The Pirate Queen

by Patricia Hickman

  “I’d heard my house was next to a surgeon’s house.”

  “Your house?”

  “For now.”

  “I didn’t know it had sold.”

  “I used to rent it, then one day decided to buy it. Is he your husband?”

  “Bender’s a plastic surgeon and, yes, he is my husband.” She knew not to act surprised that he knew. She’d learned already that Oriental was too close-knit for privacy.

  “I’ll keep a look out for him. That’s an interesting name. Bender.”

  “His mother gave him her maiden name.” She realized she was divulging a lot while he was saying little. “Your name, though, is a complete mystery.”

  “I’m sorry.” He laughed, sliding the mail under one armpit. “Name’s Luke.” He pushed his auburn bangs out of his eyes, then followed by adjusting his glasses. He looked over the tops of the wire frames rather than through them. He was good-looking like Ramsey, but his eyes reflected a tincture of higher IQ.

  “Are you a summer resident or all year?” She hoped it wasn’t stepping over the line to ask.

  “I live here. I’m local now, bought this place just last month. My wife wanted this house.”

  “I’ll try and come over to meet her,” said Saphora.

  “I’m a widower.” He slid the envelopes into the other hand. The fact that he was moving back toward his house told Saphora that standing out in the hot sun baking was not in his plans for the afternoon. “Well, it was good to meet you. You take care.”

  She waved and pulled away, thinking it was such a strange thing for a man to buy a house for his wife after she had passed away.

  Before she arrived downtown and parked near the Oriental Marina’s dock, she remembered the shoveling sound going on that evening she had been sitting on the upper deck. But solving that mystery wasn’t the kind of question to ask a man she had just met.

  Saphora took her sailing lessons on Lake Norman eight years ago. The sailing master told her it was her second nature to sail. Bender had promised that when they moved onto the lake sailing would be a shared activity. But he had also agreed to see a counselor with her to try to improve things between them. The psychologist he chose was a golfing friend who was passive to Bender’s aggression. They went twice and the doctor declared Bender a healthy balance of male spirit and sensitivity.

  Saphora took the first sailing class alone. After that she navigated their small craft, the Evelyn, around the lake with her best friend, Marcy, who had moved into a condo in uptown Charlotte after her divorce.

  Marcy’s job as a rug broker took her away so often that the only time Saphora had taken the sailboat out all summer was when Turner came by on the weekends. The Tuesday that Abigail Weed had descended on her back lawn with the Southern Living crew, Marcy was in Indonesia. She had invited Saphora to join her. “Be spontaneous,” she had said. But Saphora was secretly fantasizing about her own getaway. It was a practical plan to move into a place she and Bender already owned. She planned it so she’d make no waves until circumstances dictated differently. It occurred to her that the fact she had planned to make no waves was exactly why it was never a plan in the first place.

  She stopped in at a harbor café and ordered a fish sandwich to go. When she arrived at the dock, Captain Bart Larson, the dock master, waited for her in his lawn chair. He held an open umbrella, she assumed to block the sun that was beginning to beat down.

  “Mrs. Warren, there you are,” he said. “Aren’t you a pretty sailor.”

  She was happy to hear him say so.

  He was tanned from floating in and out of the harbor carting tourists around the islands and the eastern shore. His white brows made a ledge over his eyes. He seemed to be having trouble getting around.

  “I had a stupid accident,” he finally told her. He was holding a cane with the other hand. “I was fixing my daughter’s roof, and the whole ladder came down with me. Once you break a bone at my age, it’s hard to get back what you lost.”

  She shared concern and then asked, “What am I taking out today?”

  “Miss Molly. She’s mine. Not a rental. Small and skinny like you. But you look salty to me, as if you can manage her.”

  Saphora followed him to the sailing rig, a Herreshoff design, he told her; the Miss Molly bore the angular sails found on old Chinese rigs. She was an older, small, all-wood craft bearing a deep enough bow to cut a path through the roiling river wakes.

  “There’s a storm coming in tonight,” he said. “I figured you’d want to reef your own sails.”

  There were no clouds. The blue canopy was everlasting from the north to the south.

  “There’s time on the way,” she said.

  “Old sailors reef first. That’s why they’re old.”

  “I know. I’ll do it now.”

  He laughed. He seemed like a man who didn’t mind her having a little fun with him.

  She got into the boat and hooked up her halyards. The sails raised into the sky. She did wonder why he gave her his own boat. But she was, after all, going it alone. The Miss Molly must have been the only one-man vessel available. “Just a three-hour tour,” she said. “The weatherman’s calling for clear skies, though.” She had listened to the radio driving over.

  “The weatherman’s wrong.” He was known, Bernard had told her, for superstitious beliefs, following the Farmer’s Almanac, planting beans by moonlight. A romantic old soul.

  “I put a fishing rod in the cabin.”

  She had stipulated that she wanted to fish. “Exactly what I need,” she said. She paid the deposit and untied the dock line. If the weather held until Saturday, she’d invite Turner and Ramsey to take a boat out into the open sea. She doubted Gwennie would join them, but if given the choice of staying in the house with Celeste or sailing, there was a good chance of getting Gwennie aboard.

  “I’ll have a houseful of company Saturday. Can you reserve a bigger rig for me?”

  He checked his schedule. “A cruiser.”

  “I’ll take it.” Ramsey and Turner and their boys would be crew enough.

  There was a nice wind, so she sailed on a beat up the Neuse. She tacked alongside the wind that pushed her toward the sound, close hauled, and then changed tack, zigzagging until she was running windward. She let out the sail fully, and Miss Molly sped windward, bow toward the Pamlico Sound.

  She let her thoughts blow away along with the wind that blew back her hair. She left behind the marina and the problems with Bender. Focusing on navigating the boat elevated her spirits. She realized she had been living under an unfair regimen. There was no doubt that she would take more days for herself and take advantage of Sherry’s time in Oriental. Where was it written that a woman had to silently submit to a life that did not acknowledge her for her worth?

  Captain Bart had left her the chart for locating the South River. She sailed in on a tailwind and dropped anchor in one of the coves. Navigating a massive river alone was a chore, though. The Neuse was less predictable than the waters of Lake Norman. She’d be glad to relax and let her sons take the helm Saturday. Ramsey would love it. He had taken to sailing quicker than Turner. He said it was a way to meet girls confident in their abilities. But he talked like that to sound superior to Turner, who did not care an iota. Still, she had sailed alone today on strange waters, and somehow the strangeness had enveloped her with a new sense of worth. But had she taken too long to seize a small slice of autonomy? Was her whole life a waste? Even her daughter had managed to cut ties from the suffocating requirements of being a Warren and find her own personal space to simply be Gwennie. She was always a smart girl, even when she could not escape the Warren harness.

  Gwennie fell in love the same summer that Turner took to sailing. Saphora took her to the yacht club for dinner and a swim, where she met a young college student named Paul Stalinsky. He was not there because of his family’s membership in the club but because he had taken a job as a lifeguard at the club pool. He started coming around the house of
ten, taking out a borrowed boat. He motored right up to the Warren dock, sounding one of those awful horns. Gwennie would go running out of the house and down the back lawn to meet Paul for a boat ride. But Bender discouraged her relationship with Paul. He was a smart student and athletic. He attended UNC Wilmington and would go back in the fall. But when asked about his future plans, he was too ambiguous for Bender. He told Paul that he needed to end a summer romance that was going nowhere.

  Gwennie sat out on the porch crying, refusing to go to bed until sometime after midnight and promising to never forgive her dad for sending Paul off the premises.

  That summer had held the promise of the kind of memories that draw most families back to the water for more adventures. But each one of them, Turner, Ramsey, and Gwennie, had come up with excuses for not accompanying their parents when Saphora had planned their first trip to the house in Oriental. Not wanting to travel without her kids, Saphora cancelled the trip. That was why the house sat void of a visit by a Warren. She never tried to plan a trip to Oriental again.

  She suffered a quiet ache even though Marcy had told her that most older teens did not enjoy the company of parents; that was why so many went off on group trips together.

  Saphora cast her line. She then placed the rod in the frame and locked it in. The Miss Molly bobbed in the wake of the charter that motored by. She fished and sat wondering why she had not insisted on her children coming with her that summer to Oriental. She was the mother and they the progeny dependent on family support of summer activities. Now Bender’s cancer brought them all to Oriental the summer she had decided to mend there in isolation. It seemed like fate had propelled some mystic, psychic wind, drawing them all back against plans, against dreams, and deposited them all here in answer to a mother’s prayer. But did God really care about a mother’s unspoken desires? Had God really heard her silent prayers all these years? Did he hear prayers at all?

  She had not meant to fall asleep. But the lack of any bites, the slow undulation of the rig riding the swells, and the radio broadcasting faint sonatas lulled her into an afternoon stupor.

  She did not know how long she had slept when the first raindrop hit her square between the eyes. She startled out of the captain’s chair. The sky was dark, not any sign of sunlight. The radio was crackling. Captain Bart was on the shortwave trying to locate her. She made for the cabin and checked in. “I’m on my way back,” she said. She checked her watch. “I’m late.” It was an hour past the time she had promised to pull back into the Oriental Marina.

  “Do you need assistance, Mrs. Warren?” he asked.

  She felt harebrained to have him so worried. “I’m headed back. No worries. I’ll be back at the dock in an hour.”

  The breeze blew over the port, much to her relief. She tacked, beating into the wind. The rain let go. She was mad at herself for dozing off. Weird, but she was feeling an unjustified resentment of Bender. He had never joined her sailing even though he joined friends often on fishing expeditions. He had even ordered the Evelyn delivered to the Oriental Marina for a couple of men’s fishing excursions, both times without the wives.

  She was drenched and mad that she was fighting this storm alone. Two sailed a boat better than one, but long ago she had learned to do things on her own. Independence wasn’t a bad trait in an age of shifting circumstances. But marriage was supposed to be a two-person tour.

  She and Marcy had once plotted for their independence. Marcy’s husband, Jackson, was much older than she was, just as Bender was six years older than Saphora. They both presumed they would outlive their husbands. Marcy said the two of them should move to the Outer Banks and live out their days traveling, not cooking, and certainly not catering to men who ignored them. To everyone’s shock, though, Jackson drew the affections of a young woman who would settle for no less than all of his attention. She wanted more than a relationship on the side. The best he could do for Marcy was pay for her condo in uptown Charlotte.

  Marcy was so devastated that she could not bear to stay at home while the Realtor measured the house for the listing. She stayed several nights with Saphora, Sherry mixing up the martinis and Saphora keeping tissues on the ready.

  Marcy had a master’s degree in business. Running her husband’s printing company had provided her with managerial skills. She could take care of herself when it was all said and done. But their scheme to escape the responsibilities of Lake Norman’s elite circles of spoiled men and eager younger women took a sharp detour. Marcy’s new career obligated her to travel most weeks outside of Lake Norman, leaving Saphora short one best friend and one unrealized scheme. So with torrential rain streaming down her arms and legs, Saphora was mad at herself and Bender. She was mad at Marcy and Jackson. She might as well be mad at God, who seemed to be raining on her. “How about a little relief?” she shouted.

  The wind and rain beat Saphora in the face. She kept tacking but the waves were swelling. The small craft struggled in the roiling water. The mainsail was flapping. Saphora shakily trimmed the sail and headed down the Neuse. The water was calmer inland, but the storm increased in intensity. So much for prayers. Her drenched knit clothes hung on her by the time she spotted the lights of the harbor.

  When she pulled into shore, Captain Bart was beside himself. He hobbled toward her waving his open umbrella. “Woman, I thought you’d drowned yourself!” He helped her onto the dock and then wrapped her fingers around the umbrella handle. “You look drowned.”

  She threw her arms around him apologetically, grateful to be on land again. Captain Bart kept nudging her toward the overhang of the marina.

  Several couples milled around inside the motel, looking out the wall of plate glass windows at the storm, nice and dry while watching her being helped to safety. She pulled off her sopping wet hat and then smiled as if she had enjoyed sailing home in a storm. Several women inside clapped, and one put her fingers to her mouth and whistled.

  “Go on inside. Your fans are waiting,” said Captain Bart. He tied off the boat and hobbled back to his yacht, muttering about women and sailing.

  7

  Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.

  ELLA FITZGERALD

  Saphora bought a windbreaker, some dry pants, and a knit sailing-motif top and changed into them inside the tourist shop’s dressing room. By the time she warmed herself with coffee in the café and then drove home, the only light on in the house was the kitchen’s. She pulled into the garage and entered the house through the mud room.

  Sherry was cleaning with bleach. “This house has not been touched since Dr. Warren bought it,” she said. “What was that, a half decade ago? If you ask me, you ought to put a property manager to work, keeping it rented out and the housekeeping up on it.”

  “I could kiss you, Sherry,” said Saphora, throwing her arms around her and glad to be back on solid footing again.

  “What happened to you?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” She pulled a towel out of the laundry basket sitting on the floor by the range. She dried out the damp ends of her hair. “Is he asleep?”

  “They must be keeping him on some kind of dope.”

  “Eddie?” Saphora called out.

  “Those are not the clothes you left wearing. You got caught out in the rain, didn’t you?”

  “I sailed home in a storm.”

  “Miss Saphora, that’s not like you at all. You okay?”

  “A little hungry.”

  “I’ll make you an egg sandwich.”

  “Where is everyone?”

  “Eddie and Tobias, they’re up in Eddie’s room. Tobias got himself a new baseball card. They got flashlights and they’re looking at his collection under a sheet tent. I helped them make it so they’d not use good sheets.”

  “How long’s Bender been out?”

  “That man’s so sedated, he’s been out two hours. I did get him to eat. He’s got his me
dical books all around that hospital bed. You think he’d be tired of reading nothing but medical books.”

  “He’s working on the cure for brain cancer.”

  “I feel sorry for him, looking so weak and helpless like that. But don’t tell him. He don’t like pity,” said Sherry.

  It occurred to Saphora that Sherry was telling her things about Bender as if she knew him better than Saphora did. Had she been doing that so long that Saphora just accepted it as part of the arrangement? Had he even asked about her? “He wasn’t worried about me?”

  “Asleep since nine, like I said. I told the boys to try and go to sleep by eleven. But it’s summer. I know how my son likes to stay up summer nights, so I’ve given them their space and all that.”

  She was such a good soul. “I know it’s not easy being here, Sherry.”

  “My mama loves keeping Malcolm. Besides, in the morning I’m taking a walk along the beach and finding me a chair where I can read my novel. You need me, you just page me.”

  She cooked Saphora’s favorite guilty pleasure, egg and tomato on toasted homemade bread—egg lightly fried in olive oil, a sprinkle of sea salt, then a big slice of tomato from the farmer’s market, served as a sandwich with the bread she had baked that afternoon.

  “I’ll take it upstairs,” said Saphora. Sherry followed her. She got out the breakfast tray and set it out on the deck. Then she moved the rattan rocker outside. “Your other chairs are soaked,” she said. She lit a candle and placed the sandwich plate on the tray. “The moon looks as big as Saturn,” she said.

  The Neuse was churning out a ways from shore, like arms reaching to twist it like a sopping wet towel.

  “I’m fine now, Sherry,” said Saphora.

  “I’m down the hall if you need anything.” She hung out on the balcony for a moment, standing in the open bedroom door. “I know it’s hard leaving him downstairs and you up here. But I know men. I’m sure he’d move over, make room for his pretty woman.”