Tattered Innocence (9 page)

Jake paused with his hand on the door handle
of Rachel’s faded-to-white Ford Escort. He peered at her across the
roof. “Gabs dragged me to mass every Sunday for a year, and we
never had a conversation like this. I don’t feel like you do, but I
get what you’re saying. Gabs’ religion was too high to reach—not
down in the muck where I live.”

Rachel smiled.

Nice smile.

She ducked into the car. “That would be
me—down in the muck.”

Monday morning Jake killed the spray from
the hose and looked up at Leaf. “What did you say?”

Water ran down the teakwood deck and gurgled
through the scupper drain in the gunwale.

“Where’s Rachel?”

“At Winn Dixie. So, she’s Rachel now. She
been slipping you granola or something?”

Leaf laughed. “You ought to sweeten up on
her yourself. She’d make you a mighty fine lady-friend.”

“If you like her so much, you go for
her.”

“I would if I didn’t have a woman of my
own.”

Jake shook his head. “You’re full of
surprises.”

“My old lady lives down by where they tore
down the old Faulkner Street Elementary School down.”

“You’re married?”

Leaf shifted his weight from one foot to the
other and back again. “We been together more or less since nineteen
fifty-five. A good woman. Like your girl.”

“She’s not my girl. You’re not married?”

“What? You never slept with Miss Country
Club? You can have a woman, and I can’t? I may be old, but I’m not
dead.”

Leaf’s words felt like Gramps jamming a
finger into Jake’s chest. He shoved it back. “Why didn’t you marry
her?”

“You sound like my daughter.” Leaf chuckled.
“She’s ashamed that her parents never tied the knot.” A cloud
passed over his expression. “My daughter and I don’t see eye-to-eye
on much. Man’s got to reject negative energy. Inhale the
positive—good food, ocean air, beauty.”

Jake sprayed a stream of water against the
deck, and it sloshed against the gunwale. He wanted to hang onto
Leaf’s philosophy, but it ran off with the water running through
the drain.

Instead, Leaf’s words slammed him against
the serrated edge of his grief for Gramps. He needed to man up and
face the pain once and for all. Get past it. But not today. All he
could imagine was diving into a vat of agony and never climbing
out.

Rachel squinted into the sun from the bow as
a lanky black teen strode up the finger pier, a rolling suitcase
thumping across the boards after him.

Peering through his glasses, he cocked his
head at Jake. “Captain Murray?”

Rachel half-listened to Jake welcome Nigel
and direct him to his bunk. Two kids in low-slung surfer trunks and
flip-flops passed the
Queen’s
dock box.

Rachel waved. “Yo, guys. Looking for the
Smyrna Queen
?”

A backwards baseball cap mashed onto snowy
almost-dreads jerked up. The boys about-faced in front of the
bow.

“Welcome aboard, men.” She stretched her arm
down over the life lines toward the kid in the Inlet Charley’s Surf
Shop T-shirt. “Rachel.”

His eyebrows arched above his mirrored
sunglasses. “Keenan.”

She would have gotten a firmer handshake
from a hunk of seaweed. “And?” She held out her hand to dreads.

“Pete.”

Pete slapped her five. She was so going to
teach these boys how to shake hands like men. She checked her
clipboard. “Stateroom One.” She waved them toward the main
cabin.

Behind Pete, a red-haired man and woman and
three similarly blessed kids walked up the dock.

Jake shook hands with the dad. The tallest
and most-freckled kid, sporting an
I’m-totally-embarrassed-by-my-family look, moped toward his bunk as
six more boys boarded the
Queen
in a cacophony of parental
warnings, awkward good-byes, and luggage thudding onto the
deck.

Twenty minutes later, Rachel cranked a
manual can opener around a massive can of baked beans in the
galley. Oh man, this was a seriously bad choice for the first meal
of the cruise. She had a straight shot at Jake chatting with the
boys in the cockpit, a grin playing cat and mouse on his face.

He’d been good for her. He provided an
ever-present yardstick to measure Bret by. And, if she used the
term loosely, he’d become a friend in the time they’d sailed
together.

Jake shoved the curls off his forehead and
squashed his University of South Florida baseball cap back onto his
head. He cleared his throat to get the boys’ attention and pointed
to the heavy wooden beam where the mainsail was furled. “The boom
demands your attention at all times. If it clocks you, you could be
knocked unconscious into the drink or killed. When someone yells,
‘Coming about!’ you duck. Then, look for the boom.”

Even surfer Pete, who lounged in the far
corner of the cockpit, paid attention. Jake’s mix of respect and
firmness would have made him an excellent teacher. One more thing
to admire about him. One more career option a dyslexic wouldn’t
consider.

On Tuesday morning Rachel stood on the fore
cabin and stared up at the mainsail luffing in the miniscule
breeze. Nigel and Keenan sniggered on the fore deck. Heavy metal
blared from below. Pete, propped against the aft cabin, cleaned his
toe nails with a paper clip. An idea Jake would try to shoot down
took shape in her head.

She looked down at Jake who stood in the
cockpit beside the wheel. “The guys are bored.”

“Noticed.”

Rachel fanned her T-shirt away from her
swimsuit. “We’re not behind schedule, are we?”

Jake squinted at her. “Not yet.”

“Let’s throw out a tow line and let the boys
swim.”

Jake shrugged.

“Your enthusiasm is killing me.” Rachel
ducked in and out of the aft cabin. She dribbled her basketball the
length of the boat.

The rest of the boys streamed onto deck.
Rachel fired the ball between the bowsprit and its railing. “Guys,
that’s a basket. Choose up teams.” She tossed her T-shirt onto the
cabin and dove overboard. When she came up, all eyes riveted to
her. She swam for the ball.

“This is water dribbling.” She demonstrated
by swimming with her head out of the water, keeping the ball in
front of her on the glassy ocean. “No sitting on the ball. No
dunking the guy with the ball—that’ll be a foul.”

Rachel climbed back onto the deck. Water ran
off her body and pooled at her feet. “The most important rule—” She
took a couple of breaths. “Lose my basketball and you die.”

Forty-five minutes later, the game
degenerated into a cannon-ball contest off the bow.

Rachel dropped onto the cockpit bench across
from Jake. Her breath came in short bursts. She leaned against the
coaming. “I’m too out of shape for this sort of thing.”

Jake cocked his eyebrows. “You looked like
you were holding up fine, but I don’t know about the
Queen’s
decks.”

“You’re like a little old lady about this
boat.” Rachel leaned her head back. Cool water dripped out of her
hair and down her back. The sails slackened and smoothed out as
they caught small puffs of wind. Her eyes drooped shut.

“Man the helm for me?” Jake’s words mingled
with the shouts, running feet, grunts, and splashes off the
foredeck.

“Mmmm.”

“You’d do a better job with your eyes
open.”

At this speed, it hardly mattered. Rachel
slit her eyes anyway and grabbed for the wheel. “Whatever.”

Jake sprinted the length of the deck and
spun a near perfect one-and-a-half off the bow.

Now that was worth opening my eyes for.

He swam the length of the boat with smooth,
easy strokes. Pete raced along beside him with an unpolished
surfer’s crawl. Keenan, lacking the muscle and stamina of the
others, fell behind in the impromptu race.

Keenan drifted toward the stern and climbed
up the transom ladder. He slumped onto the seat across from Rachel.
Blond hair matted to his head. Sparse chin hairs caught the sun,
accentuating the tough-guy glint in his green eyes.

“That B-ball game was wicked.”

“You’re a natural at basketball. You line up
and shoot. The ball is an extension of your hand when you dribble.
Why don’t you go out for the NSB High team?”

“No way!” But his shoulders and the firm
line of his lips relaxed under her praise.

“Why not?”

“Basketball’s not cool.”

“What is cool?”

“Hanging out. Surfing.”

“Have a board?” Rachel doubted it. His
stroke wasn’t strong enough for a surfer.

His eyes narrowed defensively, and he shook
his head.

“That leaves hanging out—and getting
high.”

He looked across the water.

Nailed that one. She tried another tack.
“Afraid to go up against guys who played through middle school?
Afraid of the gym floor after playing on asphalt?”

Keenan glared at her. “What’s it to ya?”

Rachel shrugged and fingered the wheel.

Jake stepped over the coaming. He rubbed his
fingers back and forth through his hair, flinging drops of water in
a shower around him. “Listen to her. She played ball.”

His words warmed her. How did Jake know? Had
she put it on her resume or did packing a basketball give her
away?

Jake jutted his chin toward her. “Tell
him.”

“Four years at New Smyrna Beach High,
scholarship to Daytona State College.”

Jake’s eyes widened.

She must have skipped the scholarship on her
resume. What was the point when she didn’t use it? Couldn’t. Sure,
John Lennon, Keira Knightley, Ansel Adams worked around their
dyslexia, but college didn’t show up on their resumes.

Keenan’s brows shot up. Then he hunkered
down and rested his chin on his knees.

Jake jogged down the companionway steps into
the galley.

“I grew up playing on asphalt, too,” Rachel
said. “You’d love the gym. Imagine a floor with no divots, no
cracks with grass growing through them, no stray rocks to give you
a crazy bounce. Your game has a whole new edge when you always know
where the ball is coming up.”

Keenan lifted his head, a smile fighting the
corners of his mouth.

“My favorite thing about playing in the gym
is that you almost never leave skin on the floor.”

Keenan’s smile broke out. He pointed to an
assortment of pink scars on his knees and elbows. He peered out at
the ocean, then back at Rachel. “Maybe I wouldn’t make the team. Or
I could be the worst player there.”

“Here’s a story for you: A boss gave his
employee a buck, and the kid ditched it between his mattress and
box springs. A second worker got two bucks. He bought eight cans of
Walmart soda on sale, stuck them in a cooler, and sold them for
fifty cents a pop to the girls’ soccer team after practice. A third
guy got five dollars. He bought a never-used Spalding basketball at
a garage sale and doubled his money by selling it to a kid on
J.V.”

She heard Jake opening and shutting cabinets
in the galley. A few boys jimmied up the bowsprit chain. Two more
climbed onto the aft deck.

“What do you think the boss said to his
employees about their investments?”

Keenan scratched his stiffly drying hair.
“He was probably cool with the dudes who doubled his cash… and
ticked with the jerk who hid the buck.”

“Bingo.” Rachel inched the wheel to port and
shot a glance at the boys trash-talking on the foredeck. “You’re in
this story.”

“Huh?”

“What does the story say about your talent
with a basketball?”

Keenan stood and stretched. “Is this a
riddle? You’re hurting my brain.” Keenan sat back on the edge of
the aft cabin. “You’re saying I have to get off my tail and play
ball, use my one talent, make the boss man happy. Even if I
suck.”

Jake stepped out of the fore cabin with a
Dr. Pepper in his hand. He winked at her.

Something fluttered in her stomach.

“Hey guys!” Jake yelled to the boys lounging
on the foredeck. “I’m going to sacrifice my last, ice-cold Dr.
Pepper.” He held the can aloft. “This trophy goes to the man with
the best dive.”

The guys raced for the bow, diving in every
direction.

Rachel squinted up at Keenan who hadn’t
moved. “The story ends with the boss taking the talent from the
first guy and giving it to the mega talented guy.”

“So, if I use my talent, I’ll get better?”
Keenan’s head tilted toward her, interest flickering in his
eyes.

“Possible.”

As if on cue, the boys tumbled into the
cockpit asking for lunch. Pete lofted the Dr. Pepper like the
Olympic torch. Rachel mouthed ‘thank you’ to Jake for distracting
the boys to give her a few more minutes with Keenan.

Below, Rachel passed the tray of bologna and
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches Jake had assembled through the
hatch. Maybe she could teach preschool or high school P.E. It was
reading four years worth of text books she doubted she could
do.

Rachel passed the sandwich tray through the
hatch to Jake. She lobbed Hawaiian Punch cans, one after the other,
from the fridge into a gaggle of waiting hands, then the chip
bags.

Jake jogged down the steps and held out a
bologna and a PB & J sandwich. “Pick one.”

She took a bite of the bologna sandwich as
Jake bit into the peanut butter.

Mustard. She chewed, telling herself mustard
wasn’t so bad—like Jake watching out for her. But they both
tasted—wrong. She was the one who raised Hall, who nagged Mama to
get eight hours of sleep, who packed Dad’s lunch when she’d lived
at home fulltime.

He licked jelly from the corner of his
mouth. “That story was from the Bible.”

She swallowed a bite in one gulp. “You were
the one who wore out that Bible on your shelf?”

“Hardly. It was Gramps’. But I doubt he
missed telling me a story.” He ran water into a paper cup, handed
it to her, and reached for another cup.