Blue Moon (28 page)

He let Cass’s own excitement carry her body forward, then he stopped her momentum, one hand gripping her shoulder, with a flourish. She swayed, but he held her. He took his other hand away from her eyes.

“Oh, my God,” she said.

“What do you think?” Billy asked.

“I can’t believe it,” Cass said, thinking how every girl in Mount Hope grows up wishing her sweetheart would name a boat after her, and now it had happened.

“Take her down!” Billy yelled to Pete Turner, the old guy operating the boat lift. The machinery creaked, and wind zinged through the elaborate webbing as Pete lowered the swinging boat into the choppy water. She rocked at her berth as the webbing was disengaged and the yard guys made her fast to the dock.

“Who are those men on our boat?” she asked proprietarily.

“Hang on,” Billy said. “I’ll be right back.”

Cass watched him run across the yard to his truck. He opened
the driver’s door and disappeared inside, searching for something on the floor.

“A big day for Billy,” Pete Turner said, climbing down from the lift. “He’s been like a little kid, waiting for this.”

“You’re a boat owner, Pete,” Cass said. “You know how it feels.”

“I sure do. They say the two happiest days in a man’s life are the day he buys his boat and the day he sells it,” Pete said. Pete was a grizzle-faced codger not much younger than Cass’s father, and he played the role of Yankee cynic to perfection. When he retired, the Mount Hope chamber of commerce would have to train someone to take his place.

“What about the day he launches it?” Cass asked.

“That’s the best of all,” Pete said. “Billy stood over my shoulder, watching me paint your name on the transom. I told him I’ve painted ten boat names this year alone, and if he didn’t like the job I was doing, here’s the paintbrush.”

“You did a great job.”

“Well thanks, Cass,” Pete said, heading into the boat shed. Billy hurried over, a bottle of champagne in his hand.

“To break over the bow?” Cass asked.

“I thought we’d drink it first and smash the empty bottle, but someone beat us to it.” He turned the uncorked bottle upside down. Bits of gold foil fell out.

“Uh-oh,” Cass said. T.J. Somehow she knew, with unfailing clairvoyant certainty, that T.J. had crossed a new and extravagantly forbidden teenage threshold: drinking his father’s champagne in his father’s truck.

“I’ve been noticing all the gum wrappers,” Billy said, “but I didn’t think much of it. I’m going to kill the little shit. I buy champagne and it isn’t even New Year’s Eve, and my goddamn son drinks it.”

“I don’t like this,” Cass said. “Stealing your truck
and
drinking? I don’t like it at all.”

“That’s the last time I leave my keys home.”

“Let me see the label,” Cass said, grabbing the bottle.

“Perrier-Jouët,” Billy said.

“We’ll kill him,” Cass said, nodding. She tapped Billy’s wrist.

“But we’ll get him later, okay?”

Billy shrugged, his eyes sullen until he looked at his boat.

“Take me onboard?” Cass asked.

This boat had been known around Mount Hope as a tub. George Magnano had bought her cheap in Louisiana and converted her on his own for the North Atlantic. Her steam-bent ribs gave her a round belly, and broadside waves could roll her the way they never would a deep-keeled dragger.

Cass walked through the wheelhouse, which was filled with electronic navigation equipment, a digital fishfinder, his rifle for shooting sharks, a chart table, and a framed photo of Cass and the kids.

Touched, Cass climbed down the companion ladder and crossed the compact galley. The main saloon, where the crew would eat meals and relax off-watch, had a wooden table gimbaled to stay level during the worst storms, and benches covered with scratchy brown-plaid covers.

“George left those,” Billy said.

“I would never have guessed!” Cass responded.

“You don’t like them?”

“Aren’t they a little brown?”

“I like brown,” Billy said. He sounded slightly brisk, and Cass realized that he felt so proud of every aspect of this boat, he couldn’t even admit George had stuck him with some ugly seat covers.

She walked through the crew’s quarters and looked into the head, and then she came to Billy’s cabin. He had hung jackets and foul-weather gear from hooks, put paperbacks and tide tables in the hanging net shelf and bedding on the bunk.

“You’re ready to go?” she asked, surprised.

“I want to get fishing right away,” he said. “It’s been a few weeks since I’ve been out, and I’m afraid of falling behind. It’s already November. There’s not much fishing weather left.”

“We have enough in the bank. I just didn’t expect … I didn’t know you were this close to launching,” Cass said.

“I’ve been riding hard on Pete to get her in,” Billy said. “Now that she’s launched, I don’t want her sitting idle. She’s costing me too much money.”

“I’ve gotten used to having you home at night,” Cass said, moving into Billy’s arms.

“It’s like another life,” Billy said, stroking her hair. “I don’t want to get too used to it.”

“No, we might never give it up.”

Billy stretched out on his bunk, one arm bent behind his head. The reading light cast a warm cone of light on the pillow. “Let’s break this boat in right,” he said, the corners of his lips turning up.

“I only get crazy in our own bed now,” Cass said, lying beside him. “No more funny stuff. Bonnie says we’re middle-aged suburbanites.”

“Yeah?” Billy asked, unhooking her overalls.

“Middle-aged,” Cass said, kissing him. “Suburbanites.”

“You on your back, me on top?” Billy asked, his tongue tracing her earlobe.

“Twice a month.”

“Once in February, cause it’s short.”

“Like I said, no more kinky stuff,” Cass said.

“And only in the dark with our socks on,” Billy said, reaching up to switch off the light.

“I want to see you,” Cass said, turning it back on.

With Billy unzipping her fly, Cass wriggled out of her shirt. She lay on her back, her arms folded beneath her head. Billy lowered his head to her breasts; one flick of his tongue, and she felt her nipples harden.

She reached around his back to untuck his shirt. Then she began unbuttoning it—one button at a time, taking her time, sliding her cool hands up his narrow waist, across his belly, into his dark tangle of chest hair.

Their mouths found each other, their kisses familiar and wild all at once. The bed, though large for a bunk, was cramped. A small heater blew warm air that was instantly consumed by the musty chill; Cass snuggled against Billy as he pulled both their pants down to their knees. Cass’s boots kept hers from sliding off. Billy leaned down, to ease her boots off, but Cass stopped him.

“Let’s not get all the way undressed,” Cass said, breathless.

“You cold?” Billy asked.

“Yes, but that’s not why. It’s more exciting, like we’re in a hurry this way.”

“Yeah,” Billy said, his hand closing over Cass’s wrist as she freed his hard dick, pushed it into the purple wetness between her legs. “Cause we are,” Cass said. “In a hurry.”

Now he tried to touch her, to rub her with his fingers, but she pushed his hand away, behind her, so it rested on her back. She wanted to lie smack against his body, with no space between them. He understood; with one hand on the small of her back, the other between her shoulder blades, he held her close.

“Like that?”

“Tighter,” she said.

They were breathing hard now, lying sideways, her leg slung over his hips, the toe of her boot wedged under his ass. They thrust in a rough rhythm, their pelvises slapping, like water hitting the hull.

She hung on to her husband, feeling him hard against and inside her; when he started to hold his breath, his movements became more urgent, and she knew he was about to come. When he was very close, when she felt the rhythm change, she reached down between their legs, to touch the spot where his penis entered her body.

She grasped him for one final, shuddering second. Then, when he lay still, she brought her fingers, salty with their juices, to his mouth, and trailed them across his lips.

“You,” Billy said.

“No, us.”

“I mean, it’s your turn.” Still breathing hard, he reached down, to touch her. Again, she pushed his hand away.

“That’s not what I want right now,” she said, gazing into his eyes.

“Then what? What do you want?”

“I have it.” With her arms around his neck, she gave him a long kiss, tasting the salt on his tongue. “What I want. Right here. I want you.”

“I think he’s going to marry her,” came Alison’s whispery voice over the phone.

“Really? Shit,” T.J. said, lying in his bed, the receiver clamped to his ear.

“He hasn’t exactly said so, but when he took me out to dinner,
he was telling me how much I’m going to like her, how much we have in common. He said she can’t wait to play me in tennis. Can you believe that?”

“He’s gotta be kidding.”

“There is no way I’ll ever visit him if she’s there.”

“No way. He’s crazy.”

“His condo is actually pretty nice. The bathroom’s black marble, and it has a TV and a sound system. And a Jacuzzi.”

“He has his own Jacuzzi?” T.J. said. He imagined sitting in a black marble Jacuzzi with Alison.

“It’s big enough for two,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“He says he’s taking me to Florida for Christmas, but there’s no way if she’s going.”

“Florida for Christmas?” T.J. asked, sitting a little straighter. This was the first he’d heard of it.

“Yeah. My parents own a condo in Florida. They’re going to have to sell it, but until the divorce my father gets it for Christmas and my mother and I get it for February vacation.”

“You think he’s probably going to take her to Florida for Christmas? His girlfriend, I mean?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. I think she actually lives with him up here, there’s so much of her stuff around. She probably just gets out when I come over.”

“Then I definitely wouldn’t go to Florida,” T.J. said. The idea of being apart from Alison for as long as she would be in Florida was too terrible to imagine. “I think it would be a lousy idea, you going to Florida. He’d probably expect you to play tennis with her and all.”

Alison didn’t reply. “Alison?” he said.

He heard the sharp breath, and he knew she was crying. “Alison? Alison, don’t cry.”

“We used to go,” she whispered. “All of us, every Christmas.”

“You did?” T.J. couldn’t imagine spending Christmas in Florida—sand instead of snow, the water summer-blue instead of choppy gunmetal-gray.

“Yeah.” She couldn’t talk. T.J. hated it when she cried on the phone. He wanted to hold her, to kiss her tears away. But it made him feel bad, that she was crying so hard about not going to Florida this year. He knew she hated her parents’ divorce, that she wanted them all together, especially at Christmas. But how could she stand the idea of spending so much time away from him?

“I’m coming over,” he said. “Just hang on. Look out your window in twenty minutes. Fifteen.”

“Okay,” she whispered through her tears.

T.J. ran down the stairs, grabbed his coat. Belinda sat at the kitchen table, books and papers all over the place. “Where are you going?” she asked.

“Nowhere,” he said, pulling on his gloves.

Just then, the back door opened and Josie raced in. Shit, that meant his mother was home. Now he’d have to invent some bogus emergency-study story. Josie stood in front of him, saying his name over and over in sign language.

“Not now, okay Joze?” he asked.

His parents walked in together, their faces solemn.

“Daddy, you’re home early!” Belinda said.

“Sweetheart, will you take Josie upstairs for a few minutes?” his father asked.

“Sure,” Belinda said. Her face lit up as she glanced from her father to T.J., smelling blood. T.J. wondered what he was about to be busted for; all he could think of was getting to Alison.

Josie stood right in front of T.J., moving her hands insistently, and Belinda had to practically drag her away, making signs of her own.

“Do we all have to learn that?” T.J. asked, pointing after his sisters.

“Sit down,” his father said.

T.J. sat at the table. His mother had been standing by the door, her back to the wall, but now she came forward. She had a very serious look on her face as she brought something from behind her back.

“What’s that?” T.J. asked, face-to-face with the champagne bottle
he and Alison had drained the last time he’d taken the truck. Shit! He’d meant to throw it into the state park Dumpster, but Alison had said she wanted it for a souvenir.

“What does it look like?” his father asked.

“Like a wine bottle.”

“Yeah, how was it?” his father asked.

“What do you mean?” T.J.’s heart was pounding. He didn’t care about the inquisition. He’d deny he drank it, and what were they going to do? Fingerprint the bottle? But he couldn’t stand thinking of Alison crying at her window, imagining he’d forgotten about her.

His father slammed the bottle down so hard, Belinda’s history book bounced off the table. “You’ve been driving around in my truck, haven’t you?” he yelled. “You drank this whole bottle of champagne, and then you got behind the wheel?”

“I did not!” T.J. slapped his hands on the table. He knew he sounded frantic. He hoped his parents took it for being wrongly accused. He could just see Alison, her face pressed against the glass, looking down the dark driveway.

“Don’t lie, T.J.,” his mother said. She was trying to sound calm, but she had a little shake in her voice.

“I don’t even have my license! How could I drive your truck?” He looked back and forth between his parents, realizing how stupid he sounded. They’d both taught him to drive.

“I wouldn’t drive alone without a license,” he said. “And I definitely wouldn’t drink if I did. Drunk driving is totally wrong.”

“That’s true,” Cass said. “I’m glad to hear you say that.”

“You know how many kids get killed every year drinking and driving?” his father asked, a little less insane.