by J. B. Craig
Barb led them all through a prayer for everyone that was lost in Baltimore, and they ate together. Barb, determined to take the two kids under her wing, insisted that Maria move into the guest room and told Peter that he could sleep on the couch or on the floor in Ronnie’s room. Both tried to demur - Maria told them their plans to check in on her family in Annapolis, and Pete was wary of overstaying their welcome - but all three Antonios were firm. There was no safe way into or out of the city at the moment; Maria and Pete would have to make a different plan, and while they did they were welcome to stay.
There was a moment of panic when Barb tried to run the water after breakfast, and the reality of the water situation clicked for the Antonio Household. Well pumps don’t work if the electricity doesn’t work. Maria showed them that they could still use the stored water from their hot water heater tank if they connected a hose to the bottom spigot. “Gravity will do the work for us as soon as we run it downhill and open the valve. Just let the rust run out first, it gathers at the bottom of the tank.” she said.
“How do you know all this, Maria?” asked Ron.
Maria told them about Greg’s long years of teaching her his ‘prepping mottos’. “I mostly tuned him out, but some of it stuck anyway,” she said. “He built my BOB and showed me how to get water out of my apartment’s hot water, so it’s not the first time I’ve done it.”
“What’s a BOB?” asked Ronnie.
“Oh, it’s short for Bug-Out Bag,” Maria said, and patted her backpack. “If you want, I can show you some of the things my dad put in it, with your dad’s permission.” She looked to Ron Senior. “Is that okay, sir?”
“Only if you stop calling me sir. I don’t bite,” Ron grinned. More sternly, he added, “But make sure any guns you let him play with are unloaded.”
“You got it. Safety first. I’ll teach him the three rules of gun safety first.” Maria agreed, smiling when Ronnie let out a cheer.
The youngest Antonio was an eager student, transfixed by some of the treasures from her bag, asking her what each was for and what situations they’d be used in. The two spent nearly an hour at the kitchen table going over her inventory, and Maria realized that at one point or another, she and Pete had made use of almost everything in her pack.
“You seem really smart,” Ronnie said, as they began to pack everything back up. “Thanks for showing me all of this stuff. I feel like I learned a lot.”
“I wish you could meet my dad; I think you’d like each other,” Maria said. “We had planned to try to make it to him, but with Baltimore unpassable, I don’t even know how I’m going to make it to my uncle’s, let alone my dad.”
“Yeah. Too bad you guys don’t have a boat,” Ronnie said. “If I were you, I’d be taking my sailboat out there. It’s a little windy, but the weather’s been good otherwise, so if you’re a decent sailor you could get down the coast that way.”
“If I were a decent sailor, that would work,” Maria agreed with a grin. “I’ve been paddle-boating at my family’s river house, but that’s about as close as I’ve gotten.”
“I could teach you!” Ronnie offered. “Sailboating is easy if you understand the physics. The sail is like an airplane wing turned sideways. The same concept makes it move forward into the wind like airplanes go up when the wind goes over the wing.” With a sly glance over at his dad, he added, “I’m pretty good, but my dad’s bad at science, so he just wrecks it. That’s why we have so many fiberglass patches on ours.”
“I’ll science you, you little rascal!” Ron said threateningly, but put his arm over his son’s shoulder like a proud papa bear. “No respect for his old man.”
Ronnie laughed, grinning up at his dad. “Come on, dad, she wants to get home,” he said. “Can’t we just steal one? That small boatyard down the river, and they always have little boats. We’ll steal you one.”
“You’ll do no such thing, young man!” scolded Barb. She then smiled. “Your Daddy will.”
Ron looked at her, then up at God, and said “Why do you mock me, God? This woman just keeps getting meaner every year!” Then he kissed her on the head. “Love you, Barb. I’ll do as you order. But young Peter is going to help!”
Pete quickly pointed at Maria, grinning. “Honestly, she’s the Bonnie you want for a boat-napping. She’s not afraid to shoot at somebody. This Clyde is a saver, not a taker.”
“Pete,” Maria said, rolling her eyes. She told the story about the would-be bike thief and her quick warning shot. “And a warning was all it was,” she promised.
“Cool!” Ronnie said admiringly. “Bet he shit a brick!”
Both Barb and Ron took a swipe at his head, but he’d been expecting both and ducked away with a laugh. “C’mon, guys,” he called, darting towards to the back deck. “Let’s go, the weather’s perfect!”
“Absolutely not,” Barb said, her calm but authoritative tone stopping Ronnie in his tracks. “Your father and I haven’t slept a wink, and neither have you. I’m sure Maria and Pete didn’t get a good night’s rest either. We’ll discuss sailing after everyone has had a nap and a little lunch.”
The mere mention of a nap made Ronnie yawn, and they all laughed. “Okay, okay,” he grumbled, and trudged up the stairs and into his room. The rest of them followed suit, Ron and Barb heading to the master, Maria to the guest bedroom, and Pete downstairs on the couch.
Maria slept for a few hours, then woke up in a panic. Who was guarding the house? She put her boots on and strapped on her revolver. Then she moved as quietly as she could down the stairs and past Pete as he snored on the couch.
Under her breath, she muttered, “That can’t be comfortable.” She smiled, looking at Pete with his neck twisted at an unnatural angle as he tried to fit his tall frame into a shorter couch. Maria admired the funny sleeping man, then eased out through the kitchen door quietly.
Once outside, Maria walked the outer perimeter of the property, including sneaking up to the road and looking both ways into the distance. There was no movement that she could see, but she did see smoke on the horizon, presumably coming from Baltimore.
After ensuring that the area was safe, she wandered down to the dock and sat with her toes touching the water. She studied the pulleys and ropes on the sailboat until she heard a board creak on the dock. She spun to her right, reaching for her pistol, then relaxed when she saw Pete walking towards her. He was rubbing his eyes, with a pistol at this hip.
“Good morning, m’lady.” He removed an imaginary hat and bowed to Maria. “I awoke in consternation, afraid that your royal highness was unprotected, but now that I see your ‘musket’, I see you’re okay.” He smiled at her, and pointed next to her on the dock. “Mind if I pull up a seat?”
“Make yourself at home, young squire,” Maria joked. “I was just admiring the beauty of the physics built into this boat. Leverage, pulleys, surface area - all of that is stuff that I studied before I changed from physics to business.”
Pete looked up at the rigging on the sailboat. He looked perplexed, then looked at her. “I’ll leave the physics to you, Ma’am. That’s geek to me.” He smiled at her, and she found herself smiling back easily. “I can say with certainty that the sunlight in your hair is making about four colors pop. I see gold, brown, red and some… wait, is that gray?” He ducked as she swung at him halfheartedly.
“You better be kidding, because that is funny, and we always say at home that if you’re mean, but funny, that’s cool. Just don’t be just plain mean,” Maria instructed. “I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt, Peter.”
“Aw, don’t go all Mom-voice on me,” Pete said, laughing. He added tentatively, “Uh, the bit about the grey was a joke - but the rest wasn’t. I’m not trying to be a creeper, but - I dunno. You do look damn good in a sunset.” He looked at her for a few seconds longer. When she started to blush, he looked away. “Sorry,” he said, offering her a sheepish grin. “Just sayin’.”
“I wasn’t thinking that, Pete,” Maria said slo
wly. “I think - I mean, I think that’s the nicest thing that’s been said to me since I started college.”
“Then half of the guys on that campus were fucking idiots.” He paused, seeing that her blush was growing. “Uh - topic change? I’m trained to read vital signs, but I can pick up on other signals, and you look a little uncomfy. I’m babbling. Ignore me.”
While Maria knew her face must be red, she was actually having fun - but she let him have the dodge, and he quickly changed the subject. “So, you wanna do this sailing thing, huh? It seems wrong to me, somehow, sailing into the wind,” Pete said. “This Oklahoma boy doesn’t like the idea of it.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Maria agreed, and gave him a shy grin. “Hopefully, I will too.”
9. Sailing Lessons
After the rest of the house rested a bit more, they heard noises coming from the kitchen, Barb hustled them over to the back deck for a little lunch. The Antonios had a propane grill underneath a weatherproof cover, perfect for cooking two slightly-less-frozen pizzas on cookie sheets, and lunch was served at their wooden picnic table on disposable plasticware. Maria didn’t think that any of them had forgotten the lack of power, but it was good to feel like she could put the doom and gloom aside for a while without guilt.
As soon as he’d finished his pizza, Ronnie declared that the afternoon was perfect for sailing and begged Ron and Barb to let him take Pete and Maria out. When the two agreed, his parents gave him the nod, warning him to sail downstream and away from APG and Baltimore - just in case. With an eager whoop, Ronnie pumped his fist and called “Race you to the dock!”
Maria and Pete followed at a more leisurely pace, picking their way down stone steps to reach the weathered wooden dock. Ronnie hadn’t been exaggerating the patchwork on his boat, but it was clean and well-cared for, clearly his pride and joy. “Okay, first rule of sailing,” he said. “You cannot sail into the wind. Find the breeze, and -” He held out his arms to demonstrate, making a right angle centered on the incoming wind. “Boom. You don’t want to be within this area, about 45 degrees to either side.
“We call this the no-zone,” Ronnie continued. “You can cut through it quickly as you tack, but you’ll bleed off speed, and if you stay into the wind for too long, your sheets will luff.”
“Sorry, I lost you,” Maria said. “Tack and luff?”
“Tacking is when you swing the sail from side to side as you turn across the wind using the rudder,” Ronnie clarified, using his hands. “We’ll call Pete the windbag. Point at me, Pete. You’re the wind direction. The rudder turns the hull and the boom moves the sails to the other side. The boom is this big bar - which changes your angle. If your sheets luff, that means they’ll start to flap as they lose the wind. And if you lose the wind, you stop. So, your best bet to avoid that is to sail at right angles to the wind, tacking back and forth. When you go back and forth like that, it’s called ‘reaching.’
“Of course, you can’t always do that, depending on where you want to go,” Ronnie continued, Maria and Pete doing their best to keep up. “When you have the wind at your back, you open the sails and let them catch the wind like a kite - which is called ‘running.’” He hopped onto the boat easily, giving the boom an affectionate pat. “With this boat, that’s easiest, but I hear bigger boats have to change sails or rise a dedicated Spinnaker.”
“Have you done that before?” Pete asked
Ronnie shook his head. “No, this is the biggest boat we have. I’d love to have a bigger one someday, though.” Continuing his lesson, he added, “Any time you go out with a solid wind, you still have to come back, so you have to plan around all of these. You’ll exercise all of your mental muscles getting the boat back in one piece.”
“I’m exercising every muscle I’ve got already,” Pete joked, and Maria and Ronnie laughed. “You’ll get a feel for it,” he says. “You just gotta kind of go with the flow - and watch your head! My dad tries to force things when he sails, and he comes in too hot or ends up in irons. That’s when you’re dead in the water, and it’s embarrassing, because other sailors will laugh at you.”
Ronnie held up his hand and announced, “We’ve got a good westerly wind – that’s wind which is blowing east.” He laughed at Pete and Maria’s dismayed faces. “Yeah, don’t get me started on that. Dad says we can’t go upstream, so we’re going to sail into the wind going out. Then we’ll come back - doing what?”
“Running,” Maria yelled, while Pete said “Reaching?”
“Give the pretty lady a prize,” Ronnie cheered, helping them both into the boat. “Sorry, Pete. Reaching is the opposite, when you’re traveling across the wind. We’ll do that as we head out.”
Maria found it hard to not like Ronnie. He was bright and enthusiastic, and he’d seemingly bounced back quickly from a night of hell. She was hard-pressed to think of any kid more resilient. She and her brother Jared had at least five or six years on him, and she bet Jared would’ve whined a lot more than Ronnie was.
As they untied the boat, it started drifting toward the Army base. Ronnie raised the mainsail, as he called it, and the boat was quickly pulled into the wind. The wind picked up, the sailboat jumped forward, and they were off.
“You mentioned physics earlier, Ronnie,” Maria said. “What makes it work?”
“It’s like an airplane wing, like I said before. Air travels faster over the top curve of the sail than the bottom, which lifts the wing,” Ronnie explained. “Since the wing is sideways, the air current pulls you sideways. The rudder lets you control the angle of your sail, so you can bend the air to your will!” He finished the last in a theatrical booming voice, grinning.
After several hours, Maria found that she was starting to be able to feel when it was time to tack. Pete was a little less natural, and Maria found herself pushing his head down several times when the boom swung.
When they were ready to head back, they turned about to run. Pete, unenthusiastic about the constant swinging of the boom, was much more excited on the return trip. “Now that’s what I’m talking about, Ronnie,” he called over the wind. “Boats should always go with the wind!”
“If they did, you’d never be able to cross back over the ocean,” Ronnie pointed out, laughing. “Every trip would be one-way, because of the prevailing winds.”
“Good point, Master Yoda,” Pete said. “I’ll be a sailing Jedi before you know it. Eventually, student will become teacher!”
Once again, Maria grabbed Pete’s head and pushed it down as Ronnie suddenly cut the boom around. She raised an eyebrow at him, wondering if it had really been necessary to cut it so sharply, and Ronnie gave her a wink - so, it probably hadn’t been.
Maria chuckled. She was liking Ronnie more every hour. They’d come a long way from their first encounter when she had him at gunpoint. While he didn’t seem to hold a grudge, Maria thought she probably ought to say something about it. “Hey, Ronnie?” she asked. “Sorry about the other night. We probably really frightened you and your family.”
“Not like you pulled the trigger, right?” Ronnie shrugged. “No offense, but you didn’t look all that dangerous. And I could’ve disarmed you anyway; you were holding the gun too close to me.”
“You’ll have to show me what you’re talking about, Master Yoda.” Maria grinned and ducked as she saw Ronnie changing the lines for another unnecessary tack. “Your dad was right; you’re a rascal, young man.”
“You don’t know the half of it, Maria,” Ronnie said, laughing. “But for the record, we’re gucci. You’re going to be sailing by yourself in a few weeks. Hopefully Dad and Pete steal you a sweet ride.”
“I hope so too,” Maria agreed. She was having fun with the Antonios, and she wasn’t exactly looking forward to getting on the road again, but it would be very, very good to see her family.
“I hope you and Dad don’t wreck it, Pete,” Ronnie joked, smoothly pulling the boat up to the Antonio’s dock. “Maybe I’d better go with you guys, just in case.”<
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10. Pirates of the Chesapeake
When Maria woke up the next morning, she noticed a new sailboat tied to the pilings by the dock. As she came downstairs, she could see that the name on the transom had been scratched out with what looked like black marker. ‘Lady Maria’ had been written across the stern - both presumably Ronnie’s handiwork, as he was also sporting a marker-drawn mustache and pirate beard. Ron and Pete both looked highly amused as Ronnie danced around shouting “Arrgh!” on the back deck of the pirated sailboat.
Maria joined them on the back deck and gave her little pirate fanboy a huge hug. Ronnie was bouncing from foot to foot, waiting to deliver his line. “We got you a nice Ketch, Maria!”
