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The next day in the car, Audrey wouldn’t give the texts a rest.
AUDREY: Come on. Have you kissed him yet?
AUDREY: Just give us SOME kind of update, jeesh.
AUDREY: Christine says she’s going nuts and just needs to know when the wedding is, so she can plan out the cake.
AUDREY: MOM!
But Lola refused to give her any answer except:
LOLA: I’m having a good time and looking forward to writing the story. He’s a fascinating human being. Thanks for asking!
At this, Audrey sent her an exasperated-emoji and stopped her rampant texting, at least for the time being.
They drove through the rest of North Carolina, dipped into South Carolina, then entered Georgia close to Savannah, a place Lola had always wanted to visit due to its incredible history of art. As they skidded through the rest of Georgia, Lola’s stomach clenched with excitement. When they hit Florida, she felt she could hardly stand it.
Tommy told her he had planned for the sailing trek to take between four and five days. “I’ve never known a woman so up for not having a proper shower for that long,” he told her.
“I’ve never met a man so game for hanging around a smelly lady for that long,” Lola returned with a smile.
“How do you plan to write as we go along?” Tommy asked. “Notebook? Computer?”
“I have both with me,” Lola admitted. “But any time you need my help, I’ll put everything away.”
“I trust you,” he said. “I don’t know why. But I do.”
When they reached Key Largo, it was eight-forty-five. The sun had already set, but the beaches swelled with tourists, with partiers, and music. They parked the rental in a lot near a beach-side restaurant and padded across the sand. Lola’s fingers fluttered against Tommy’s, but she quickly pulled her hand away.
“I’m starving,” Tommy admitted, as the host sat them at a table near the water. He gazed out across the waves as the moonlight illuminated his handsome face.
“Me too,” Lola said, remembering a few moments too late that she hadn’t answered yet.
The server came to take their order. Lola ordered swordfish, Tommy salmon. They decided to share some garlic bread to start. Lola also ordered a glass of white wine, which pushed Tommy to add a beer. This was the sort of thing people on dates did; they indulged and drank. They spoke about their lives.
Still, Lola felt it too difficult to press Tommy for more details about Stan Ellis, about her mother. That photograph Susan had found upstairs remained in between pages of her notebook. She had no idea when she would feel ready to bring it out.
After eating heartily, Lola and Tommy checked in to a nearby hotel and agreed to meet the following morning around eight-thirty to return the car to the rental company and prep the boat. On the drive, they had made a list of groceries and other supplies, which Lola said she would purchase while Tommy finished with the boat. She would show the receipt to Tommy later, and he would reimburse her for half.
At the store the following morning, she loaded her cart with fruits, cereal, nuts and seeds, beef jerky, fixings for sandwiches, a few sweet treats, and even a few bottles of wine, just in case the air and water became calm and they wanted to relax and watch the sunset. Have deep, soul-searching conversations. Fall in love—that kind of thing.
Shut up, Lola, she said to herself.
At check-out, the woman behind her seemed like she was preparing for the same kind of trip.
“Which way are you sailing?” the woman asked her.
“Up to Martha’s Vineyard,” Lola affirmed.
“Wow! Four days? Five?”
“Something like that,” Lola said. “He’s the sailor. I’m just along for the ride.”
“You’re going to love every minute of it,” the woman said. “The first time my husband took me on-board, I thought I was going to throw up, I was so nervous. Now, we try to take major trips like that four or five times a year. It’ll change your life.”
Lola grinned, conscious that she had totally left out the fact that Tommy wasn’t anything to her but a story idea. She loved living in this fiction.
Tommy stood as a confident and powerful sailor at the edge of the boat, watching as Lola approached with several bags of groceries. He beamed at her, then cut down from the boat to help her on.
“How did it go?” he asked.
“Good, I think. I got everything on the list, including sunscreen. You forgot to add sunscreen,” she told him.
“Ah! That is such a necessity. You’re right,” he told her. “We would have fried.”
Tommy was a professional. You could feel it in everything he did on-board, the way he handled the sails and whipped them out of the harbor. Lola turned quickly to watch the gorgeous white sands of Key Largo fade into the distance. Droplets from the Atlantic shot past her cheeks. The sun, the air, the wind, it was all different than the far south—foreign, almost nothing like the summer sun at Martha’s Vineyard.
“Wahoo!” Tommy cried.
For the first hour, Lola felt as young and alive as a teenage girl. She stood at the edge of the boat in bare feet, gripping one of the rods and gazing into the impossible blue below. She felt Tommy’s eyes on her, watching her legs, her movements. He kept the sails broad, taut, and he played music from a little speaker that he’d tied to one of the rods on the opposite side. They surged across the Atlantic, making good time. Around them, Lola could see no other boats. There was no way to prove that any other human on the planet existed besides her and Tommy.
“Have you seen many sharks?” Lola asked, perching at the edge of the boat and grabbing a bag of trail mix.
“Of course,” Tommy affirmed. “They are such large, powerful creatures. Those large hungry black eyes...”
“I guess that’s a funny last thought as they eat you,” Lola said. “What a hungry beast!”
“Ha. Be careful with all that teasing. If we encounter any sharks, and it’s between you or me, you know I’ll feed you to them,” Tommy’s voice trailed over her.
“Just let me send off the article first, so that I can be remembered,” Lola said.
Lola decided that it was high time she sat down with her notebook to jot down some ideas for the article, especially since she was so mesmerized with the first few hours of the process. Plus, she wanted to remember the drive, Key Largo, all of it—if not for the article, for herself.
I’ve never seen a man so comfortable with a boat. The sailboat seems almost like an extension of Tommy Gasbarro’s body, as though he was born with more than just skeleton and muscle. He sweeps across this beast of a sailboat, whistling, seeming to know and understand every single crash in the wave and tilt of the wind.
For this reason, I find it even more incredible that he crashed his boat during the Round-the-Island Race. When he brought it up more recently, he said, “I can’t believe I misjudged that gust of wind. It hasn’t happened to me like that in a really long time. A rookie mistake if I’ve ever seen one.” You can tell the shame will live with him for a long time.
I sailed a long time ago with my father, mother, Susan, and Christine. I must have been eight or nine, which means, Christine was around eleven or twelve and Susan was fourteen or fifteen. Mom and Dad, of course, got into some kind of fight on-board, with Mom declaring that Dad wasn’t a fit sailor. I didn’t know, at the time, that Mom was looking for any reason to belittle Dad.
Tommy plopped down beside Lola and tried to steal a glance at her journal, but Lola placed a hand over her writing and said, “Hey! Mind your own business.”
“Are you writing all about me? I’m doing my best to perform for you,” Tommy said, his grin growing wider.
“Not everything is about you.”
“This article is.”
“Fair enough,” Lola said. She nodded toward the western horizon, where a sunset had begun to brew. “Looks like we’re going to have a beautiful one tonight.”
“That’s the thing about being out in open water,” Tommy said. “No matter where you are, you get a good sunset. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the east coast or the west.”
Lola snuck into her bag to grab a bottle of wine.
“What do you have there?” Tommy asked.
“I think we have reason to celebrate, don’t you?”
Lola found two glasses of wine in the kitchenette and poured them hefty portions. When Tommy had his in-hand, they clinked glasses and, for a moment, gazed into one another’s eyes. After they sipped, there was a strange silence, the kind Lola might have filled with a kiss if it had been any other guy.
“Have you ever slept on a boat overnight before?” Tommy asked her.
Lola shook her head. “No. This will be my first time.”
“You’ll never sleep better in all your life. It’s like being in a cradle as a baby. That is unless the waves get too frantic.”
“I guess that would make it a little more like a rickety carnival ride,” Lola said, trying to envision her own analogy.
“Something like that, yeah,” Tommy said.
Lola prepared them sandwiches for a pre-sleep treat. Both admitted they were exhausted. After eating, Lola excused herself to the private area on the other side of the boat to change into an old t-shirt and a pair of shorts to sleep in. She washed her face and then collapsed in one of the two beds, which were located next to the kitchenette, beneath an overhang. Just before she drifted off, her phone got a smidge of data and an email came through from Colin.
Hey! No idea if you can receive this out there on the open seas. I just wanted to check in and wish you luck. I know the article is going to be great. See you when you’re back on land.
Lola turned to look at Tommy, who remained out in the darkness. He had removed his shirt, and the moonlight enhanced his washboard abs. He gazed out across the waters. Despite her otherwise unmatched creativity, Lola could hardly imagine what his thoughts might be. He was sometimes a total mystery to her. She was coming to really love that about him.