Water Lessons (27 page)

Could I have finished the task under the supervising eye of my own father? Jim thought. Perhaps not. The irony of it! Perhaps blood was not always thicker than water. If only his father were more like Walter: encouraging, flexible, understanding.

"You're doing what you have to do, Jimmy. I'd do the same thing. But that doesn't mean this old captain won't miss his best lieutenant." Walter gave a wink and a quick nod.

Jim caught the sadness in the old man's eyes.

"Ya know, Jimmy, I woulda liked to have taught you more about the sea, about boats. We were just getting started."

"I loved it. It doesn't have to be the end."

"I hope ya make it down here some weekends to brave the waters again."

"Of course, I will," Jim said as he felt the pang in his gut. Would his phobia always be with him?

"We can sail out to the Vineyard. And Nantucket. Anyway, lest I forget, when this boat's done, we're gonna flood the drydock, ensure she's seaworthy, get her inspected by the Coast Guard, dock her in Hyannis. Best dock for this old dame is really over there. While I'm doing all this, look into an apartment in the city. I promised you I'd pay the deposit and first month's rent."

"Why, Walter, thanks again, you—"

"I conceived the idea to bring you down here into all this. Maureen was a big part of it, too. We gotta do what's right for her, and for you guys as a couple."

"Walter… I really, really appreciate that."

"And I want you to know, Jim." The old man's face elongated with growing solemnity. "You've really been struggling. You
are
far away from your family. You've had to uproot yourself, make new friends, a new career. You've had a trying time with Maureen. She's put herself through a rough time with the distance and all. And son, you and I… we both bear the scars of battle. Me from Korea and 'Nam. You from that freakish hurricane. I can see it in ya. Among other things, the thousand yard stare. I know that look. I can only imagine how what you lived through down there shook you up. With the old musician, your friend, on your roof. Just know the Henrettys are your family. You're like a son to me."

The old man's sincerity had reached the very depths of Jim's heart. In a way it was embarrassing: it was so sincere and rare and heartfelt, so much and so quickly.
 

Jim cleared his throat. "Thanks for all this, Walter." He stood, but Walter was already standing, grinning proudly, his hand outstretched. Jim gave it a firm shake, and then pulled closer to the old man, giving him a warm embrace.

"Don't mention it, son." The old man clapped a hand on his shoulder, then turned and walked toward the wall. He collected his umbrella and raincoat and then stopped at the door and turned. "Jack Spaulding's throwing one of his famous cocktail parties tonight. I'm heading there myself with Kathleen. His place at 7:30 in Chatham. Jack specifically mentioned that I invite you. I can give you the directions, or you could ride with us."

"If I have to work late, I'll take my truck. I'll keep you posted."

"Good luck today. And we'll talk soon to solidify moving plans." The old man clicked his tongue once in his teeth, opened the office door, and closed it behind him.

For most of the last few minutes, Jim hoped the old man would cease his sentimental talk, yet now that he had departed, Jim felt guilt, as he had neglected to fully disclose his appreciation for all Walter had done. Jim had lacked the immediacy and perhaps the bravery of living in the moment, to thoroughly thank the man who had laid bare his fatherly concern and love.
 

It was not the first time he had failed to live fully in the present and to give proper thanks. His own father, as intense as he could be, and Freddy—they were now out of his reach—and Jim had never truly shown them the right gratitude, had never truly lived as fully as he could have when he was in their presence…

Jim swiveled in his chair until he regained his previous position at the roll top desk. He looked down at the open file, lost in thought. Spaulding's party would undoubtedly be a good time. The lavish parties at the young man's seaside Chatham mansion had been the talk of the Cape for years, according to Kathleen and Walter. Maureen would probably regret foregoing this one. Jim hoped Natasha wouldn't bait him again.

Jim stood, stretched his limbs, and ambled down the stairwell into the shop. This time, the men were playing the Allman Brothers. "Gents, I thought you'd have on some more local music, maybe Aerosmith."

Bill squinted at him. "I guess I started ta wax sentimental you weren't here."

"Sure," Jim said. "Ohh sweet Mel-liss-saa!"

"I saw these guys perform in Cambridge when I was a young squirt." Bill tossed his long, straight blond hair across his forehead. "Never will forget that night. Skydog Duane was with 'em, ya know."

"That's when they were at their peak," Jim said. "Bill, I'm movin' back to Beantown."

"Ya just started here! You were learnin' so much about all of this! You were havin' a great time, right?"

"Ol' Commodore said the very same thing up there in the office a few minutes ago."

"So you dropped the bomb on him just now, eh?" A concerned, almost flustered look had spread across Bill's face.

"Walter offered me my old gig at the securities brokerage. Maureen's been taking all this distance pretty hard. It was a bold move, coming down here, but she found it was too much. If I want to keep her… well, I have to move back. Luckily, I get my old job back."

Bill peered sharply at him, skepticism emitting from the beady, sun-closed, light blue eyes. "But are ya sure you're ready to get back into that line of work, Jimmy? Wasn't that exactly what you were tryin' to get away from? And the city life and the whole Boston 'harshness' thing, as you call it?"

With that statement, Jim's breath quickened as he shuffled from foot to foot. "I moved here because she helped me land this position, but now I've got to sacrifice. Maureen thought she'd be able to endure the distance."

Bill nodded, but seemed crestfallen. "Ah, Jimmy… between you and me and the man in the moon, as you and I've grown to be pals… it's gonna be no easy task pleasin' that girl. I been working here many years. I seen her since she was a little girl. But what I'm sayin' is you're just makin' a short-term decision. How is Maureen Henretty…"

Bill dropped his voice to a whisper and glanced about, as if poised to release a long-guarded secret. "How is this girl ever gonna be satisfied with
anything
? She's spoiled rotten to the
core
. Ruined. Over the years she hasn't gotten any better. You really haven't wrapped ya head around who she truly is. When you first fall in love with someone, you see only what that person wants you to see. Mixed with what
you
want to see. As the days go by, the mist lifts and you start to see the real person. She
is
a looker, but she's gonna put you through hell. As if you ain't been through enough o' that with that damn storm."

"I see what you're saying, Bill," Jim paused, hands in his pockets, his eyes boring a hole into the roof. "And I can tell you care. You're a true friend."

"I did bust ya chops a lot. Some of us do that 'cause we're high and mighty smart asses. But others do it 'cause they like ya."

"I have to move back to the city. Eventually, though, I'll need to keep my eyes peeled for an opening out of the phone-brokering thing. It ain't for me. I know it in my heart, despite my skill at it."

"And if you can't put that princess in her place, you gotta get out. She'll run you ragged."

Jim couldn't help but give a shaky hum at his friend's last line. "I hear you." He put a hand on Bill's shoulder. "Some of my buddies back in Boston tell me the same."

"You should tell the men here about your move now. But they're gonna be blindsided."

Jim turned and walked toward the boat. The hole in the hull was mere hours from being completely closed. Then the priming and painting would commence.

As he stepped toward the boat, he spotted Chief and DaSilva working on the deck. Jim hoped apprehension and embarrassment didn't appear on his face. He came upon the stereo on the table and switched it off.

Jim stopped perhaps fifteen feet from the hull. Bill stood just behind. Donovan stood at a worktable nearby, measuring a board he was about to feed into the table saw.

"Gents, your attention please!" Jim called. "Guys, I've got some news. Y'all will take it as good or bad."

"Lemme guess," Donovan shouted. "Mohegan Sun and every casino in Connecticut has barred Chief for life. And DaSilva has five different women calling the shop, waiting outside ta kill him!"

"That all may be true," Jim said, unable to stifle a smile. "But I've got something that's actually unexpected."

"Then shoot, Jim," Chief said.

Jim glanced back at Bill. The old hippie stood with his forearms crossed across his chest, their scars of skin cancer surgery clearly visible. Bill's sweaty hair was swept back from his forehead. On his sunburned face was a look of hurt, mixed with a trace of pity.

"I have to give up my position here at Melville to move back to Boston. I'm getting my old job back. Not because I want to leave. Frankly, I like where I am just fine. But if I don't move closer to Maureen, and spend a lot more time with her, we're finished."

"Wait! What?" Chief said, placing his palms against the sides of his head. "Oh, brother."

"You
just
got here, Jim. You're finishing your
first
project!" DaSilva threw his hands apart above his head in a wild gesture.

"Ah, Princess Maureen. That explains it." Donovan said. "Been puttin' the heat on ya ta move back, huh?"

"I've… I've got to," Jim said.

"Ahhhhhhhh jeesh!" Donovan buried his face in his hands. "That girl."

Jim sucked in his lower lip and looked away.

"You'll have completed one great project," Bill pointed up at the schooner. "You should be proud. The
John Paul Jones
. We're almost there, man. Maybe one day more and we can get her in the water where she belongs."

"If you decide to come back," Chief said, his words dribbling out, "Walter probably will give you back your position."

"Yeah, Jimmy," Bill said. "Even if you and Maureen ever went kaput, I wager the old man would let you work here again. He loves you."

"You just moved here, though," DaSilva said. "You're gonna haul your stuff all the way back to Boston?"

"I'm really gonna miss all y'all. Maybe my best time in New England yet. Anyway, I won't serve as any more of a distraction. I'm going back up to the office. Then I'll help with the deck."

"Looks like we finish later today, early tomorrow," Chief said.

"Two days early. Sweet," Jim said. He traversed the shop and ascended the stairwell, feeling cut to his very marrow. As he opened the door, he looked back. The men had not moved from where they had stood. They stared back at him in silence, each with a serious mien befitting a funeral, the eyes of Bill and Donovan drooping with gloom.

"We're gonna miss ya, ya swamp-dwellin' Rebel bastahd!" Bill shouted, then cackled.

As the office door swung closed, Jim laughed so hard he could feel his face crimsoning over. Then tears blurred his vision.

He punched in the code and entered his apartment, then shut the door behind him. In the bathroom, astride each side of the faucet, stood empty longnecks, pointing upward like rifle barrels. He turned on the cold water. Cupping his hands as he leaned over, he scooped water onto his face, as if he struggled to further awaken into a life increasingly, after that morning last August, as strange and unpredictable and illusory as a dream.

Could he be the very person who survived days on a roof of a flooded house? Who nearly expired from exhaustion while swimming for insulin and water for his dying friend?

He was living and flourishing in many ways based on abundant, newfound luck. He had chanced to meet Walter, and thus Maureen, and both brokerages. His life had shot off on a completely new trajectory since that late August day. It was surely no nightmare, just almost… not real… and apparently something over which he had little control. As if he were on a well-provisioned pleasure yacht, yet without any navigation tools. He was cruising along, though by his own use of dead reckoning…

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Jim slowed Betty Sue to a roll as he squinted through the dying light at Farragut Drive's mansions, fences, and gates. "Twenty-four… twenty-four…twenty-four Farrugut Drive." He spotted a massive black wrought-iron gate between two large brick pillars. One displayed a faded bronze plaque bearing the number "24."

Jim turned onto the black cobblestone drive and stopped beside the metal box. He punched in the key code. "Ten twenty seven zero four." The wrought iron fence slid open. He eased onto the accelerator. "Ten twenty-seven zero four," he repeated.

Then he had it. October twenty seventh, two thousand and four, the day the Boston Red Sox clinched the World Series after an almost nine-decade drought. He knew Jack Spaulding to be a die-hard fan.

He caught his first glimpse of the house. Jack Spaulding's estate was truly an impressive monument to the magnitude of his forebears' fortune and culture. Its majestic gray Corinthian columns, stucco façade, three stories, and granite rocks sprawled across a well-groomed lawn resembled some Gothic Revival cliffside mansion on Newport's Bellevue Avenue. Several of the Spauldings lived together in this palace. By the sheer size of it, he now understood why.

A young valet approached him with a smile. "Hey, sir, nice ride!"

"Thanks, my man. My grandpa's ol' wheels. I guess you'd take it from here?"

"Yes, sir. Or you can park it yourself."

"No offense, but I'll take you up on the self-park thing. I prize this ol' girl more than all my possessions. If I let you have her, I won't be able to relax inside."

"Okay sir, if you could park behind that gray Porsche…"

Jim eased the truck farther up the drive. Several guests had spilled out onto the front lawn. They sipped drinks, smoked, chatted, and laughed away. One of them, a leggy young brunette with a jaw-length bob and a black cocktail dress, studied him as she sipped her martini.