Blue Moon

by Luanne Rice

  “I was tired that night, too. I’m tired every night. Sometimes I think of you out there, far, far out, and I feel like I’d trade everything to be there instead of home.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Yes, I do,” she said, dead serious. “Sometimes.” She stood close to the window, to get a good view of the harbor. “I have to check the mooring floats,” she said.

  “I’ll come with you.”

  Keating’s Wharf could accommodate four trawlers. Dock space was reserved, mainly, for loading gear onboard the boats before a trip and loading the catch off at trip’s end. Sometimes you’d chug into the harbor and find all the dock space taken. For those occasions, Keating kept ten moorings in the harbor. You identified Keating moorings by the big orange balls floating on the water.

  Billy watched Cass pull on a heavy sweater, her big dark glasses, and a Red Sox cap. She tried to tuck all her hair up, but she missed a piece.

  “Hold it,” Billy said. He twisted the strands around his index finger, wedged it under the cap. Her neck, beneath that snaggle of red-gold hair, looked so pale, curved like a ballerina’s. Billy couldn’t stop himself from kissing it.

  Cass stood still, allowed his lips to trace the curve, but did not encourage him to continue. She tromped down the interior stairs, through the lobster-tank room, out into the bright cool sunshine. This was goldenrod weather: the end of summer, when the days were clear and fine and the sky shimmered with particles of gold.

  Billy hung back for a moment and rummaged through a bin for some extra work gloves. When he started out again, he saw Jimmy Keating leaning against the warehouse, talking to John Barnard. They were both watching Cass, but she didn’t see them.

  “Hey, Medieros,” John yelled. At first Billy thought John was talking to him. He had one foot out the door before Cass answered.

  “Hiya, Barnard,” Cass called.

  “What about me?” Jimmy called.

  Cass gave her father a long indulgent look, then went over to kiss him. The three of them stood there—Cass, Jimmy, and John —a tight little knot. Seeing them like that, so comfortable together, Billy had a flash: what if I don’t make it home some trip? We sink, I drown. Would John be the one to console Cass? Would she fall in love with him again?

  Halfway through Billy’s last trip out, fishing Georges Bank one hundred fifty miles into the North Atlantic, he rode straight into a major storm. Waves breaking over the wheelhouse, wind shifting direction every gust. It wasn’t the first time, or the worst storm, but Billy saw everything pass before his eyes. Cass, their kids, their life in Mount Hope; Billy believed he was about to lose it all. His ship groaned and chattered, bolts beneath the decks vibrating under the stress.

  When the worst passed, Billy checked the ship to make sure she was sound. He went directly to the life raft to force himself to face what he already knew he would find: three survival suits; five men on board.

  “Jimmy,” Billy said now, driven by the memory. He walked over.

  “Billy!” Jimmy said, clapping Billy on the back. With both of Billy’s parents dead, years now, Jim and Mary had been more to him than standard parents-in-law. On the other hand, in his capacity as Billy’s boss, Jimmy was a businessman first, and Billy always kept his guard up.

  “We need to update some equipment on the Norboca.”

  “Like what?” Jimmy asked.

  “Like two survival suits, for starters.”

  “Oh, you’re short two?” Jimmy asked, all surprised, as if Billy hadn’t mentioned it last month, and two months before that. “Well, we’ll order them today. We’ll have them in time for the cold weather, that’s for sure.”

  “We’ll get them overnight,” Cass said. “Why didn’t you tell me right away?”

  “Actually, Jimmy,” John said, “I have a list of stuff we need on the Aurora. The more I take her out, the more I get to know her.”

  “Just like dating a girl,” Jimmy joked. “You boys are putting me out of business. But that’s what I get, I hire the best captains. Safety first.”

  “What else are you missing?” Cass asked Billy, her tone unamused. Jimmy Keating could charm a smile out of anyone; he could sell a lobsterman a barrel of lobsters. But his youngest daughter saw right through him.

  “That’s about it. She needs an overhaul, but Jimmy knows about that.”

  “The way I figure it,” Jimmy said, “we do our best fishing in the warm weather. Let’s fill our holds now, yank the boats for a week or so first of November. Good for me, good for you. I make money so I can pay you a decent cut. Plus, of course, we’ll get those safety rigs on board. Thanks for bringing it up.”

  Jimmy would use his gift of gab to cheap out, stall for time, hoping all along that Billy and John would forget in the meanwhile. Billy knew that survival suits didn’t come cheap. Most fishermen believed they were useless, anyway. If you went down in a bad storm offshore, a few hundred dollars’ worth of rubberized plastic wasn’t going to save you.

  “That’s not good enough, Dad,” Cass said.

  Billy put his hand on Cass’s arm. Family was one thing, but you didn’t criticize Jimmy Keating in front of an outsider. And John Barnard, for as long as the family had known him, still wasn’t family.

  “It’ll have to be good enough,” Jimmy said, standing tall.

  “What if it’s not?” Cass asked.

  “I’ll sell this damn place,” Jimmy said angrily. “I’ll sell it tomorrow. My boats are safer, better equipped than any fleet in town. I look after my captains, and you know it.”

  “That’s right,” Billy said. “You’re the best, Jimmy.”

  “Relax, Cass,” John said.

  “I’ve got three kids,” she said. “I want to go to bed at night and know their father is going to come home.”

  “It’s okay, Cass,” Billy said, sliding his arm around her waist. She tried to squirm away, but he held on. “It’s okay.”

  “I’ll sell, so help me God,” Jimmy said bitterly, shaking his head. “Second-guessed by my own daughter.”

  Cass opened her mouth, anger flashing in her eyes, then thought better of it. She calmed herself down. Billy could practically feel the anger shuddering through her. “Dad?” she said finally.

  Proud James Keating squinted over Cass’s head, right out to sea. She stood on tiptoe, her hands on his shoulders, forcing him to look at her. Billy thought she was going to kiss her father, but she didn’t. She stayed on her toes for one long minute, then gave his shoulders a shake, and smiled. You could tell he didn’t want to smile back, but he couldn’t help himself.

  “Maybe this is the time for some good news,” Jimmy said. “I’ve just made John captain of his own boat.”

  “Wow,” Cass said. “Congratulations, John.”

  “Congratulations,” Billy said, shaking John’s hand. “Which boat?”

  “The Aurora,” John said, grinning.

  Billy nodded, impressed. The second-best boat in the Keating fleet.

  “I can’t have my two best men fishing on the same boat,” Keating said. “That’s no way to make money. Find another first mate, Billy.”

  “Maybe I can get Cass to sign on,” Billy said, thinking of his own boat, the one he’d buy as soon as he had enough money.

  “If you could get her to take orders,” Jimmy said. “Good luck.”

  “Congratulations again,” Cass said, kissing John.

  Billy felt a hot flush in his neck. Cass and John were smiling into each other’s eyes. Billy stepped forward, clapped John’s shoulder. “Yeah, it’s great,” Billy said. “What do you say, Cass? Want to get moving here?”

  Cass nodded, waving goodbye to her father and John. She walked down the dock, ahead of Billy; she threw her tool bucket into the twenty-four-foot work boat, which was tied to a piling. Watching it rock and pitch in a light chop, she waited for her moment and jumped in. Billy followed. They had taken a million boat rides together. Cass loosened the stern and spring lines while Billy
undid the bow line. Then she fired up the engine and they chuffed into the harbor.

  This was Cass’s show. Billy sat in the bow, watching her do the work. He had the feeling she’d whale him good if he offered to help. She yanked on big rubber work gloves. With expert timing she’d pull close to each mooring, shift the engine into idle, grab the mooring line with a long wood-handled boat hook, and check the shackle connecting it with the float.

  By this time in the season, a hundred things could have fouled a mooring; connections were the first to go. To secure a big trawler, you needed the float, fifteen fathoms of nylon hawser, forty feet of chain, a three-ton anchor, and plenty of room to swing.

  Cass yanked in the first line. Seaweed, algae, mussel colonies, and black harbor muck covered every inch of the line. Oily gunk clung to her gloves, but she seemed oblivious, a real pro. By the fourth mooring she had worked up a sweat. She threw her sweater onto the seat, and she didn’t object when Billy started to help.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about the survival suits?” she asked, pulling close to the tenth mooring.

  “It’s not that important. They’re bogus, anyway.”

  “Till you need one.”

  “A little orange suit? It keeps you from freezing to death the first hour, but by then you’re shark meat anyway.”

  “If you feel that way, why did you bother mentioning it at all?”

  Billy shrugged. He didn’t want to tell her about the storm, about his vision of Cass being consoled by John Barnard.

  “Did you tell my father about the survival suits? Before, I mean.”

  “I don’t remember. Forget it, Cass.”

  “He never told me, if you did. I would have ordered them right away.”

  “I know.”

  “They’ll be here tomorrow. I’ll order them as soon as we get in, for overnight delivery.”

  They took care of the last mooring, then swished their filthy gloves in the salt water.

  Billy was about to say, “Let’s take a ride,” when Cass turned the boat around, heading out toward Minturn Ledge. The boat bucked across the waves, past the other fish piers, the condo piers: the old Blue Moon section.

  When Billy and Cass were kids, only sailors and drunks came to this part of town. Driving past with car windows down, you could hear music blaring from the dance halls, women laughing, people fighting, sometimes even gunshots. Parents warned their kids to stay away from there. It was a place where people shot heroin, sold their bodies, and murdered for love.

  The Blue Moon faded from sight as they passed the row of mansions, the yacht club, the playground. Billy rode in the bow, the sun in his eyes, facing backward, enjoying a boat ride with someone else driving. Watching Cass.

  At Minturn Ledge, she gunned the engine and headed into open water. They turned southeast, and Billy could tell she was steering for the Trench, a stretch of extremely deep water. After twenty minutes, she pulled back on the throttle. Billy looked overboard and saw an army of sleek shapes, tapered as missiles, passing under the boat. Bluefish were running.

  “Are you going to make me catch our dinner?” Billy asked when Cass handed him a rod.

  “Let’s try,” she said, excited.

  Cass reached for another rod. She rigged it with a big Kastmaster, striped silver and metallic blue to trick the fish. She threw the line—a perfect over-the-head cast—into the school.

  “I haven’t caught a blue all summer,” she said. “T.J. brought home a beauty last week.”

  Billy pretended to fish, but he was actually studying his wife. Some hair had slipped out from under her hat, and it glinted in the sun. He felt like taking off her hat, seeing the rest of her hair tumble to her shoulders, tangling it in his fingers. But he held back.

  She reeled in her line, then cast again. Her shoulders seemed to relax before his eyes, and it made Billy sad to think fishing for blues could soothe Cass when he could not.

  “Any bites?” he asked.

  She seemed not to hear him for a moment, then said, “What?”

  “Have you had any bites?”

  She shook her head. Something was going on behind her eyes. Cass and Billy were in the same boat, but Billy could swear Cass wasn’t there at all. Hadn’t she told him she wanted to get far, far away? Was she dreaming of Europe, California, Borneo, the North Atlantic? Suddenly she reeled in her line, stuck the rod in its holder.

  “We haven’t caught anything,” Billy said.

  She flashed her watch at him. “No time. I have to get Josie in forty minutes.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather be going to Borneo?” Billy asked.

  She chuckled lightly, her eyes softening.

  Billy crossed the boat to stand behind her. He placed one hand over hers on the throttle, the other over hers on the wheel. She leaned back, into his body. His chin rested on the top of her head, the button on her Red Sox cap digging in.

  “What do you really think about John?” she asked.

  “He deserves it. He’ll make Jimmy a good captain.”

  “You’ll miss fishing with him,” Cass said.

  “Nah, he’s a bum,” Billy joked. But he couldn’t make himself laugh. He saw his life flying by. He and John had been competing forever, but Billy had always stayed a little ahead. He had Cass; Jimmy had made him captain first. Now here was John catching up. Maybe that was fair, Billy thought, but he felt his throat tighten. He wondered how Cass really saw him.

  “What do you really think about John?” Billy asked.

  “He’s a good fisherman,” Cass said. “My father wants to keep him in the fleet.”

  “He’s one of the best,” Billy agreed. “One of the best.”

  “But not the best,” Cass said, teasing.

  “Maybe not,” Billy said, holding her from behind. Being the best, staying on top: it didn’t just happen. It took some proving. You had to work your ass off to get there, and you had to fight like hell to stay. Billy squeezed Cass’s hand on the throttle, and the boat kicked forward. They opened the engine, and together they drove home.

  11

  Belinda and Emma sat side by side in fourth-period study hall. Kids from all different sections took study hall together. You could be in the 8-A group and wind up next to someone in 8-D. Which is how Belinda wound up next to Emma. Todd sat two benches away. Now Belinda was going out with him, but they never talked in school. He’d get embarrassed if she even said hi. But he didn’t mind when she called him after school.

  “Your brother is really strange,” Emma said.

  “No kidding,” Belinda said. She had the conjugations of twenty irregular verbs to memorize for French, and she wished Emma would stop talking so she could concentrate.

  “I’m serious,” Emma said. She had her math book open, but under the table she was putting apricot polish on her nails. As if the teacher wouldn’t smell it! “He’s been telling people he has a gun.”

  “He’s lying,” Belinda said, but she was shocked all the same. Why would T.J. lie about having a gun?

  “He ought to wash his hair more often, like once a day. He could probably have anyone he wants, if he took better care of himself. The clothes he wears! Doesn’t your mom ever do laundry?”

  “He likes the messy look. He thinks it makes him look like a rebel.”

  “Yeah, him and Sean. Rebels without a clue. Someone forgot to tell Sean there are no fat rebels. Don’t you get sick of girls trying to get close to you just so you’ll put in a good word with T.J.? It’s so hypocritical.”

  “They don’t even bother,” Belinda said. “They go straight to him. Our phone is ringing all the time.”

  “Did you really make fun of Alison when she called?”

  “No! That was Josie,” Belinda said.

  “Alison is telling everyone it was you.”

  Belinda loved Josie; she tried to be patient with her. But sometimes it seemed Josie was ruining her life without even trying. Stupid slutface Alison McCabe called T.J. last week and got Josie. Josie
had picked up Belinda’s extension to play phone call, and naturally she couldn’t hear Alison on the other end. Alison, who didn’t know Josie, had thought it was Belinda making fun of her. And now Alison was spreading it all over school that Belinda was an immature jerk.

  “Bel, you should see the incredible magazine I found in my parents’ room,” Emma said. “Like, superhot.”

  “Really?” Belinda asked, blushing. Since she and Emma had spent the afternoon in Emma’s room, she’d played with herself a few times. But the funny thing was, the more she did it, the more embarrassed she felt when Emma talked about it.

  Belinda tried to block out Emma’s voice. She had all honors courses this year, and the work was killing her. If she didn’t get at least some of her homework done in study hall, she’d be up past midnight again. Emma just wanted to waste time till the bell rang, then get through the next period, then the next, until the end of the day.

  Emma tried a different tack. “I think it’s really funny, Sean wanting people to think he has a dark side. Talking about Satan—give me a break! He’s nothing but a nerd. He’s saving up to buy a black leather jacket.”

  “I think T.J. should get one.”

  “T.J. could get away with it. But Sean? Forget it. He’s too fat and blond. You’d look great in a black leather skirt.”

  “I would?”

  “Yeah. A real tight French one. You could wear it to Aunt Nora’s wedding.”

  Belinda hunched over her paper. Offrir, maigrir …

  “Didn’t you hear me? Black leather at Aunt Nora’s wedding. I’m looking forward to meeting the dude this weekend. Any excuse for a family bash. Once he meets all of us, he’ll probably take the next plane back to Florida, or wherever he comes from.”

  “Georgia, I think.”

  “Forget about Alison,” Emma said. “Is that what’s bothering you? You’re so quiet.”

  Mr. Sheehan, the study-hall teacher, walked down the aisle and stood right in front of Belinda and Emma. He spread his feet and folded his arms across his chest, to let them know this was serious. Mr. Sheehan was the type of teacher who wanted everyone to think he was cool and tough.

  To prove he was cool, he wore gaudy ties and saddle shoes with argyle socks. He taught history, and he’d talk about historical figures as if they were his personal friends. Like “Tombo” for Thomas Jefferson, “Big Al” for Alexander Hamilton, and “Benny and the boys” for Benjamin Franklin and the delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention. He’d drop a few “damns” and “hells” into his lectures, then say, “Excuse my French,” as if he’d just said the worst profanity ever invented.