Pilgrims Don't Wear Pink (11 page)

“The beach. Not the town beach, the museum beach. It's that smallish strip of sand next to the boathouse. There, you see? Where the bonfire is.”

I did. It was glowing in the distance, shooting orange sparks into the darkening dusk. As night fell, the sky deepened to a shade of blue that was almost navy, dark enough to see the first stars of evening twinkling above.

The boathouse was a large wooden structure on the dock, with three walls and one side open to the beach. We walked down the length of the dock and entered the boathouse from the side, through propped-open double doors that looked like they fell off the side of a barn. Directly inside, there was a pirate at a desk with a series of lists.

“Ahoy.” The pirate waved. “Be ye checkin' in and competin' in the Showdown, arrgggh?”

“You look like a tool.” Cam chuckled.

“Dude, shut up,” the pirate said. “They forced me to wear this.”

“This” was a cobbled-together pirate outfit clearly meant to channel Jack Sparrow, except the sashes around his head and waist were a Barbie hot pink. The black dread-locked wig and beard he had on were threatening to consume his head altogether. He was drowning in a sea of nylon dreadlocks. I assumed the pirate had applied his own eyeliner, or else a six-year-old had sloppily drawn circles around his eyes with a black crayon. He looked like a mangy panda's piratical cousin.

“I feel your pain,” I sympathized.

“Well, you look hot,” the pirate grumped. “I look like a tool.”

“You look very . . . distinguished,” I offered.

“Be ye singing, wench?” he asked, waving around a ballpoint pen with a giant feathery plume taped to it.

“Hells no,” I said firmly. I would prance around all tarted up, but that was the extent of the humiliation I was willing to endure in the name of history. Nobody needed to hear me mangle a shanty.

“Cam, you doing anything solo or just the annual Squaddie ‘What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor?'?” the pirate asked, list in hand.

“Just ‘Drunken Sailor.'”

The pirate checked something off.

I looked around while Cam and the pirate, who turned out to also be on the Demo Squad, talked. The walls had been decorated with all types of different pirate flags; not just the skull and crossbones Jolly Roger, but the skull and cutlasses, bleeding hearts, little devils, and skeletons. The band was in the back center of the room—fiddle, accordion, banjo, and fife—already playing merrily away. Sea shanties were actually pretty catchy; my toe was involuntarily tapping, and I felt the unfamiliar urge to start jigging or something.

There were a lot of faces, and a few I recognized. Ashling was there, in Susannah Fennyweather garb, dutifully studying some sheet music. Suze stood next to her, looking absolutely miserable in a pirate costume, trying to stabilize the stuffed parrot that kept threatening to pitch off her shoulder. Neil and the marine biologists stood just off to the side of the boathouse in the sand, clinking beer bottles together. Neil was still bandaged but looked to be enjoying himself immensely.

Garrett was standing in the corner of the boathouse, looking awkward and slightly defeated. I had a feeling I knew why. There hadn't been the merest hint of paranormal activity onboard the
Lettie Mae.
As a kind of summer opener, he'd published an article summing up all the earlier ghost sightings, but I knew he wasn't happy with it.

“Come on, Libs. Let's go get a beer before all the good stuff's gone.” Cam put his arm around my waist and pulled me away from the pirate table.

“Oh, um, I'm not twenty-one,” I said as we walked out to the beach.

“Ah, but I am.” He winked. Wow. I had guessed that Cam was a little older than me, but I hadn't realized he was twenty-one! That was so . . . mature. I knew it was kind of silly, but I couldn't help but feel cool that someone older was interested in me. I mean, Cam probably could have gone to the Showdown with anyone, and he'd picked
me.
Me! There were two large barrels full of ice just outside. He pulled two beers out of one of the barrels and popped them open with a bottle opener on his key chain. “And here you are, m'lady.” He handed one to me, executing a joking half-bow and winking again.

“Oh, thank you, but I don't really like beer. I—” Cam had taken a deep swig and wasn't paying any attention. I took a small sip and made a face. Ugh. Beer is just gross. Even the smell—yuck.

Cam started chugging his beer, as a group of guys walked over.

“Yo, Cam!” Ah. Squaddies. They all started talking, drinking, and laughing, in a maelstrom of
man
s and
bro
s, and Cam promptly forgot all about me. I looked in the other barrel. Root beer. I wondered . . . I held my beer bottle up. The two were almost identical. I hid my beer in the sand behind the barrel and exchanged it for a root beer, which luckily had a twist-off top. I took a long, sweet gulp. Much better.

“Babe? Babe! Hey, babe!” Bro-fest was over, apparently.

“Yeah, Cam?” I trotted over, trying not to topple over in the uneven sand in my silly little boots.

“Babe, these are my boys,” he introduced me. They all stared directly at my chest. I bet not one of them would have been able to recognize my face if we met up later.

“Hi.” I blushed. I swore one day to wreak vengeance on Roger for this outfit.

“Kelly!” one said excitedly.

“What?” I asked, confused. “No, um, I'm—”

“Melissa?” another one asked.

“No, I'm Libby.” I shot Cam a quizzical look.

“Libs, we've gotta go practice, okay?” He kissed me sloppily, and it tasted like beer. “We'll be back. Don't miss me too much.”

“Damn, son, how do you do it?!” one yelled as the pack of them walked off. “You are a legend, Cam-man!” They high-fived and laughed, leaving me with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I wondered who exactly Kelly and Melissa were.

I was alone in the sand, in the darkness, watching the bonfire shoot up into the now black night sky. I could've gone to talk to Neil and the marine biologists, but I was starting to feel like there was some kind of weird love triangle going on. And as badly as I wanted to rescue Suze and her floppy parrot, I really didn't think I could face Ashling in my historical hooker gear.

“Hey.”

It was Garrett, fiddling awkwardly with his voice recorder.

“This is Janine.” He stepped aside to reveal a short woman with a camera. I always forgot that Garrett was actually quite tall—not Neil tall but still really tall, taller than Cam, surprisingly. He hunched a little, like he wasn't totally comfortable with how tall he was. “She's the, um, photographer at the
Camden Crier.
Do you mind if she takes your picture?”

“Oh, uh, no, of course not.” We stepped into better light, closer to the boathouse.

“She's going to be running around doing candids mostly, but they want a few stills too,” he explained, as Janine gave us the thumbs-up, indicating the light was good.

“Here.” I gave him my bottle. “Would you hold my root beer? It looks like real beer, and I feel like that's not exactly the family-friendly image the museum should project.”

“I, uh, don't know that your, um, outfit is exactly a family-friendly image.”

He was clearly exerting superhuman effort not to look at my chest.

“It's okay.” I sighed. “You can look. They're sort of hard to avoid.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.” He studiously looked up and away, looked anywhere that wasn't directly down my shirt.

“You're a good guy, Garrett.”

“You don't need to sound quite so surprised, Libby.” He grinned sheepishly.

“I mean, don't get me wrong, you're still a jerk. And a weird-o,” I clarified, “but there may be hope for you yet.”

“Uh, thanks, I guess.” He pushed his glasses up on his nose, like he was embarrassed or something.

I smiled, and Janine took my picture, before moving back into the boathouse, leaving me and Garrett standing alone in the moonlit sand.

“So, how are you enjoying your first Sea Shanty Showdown?” he asked, breaking the silence.

“Off the record? Or is this in your official capacity as
Camden Crier
reporter?” I asked.

“Off the record,” he said. “Libby Kelting, uncut and uncensored.”

“It's . . . fine, I guess.”

“Fine? That sounded pretty censored.” He laughed.

“Okay, okay, umm, let's see,” I began. “I like the music. More than I thought I would. And the actual Showdown hasn't even started yet, so it'll probably only get better. So that's a plus. And this root beer is delicious.” I took my bottle back. “But I saw Ashling with some sheet music, and that makes me very apprehensive.”

“That does sound scary,” he agreed. “So . . . where's your boyfriend?”

“He's not my boyfriend.” I looked down at the sand. “But if you mean Cam, he went to go practice with the other Squaddies.”

“Ah, yes, the annual Demo Squad serenade of ‘What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor?' in which they all try to outdo each other in emulating the titular sailor,” he said disdainfully.

“Ahoy!” We turned simultaneously toward the boathouse, where President Harrow was standing in front of the band, microphone in hand. “Ahoy, avast, and gather ye round, mateys!” President Harrow was also in full pirate regalia and looked like he was having the time of his life.

Garrett and I followed everyone else into the boathouse.

“Welcome to the Sea Shanty Showdown, laddies and lassies!” he continued, booming over the microphone. “I be Captain Harrow, and welcome to me boathouse. The Dread Pirate Travis”—President Harrow indicated the unhappy-looking pirate who had signed us in—“will be announcin' the competitors as they take the stage. When it be over, the dread panel of judges, who be me-self, the Jolly Roger”—here he indicated Roger the publicist—“and sweet Maddie May”—our internship coordinator, in a black pantsuit and an eye patch—“will be pickin' the top three, and then ye, the unruly mob, shall decide the victor by the ancient test of the sea: the applause-o-meter!” The crowd cheered. “Dread Pirate Travis, the mike be yours. ARRRGH!” President Harrow finished up and passed the mike.

“Hey,” Travis said glumly in the microphone. “Ashling? Did I pronounce that right? Ashling? Whatever.”

“IT IS SUSANNAH FENNYWEATHER!” she boomed, roughly snatching the microphone away from Travis. “I know not what be this volume-enhancing stick of sorcery, but use it I shall.”

Someone who sounded like Cam snickered and repeated, “Stick of sorcery.” I turned—all the Squaddies were in the back of the boathouse, clinking bottles and chugging beer.

Ashling then busted out an off-key, operatic rendition of something called “Yankee Privateer,” which lasted for the longest seven minutes of my life. Yes, seven whole minutes. I watched them tick slooowly away on Garrett's watch.

Once Ashling quit the stage, amid a halfhearted smattering of applause, things improved vastly. Lots of different people and groups from the museum got up to sing, most of whom I didn't know, singing songs I didn't recognize, but they were all really good. I even found myself dancing a little bit to “Maggie May.” The Squaddies went last, and by this point they were all so trashed that “What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor?” was almost unintelligible. They swayed together in a large clump, until the one on the end abruptly fell over and passed out, cutting the song short with a dramatic conclusion. Laughing raucously, they dragged their fallen comrade offstage, back into the corner closest to the beer.

“Now is the time for anyone who has been inspired by the magic of music and the spirit of the sea to sing if they so choose,” the Dread Pirate Travis read dispassionately off a sheet of paper, returning to his post on the microphone.

“Libby does a unique interpretation of ‘Hey, Ho, Blow the Man Down,'” Ashling said nastily, putting extra emphasis on the words
ho
and
blow.

“Yeah, Libby, blow the man down!” one of the Squaddies yelled.

“Cam, dude, you
need
to hit that,” another Squaddie said, so loudly and drunkenly that everyone heard.

“Are you singing ‘Blow the Man Down'?” Travis pointed the microphone limply in my direction.

“NO!” I shouted, trying not to cry, although my lip betrayed me with a telltale wobble. I felt someone touch my arm. It was Garrett, and he looked pissed, a muscle tightening in his jaw.

“Are you okay?” he asked concernedly. “Don't pay any attention to them,” he whispered. “They're just drunk assholes.”

“I know,” I whispered back. If I cried at something called a Sea Shanty Showdown, I would never forgive myself.

“Okay, then. Whatever,” Travis continued, “are you gonna sing something else?”

“Um . . .”

“Sing! Sing! Sing!” Somehow, a drunken chant/slow clap had materialized. “Do it! Do it!”

It was like a mob situation. People I didn't know were propelling me forward, until I somehow, inexplicably, ended up in front of the band, microphone in hand, abandoned by the Dread Pirate Travis. Garrett stood in the corner, shrugging wildly, making facial movements like he was sorry but had no idea what had happened.

I didn't know any sea shanties. I mean, yes, I had recognized the tune of a
few
of them from Ashling's CD, but that's it. I didn't know any of the lyrics. Standing up in front of a packed boathouse, I could only think of one vaguely water-related song I knew all the words to, because Dev had preformed it as Tina Turner in the talent portion of the Miss Gay Minnesota Drag Pageant, and I had been one of his backup dancers. It wasn't a sea shanty. It was a body-of-water pop song. But it was the best I had.