Girl at Sea

by Maureen Johnson

  “Julia is upset,” he said. “And frankly, so am I. You used Aidan’s computer. That’s his property, and it’s—”

  “I didn’t use his computer,” she cut in.

  “Clio. Julia found you.”

  “All I did was wake it up to see if it was online. I didn’t look through it.”

  “This is serious,” he said, sitting down. “You can’t go snooping around.”

  “Snooping?” Clio repeated. “I went down to tell everyone that lunch was ready, and no one was in there. I walked into the room, I saw the computer, and I touched it. I didn’t use it. I touched it.”

  “You expect me to believe that?” he said.

  “Yes,” she said. “I do. If you don’t believe me, why don’t you go and ask Aidan if there’s anything weird about his computer? And you know what? I expect you to believe me over Julia. I’m your daughter.”

  Without realizing it, she had started to yell.

  “That’s enough,” he said.

  “No,” she went on. “It’s so not enough. I didn’t ask to be stuck out here. I don’t think you can call it snooping if I’m stuck on this boat. There are only so many places I can go. And why is it wrong to want to contact the outside world? None of this is fair. You practically kidnapped me.”

  “All right!” His own anger had broken through. Her dad got red-faced very quickly when he was upset, and his face was a bright raspberry color now. “I want you up in your room. Now.”

  “My room?”

  “That’s right. I think you need to spend some time up there.”

  “Oh, you have got to be kidding. How much more can you isolate me?”

  Her voice was cracking with frustration.

  “Some girls would be grateful that they got to spend the summer in Italy,” he yelled.

  “Some girls wouldn’t be stuck with you,” she said.

  This remark was way too volatile. She hadn’t really meant to say it—at least not like that. But now it was in the room, lurking like a poisonous snake. It was time to back up and get out.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll go to my room. But just so you know? We have no food.”

  The Escape

  Clio spent the afternoon up in the Champagne Suite, fighting down the most overwhelming urge to scream that she had ever experienced in her life. She wanted to rock the sonar and scare the fish and tear the skin of her own throat with the force of her effort.

  But she did nothing of the kind, mostly because she wasn’t crazy and partially because Elsa stayed with her out of protest and helped calm her down. Specifically, she brushed Clio’s hair. She plunked Clio down on the floor, sat on the bed with a brush, and stroked away. It wasn’t something that would have occurred to Clio to do or that she normally would have thought of as helpful. But in a matter of half an hour, her nerves were steady. Clio got the feeling that Elsa had been through many nights of freak-outs at school. She was just altogether too prepared.

  Having Elsa was the one good thing to come out of this ridiculous experience. It really was like she had gained a sister.

  For the rest of the afternoon, Clio sat at the top of the bed and drew another picture of Ollie, noticing that his face was getting less and less clear in her mind’s eye. He’d surely become smitten with the art store girl, Jaimee or Janine, and forget all about Clio. Elsa stretched out on the end of their bed, copying Italian phrases in a notebook.

  The boat lulled to a stop, and Clio heard the tiny whir of the anchor going down. The boat sloshed quietly back and forth. Several minutes later, Elsa rolled off the bed, stretched, and went into the bathroom. She came out and fussed with the things on her dresser, stirring in an obviously bored way. She walked over to the window and then let out a tiny squeal.

  “Come here!” she said to Clio. “Look!”

  Clio got up and joined her. Just off to the side, maybe a quarter of a mile away, was a town.

  “Oh my God!” Clio said. “Finally!”

  “Let’s get dressed,” Elsa said.

  The sheer exhilaration of just being near a town drove them both into a near frenzy of indecisiveness. After several outfit changes, Elsa settled on a white tube sundress with a finely woven leather belt that she said had been her Swedish grandmother’s. For makeup, she applied just the smallest amount of gloss.

  Clio opted for her skirt and a special half-red, half-blue T-shirt. It was the most complex of all her creations, and she had yet to wear it on this trip. She kicked off her sneakers and changed into a pair of red, sparkly flip-flops that had yet to come out of the back of the wardrobe. It took her a minute to find her wallet; she hadn’t used it since her arrival. She had gotten a hundred euros before she left, in two fifty-euro notes. She’d never had an opportunity to spend any of them. They were shoved in the front pocket of the skirt.

  She and Elsa headed downstairs to find out the plan, but no one was in the living room. They went out onto the deck. Elsa went up the steps to the wheelhouse while Clio went to the back of the boat and stared at the Italian town. She didn’t know what town it was, just that it was a town. It was land. People walked on it. There were shops and cars and restaurants. And computers and phones.

  Then she looked down.

  The launch was gone.

  “They’re not up here,” Elsa called.

  “Elsa,” Clio said, waving her over. She pointed down at the empty spot on the platform. “I do not believe this.”

  “Maybe someone’s still here,” Elsa said. “Downstairs.”

  All the doors along the hall downstairs were shut. Clio went along and banged on each of them. After a moment, Aidan’s door opened. He stood there, shirtless, in stretched-out sweatpants that revealed several inches of his boxers.

  “What?” he asked, rubbing his face. He had deep red sleep creases on his left cheek.

  “They didn’t take you either,” Clio said.

  “Who didn’t take me where?” He shook his head and seemed to become aware of both the change in motion and the fact that his pants were falling off. He pulled them up. “I just took a nap. Have we stopped? Where are we?”

  “Doesn’t this bother anyone else?” Clio asked.

  “Bother what?” Aidan asked. “What’s going on?”

  Clio could already see the hopeful light in Elsa’s eyes. The three of them had been left on the boat, alone. Clio could almost see a ripple go through Elsa’s spine, causing her to straighten, shift her hips just slightly to the left, and thrust her chest just an inch out and up. It was like some biological response, subtle and unconscious.

  Clio couldn’t stand that her father’s ignorance might actually result in something pleasant for someone. The Butterfly had never felt as confining as it did at that moment. This was a buttery leather–and-teak prison, the most literal expression of everything that was wrong with her father. Excessive, unexplained, ill-conceived, thoughtless…and ultimately bad for Clio.

  “I need…off,” Clio said. “You guys do whatever you want. But I’m getting to town. I have to call home.”

  She squeezed between Elsa and the still-confused Aidan and went up the steps.

  When Elsa and Aidan joined her, he had on a shirt and shorts. Elsa’s face was strangely calm.

  “Do you see that?” Clio said, pointing at the expanse of water. “Do you see how close we are? This is my dad’s way of showing me that he’s still in charge. Dogs do stuff like this when they pee in the house.”

  “They could be right back,” Elsa said. Her voice got a little higher and chirpier. “And even if they’re not, we could make the best of it. We have the whole boat to ourselves! Come on. We could have a…party or something.”

  Clio automatically turned toward the glass doors and looked at the boat. Nothing really mattered less to her at that moment than having the Sea Butterfly to themselves. The look on Aidan’s face suggested he felt the same.

  “What kind of party?” Clio asked. “The kind without food? Or fun?”

  “Good point,”
Elsa said.

  “When we first got on the boat, they left shore without telling us,” Clio said. “They took off when we were sleeping. They kept us out here for days. And when we do get to land, they leave us out here. We’re like prisoners. Isn’t this a form of torture? Keeping people moving? Breaking off their contact with the world?”

  “Yes,” Aidan said, sitting down on the side of the boat. “It’s Sudanese yacht torture. Rare, expensive, and evil.”

  Clio ignored this and turned to Elsa.

  “He always does this,” she said. “He doesn’t think. He doesn’t care. He just does what he wants to do. It doesn’t occur to him that other people exist or have feelings or even just have things to do.”

  “So,” Aidan asked. “What are you suggesting we do about it? They took the raft.”

  She turned back to water and gauged the distance.

  “It’s an easy swim,” Clio said. “Well, it’s a swim, anyway.”

  “Because that wouldn’t be weird at all,” he said. “You in your skirt, dragging yourself out of the water onto the beach, soaking wet. That’s a good idea.”

  “I didn’t say it was my idea,” Clio said. “I was just thinking out loud.”

  “If I know my mum,” Elsa said, “there’s bound to be a decent bottle of wine or two around here somewhere. I say we get them open and enjoy ourselves. I don’t really see what else can be done.”

  Clio’s stomach burned with anger. There was no way she could sit back and take this, not when the town was so close. There were computers and phones and, somewhere in her dreams, a possible means of escape. A seagull flew overhead, dipping into the water once before continuing to the beach. Another boat chugged past them, churning up a slow, wide wake that sent them rocking back and forth.

  “That’s it,” Clio said, pointing at the boat as it made its way to the dock. “People are going in for the night. We bum a ride. We’re only going over there. We can see our destination. Why not? You can do the talking.”

  “Oh, that’s brilliant.” Elsa laughed.

  A minute or two later, a very small wooden boat went by a few yards off, carrying only one young man with a net. Clio started waving at him wildly. He stood watching them for a moment from a distance, then cautiously turned his boat in their direction and came up a few feet behind.

  “What do I say?” Elsa said, looking at Clio and swallowing a laugh.

  “Just say we need a ride,” Clio said. “Say we need to meet our dad.”

  Elsa communicated this. The fisherman didn’t look entirely convinced, but he seemed intrigued by Elsa.

  “I don’t know if this is going to work,” Elsa said quietly.

  “Here,” Clio said, digging around in her pocket for the fifty-euro notes. She found them and slipped one out. “Tell him he can have this if he takes us.”

  Aidan gave Clio a sideways glance.

  “Oh, you are good,” Elsa said, taking the money. She held up the note, and there was another, briefer conversation. From the man’s smile, Clio could see that the offer was happily accepted. Fifty euros to go somewhere he was going anyway, somewhere that was actually in sight. That was too good to pass up. He pulled his boat around by hand, rowing to the back of the boat.

  “Ride,” Clio said, holding out her arm in the direction of the fishing boat.

  “I can’t believe you just hired a stranger in a fishing boat,” Aidan said.

  “It was better than swimming.”

  “How do we get back?” he asked.

  “We bring the coms,” Clio answered, holding hers up. “We call them.”

  Aidan sighed heavily, folded his arms, and looked back up at the wheelhouse.

  “If we leave, there will be no one on this boat,” he said.

  “They should have thought of that before they left without telling us,” Clio said, swinging open the hatch. “Nobody told us we had to stay. I’m going.”

  Clio handed the man his fifty euros. He smiled and nodded, folding the bill twice carefully and putting it in his pocket. Clio stepped off the back platform and into the boat. It was neither tied up nor entirely stable and there was a large gap between it and the Sea Butterfly. Also, it was higher than the back platform, meaning that she had to swing herself into the boat, no small feat considering she had chosen to wear a skirt. The only way she could guarantee that she wouldn’t lose her balance and end up in the water or crash back onto the platform was by pitching herself forward into a pile of lumped-up nets. They were wet and smelly, with a little trash and a crab claw trapped in them.

  She looked up at Elsa and Aidan, who were well above her now, up on the deck of the Butterfly. There was a visible battle going on inside Elsa. Both options obviously held some appeal. But Clio could see that she was winning.

  “Come on, Aidan,” Elsa said, widening her eyes a bit. “What’s more valuable? A boat or us? The daughters of your bosses?”

  “In pure cash terms?” he asked.

  “Do what you want,” Clio called up. “You can sit out here alone, rocking back and forth slowly. That’s probably how you spend a lot of your nights.”

  His lips twitched just slightly. Elsa looked between them, turning her gaze from one to the other.

  “Yeah,” he said, throwing up his arms. “Fine. I guess they can’t blame us if they didn’t tell us.”

  Elsa clapped.

  “I’ll get my purse,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

  Aidan tried a large, heavy stride that rocked the boat and almost sent the fisherman off the side. He settled himself on the damp bottom of the boat and gave the fisherman a flat smile. The fisherman stared at him, then at Clio.

  Where is the large-breasted, Italian-speaking blonde? his eyes asked. She was the only reason I even came over in the first place.

  “Momento,” Clio said, and immediately regretted it. She was pretty sure that wasn’t an Italian word. You can’t just add an o to any English word to make it foreign.

  Aidan looked into the plastic barrel next to him and quickly retracted.

  “Crabs,” he said. “I’m sitting next to crabs.”

  “See that?” Clio said. “You’re with your own. This is working out already.”

  “I’m only doing this to make sure nothing happens to you two,” he said.

  “Liar.”

  Aidan’s slender eyebrows shot up, but he quickly pulled them back down again and composed his expression into the usual calculating one. He leaned forward, balancing his elbows on his knees. The fisherman looked between them, clearly unsure of what was going on.

  “We probably only got left behind because your dad was annoyed at you,” he said. “You know, about my computer.”

  “I didn’t touch your computer,” she said. “Well, I touched it. And that was literally it. I didn’t look through it or do anything to it. I just wanted to see if it was online. I didn’t…go into any of your personal stuff. I wouldn’t.”

  “I know you didn’t,” he said. “I could tell. But that’s still probably the reason.”

  “So you’re blaming me?” she asked.

  “No. I’m simply stating a fact.”

  The doors opened, and Elsa ran across the deck, her shoes clomping hard against the fiberglass. She had obviously changed them while she was getting her purse. As she extended a leg off the platform into the boat, Clio saw the shoes—they were very high white wedges. They struck Clio as being very Scandinavian. She loved them.

  Both the fisherman and Aidan attempted to help her. But since Aidan was sitting, the fisherman got there first.

  “All ready, everybody?” Elsa said, flashing the fisherman a smile that would have melted a hole in a polar ice cap. “Let’s go.”

  A Brief History of Floridian Girl-Lifting

  The fishing boat didn’t go to a dock; it went to the beach. The man waved his arms, and three other guys waded out to it. They stared at Clio, Elsa, and Aidan. A conversation was had in Italian.

  “They’re asking about us,�
� Elsa whispered as they spoke.

  The owner of the boat got out, and the four men together took a rope that was tied to the front of the boat and dragged it up to the beach. It was clear that their presence made the work a lot harder than usual. But there was a final tug, a yell, and the boat eased onto the shore with a thick sluffing sound.

  “What do we do first?” Elsa asked after giving the fisherman their thanks. He looked after her and blew her a kiss. She smiled that easy, radiant dairy goddess smile.

  “There’s someone I have to get in touch with,” Clio said.

  “Your boyfriend!” Elsa said, squeezing her arm. “You poor thing! You haven’t been able to talk to him all week!”

  “Is that why we just jumped onto the good ship Crabby?” Aidan asked, looking genuinely unimpressed. “So you could call your boyfriend?”

  This boyfriend thing had been getting thrown around too much for Clio to correct it now.

  “No,” she said. “We did it so that we could visit this beautiful Italian town. Wherever we are.”

  Like Sorrento, this town was above them, but not nearly as high up. If anything, the town seemed to be piled on top of itself in about eight layers of sherbet-colored buildings. They only had to walk up one set of steps to get there, and these steps were nowhere near as agonizing as the ones Clio had taken last time. They started making their way to them. Elsa pulled off her white wedge shoes.

  Clio looked down at her red flip-flops in the black sand. This sand glinted bizarrely—there were tiny dots of color strewn throughout it, sparkling in the sun. She reached down and grabbed a large handful, picking out the colored bits. They were tiny, perfectly smooth pebbles in brilliant green, aquamarine, rust red, stark white.

  “I think this is glass,” she said.

  “Wow,” Aidan said. “Glass.”

  “No,” she said. “Look. Have you ever seen a beach like this? How did all of this glass get into the sand? It’s everywhere! And it’s completely smooth.”