Time After Time

by Stockenberg, Antoinette

  "Have you done this sort of thing before?" she dared to ask. It was bad enough that he knew about hooks and eyes; it would be terrible if he knew about pantyhose fan belts.

  "Hmm?" He was concentrating on his task, pulling the pantyhose as tight around the pulleys as he could before removing it and tying a knot in it. "No, I've never tried this. But I thought to myself — what would MacGyver do in this situation?"

  She smiled at his self-deprecating humor and said, "He'd probably string together paper clips and a bobby pin."

  "You don't use bobby pins in your hair."

  True; too true. He knew everything about her, inside and out now. If only he knew how much she loved him. Why hadn't she beaten him over the head with it? Instead she'd let him drift away — back to the old life, back to the Cynthias in it.

  No. Not to Cynthia. Whatever Liz thought she'd overheard at the shipyard office earlier, she'd heard wrong. There was simply no way Jack would make a move on a married woman, any more than his great-great-grandfather would have done. So she must've heard wrong.

  Jack was finished. He blew air through puffed cheeks and said, "Let's give it a shot. Stand at the bottom of the cabin steps where I can see you and where you can see my father. Tell him to start it up when I give you the signal."

  Liz took up her post and waited. She could see Jack's elongated shadow on the engine-room walls, and the slanting beams of his flashlight as he checked over the engine one last time. "Okay," he said to her.

  Worried that Susy would go jumping out of her berth from the noise, Liz nonetheless passed the signal to Cornelius. She heard the uncovered engine roar to life and waited one minute — two, three — for Jack to signal her to have the engine shut down again. When he let it keep on running, her heart soared. Fixed! They could go!

  "Shut it down!"

  Shit. Shit shit shit! She passed Jack's disheartening command up to his father and then, struggling awkwardly now, climbed the steps to the wheelhouse to check the sky.

  After the quiet below, she was shocked by the change on deck: the wind was howling now, and rain pounded against the windows of the wheelhouse, reducing visibility nearly to zero. The dull red glow of the running light to her left and the even duller green glow to her right seemed pitifully inadequate to warn off approaching ships. A white light high above the wheelhouse threw a bleary halo over the Déjà Vu, just enough to let her see that she could see nothing. But she knew the sound of breaking seas; and she could hear seas breaking all around her. The yacht was pitching much more than before; she had to grab things in the dark to keep herself from hurtling off balance.

  Why hadn't Cornelius lit the kerosene lamps?

  She turned on her heel, impelled by a loud crack of thunder, intending to warn Jack and to check on Susy; but Cornelius, whom she'd scarcely noticed, called her back to him.

  "Liz ... Liz ... get Deirdre inside ... and I ... can't breathe ... tell Jack. He staggered back and collapsed in a sitting position onto the settee behind him, abandoning his post at the helm.

  For one endless pinpoint in time, Liz's mind simply shut down: too many people needed her at once. Then she snapped out of it, prioritizing the demands. "Jack!" she cried. "Come up here!"

  She staggered through the door that led to the afterdeck and tried to rouse Deirdre, but the girl was in too much physical agony to move. Soaking wet from the rain that slanted under the open roof of the afterdeck, Deirdre clung to the cushions, resisting Liz's efforts to help her up.

  "Oh, God," she moaned, "I want to die ... get me off this thing ... please ... oh, God ... just let me die."

  Wine, fear, and seasickness: it was a deadly combination. Liz had no time to cajole. Rain-soaked herself now, she hauled Deirdre forcibly up from the cushions and stood weaving with her on the pitching deck, trying to regain her balance. She was reaching for the handle on the aft door to the wheelhouse when it slammed shut after an especially violent lurch of the boat.

  It wouldn't open. Liz could see the shadowy form of Jack bending over his ailing father. No help there. She decided to go around to one of the side doors of the wheelhouse. She staggered with her burden to the left deck, closest to where Jack and his father were. The rain, cold and sharp, stung her face and her eyes, making her blind, forcing her back. She bent her head and plowed forward with her moaning burden.

  The Déjà Vu had been rearing up higher, it seemed, with each oncoming wave. Now it rose to a frightening angle and fell off to its side with a shudder, like a horse taking a bullet in a western movie.

  Instantly, horribly, Liz understood the meaning of beam-to. The Déjà Vu had ripped out its anchor from the bottom of the sea and was dragging it along uselessly as the boat faced the wind and the seas broadside.

  Liz and Deirdre happened to be on that side. The port side, she realized irrelevantly. Port means left in their godforsaken lingo.

  A sea, higher, wetter, colder than everything that had preceded it, rose up and came crashing down on Deirdre and her, sending them both skidding and falling on the watery deck.

  "Get up. Get up!" Liz screamed in Deirdre's ear.

  By sheer force of her own strength and will, Liz pulled Deirdre's dead weight off the deck and got her moving forward again. When she got to the cabin door, it flung open wide to receive them. Jack was there, pulling them both into the relative safety of the wheelhouse. A small mountain of water followed them in, making a headlong rush for the cabin steps and below.

  Liz felt no comfort from being inside: Out of the fire, into the frying pan was her only thought.

  "I have to go to Susy!" she cried, furious now that Deirdre had used up her time and energy. The boat was lying at a ghastly angle; Susy wouldn't understand.

  Jack grabbed her arm. "Not now!" he said loudly over the din of the storm. "My father may be having a heart attack. You've got to stay here, responding to the Coast Guard, while I try one more time on the engine."

  "What! With that stupid pantyhose? It'll never work, Jack! Let me go!"

  She tried to bolt past him, but he dragged her to the radio. "Watch me. Watch what to do!" he said, picking up the transmitter. "Press it when you talk, let go when you listen. Don't leave it pressed after you talk, or you won't be able to hear them."

  He pressed the button. "Point Judith Coast Guard, the Déjà Vu!" he said, reducing the distress call to its essence.

  The Coast Guard came back immediately, and Jack, in half a dozen sentences, conveyed the emergency, gave them the coordinates of their position, and handed the job of further communications over to Liz.

  God only knew how close they were to the rocks by now. Liz accepted the transmitter with a trembling hand, and Jack jumped down below, leaving Deirdre and Cornelius slumped on the settee like casualties in a MASH unit.

  And what about Susy and Caroline? Where were they? Knocked out cold? Screaming in panic? How would Liz know? Above the horrendous, fearful noise, how would she know? It took every ounce of discipline she possessed to stay with the radio, ignoring her child.

  Susy's safe; safe below, she told herself. But another big wave broadsided the boat, forcing its way through the wheelhouse windows, the doors, through every possible seam and cranny, and she realized that boats could sink from above, not just from below. She resolved to run down to the stateroom, just to see, just to know, just to.

  Trust him, Elizabeth.

  The words vibrated through her, cutting through the howl and crash of wind and sea. No need to ask who spoke them. Liz stopped in her tracks, waiting for more.

  The radio crackled. "Déjà Vu, Déjà Vu, this is the Point Judith Coast Guard, Point Judith Coast Guard."

  Liz pressed the button the way Jack showed her. "Yes? This is the Déjà Vu." She remembered, barely, to release her death-grip on the button.

  "Déjà Vu, Point Judith Coast Guard. Ma'am, can you repeat the coordinates that your captain gave us just now? Over."

  What're you, deaf? she thought. Aloud she said, "He's not here—" Then she remem
bered to press the button, and in that split second she also remembered the latitude and longitude that Jack had given them. "Point Judith Coast Guard, this is the Déjà Vu," she said clearly. "The coordinates are: 41 23.5 north; 71 28.5 west. Over."

  The young man at the other end of the radio signal repeated the numbers, then said, "I have a vessel en route to your position, making the best possible speed at this time. At this time I would advise you to be sure that everyone is wearing a life jacket. I'll check with you again in a few minutes to see how your situation is. Please stand by on this channel; over."

  She pressed the button and said, "Point Judith Coast Guard, this is the Déjà Vu. Yes. We'll stand by."

  She staggered back to check on Jack's father, leaning at the same cockeyed angle as everything and everyone else. "How are you holding up?" she said, unable to tell on her own.

  "Ah ... hanging in there," he said with what she thought was extraordinary bravery.

  "A rescue boat is on the way."

  "Yes ... I heard."

  "They want us to put on life jackets," she suggested as calmly as she could.

  "No ... no ... Won't be needing 'em."

  And in the meantime the Deja Vu was being lifted and thrown, lifted and thrown, ever closer to its destiny. She thought of the Titanic; she thought of the Mary Deare.

  She thought of the life jackets. Would Susy and Caroline have dared take them off? Suddenly she wanted the girls in the wheelhouse, ready to hand over to their rescuers. She groped her way down the cabin steps and stumbled into Jack.

  "Back to the helm," he commanded. "We're ready to try again. I want you to count to five. Then turn the key. Then press the ignition button and hold it till you hear the engine catch. I'll be up after I've made sure the fix works."

  Mentally, Liz was already abandoning ship. She marveled at Jack's can-do spirit, but she was in no mood to join in. She was about to tell him that, when she heard — felt, really — Christopher urging her again.

  Trust him. Trust him.

  "All right," she said. They were the hardest two words she'd ever spoken.

  She turned and made her way back up the steps and took up her position at the helm.

  One potato. Two potato. Three potato. Four potato. Five potato. She turned the key. Pressed the ignition button. Held it until the engine caught.

  And then she waited.

  Chapter 23

  The boat continued to lift and fall, lift and fall, in an interminable dance of death. The horror Liz felt turned to agony and then, as the minutes ticked by, to something like dreadful hope. This time ... this time ... maybe.

  In the meantime the wind, which had swung so viciously into the black northeast, showed no signs of abating, and the seas were worse than ever. Wind and sea: two thugs as old as time itself, brutalizing the pitifully fragile Déjà Vu and her mortal cargo.

  It made Liz want to fall to her knees and weep.

  But there was no time to feel humbled. Jack rushed up the cabin steps, his voice tight with urgency. "All right! Next, we get the anchor back aboard!"

  She was afraid it meant he'd have to go on deck and brave the storm, but that wasn't necessary: "The engine's charging again," he said. "We'll use the windlass."

  He headed the boat directly into the wind; immediately the boat became upright again. Liz couldn't see the anchor-chain being hauled aboard, but she could feel the ratcheting action echo through the hull. Clackety-clackety-clackety-clackety: link by link, they were regaining control of their destiny. She wanted to sing for joy.

  "Now let's get the hell out of here," Jack said, and he altered course away from the perilous ledge.

  The Déjà Vu was still struggling, still thrashing, but even Liz could feel that it was doing so with purpose now.

  Liz left Jack in communication with the Coast Guard rescue vessel and rushed below to check on Susy and Caroline. Amazingly, Susy was sound asleep. Liz had to lay her hand on Susy's chest to convince herself of it. You angel, you, she thought, inexpressibly relieved.

  Caroline, however, was awake and scared. She sat huddled in the farthest corner of her berth like a small wet cat, shivering and trying hard to hide her sobs. Liz hugged her and comforted her and suggested that she tuck in with Susy. Once that was done, Liz returned to the wheelhouse, expecting to see Cornelius preparing to be offloaded to the Coast Guard vessel.

  She was surprised — and yet hardly surprised at all — to find Jack and his father arguing about it.

  "I'm telling you, I feel better!" Cornelius was insisting. "I don't need to be rushed to any hospital, goddammit. Stop treating me like an old man!"

  "Christ, Dad, you're not a young one!"

  "It was indigestion, I tell you! Too much wine, too much everything."

  "You're crazy, you know that? Their forty-one-footer could get you into Newport two, three times faster than the Déjà Vu."

  "You're the crazy one, Jack!" his father said angrily. "You know how dangerous it would be for them to come alongside in these seas? You'd put everyone in jeopardy — and it'd be hell on the Déjà's topsides."

  "We're talking about your life, not a paint job!"

  "My life's just fine, thanks. Butt out of it!"

  Cornelius brushed past his son and took up the transmitter. In a voice not unlike Jack's, he raised the Coast Guard and called off the rescue mission. Only then did Liz notice a brightly lit vessel astern of them, obviously the forty-one-footer. The rescue boat offered to accompany the Déjà Vu and, indeed, did so until it was called away on another mission.

  Then the forty-one-footer peeled away from the formation like a fighter jet, leaving Liz feeling oddly bereft.

  "Busy night," muttered Cornelius to his son.

  "Yeah. Reminds me of that nor'easter that hit us out of nowhere in Nantucket that time."

  "Mmm. I remember. Incredible damage in the harbor. Was that the one where the sloop burned to the waterline?"

  "Yep."

  And so it went, with Liz, wrapped in one of Jack's sweaters, listening in amazement to the two men chatting quietly, almost nostalgically, about various disasters while all hell broke loose around them and the Déjà Vu inched its way through it, courtesy of half a pair of pantyhose.

  Cornelius apparently felt well enough to take the helm a couple of times and let Jack duck into the engine room to check his handiwork. When he came back up, his voice was almost bemused as he said, "She's holding, by golly."

  Eventually they slipped into smoother water under the lee of Brenton Point and Castle Hill; and then finally, miraculously, the granite bulkhead of Fort Adams hove into view. The harbor, secure and welcoming and wonderfully calm, lay to port.

  They were home.

  Within fifteen minutes the Déjà Vu was tied up snugly at its berth, and Liz and Jack were carrying two wiped-out five-year-olds like sacks of grain over their shoulders. Deirdre recovered almost spontaneously the minute she stepped on land. It didn't surprise anyone: she had so damned much youth in her favor. Under the docklights Liz thought Cornelius looked a little ashen. But she felt a little washed out herself, so she could hardly blame him.

  Jack, with Caroline in his arms, was leading the tired party to his father's Lexus; Deirdre had already volunteered to do the driving back to East Gate. Liz was behind them, carrying Susy.

  "Mommy," Susy murmured sleepily in her mother's ear, "I have to go potty."

  Liz sighed and said, "Jack, I'm going to take Susy to the bathroom."

  "Use the one in the office," he suggested.

  "No, that's okay; the yard one's closer." She didn't want Jack to have to detour with his keys to the office for their sake.

  She put Susy down, and the two of them split away from the rest of the bedraggled party and headed for the neat and shiny-clean set of bathrooms that were housed in a permanent trailer on the shipyard grounds.

  "How come you didn't use the bathroom on the boat?" she asked her daughter in a gentle chide; at this point all Liz wanted to do was go ho
me.

  "It's not a bathroom, mommy; it's a head," said Susy with nautical precision. "And anyway, Caroline told me they're hard to use. She plugged it up one time just with toilet paper."

  "Oh. Okay."

  She and Susy threaded their way through the hauled-out boats, virtually all of them for sale, that stood high and dry near the trailer of bathrooms. Liz was grateful for the bright new lighting that Jack had had installed since the sabotage began: it made it easier for them to see around the obstacles.

  They detoured around a carpenter's wooden tool caddy that was sitting on the ground in their path, and Liz thought, It can't be too unsafe around here if someone's willing to leave valuable tools out all night. But then, she reminded herself, theft was not what any of the incidents were about.

  Mother and daughter went up the two steps into the trailer, and Susy made a beeline for the middle of the three stalls.

  Liz took the time to wash her face and hands, trying to wake up for the short drive home. She stared at herself in the mirror: wet flattened hair; dark hollows under her eyes; and — worst of all — a sweater that was navy blue, a color that made her look old.

  She was turning away from her own dreariness when she caught sight of maroon fabric in the slit along the closed door in the end stall behind her. She looked down at the floor of the stall: no feet.

  Her heart rammed up against her chest. Again! Oh no oh no oh no...

  In pure blind terror she whipped open the door to Susy's stall.

  Susy, surprised, said, "Mommy, wait — I'm not finished yet."

  "Shh. I'll help," Liz said in a deathly whisper. Automatically she closed the door behind her to shield them.

  "No, Mommy — I'm not a baby!"

  "Never mind, I said."

  Liz yanked up the child's underpants and turned to flee.

  Outside their stall she saw the pair of feet at last. Men's feet, shod in hiking boots.

  Oh no.

  No time to think, no time to weigh decisions. She put both hands up against the door. With a sudden, instinctive, infuriated cry of "Enough!" she slammed the door outward as hard as she could.