by Julie Cannon
My body started to shake when the enormity of my situation hit. I could have died. I could have succumbed to smoke inhalation, drowning, or the fire itself. If Bert and her crew hadn’t found me, I would have. I might have lasted another two or three days at most but no longer than that. What in the hell had happened? I’d checked everything before I turned in and found no indication anything was amiss. Jesus, by the time I woke, the whole boat was engulfed. Holy shit.
Luck didn’t even begin to describe Bert’s boat finding me. I believe in God, or at least something bigger than me, and he or she or it must have been watching out for me. Why? Did I have some unfinished business? To touch someone in a meaningful, life-altering way? Whatever the reason, I was more than a little grateful.
After Ariel, many days I’d thought I’d die of humiliation or pain, or that the anger would eat me up. But I’d never wished I would die. I must admit, though, that the idea crossed my mind more than once when I was in the water. I suppose it wasn’t my turn.
The last few days had ravaged my body and my mind, but my thoughts kept jumping around. I was saved but was I safe? I was on a ship in the middle of the ocean with eight people I didn’t know, six of them men. That thought certainly didn’t calm the voices in my head. No one was expecting me for several days, and I could be all the way around the world by then in some godforsaken country sold into white slavery.
“Jesus Christ, Alissa, can you make it any worse?” I said, my voice weak and raspy, my throat hurting. I forced my wildly creative imagination to stop and focus on what I did know.
Bert appeared to be a respectable businesswoman. The people in the café knew her and seemed to genuinely like her. I didn’t get any weird vibes from her or from any of her crew I’d met so far. I trusted my gut and felt my nerves start to settle. I’d been scared shitless, but now I needed to get my arms around the situation. I was smart and resourceful and could think fast on my feet. I just needed to rest.
I closed my eyes and the room began to spin. I immediately opened them, gripped the sheet, and tried to focus. An old-fashioned Big Ben alarm clock about the size of my palm sat on a table next to the bed, and I concentrated on the second hand as it moved around the dial. I forced my body to relax and tried to block everything from my mind except the soft tick, tick, tick as the thin hand passed over each number and the four lines between them.
CHAPTER TEN
Bert
“What the fuck?” I hustled the remaining ten steps to my cabin door. A second scream pierced the stillness, and I turned the knob and stepped inside, not knowing what I’d find. I trusted my crew and knew they wouldn’t hurt Alissa. She was lying on her back in my bed, her arms and legs moving as if she were treading water. The covers were off and my T-shirt had slid up, exposing her stomach. It was tan, and she obviously was able to do more than a few dozen crunches.
She moaned, tossing her head back and forth, and becoming more agitated. I sat down on the side of the bed, and before I could grab her hands, one of them hit the left side of my face. Stars danced behind my eyes for a moment, and when they stopped spinning I grabbed her arms and pulled them to my chest. Leaning over her I said her name quietly. “Alissa.” When she didn’t respond I repeated it a little louder.
“Alissa, you’re having a dream. Alissa, you’re safe. You’re on my boat, you’re safe.” When she didn’t wake I crawled into the bed beside her and pulled her into my arms. She fought me, but I held her tight and repeated over and over again that she was safe. Finally, after a few minutes, she stopped trembling and settled into me. Her breathing returned to the deep in-and-out of sleep and I relaxed.
She smelled like ocean and sunshine. Her hair was tangled, but I gradually sorted through it with my fingers. She lay quietly, settling down.
A soft knock on my door startled me. I’d been daydreaming of another place, another time, where the actuality of Alissa asleep in my arms was possible, and I looked down to see that she was still asleep. “Come in,” I said, my voice a little more than a whisper.
Blow stuck just his head inside. “Captain?” He blushed and stammered, “Oh shit, I’m sorry. I thought you said come in.” He started to back out of the doorway.
“It’s all right,” I said a little louder, stopping his retreat. “She was having a nightmare. What do you need?” I hoped he’d say nothing, but he didn’t hear my prayers.
“Lefty sent me down to tell you chow will be ready in about fifteen minutes.” His eyes darted everywhere except to Alissa and me on my bed.
“Thanks. I’ll be right there.” I didn’t want to move from where I was, but we had a schedule to keep and I was the captain. Slowly, so as not to wake Alissa, I shifted. Alissa jerked, obviously startled.
“Sshh,” I said. “It’s all right. You’re safe. It’s Bert and you’re on my boat. You’re safe,” I repeated until she relaxed. Her hand was on my chest, her legs intertwined with mine like lovers often do.
“What time is it?” she asked, her voice weak.
I turned my head, but my awkward position prevented me from seeing the clock. “Time to eat,” I said instead. She shifted, and for a moment I thought of holding her so she couldn’t leave my arms. But I thought better of it and let her go.
Alissa sat up and ran her hand through her hair, pushing it off her face. She was sunburned, but not burned nearly as bad as she could have been if not for her obvious hours in the sun. She looked at me, then around the room, then back at me. Her eyes started to blaze.
“You were having a nightmare,” I said to her unasked question. “This was the only thing that calmed you down.” I could see she was still skeptical.
“Look,” I said, climbing out of the bed. “I realize you don’t know me from Adam, but I am not going to take advantage of this situation. You are a guest on this boat, and my crew and I will treat you as one. You’re safe here,” I said, waving my hand around the room. “From everyone.”
“But you won’t take me back? I’m your prisoner.”
“No, you’re not a prisoner. You’re not confined anywhere, but when we reach our fishing area you’ll need to stay out of the way.”
“Or what?”
“Or I will lock you up.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Yes, I can and I will. The safety of everyone on this boat is my responsibility, and I take it very seriously. If that’s what it takes…”
A flicker of something passed over Alissa’s face, then disappeared. “Okay. Now that we’ve settled that, let’s get you something to eat. You’ll feel better with some food and drink in you. Then you can come back and turn in for the night if you’d like.”
Alissa moved off the bed, her legs buckling beneath her. I was able to catch her before she slid to the floor and pulled her back onto the bed.
“I’m fine,” she barked, brushing my hand away.
“Maybe you should lie down again. I’ll go get something and bring it to you.”
“No,” she said abruptly. “I just need to get my sea legs. Give me a minute.”
Against my better judgment I gave her a few, and this time when she stood up she stayed that way.
“See,” she said sarcastically. “I’m fine.”
She still looked a little wobbly to me but I wasn’t going to argue. Instead I took her arm and led her out the door.
*
Alissa
By the time we reached the galley, I was a little steadier on my feet. When I sat down at the table, Lefty placed a heaping portion of spaghetti in front of me. He did the same for Bert, then returned to his chair next to Limpet. Looking around the table I didn’t see the other two guys whose names I didn’t remember, which meant they were probably manning the helm, keeping us on course. But then again I really had no idea what they were doing.
“Looks delicious,” I said, reaching for a fork in the center of the table. Conversation around me picked up again, and from what I could tell the men were discussing the recent fight between two h
eavyweight boxers. I recognized the names, having worked with the World Boxing Federation preparing some collateral material for the bout. The WBF was trying to appeal to more female fans and thought a female ad agency would help in that effort. As part of my payment I received two seats to the event, nine rows back from the ring.
“It was a great fight,” I said. Five pairs of eyes looked at me. “What? It was a great fight.”
“You watched it?” Limpet asked.
“Yes,” I replied, not including just how close I was when I did so.
“Awesome,” Limpet said, obviously in awe.
“Can you tell me again exactly what happened?” Bert asked, drawing my attention back to her.
“Montoya came out swinging right from the start. He has a nasty right uppercut and when—”
“What are you talking about?” Bert asked.
“The fight.”
“What fight?”
“The fight you just asked me about.”
“What?” Bert asked again, obviously confused. “No, I was asking about your boat.”
“My boat? I already told you.”
“I’d like to hear it again,” she said calmly. “You may have forgotten something.”
“What is there to forget? Everything was fine, I went to bed, I woke up, my boat was on fire, and I jumped. You rescued me, end of incident.”
“You don’t remember anything else?”
My patience expired. “If I did I’d tell you. Do you think I’m lying?”
“Are you?”
“Of course not,” I said firmly.
“Then there’s no problem.”
“Only one, and that is that I’m stuck on this boat. I don’t have time for this.”
“And I don’t have time to take you back. Since this is my boat and I’m the captain, I win.”
*
Alissa
“Why don’t you turn in? You still look pretty thrashed,” Bert said, eyeing me critically. We’d finished dinner but hadn’t gotten up from the table. “You’d probably feel much better after a good night’s sleep.”
I hate being told what to do, and no way was my jailer going to. “What are you going to do?”
“I’ll take the watch for a while,” Bert replied.
“I’ll come along.” I made it a statement, not a request.
Bert raised her eyebrows, obviously surprised. At this point I didn’t care what she thought. I’d almost died, and it was all about me right now. I’m not normally this selfish, but damn it, I’d earned it.
“Suit yourself,” Bert replied, seeming somewhat unsure, then left the galley. I guess I was on my own to get to the bridge.
Once on the bridge I sat down in the chair to Bert’s left. It was quiet for several minutes, or at least as quiet as it could be with forty tons of steel and rigging moving through the ocean. The rhythmic motion as the big vessel churned through the water was familiar and soothing.
“How long have you been fishing?” I asked, trying to regain control of the conversation.
“I caught my first fish when I was four.”
I remembered the picture on the wall in her cabin. “And now you’re the captain of your own ship.”
“Well, there were a few steps in between,” Bert said flatly.
I hated a smart-ass. “Tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Tell me about the steps in between.”
“All of them?”
“It’s not like we’re going anywhere for the next few weeks,” I said.
“I’m glad to see you have your sense of humor back.”
“Yeah, well, that’s all I have left from this trip. I don’t even have a pair of underwear.” Or my boat that cost three hundred and sixty thousand dollars, I thought.
Bert laughed and the sound filled the room. “You were about to tell me your fish tales.” I felt an odd fluttering in my stomach.
“Fish tales?”
“Yes, the stories about all the fish you’ve caught.”
“They’re not really that exciting,” Bert replied.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” I said. Bert looked at me for a few moments. I had no idea what she was looking for, and it made me nervous.
“How about we swap?”
“Swap?” I was confused.
“Yeah, I tell you one, you tell me one.”
I thought about that proposal for a few moments. What the hell? “I can do that. When did you get your first boat?”
“I was twelve. I saved all my Christmas and birthday money and all my allowance and bought a ten-foot rowboat. It needed some work but the transom was solid. You?”
“Fourteen. She was a twelve-foot sailboat my neighbor had neglected for years. It was sitting in his backyard under a tarp, and when he died his wife gave it to me. She said she was finally getting it out of her yard.”
“College?”
“Smith. You?” As soon as the words came out of my mouth I knew better. Bert was a fisherman. She wouldn’t have gone to college.
“Boston College.”
I felt my mouth embarrassingly drop open.
“You’re surprised,” Bert said
I managed to clamp my mouth shut, then opened it. “I just assumed.” My excuse was stupid, my ignorance blatant.
“I was a dumb fisherman,” Bert said. I detected a hint of bitterness in her tone.
“Absolutely not.” I defended myself. “I never thought that.” I don’t think she believed me.
“Yep, summa cum laude, class of 2000. Your turn,” Bert said.
“How did you get into commercial fishing?”
“I come from a long line of fishermen. My first memory was standing on the captain’s chair on my grandfather’s boat so I could see over the wheel.” Bert smiled. Obviously it was a fond memory.
“I’ll bet you were a handful.”
“My mother would agree. I was the only girl, and she wanted me to be frilly and girly and love to cook like she did. I just wanted to be outside or on the boat with my dad or grandfather. I was six when I went on my first overnight. I was on my best behavior for weeks so my mom would let me go. I had to promise to stay out of the way and do exactly as I was told. It was one of the best trips of my life.”
Even though I couldn’t make out her face in the dark, I heard a smile in her voice as she led me down her memory lane.
“So tell me about advertising.”
Bert’s question took me out of my thoughts and straight to Ariel. I immediately became defensive and cautious. “Why do you want to know?”
Bert looked at me before she answered. “Because you asked me about my job. Now I’m asking you about yours.”
I had to stop being so suspicious. Not everyone’s an Ariel. But I’d missed it the first time, so who’s to say I’d catch it the second? “I started my firm eight years ago after my boss stole one too many of my ideas. I had some money stashed away and rented a storefront at Belton Avenue and Thirty-second Street. I put together my portfolio and pounded the pavement. I still have my first customer and a few more,” I said.
“If you had a thirty-nine-foot Catalina, I venture to say you’ve had more than a few more clients. But it’s none of my business,” Bert added quickly.
“A few.” Bert was right. It was none of her business.
“So how is it a successful, beautiful woman doesn’t have someone at home waiting for her?”
“Maybe I don’t want someone,” I replied. Bert looked at me. “I’m not a player. Just been there, done that, will never go there again.”
“Ouch, sounds painful.”
“No, just ugly.” I surprised myself by saying that much. Bert was practically a stranger and I kept my personal life, well, personal.
“Sorry about that,” Bert said softly.
“No need to apologize,” I said. “It’s over, no need to look back.” Except every year when the parole hearing rolled around. I wondered if the board had made its decision yet. Typicall
y it sent a standard form letter a few weeks after the hearing. Paul should be receiving it any day. I could use the ship-to-shore radio and call him and find out, but I had enough to deal with. I didn’t need the thought of Ariel walking the streets again. Nothing I could do about it anyway.
“Same question to you. Aren’t captains supposed to have their pick of fair young maidens in each port?” I asked.
“Who says I don’t?” was Bert’s quick reply.
“Touché,” I said and gave her a small salute.
“Actually the Dream has only one port, and that’s Colton Harbor. So anyone I leave behind is still there when I get home.”
“Ah, so you don’t leave a trail of broken hearts?”
Bert laughed again. “I let my guys do that. I don’t give myself that much credit. That and it’s hard to develop any kind or relationship when you’re gone as much as I am.”
“How often do you go out?”
“Depends. Some trips last a few days, and others are long like this one. Depends on the weather, the fish, and a whole bunch of things.”
“How long have you had this boat?”
“Seven years.”
“Would you do it all over again?”
“In a heartbeat,” Bert answered just as quickly. “It’s what I’ve always wanted.”
“And now you have it.”
“And now I have it,” she replied, contentment in her voice.
“What’s next?”
“Depends.”
“On?”
“This catch.”
“What’s so special about this catch?”
“If it’s successful, I’ll have what I need to buy a few things to make improvements.”
“And I’m stuck out here for ‘a few things’?” Bert didn’t answer. “Like what?”
Bert proceeded to rattle off a list, and from what I could gather, it was pretty impressive. Some of it I didn’t understand and she patiently explained. She had big plans for expansion and efficiency.
“So why were you out here in the middle of nowhere alone?”
Unlike the first time she asked the question, this time she sounded curious instead of accusatory, but it was still a sore spot.
“It clears my head.”
“I know what you mean,” Bert said simply.
