Unbreak My Heart (26 page)

“Clem!” Olive is shouting for me, but I’m still in the inlet, really close to the boat.

“Olive, tell Mom I’m coming in a sec,” I yell back.

My little sister studies my face and then nods, going back below deck. I reread what I wrote.

There are lots of things that I’m unsure about—where I want to go to college, whether I should keep working at Razzy’s or get a more “important” job to build my résumé, whether James and I will work out off the water. But Amanda and me? We’re a sure thing.

So this time, I don’t tear out the page with my letter-attempt on it. I smile as I close my journal and motor back to
The Possibility
.

chapter thirty-eight

We stay at the marina another night, just to make sure things are okay with the Townsends, and the next day Dad makes two extra breakfasts. He and I take the plates over to James’s boat.

Mr. Townsend meets us in the cockpit, and he and James reach over and ask us to join them.

We’re about to climb aboard when George and Ruth shuffle by on their morning walk. George lets out a low whistle as he points to the back of the boat. “You finally let her go, huh, Bill?”

I freeze, thinking about the scraped-off name and wondering how Mr. Townsend will react.

Everyone else seems suspended for a moment too. Then Ruth catches up to George and says, “We’ve been telling you to rename that boat for months! So what’ll it be?”

Her impish grin and the twinkle in George’s eye make the moment lighter, more fun.

Dad hops onto the dock and walks over to look at where the lettering used to be. “You did get it pretty cleanly off of there, Bill.”

“George, do you still have that gold paint you offered me last fall?” asks Mr. Townsend.

Ruth has already turned back toward their boat. “I’ll get it!” she shouts.

The rest of us talk about possible names while Ruth hunts for the paint. After a few minutes of insanely lame suggestions from Dad (like,
Father & Sun
and
Fresh Start
), I go grab Mom and Olive—I know they wouldn’t want to miss this renaming ceremony.

“
Winds of Change
?”

“
Rising Tide
?”

“
Lucky Guys
?”

“
Fanta-sea
?”

We’re all spouting out boat names and laughing at each one. None feel right, but Ruth is back with the gold marine paint and Mr. Townsend has already started sanding down the surface where James will sketch the new name—he knows how to do these really cool looping letters.

The day wears on, and around noon, Dad goes back to our boat and makes sandwiches for everyone so we can picnic while we brainstorm. Then Olive gets silly and starts suggesting food names based on our lunch, like
Peanut Butter & Jelly
and
Pickle Juice
and
Cool Ranch
.

Mr. Townsend has been pretty quiet the whole time, but he’s smiling. When he finishes up his sandwich, he looks at James and says, “What about
Clean Slate
?”

James nods as a grin starts to spread across his face. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”

We all nod—if they love it, that’s it. It sounds hopeful, forward looking, and kind of adventurous. I’m sure James is also glad it doesn’t include a bad pun.

Ruth hands James a brush.

“Let me map it out first,” he says, walking to the back of the boat and staring at the smooth surface.

A few minutes later, we all watch James sketch the first few letters, and after a half hour, Ruth and George say good-bye and stroll back to their boat. Then Mom and Dad head toward
The Possibility
. Olive and I linger a while. She’s respectfully quiet as James bites his lip in concentration, making each paint stroke slowly and deliberately. I love watching him do this—it feels like he’s creating a new beginning.

The sun gets lower in the sky, and although I don’t want to go, this isn’t a me-and-James moment.

“Olive,” I say. “We should probably …” I lean my head toward
The Possibility
.

“Oh,” she says, like she’s waking up from a dream. “Okay.”

I say good-bye quietly to Mr. Townsend, who’s been at James’s shoulder all this time, and he gives me a warm smile.

James doesn’t look up, but that doesn’t worry me. He’s in a zone.

“Thank you,” says Mr. Townsend, his hand on my shoulder.

I nod and take Olive’s hand as we walk home.

chapter thirty-nine

James and I agreed that we’d meet up in two days, at the last stop we’re both making on this loop. He needs some time with his dad, alone. I get that. His uncle is meeting them with a boat trailer at the final marina so they can drive back up to Illinois in time for James to start school. My grandparents from North Carolina are doing the same for us.

We’ll say good-bye there. Or we’ll say, “See you later,” because that’s all I can possibly bear to say to James. How do you say goodbye to someone who helped you put the broken pieces of your life back together? You don’t.

“Clem, will you juice this lemon?” asks Mom. She’s chopping up garlic on the yellow plastic cutting board.

“Sure.” I grab the citrus squeezy thing from the galley drawer. “What are we making?”

“Chicken salad with fresh cucumber-yogurt dressing,” says Mom. “It’s Jamie Oliver’s recipe.”

“Whoa—you’re making quite a leap from canned beans to the Naked Chef.”

Jamie Oliver is this amazingly cute British guy who has a Food Network show. Amanda and I used to watch it all the time—the Food Network is kind of like meditation, I think. You can zone out and watch the rhythm of the preparations. It’s nice.

“Well, our last dinner on the boat should be special,” says Mom.

“James is coming over!” squeals Olive, clomping down the stairs from the cockpit.

“I know,” I say, pressing the lemon tighter to get more juice. My grin is huge.

Just as the sun starts to go down, I hear the tune to that old song “Dock of the Bay” in a whistle coming from the dock.

I peek out of the cabin and see Mr. Townsend and James walking toward us. Mr. Townsend looks cheerful and bright in his yellow button-down shirt. James’s hair is flaming red against the gray-washed dock and the pale greenish water. It’s blowing slightly in the wind. He’s wearing the blue polo that makes his eyes look like the sky, and his smile is bigger than I’ve ever seen it. My heart flutters.

When they get to the boat, I don’t even care that our parents are right there. I pull him in for a hug as soon as he steps aboard. I bury my head in his shirt and breathe in the smell of the hand-washing detergent he uses. It’s the best scent in the world.

“Hey,” he says softly as he kisses the top of my head.

“I got us something,” I say, and Olive hands up two frosty root beers in glass bottles. We saw them today at the dock deli, and it felt like a sign.

“My favorite,” he says.

When I back away, he takes my hand, and he doesn’t let it go until we get our plates for dinner.

We eat in the cockpit because it’s a cool night and the breeze is perfect—light and steady, a gentle wind. The chicken salad is refreshing and tangy. Olive and I tell Mom that we’re proud of her, and we even get the guys to join in on a round of applause.

“It was a group effort!” shouts Mom above the clapping. Then, she stage-whispers to me, “Does this mean no one wants the
Man, Can, Plan
dinners ever again?”

I nod. “Those are over.”

When Mom brings out fresh strawberries for dessert, Mr. Townsend asks if he can make a toast, and we all raise our drinks.

“I want to thank Olive for her dogged cheer this summer,” he says. My sister beams.

“And Julia, your dinner company and your sailing stories are unparalleled in my extensive experience at sea!”

Mom blushes.

“Clem,” he continues. “I think you stole something from my boat, but I don’t mind.”

I look at him questioningly.

“James’s heart,” he says. I start to redden, but then James reaches over and squeezes my hand.

“And Captain Rob,” he says, raising his glass higher as he turns to my dad. I stealthily take out my phone and snap a photo of the two of them. “Father to father …” Mr. Townsend pauses for a minute and I can see that he’s getting emotional. “Well, I’m grateful,” he says, leaving it at that.

We all clink our drinks together and I think of that phrase, “All is right with the world.”

But in a minute, my world is going to reel.

I’m acutely aware that with each passing second, each shared glance, each touch of James’s hand on mine—we get closer to saying good-bye, or so long, or however you want to put it. My heart feels so whole right now, but I know it’s going to break a little before the night is over.

I’ve got the list I wrote tucked in my back pocket, the list of things I love about James. I added a few:

You take care of your father.

You are as brave as anyone I’ve ever
known.

Your hands make me feel electric.

That last thing made me nervous to write,
ack
, but I want to put it in there anyway, because it’s true.

Our parents are deep in boat stories now, and I know Mom and Dad will miss Mr. Townsend back at home. None of their other close friends sail.

“Want to take a walk?” James whispers low in my ear so no one else hears.

“Yeah,” I say.

I stand up and so does he. Then Olive does too.

“Livy, how about helping me clear the dishes?” asks Mom.

“Is Clem helping?” asks Olive, looking over at me as I head for the dock.

“Nope,” says Mom. “You are.”

I look back at Mom and give her a big smile.

She winks at me and scoots Olive into the cabin with a serving dish.

I take James’s hand.

When we step off the boat, I take a deep breath. I already feel like I want to cry, but James doesn’t let me.

“So, I was thinking about when you ran into me and I had all those bananas,” he says.

“You mean when
you
ran into me?” I ask with a smile.

We walk up toward the end of the dock, where there’s an open slip.

“Semantics,” says James. “Anyway, I was thinking about all these things—like that you were wearing a white tank top and had a bathing suit on underneath, which is how I knew you were a real boat girl, and that your upper lip is shaped like the top half of a heart and your bottom lip is shaped like a canoe, kind of—”

He pauses then, and traces my mouth. As soon as his fingers get close, I shiver with the best kind of chill. And then we’re both leaning in, letting our lips part as we fall into each other. His hands move to my sides, underneath my soft cotton tank, and he strokes my bare skin as I pull him closer. Shifting his hands up along my back, he playfully pulls on my bikini top strings. I take in a sharp breath, wishing we were below deck in his room.

When we finally stop to breathe, I smile. “You noticed all that in that dock deli?”

“I noticed it all in lightning time,” says James. “My mind works really fast.”

“Yeah, I know that about you,” I say, laughing.

We sit down on the bench and James keeps talking. Surprise.

“And later when I was drawing you and I noticed—” he starts.

“That I was sad,” I finish.

“Huh?” asks James.

“You noticed that I was sad.”

“Oh, that, yeah, well, I noticed that in the first instant, too—at the store,” he says. “It was your eyes.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, looking up at him.

He shrugs. “They were just far away,” he says. “The first few times I met you, you weren’t here. You were somewhere else.”

I nod, thinking about how much time I spent during the early part of this boat trip going over every detail of what had happened with Ethan and Amanda. I thought about it so much that I didn’t even see the summer happening around me.