Unbreak My Heart (3 page)

“No,” I say.

She smiles at me in spite of my negativity. It kind of annoys me, and that makes me feel bad, which makes me more annoyed. Vicious cycle.

“Okay,” says Olive gently. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Then she closes the door softly and goes back to the main cabin.

I hear them shuffle the cards while they talk about me. I don’t know why they don’t get that we’re on a boat where I can hear everything.

“When is she going to snap out of this?” asks Dad.

“She just needs some time,” says Mom.

“She’s sad,” says Olive. And her little voice, so full of sympathy for me even though I’ve been mean to her, makes fresh tears spring to my eyes.

I feel guilty. I write that down in my journal. Then I curl up in a ball and listen to my family play cards without me.

The next morning, Dad makes an announcement: we’re going to stop at a marina outside of Peoria today for gas and supplies. Our job options are emptying the marine-head holding tank (which is pretty much cleaning the toilet) or going ashore to stock up.

Once it’s clear that I’m not going to be able to avoid a task by closing my door and putting in earbuds, I volunteer to go for supplies. The marine toilets completely freak me out.

I take a quick “navy shower” as Dad refers to them—that’s where I turn on the water to get wet, turn it off while I soap up and shampoo, then turn it back on to rinse off, so the water’s on for, like, a total of one minute, maybe two. Conditioner? It’s a luxury of land life.

I’m combing out my wet hair when we pull into the marina. I throw on a white tank top and jean shorts over my bathing suit. Then I slip into my boat shoes, which actually look pretty cool on-boat or off-. They’re slate gray with white laces, and they make me feel very nautical.

I grab four canvas eco-bags from the galley cabinet, and Olive meets me in the cockpit. My parents are already hooking up the holding tanks to the marina’s waste-suction hose. Dad hands me a few twenties and a list he and Mom made. “See what’s available at the dock deli,” he says. “They should have most of this stuff.”

I nod and start off toward the general store—it’s not really called the dock deli, that’s just Dad being Dad. I know that Olive’s on my heels. I can already feel my legs wobbling; you lose your “land legs” after a few days on the boat, so standing on solid ground again actually feels shaky.

I open the screen door to the store and hold it for Olive. She slips inside and grabs the list from my hands. “I’ll get the evaporated milk and the raisins!” she shouts. And then she’s off to explore. The store is pretty standard for a marina shop: gray wind-washed wood, big live-bait tank with bubbling filters along the wall, a surly bearded guy at the counter with a toothpick in his mouth, just waiting for the boaters to arrive and buy overpriced supplies. There’s a poster in the back that makes sexist jokes about why a ship is called “she.” One example is “She shows her top-sides, hides her bottom, and when coming into port, she always heads for the buoys.” Bad puns are really popular with boat people. Just ask the couple docked next to us who named their boat
Knot Shore
.

I pick up a basket and start walking through the aisles, finding Mom’s requested chamomile tea (she forgot it) and Dad’s giant pack of cinnamon gum (he never brings enough to last more than a few days). As I’m rounding the corner to look for strawberry yogurt, my basket collides directly with someone else’s—someone who’s filled
his
basket to the brim with bananas. One bunch falls to the ground.

“Oh, crap!” says the redheaded guy attached to the fruit overload.

“Sorry,” I say, rubbing my stomach where my own basket jammed into me.

We both lean down to pick up the bananas, and—
boom!
—our foreheads collide.

“Damn!” he says as we stand up. He’s holding his head, one eye shut, the other cocked at me, with a big grin on his face.

Then he puts his hands out in front of him, the basket dangling on one arm.

“Okay, back away,” he says.

“Huh?” I ask.

“You’re obviously an assassin sent to kill me by collision,” he says.

I smile slightly and touch my forehead, which is throbbing a little.

“I could say the same thing about you.”

Just then, Olive rounds the corner behind the redheaded guy and hits him—
smack!
—in the butt.

“Ooh, sorry!” she says, hurrying past him to get to me. She throws condensed milk into our basket.

“What the—?” says redheaded guy. “Two assassins?!”

I laugh then, and the sound surprises me.

He smiles. “You’ve got a nice laugh, Miss …”

“Williams,” I say. “I mean, Clem. I’m Clem.”

“I’m James,” he says. “It’s nice to meet you.”

He waves his non-banana-basket-holding hand and I smile. As I may have mentioned, he’s got flaming red hair and about a million freckles. He’s also supertall and has a grin that engulfs his face. I decide he’s cute before I can help myself.

He leans down and successfully picks up the fallen banana bunch.

“Sorry again,” I say, edging past him to get to the refrigerated aisle.

“It’s quite all right,” says James in a game-show-announcer voice. “I’ll see you around!”

I keep moving toward the yogurt.

The bell over the door jingles about a minute later, and I imagine Red is gone, back to his boat full of bananas. Which is kind of gross if you think about it, because bananas in tight spaces start to turn and make
everything
smell and taste like banana. Ick.

Olive and I check out a few minutes later, and we walk back to
The Possibility
. She chatters on about how she only got the Double Stuf Oreos because Mom said she was allowed to pick one treat that wasn’t on the list, and this was like a family pack of treats for us all. I smile at her.

“I support the Double Stuf decision.”

“Thanks, Clem!” she shouts, and then she skips ahead, her small body wobbling under the weight of two full canvas grocery bags.

I take my time strolling down the dock to the boat.

There’s a tortoiseshell cat stepping along the wooden planks, and I watch her walk toward an old lady who’s holding some kind of silver reflecting screen under her chin.

“Ahoy there!” says the lady as I pass. She’s got a scratchy voice, like she’s smoked for a long time. My grandmother has the same rasp.

“Hello!” I shout, waving my arm in the air to greet her. Boat people tend to be louder and more enthusiastic versions of land people. I guess that’s so you can hear and see each other out on the water, and it spills over onto land, too, with real boaters—they’re always shouting and gesticulating. This silver-screen lady is no exception.

She puts down her reflecting device and waves me over to her end of the dock. I walk slowly toward her. You can’t really ignore boat people. You’re not in a hurry to get home, you don’t have anything pressing to attend to. You’re sailing. It’s summer. There are no excuses not to chat.

“Honey, I just love those little sneakers you have on,” says the old lady. I notice that her hair is dyed that funny yellow that whitehaired people get when they try to stay blond. Her face is sweet-potato orange and her wrinkles are strong and deep, like she’s baked for years. I wonder if she’s heard about skin cancer and SPF, but I decide it’s not my place to tell her.

“Thanks,” I say. “I got them in Chicago.”

“Oh, city girl?” she says. “I should have known by your walk.”

I laugh, for the second time today. “No. Suburban girl. But maybe I’ll move to the city one day.”

“You should, honey,” she says. “That’s where adventure lies.”

I think that I’ve had enough adventure for a while, but I don’t say that to her. “I’m Clementine.”

“Oh my darlin’, oh my darlin’, oh my darlin’ Clementine!” I hear a booming male voice coming from the cabin of sun-lady’s boat, and a rounder, more masculine version of the silver-screen lady appears in the cockpit.

“Ahoy there!” he says. This must be their standard greeting.

“Hi,” I say, noticing that he’s also Oompa Loompa–colored. But his hair is gray and white, not blond. Otherwise, they could be boy-girl twins.

“I’m Ruth, and this is George,” says the raspy voice.

“We’re doing the Great Loop!” says George. That’s what the route we’re traveling on is called; it encircles the east coast of the United States and even goes up into Canada, but we’re just sailing a small part of it.

“We are too,” I say. “Well, not the whole thing. My little sister, Olive, and I have school, and our parents have to go back to work in the fall.”

“Don’t worry, love,” says Ruth. “One day you’ll be a retiree like us, and you’ll be able to sail all you like!”

“Can’t wait,” I say, thinking that I will never do another summer like this, stranded with my family and my guilt.

I feel the cat rubbing at my legs.

“Is she yours?” I ask.

“Mrs. Ficklewhiskers.” George steps off the boat with a groan. He bends over to scratch her under the chin.

“She’s a pirate cat,” says Ruth.

“Oh,” I say.
Huh?
“Well, I should get these groceries back to my mom.”

I turn to walk away, and Ruth says, “Don’t lose that stride.”

“I won’t,” I say. “Thanks.”

But really? I have no idea what she means. Boat people are often crazy. Did I mention that?

Still, crazy people can be fun—especially during a summer when the sane ones aren’t really speaking to you. So I let myself enjoy this moment on land, in the sun.

The redheaded guy was about my age, I think. He didn’t look at me like I was a total bitch or some kind of horrible human being. Neither did George or Ruth. They seemed to like me. So did Mrs. Ficklewhiskers, the pirate cat. And I get that that’s because they don’t know me or what went on with me last year or anything. But still. They all treated me like I had a blank slate. Like I was just plain Clem, a girl with a pretty laugh and a nice walk.

But I guess if they knew me, they’d hate me too.

chapter four

“Ouch!” My elbow slams into the edge of the main cabin doorway as the boat rocks to one side. “Olive, sit down!” I order my sister into a safe spot on the sofa.

I get up to check on Mom and Dad—to see if they need any help above deck. I’m wearing my thick yellow
slicker
(that’s what Dad calls it, in a dorky voice), but I still get blasted with sideways rain when I peek my head out of the cabin.

We woke up this morning to a light drizzle. Dad wanted to move anyway—his schedule has us going forty miles today, which will take eight hours at our five-knot speed—and we set out. But we’ve run into a much bigger storm now that it’s early afternoon. We’re just looking for shelter.

“Clem, get back down there!” shouts Mom over the howling wind. She’s manning the captain’s wheel while Dad untangles some ropes near the bow. We hit a wave and my shoulder lurches into the door frame again, but I’m ready this time and I turn so that it doesn’t hurt.

I poke my head back out and look forward to make sure Dad’s okay. He waves at me with a big grin on his face. As ridiculous as it sounds, he kind of loves this.

“Okay,” I say to Mom. “Call me if you need help.”

“Just keep Olive seated.”

I go back down and find Olive in the galley, trying to reach the peanut butter.

“Dude, this is not snack time,” I say. “Sit. Down.”

“I was going to make you something for lunch,” says Olive, relenting and walking over to me on experienced sea legs.

“I’m not hungry.” Who can eat in this toss-and-turn situation? She’s crazy.

We sit together on the couch and I pick up my book, but the words swim in front of me whenever a wave hits, and it makes me feel nauseous. I put the book down.

“Remember when Amanda threw up?” asks Olive. She laughs just like she did that day.

“Yeah,” I say, smiling slightly.

It was the summer between seventh and eighth grade, and Amanda and I were on the boat for the weekend with my dad and Olive.

“Do you think each colored chip has a different flavor?” I had asked.

We were waiting for the Funfetti rainbow cake to cool before we frosted it.

“Sure,” said Amanda. “Blue is blueberry, pink is strawberry, yellow is banana …”

“I don’t know.” I dipped a spoon into the frosting container and tried to fish out a pink chip. “They all taste kind of vanilla-y to me.”

“Have some imagination, Clem,” said Amanda, fluttering her electric-blue-mascaraed eyelashes. “It’s more fun if they’re flavored.”

I shrugged. Baking on the boat was this thing Amanda liked to do. “Isn’t it crazy that we can make a
cake
while floating at sea?” she’d say. And I’d remind her that we were on a lake, but that didn’t seem to matter. Like with the rainbow chip “flavors,” boring facts did not deter her colorful worldview.

That day, we had afternoon cake and went for a sail, but it was kind of rough on the water. Not as rough as it is today—not anywhere close—but there were some whitecaps and we rocked a bit as we got out into the big part of the lake.