Wednesday
Garbo greets them with a chorus of enthusiastic barks that Frankie doesn’t take for a compliment; she’s carrying half of the succulent-smelling take-out dishes Gabe bought them at the market when she follows him onto the boat and down into the cabin. He’s also picked them up a bottle of red. Frankie frees it from its brown paper wrapping and admires the label before she hands it to Gabe to open. The neighboring boat is hosting a large and loud party, so Gabe suggests they eat in the cabin; Frankie’s more than happy for the privacy.
While he disappears down the narrow corridor to change, she searches the cluttered shelves above the dinette, casually snooping. Marine catalogs and bills, a tin of business cards. She thumbs through the collection and sets it back.
“So what big premiere party are you missing tonight to slum it with me?”
She grins, flipping through a pocket guide to marine knots. “Louise mentioned something about Steven Spielberg and an infinity pool…”
When Gabe returns, he’s traded his work pants for shorts and a collared polo. Not a paint stain in sight. Pleasure swells from a deep place; she smiles with it.
“Finding anything good?” he asks.
“No, unfortunately,” she says as she tucks the guide back into the shelf. “No room on boats for skeletons, apparently.”
“I can store a few in the bilge but it tends to flood.”
They slide into opposite sides of the narrow dinette booth, the heavy fragrance of garlic and ginger from the opened containers already filling the cabin. The evening light has shifted, coating everything with the glittery peach of dusk. While he slices the seal off the neck of the wine bottle, Frankie admires the way the glow rides along his jaw. All day, in expectation of their date—because this is, unquestionably, a date—she felt the prickles of uncertainty, the possibility that their kiss under the pier, the way his heavy gaze tears through her like a fever, was all because of wine or sea air. But here with him again, there’s no convincing herself that what she feels isn’t craving—the tremors of attraction.
Even the way he drives the corkscrew into the wine turns her on.
She smiles. “So how long’s the waiting list for this seat?”
“In inches or centimeters?” He eyes her as he tugs out the cork. “Turns out most women prefer to eat on land.” He fills two glasses and hands her one, tapping it in a toast with his.
“I think eating on a boat is romantic.” She swirls her glass. “But then I have a strong stomach.”
He squints playfully at her. “Is that a reference to the boat, or the captain?”
She smiles into a sip of wine and sits back, grateful for the cool wood against her bare arms. “I thought women loved men with boats.”
“You must be thinking of men with motorcycles and guitars.”
“Boats aren’t loud enough, I guess.”
“Luckily I don’t mind the quiet.” Gabe moves his hand toward his wineglass, absently sliding the stem between his index and middle finger.
She tears her eyes away, quivers of want firing in her stomach.
“You live on a boat with a dog,” she says. “I would think that’s a prerequisite.”
He grins. “It’s not as hard a life as it seems.”
“I don’t think it seems hard at all,” she says. “Never having to really put down roots, having things your way all the time? Seems incredibly easy to me.”
Gabe’s lips rise higher then slow, as if he’s not sure whether to be amused or insulted. He empties a pair of chopsticks from their sleeve, snaps them apart, and plunges them into the nest of noodles.
“You’re not attached either,” he says, serving her a large tangle, then another for himself.
“Only because I haven’t found the right person, not because I prefer to be alone.”
“And what makes you think I do?”
“Like I said…” She clamps her chopsticks around a shrimp. “You live on a boat.”
He reaches down for the wine and raises the bottle questioningly. Frankie nods, savoring the rising pool of deep plum as he pours.
There’s a faint tinkling of metal. Garbo has arrived, tail spinning.
Frankie reaches down to pat her, pleased when the animal leans into her hand.
Gabe returns the bottle to the floor. “She likes you.”
“I think we’re getting used to each other,” she says, seeing the flash of suggestion when she meets Gabe’s dark eyes, sure he’s caught her double meaning and maybe even agrees. His knee leans against hers, the weight of him insistent and suggestive.
“So have you decided what to do about your store?”
She bristles reflexively at the pronoun. “Not yet.” Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic” rises in the quiet. “I have to admit I’ve enjoyed this break.”
“It can’t be easy work.”
She smiles. “It’s not work at all. For the right customer, I don’t have to convince them. Their connection to that movie—that memory of seeing it—is so strong, they can’t not have that piece of memorabilia. They touch that costume or that prop and every joy and hope that movie let them feel all those years ago comes back to them.” She points her chopsticks behind him to the wall. “You obviously feel deeply enough for the memory of that carving to not replace it.”
“That’s because it’s a real memory,” he says. “Movies aren’t real.”
“No. But they can still be part of our memories.” She watches him sink his chopsticks into his noodles, his lips slanted in a skeptical smile. “There must be one movie you remember losing yourself in.”
“Can’t think of one,” he says, too quickly to have possibly tried.
She sets down her chopsticks and leans close. “You’re telling me you can’t think of one movie you saw that you remember fondly?”
He twists another knot of noodles and shoves them into his mouth, chewing vigorously for several moments while he thinks.
“Okay,” he says. “Maybe there was one.”
She picks up her wine and sits back.
He sets down his chopsticks and picks up his glass. “One night my dad says we’re going out, the three of us, but he doesn’t say where. We pile into the car. My mom’s decked out, because she thinks we must be going out to some fancy dinner…” He swirls his wine absently. “He pulls into this dumpy drive-in. SUPERMAN, ONE NIGHT ONLY, on the marquee. You should have seen her face. It’s not even dark and we’re the only car in the lot. He gets out, says he’ll be right back. I’m in the backseat, and I’m sure she’s going to start crying, or they’re going to start fighting…” A small, wistful smile begins to tease one side of his mouth. “Then my dad comes back with a huge bucket of popcorn, and this little bottle of champagne.” His gaze, still soft with the memory, drops to his wine. “I got between them in the front seat and we watched that movie and ate all that stale popcorn…” He rolls the stem between his fingers, studying his glass in the silence before he lifts his gaze to find hers. “That was a pretty good night.” The pressure of his thigh against hers intensifies. “But this one might just top it.”
Frankie raises her bare foot and rides her toes up his leg. He reaches under the table, taking her foot in both of his hands and rubbing his thumbs into her arch, sending her sinking against the bench with the pleasure of it. She closes her eyes and tips her head back, even as doubt flickers. It’s been four days. This isn’t some movie. People don’t connect this quickly in real life …
Opening her eyes, she considers him as he continues to work, her breath quickening.
“This is crazy, isn’t it?” she whispers. “It’s too fast.”
He grins suggestively. “I can go slower.”
She tilts her head in playful admonishment and smiles. “You know what I mean.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” He shrugs easily, but his eyes are heavy. His massage deepens. “Still hungry?”
She slips her foot free from his hands and rests it on his chair, easing her big toe forward until she finds the ridge of his zipper, and the hard heat of him underneath.
Her gaze sinks to his mouth. “Starving.”
Sometime after midnight the sound of Garbo shuffling around the darkened cabin wakes her. Slipping from bed for a glass of water, Frankie pads into the galley and sees her purse dangling from the row of hooks beside the hatch. Thinking she should check her phone, she reaches inside and her fingers graze a sheet of plastic. Pulling out the letters, she appraises them fondly in the faint blue glow from the marina lights, her heart thundering. It’s not an easy decision, she thinks as she scans the small space; every surface—and there are few to begin with—is littered. Even the dinette, where they’d paused their feast to make love then returned even more ravenous an hour later, was quickly reinstated as a makeshift desk as soon as they’d cleared their dishes. So when her eyes fall on the softly swinging tier of mesh baskets beside the galley, she doesn’t hesitate. A trio of apples makes a perfect stand when she props the envelopes up, considering them a moment before turning back to the berth, her gaze drawn to the same view of the bed corner as her first time below, only now Gabe’s bare leg juts out from the tangled sheet.
Passing Garbo on the settee, she rubs the dog’s head, careful not to wake her, or Gabe, when she slides back under the salt-dampened sheet and burrows deep, folding herself inside the warm curve of his chest, letting the heat of his skin and the lapping of the water against the hull pull her under to sleep again.