heroin would be debilitating, but he was completely fine. His balance was perfect, he wasn’t seasick at all. Maybe she should have gotten high with him. She would try anything at this point to calm her stomach and her fears. Luc kept the lit cigarette in his mouth as he scrambled along the side deck to the main mast—as if he’d done it a thousand times. But then he and Joren didn’t appear to know what to do. She saw them talking and the sail kept flapping and the boat kept slamming against the waves.
“Oh Lordy.” Nathan looked out at the sea. “Wind’s probably at twenty-five knots. Blow!” He shouted at the clouds. “Blow me down!” He scampered over the deck to Luc and Joren.
She couldn’t hear what he was telling them, but she saw them nodding in reply. They folded part of the sail down and looped a line through a hole and around the boom. The wind caught the tightened sail and the boat heeled over so far Fiona was afraid it would tip. She almost screamed, but Joren turned a crank—the winch—and the boat held steady and moved more smoothly through the water. Joren and Luc stayed out by the mast, sitting on the deck with their feet over the high edge. They looped their arms over the steel cable—the lifeline—that circled the boat.
Nathan scrambled back and motioned for her and Doug to come out of the cockpit and climb up beside him, on the high side. “This is the windward side! Like this!” He had to shout to be heard even though he was right beside them. He shifted his weight and straightened his legs while leaning against the boat. If the boat had been flat he would have been parallel to the water. Doug couldn’t quite get his balance and Fiona worried he’d fall overboard backwards. She straightened out, doing it—hiking out—just fine, but the strain made her sicker. She closed her eyes, but that was worse.
Nathan leaned close and spoke in her ear. “I should have sailed alone. I’ve always been alone. That’s what I was made for. Solo sail. The real test of a man.”
She turned toward him, close enough for them to kiss. “Wouldn’t you be lonely?”
He tapped his head. “’That man is happiest who thinks the most interesting thoughts.’ William Lyon Phelps. I was a fool to bring all of you along on this, my voyage of the soul.”
She wanted to ask him what he meant, but it was too hard to talk and his breath was rank. The boat flew over the water, but it straightened out and they could return to the cockpit. Fiona relaxed for a moment. Then the boat crashed over a big wave and the spray filled her open mouth and that was all it took. Her stomach lurched. She turned just in time and vomited over the side.
“Egg and bacon sandwich overboard!” Nathan cock-a-doodled like a rooster.
She curled up on the bench and pulled her knees close. Doug patted her back. Unlike the stomach flu, she didn’t feel any better after heaving. She came up as green as she was before. Now there were real tears on her cheeks. She looked again at the empty sea all around them. Nothing in any direction. She craved that moment on a long car trip after driving for many miles when she pulled into a gas station and turned off the car. The wonderful thick silence, everything perfectly at rest. But there were no gas stations at sea. No place to pull over and fix a flat or get a greasy grilled cheese. That would be a business, she thought; ocean islands like rest stops on the freeway, the Howard Johnsons of the deep. The boat lifted and fell hard. She looked up at Nathan. Turn back, she begged him silently. Turn back and drop me off. You were right, she thought. I shouldn’t have come. He could be right forever if he would just take her back to shore. He knew what she was asking, she could see it on his face, but he slid his gaze away, out to the east where the clouds were black and swollen and coming toward them.
“What are we going to do?” she asked.
“Enjoy it!”
Doug retreated to the other side as Luc sat down beside her. “Popeye the sailor man.” He sang into her ear. “Yak yak yak.”
She could barely smile.
“Tell me about pirates.” Luc turned to Nathan. “Did they really make people walk the plank? Cat o’ nine tails? Keelhauling?” He gave her a squeeze. “Isn’t it bad luck to have a woman on board?”
“I am bad luck,” Fiona said. “Look at the weather. Take me back to shore, drop me off and you’ll have blue skies.”
Luc laughed as if she were joking.
Nathan ignored her. “It’s just common sense. Think of sailors at sea for months at a time. A woman on board would drive them completely mad.” Of course he had a quote. “On land, it’s women and rum. At sea, it’s brandy and bum.”
Luc laughed again.
“A woman can drive a man mad even if they’ve been at sea for less than one day. Completely out of his mind.” Nathan looked at Fiona and then toward Doug.
She started to protest, but turned and threw up again. Luc pushed the damp strands of hair off her cheek.
“It’s going to be a long afternoon,” Nathan said to her. “Go to your bunk. Sleep will help.”
Gratefully, she went to the hatch. She slipped on the first rung of the ladder, but caught herself. She looked at Luc and he grinned. He blew her a kiss. She pretended to catch it and swallow it—an old joke of theirs. It was only the first day. It would all be fine. It would. It would. In the meantime, she’d lose some weight. She smiled at him. That wasn’t a bad thing.
She continued down the ladder into the main cabin and lay down on the bench. She didn’t bother to fold the table and make the bed, but simply pulled a pillow from the cabinet—locker—underneath and buried her nose in it. She smelled Luc instead of salt water and diesel fumes. Nathan was right: it was better lying down.
Joren clattered down the ladder and went into his cabin for something. When he came out, he stopped by her bunk. “Look there. It will be calmer now. The farther we get from the land, the better. Wind is…” He struggled for the English word. “…Stirred around, crazy, from the land.”
She sort of smiled and he went back up the ladder. The boat did seem straighter in the water. She could hear Luc laughing. The wind moaned through the sails, the lines screeched against the winches, and the waves banged against the hull. She had not expected sailing to be so loud. She had imagined it more like the Greyhound bus ride from Manhattan to Newport. Quiet, temperature controlled. On the bus she and Luc had chatted and giggled and eaten the turkey sandwiches Lola had sent. They almost made love in the tiny bathroom, but the smell was disgusting, diesel fumes blended with a tincture of shit, and she had pushed him away. Luc had slept against her shoulder while she stared out the window and whispered each thing she saw. House. Girl. Tree. Fence. Black car. White car. Truck. She had made a song of it, no idea then that those simple things on solid earth would be so special three days later. She could sing it now, lying in the bunk, trying to think of anything other than her sick stomach. House. Girl. Tree. Fence. Black car. White car. Truck. And then they’d been almost to Newport. The road became busier, too many things out the window for her to name. Gray shingled houses with upstairs dormers. Low cinderblock buildings that sold auto parts and aluminum siding. A used car dealership. Forgotten, drooping Halloween decorations. The trees had mostly lost their leaves and children played outside in cheap shiny jackets. There’d been a ratty little dog peeing on the sidewalk and an old woman in purple pants holding his leash. It looked like her home in Delaware until the bus had turned a corner onto America’s Cup Way and everything was shiny clean and brilliant. As if they’d entered Oz and left the black and white land of reality behind. There were white mansions in the distance with green lawns rolling down to the dark brown bluff. There was the magnificent ocean, a deep ultramarine
