by David Manuel
But Pam had insisted. The Bermuda experience would not be complete without St. George. With a sigh, Amy tugged on her white windbreaker and tied a white kerchief over her short blond hair. Donning her Jackie O’s, she followed her friend’s scooter out of the car park.
By the time they took the obligatory pictures of each other in the stocks in St. George’s public square, the sky was beginning to darken. They ducked into the White Horse for a quick bite. By the time they’d finished their club sandwiches and were ready to leave, there was a serious downpour going on outside.
For once, it was Amy who took charge. Unzipping the rolled-up hood in the collar of her windbreaker, she put it over the white kerchief, and was about to lead the way out into the elements, when the young man at the end of the bar spoke to her.
“Not a good idea,” he said, giving her a full-wattage smile. He was so cute that Amy immediately distrusted him, proceeding toward the door as if she hadn’t heard him.
Pam had, though, and seeing him, she’d hesitated, dazzled by that incredible smile.
“You really don’t want to ride in this downpour.” He said to Amy, still smiling but emphatic.
She ignored him, and held the door open for Pam who was hesitating. “You coming?”
Pam was torn.
“Let’s get going!” Amy declared. “We’re not going to melt! And I don’t feature waiting here all afternoon.”
The young man stood up. “Don’t be dumb!” He nodded towards the window. “It’s the first rain in several days. It’ll bring the oil up out of the pavement, and the combination will be so slick, it’ll make anything on two wheels feel like a pig on ice.”
Pam frowned. “Amy, maybe we’d better—”
“Will you come on?” Amy snapped, and glared at the gleama (their code word for a mega-cute), as if to convey that his was the lamest pick-up line she’d ever heard.
The young man, not smiling now, held up his right arm and pointed to an ugly scar that extended over his elbow. “I got this on a scooter on a day like this, when I went out with exactly the same attitude.”
Now it was Amy who hesitated. Glancing out the window, she saw torrential rain sweeping across the square.
With a sigh, she capitulated.
He bought the first round. They bought the next, and the third—long after it had stopped raining and begun to dry.
His name was Colin Bennett. He was an ocean racer. He had been to practically every exotic port they’d ever heard of. And now he had a new boat and was living aboard it. When he offered to show it to them, Pam wasn’t sure. Until Amy pointed out that it, too, was definitely part of the Bermuda experience. Amy, it turned out, could be as persuasive as Pam.
So the next afternoon (their last), Colin and his captain friend, Stuart, who had a car, took Amy and Pam to the Hogpenny Pub in Hamilton for lunch. It became an all-afternoon lunch, after which they repaired to Care Away. The boat was big enough to afford the couples some privacy, if the girls were prepared to go as far as the guys were prepared to take them. They weren’t, and the evening ended pleasantly. Bermudians could be gentlemen when circumstances called for it.
As Stuart drove them back to the Coral Beach Club, Pam nattered away next to him about how wonderful Bermuda had been, just like it had been for her parents, and how she really loved his island and wasn’t just saying that but really meant it.
In the back seat, Amy let Colin kiss her. To her surprise, she found herself kissing him back—and meaning it. In fact, it was all she could do to keep the brakes on.
As they said goodbye, Colin asked, “Look, uh, give me your address. Maybe, you know, I’ll write you or something.”
She wrote it out for him. “Well, if you do, maybe, you know, I’ll write you back.” They both laughed.
To her surprise, he did write. Mostly about his boat, and where he was going. The moment she opened it, she turned to the end, to see how he signed it. “Cheers.” Pretty non-committal. But he did write.
So, she did the same. She told him about her upcoming finals, and how strange it felt to be almost done with school forever, and how Pam was bugging her to do the Grand Tour with her, five-star hotels in all the capitals of Europe, just like her grandparents had. She had no intention of going, though it might be fun to see Rome.
When she got to the end, she chewed the tip of her pen. Then signed it, “Ciao,” as a modern Roman might.
He wrote back, with a very funny description of the cruise ship passengers in the White Horse, and said at the end that he’d like to see Rome someday himself. And signed it, “Yours.”
She wrote back and told him how awful exams were, and how her whole family was coming for graduation, and how Pam was really putting pressure on her, and her father said he’d give her the trip as a graduation present, but she really didn’t want to go. She signed it, “Arrivederci.”
He wrote and lightly, offhandedly suggested that if the prospect of grand touring bugged her that much, why didn’t she come to Bermuda, instead? He signed it “Luf”—a jokey substitute for “Love.” Except—was he just joking?
Normally she’d run it past Pam, her best friend and confidant, as well as roommate. But Pam was miffed at her for stalling re the GT. So she wrote Colin back and lightly, offhandedly said she’d consider Bermuda as an alternative. At the end of the letter, she practically chewed a hole in her pen. And finally signed it, “with fond remembrance.” Warm but obscure. Wistful but noncommittal.
She mailed it before she could change her mind.
Twenty minutes later she did change her mind. Good grief! “With fond remembrance” sounded like something on a funeral home card! But her fond remembrance was already winging its way.
Not having Pam to check things with was a mega-bummer. It was time to make up with her roomie.
But when she told Pam she was thinking of going to Bermuda instead of Europe, her best friend just stared at her. “Bermuda?”
“Why not?” Amy shot back. “It was good enough for your parents, wasn’t it?”
Pam looked at her, her eyes widening. “It’s not—that gleama, is it?”
No answer.
“It is!”
Silence.
“Ames!” Pam shouted at her, “you can’t be hung up on a guy that looks like he stepped out of a Lands’ End catalogue!”
Amy nodded and threw a rueful smile. “That’s why I’ve got to go back. To see if he’s more than just a gleama.”
And so, to Pam’s, and Colin’s—and her own—surprise, she did.
10 bermuda rules
He met her at the airport, but instead of going straight to the Coral Beach Club, they stopped off at the Swizzle Inn, where the owner, Jay, was an old friend. On the island, Colin explained, that usually meant that the families were old friends, someone having married someone way back. But Jay was a regular guy, and he ran the best place west of the White Horse.
Fortunately a table was available on the upper verandah. Colin ordered lunch for them—Fish & Chips and swizzles—and they talked lightly about the weather and the oppressive humidity that was about to descend, ending the tourist season.
“Is that tough on people like Jay?” she asked.
“Not really. The ones who depend on the tourist trade,” he nodded towards their host, greeting another table of returnees, “have been busting their humps for the past three months. They’re ready for a break. But after three months of summer, they’ll be rested up and ready to go again.”
He offered her a shaker bottle of clear liquid, “Here, try this on your chips.”
“On my fries? What is it?”
“Vinegar.”
“Euw,” she gasped, wrinkling her nose.
“Brit trick. It works. Try it.”
She did, frowning, and then, tilting her head, she smiled. “Mm, not bad. Know any other Brit tricks?”
“Maybe,” he murmured, flashing her that full Lands’ End smile.
“Are you flirting with me, sailor?”
“Aw, shucks, ma’am; you caught me.”
“Well, don’t,” she said, smiling, too, but half serious. “I’m not sure I’m ready yet.”
“Would you like another swizzle?”
She had to laugh. “Candy’s dandy, but liquor’s quicker?”
“The Golden Trashery of Ogden Nashery.”
“You know Ogden Nash?”
He smiled. “My checkered academic career, such as it was—or wasn’t—exposed me to many things. Some of the oddest bits seem to have lodged in the backeddies of my mind.”
She smiled. “You are a man of many layers.”
He stopped smiling. “I’m not sure how to take that. Truth is, I’m actually not that good at playing games—unless, of course, I’m running the table.”
The waitress came up and asked if they would care for anything else—another swizzle, perhaps?
He raised his eyebrows.
She shook her head.
He shook his head, and the waitress departed.
“If you’re not running the table, who is?”
“I wish I knew,” he said with a shrug, adding, “All I know is, the stack of chips in front of me is small and getting smaller.” He scrutinized the imaginary stack in front of her. “While yours is tall and getting taller.”
“Thurber?”
“Sort of.” He frowned and looked at her, one eyebrow raised. “Now you wouldn’t be gamin’ a poor sailor, would you, ma’am?”
She raised her hands in mock innocence.
“’Cause if you are—I’m not sure I’m ready yet.”
They laughed. Then laughed again.
“Can we back up a little?” she pleaded.
“No prob. X.O., take her up to periscope depth.” He leaned back. “So, what’ll you do now that you’re done with college?”
She told him how her father was training her to take over the family business, managing several thousand acres of Georgia pine.
He told her how he’d gotten involved in ocean racing—almost as a lark at first. But it gave an adrenalin rush like nothing else, so you got hooked on it, real quick. Only the love of a good woman, like Care Away, could ever cause you to leave full-time racing.
Her turn. Trying to think of something to say, she noticed a few small, white scars around his knuckles and remembered him telling her before about his solo voyages across the Atlantic. “The last time you went, the time to the Med—how long did it take?”
“Thirty-eight days. But I had good westerlies; it can take longer.”
“Thirty-eight days!” She shook her head in wonder. “What was the first thing you saw?”
“My landfall? Gibraltar. Northern Pillar of Heracles.”
“Did you break out champagne?”
“I never drink at sea.”
“Not even a beer?”
He shook his head.
“Why?”
“Too risky. You run your boat right—good seamanship—not much is going to go wrong. But when it does, it happens quickly. You’ve got to be sharp, make the right decision immediately.”
“Were you ever—frightened?”
“Nope.”
“Not even by a hurricane?”
He thought for a moment. “Well, if I know one’s coming, obviously I’m going to get out of its way.”
“You listen to the radio for warnings?”
“If I have a reason. You build up your intuition out there. Develop a sixth sense. I keep a log. Every two hours I note the cloud conditions, sea conditions, heading and reckoned speed. And the barometer. If it’s falling fast, and the high cirrus are beginning to fan out, you better believe I’m going to tune in WWV! At six past the hour, they give the Atlantic warnings. I also use their time tick to reset my watch, for the sextant.”
She shuddered. “I don’t think I’d like solo sailing.”
“You never know till you do it,” he shrugged. “It’s overcoming the last fear barrier. You find out what you’ll do when your life depends on the sum of your decisions.” He smiled. “It does anyway, but it’s much more obvious when you’re alone out there. Or climbing above eight thousand meters. Or going up a rock face without a rope.”
She frowned. “You’re a thrill junkie.”
He thought about that. “I suppose so. I’m hooked on racing, that’s for sure.”
“But Care Away isn’t a particularly fast boat, is it?”
“Is she,” he corrected her. “Care Away is a person—a very likeable lady, once you get to know her. She’s also my home. And I want my home comfortable, a good cruiser I’m happy to spend all my days in.”
Amy frowned. “I still don’t see how you can—”
“Do both? In my apartment over on St. David’s, which I use mainly for keeping stuff—I’ve got two bikes—a skinny-tired one for going fast, a fat-tired one for cruising. All depends on what I feel like.”
There was indeed more to this gleama than met the eye. Best to find out how much more. “Thirty-eight days,” she marveled. “Ever get lonely?”
He looked at Grotto Bay, barely visible in the distance. Then returned his gaze to her with a half smile. “Not lonely, exactly. Care Away’s good company. The best. And there’s always something that needs doing. But some days, when there’s not much wind—”
She finished it for him, “You wouldn’t mind having someone to talk to.”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “I suppose so.”
“But then, after the doldrums, you’d have to put up with them.”
He laughed. “Exactly!”
She circled her finger on the table. “Was there ever anyone you—felt really good about having on board?” She paused and thought, now he’s going to think I’m getting personal. She took a deep breath. Well, I am.
But to soften it, she quickly added, “I mean, on a really long trip.”
He carefully chewed the last of his fish before replying. “I took my nephew out for a few days, a year ago. It was my brother’s idea; Ian thought Eric should get to know his Uncle Colin.” He smiled sadly. “I don’t think he counted on the boy having so much fun. We had a ball! He was only nine, but I’ve never seen anyone, any age, learn faster than he did.” He shook his head at the memory.
In her mind she could see him teaching the young boy. She liked what she saw.
“That’s the thing,” declared Colin, warming to his subject. “If someone really likes what I really like, I’ll teach them as fast as they can learn. Eric loved sailing—the boat, the life, the whole thing. And you know what? When the trip was over, it was hard to see him leave.”
“He never went again?”
Colin shook his head. “He loved it too much. Told my brother he wanted to grow up to be a sailor, like Uncle Colin.” He sighed. “His father had other plans for him.”
The waitress returned and asked if they would like coffee. They would.
“And so,” Amy summed up, “other than someone like Eric, you prefer your own company. Just you and Lady Care Away.”
He looked her in the eye. “You got it.”
Well, he might be blunt, but he was honest. And his message was unequivocal: No woman could ever persuade him to put her before the boat. Amy shivered. Time to get back up to periscope depth again.
“So the solitude never gets you down.”
“Not really. Time does a funny thing out there,” he mused. “I’ll think of something I need to take care of, a project that might take most of next morning. I’ll resolve to do it, but when morning comes, I’m sitting there in the cockpit under a clear sky and—it doesn’t get done. Nothing does. But I’m content.”
He laughed. “That’s probably the most valuable skill a sailor can have—the ability to just sit.”
She smiled. But when she’d first asked, she thought she’d seen him start to remember something, then shy away from it. So she asked again.
He hesitated. “There was one time….” His voice drifted off, and he looked out at the bay again, his eyes nar
rowing. “Sometimes a school of flying fish will run with you awhile, jumping alongside. Occasionally one will land on the boat. If you can reach it in time, you throw it back in the water. If not,” he shrugged, “you just kick it over the side. Or if you’re hungry, you cook it and eat it. They’re quite good.”
He did not take his eyes off the distant water. “One perfect afternoon, sunny, rolling sea—I’d been out about a month—the wind was moderate, and I was making three, three-and-a-half knots. All at once, this school of flying fish kind of adopts me. You could see them shimmering, silvery blue-green, just below the surface, blending with the broken pattern of the sun’s reflection. Every so often—for sheer joy, it seemed—one would arc up into the air like a mini-dolphin and dive back in. Then another would show that he could do that, too. And another, and another.”
He laughed. “Hey, I cheered them on! They were having fun, and they were fun for me.” He paused. “Somehow I think they knew that. More and more of them broke the surface, and it was like we were on parade!”
He stopped smiling. “I didn’t notice that a young one, not more than three inches, had landed on the deck. He was in the sun, and he was still. But his scales still glistened. Moving fast, I scooped up a bucket of seawater and started trying to revive that little fish. ‘This is crazy,’ I told myself, ‘just pop it in the skillet.’ But I kept at it for half an hour, moving it in the seawater, bawling like a kid.”
He shuddered and fell silent, and she reached out and touched his hand.
“So,” he said, his voice rough, “I guess the solitude can get to you.” He turned away quickly before she could see what was in his eyes.
But she saw. And wanted to comfort the little boy she saw in him. Whoa, girl! Lighten up!
“Had you ever thought of taking an animal with you?” she asked lightly. “A cat, maybe?”
He smiled. “You’re not the first to suggest that. And you know, I have thought about it. Ian even offered me a kitten, a gray-and-white female from their cat’s litter.”
“Why didn’t you take her?”
“Nearly did. Even had a name picked out: Esmeralda. I imagined her napping in a little box next to me in the cockpit, sleeping on the end of my bunk at night.” He paused. “But then I made myself think about the dark side. And realized that Ezzie wouldn’t have a clue how dangerous an environment a boat is, and wouldn’t have her mother to teach her. I couldn’t watch her all the time. She might be up in the bow, playing with a knot in a line, and a swell would cause her to lose her balance and go over the side. If I didn’t see it, she would be gone. And if we’d grown close, as we were sure to, that would be—devastating.”
