit, plates balanced on our knees, talking as if we'd all known one another for years. I had to keep reminding myself, in fact, that we'd just met.

“How long have you been cruising?” I asked.

“Five years,” Nancy said. “Our kids think we've lost our minds.”

“They're worse than parents,” Jack said, rolling his eyes. “Always worrying. Always trying to tell you what you should and should not do.”

After drawing a bucket of salt water, Nancy and I put the dishes to soak and climbed up onto the cabin top, leaving Rex and Jack exchanging war stories: rough crossings, knockdowns, lightning storms. For a while, she and I talked about places we'd lived, jobs we'd held, people we'd known. I was tired from the travel, from the unaccustomed wine. I was finding it difficult to concentrate. Everything shimmered with an odd déjà vu: the easy intimacy, the sounds of the cove, the men opening another bottle of red wine. Every now and then, we'd be treated to the voices of the Men's Historical, Cultural and Sociological Expedition Society, still going strong at the dockside bar, bellowing rounds of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”

“At first, we went back to Rhode Island twice a year,” Nancy said, “but now it's been—what? Three years, at least.”

“You must miss your children.”

“Actually, Jack's daughter was just here. She stayed with us a week.” Nancy laughed. “She says she couldn't live anywhere that doesn't have a Starbucks.”

“She wouldn't like Fox Harbor either,” I said. “Though I suppose they're going to have one, too, eventually.”

“Did you have a good visit? Rex said your brother got married
outside
. It must have been absolutely freezing.”

“On a boat, no less. Did he tell you that part?”

“So it runs in the family, I see.”

“Actually,” I said, “if you'd told me, even two years ago, that I'd be living on a boat someday—” I shook my head.

“Your husband's idea? It was the same with Jack and me.”

“We'd talked about it now and then, but more in a daydreaming kind of way. But then, after our son was killed, we decided we wanted a change.”

Was it my imagination, or did the twilight murmurings of the cove suddenly sharpen into dozens of harsh, individual sounds? Idling engines, slapping waves. The chime of loose sheets blown against
Chelone
's rigging. The quarrel of parrots, roosting in the palm trees along the shoreline. I glanced at Rex. He and Jack had switched to rum, and the sweet smell hung in the air. For a moment, I was confused, thinking it was Eli Hale who'd been calling,
Mayday! Mayday!
—the punch line of some joke—but then I remembered Nancy, saw the look on her face, distressed, uncertain, and I realized what I'd done. Of course, Rex would not have said anything about Evan. I'd forgotten myself, forgotten who I was, who I was supposed to be.

“I'm so sorry,” Nancy said. “I didn't know. Rex never said anything about it.”

“It's hard to talk about,” I said.

“How did he die?”

The question surprised me. In Fox Harbor, of course, everybody knew. “In a car accident. I was driving him to school.”

“And you don't have any more children?”

By now, I would have done anything to take my own words back. “We had him late in life.”

“You could adopt, you know. I have this friend, she's forty-eight? She just got a beautiful little girl from China.”

I must have stared at her. I simply couldn't speak.

“Well, you should think about it, that's all I'm saying,” Nancy said, and now she was talking too rapidly, too eagerly. “I could give you her e-mail address, if you wanted it. What?” Abruptly, she
turned her face, her entire body, toward the men, and I saw that they were looking at us, waiting for an answer to their question.

“The beach,” Rex said, and Jack said, “How about it? Great night for a swim.”

Nancy was already on her feet. “Sounds good to me,” she said. “Meg?” But she didn't look at me, never looked at me again, tripping lightly down from the cabin top.

“I'm beat,” I said. “I think I'll stay in. But you all go ahead.”

“You sure?” Rex studied me curiously. “Okay, then. Get some sleep.”

His good-bye kiss was brief, bitter with rum.

 

After everyone had gone, I unpacked my backpack, took a bucket bath, fixed myself a cup of tea in the thick, clear plastic glass that Rex had liked to use for scotch. By now, the sun was setting, so I lit the kerosene lamps, fitted the screens across the hatches to keep out the mosquitoes and night-flying beetles. Then I found the swollen paperback I'd started back in December, but after a few minutes, I put it down again, carried my tea up onto the cabin top, and sat there in the darkness, swatting bugs. Wavering bursts of torchlight carried from the dock, where the Men's Historical, Cultural and Sociological Expedition Society had started in on military cadences:
I know-a-girl named Bet-ty Sue!
My body felt sticky with salt residue. Wisps of hair clung to my temples. Making love had left me sore, and I wished that I could take a proper bath, soak for a while beneath a thick quilt of bubbles, before climbing into a wide, clean bed.

I couldn't be friends with Nancy now, any more than she could be friends with me. Buddy-boating was out of the question. Already, I could feel Rex's disappointment.

The cloud cover pulled into soft, cotton pieces. A half-moon filled the air with its milky light.

That fish was weird,
Evan said.

I should have taken a picture,
I said.

That lady's kind of weird, too
.

I nodded.
Foot-in-mouth disease
.

What's that?

It's when you just keep going on with something, making things worse and worse. It's when you can't just admit that you were wrong.