“So do I get the tour?” I asked Ben.
He took me below first and showed me around the guest cabins, main salon, head, and nav station. I’d been aboard lots of classic boats and had never seen one so meticulously maintained. Ben had told me that he had trouble with discipline, but I didn’t believe a word of it. I made all the appropriate oooing and aaahing sounds as he showed me around the warm oak-and-mahogany interior. The main salon had an elegant feel with velvet upholstery, dark wood, and stained-glass cabinets; in the cabins, the bunks were made up with country quilts, and there were ceramic sinks in oak vanities. I was almost afraid to touch the woodwork—the varnish had attained such a perfect glasslike finish, it would be a shame to mar it with fingerprints. The boat even smelled fresh and clean, which was nigh on impossible in an old vessel like this.
“How do you do it?” I asked him. “This looks like it’s been kept in a museum—not like a working charter boat. Like hell you have problems with discipline.”
He reached out to adjust the curtain over a porthole. “I’m really glad you like her. I thought about you when I was boat shopping. I’d always ask myself if Seychelle would approve of this boat or that. I had to find the perfect boat, and I guess from my childhood on I always saw you as an expert on boats.”
What he was telling me made me feel a tad strange, but I guessed it made sense. Around the child Ben, I had always been kind of bossy. I told him what to do and he did it. It made perfect sense at the time, but now, looking back, remembering everything that I had seen happening at his house, I was more than a little ashamed of how I had behaved.
Ben had taken a bottle of wine from a cabinet in the galley and opened it. Reaching for two glasses in a stained-glass cabinet, he polished them with a clean paper towel, then motioned up the companionway ladder. “Shall we sit topside?”
The golden light was slanting through the masts and rigging of the boats on the far side of the harbor, casting long shadows across the water. The sun had lost its warmth, and I gave a little shiver when I sat down on the now cold vinyl of the cockpit seat.
“It’s chilly out. Would you like a jacket?” Ben asked.
“No, I’m fine.”
“It’s too cold for you. I insist.” He headed down the companionway steps and emerged a few minutes later with a soft fleece jacket that he draped around my shoulders.
“Thanks,” I said as he settled back down on the seat next to me. “You know, I love watching the sunset here. I can understand why they make such a big deal of it over on Mallory Pier. I’d really like to paint this someday.”
“Your mother used to paint, didn’t she?”
“Yeah. That’s one of the best memories I have of her—when she used to teach me to paint. She wanted me to grow up to be a painter. I’ve been working at it whenever I can.”
“Really? Here’s to a new side of Seychelle Sullivan.”
We clinked glasses. “Hey, back when we were kids, Ben, we all thought you’d grow up to be a marine scientist— and now look at you. I never would have guessed that you’d grow up to become a handsome, self-assured charter boat captain.”
“Yeah, especially the handsome part, right?”
I felt the heat rush into my cheeks. “No, that’s not what I meant. It’s that most charter boat captains are only about their good looks. Too many of them get hired for their photos instead of their resumes. I can accuse you of being handsome, but nobody can ever accuse you of being stupid.”
“It’s okay, Sey. I know what you meant.”
It sounded odd hearing the shortened version of my name coming from his lips. When we were kids, he’d always insisted on using my whole name, even when the rubber bands on his braces gave him a slight lisp. It was as though he never dared try for that kind of familiarity.
“Ben, what I was trying to say in my inept fashion is that while I know I’ll always love boats, I’ve started not liking what I do. The towing and salvage business is changing, and I guess I’m changing, too.” I took a long sip. The fruity, smoky taste of the red wine was starting to warm me from the inside out. “Sometimes, I dream of doing it full-time.”
“Doing what?”
“Painting. You know. Being an artist instead of just being a tugboat driver.”
“Oh,” he said, and then he drank and contemplated the dropping sun. “Is that how you see yourself? As just a tugboat driver?”
I shrugged. “Well, yeah.”
He sniffed out his disagreement. “Right. That’s how you think people see you when their boat is sinking, and they’re afraid they’re going to die and then you show up?”
Whether it was the wine or his eyes or the way the new look of him made me feel confused, I didn’t know, but I became acutely aware of the way our legs touched on the cockpit seat. Ben got me; he had since we were kids. He understood what drove me to go out there and save people. He knew how much it pained me to try to save someone and to fail. We were adults now, and I wondered what it would be like to explore this new body of his.
“Ben, I don’t do much of that lifesaving work anymore. Those days are few and far between. Most of the time, I’m towing some rich asshole’s boat up the river, and he’s hating me because he thinks I’m ripping him off. Or else I go out and take on a rescue, and it ends up in court.”
“Sounds like you’re talking about something in particular.”
“Yeah, there’s this guy. He’s suing me. Melvin Burke. I can’t even say the guy’s name without getting really pissed off.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“I don’t know.” I looked around me at the shining stainless steel and the gleaming white paint. This was a boat being cared for by a perfectionist. He would never risk this vessel, or someone’s life. It was too bad there weren’t more people like him. “I don’t normally answer mayday calls,” I began. “I restrict my work to the towing jobs that have been prearranged, moving large yachts up the New River and towing boats between yards.” I meant to tell him the short version, but between the wine and the warmth that was growing between us, once I started, I couldn’t stop.
The call came on an afternoon when I was steaming along offshore returning from towing a lovely Hinckley up to Lake Worth. It was a Sunday, and the traffic on the intracoastal had been brutal, so at Hillsboro Inlet I slipped out through the breakwaters with the idea that offshore, I could put her on autopilot and get something done on the trip home.
It had been bumpier out there than I thought, though. The forecast had been for light and variable to ten knots out of the north, but these winter northers can surprise you, and this one did. It was blowing a solid fifteen to twenty knots, with seas building to six feet and higher out in the Gulf Stream.
And that’s where the new little twenty-four-foot Grady-White was that called for help on the radio—out in the Gulf Stream. Their engine had quit while they were trolling, and I was only a couple of miles away. I figured it would be simple enough to tow them on into Everglades, especially since I was going that way anyway.
When I arrived on the scene, I saw it was a dad and his preteen daughter. She was a tiny girl with thin blond hair and too much makeup for one so young. He was one of those guys built like a bulldog, probably wrestled in college but hadn’t worked out in years. His shaved head showed a tan line round the back where he usually wore a hat. He’d undoubtedly lost it in this wind. They were both wearing life jackets and looked scared. The swell was throwing them around pretty good, and their boat was taking on water. For the time being, the bilge pump was keeping ahead of it. They took my line and soon we were under way for Port Everglades.
It happened so quickly I still can’t quite believe it. I was in the wheelhouse, and it seemed like I’d just checked on them minutes before when I heard Gorda’s engine bog down as though a huge load had just been put on her. I stepped outside, looked aft—and their boat was gone, sunk, underwater in a matter of minutes. I throttled back, threw her into neutral, and headed aft to pick up
survivors. We’d been traveling at about four and a half knots, but pulling that waterlogged vessel had done a damn good job of bringing Gorda to a stop. That twenty-four-footer was hanging just below the surface, held there by some air pocket in her hull but ready to sink straight down if she burped up that bubble.
The dad’s white head was easy to spot. He was splashing around, flailing his arms and hollering at me to get his daughter, but I couldn’t see the girl anywhere. Then I saw the shadow of orange just beneath the surface. I kicked off my boat shoes, grabbed a polyprope line I keep tied aft for just this purpose, and dove overboard.
A plastic buckle on the girl’s life jacket was jammed in the tubing that supported the bimini top. She was trying to swim downward to take the pressure off it, but the life jacket’s flotation was keeping the webbing taut. Her arms and legs were thrashing about dangerously. Panic.
I pulled my rigging knife out of my pocket. Trying to keep my head above the chop, I took a deep breath, then dove.
She wasn’t moving by the time I reached her. She’d run out of air. I sawed through the webbing, and she shot to the surface with the aid of the life preserver. I kicked my bare feet to follow. When my head broke through, I gasped for air. The seawater temperature was barely seventy degrees in winter, and I wasn’t used to the cold. It was harder to fill my lungs with air. I grabbed her life jacket with one hand and began pulling us back to the tug, breathing hard, trying to hold on to her and the bright yellow line at the same time.
The girl’s father was already aboard, and he lifted his daughter onto the aft deck like she weighed nothing. As I pulled my body out of the water, I could see that the weight of the waterlogged vessel was dragging my boat down in the stern. Whatever air pocket had been giving her neutral buoyancy was leaking out fast. At this rate, I could lose both boats.
I ran to the deckhouse and grabbed the small hatchet I kept there—again, for just this purpose—dashed back aft, and with one high swing cut the hawser that was binding the Grady-White to Gorda. The little fishing boat disappeared into the blue depths. When I turned to look at the girl lying on her back in the orange life jacket, her lips looked just as blue. She wasn’t breathing.
It happened the same way it had always happened to me. I’d been a lifeguard for many years on Fort Lauderdale Beach, but it still happened every time I saw a drowning victim. The face of the victim blurred and transformed into the face of my mother. I felt that same gut-wrenching dread that I’d felt that day when I had stared at my dead mother’s face as a lifeguard tried to blow air into her, and at that moment, though even a keen observer might not have noticed it, I knew that I hesitated. I’d been eleven years old when my mother drowned, and there had been nothing I could do to save her. Though I’d schooled myself and trained since then, become a lifeguard and an EMT, I still always had that moment when I felt helpless all over again. When I felt it was all my fault and everyone would know that this person had died because of me.
I dropped to my knees, peeled the girl out of her life jacket, cleared her airway with my fingers, and began artificial respiration, staring into half-open eyes rimmed with running black mascara. After the fourth breath, she spewed up seawater and started coughing. I got her out of the wet clothes and into dry blankets on the bunk in the wheelhouse. I called for an ambulance on the radio as I raced Gorda into Port Everglades, and though they kept her in the hospital overnight to make sure she didn’t have pneumonia, the girl came through just fine.
“So what did her father do to thank me for saving his daughter’s life?” I said after swallowing the last sip of wine in my glass. “He filed a lawsuit against me for over a million bucks for negligence. He claimed it was my fault that his boat sank and his daughter almost died, and I should pay not only for the loss of the vessel, but also for his mental anguish.”
“Wow. That’s quite a story.”
“Sorry to go on and on like that.”
“It’s okay.” He smiled. “I’m used to it.”
“I guess I used to do almost all the talking when we were kids, too.”
“Yeah, you did.”
I laughed. “There was no hesitation there. I’m sorry about the way it was back then. I wasn’t always a very good friend to you.”
He turned away, face pointing across the harbor, but I was certain his eyes weren’t seeing the assorted yachts and fishing boats.
“It’s sure a beautiful boat you’ve got here, Ben Baker.”
He faced me, his eyes searching my face as though trying to tell whether I was serious or teasing him one more time. “I’d like to take you sailing on her someday.”
“I’d like that, too.”
“There’s a spot, not far from here. It’s my getaway spot. A little anchorage out off Boca Grande Key on the way to the Marquesas. It’s deep protected water. Most of the anchorages around here aren’t. The old wreckers used to anchor out there. It’s nothing but you and the frigate birds and egrets and herons. I imagine what it was like back when my ancestor, the first Benjamin Baker, anchored his schooner out there. It’s the kind of place I used to dream about when I was a kid.”
He didn’t say anything more for the longest time. We finished off the bottle of wine in silence.
“Hey, are you hungry?” he asked as though waking out of a trance. “I was just thinking of heading up to the Schooner Wharf Bar to get me something to eat. Want to join me?”
“I don’t know—”
“Aw, come on. Have dinner with me.” He took my glass, reached through the hatch, and set both wineglasses and the bottle inside the companionway. Then, standing, he reached a hand out to mine. “For old times’ sake.”
We were seated at a table toward the rear of the open-air bar, close to the small stage where the live music would be tuning up a little later. It was still too early for the inevitable Jimmy Buffett cover singer. The Schooner Wharf Bar was built on the site of an old shrimp factory. Half of the establishment was located in part of the old factory building, while the other half was made up of an assortment of tables and umbrellas out on the sandy island soil. Twinkling lights, fishing nets, flags, T-shirts, and other assorted flotsam hung from the rafters and pillars that supported the roof on the side of the old wooden building.
We had ordered and were waiting for our clam chowder to arrive when I noticed Neville Pinder slide onto a stool at the bar. He was still wearing shorts, but he had put on a jacket and a baseball cap. His longish blond hair stuck out like tufts of grass around his ears.
“See that guy at the bar?” I said. “The big guy with the baseball cap?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know him?”
“I know who he is. Nearly everybody who lives in Key West does. Neville Pinder. He owns Ocean Towing. But if you mean, are we friends? No. I don’t remember ever having talked to the man.”
“Do you know much about him?”
“Just that he has a reputation for being a jerk.”
“So I’ve heard.”
I was watching Pinder at the bar. His voice carried across the open courtyard as he joked around with the charter captains and made himself the center of everyone’s attention.
“If I do wind up getting out of this business, it will be because of guys just like him.”
“I can’t imagine anything ever making you want to sell Gorda. That boat’s been in your family as long as I can remember.”
“That’s true. In lots of ways, she represents all I have left of Red.” I tilted up the plastic cup that had held my draft beer and pretended to examine the bottom. There it was, that stealth emotion that had a way of sneaking up my throat and making me cry when crying was the last thing I wanted to do.
“You were lucky. He was a good dad.”
Something in his voice made me look up at Ben’s face. I could see in the set of his chin that he was fighting his own unexpected emotion.
“Ben, you just said Pinder was a jerk, but he had nothing on your dad. If they gave prizes for bein
g the biggest asshole on earth, your dad would win.”
He made a noise with his mouth closed, and it exited through his nose. It sounded like a vain attempt at a chuckle. “My dad,” he said, looking away, refusing to meet my eyes. “Good old Junior Baker. Owner of Baker Ford. Big man in Fort Lauderdale.”
That was part of what was making me feel so awkward around Ben. I realized that now. I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge the memory, but at that moment I saw again in my mind’s eye that night Ben’s father had come to my house and taken his terrified son home. “I still remember, Ben. There’s a lot in my life I wish I had done differently. That night is one.”
When he turned to look at me, it was as though we’d stepped into a time machine. I wanted to say, There you are. That’s the boy I knew. It was in his eyes. That darkness, the loneliness that was so much a part of the young Ben I knew. He’d done a good job of burying it, but it wasn’t gone.
“Do you?” he asked. Then without waiting for me to answer, he put his hand on mine and gave me the saddest smile. “But we don’t really get do-overs in life, do we?”
I was looking for the words to answer him when another voice interrupted us.
“Hey, Ben, check this out.” The voice came from behind us, and Ben turned to greet a young man wearing shorts, Polo shirt, and rain jacket—the charter crewman’s uniform.
“I’ve got pictures my girlfriend took at the Wreckers’ Race yesterday. There’re some good ones of Hawkeye. ”
“Let’s see.”
The kid slid into one of the empty white plastic chairs, nodding at me. Ben said, “Seychelle, this is Jack. He crews on the Western Union.”
Jack spread out the photos on the table and pointed to the various shots of the schooners under way, heeled over, white water foaming at the bow. “It was awesome weather, wasn’t it? Most of the time when we race these big old boats, it’s a drifting match.”
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