“Maybe she just felt bad you almost died,” Bodhi says, after Willa can’t stop herself from musing about it out loud, again. “And, like, doesn’t want you to actually die.”
She gave Bodhi an abridged version of the overboard incident, blaming Lane’s impatience and poor instructions instead of Willa’s lack of skill and focus. And, though she was embarrassed at first and felt bad for Lane as well, the more Willa tells the story the more she seems to convince herself that she really wasn’t at fault at all and that Lane just wanted to shirk any responsibility for what happened, again. “No, that can’t be it.”
Bodhi raises her eyebrows and turns back to the table display they’ve been working on. As if sensing Willa’s bone-deep chill—or, more likely, because of the store’s flagging winter sales—Jenn and Robin decided to put out the summer inventory early. Willa and Bodhi have been stocking the floor displays with bikinis and swim trunks and wide straw hats as well as packing up thick wetsuits and wool gloves and heavy hooded jackets.
“Maybe it is though. It’s not like you really know her.”
Willa considers this, straightening a row of bright red bathing suits made with just enough material to be this side of indecent, that are really only good for lounging on a deck in the sun. She doesn’t really know Lane. In fact, every time Willa thinks she has her figured out, Lane throws her off: She’s sharp-edged yet vulnerable, a local who acts like a tourist, a real estate agent who doesn’t seem to sell any homes, a self-centered jerk who saves her life, someone who hates Willa but looks at her as if she wishes she didn’t. A sailor who no longer sails.
After Willa left the Cordova’s house—in her own clothes still humid from the dryer—she and Lane said goodbye as though that was that. The sailing lesson was a bust, and Willa was on her own to sink or swim, and they both silently acknowledged that she was doomed to sink. But if Willa is missing something, some piece of the puzzle that is the real Lane, then she can figure out a way to keep the lessons going. After all, Willa is well-versed in the ways of someone who is hiding their true self.
“You’re right, Bo. I should figure her out. Follow her around, observe her from afar. Find out what her deal is without her knowing!” Willa slaps a sunhat onto the table in triumph.
Bodhi’s head tips back and forth like a confused Labrador. “That’s— No, that’s not what I meant at all—”
“It’s genius. After my shift is done, I’ll go wait outside of her office.”
Lane Cordova—mystery, puzzle, enigma—prepare to be solved.
* * *
It’s difficult to be incognito with only a skateboard to hide behind, but Willa discovers after some trial and error that she can see Lane’s polished SUV parked beside the real estate office from a back window in The Sand Dollar. Willa orders a peppermint hot chocolate, sits at a two-top with the chair positioned just right, and waits. She takes some artsy coffee-shop photos and posts the best ones, scrolls and likes and answers some replies. The sun sets, and the stars wink on; the windows in the real estate office turn dark, and the cars pull away from the lot. But not Lane’s. Soon it’s the only car in the dark parking lot across the street, and Willa worries that Lane left with someone else and she missed her. The inappropriate foolishness of this mission settles uncomfortably in her gut. What is she doing?
Finally, the headlights of the SUV snap on and beam across the cracked city road, seeming to lock right onto Willa. Willa shades her eyes and takes it as a sign. She can’t follow a car on her board, of course, but she knows this island, which streets go where and why someone would take them. If Lane turns right and stays on Main, then she’s heading up toward the nature preserve and the neighborhood where her parents’ house sits. Left and then another quick left would mean she’s running errands: She pays a water bill at city hall, stops at the small library, picks up something at the small family-owned hardware store. Left and a quick right would take her to the ferry. Right and then another right would bring Lane into the working class neighborhood where Willa lives, maybe to visit someone, maybe to visit a special someone. Willa frowns at the thought.
She watches from the sidewalk as the headlights bounce and swoop when Lane pulls out of the lot, then they flood the street as she turns right and heads straight, to the bars and restaurants and fancy resort hotels. Willa drops her board to the pavement and follows. She planned to do some detective work, carefully scanning the lots of each restaurant and bar or even the hotels to finally discover Lane’s car. But Willa’s first guess is the right one, and she finds Lane’s SUV right by the road at The Oyster Bar, only pulled three quarters of the way into the space, as if neither it nor Lane really want to be there and hope to escape as soon as possible.
Willa stashes her board by the back door and debates what to do. She could wait, assuming that Lane just popped into the restaurant for dinner or a drink. She could creep along the windows outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of Lane, or she could just go inside and blend in instead of lurking at the windows like a creepy peeping Tom.
How goes the stakeout? Bodhi texts after Willa has settled into a corner booth with a lemonade and is staring at the back of Lane’s dark head several tables down. Boring, Willa answers. Lane does seem to have stopped for a drink; she scrolls her phone and sips a glass of red wine at a table by herself. Willa isn’t sure what she expected to find in order to justify her distrust. Did she suspect that Lane kicks puppies in her spare time or that she retires to an underground lair in the evenings, perhaps sleeping in a coffin or upside down like a bat?
Lane puts her phone down and glances at the door. She sips her wine and traces the rim of the glass with her finger. When a waiter comes by, she shakes her head. She looks at her phone, then sets it back down. Willa can’t see her face, but her head is bowed and her body is drawn tight. It dawns on Willa slowly; the awfulness pushes up like a wave lapping the shore. Lane is here for a date and she’s been stood up.
Willa doesn’t know why and she knows she shouldn’t care—Lane was probably rude and short and sharp with whomever she was supposed to meet here just as she is with Willa all the time—most of the time. Probably because she was told her whole life that nothing she does is good enough and so she’s built a personality of barbed wire to protect herself, and Willa didn’t have to follow her here to realize that. Willa stands from her table and walks over to Lane’s. Lane will certainly tell her to get lost or silently judge her with those dark, lovely eyes. She may even figure out that Willa followed her to The Oyster Bar because somehow she sees through Willa’s veneer of bullshit. This is Willa’s worst idea yet. She goes anyway. She came here to find who Lane really is, but it turns out that she’s already started to figure it out.
“Mind if I join you?”
Ch. 11
Willa doesn’t give Lane a chance to answer. She sits down and immediately launches into inane chatter. She rambles on about the weather, how The Oyster bar isn’t too crowded but not too empty, and how she read an article recently about a strange sudden rise in meat allergies. If she stops talking, Willa reasons, then Lane will ask her what she’s doing here, and Willa doesn’t have a convincing lie ready, not one Lane will believe.
“It’s not just a matter of going vegan, either. Like, animal products are in medications, in vaccinations. Just smelling it cooking is enough to—”
“Willa.” Lane finally cuts her off. Willa braces herself. But instead of demanding to know what the hell Willa is doing, Lane looks around the restaurant miserably then drops her head in her hands. “You know.” She groans. “This is so humiliating.”
“Hey, no. Everyone gets stood up, it’s fine.”
Lane lifts her head enough to level a look at Willa. “Have you?”
“Sure!” Willa says, too fast. Lane’s eyes narrow. “I mean. Like, technically not—”
Lane groans again.
Willa sits quietly, unsure how to proceed. Lane is o
lder than her, so what dating wisdom could Willa possibly impart? And yet, Lane showed up for a date directly from work, dressed in her usual ill-fitting pants suit uniform. She’s nice looking without needing to try very hard, but that’s the thing. She doesn’t look as though she invested very much in this date. It’s the same way Lane seems to approach selling houses. Her heart clearly isn’t in it, but she’s going through the motions anyway.
The waiter circles the table again, and Willa is just about to suggest they order something to eat when Lane thrusts her phone into Willa’s face in an accusatory sort of way and demands, “Is this what people do now? Is this ghosting? Was I ghosted?”
Willa leans back to see what Lane is talking about. On her phone screen is a string of increasingly demanding messages from Lane to someone who didn’t answer. “That’s a lot of caps lock,” Willa mutters, only to get a glare from Lane. “Look, it happens. Just forget them and move on.”
Lane shakes her head, grabs her purse from the back of her chair, and takes out her wallet. “No. This was a terrible idea. I don’t know how to do this.” Willa watches her flag down the waiter and set a card down, and, despite her words and the obvious anger in the set of her jaw and knit of her brows, her hand shakes. Her eyes are sad.
“You don’t know how to… date?” Willa’s question is met with stony silence. She must have fifteen years of life experience on Willa; certainly she didn’t spend it all out on a boat. Right? Lane groans again, covers her face, and makes a high hiccupping noise. Oh, god, is she crying? Willa looks around, as if a waiter or someone enjoying their meal nearby can help save her from this awkward situation. Should Willa comfort her? Hug her or something? Lane’s shoulders shake. Willa reaches out one very unsure hand to pat her arm, and then Lane snorts. In laughter. “What are you—” Willa says, bewildered, hand still suspended in midair.
“I just can’t stop thinking about your face when you fell off the boat.” Lane lifts her face; her eyes are bright. “Every time I look at you, it’s just—” She makes a face, eyes wide and mouth flapping, apparently an imitation of Willa’s face pre-near-death experience, then dissolves into loud laughter. “God, I’m sorry; it’s not funny. You almost drowned but—” She snorts again, from holding back another bout of laughter.
Willa struggles to find an emotion to settle on and stutters through a reply. “I— Well. That’s very— Maybe if you— I don’t—”
“Whew.” Lane leans back in her chair and wipes tears from her eyes. “God, I haven’t laughed like that in years.”
Willa is struck, in this terrible and embarrassing moment, by how beautiful Lane is when she smiles. It’s something Lane hasn’t really done around Willa. It lights up her whole face, brightens her eyes and blushes her cheeks and blooms dimples at the corners of her full lips. It adds insult to injury: laughing at Willa’s misfortune and looking beautiful while she does it.
“Well, it’ll be a real hoot when the same thing happens during the race,” Willa says, voice sharp with sarcasm and irritation. “Since I’m on my own now.”
“Wait.” Lane sobers quickly. “You’re not seriously still doing the race after that?”
“Of course I am,” Willa says, and why wouldn’t she? “Just because I messed up? I mess up all the time, big deal.”
Lane considers this with her eyebrows drawn flat, as if she can’t wrap her head around that at all. She goes silent for a long time, then flicks her gaze away, deep in thought. Instead of chattering pointlessly, Willa drinks her lemonade and allows the quiet to settle between them. The sounds of the restaurant press around them, the happy buzz of conversation from people enjoying their meals and time together, the clink of glasses being set down, the scrape of silverware against ceramic, the whoosh of the front door being opened, and then the seashell wind chime clacking musically.
She bets Lane has never made a mistake in her life. That’s probably why she doesn’t date; she’s holding out for just the right, perfect person. That’s probably why she looks at Willa as if she’s a walking disaster. Or maybe that’s because Willa doesn’t let anyone else see her for who she really is, and who she really is, is kind of a mess. And why would perfect Lane want to bother with her at all?
“All right, let’s go out again.”
Willa blinks. “What?”
Lane’s eyebrows lift and fall. “On the water. I’ll take you out again.”
“Oh,” Willa says. On the water. “Really?”
“I don’t know, I—” Lane says, the far-off look in her eyes returning. “I really loved it, once upon a time. Sailing. And now it’s—”
“Complicated,” Willa fills in.
Lane’s gaze refocuses, intent on Willa in a new way. “Yeah. I guess I’m not used to complicated.”
“Well, maybe we’re not so different then,” Willa says, seizing on a way to connect with Lane and keep her around—for training purposes, of course. “Maybe you can find your love for it again through me. Teaching me, I mean.”
Lane studies her for a very long moment. Willa feels pinned to her chair, unable to so much as breathe. “Maybe.”
Ch. 12
Willa’s second attempt at learning to sail starts like the first; Lane picks her up in the morning, gets annoyed that Willa takes too long, and becomes uncomfortable at the sight of Bodhi shuffling around the cottage—though this time she is fully clothed. They drive in silence to Lane’s parents’ house again; their walk down to the boat slip is once again only punctuated by the thump of their feet landing hollowly on the dock. This time, though, the weather is sunny and cool with a breeze that hints at spring. And this time, too, Lane takes the lead, tying the sails, untying the anchoring rope, and steering the boat into the calm waters of the sound.
“You need to be aware of where the wind is coming from,” Lane says, as the boat slides smoothly beneath willow branches draped into the water, light then shadow then light. “It’s crucial for positioning the sails correctly and for where to sit.” The sail billows to the left, while Lane sits to the right, leaning back with her strong legs pushed against the other side. The line for the mainsail is wrapped tightly around one of her hands, and the pole for the tiller is held steady in the other. “And remember that steering is opposite: Move the tiller to the left and you go right, to the right and you go left. Moving stern to port means the bow is actually starboard. Like driving a car in reverse.”
“I don’t drive,” Willa says, petulant because she’s anxious.
Lane’s mouth flattens. “Never?’
In truth, her mom did teach her how to drive, in the crappy old sedan that ran on a prayer and junkyard parts. Willa shrugs. “Not recently.”
Lane at the helm of the boat looks confident and relaxed, as if sailing a boat is easier for her than breathing. All Willa can think, as every muscle in her body clenches in fear of tumbling overboard, is that the race is next month and she has to cram years of sailing experience into four weeks and five days.
They pass under more low-hanging trees, coming around the northern tip of the island, and then the wide-open ocean comes into view, blue-gray and sun-speckled with short, white-peaked waves. “We’re gonna tack now.” Lane plants her feet more firmly on the side of the boat and leans back. “The wind is coming onto port so we’re turning into it. We’ll be starboard then, which means we’ll need to switch sides and adjust the sails.” Lane serenely watches the sky and the water, waiting for something instinctual that Willa can’t understand. Then the wind catches differently in the sails, the boat arcs to the right, and Lane calls, “now,” moving herself and Willa out of the way just as the boom sweeps across to the other side.
Radiant, Lane smiles up at the sun, and Willa swallows the bile climbing her throat. Sunshine engulfs them. The wind is a living thing, breathing in and out against the sails, thrumming against the lines and ropes, curling itself around Willa’s body, and ruffling through her hair. A
round them the ocean looks infinite and their boat so, so small.
“Are you scared?” Lane’s voice is loud and carried off quickly by the wind.
“Yep,” Willa says. She closes her eyes.
“Come on, it’s okay,” says the wind as Lane’s voice. And then she’s crawling over Willa’s lap and perching on her other side. Her hand covers Willa’s and guides it to the tiller. “Harder to screw it up once you’ve made it out here,” Lane keeps her hand placed securely over Willa’s as they steer the boat together.
“I’m sure I’ll find a way,” Willa replies, and Lane laughs, though it doesn’t seem mean. Willa swallows down acid, takes a shaky breath, and opens her eyes. Lane isn’t wrong; the waves are relatively calm, and they’re heading in a straight path toward the horizon. There is so much space on the open sea that a nervous push too far just means the boat lurches and wobbles but otherwise stays upright with both occupants safely inside. There are a few other boats out: some recreational motorboats, a couple small fishing boats near shore, a commercial liner way off in the distance, but they all seem miles away.
“Let’s trim the jib so we can go a bit faster.” Lane reaches for line.
Willa eyes her nervously. “Do we want to go faster?”
“Well, in a race you ideally want to go fast, yes.”
Lane releases Willa’s hand, does something with the jib, and the boat does pick up speed. The sails pull taught and smooth with very little flapping. One of the motorboats is zipping around in wide circles ahead of them, far still, but getting closer.
“Try steering around them.”
Willa shakes her head.
“Just a nudge to left.”
Willa shakes her head harder. The quicker pace of the little sailboat makes the reckless, loud path of the motorboat draw nearer and nearer. Willa’s hand on the tiller is sweaty, and her stomach is in turmoil.
Tack & Jibe Page 5
