Authors: Clare Willis
“Those frat boys?” Sunni asked.
The waiter shook his head. “Past them. At the bar.”
Sunni looked again. A man in jeans and a black leather jacket lifted two fingers over his whiskey glass. His blond hair was fluffy with product. She couldn’t really tell if he was handsome, but she was feeling that familiar restless, diffuse anger, directed at everyone and no one. She wasn’t going to sleep tonight. She lifted her glass and gave the man a smile. He picked up his own drink and made his way over.
The Sea Watch Bar was one of the oldest in the city. It was dark, dank, and smelled of stale beer. The low ceiling was papered with dollar bills and the bar itself was pockmarked and cigarette-burned. At one time the Sea Watch had actually been on the waterfront. The bar was still in the same location, but a hundred and fifty years of landfill had created six blocks of land between it and the bay. It was populated with old men, die-hard drinkers, who said little and glared at strangers. It was Jacob’s favorite bar, because it reminded him of the Fox and Hound in Providence, a pub that stood in the same location for two hundred years, until it was razed for a freeway overpass in the 1960s.
He came here late at night, when she was safely asleep, and returned before she woke up. On this night he had followed her from her friend’s wedding to her favorite bar, where she picked up a human man and brought him to her sailboat, presumably for sex. Jacob pushed away the uncomfortable feelings this brought to mind. She could do whatever she wanted, what did he care? He wasn’t her husband. It was her business if she wanted to bed wimpy little human men with coiffed hair. The wimp wasn’t a vampire, that was all that had to concern him.
Jacob swirled the Scotch and then smacked the glass down hard. It
did
concern him; it concerned him too much. He had handled the wedding very badly. He should never have let her get close enough to speak to him. But when that human man tried to violate her … a flush of anger came over him just thinking about it. He had lost his composure and gotten far too close to her. And then, instead of just eliminating the threat and leaving, he had stuck around to watch Sunni fight the man. Flush with pride, as if he’d trained her himself, he’d stood back and observed until it was too late. She’d put her hands on him, for God’s sake. If the Council knew they’d reassign him. He had to get a grip on himself.
“Another Scotch?”
The bartender wasn’t addressing Jacob. He knew Jacob only drank one, although he paid enough for five. The inquiry was directed at a very pretty young woman in a cashmere sweater and high-heeled boots who was sitting alone at the end of the bar. She looked entirely out of place, but perfectly content.
“Yeah, thanks.” The woman was watching the glass fishing weights that hung in nets behind the bartender’s head. From the way she was staring at them Jacob knew she was drunk. The fishing weights had a way of pulsating when you were drunk, like those lava lamps everybody loved in the 1970s.
“Thank you.” The woman turned to Jacob, startling him with the intensity of her gaze. Her eyes were blue and glassy.
“How do you date someone for five years without them knowing you at all?” she asked Jacob. “How does that happen?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Jacob said.
“Last call, love,” the bartender said gently. “It’s two o’clock.”
“Last call, gents,” he called to the two old men huddled at the other end of the bar. They nodded and quaffed their beers.
The woman tossed back her drink and signaled for a final round.
The bartender pressed his lips together in disapproval, but poured her another drink. “How’re you getting back to wherever you’re going?”
The woman straightened up and brushed her long brown hair off her face. “What do you mean? I’m fine to drive.”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, love. You were three sheets to the wind when you walked in here and you’ve had three more whiskeys since you sat down. I can call you a cab. ”
“He’ll take me home.” Swaying on her bar stool, she waved toward Jacob. Then her confidence crumbled. Her mouth drew down at the corners and her lips quivered. “Will you?”
Jacob hesitated. Normally he avoided unnecessary contact with humans, but tonight he didn’t feel quite like himself. “Yes, I’ll accompany you, if you wish it.”
“All righty, then,” the bartender said drily.
Sunni’s thirty-foot ketch, the
Wild Rose,
bobbed in its berth at Yerba Buena Yacht Harbor like a puppy excited to see its master. Sunni thought of the boat more as a pet than a conveyance or a living space. The
Rose
behaved differently every time she took her out. She demanded constant care and attention. She made all kinds of noises. When Sunni was sailing her she didn’t feel alone, even though she often was.
Sunni jumped lightly from the pier onto the deck. Her companion paused for a moment, looking nervous.
“So this is your boat, huh?” the man, whose name was Alex Petrie, asked. “How long have you been sailing?”
“Since I was a teenager,” Sunni replied, as she wiped down the vinyl seats with a rag.
“Your parents taught you?”
As the smell of engine oil and salt air filled her nostrils, Sunni thought of the moment when she’d first seen the
Wild Rose.
It was her sixteenth birthday, and she’d been living with the LaForges for two years. Gloria LaForge had been unfailingly kind to Sunni, but it was obvious that she would never think of Sunni as a daughter. Isabel was Gloria’s raison d’être, and between the girl’s depression and her multiple sclerosis, there was no time in Gloria’s schedule or place in her heart for anyone else. Dennis, on the other hand, was open and accepting in a way Sunni had never encountered before, even from her own mother. But he was terribly busy. Between working, travelling, conferences, charity functions, and board meetings his daily schedule held enough events to keep three men running.
Sunni yearned for time alone with Dennis, and she found it on the azure waters of San Francisco Bay. Her foster father owned a boat and loved to sail, but Isabel and her mother didn’t. Navigating solid ground was enough of a challenge for Isabel, and Gloria didn’t want to leave her daughter. So Sunni asked to accompany Dennis on his next Sunday outing. Within six months she had learned her way around a boat and become Dennis’s indispensable first mate. It was out on the bay that Dennis found out that the vixens at the Aldridge Academy were hazing Sunni, that she was failing algebra and acing chemistry, that she had a crush on a junior named Dexter Elkins, and that she had always wanted to learn to play the guitar. It was where Sunni learned that Dennis’s true love, besides his family, was art, and where she learned, by reading his magazines and catalogues, to love it herself.
So on Sunni’s sixteenth birthday, instead of handing her the keys to a car, as he had with Isabel six months earlier, Dennis blindfolded her and drove her to Yerba Buena Yacht Harbor, where he presented her with her own sailboat.
Sunni looked at Alex Petrie on the pier and considered her response to his question. She
could
tell him the story of how she learned to sail, but she realized that Alex didn’t really want to know. He was probably just stalling for time because he was nervous about getting on the boat without looking awkward.
“Don’t worry, I’m a very good sailor,” Sunni assured him, but she wondered if she’d been too impulsive, allowing him to buy her a drink. Then Alex jumped lightly into the boat.
“Wow, it’s cold tonight.” He was hugging himself, rubbing his arms even though he had on a heavy leather jacket.
“Let’s go down below,” she said. The fog was so thick there was little to see besides the neighboring boats. The light poles of the baseball stadium drifted in and out of view like ghostly beanstalks waiting for Jack to climb.
“We’re not going out on the bay?” Alex asked, in what sounded like an intentionally ironic tone.
She shrugged. “I go out at night a lot. But not tonight, it’s too foggy.”
“Maybe some other time,” Alex said.
Sunni denied herself a sarcastic comeback.
He followed her down into the small, Spartan cabin. It was like a hobbit house, every miniature item tucked into its own little cubbyhole. Sunni loved the kind of planning that fit an entire house worth of conveniences into a closet-sized space. She turned on the propane heater and took two Pyramid Ales out of the refrigerator.
As Sunni handed him the beer, Alex’s cell phone rang. Even in the dim light she could see his face flush pink as he fumbled to turn it off. He had offered to take her to his place and she had refused, not just because she loved her boat, but also because there would be too many clues there. What if the closets were empty, and there were only three glasses in the cupboard? Then she would know it was a
pied-a-terre,
not a real home, and she really didn’t want to know anything about Alex beyond the obvious—he was healthy, young, and handsome. She wanted oblivion, not connection.
Alex scanned the tiny cabin for a place to hang his jacket. As she took it he smiled at her, in the way that men who know they’re attractive smile—cocky, flashing a lot of tooth.
“Why don’t you take off yours? It’s getting pretty warm in here. “ He held her beer as she took off her own leather jacket and hung them both on a hook in the wall.
“Your blouse is beautiful,” he murmured. “I love silk.”
Since he was standing behind her, Sunni allowed herself to roll her eyes.
She considered whether they should sit in the galley, finish their beers, and have some preliminary conversation, or if she should just take Alex into the tiny berth, with its soft bed and down comforter, and get down to what they’d come for. Sunni didn’t pick up men very often, but when she did she always found this part very awkward. She wasn’t good at pretending that she cared what the guy did for a living or what teams he liked, what kind of car he drove or who he’d voted for in the last election. The pretense that there would be something after the sex was exhausting, so she was happy when she found a man who was drunk or confident enough to just dispense with it.
Alex made the decision when he slid into the bench seat behind the table and put down his beer.
“So, I never asked what you do for a living, Sunni,” he said. His eyes drifted over her outfit. “Let me guess. You’re a …”
She sat down next to him and put her hand over his mouth. “Don’t guess.”
They were so close now that Sunni could smell the shaving cream he’d recently scraped off his face. He kissed her palm, then leaned in and kissed her on the lips, lightly at first and then more hungrily. He was trying to turn toward her and get his arms around her body but the table was jabbing them in the ribs.
“I have a bed right over there,” she whispered. He followed her into the dark, cozy womb of the berth and they both stretched out on the comforter. The rocking sensation was like being in a cradle, and the old wooden hull’s soft creaks sounded like an ancient lullaby. Sunni felt sleepy. She had to concentrate to keep her mind on the task at hand.
It had been a long time since Sunni had made love, and she was curious to know how she would react. She felt a slight stirring, especially as Alex expertly probed her mouth with his tongue, looping and circling like a stunt plane, but for the most part she felt calm, even distant from the procedure. Then, as she sometimes did when she was alone, she filled her mind with Jacob. She had more to work with in her fantasy now that she’d seen him up close: she knew the cleft in his chin and the particular slate gray of his eyes, the slope of his jaw and the fullness of his lips.
As she unbuttoned Alex’s shirt she imagined it was Jacob’s chest she was stroking, his tongue that was filling her mouth. She saw his eyes fill with passion as he pressed her down on the bed, heard him groan with desire as he put a knee between her thighs and roughly pushed them apart …
“Is this all right?” Alex asked politely, his fingers on the top button of her blouse.
Sunni sighed. She put both of Alex’s hands on her collar and ripped the delicate fabric down the center, revealing a lacy black bra. She grabbed Alex’s shoulders and with all the strength in her small frame, flipped him so that he was lying underneath her.
“You’re a wild one, aren’t you?” Alex chuckled.
“Shut up,” she said, and reached for his belt.
“Are you ready now, Jacob?” the woman asked, swaying on her heels like tall grass in a high wind.
“Sure, now’s fine.” He walked over.
Her head slowly craned upward. “You’re a tall one, aren’t you?”
Jacob pulled a worn leather wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans. “How much is it, Owen?” he asked the bartender.
“Twenty-eight dollars. ”
The woman shook her head. “You don’t have to pay for me,” she said.
Jacob pushed his cap back and smiled at her. “It’s my pleasure.”
Her eyes widened and a slow smile crept onto her lips. She was really seeing him now for the first time, and he felt the heat of her interest like the sun coming up in the morning.
“You have beautiful eyes. What color are they?”
The bartender snorted, then turned it into a cough.
“Blue?” Jacob tossed two twenties on the counter. “Keep the change.”
“I don’t think so. Azure? Indigo? Slate?” She moved closer, peering at him. Her breath could strip wallpaper.
“Are you a painter?” Jacob asked.
“Interior designer.”
Outside, the woman stumbled on the uneven pavement. Jacob grabbed her by the waist, but once her balance was reestablished he released her.
“May I have your keys, please?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah, they’re in here somewhere.” She fished in her purse and handed him a set of keys, attached to a key ring from Brown University.
Jacob examined the familiar insignia. “Did you go to this school?” he asked.
“Me? No, it’s my boyfriend’s …” she paused. “My ex-boyfriend’s car.”
He flipped the keys in his hand. “I see.”
“You went to Brown?”