November 28
www.The-Art-Of-My-Life.blogspot.com
Aly sputtered and caught her breath. Terror and icy water soaked through her clothing to her skin and deeper.
She twisted back to look at the Escape. The boat, maybe a quarter-mile away seemed to move further by the second. Cal had said something about the speed and direction of the Gulf Stream, but she hadn’t been paying close attention.
Cal was probably asleep below. It could be hours before he woke up and realized she was missing. It would be impossible for him to find her by then. How far would the boat sail unmanned?
Best possible scenario—Cal was awake, but stoned. And that was better how?
Fear clawed at the back of her neck. She peered into the turquoise water. No sandy bottom, no coral reef, just fathomless depth. Shadows slithered through the water and she jerked her head up. Shark? Barracuda , plane or boat wreckage in the Bermuda Triangle?
“God, help!”
A salty wavelet slapped her in the face as she treaded water. This was the first time she hadn’t worn her personal flotation device, the first time hyper safety conscious Cal hadn’t noticed when she’d gone without it. She’d hated Cal’s insisting she wear the PFD at all times under sail. It made her feel like Pooh Bear. But, Cal’s vigilance might have saved her life.
Maybe if he hadn’t been stoned, he would have spotted her safety infraction. She rolled onto her back to float. No, she knew she was supposed to wear the PFD. She wouldn’t blame Cal.
Instead of drowning, maybe she’d be mauled to death. Maybe die of thirst. She squinted east trying to see land, but only the unforgiving Atlantic rolled out before her.
If she’d just let the stupid hat blow overboard she’d still be safe. Lost at sea, her obituary would say in the Hometown News. They’d run it with her college graduation picture. She could see people filling the church for her funeral—her niece and nephew, Mom. Kallie would be crying. Her father, who had never thought her important enough to visit when she was alive, would come for the funeral, his trophy wife on his arm, maybe their kids. Cal. Cal already saw himself as a failure—thanks to Starr. This would ruin him.
Please, God, for Cal’s sake, save my life.
Cal downed a cup of coffee and headed up the companionway with his sleeping bag and pillow under one arm, Van Gogh under the other. Even pissed at Aly, beyond exhausted, and a little fuzzy brained from the couple of tokes of weed he’d managed to suck in, he couldn’t leave Aly topside alone. She was frightened. He could sleep in the cockpit like they had on the trip out. It wouldn’t kill him.
Through the open hatch he saw Aly dive after her hat, then disappear.
Oh, God, no!
He scrambled into the cockpit and dropped the dog and the bedding. Van Gogh woofed and found his footing.
Aly’s head popped out of the water. The Gulf Stream whisked her North while the Escape continued on its Western course.
He jerked the boat into the wind and leaped onto the cabin. His hands shook as he fumbled to loose the line from its cleat on the base of the mast, one eye on Aly’s pale head. Finally, the sail rushed down at him. He jumped into the cockpit and wrenched the engine key. A bass drum banged against his ribs as he listened for the motor to turn over.
Yes. The engine was worth every penny he’d spent on it.
Where was Aly? He’d lost sight of her—breaking the first rule in a man-overboard situation. He reached inside the cabin for the binoculars.
God, where is she?
He wheeled the boat toward the spot he’d last seen Aly. His gaze scanned the ocean looking for the orange of her PFD. He took another scan, slower this time, panic rising in his stomach.
A replay of his exit from the cockpit flashed through his head—his shoulder bumping Aly’s. She hadn’t been wearing a PFD.
Icy fear ran through his veins, cocktailing with adrenaline. Aly could swim, but he didn’t know how much stamina she had. And he doubted she knew to disrobe, tie knots in her clothes, and blow them up to create makeshift floats.
He pressed the binoculars against his face so hard the bones ached. Words poured out of his mouth, incoherent at first, till he listened to what he was saying. “God, keep her safe. Safe. Safe. Give me a clear head to think so I can find her. I never should have smoked weed and endangered Aly. It’s my fault. You should have tossed me overboard, not her. But I’m all she’s got. If I don’t rescue her, there’s nobody else.”
He didn’t realize he was crying until his tears fogged the binocular lenses. He dried the lenses with his sweatshirt as quickly as he could, swiped an arm across his eyes.
He hated people who bargained with God at times like this, but he couldn’t help it. “I don’t care—whatever You want, name it. Just show me where the hell Aly is.”
A picture of God’s palm cradling Aly, keeping her afloat, protecting her on every side illumined the screen of his mind—like a prayer God put in his head to steady him.
He filled his lungs, released the air, then methodically retraced every quadrant of water east of the boat where he’d spotted Aly earlier. His eyes scanned for the slightest nuance of variation of color. This was his strength. Color. If anyone could spot Aly, he could.
Aly’s teeth chattered. She didn’t know whether to swim to keep warm or float to conserve energy. One sneaker slipped free, and she kicked off the other one. She felt lighter without their weight tugging her down.
Peace settled over her, her body feeling strangely numb. The terror leeched out of her mind, too. She should still be frightened. Her situation hadn’t improved. She was tempted to crane her head around to look at the Escape, but she didn’t want to do anything to disturb the weird stillness she felt now—as though she floated in the condo pool with all the time in the world to assess her life.
She didn’t acknowledge it until this minute, but she’d accomplished one of her life goals. She owned her own business, two if you counted The-Art-Of-My-Life.blogspot.com—which right now brought in more money than charter sailing. Not too bad for twenty three years old. And she and the bank owned her condo.
She did a slow breaststroke, a compromise between floating and swimming.
A more elusive goal was to succeed in her love life. Going celibate had been a positive step. She felt better about herself than she had in a long time. Cal had helped her understand that God forgave her. Which might be contributing to her sense of peace at the moment. She might be meeting Him in the near future.
Or it could be hypothermia and the mental confusion hadn’t set in yet.
Her one regret was never gathering the courage to trust Cal. He was imperfect—addicted to weed for starters—but she’d probably loved him since she was fifteen if she were honest with herself.
It wasn’t like her life was in perfect order. She had herpes—something only death would resolve. And mega daddy issues.
If she didn’t die, she’d live differently. She’d trust Cal. She’d love him if he’d let her.
A cloud moved and sun warmed her cheek. Her gaze drifted to the Escape’s mainsail. What she saw took a second to register in her brain.
There, a speck lighter than the ocean, illumined by the sun freshly unveiled from cloud cover. He steered the boat in that direction, not taking his eyes off the color variation. It could be seaweed, driftwood, a dead fish.
He clamped down on his breath, adjusted the Escape’s bearing, and opened up the throttle.
Aly came into focus through the lenses of the field glasses.
She waved her arms.
His breath whooshed out. His knees felt like someone kicked them from behind, and his body shook.
Hang on, Al. Just hang on. He set the binoculars on the bench. Keep her safe. Just a few more minutes.
He came alongside Aly and killed the engine. Van Gogh leapt from the deck and crashed into the water beside Aly as if he wanted to rescue her himself. He swam circles around Aly as she paddled for the transom ladder.
Cal fought the weight of her sodden jeans and sweatshirt and hauled her onboard. He crouched over her where she landed on the deck and crushed her against his chest. “Thank God you’re safe.” Inside he felt the wonder, the reality of the words he’d spoken.
His heart hammered against her reed-like body, and her teeth chattered near his ear.
Van Gogh’s distressed yips sounded from the base of the ladder.
He released Aly, scooped up the flailing dog and deposited him on the deck.
Shivering, Aly kicked off the sock she hadn’t lost in the ocean and twisted seawater out of the front of her sweatshirt.
Cal clamped a hand to her armpit and hustled her through the spray of water droplets flinging from Van Gogh’s coat, down the companionway, and wrenched on the shower. “You need a warm shower. I’ll keep the engine running to keep the water hot until you’re done.”
He stripped Aly’s sodden hoodie and T-shirt over her head.
She fumbled with the button on her jeans with shaking fingers.
“Here, I’ll do it.” He unbuttoned her jeans, pulled the zipper down, slid them over the gooseflesh of her hips, and helped her peel off the soggy denim.
He couldn’t pull his eyes away from the pale curves, the blue slips of material painted to the minutest ridges and crevices of her body, He looked out the porthole. “Do you need more help?” His breath held.
“Sail while we’ve got daylight.” She rubbed her arms waiting for him to leave.
“I’m so sorry I left you topside alone.”
“Get out of here. I’m freezing.”
Cal flicked his eyes over her body one last time, memorizing the peaks and valleys of her ribs and hip bones, the cerulean shade of material melded to small, taut breasts, the sweep of leg she bent to keep his eyes from feasting on the rest of her. He stepped out and shut the door.
The chill of his wet sweatshirt seeped through to his skin—along with the knowledge he’d just seen more of Aly than ever before. He’d marry her, touch all that beauty, make love to her. His fingers flexed at his sides.
The next thought that whiplashed through his head was the meeting with his probation officer he’d missed the day after Thanksgiving. Not that he would have gone with weed in his system and tested dirty.
He tore off the damp shirt, balled it, and fired it across the cabin.
Twenty minutes later Aly emerged from the companionway in a pair of his sweats and one of his hoodies.
At the sight of her, gratitude crashed over him, washing away his own mess. Aly was alive. That was all that mattered. His problems weren’t life and death.
He killed the motor and cleated the sheet. “Come here.” He folded her against him and hung on, his cheek mashed to hers. “Thank God you’re safe. I’m not letting you out of my sight until we reach land.”
Aly turned and nestled under his arm. “It was stupid for me to chase my hat.”
He pulled her tighter against his side, not wanting to break contact with her for a long time. “It was an accident.”
“I thought I was going to freeze to death.”
“You were in the Gulf Stream. The coldest the water could’ve been is seventy-two.”
Aly frowned. “Well, I don’t get into the pool till the water’s ninety. How do you know all this stuff?”
Cal shrugged. “I know trivia, just not what’s important.”
The day spun out under a colorless winter sun, their argument buried under the joy and relief of Aly’s rescue. They took turns sailing and napping. At last, West Palm Beach, backlit by the sunset, poked from the horizon.
Cal dropped anchor with only enough energy left to murmur, “Good night,” to a bleary-eyed Aly as she headed to the fore bunk.
He shut the door to the master suite, stripped down, and fell into his bunk expecting the sweet blackness of sleep to swallow him whole.
Instead, the thin cerulean of Aly’s bra and panties burned against the insides of his eyelids. He groaned and rolled over, burying his head in his pillow.
Aly let her shoulders slump. Finally, they were safely tied up in their slip at the marina. She glanced at Cal who coiled line across the cockpit from her. Since she’d gone overboard, Cal had barely let go of her, except to sleep. It must have really shaken him. But he hadn’t even tried to kiss her. And he’d seen her nearly naked. Equal parts wanting Cal to desire her and wanting to retreat to protecting her heart tug-of-warred inside her.
She’d been right—the whole herpes thing grossed him out.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket. Thankfully, it had been stowed below deck during the trip. She glanced at the unfamiliar number. “Hello.”
“Aly?” The voice was foreign and familiar at the same time.
“Yes.”
“It’s your father.”
She froze, her mouth half open. She felt the blood drain from her face. “H-hi, Dad.”
Cal’s head jerked up. He dropped the line and stepped behind her. She felt the gentle grip of his hands steadying her shoulders.
“You spent the money?” Her father’s voice went granite hard.
“I’m starting a business with a friend.” Her voice sounded strangled in her own ears.
“I got your e-mail at my office. So, this is what you do with my hard-earned money? Sink it into a boat? Are you crazy? In this economy, you’d have to be a moron to start a cruising business. Do you even read the business pages? At least your sister had the sense to invest my money in a house.”
“I own a con—”
“If you have a brain in your head you’ll cut your losses and get out. That’s all I have to say.” The phone went dead in her ear.
She turned into Cal’s chest, tears she hadn’t realized she cried dripped onto his sweatshirt. “He said—”
“I heard the whole thing.”
“The last time I spoke to him I was seven years old. Seven. Now he rants at me.” She sunk to the cockpit bench. “What have I done? What was I thinking sending him that e-mail advertisement about the business? Now I’ve ruined everything. He hates me.”
“He’s pissed. He doesn’t hate you. He’s pissed because your mom took him to court and got the child support money you deserved.”
“What am I going to do?”
“This is not your fault. Your parents’ divorce is not your fault. Your father’s non-communication all these years is not your fault.” Cal waited for her to meet his gaze. “It’s his loss. You are beautiful, intelligent, worth knowing and loving.” He cupped her face in his hands, kissed her cheek and wrapped her in his arms.
She hugged him back. The words poured balm onto her wounded spirit.
“It says in the Bible that God is a father to the fatherless.”
The words rumbled in his chest against her ear. Words that helped.
She sniffled and tried to back away, but Cal held her fast, his embrace catching her into a deeper comfort.
Cal sent Aly home after her dad’s call and told her to take a couple of days comp time off to rest. He replenished his weed supply at Henna’s and returned to the Escape to take his own brand of comp time. He’d smoked yesterday. One more day wouldn’t make any difference. He’d go in to his probation officer thirty days from now, say he forgot, didn’t have phone service on the water, something. He doubted he’d get picked up for missing one meeting.
The good doctor’s words paraded through his head like ugly Día de los Muertos skulls in crazy hats and dead flowers.
In this economy, you’d have to be a moron to start a cruising business.
If you have a brain in your head you’ll cut your losses and get out.
Aly had been blinded by their friendship and made a stupid business decision. The business had done nothing but fail. Aly’s money was as good as gone. Aly should take her dad’s advice and get out.
He should go get a telemarketing job. He lit another joint and inhaled its sweet anesthetic.
The hatch clattered open and he cupped the joint and held it under the table.
Aly climbed down the steps and coughed. She waved her arms through the smoke in the cabin. “This is your answer to making this business go?” She leaned across the table and peered at him. “Your eyes look like charts drawn in red ink.”
Anger marred her face, but the words swirled in the smoky air and deadened before they reached his ears. Cal brought the joint out from under the table and put it to his lips, his eyes never leaving hers. He filled his lungs.
She climbed two steps toward the hatch. “Somebody’s got to figure out a way for us to make money. And it’s obviously not you.” She paused in the companionway. “I’m going to talk to Fish about the feasibility of refitting the Escape for fishing charters.”
Fish? She was going to talk to Fish? Something boiled in his chest eating up the hazy tranquility.
Aly turned back and speared him with her eyes. “The only cash crop we’ve got is your art. But you can’t paint stoned. I bet you haven’t even started the Clancy’s Cantina commission.”
Actually, he’d worked on it daily during the four days between the farmer’s market and Thanksgiving. They’d only returned yesterday from Grand Bahama. But he couldn’t get the words in his head to exit his mouth.
“Weed’s not going to get your picture on People magazine. You could be producing art all day every day we don’t have a charter. When you sober up you might think about sketching every business in town.” She looked at Van Gogh. “I’m taking the dog. It’s got to be pet abuse to make your dog breathe your smoke.”
She boosted Van Gogh up, and he clattered through the hatchway.
“Evie’s looking for you,” Aly muttered before the hatch slammed shut.
I don’t want Evie. I want…. Shit.