A Matter of Time (9 page)

When she got to the end, she chewed the tip of her pen. Then signed it, “
Ciao
,” as a modern Roman might.

He wrote back, with a very funny description of the cruise ship passengers in the White Horse, and said at the end that he’d
like to see Rome someday himself. And signed it, “Yours.”

She wrote back and told him how awful exams were, and how her whole family was coming for graduation, and how Pam was really
putting pressure on her, and her father said he’d give her the trip as a graduation present,
but she really didn’t want to go. She signed it, “
Arrivederci
.”

He wrote and lightly, offhandedly suggested that if the prospect of grand touring bugged her that much, why didn’t she come
to Bermuda, instead? He signed it “Luf”—a jokey substitute for “Love.” Except—was he just joking?

Normally she’d run it past Pam, her best friend and confidant, as well as roommate. But Pam was miffed at her for stalling
re the GT. So she wrote Colin back and lightly, offhandedly said she’d consider Bermuda as an alternative. At the end of the
letter, she practically chewed a hole in her pen. And finally signed it, “with fond remembrance.” Warm but obscure. Wistful
but noncommittal.

She mailed it before she could change her mind.

Twenty minutes later she did change her mind. Good grief! “With fond remembrance” sounded like something on a funeral home
card! But her fond remembrance was already winging its way.

Not having Pam to check things with was a mega-bummer. It was time to make up with her roomie.

But when she told Pam she was thinking of going to Bermuda instead of Europe, her best friend just stared at her. “
Bermuda?
”

“Why not?” Amy shot back. “It was good enough for your parents, wasn’t it?”

Pam looked at her, her eyes widening. “It’s not—that
gleama
, is it?”

No answer.

“It
is!
”

Silence.

“Ames!” Pam shouted at her, “you can’t be hung up on
a guy that looks like he stepped out of a Lands’ End catalogue!”

Amy nodded and threw a rueful smile. “That’s why I’ve got to go back. To see if he’s more than just a
gleama
.”

And so, to Pam’s, and Colin’s—and her own—surprise, she did.

10
  
  
bermuda rules

He met her at the airport, but instead of going straight to the Coral Beach Club, they stopped off at the Swizzle Inn, where
the owner, Jay, was an old friend. On the island, Colin explained, that usually meant that the families were old friends,
someone having married someone way back. But Jay was a regular guy, and he ran the best place west of the White Horse.

Fortunately a table was available on the upper verandah. Colin ordered lunch for them—Fish & Chips and swizzles—and they talked
lightly about the weather and the oppressive humidity that was about to descend, ending the tourist season.

“Is that tough on people like Jay?” she asked.

“Not really. The ones who depend on the tourist trade,” he nodded towards their host, greeting another table of returnees,
“have been busting their humps for the past three months. They’re ready for a break. But after three months of summer, they’ll
be rested up and ready to go again.”

He offered her a shaker bottle of clear liquid, “Here, try this on your chips.”

“On my fries? What is it?”

“Vinegar.”

“
Euw
,” she gasped, wrinkling her nose.

“Brit trick. It works. Try it.”

She did, frowning, and then, tilting her head, she smiled. “Mm, not bad. Know any other Brit tricks?”

“Maybe,” he murmured, flashing her that full Lands’ End smile.

“Are you flirting with me, sailor?”

“Aw, shucks, ma’am; you caught me.”

“Well, don’t,” she said, smiling, too, but half serious. “I’m not sure I’m ready yet.”

“Would you like another swizzle?”

She had to laugh. “Candy’s dandy, but liquor’s quicker?”

“
The Golden Trashery of Ogden Nashery
.”

“You know Ogden Nash?”

He smiled. “My checkered academic career, such as it was—or wasn’t—exposed me to many things. Some of the oddest bits seem
to have lodged in the backeddies of my mind.”

She smiled. “You
are
a man of many layers.”

He stopped smiling. “I’m not sure how to take that. Truth is, I’m actually not that good at playing games—unless, of course,
I’m running the table.”

The waitress came up and asked if they would care for anything else—another swizzle, perhaps?

He raised his eyebrows.

She shook her head.

He shook his head, and the waitress departed.

“If you’re not running the table, who is?”

“I wish I knew,” he said with a shrug, adding, “All I know is, the stack of chips in front of me is small and getting
smaller.” He scrutinized the imaginary stack in front of her. “While yours is tall and getting taller.”

“Thurber?”

“Sort of.” He frowned and looked at her, one eyebrow raised. “Now you wouldn’t be gamin’ a poor sailor, would you, ma’am?”

She raised her hands in mock innocence.

“’Cause if you are—I’m not sure I’m ready yet.”

They laughed. Then laughed again.

“Can we back up a little?” she pleaded.

“No prob. X.O., take her up to periscope depth.” He leaned back. “So, what’ll you do now that you’re done with college?”

She told him how her father was training her to take over the family business, managing several thousand acres of Georgia
pine.

He told her how he’d gotten involved in ocean racing—almost as a lark at first. But it gave an adrenalin rush like nothing
else, so you got hooked on it, real quick. Only the love of a good woman, like
Care Away
, could ever cause you to leave full-time racing.

Her turn. Trying to think of something to say, she noticed a few small, white scars around his knuckles and remembered him
telling her before about his solo voyages across the Atlantic. “The last time you went, the time to the Med—how long did it
take?”

“Thirty-eight days. But I had good westerlies; it can take longer.”

“Thirty-eight days!” She shook her head in wonder. “What was the first thing you saw?”

“My landfall? Gibraltar. Northern Pillar of Heracles.”

“Did you break out champagne?”

“I never drink at sea.”

“Not even a beer?”

He shook his head.

“Why?”

“Too risky. You run your boat right—good seamanship—not much is going to go wrong. But when it does, it happens quickly. You’ve
got to be sharp, make the right decision immediately.”

“Were you ever—frightened?”

“Nope.”

“Not even by a hurricane?”

He thought for a moment. “Well, if I know one’s coming, obviously I’m going to get out of its way.”

“You listen to the radio for warnings?”

“If I have a reason. You build up your intuition out there. Develop a sixth sense. I keep a log. Every two hours I note the
cloud conditions, sea conditions, heading and reckoned speed. And the barometer. If it’s falling fast, and the high cirrus
are beginning to fan out, you better believe I’m going to tune in WWV! At six past the hour, they give the Atlantic warnings.
I also use their time tick to reset my watch, for the sextant.”

She shuddered. “I don’t think I’d like solo sailing.”

“You never know till you do it,” he shrugged. “It’s overcoming the last fear barrier. You find out what you’ll do when your
life depends on the sum of your decisions.” He smiled. “It does anyway, but it’s much more obvious when you’re alone out there.
Or climbing above eight thousand meters. Or going up a rock face without a rope.”

She frowned. “You’re a thrill junkie.”

He thought about that. “I suppose so. I’m hooked on racing, that’s for sure.”

“But
Care Away
isn’t a particularly fast boat, is it?”

“Is she,” he corrected her. “
Care Away
is a person—a
very likeable lady, once you get to know her. She’s also my home. And I want my home comfortable, a good cruiser I’m happy
to spend all my days in.”

Amy frowned. “I still don’t see how you can—”

“Do both? In my apartment over on St. David’s, which I use mainly for keeping stuff—I’ve got two bikes—a skinny-tired one
for going fast, a fat-tired one for cruising. All depends on what I feel like.”

There was indeed more to this
gleama
than met the eye. Best to find out how much more. “Thirty-eight days,” she marveled. “Ever get lonely?”

He looked at Grotto Bay, barely visible in the distance. Then returned his gaze to her with a half smile. “Not lonely, exactly.
Care Away’s
good company. The best. And there’s always something that needs doing. But some days, when there’s not much wind—”

She finished it for him, “You wouldn’t mind having someone to talk to.”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “I suppose so.”

“But then, after the doldrums, you’d have to put up with them.”

He laughed. “Exactly!”

She circled her finger on the table. “Was there ever anyone you—felt really good about having on board?” She paused and thought,
now he’s going to think I’m getting personal. She took a deep breath. Well, I am.

But to soften it, she quickly added, “I mean, on a really long trip.”

He carefully chewed the last of his fish before replying. “I took my nephew out for a few days, a year ago. It was my brother’s
idea; Ian thought Eric should get to know his Uncle Colin.” He smiled sadly. “I don’t think he counted on the boy having so
much fun. We had a ball!
He was only nine, but I’ve never seen
anyone
, any age, learn faster than he did.” He shook his head at the memory.

In her mind she could see him teaching the young boy. She liked what she saw.

“That’s the thing,” declared Colin, warming to his subject. “If someone really likes what I really like, I’ll teach them as
fast as they can learn. Eric loved sailing—the boat, the life, the whole thing. And you know what? When the trip was over,
it was hard to see him leave.”

“He never went again?”

Colin shook his head. “He loved it too much. Told my brother he wanted to grow up to be a sailor, like Uncle Colin.” He sighed.
“His father had other plans for him.”

The waitress returned and asked if they would like coffee. They would.

“And so,” Amy summed up, “other than someone like Eric, you prefer your own company. Just you and Lady
Care Away
.”

He looked her in the eye. “You got it.”

Well, he might be blunt, but he was honest. And his message was unequivocal: No woman could ever persuade him to put her before
the boat. Amy shivered. Time to get back up to periscope depth again.

“So the solitude never gets you down.”

“Not really. Time does a funny thing out there,” he mused. “I’ll think of something I need to take care of, a project that
might take most of next morning. I’ll resolve to do it, but when morning comes, I’m sitting there in the cockpit under a clear
sky and—it doesn’t get done. Nothing does. But I’m content.”

He laughed. “That’s probably the most valuable skill a sailor can have—the ability to just sit.”

She smiled. But when she’d first asked, she thought she’d seen him start to remember something, then shy away from it. So
she asked again.

He hesitated. “There
was
one time….” His voice drifted off, and he looked out at the bay again, his eyes narrowing. “Sometimes a school of flying
fish will run with you awhile, jumping alongside. Occasionally one will land on the boat. If you can reach it in time, you
throw it back in the water. If not,” he shrugged, “you just kick it over the side. Or if you’re hungry, you cook it and eat
it. They’re quite good.”

He did not take his eyes off the distant water. “One perfect afternoon, sunny, rolling sea—I’d been out about a month—the
wind was moderate, and I was making three, three-and-a-half knots. All at once, this school of flying fish kind of adopts
me. You could see them shimmering, silvery blue-green, just below the surface, blending with the broken pattern of the sun’s
reflection. Every so often—for sheer joy, it seemed—one would arc up into the air like a mini-dolphin and dive back in. Then
another would show that he could do that, too. And another, and another.”

He laughed. “Hey, I cheered them on! They were having fun, and they were fun for me.” He paused. “Somehow I think they knew
that. More and more of them broke the surface, and it was like we were on parade!”

He stopped smiling. “I didn’t notice that a young one, not more than three inches, had landed on the deck. He was in the sun,
and he was still. But his scales still glistened. Moving fast, I scooped up a bucket of seawater and started trying to revive
that little fish. ‘This is crazy,’ I told myself, ‘just pop it in the skillet.’ But I kept at it for
half an hour, moving it in the seawater, bawling like a kid.”

He shuddered and fell silent, and she reached out and touched his hand.

“So,” he said, his voice rough, “I guess the solitude
can
get to you.” He turned away quickly before she could see what was in his eyes.