True Blue (Hubbard's Point)

by Luanne Rice

  “There were so many times I flew over…” he began.

  “Flew over Hubbard's Point?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You could see it? You could tell?”

  “I knew. I could picture this house; and yours next door.”

  Rumer's mouth dropped open.

  “But most of the time, I'd be concentrating on other things. We'd be way up there, and I'd look out the spacecraft window. There were the stars, the moons, the planets… and then there was Earth.”

  “It looks different?”

  He nodded. “This beautiful blue and white planet… yeah, it looks different.” He stared up, remembering how it had felt to gaze down.

  “Out in space, it's just like the moon or a star.”

  “Except it's not,” Zeb said, hearing his own heartbeat. What was that? he wondered. In his space suit, everything echoed through his helmet, and he'd fall asleep to the sound of his own pulse, comforting and steady. But here on the roof, talking about flight with Rumer, he was hearing the rhythm of his own life.

  “It's not?” Rumer asked.

  “No… it's everything,” Zeb said.

  “I know,” Rumer whispered.

  “That little sphere, so far away, yet containing everything I love… trees, oceans, music, art… I never stopped thinking of our magical thread.”

  “Made of gold,” Rumer said, staring at the moon.

  “And people. Michael…” Zeb said. His heart was pounding, and he pressed his face close to hers and whispered, “You.”

  Rumer shivered, suddenly turning, surprising him, pressing her face into his shoulder. He could feel her breath against his skin, and the physical intensity made him shiver with thunder.

  “Rumer…” he said.

  She didn't move, but he could feel her mood change. A chill filled the air, surrounding them. “Why?” she whispered.

  “Why what, Rumer?”

  “Oh, Zeb. I never thought anything could break it…I swore that could never happen. But it did—it's broken forever, and nothing can fix it. There's someone else now. Edward…”

  “Rumer, please…”

  “Why did you have to marry Elizabeth?” she asked, tearing away from him, sliding down the roof and into the window below. He couldn't see her, but he heard her running through the empty house. The screen door slammed behind her, and she flew through her yard and her own kitchen door.

  The moon rose higher in the sky, and now Rumer's yard was in shadow. The bushes were dark, lifeless. The gold thread had vanished into the black.

  SIXTUS CALLED OLIVIER de Cubzac at the Hawthorne Boat Works and arranged to launch the Clarissa that Friday morning. Since Olivier was racing in Newport, Sixtus oversaw the operation. Having launched his boat every summer since he'd first bought it in 1966, he expected—and got—no surprises. They wheeled the yacht just fifty yards down Cresthill Road, eased it down the abandoned tracks, and slid it into Long Island Sound.

  “Why don't you store it at the Hawthorne yard instead of behind your garage?” one of the crew asked, handing out the bill for Sixtus to sign.

  “Because I'm cheap,” Sixtus said. “Because Hub-bard's Point has this nice old marine railway that no one uses anymore, and it's free. Used to be a quarry here about a hundred years ago, and they laid these tracks for putting boats in and hauling rocks out.”

  “Hundred years ago,” Richard Struan, the crew chief said, examining the rusty old tracks. “Just a little older than your pretty boat here. When was it built, Sixtus?”

  “Nineteen-ought-five,” Sixtus said. “Just past the turn of the last century. Found it sitting in a side yard in Silver Bay, just starting to rot. Her owner had died, and his wife was too broken up to care about some old boat.” He shook his head at the memory and the idea of the Clarissa being “some old boat.”

  “So you took it off her hands…” Richard said, chuckling. “For a song.”

  “Yes, for a song,” Sixtus said, the guilt just below the surface. He had needed to replace some starboard-side planking and completely redo the brightwork on the blackened rails. The sails and most of the running rigging had needed to be updated. The rudder was cracked, the keel chipped. The mast step and bronze mast support had needed replacing. The cockpit would require refurbishing. Sixtus had acted as if he were doing the woman a big favor, taking it away for three thousand dollars. In fact, he had been buying one of the prettiest boats on this planet for a mere pittance.

  “Well, it belongs with someone who loves it, that's for sure,” Richard said. “The former owner is probably smiling down on you from heaven—wishing you Godspeed on your journey.”

  “I hope so,” Sixtus said, secretly hoping the owner wasn't hurling down bolts of wrath for having taken advantage of his wife. He felt a new pain in his shoulders and wondered whether he was feeling the man's retribution.

  When the crew left and he had sailed the Clarissa to the dock, Sixtus forgave himself and fell in love with her all over again.

  “It's just you and me, sweetheart,” he said. “We're going to keep each other safe the whole way to Ireland, now. Rumer would never forgive us if we didn't.” As he talked, he began to feel as if he had his wife back. He had changed the boat's name—even though some friends had warned him it could bring bad luck—from Ceres to Clarissa.

  “God's not going to punish me for being loyal to the only woman I ever loved,” Sixtus had scoffed. “Besides, I taught the myth of Ceres for forty years, and she and Clarissa have one thing in common: daughters. The way they love their daughters to the depths of the earth; in Ceres’ case, literally. Plus, both their names begin with the letter C.” Talking on and on, Sixtus had realized he was trying to assuage his own superstition. In the end, devotion to Clarissa had won, and he'd given Rumer the go-ahead to swing the champagne bottle and christen the boat.

  Remembering all that now, Sixtus set about writing a checklist. He'd be leaving on the dawn tide Saturday, and he didn't want to get stuck offshore without supplies. Hearing the put-put of a passing engine, he stuck his head up and saw Michael and Quinn checking her lobster pots.

  “What's going on here?” Sixtus boomed across the water.

  “Hi, Six!” Quinn called.

  Michael waved.

  Motioning them closer, Sixtus leaned on the coaming. It took him five seconds flat to get the lay of the land: They were in love, and they were in deep. Sixtus let out a long, low whistle, thinking of what Quinn's aunt and Michael's father were in for.

  “Why aren't you at school?” he asked.

  “Got work to do,” Quinn said.

  “What about summer school? You too, Michael.”

  “I'm helping Quinn,” he replied, but by the surprised expression crossing Quinn's face, Sixtus considered the possibility that she knew nothing of Michael's dropout status.

  “Lobster fishing is all well and good, but you've got to think of the future. You think you'll both be happy ten years from now, going out to pull pots in the dead of winter? With snow falling and the lines frozen and your hands blocks of ice?”

  “Sure, why not?” Quinn asked happily.

  “Besides, it's not snowing today,” Michael said. “It's eighty degrees and beautiful. This beats sitting in a classroom, Grandpa. Even you can't say it doesn't.”

  “That attitude, young man, will get you through dinner and not much further. Carpe diem: ‘Seize the day’ Well, fine: But what about tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow? You've got to look ahead, both of you… to the horizon and beyond.”

  “The horizon is yours, Sixtus,” Quinn said, respect in her voice. “You're the one sailing to Ireland.”

  “I wouldn't be if I hadn't graduated from high school,” he said.

  “How do you figure that?” Michael asked.

  “You might have noticed that this is a classic boat. Well, I'm navigating by sextant and compass—I need math to do that. I need every bit of education I have to get me across. English, history, science…”


  “Why do you need English to sail across the sea?” Quinn asked.

  “To amuse myself; to keep myself strong. I can recite poems I committed to memory fifty years ago, quote Macbeth to myself in moments of tedium.”

  “I can just see you, Sixtus,” Quinn laughed.

  “Yeah, Grandpa—you're probably where Mom got her acting talent from.”

  “Don't steer me off the subject of summer school,”

  Sixtus warned. “You two are signed up to go, and you're going. Got it?”

  “Grrrr,” Quinn said in a stunningly real imitation of a tiger.

  “Growl all you want, but you're going,” Sixtus said, turning his back on them to get back to work.

  When they got in from lobstering, Michael and Quinn reeked of the fish heads they used for bait. Michael watched as she secured the boat in its slip, learning the difference between bow, stern, and spring lines. She moved with grace, as if she'd been on boats her whole life, and he found her competence incredibly beautiful. Neither languid nor sophisticated like L.A. girls—-just the opposite. She was down to earth, real, and totally New England.

  “What was Sixtus talking about out there?” she asked, gathering her equipment together. “You needing summer school?”

  “I'm between situations right now,” Michael said.

  Quinn laughed. “You mean you got kicked out too.”

  “No,” Michael said, thinking back to the day he'd decided to just leave his books in his locker, walk out of school between French and English, and not go back. He had felt an emptiness inside, bigger than space. “I mean, that phase of my life is over, and the new one hasn't started. One door has closed, the other hasn't opened yet. I'm in the hallway.”

  Quinn tilted her head, sunlight striking her wild auburn hair. “I have no idea what you're talking about. I hate to tell you this, but you sound like one of those unhappy wife doctors.”

  “What?”

  “Like on Oprah. Allie's always watching her—she wants to be a psychologist when she grows up. If I'm around, I sometimes watch too. Is that how people in California talk? Like doctors on Oprah?”

  “Shhh,” Michael said, just holding a finger to his lips. Maybe she didn't know that it hurt him to have her make fun of him like that. He lay on the seawall and turned his head while she finished on the boat, feeling the hot concrete beneath his cheek. He had just been trying to be open—she inspired that in him like no one he'd ever known. He didn't have it with his parents, he didn't have it with his friends, and he'd never had it with a girlfriend. Even now his feelings stung, but he couldn't resist turning his head back to look at her.

  She was right there—leaning out of the boat to put her face close to his.

  “I'm sorry, Michael,” she said. “I was just playing, but Allie always says I play too hard.”

  “That's okay,” he said.

  They grabbed the pail of lobsters and the leftover bait and began to walk home. Trekking across the sand, over the footbridge that crossed the tidal creek, and up the right of way behind the yellow house, Quinn pointed out the huge boulder overhanging the path. “Indians used to cook under there,” she said. “Back before there were any houses here. An archaeologist came once and found traces of ancient smoke. She uncovered arrowheads and other stone tools.”

  “They must have hunted and fished here,” Michael said, surveying the wooded land, the sparkling water.

  “Like us,” Quinn said as the lobsters scrabbled against the plastic pail. “I'll live here, just like them, and I'll die here. Someday I'll show you the Indian Grave”

  “Stop,” Michael said sharply. “Why do you always talk about death?”

  “Because it's part of us,” Quinn said softly “Part of our lives.”

  “That's not true,” Michael said, suddenly wishing she would just walk away and leave him alone.

  “It is,” she said with terrible sadness in her eyes. “When you lose your parents as young as Allie and I, you have to make peace with that fact in order to go on. It's sad, but it doesn't scare me anymore.”

  The path came out at the dead end of Cresthill Road. With the Point on their right, they walked past two shingled cottages to Winnie's guest house. They stood in the road, and Michael felt torn between wanting Quinn and her death talk to disappear and wanting her to come inside so he could kiss her. Desire won, and he opened the door.

  They stood in the tiny old kitchen. The pantry at his Malibu house was bigger than this. He watched as Quinn opened cupboards, found a big black iron pot, and started filling it with water. She put it on the old enameled stove, lighting the burner.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Cooking you a lobster. Do you have any butter?”

  He got some from the refrigerator. “It's too early— not even ten in the morning.”

  “Lobster is the perfect morning meal,” she said. “Full of protein. Sam sometimes goes spearfishing out at the breakwater and catches blackfish. We have them for breakfast, and he says it's brain food…”

  The pot hissed as the heat spread. Michael leaned against the rickety old table, and Quinn came into his arms. He kissed her.

  They kissed slowly for a few moments, until the water began to boil and the pot lid started to rattle.

  “I want to show you something,” she said, holding his hand as they looked into the bucket. The lobsters had quieted down, lying together in the bottom.

  “What?”

  “It's about the food chain, the cycle of life. Everything happens for a reason, Michael, the way it's supposed to… you know those fish heads we used to bait the traps?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, they were tautog. Blackfish—swimming free out by the breakwater. Allie and I caught them two nights ago. We caught them with sandworms. Those sandworms lived on nutrients in the sand… do you see? One thing feeds another, which feeds another… these lobsters are going to feed us.”

  Michael released the lobster; it dropped into the pot and almost instantly began to turn red. Quinn put hers in. She set the butter to melt on the stove and held Michael in her arms. Feeling the warmth and solidity of her body, he pulled her tighter, wanting even more connection.

  They hugged for a few minutes, till Michael's heart went back to normal. The buzzer went off; the lobsters had turned scarlet and were done. Then Quinn grabbed an old blanket from the back of the wicker sofa and spread it on the porch floor. They carried everything out there and set it all out, lying down among the pot and plates and melted butter.

  Michael had never eaten boiled lobster before.

  “It's the only way,” Quinn said. “At home, within sight of the sea. From respect, you nod to the water, and then you bless the lobsters.”

  Michael thought of the black-tie opening-night parties his mother had taken him to with lobster thermidor, lobster Savannah, lobster cocktails, lobster Newburg—fancy dishes with the lobster all picked out and dressed up.

  This was basic, primal—life itself Quinn taught him how to take the lobster apart with his bare hands, crack the shells easily, push the sweet meat out with his fingers. He felt like a man using all five of his senses, feeling the pleasure of life for the first time: the sunshine warming their bodies, the crashing waves filling their ears, the unfamiliarity of love pouring through his veins. He watched Quinn suck the meat from all the small legs, and he let her feed him a claw dripping with melted butter.

  They kissed with a passion Michael had never felt before. Everything seemed so perfect and natural. Gazing down the rocks, Michael saw his grandfather's boat rocking at the dock. He had been afraid to think of his grandfather sailing across the sea, but he wasn't anymore. Something about being with Quinn had given Michael a new courage that he didn't quite understand.

  “I want to do things…” he said.

  “Like what?”

  “Big things.”

  “Like your father? Going into space?”

  “You think that's big?” he asked, his heart falling
a little.

  She shook her head. “No, but most people do.”

  “What do you think is big?” he asked.

  “Oh,” she said. “That's easy. Love.”

  “What do you know about love?” he asked, his heart beating hard and fast.

  “I've lived it,” she whispered. “Since I was very young. First with my parents, then with my sister, with my aunt and Sam, with everyone here at the Point. It's all that matters…”

  “I want it,” Michael said, yearning for love more than he had ever dreamed possible. He thought of living in this cottage, lobstering for the rest of his days. Quinn could be his wife; they could make their lives together.

  “Why did you leave school?” he asked after a minute.

  “They kicked me out,” she said sadly. “I did something I shouldn't have… lost my temper.”

  “I've seen your temper,” he whispered, stroking her hair.

  “Yeah… it's bad. But I wish—” She paused, swallowing. “I wish it hadn't happened. I mean, I wish I could go back to where I was before I had to leave… in September I'm supposed to be a senior.”

  “What would it take?” he asked.

  “Summer school,” she said, the words ringing dreadfully.

  “Why don't you go?” he asked.

  “Because I love summer so much. My lobstering business, the beach, spearfishing, everything. I can't stand the thought of being in a classroom—even if your grandfather wants me to.”

  “I'd go with you,” Michael whispered, holding her a little tighter.

  “What?”

  He couldn't believe he'd said it, but suddenly nothing had ever made more sense. Knowing Quinn gave him a desire to have a future. She had set him on fire, to be the best man he could. And getting to know his aunt again, seeing how much having an education meant to her and his grandfather, made Michael feel that maybe he'd been selling himself short.