Firefly Beach

by Luanne Rice

“Thanks,” Caroline said, peering at her scraped palm.

  The lights illuminating the sea were blinding, white-blue. The two large boats were rafted together; Joe helped Caroline climb over the rails, stepping from the smaller of the two boats to the larger. It was seventy feet long, sleek and magnificent, equipped for work. Everything was gleaming white fiberglass, stainless steel, aluminum. Caroline glanced into the wheelhouse, saw instruments and gauges blinking everywhere. It reminded her of the lair of some futuristic, mad oceanographer.

  Everyone was busy, but they were noticing her and Joe. He led her from group to group, shouting introductions. Caroline nodded pleasantly, shook a lot of wet and cold hands. She was aware of the fact people were sizing her up. Did that mean they were comparing her to other women Joe brought out there? Or was she unusual, did he rarely bring women out at all? What difference did it make?

  She stood in the wheelhouse while Joe called everyone together on deck. He gathered them in a huddle, said a few words, and the next thing she knew, the compressor was being shut down. The lights were turned out. En masse, like revelers leaving a party, the crew climbed aboard the smaller vessel. Someone started it up, and someone else moved the skiff, tying it off to a cleat at the stern of the big boat. Then everyone waved, and the boat chuffed away.

  “That’s better, don’t you think?” Joe asked. “Now I can hear you. It was really pretty noisy.” He was about six inches from Caroline. His hair was tousled and nearly as wet as if he’d been diving himself. He had a careless, rakish smile, a sharp expression in his dark blue eyes.

  “What just happened?” she asked.

  “I sent them to your inn,” he said. “Gave them the night off.”

  “Really?” she asked, suspicious. “Alone at sea with Joe Connor. Are you planning to throw me overboard?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “I just thought we had a few years to catch up on, and I didn’t want the whole crew listening in.”

  “You didn’t have to do that on my account,” Caroline said, although she was secretly happy. To have a man cease and desist operations just so they could have a quiet conversation together was nice.

  “Would you like a glass of wine?” Joe asked, and Caroline realized that he was holding the bottle she’d brought in his left hand. “Or something else?”

  “Wine, please,” Caroline said. “That would be fine.”

  He disappeared below for a moment, returned with a wineglass, a corkscrew, and a glass of what looked like juice for himself. They went up out on deck, into the cold night air. It felt brisk and sharp. The stars were just coming out, sparks of fire in the sky.

  They leaned against the rail. With everyone gone, the ship was suddenly silent and very dark. Small waves splashed the hull. The generator hummed down below, but the sound was unobtrusive, even comforting. Green light from the loran screen glowed serenely in the wheelhouse, along with the warmth of a brass lamp. Caroline felt tension in her shoulders.

  “This is beautiful,” she said.

  “You always loved the water,” he said. “Saltwater.”

  “I still do.”

  “Me too.”

  “It’s great that you’re able to make your living out here. When did you first get the idea, hunting for treasure?”

  “When I got your letter about the Cambria,” he said.

  She laughed, sipping her wine. “No, I’m serious.”

  “So am I. But the thought grew stronger when I was in graduate school. I did my first cruise in the Indian Ocean, on a small oceanographic ship researching sediment and salinity. But we snagged a wreck in our dredges, a ship dating back a thousand years or so, and it piqued my interest. A lot of gold came up that day.”

  “A thousand years?”

  “Yeah. A Turkish ship in the silk trade, loaded with sapphires and rubies, gold medallions, statues, and ingots. Amber beads. Coins from the year 990.”

  “Amazing,” Caroline said, imagining the thrill of Joe’s first time on a ship that brought up treasure. “Did you ever actually work as an oceanographer?”

  “For a few years. I worked at Scripps, in La Jolla, then at Woods Hole. But in my free time, all my reading seemed to be about wrecks. You know, local legends, failed dive attempts, anything I could find. On my vacations I’d travel to the most likely sites, size them up. I saved some money, did a real dive, and came up with enough stuff to sell and finance the next one.”

  “And you gave up oceanography altogether?”

  Joe shook his head. “Never. I use it all the time. In some ways I practice it more now. I’m just not attached to an institution.”

  “And here you are, diving on the Cambria,” Caroline said, staring at the black water.

  “I never forgot it,” Joe said. “All this time, no matter which ocean I was in. I’d think of the Cambria, lying in New England water, and I knew I had to come here.”

  “Is it what you hoped for?”

  “Yes,” Joe said, staring at the black water as if he could see through it.

  “I like that you’re doing it,” Caroline said, surprising herself, “instead of someone else. It seems right…You diving on the Cambria. I’m surprised no one’s tried it before.”

  “They have,” Joe said. “But the ship’s in a tricky spot. It takes…well, a certain kind of operation to do it without getting hurt.”

  “You’re saying you’re pretty good?” Caroline asked, laughing as she sipped her wine.

  “It’s not that,” Joe said uncomfortably. “But I have a great crew and a good ship. The money to do it right.”

  “And now you have Clarissa’s diary.”

  “It’s complicated,” Joe said, “reading the diary, then diving down, getting involved with the lives connected with the wreck.”

  “Does it bother you?” Caroline asked.

  Joe thought for a minute, watching the stars just above the horizon. “Yes,” he said. “It’s disturbing. But I still want to know.”

  “Why is it disturbing?”

  “It’s hard to be dispassionate, as I have in the past. I’ve come across human remains before, but…”

  “But what?”

  “They were just skeletons. The people never had names,” Joe said. “Now I have the diary, and that makes everything more personal. And I’m not talking about the parallels you referred to in your note.”

  Caroline wanted to talk about their story, hers and Joe’s, but she wasn’t sure how. Words stumbled through her mind, linking their letter-writing days with this moment right now. How did they get from there to here? The wind was picking up. It made Caroline’s fingers cold around the stem of her glass, her cheeks and forehead sting. She shivered, and Joe saw.

  “Come on inside,” he said.

  “I like it out here,” she said, looking around. The wind was strong in her face. It whipped her long, dark hair into her eyes, and she brushed it away. She had something she wanted to say to him.

  “It’s how I’ve always thought of you,” he said quietly, interrupting her thoughts. “Outside. Totally alive, with nothing touching you but the elements. Like those trips to the mountain.”

  “Nature girl,” she said, embarrassed.

  With that he laughed and opened a door. They went through the wheelhouse. Caroline felt him close behind her. He didn’t quite touch her arm to guide her through the narrow passage, but he almost did. She could feel the pressure of his hand in the air between them, and it made the skin on her wrist tingle.

  She followed him down the companionway; it was like entering another ship entirely. All the high-tech sparkle and gloss up above gave way to old-world warmth and elegance down below. The entire main salon was teak. The burnished wood glowed in light cast from softly shaded brass lamps. Bookcases filled with texts and navigation tables lined one wall. Framed drawings of sailing ships hung over the settees.

  All the furniture was built-in and gimballed for life at sea. The settees were covered with forest-green canvas, strewn with kilim pillows. Th
ere were brass barometers, wind indicators, fittings around the portholes, everything polished to a high shine. In one corner was a small ceramic fireplace surrounded by Delft tiles, with a fire already crackling inside.

  “Here’s how she looked,” he said. He handed her a sketch. It depicted a beautiful barquentine, a three-masted vessel with the foremast square-rigged and the main and mizzen masts rigged fore and aft.

  “The Cambria?”

  “One like her,” he said, nodding. “The Cambria was English, carrying a load of arms, along with the gold. She went down in a gale in 1769. On Moonstone Reef.”

  “Right here,” Caroline said, thinking of the ship lying in sand and mud however many fathoms directly under her feet. Seeing the sketch made the vessel seem more real. All shipwrecks were tragic, but as Joe had said, this one felt personal.

  “It’s sad,” she said. “Kind of a love story.”

  Joe exhaled, shook his head. “What, the lady and the captain?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about the lady’s husband and kid?” Joe asked. “Or maybe I’ve just been reading that diary a little too closely. I got your message about the similarities, loud and clear.”

  “Have you ever seen Wickland Rock Light?” she asked.

  Joe shrugged.

  “It’s desolate. You can’t get on or off without a boat. She must have been horribly unhappy,” Caroline said. “I’m not excusing her, but she must have been desperate, doing what she did.”

  Caroline gazed at the drawing, imagining a young woman who lived in a lighthouse on a rock at sea, falling in love with the master of this ship. She heard herself defending Elisabeth Randall, but was that just so she could fight with Joe? She disliked Elisabeth for what she’d done. How bad could life have been that she would run off and leave her daughter? Caroline felt contrary, fired up, and she knew it had to do with old resentment at Joe, for the unfair blame he placed on her.

  “Do parents think of their children first?” Joe asked. “When they’re caught up in their own plans? I think you and I know the answer better than anyone.”

  “Joe,” she began, raising her eyes. But he had disappeared. She heard him in the galley. Caroline tried to catch her breath, to get control of her emotions. She browsed through the library, calming herself down.

  She watched Joe emerge with an orange-enameled casserole dish. He placed it on the gimbaled table, which was set for two. He refilled Caroline’s glass, pouring himself more juice. Sliding a hidden panel, he pushed buttons that brought Mozart into the cabin from speakers in four corners of the salon. The sound was perfect, as sophisticated as she had ever heard. He stirred the fire.

  “This is amazing,” she said, pulling herself back together, trying to be nice. “I can’t believe I’m on a boat. A fireplace!”

  “It gets cold out here,” he said. “Even now, in the summer. You should come out in November. Late fall in northern waters is not our idea of fun. But I know you’re the Arctic type.”

  “Arctic?”

  “Where was that mountain he used to take you hunting? Somewhere way up in Canada, wasn’t it?”

  “New Hampshire,” she said, picturing Redhawk. “Not quite the Arctic Circle.”

  The table was square, set into a corner. Caroline slid into one side of the settee and Joe into the other. Caroline felt shaky from that earlier exchange. Their knees touching slightly, Joe served them both helpings of braised lamb shanks. With it came crusty French bread, salad greens tossed in vinaigrette, and baked chèvre.

  “This is delicious,” Caroline said awkwardly. “Did you make it?”

  “I wish I could say so, but our steward did.”

  “I’d like to steal him for the Renwick Inn,” Caroline said, joking.

  Joe laughed. “He’d never go for it. He’s from St. Croix, and he lives for the day we go back down south. To him, summer in New England is cruel and unusual.”

  “St. Croix,” Caroline said. “I went down last winter to visit a few inns. There’s a beautiful place way out on a headland, in an old sugar mill. Bougainvillea everywhere, and dark sand on the beach. I loved it.”

  “So you go south sometimes,” Joe said without expression. “Not only north.”

  “No, there’s life beyond the Arctic,” Caroline said quietly. “I’m not as cold as you think.”

  Joe smiled. Noticing her glass was empty, he poured her more wine.

  “Don’t you like it?” Caroline asked, indicating the bottle of merlot.

  “I don’t drink,” he said.

  “Never?” she asked, thinking of Skye.

  “Not anymore. I used to like it too much. I didn’t get in trouble every time I drank. But every time I got in trouble, I’d been drinking. The pattern was pretty clear. And I got in some trouble.”

  “You did?” Caroline asked, fingering the stem of her glass, picturing the bottle beside Skye in the car wreck, knowing that many of the worst nights in their family had involved drinking.

  “Yeah, I did,” he said. “Drinking was fun for a while, but the fun stopped. I’d drink, and it took more every time. I felt empty, and the key word was always ‘more.’ ”

  “Oh,” Caroline said. The emptiness: She knew it well. Sometimes she felt such bottomless sadness and grief and need and loneliness, she’d try to fill it with wine or travel or business success or helping her sisters.

  “Anyway, it got to the point where one drink was too many and a hundred wasn’t enough. So I stopped,” Joe said.

  “I have someone I’m worried about,” Caroline said. “Who drinks too much.”

  “I’m sorry,” Joe said.

  Caroline wanted to tell him about Skye, but she held herself back. She felt cautious, on guard.

  They finished dinner, telling each other safe stories about college escapades and travel fiascoes and the last movies they’d seen and where they’d each been last Christmas, Caroline at the inn and Firefly Hill with her family, Joe with his crew on Silver Bank in the West Indies.

  Caroline took another sip of wine, but it didn’t taste as good as it had before. She glanced up and saw Joe watching her. She tried to smile. But she felt the ghosts of both their pasts swirling around the table, waiting for an invitation.

  They moved closer to the fireplace to have their coffee. She took it black, strong, and hot. Topside, the wind was picking up, and she felt the boat begin to rock a little more. Joe stirred the fire and closed the glass door on it. He went up to check the anchor line. When he came back, he settled down again.

  “Do you spend all your time at sea?” Caroline asked. “Or do you have a home somewhere?”

  “Both,” he said. “I have a place in Miami, but I’m at sea nine months a year.”

  “Miami is a long way from Newport, your old home, when I knew you,” Caroline said, watching his dark blue eyes. Troubled, they darted to Caroline’s face and away.

  “Home wasn’t…” He searched for the diplomatic explanation, but quickly gave up on it. “Well, I wanted to leave. In a way, I was surprised to find that you’d stayed so close to home. Put your father and those hunts behind you.” He raised his eyebrows, acknowledging that he wouldn’t drop the subject this time.

  “You remember the hunts,” Caroline said.

  “How could I not? You wrote about them twice a year. He’d set you loose on a mountain with a canteen and a penknife and expect you to fend for yourself.”

  “He wanted us to be able to protect ourselves,” Caroline said, surprised to find herself defending her father. She tried to remember her letters to Joe; at least one had been brutal with detail, filled with terrors of the hunt. But now, all these years later, she was revising the truth. She wished she had never told him. After all, her father had started them because of what his father had done. She drew herself up straighter.

  “You were so mad,” Joe said steadily. “The first time Skye went. She wasn’t ready, you said. She was so scared, she didn’t want to shoot a gun. Is she the one who drinks?”


  “Why do you ask that?” Caroline asked, her heart racing.

  “Because she crashed her car,” Joe said.

  Caroline sipped her coffee, but it was cold. She placed her cup on the table, looked Joe straight in the eye.

  “Why am I here?” she asked coldly.

  “I wanted to thank you,” he said. “For the diary, for telling me in the first place. You’re the reason I found the Cambria, after all. You told me about the wreck….”

  “But why did you ask me out here, to the Meteor?” Caroline persisted. Her heart pounded. Her mouth felt dry. She was sitting with Joe Connor after all the years of resentment, and she didn’t know what to say.

  “To talk to you,” Joe said, his voice steady and low, “about that night.”

  “The night your father died,” she said.

  “When your sister called me—left me that message—I thought maybe she had something to tell me about what happened,” he said. “Something new.”

  “She feels a connection,” Caroline said quietly. “We all do.”

  “Because you were there when it happened,” he said.

  “I hardly remember,” Caroline said. After all this time, she still didn’t want to be the one to tell him.

  “Tell me,” Joe said again.

  “I will,” Caroline said, trying to keep her voice steady. “If you’ll explain one thing.”

  “What?”

  “Why did you start hating me?”

  He didn’t deny it. Staring at her, he spoke steadily. “Until I was seventeen, I thought my father died of a heart attack. I knew he died in your house, but I thought he was a friend of your father’s from the docks, that he’d taken a break from fishing and gone off to visit him. I liked thinking he had died among friends. It made everything okay, thinking he had died with people who cared about him.”

  “I was a kid too, Joe. Just like you. It was too much responsibility to tell you what really happened.”

  “Tell me now,” Joe said, looking directly into Caroline’s eyes. “Please.”

  Caroline could summon her memory of that night in an instant. She closed her eyes, saw the kitchen at Firefly Hill. She could smell the cookies baking. She could see James Connor’s eyes.