By The Sea, Book Three: Laura (13 page)

"Manger," said Colin.

"—pretty easy," she said, winking to Neil
and penciling in the word.

"How did you know that?" asked Neil. "I
didn't know that."

"Lucky guess," said Colin with a smile. He
was sitting opposite Laura, with his knees pulled up in front of
him and his arms wrapped around his shins. He had taken to shaving
again, and he wasn't wearing his watch cap. His black hair tumbled
over his brow in a way that made Laura afraid to lift her gaze to
him.

"Ah, here's one for you, Neil," she said.
"Six letters: the transverse seat in a rowing boat."

"Thwart!
It's 'thwart,'" he crowed,
jingling the coins in his shagreen bag excitedly.

"Right." She wrote it in. "Another
six-letter one: hero of A
Thousand and One Nights."

"Sinbad. Of course it's Sinbad!" cried Neil,
hugging himself. He turned to Colin, incredulous. "Didn't you know
that?"

"Hmn?" Colin turned with reluctance away
from Laura. "I guess you're too fast for me, mate."

"I'll slow down," Neil said eagerly. "Now
you
try."

"All right. Shoot, Laura," said Colin.

He might have been presenting her with three
dozen roses. She blushed, then faltered. "I ... no, wait, here's
one. Four letters: the leading edge of a fore-and-aft sail."

"Luff," Colin said quietly.

"Love? My goodness, no," she said, her face
shining crimson through her tan. "What could you be thinking
of?"

"He said 'luff,' Mama, not
love,"
said Neil, wrinkling his nose the way small boys do. "What could
you
be thinking of?"

"Oh! I'm sorry. I think the wind is in my
ears," she said, blushing, if possible, even more deeply. "Um ...
all right. Five letters: a Biblical figure who is said to bring ill
fortune to a ship."

"C-o-l-i-n," spelled Neil with a merry
giggle.

"B-i-l-l-y," said Laura, reaching over to
tug Billy's hair.

"N-e-i-l-y," volunteered Stubby, getting
into the act.

"Laura?" murmured Colin, in a way that made
her heart turn over once, then pause, waiting.

"That's not it, either," she whispered at
last, unable to take her eyes away from his.

His eyes shaded dark, terrifying in their
heat. "No, that isn't what—"

"What about that guy who got swallowed by a
whale?" piped up Billy.

"Jonah!"
shouted Neil with glee.
"Five letters! Jonah! That's right, isn't it, Colin?"

Without taking his gaze from Laura, Colin
answered, "I'm not sure what's right anymore, mate." He stood up
abruptly and went below.

"I'll be right back," said Laura, scrambling
to her feet and thrusting the crossword puzzle book into her son's
lap. "You keep going."

She found Colin rummaging through the galley
cupboard "Are you still hungry?" she asked in some confusion.

"The tobacco. Sam's tobacco. I'd like it
now," he replied without looking at her. "You said it was in a
tin."

"In front of you," she said, coming
alongside and reaching up to the dark green can labeled
Kentucky
Standard.
She handed it to him, but he avoided her look. "Is
something wrong?"

He was staring at the tin can. "Yeah. I
prefer
Captain Jack's."

"Colin—" Laura touched her hand to his
sleeve. "That isn't what's bothering you."

"You're right." He tossed the tobacco can on
the maple countertop and took hold of her wrist. "You like
crosswords," he said in a husky voice. "What's a five-letter word
for temptress?" He dropped a kiss on the open palm of her hand.

"
Give up
?
Siren
."

He let go of her wrist to trail his
fingertips across her breasts in a featherlight skim that wrenched
her nerve endings. "Try this one: name of a spinnaker sail used in
America's Cup racing, seven letters." He smiled and whispered,
"Mae West.
Too easy?"

He slid his hand along the curve of her
waist and around behind, and Laura let him, mesmerized by the
combination of his quick wit and scalding touch.

"How about this one, then: the part of a
ship where her hull rounds into her stern. Eight letters."

She shook her head, signaling her
ignorance.

"Buttocks."

"Don't do this to me," she pleaded, her own
voice a soft caress. "My brain is working on the puzzles—"

"—leaving your body free to respond to me. I
know. That's the plan. One more and I'll stop: the ability to glow
when excited; mermaids have it. Lots and lots of letters." His
fingers glided across her hair, skimmed the outline of her face,
lit her up from within.

"I... I don't know," she whispered, tears of
sheer tension filling her eyes. "I can't think."

"Phosphorescence,"
he said softly.
"God, Laura. Right now you're like a bright star—"

"Mama?"

Laura jumped away from Colin to see Neil
crouch down in the companionway. "Are you coming back up, Mama?
Billy wants to tell you something, and he won't tell me what."

"Yes, yes ... I'm coming!" She turned to
Colin and in a voice low with agony whispered, "I don't know what
to say, what's happening ...."

"You know, all right," he answered, the
muscles in his temples working.

"It's not what
you
think, Colin," she
whispered, glancing back at her son, who was just out of view.
"It's the boat, the situation ... we're the only adults and
naturally ... I'm
married,"
she finally blurted out. "You
know I'm married."

"I know you're afraid to want me. That's all
I know." He lifted her hand and touched his lips again to her open
palm. Then he left her listening to the sound of her hammering
heart and went back on deck.

Laura pulled herself together and joined the
group; immediately she was accosted by Billy.

"Stubby won't eat," he complained. "Not only
that, but he ain't eaten for days. Lookit 'im. He don't look too
good, that's for sure." He pointed an accusing finger at his friend
who, as usual, had the helm.

Distracted as she was, Laura could see that
Stubby did indeed look sallow. "Don't you like your own cooking,
Stubbs?" she asked with a bleak smile.

Stubby, wan but cheerful, said, "Sure I do.
But I chuck it up soon's I hit that blessed hammock. It's easier
not to swallow it down in the first place."

"Stubby! Why didn't you say something?"
Laura demanded, dismayed.

He grinned. "Didn't want you turning the
Ginny
around and dumping me."

"As if we could! Well, we'll have to work
something out."

"And I know what," Billy chimed in. "Stubbs
can take over Colin's berth, and Colin can sleep in the one in the
main saloon. You'll like that one, Colin. We get to stay there when
we're sick. Laura won't let us use it any other time 'cause she
says we leave a mess."

Billy turned to Laura to plead his case.
"Colin cleans up after hisself, Laur. Ask the guys."

A door and about eight feet separated the
saloon berth from Laura's. "I ... I'll have to think about that,"
she said vaguely.

"It'll be great, Stubbs," said Billy
enthusiastically. "You'll be right above me and I can kick your
butt if you snore."

Ned didn't like the plan at all. "But then
Colin won't be with us," he said tragically. "With the crew. He's
crew. He should stay with the crew."

"He's not crew, noodlehead," said Billy.
"He's first mate. Laura's the master, and he's the mate. He's
between Laura and us."

"This isn't the merchant marine " said Neil
scornfully "This isn't the navy. Mama? Colin's just crew, isn't
he?"

It was an absurd tug of war, and Laura was
getting a headache. "Oh, who cares, Neil? Do you want that berth or
not, Colin?"

His face was grim. "It's the logical
thing."

"Then it's settled," she said. "Let's all do
whatever it is we have to do and get back to ... whatever it is we
have to get back to. And Stubby—eat something, for God's sake!"

After that, Neil had nothing to say to his
mother. He struck her from his list of acceptable society as surely
as Mrs. Astor had done any number of upstarts who'd ever dared to
overstep in Newport. When Laura tried to catch Neil's eye on deck,
he looked through her. When she offered to help him with his math,
he declined coldly. Billy and Stubby, part of the conspiracy in his
view, also got short shrift.

Nor was he much more gracious with his
erstwhile friend Colin. The shagreen pouch disappeared from sight,
and a small book that Colin had lent him on poisonous fishes was
placed conspicuously in the center of Colin's hateful new berth.
Colin himself, brooding and preoccupied, barely noticed the pointed
little gestures of the boy, but Laura did.

Ready or not, Neil is going to grow up
this trip,
she told herself. The thought saddened her
immensely.

****

"16 September, 1934. I feel in my bones
that the Ginny makes good miles. Laura will bring her through. Have
got over my rage from her note that she sails off shore. It may be
best. But say she has a fire on board like the
Morro
Castle,
then what? Tomorrow we race. President Roosevelt
will be here and Captain Pine from the
Gertrude Thebaud.
There will be 16 warships and who knows what else. Steamer
tickets cost $5 to $20. For $20 you can buy a used Dodge truck. I
have no heart for all of it. Bad moods on both sides. Papers are
full of it. It is not what I hoped."

****

On the seventeenth—the day of the first
completed race for the America's Cup—the
Virginia,
seven
hundred miles to the south, ran out of wind. She fell into a hole
so big and heat so intense that crew and ship alike were soon going
through the motions—what little motions there were—in a stupor. So
sudden, so shocking was the transformation that by noon hardly
anyone felt like eating, except to savor the oranges. It was
unbearable on deck; worse below. Shade became precious. The
simplest task—hauling a bucket of water up from the ocean to clean
up—left one dripping with perspiration. Conversation, not all that
lively the day before, dragged to a halt.

The changing of the watch was a joke; there
was nothing to watch except an oily, undulating sea, nothing to
listen to except the monotonous slatting of the heavy canvas sails
as they rolled limply from side to side. By Laura's reckoning they
had traveled absolutely nowhere in fourteen hours. The
Virginia
had been moving like a freight train, but now she'd
got derailed and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

****

"17 September, 1934. We
lost
by god. By a full two minutes. The men all hang their heads like
dogs. Busted gear. A black time. And now I fear for the
Gin
as well. These things happen in 2's and 3's."

****

"We'll drop the sails. I don't see any point
in listening to that damn slatting anymore. It's hard on the gear,
anyway."

"I agree. Billy! Help me get the mainsail
down."

Colin took up his position at the foot of
the mast to release the peak halyard, and the throat. Hand over
hand he lowered the hemp rope, letting the faded mainsail slide on
its hoops down the mast. The folds of canvas were caught in the
lazy jacks as neatly as a football in a young boy's arms. Billy
wasn't really needed. "Want me to lower the foresail?" he
asked.

"Go ahead," replied Colin as he secured the
main halyards.

Out of habit, Laura went over to take the
helm, but there was nothing she could do to control the boat, and
she soon gave up the effort. Without sails, without a helmsman, the
Virginia
wallowed lazily, like a rust-streaked basking
shark.

Laura looked around at her heat-weary crew:
no one wore a shirt, of course, and the boys had all stripped down
to their shorts. Colin wore white painter's pants, in striking
contrast to his deeply tanned torso. He moved with quiet economy,
exerting himself as little as possible in the crushing heat. For
two days she'd kept her distance from him, confining her remarks to
the business at hand, but she was intensely alive to every step he
took, every look he cast in her direction. She marked her awareness
down to her Sioux blood and tried to push him out of her
thoughts.

And yet the logical thing would have been to
sit down and talk it out with him. Now that the boat was not going
anywhere, the strict regimen of watches had been relaxed; surely
she could find an opportunity. She wanted to explain that
attractions in close quarters were inevitable, to repeat that she
was a married woman. But he knew more about such shipboard
attractions than she, and he certainly understood that she was
married. There didn't seem to be much new to say. So she settled
for stealing wistful glances at him when he wasn't looking, and for
drinking in the sound of his voice as he explained the mysteries of
the Sargasso Sea to Neil and the others.

****

"Colin, c'mon!" yelled Neil. "We're going
swimming."

Neil was on the bowsprit, poised for a dive
into the ocean; Billy was threatening to push him off. With the
sails down there was no chance of the
Virginia
catching a
sudden puff and leaving someone behind, so Laura had permitted her
young crew to cool off in their Atlantic swimming hole. Neil swam
like a guppy, but Laura took Billy aside and asked him to keep an
eye out for him anyway.

"Colin! Watch this!" Neil took a flying leap
off the bowsprit, curled himself into a ball, and landed in the
Sargasso Sea with quite a respectable splash.

Billy followed, and Stubby soon after, each
with his own specialty, each waiting for Colin to acknowledge him
with a wave.
The whole crew adores him,
Laura thought
without surprise. Neil had long since forgiven Colin for moving out
of the forecastle (especially since Colin had taken to sleeping on
deck during his off-watches). It was sad: Sam was respected, even
loved, but never adulated. She stared openly at Colin as he leaned
over the waist-high bulwarks, exchanging banter with the younger
crew
.
Well, who wouldn't be starry-eyed? He's been
everywhere, done everything, knows everything ....