Tack & Jibe

by Lilah Suzanne

  The cottage is thick with patchouli- and weed-scented smoke, and The String Cheese Incident or some other meandering, identical-sounding jam band plays from a phone dropped upside down into a glass on the coffee table. “Hey,” Willa says, to the gathering of people lounging on the couch and floor and counter barstools. She knows all of them; Porter Island, for all its pristine coastal paradise reputation, is a small town at its core. Yet they’re all only Willa’s friends by proxy; they’re Bodhi’s friends who hang out with Willa because she’s there.

  “Wills.” Bodhi scrambles up from the floor. She digs something out of her beat-up old backpack and drops it on the counter. It’s a local newspaper, thin and gray, The Porter Tribune stamped in huge blue letters on the top. “How’d it go today? Sailing again?” Bodhi’s eyes are bright; her grin is expectant and proud.

  Several pairs of eyes turn to her and, as much as Willa wants to come clean and ask Bodhi for help, tell her that she’s in over her head and doesn’t know to do, she can’t. “It… went okay.”

  Bodhi nods knowingly. “I’m sure you’re rusty. Don’t sweat it; it’ll come back to you.” Right. She taps the newspaper. “Check it out.”

  Willa frowns and unfolds the paper. She hasn’t read a newspaper in years and, in fact, could have sworn the local paper went belly-up a while ago—or at least went digital.

  “Maritime Heritage on Display This Weekend at Wooden Boat Show,” Willa reads. Bodhi flips the paper over and points again. Willa scans reports about hurricane damage and a police chief retiring down to Local Sailor Nabs Spot in Prestigious Sailing Regatta. Willa’s stomach drops.

  No. No, no, no, no.

  “Is that—” It’s her own face; her own hazel eyes stare back at her from the front page. She feels faint.

  “My moms sent it in!” Bodhi’s smile turns radiant. “Sweet, right?”

  “You’re famous!” Bodhi’s good friend Hunter—always around, always annoying—says from the barstool next to her. She’s either joking or really stoned; it’s hard to say. Famous is stretch, but the whole town knowing about this is not good at all. “Better hope you aren’t rusty for too long,” Hunter says. “I mean, what if you screwed up in front of the whole town with everyone watching. That would be so embarrassing, oh, my god.”

  Willa slams the paper down. “Do you think, Hunter? Do you think it would be embarrassing? Do you think maybe I’m already under a lot of pressure, and that isn’t fucking helping, Hunter.” She only realizes how loud she was yelling when the room goes totally silent, not counting the aimless mandolin solo coming from a glass.

  “Whoa, dude.”

  * * *

  Bodhi comes into Willa’s room after everyone is gone. It’s past midnight, but Willa is cross-legged on her bed. The only slight illumination is the blue light of her phone.

  “Want a hot dog?”

  Willa’s stomach growls; she’s been shut in her room for hours now, too humiliated and ashamed to come out and scrounge for food. She reaches for the bag. “Thanks.” She’s known Bodhi long enough to be aware that she holds nothing against anyone, but Willa appreciates the peace offering all the same.

  “You don’t have to do it, you know. The comp.”

  “I know.” Willa unwraps a hot dog; the rustling seems overloud in the quiet cottage. Bodhi doesn’t compete. She says she doesn’t have the disposition for it, and that’s probably true. If she explained everything, Bodhi would understand. She would forgive Willa; she’d probably even take pity on her and teach her how to sail. The thought makes Willa’s bite of hot dog hard to swallow. She doesn’t want Bodhi’s pity and she doesn’t want to disappoint Robin and Jenn or even Mr. Kelley. She can’t ruin her online reputation and lose all her hard-won followers and she doesn’t want her mom to think she can’t handle her own life like an adult. She doesn’t want to be a loser just fucking around doing nothing and she doesn’t want to be the laughingstock of the whole town. “But I am.” Going to do the competition come hell or high water, that is.

  Bodhi nods and pushes off the doorjamb. “Okay. Well, don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it. People usually train for these things, you know.”

  Train. Train. That’s it. That’s the key. Willa drops her uneaten chunk of hot dog on the blanket and drags her ancient laptop from underneath her bed. Training. Of course!

  Ch. 6

  Willa’s quest for a trainer goes well into the early morning. She spends hours huddled under a blanket with food debris surrounding her and her old laptop valiantly chugging along. She searches for local sailing coaches and finds only collegiate teams and private yacht club offerings and, since she isn’t in college and has a training budget of nothing, those won’t quite work. She tries local sailing schools on some nearby islands and the mainland, but they only offer beginner lessons for recreational sailing, nothing for racing. Hoping for some type of lead somewhere, Willa moves on to researching the race itself.

  HIGH SEAS, the website blares, single-handed ocean racing at its most challenging. Only for the most courageous of skippers, High Seas brings prestige and respect for those who endeavor to drive themselves and their boat to the limit.

  “Seems dramatic,” Willa mumbles, scooping up a brownie crumb. She scans videos and pictures of past races and reads through the bios of past winners. The sun begins to press against her windows; a few birds tentatively chirp their morning song. Soon the ferry will lumber from its port, and, if she wants to get any sleep at all, she’ll need to finish this Internet spiral another day. But then, for the first time since she started down this snowballing path of increasingly bad ideas, Willa has a stroke of luck: a two-year-old interview with a past winner, Lane Cordova, discussing her imminent retirement from sailing.

  “Overall I’m proud of what I’ve done,” Lane Cordova, four-time High Seas champion says in the blurb. “I know I’ve left a legacy of achievement, and that’s a great note to end on.” There’s a picture of her in action, covered from head to toe in yellow rain gear, wind at her back, standing confidently at the helm, yellow-hooded face obscured, and facing determinedly out at the stormy sea. Lane Cordova, the caption says, will join her family’s real estate business on Porter Island, North Carolina.

  Willa flings the blanket from her shoulders and grins. “Lane Cordova, I could kiss you!”

  Blue Sky Realty is in a single-story, hut-like building with blue clapboard siding and white Bahama shutters pushed open and away from the large windows. It’s across the street and down a ways from the Sand Dollar Cafe, and Willa has probably skated past it thousands of times without thinking much about the building at all. Today, she tucks her board under her arm, winds up the walkway decorated with shells and non-native palm fronds, and walks under a sea-glass wind chime into the front lobby. Pale wood floors, a high wooden desk, and a collection of wicker chairs greet her inside.

  “Hello, and how may I help you today?” The receptionist’s tone is friendly in a completely disingenuous way.

  “I’m looking for, um.” This seemed like a great idea after three hours of sleep and a Red Bull, but under the scrutiny of the red-lipsticked and thick-mascaraed receptionist, Willa isn’t sure what she thought would really happen. “Lane… Cordova?”

  The receptionist smiles, over-widely. “Ms. Cordova is out at a showing presently, but she should be back within the hour if you’d like to wait.” She tilts her head. “Or I’m happy to take a message.”

  “I’ll wait.” Willa sits in a chair that creaks and cracks beneath her and leans her board against the side. The lobby is painted faint green and decorated with beach-themed black and white photos. One wall has a row of various accolades, plaques, and glass trophies announcing awards of distinction for realtors all with the last name Cordova, but none of them Lane. Willa is seized with momentary panic that maybe Lane Cordova didn’t come here to work at her family’s business at all. But the receptionist certainly
would have cheerfully sent her on her way if that was true. Is this what Lane Cordova left a distinguished sailing career behind for? To not make it onto her own family’s wall of fame?

  Willa stands to get a closer look, and then the front door opens. Someone bustles in, someone in gray dress slacks, black heels, a gray blazer, and a white button-down. Shoulders high, back straight, she walks with confidence and no-nonsense poise. Willa stands, stomach sinking as she takes in the chin-length black hair, the thick eyebrows drawn down in a scowl, and that familiar pointed chin, lifted high to better look down her nose at everyone.

  “You,” Willa mutters.

  The woman barely spares her a contemptuous glance before striding down a hallway; the slam of a door follows moments after. Willa gapes; dawning realization turns to horror as she considers the possibility that— That she— She can’t possibly be—

  “Ms. Cordova will see you now.”

  Willa should walk out the door and never come back. That would be the smart thing to do, the reasonable thing. She could find someone else to train her. Or, perhaps, she could walk out the door, keep walking, take the ferry to the mainland, change her name, and disappear from general society and then this will all go away forever. Willa has, unfortunately, never been prone to reasonableness. She blows out a breath and marches herself down the hallway until she reaches a glass door to an office where Lane Cordova sits behind a shiny black desk and scowls at a computer. Willa knocks and enters.

  “Come to spill something else on me?”

  Willa raises her empty hands.

  Lane grunts. “Sit.” She gestures at an upholstered chair across from her desk. “Unless you’d prefer the floor.”

  She planned it all out somewhere around three a.m. She would come to Lane Cordova with the story that Willa is a gifted sailor who has simply had a run of bad luck and a bad shoulder and that she wants to prove to the world she’s still got it. And Lane, a former champion herself—one of only two women to ever win High Seas—would take pity on Willa’s plight and jump at the chance to help her. Willa would learn to race from the best and thus not completely humiliate herself during the competition and after that she can get back to her regular low-key, low-stress life and never tell another lie again. In the wee hours of the morning while chugging an energy drink, this seemed like a fail-proof plan—a genius one, even. But sitting across from Lane’s stormy expression and tightly crossed arms, Willa is pretty sure she can’t count on Lane’s empathy.

  “I, uh, am looking to buy a house.”

  One of Lane’s dark, sculpted eyebrows lifts. “Is that so.”

  “Yes.” Willa nods and mm-hmms. “Yep.”

  Lane studies her for a long, tense moment. Never in her life has Willa felt so much like a fish flayed open, her most hidden and tender parts yanked out and exposed to the bright light of day. Willa squirms in the armless armchair.

  “Well then.” Her deep, rough-edged voice and humorless tone still Willa’s nervous fidgeting. “Let’s find you a house.”

  Ch. 7

  Just in case she wasn’t in deep enough, Willa tells Lane Cordova that she’s been approved for a four-hundred thousand dollar loan, a number she pulled entirely out of thin air, and that she’s looking for a home with “a view” because it seemed like something people looking for a home would say. She then snaps a picture of the house Lane takes her to and posts it with a caption reading, “Time to give up the beach cottage? LMK in the comments!”

  With arms crossed and eyes narrowed, Lane waits outside her immaculately maintained SUV. “Would you like to see the inside or would you prefer to livestream a tour of the porch?”

  If Lane is always this brusque and impatient, Willa can see why she doesn’t have her name on any of those fancy plaques. “Yep! I like what I see so far!” That, at least, is true. Where her grandparents’ cottage is snug and cozy and simple in design, the house is open and spacious with a wraparound porch, high ceilings, and huge windows. From the front windows in the huge living room, Willa can see the sound. She does, in fact, livestream the tour.

  “It’s three beds, two-and-a-half baths, and the lot is just under a quarter-acre. It’s listed at five ninety-nine. Now I know you said four, but you aren’t going to find much for that. As a matter of fact, this one is not going to last, so, if you like it, I’d advise putting in an offer today.” Lane’s jaw works, and her chin lifts.

  “That makes sense,” Willa replies easily. She turns the camera on herself. “Things are getting real y’all! Hey, can I see the upstairs?”

  After touring three large, light-infused bedrooms, Lane shows her a recently remodeled master bath with double sinks, a separate shower stall done in stonework, and a garden tub that Willa climbs into. Her followers are really responding to this house; Willa is convinced she could sell the place herself within minutes. “I can see myself being happy here,” Willa says, ending the successful stream and stretching out in the tub. She should pretend to look at real estate more often. Lane sighs and takes her down the polished wooden staircase. Willa decides to investigate the kitchen more thoroughly; she opens and closes the fridge, counts cabinets and drawers, then muses that it’s too bad that the range is electric instead of gas.

  “Okay, I know you aren’t really buying this house. Or any house.” Lane says suddenly, as if she couldn’t hold it in any longer. “What is this? A prank? A, a YouTube challenge? Are you punking me? Am I on Punked?”

  Willa blinks, hands still on the oven handle, unsure of the best way to respond. Deflection? Defensiveness? She goes with confusion. “What’s Punked?”

  “God, are you—” Lane squeezes the bridge of her nose. “Are you even a legal adult?”

  “I’m twenty-two,” Willa says, defensive, though she’s well aware that her round eyes, soft cheeks, and button nose make her look like a middle schooler.

  “Twenty-two,” Lane mutters, rubbing between her eyes as if she’s fighting off a headache. “And are you actually interested in buying a house? Honestly.”

  Willa is ready to defend herself. “Of course I am,” she should say. “Why else would I be looking at houses with you? To slowly gain your trust and then work in casual references to sailing until I’ve convinced you to train me? How could you imply such a thing?” But something in Lane’s expression stops her cold. What Willa thought was stuck-up judgment now looks more like insecurity and defensiveness. And that is something Willa can relate to.

  “No.” Willa turns away from the oven and shoves her hands in the pockets of her torn jeans. “I’m not.”

  “Then why,” Lane says, voice and expression hardening. “Are you wasting my time?”

  Willa stares at her feet. Every time she’s around this woman she’s knocked off balance, literally and figuratively. She doesn’t know where to go from here, how to make this right, other than with the truth. For once.

  “Okay.” She releases a long breath. “I was entered into High Seas because everyone thinks I’m this great sailor with an old injury keeping me from competing, but that’s a lie. I don’t know how to sail at all, not really. And I was hoping you would train me, since you won it, and then maybe I won’t look like a total idiot and let down everyone I know.” Willa winces; saying it out loud makes it all seem so much worse.

  Lane stares, absorbing this information. Willa notices for the first time how uncomfortable Lane is in her business-casual realtor look, how she’s constantly pulling on the stiff collar of her shirt and shifting her weight off her high-heeled feet. It doesn’t even fit right, the suit; it’s too long at the hem and too boxy in the shoulders, like when Willa had to ditch her board shorts and T-shirts to go to Ohio for Thanksgiving with her grandparents. She’d let her mom pick out the dress because she was going to hate it no matter what and just had to tolerate it for the day. Taking the dress off at night was more than shedding uncomfortable clothes; it was as if she was taking off an en
tire persona.

  “And why would I help you?” Lane finally says.

  Willa attempts a winning grin. “Sisterhood?” Lane rolls her eyes. Willa has to think fast; Lane is her last hope. Maybe they didn’t get off to the best start, and if Willa had known she was a local real estate agent instead of an annoying tourist maybe she would have tried to mend fences sooner, especially because Lane seems to be struggling compared to the rest of her family. That’s it. “I can help you,” Willa says.

  “I don’t want to learn how to skateboard,” Lane says sarcastically. “But thanks.”

  “You can sponsor me. It’s a televised competition, and I’ll share it all on social media. That’s a lot of eyeballs on your real estate business. On you.”

  Lane doesn’t immediately reject the idea, which means Willa might have a chance.

  “I don’t think so…”

  “I have five hundred thousand Instagram followers.”

  “I don’t—” Lane’s head tilts. “Five hundred thousand?”

  “Yep.” Willa lifts to her toes. “And that’s just Instagram.”

  Skepticism crosses Lane’s face. “High Seas is no joke. What if you immediately capsize and die? That doesn’t seem like great PR for me.”

  Willa shrugs, unruffled by the implication of imminent doom. “Everyone will be talking about it either way.”

  Lane’s eyes narrow, and Willa’s mind spins desperately for a way to convince Lane to help her. Suddenly, she has a flash of an idea, recalling the wall of plaques at the real estate office—none of which were engraved with Lane’s name. Lane, who was world champion at sea but apparently not so much on land.