Authors: Luanne Rice
“Okay.” She snuggled into his arms. “I miss you when you’re gone. Don’t ever go fishing again.”
“Chain me to the bed, Bonnie. I’m your love slave, and you know it.”
“Damn straight,” Bonnie said, watching him slide the strap of her new teddy off her shoulder.
But she felt too preoccupied to really concentrate on making love. Her body went through the motions, but some part of her brain was engaged in listening for the door, for Sean’s footsteps in the hall. Later, while Gavin slept, she dressed and slipped out of the bedroom.
In the kitchen, she poured a glass of milk. She grabbed a bar of baking chocolate from the cupboard. She felt frantic for the sugar, for the feeling of fullness it would give her. Nibbling the hard chocolate, she flipped through a cookbook for the dessert section. Reading about food while eating gave her double the feeling.
Emma walked in, her wet bikini showing through her yellow sundress. Bonnie wanted to hide the chocolate from her, but Emma had seen it.
“How was the beach, Em?” Bonnie asked.
“Raw chocolate?” Emma asked. “Gross. Isn’t that the stuff you bake with?”
“Yes. Want some?”
Emma shook her head. “The beach was fun. We had a wicked wet-towel fight.”
“Sounds great. Did you see Sean?”
“He’s on his way. Huffing and puffing, as usual. What’s for dinner?”
“Scallops,” Bonnie said.
“Figures. Can I eat at Belinda’s?”
“If Cass says it’s okay.”
Bonnie rewrapped the chocolate and settled back to wait. Five minutes later, Sean came through the door. He wore his customary earrings and new shades, cutoff jeans, a plaid shirt with the sleeves torn off, and motorcycle boots. He gave her a sweet smile.
“Hi, honey,” Bonnie said.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Sit down a minute,” Bonnie said. “We have to talk.”
Sean flopped onto a kitchen chair, his arm slung across the rail back. He had the guileless expression of someone with a clean conscience. Bonnie slid his notebook out from under a copy of
Gourmet
magazine.
“You looked in my drawers,” Sean said accusingly.
Bonnie tapped the notebook’s cover. “This caught my attention,” she said.
Sean shrugged. “I’m not the only one. A lot of kids are into it.”
“’Into’ it? You mean devil worship?”
“Whatever you want to call it. You know, séances and shit. Magic. Satanism. It’s no big deal.”
Bonnie studied his face. Was he kidding? She could still picture him making his first communion. As the shortest boy, he had led the procession. In his white suit with matching white belt and shoes, his face glowing, his blond hair slicked back, he had resembled a
miniature Florida insurance salesman. He had looked so dopey and uncool, Bonnie had wondered whether he would ever outgrow it.
“I’m serious, Mom,” he said. “Don’t worry, I don’t worship or anything, I’m just doing it for fun.”
“Uh-huh,” Bonnie said. Last year it had been Dungeons and Dragons.
“Don’t worry,” Sean repeated.
“If you say so,” Bonnie said. She watched Sean rummage in the refrigerator, grab some slices of American cheese, and head for his room. She sipped her milk thoughtfully. For now she’d follow her usual mode of dealing with her kids: sit back and wait while keeping her eyes open. Wide open.
S
chool had started, the summer people had left Mount Hope, and woodbine, always the first leaves to change, wove vines of scarlet through trees along the New England coast. Billy was just back from his longest trip of the season. Now he sat across the office from Cass, staring her down. But she wouldn’t blink.
“You planning to hold it against me from now till the end of time that I spent one night on the boat?” Billy asked.
“Yes,” Cass said.
Billy leaned back. The night before he’d left on this last trip, sixteen days ago, they’d been fooling around, talking in bed after the kids were asleep. Billy was giving Cass a back rub, and out of the blue she said, “Tell me something you’ve never told me before.”
“Like what?”
“Like something you’ve done. Something I don’t know about.”
It had felt conspiratorial, like the early days, when they would tell each other everything. So Billy had told her about the night he’d driven home, heard Josie crying, and gone back to the boat. The minute the words were out, he’d known it was a mistake. She’d rolled out from under his hand, given him a cold stare, and said, “Bastard.”
Now, sitting in her office, Billy was trying to make up.
“I wouldn’t have told you if I’d known it was going to upset you this much,” he said.
“Well, it does,” she said.
“You asked me to tell you something you didn’t know about. It was just one night.”
“Oh, you’re away plenty of nights.” Cass rose from her desk, kicked off her sneakers, and stepped into work boots. Big, battered clodhoppers, the leather uppers all scuffed and scarred, they looked so big that Billy imagined Cass could fit both her feet in one.
“I was tired that night,” Billy said. “I’m sorry.”
“I was tired that night, too. I’m tired every night. Sometimes I think of you out there, far, far out, and I feel like I’d trade everything to be there instead of home.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Yes, I do,” she said, dead serious. “Sometimes.” She stood close to the window, to get a good view of the harbor. “I have to check the mooring floats,” she said.
“I’ll come with you.”
Keating’s Wharf could accommodate four trawlers. Dock space was reserved, mainly, for loading gear onboard the boats before a trip and loading the catch off at trip’s end. Sometimes you’d chug into the harbor and find all the dock space taken. For those occasions, Keating kept ten moorings in the harbor. You identified Keating moorings by the big orange balls floating on the water.
Billy watched Cass pull on a heavy sweater, her big dark glasses, and a Red Sox cap. She tried to tuck all her hair up, but she missed a piece.
“Hold it,” Billy said. He twisted the strands around his index finger, wedged it under the cap. Her neck, beneath that snaggle of red-gold hair, looked so pale, curved like a ballerina’s. Billy couldn’t stop himself from kissing it.
Cass stood still, allowed his lips to trace the curve, but did not encourage him to continue. She tromped down the interior stairs, through the lobster-tank room, out into the bright cool sunshine. This was goldenrod weather: the end of summer, when the days were clear and fine and the sky shimmered with particles of gold.
Billy hung back for a moment and rummaged through a bin for some extra work gloves. When he started out again, he saw Jimmy Keating leaning against the warehouse, talking to John Barnard. They were both watching Cass, but she didn’t see them.
“Hey, Medieros,” John yelled. At first Billy thought John was talking to him. He had one foot out the door before Cass answered.
“Hiya, Barnard,” Cass called.
“What about me?” Jimmy called.
Cass gave her father a long indulgent look, then went over to kiss him. The three of them stood there—Cass, Jimmy, and John —a tight little knot. Seeing them like that, so comfortable together, Billy had a flash: what if I don’t make it home some trip? We sink, I drown. Would John be the one to console Cass? Would she fall in love with him again?
Halfway through Billy’s last trip out, fishing Georges Bank one hundred fifty miles into the North Atlantic, he rode straight into a major storm. Waves breaking over the wheelhouse, wind shifting direction every gust. It wasn’t the first time, or the worst storm, but Billy saw everything pass before his eyes. Cass, their kids, their life in Mount Hope; Billy believed he was about to lose it all. His ship groaned and chattered, bolts beneath the decks vibrating under the stress.
When the worst passed, Billy checked the ship to make sure she was sound. He went directly to the life raft to force himself to face what he already knew he would find: three survival suits; five men on board.
“Jimmy,” Billy said now, driven by the memory. He walked over.
“Billy!” Jimmy said, clapping Billy on the back. With both of Billy’s parents dead, years now, Jim and Mary had been more to him than standard parents-in-law. On the other hand, in his capacity as Billy’s boss, Jimmy was a businessman first, and Billy always kept his guard up.
“We need to update some equipment on the
Norboca
.”
“Like what?” Jimmy asked.
“Like two survival suits, for starters.”
“Oh, you’re short two?” Jimmy asked, all surprised, as if Billy hadn’t mentioned it last month, and two months before that. “Well, we’ll order them today. We’ll have them in time for the cold weather, that’s for sure.”
“We’ll get them overnight,” Cass said. “Why didn’t you tell me right away?”
“Actually, Jimmy,” John said, “I have a list of stuff we need on the
Aurora.
The more I take her out, the more I get to know her.”
“Just like dating a girl,” Jimmy joked. “You boys are putting me out of business. But that’s what I get, I hire the best captains. Safety first.”
“What else are you missing?” Cass asked Billy, her tone unamused. Jimmy Keating could charm a smile out of anyone; he could sell a lobsterman a barrel of lobsters. But his youngest daughter saw right through him.
“That’s about it. She needs an overhaul, but Jimmy knows about that.”
“The way I figure it,” Jimmy said, “we do our best fishing in the warm weather. Let’s fill our holds now, yank the boats for a week or so first of November. Good for me, good for you. I make money so I can pay you a decent cut. Plus, of course, we’ll get those safety rigs on board. Thanks for bringing it up.”
Jimmy would use his gift of gab to cheap out, stall for time, hoping all along that Billy and John would forget in the meanwhile. Billy knew that survival suits didn’t come cheap. Most fishermen believed they were useless, anyway. If you went down in a bad storm offshore, a few hundred dollars’ worth of rubberized plastic wasn’t going to save you.
“That’s not good enough, Dad,” Cass said.
Billy put his hand on Cass’s arm. Family was one thing, but you didn’t criticize Jimmy Keating in front of an outsider. And John Barnard, for as long as the family had known him, still wasn’t family.
“It’ll have to be good enough,” Jimmy said, standing tall.
“What if it’s not?” Cass asked.
“I’ll sell this damn place,” Jimmy said angrily. “I’ll sell it tomorrow. My boats are safer, better equipped than any fleet in town. I look after my captains, and you know it.”
“That’s right,” Billy said. “You’re the best, Jimmy.”
“Relax, Cass,” John said.
“I’ve got three kids,” she said. “I want to go to bed at night and know their father is going to come home.”
“It’s okay, Cass,” Billy said, sliding his arm around her waist. She tried to squirm away, but he held on. “It’s okay.”
“I’ll sell, so help me God,” Jimmy said bitterly, shaking his head. “Second-guessed by my own daughter.”
Cass opened her mouth, anger flashing in her eyes, then thought better of it. She calmed herself down. Billy could practically feel the anger shuddering through her. “Dad?” she said finally.
Proud James Keating squinted over Cass’s head, right out to sea. She stood on tiptoe, her hands on his shoulders, forcing him to look at her. Billy thought she was going to kiss her father, but she didn’t. She stayed on her toes for one long minute, then gave his shoulders a shake, and smiled. You could tell he didn’t want to smile back, but he couldn’t help himself.
“Maybe this is the time for some good news,” Jimmy said. “I’ve just made John captain of his own boat.”
“Wow,” Cass said. “Congratulations, John.”
“Congratulations,” Billy said, shaking John’s hand. “Which boat?”
“The
Aurora
,” John said, grinning.
Billy nodded, impressed. The second-best boat in the Keating fleet.
“I can’t have my two best men fishing on the same boat,” Keating said. “That’s no way to make money. Find another first mate, Billy.”
“Maybe I can get Cass to sign on,” Billy said, thinking of his own boat, the one he’d buy as soon as he had enough money.
“If you could get her to take orders,” Jimmy said. “Good luck.”
“Congratulations again,” Cass said, kissing John.
Billy felt a hot flush in his neck. Cass and John were smiling into each other’s eyes. Billy stepped forward, clapped John’s shoulder. “Yeah, it’s great,” Billy said. “What do you say, Cass? Want to get moving here?”
Cass nodded, waving goodbye to her father and John. She walked down the dock, ahead of Billy; she threw her tool bucket into the twenty-four-foot work boat, which was tied to a piling. Watching it rock and pitch in a light chop, she waited for her moment and jumped in. Billy followed. They had taken a million boat rides together. Cass loosened the stern and spring lines while Billy undid the bow line. Then she fired up the engine and they chuffed into the harbor.
This was Cass’s show. Billy sat in the bow, watching her do the
work. He had the feeling she’d whale him good if he offered to help. She yanked on big rubber work gloves. With expert timing she’d pull close to each mooring, shift the engine into idle, grab the mooring line with a long wood-handled boat hook, and check the shackle connecting it with the float.
By this time in the season, a hundred things could have fouled a mooring; connections were the first to go. To secure a big trawler, you needed the float, fifteen fathoms of nylon hawser, forty feet of chain, a three-ton anchor, and plenty of room to swing.
Cass yanked in the first line. Seaweed, algae, mussel colonies, and black harbor muck covered every inch of the line. Oily gunk clung to her gloves, but she seemed oblivious, a real pro. By the fourth mooring she had worked up a sweat. She threw her sweater onto the seat, and she didn’t object when Billy started to help.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the survival suits?” she asked, pulling close to the tenth mooring.
“It’s not that important. They’re bogus, anyway.”
“Till you need one.”
“A little orange suit? It keeps you from freezing to death the first hour, but by then you’re shark meat anyway.”