Meeting Max (32 page)

“Oh, really? I didn’t know. How do you feel about that?”

“I’m okay with it. He’s an engineer and smart, like you.”

“I’m happy to hear the news and I look forward to meeting him. Tell me about school, Max. Keep me posted. What are you reading in your English class this term? I like to know what’s going on.”

“I have a great teacher. His name is Mr. Goldberg. We just finished reading
Gulliver’s Travels
. I loved it. My dad was like Mr. Goldberg,” Max recalled. “I learned a lot from my dad. He always told me to do the right thing, no matter what. He was a good dad. I think about him every day and look at all the pictures. It makes me sad. I miss him so much. It’s too bad he got sick.”

A lump formed in Rick’s throat when he heard Max’s words. He didn’t know the truth and wondered if he ever would.

“I know,” Rick said sadly. “He
was
a good father. He would be happy to know we’re here together.”

“He
does
know we’re together,” Max said matter-of-factly. “He’s in heaven and sees us.”

“Yes, I’m sure he does, Max. I know he does.”

***

On their last night in Stowe, they went for their usual walk in the woods. It was cold, but bearable, and stars lit up the sky.

“Grandpa.”

“Yeah, Max.”

“Grandpa…”

“Did you want to say something?”

“I want to tell you something, but I want you to promise not to tell my mom.”

“That’s not a promise I can give. I love you, Max, and you’re a nice kid. If what you want to tell me is the truth and you want to talk about it, then I will understand. I can always handle the truth. Lies will hurt both of us.”

“No lies. Something is bothering me and I haven’t told anyone and I would definitely not tell my mom.”

“If you want to talk about it, I’ll listen. I can’t promise I won’t tell your mom. It’s up to you if you want to tell me or not.”

“Well, I’ll tell you. I think about it every night when I go to sleep and again when I wake up. I’m still not sure if I should tell you.”

“You can think about it and then decide.”

“I smoked pot,” Max blurted out. “My friend Jesse gave it to me after school and we went behind his house and I smoked it.”

“What happened?”

“I coughed a lot and got dizzy. My head was spinning, then I felt okay, and Jesse taught me how to smoke it the right way. We sat up against the tree and Jesse gave me another one and I liked it.”

“Why did you want to try it?”

“Almost everybody in my class did it.”

“Almost everybody? You’re not even ten years old.”

“Well, I guess it was only one other kid. It’s bothering me that I did it, and I didn’t say anything to my mom. I won’t smoke it again.”

“That’s good. If you continue doing it, your mom will find out anyway.”

“How?”

“It will make you look different. Your eyes will look dull and you won’t be acting right. You’ll look spaced out. Do you want to look that way, spaced out with drooping eyes?

“No, Grandpa. I like my looks the way they are. I always keep looking in the mirror to see how I look with different smiles.”

“I used to do the same thing, but smoking that stuff is not a good thing, and it can hurt you. Maybe it will affect your learning too. Besides, why would you want to put anything in your body that’s not good for you? And it’s also illegal. I won’t say anything to your mom, she has enough to deal with, but I want you to promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“Think about telling her.”

Max twisted and turned his body back and forth. He looked down, deep in thought, and said, “I’ll think about it..”

Rick hoped he would say, ‘I’ll tell her,’ but felt it was a good start.

Max asked Rick about things that went through his mind. He wanted to know why God didn’t answer his prayers, and if he could train to be a skier in the Olympics. Rick answered every question during the long ride home.

Sarah greeted Max with a big hug. He was sleepy after the long drive and headed straight to his room. Rick spent a few minutes with Sarah, who thanked him for taking Max away for a few days. She said it was good for her too and that she needed a break.

After their ski trip, Rick spoke to Max once or twice a week on the phone and they exchanged e-mails. In one of his e-mails, Max told Rick he finally got up the nerve to tell his mom about his pot smoking. He said his mom asked him if he tried it after that one time. He said no and she made him promise that if he ever felt like doing it again, he would tell her first.

Chapter 28

Rick’s teaching position consumed him. It was a good thing because he loved being a professor. It energized him. Since he taught at NYU, he was surrounded by the memories of his college years, Julie, and Greenwich Village. He found happiness being with Max, and they shared many meals at Caffe Reggio and strolled down the same streets that Rick and Julie had.

Rick told Max all about his grandmother. They even had their palms read at the place where Julie and Rick learned about their futures from Eeluminada. Times had changed, and a Hungarian man named Zoltan replaced the gypsy lady. He had a bushy mustache and wore a turban. All went well. They were promised wonderful futures and Max beamed when they left. Rick smiled.

You get what you pay for
.

In March of 2014, Max turned fourteen. He was a gift from Rick’s past. Max invigorated him by asking many questions about school, life, his future, and religion. They formed a strong bond, and Rick learned about the things a fourteen year old does. Video games were high on the list.

***

Sarah was already married to Stan, and she called Rick to surprise him with the news that she and her husband were planning to move to California with Max before the fall school term began. Stan had secured an excellent position teaching mechanical engineering at Stanford University, and she would be teaching at San Mateo College while working on her doctorate degree.

She was excited about the move and made Rick promise to visit often. Rick was unhappy that Max would be moving out of New York, but rationalized that California was only a few hours away by air, and he always had a lot of free time before school semesters. Besides, Sarah deserved to have love in her life and he was happy for her.

Rick and Max had frequently talked about sailing, but a trip never materialized. He proposed a sailing vacation for Max and him to the British Virgin Islands over the summer and Sarah agreed. She thought it was a wonderful idea for Max to spend time with his grandfather out at sea and both Sarah and Rick knew he would love it.

Max developed into a nice adolescent. He was slim with good muscle tone and had blue eyes, like Eric’s and Julie’s. He was bright and curious, with an offbeat, dry sense of humor.

***

Rick’s brother, David, and his wife, Daniela, both marine biologists, lived on Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. They had a home high on a hill that surrounded Cane Garden Bay, a popular anchorage on the north shore of the island. They looked forward to Rick and Max’s arrival and offered them their thirty-six foot sloop rigged sailboat for as long as they wanted it.

Rick and Max flew from New York to St. Thomas, then took a ferry to Road Town, the capital of the British Virgin Islands. David and Daniela met them with their Jeep and drove them up the steep, winding mountain road and then down to Cane Garden Bay, where they had a home built into the mountainside. The view from their deck was spectacular, especially when the sun was setting. It offered a different show every night.

Rick chatted with David as he prepared dinner, which consisted of pumpkin soup, fried fish, and okra. Daniela was in the next room with Max teaching him about navigation, nautical lingo, and plotting a course. This adventure would be a great learning experience for Max.

Rick and Max sat at the dinner table as Max’s Aunt and Uncle laid out the sailing charts and pointed to the different ports of call that Rick and Max would soon visit. Max leaned forward and appeared to soak up every word. Rick looked at him with an inner smile, feeling that Max’s imagination was as ignited as his sense of excitement.

A few days later, the four of them took a ferry to North Sound on Virgin Gorda to load provisions onto their sailboat,
Gone With the Wind.
The boat was nestled comfortably in its slip as her dock lines tugged at her in the breeze. An inflatable dinghy with an outboard motor was attached to a stern cleat.

They carried ice and food onboard, topped off the water and fuel, and taught Max the safety rules. After sharing a quick lunch on board, David refreshed Rick’s memory regarding the boat’s operation and discussed a few new upgrades. David and Daniela threw them the bow and stern lines and wished them Bon Voyage. They were on their way!

Rick and Max sailed out of North Sound with a fifteen-knot breeze off their starboard quarter as they headed toward Anegada, a flat island surrounded by reefs. Max held the course under Rick’s close watch. They allowed the current to set them slightly to the west, away from the coral heads, and when they got close to the anchorage, Rick lowered the sails and motored their way in. It was a safe passage during the day.

When they arrived at Anegada, they set the anchor, dinghied ashore, then walked to Loblolly Bay and swam, snorkeled, and enjoyed the day. They dinghied back to
Gone With The Wind
, re-furled the main neatly on the boom, and watched the sun sink slowly into the sea.

Blazing strips of blue, red, and yellow streamed across the sky as twilight fell. They feasted on pasta primavera, precooked by Daniela, then sat back and talked under a sky of stars that reminded Rick of the Thar Desert. Max couldn’t take his eyes off the stars. They filled the sky like a blanket of flashing diamonds.

“Grandpa, I really have to learn how to sail. I want to know all the things you know, everything.”

“Max, by the end of this trip, you’ll be a sailor.”

“You think?”

“I know.”

“When I was below, I started writing down everything we did today. I think I’d like to do it every day.”

“Good for you. I always keep a log. Do you like to write stories?”

“I told Mom I’d like to be a writer, and she said I could do that anytime no matter what my career was. She told me to find a career that I loved so I could be independent. She said then I could write whenever I wanted to. I told her I wanted writing to be my career.”

“Would you write fiction?”

“Yes, absolutely, only fiction novels.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because I can make things up.”

“That’s true, but the one thing that’s helpful about writing fiction is to know how your book is going to end.”

“Yeah, I guess it’s good to know where you’re going. There are some creative writing electives offered in school. Maybe I’ll take one of them.”

“That’s a good idea. I think you can get a lot out of it, but try not to lose your own voice.”

“I think I know what you mean. I won’t.”

***

They were up at first light and had an early breakfast. Afterward, Rick motored
Gone with the Wind
out of the harbor. When they reached open water, Rick pointed the boat into the wind and taught Max how to raise the mainsail.

Max pulled it up as best he could and then wrapped the mainsheet around a winch to raise it to the top of the mast. They eased the mainsail until it was filled with wind, then unfurled the jib and set out on a comfortable sail to The Baths on the southwestern tip of Virgin Gorda.

The Baths were composed of giant granite boulders and rock formations probably of volcanic origin at the edge of the beach. They carefully walked along the slippery rocks into a huge cave more than a hundred feet high, where water streamed along its slippery rocky floor.

Sunlight beamed in from an opening on the top of the cave to allow beams of light to crisscross throughout the darkened cave. They continued to walk along the wet bottom of the cave until they came to an entrance to the beach, where they snorkeled over the magnificent sea life.

A short sail brought them to Cooper Island. They had lunch at a restaurant on a sandy beach lined with palm trees. They looked out at
Gone With The Wind.
She had
two anchors off her bow and was waiting for their return.

Before they sailed off, Rick radioed ahead to the Peter Island Yacht Club on Peter Island to reserve a space at their dock and make a reservation for dinner. The plan was to overnight there, sleep onboard, and use the restaurants and facilities of the plush hotel.

The sun gleamed on
Gone With the Wind
as they made their way under full sail to Peter Island. They arrived in late afternoon and docked. Rick furled the mainsail on the boom and tidied up the boat as Max went into the hotel to check it out.

As Rick was about to step onto the dock, he saw Max walking toward him with a young lady who he guessed must have been about fourteen or fifteen.

“Hi, Grandpa, this is Jena. We met in the lobby. She knows a lot about sailing.”

“Hi, Jena, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Where are you from?”

“I’m from San Diego. My younger brother, Christopher, and I grew up in Riverton, that’s in Utah, but moved to California to be close to the ocean. I’m here with my mom and dad and my brother.”

Jena was a pretty girl. She was slim, with suntanned skin, large, cornflower blue eyes, and a beautiful smile. She wore dark shorts and a white t-shirt that said
If I’m lost, send me back to Virgin Gorda
. Her face was protected from the sun by a dark SF Giants baseball cap and her golden blonde hair hung down the back of her neck in a single braid. This was the first time Rick had ever seen Max with a girl.

“Jena is from California, but she told me her family had an apartment in New York,” Max explained.

“That’s nice. So, Jena, where is your boat and where did you charter it from?”

“We got it from The Moorings. It’s a fifty-one foot Beneteau. It’s that one there,” she said as she pointed to a sleek monohull with the name
After Dawn
emblazoned on her stern, not far from
Gone with the Wind.

“We plan to head out tomorrow and snorkel at Norman Island. We were at Cane Garden Bay yesterday. If you go there, get the conch fritters at Rhymers. They’re so delicious,” Jena said, licking her lips. “Then we’ll probably sail to the American Virgins and anchor at Caneel Bay. It’s up to my mom. She’s skippering the boat. She grew up in Newport and has been sailing all her life, but my dad is a pretty good sailor too.”

Rick and Max wished her a good sailing day and went off to the dining room of the hotel. It was lobster night and they feasted on Caribbean lobsters.

“No claws, Grandpa?”

“Nope. These Caribbean spiny lobsters don’t have them.”

“I love learning about sailboats. I want to know everything.”

“Good for you. Stay curious. Learning is a great experience.”

Rick smiled to himself, wondering how much of Max’s enthusiasm had been influenced by his encounter with Jena.

“Yeah, but this is different. It’s not algebra. I never thought I’d want to know everything about something.”

Rick smiled to himself.

No, it’s not algebra
.
It’s much better. Sailing our boat to the different islands will be a learning experience Max will never forget.

Max agreed to spend at least two hours each day learning and practicing sailing lessons with Captain Grandpa Rick, his teacher. Instruction began after dinner, starting with plotting compass courses using a pair of dividers. Max’s first assignment was to plot a course from Peter Island to Norman Island.

Max asked for a pencil with an eraser and kept his cabin light burning late into the night as he diligently plotted a course from Peter Island to Treasure Point Caves on Norman Island.

In the morning, he eagerly showed his grandfather his work, all neatly penciled on the nautical chart, along with other courses he plotted to other islands just for practice.

Rick let Max take the wheel as they sailed out of the harbor. He explained how to read the compass and keep the wind in the sails as they went along. Max was bursting at the seams when they reached Norman Island by following a course that
he
had plotted.

“Grandpa, I did it!

When they got to the caves at Treasure Point, they snorkeled into the caves, where the water was colder, and listened to the echo of their voices. Max told Grandpa Rick that he hoped they would meet up with Jena here, but that did not happen and he was glad they had exchanged e-mail addresses.

After snorkeling, they had lunch onboard. It consisted of local fruits and tuna fish sandwiches. Max helped Rick crack open a couple of coconuts for cool drinks. They ate and talked about the beauty that surrounded them.

Rick raised the main, sailed off their anchor without using the engine, and took a short sail to Jost Van Dyke, anchoring in Great Harbour.

Later that night, they dinghied into shore and went to Foxy’s Tamarind Beach Bar and Restaurant
.
They could hear the tropical music and live steel drums from a distance as they walked in the cool sand to Foxy’s, a place with character...and the character was Foxy himself.