Miracle Man (12 page)

To celebrate Bobby’s seventeenth birthday, Joe had a special surprise in store for Bobby—-a three week sail on
Dreamweaver
from Boston to St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. It wasn’t easy for Joe to get permission. Uhlman broached the subject to Varneys.

“Are you nuts?” Varneys asked. “You think it’s okay for the hippie to take Austin in treacherous waters on his dinky little boat for three weeks?”

“He’s an expert yachtsman and the water is calm this time of the year.”

The veins in Varney’s right temple began to pulsate as he glared at Uhlman. “Calm my ass. We have a huge investment in this kid and a lot riding on him. Three weeks alone with the love guru could ruin everything. It doesn’t sit right with me.”

“Orin, it’s a special seventeenth birthday present for Robert. He’s done everything you could hope for. He has two Ph.Ds already and he’s working on more. He has his heart set on this.”

“ Manzini already told him before getting permission? Brillant, just brilliant!” exclaimed Varneys.

“Don’t worry. We’ll get it back in spades. Robert will come home so rejuvenated, he’ll be more productive than we can imagine.”

Sitting down behind his desk, Varneys leaned forward and thumped the folders in front of him. “Here are the conditions, John. I want the charts for the route, and I’m having a cutter follow that boat just five miles away for the whole trip. Don’t tell them that — but that’s how it’s going down. I’m not having them get hijacked, sink, or let hippie-dip decide to skip and start a new life with the kid in Ghana. Jesus. I can’t believe I’m going along with this craziness.”

Joe loaded
Dreamweaver
up with three weeks of food, wine, volumes of books for them both to read, a hundred DVDs, a satellite-connected sixty- inch TV, and lots of sunblock. Bobby was so excited about the trip and wanting to make sure that there was no last minute problem of unfinished work assignments, that he burned through the quantum physics problems he was analyzing at a speed that was startling even for him.

“Are you ready for the greatest adventure of your life, my able first mate?” Joe asked.

“Yes I am Captain. I’m more than ready,” said Bobby, beaming as he stood at attention like a navy sailor.

And so they were off. Within forty minutes,
Dreamweaver
cleared the Back Bay and Boston Harbor and entered the endless expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. Over the last few years, Bobby had become a proficient sailor, and he and Joe worked together instinctively to guide the boat. Joe took off his wristwatch and asked Bobby for his. “We don’t need these now,” said Joe as he threw them into the water.

“Are you crazy?” said Bobby.

“We can always buy new watches. But these days come only once. Anyway, I put a cheap one on because I knew I was going to do that.” Bobby grinned.

One day melded into another and Joe was right. Time became irrelevant. The wind cooled them, the spray from the waves salted their skin and hair, and the sun purified them. Within a week at sea they both looked like deeply tanned beach bums and were proud of it.

There were long periods of contented silence as the ocean’s solitude embraced them. But there was plenty of lively discourse and aimless banter. Joe took note of how Bobby had grown. No longer a pale gawky boy, Bobby had become a handsome young man. Already six feet tall, he had a lean physique, dark brown hair with a natural auburn tint, strikingly clear light blue eyes, aquiline nose, high cheek bones, full lips and a strong chin. But despite his sculpted features and the eerie iciness which would at times project in his gaze, there was a vulnerability in his personae which was easy to discern.

“So Bobby. What’s happening on the girl front?”

“Well, it’s been a little slow. I’ve never had the opportunity to be with girls my age when it counted. By the time I was interested in them, I was out of the Institute and over at the universities. And there I was the freaky little kid from outer space.”

“Is that what they called you?”

“Worse than that,” Bobby said, shaking his head.

“So what about the university girls now?”

“I’ve been in grad classes or one-on-ones with professors, so it’s hard to meet anyone anywhere near my age. They’re so much older than me, they don’t take me seriously.”

“Sounds to me like you have to double-back. You’re a grad student, but you’re just about the age of incoming freshmen, so start hanging out where they do.”

Bobby smiled and nodded.

After ten days at sea,
Dreamweaver
cruised past Great Thatch Island, Jost Van Dyke, and Tortola, and anchored a quarter mile offshore of St. John, an under-developed and unspoiled oasis in the Caribbean Sea, with U.S. National Park status to preserve its beauty. Joe taught Bobby how to snorkel off the side of the boat. And then into the dinghy they would go, pulling up on the soft beach sands of Trunk Bay, Cinnamon Bay, Cruz Bay, Turtle Bay and Caneel Bay. Each day, Bobby would select which beach to hang out on by how good the girls looked and how small or non-existent their bathing suits were. Joe’s criteria was that there also had to be an outdoor bar and preferably a band playing. For dinner on their third night at St. John, they ate at Asolare, a two-story restaurant on Great Cruz Bay beach, featuring freshly caught seafood, a terrific calypso band and the kind of island cocktails that taste like juice but leave you seriously impaired. At the bar waiting for a table to become available, Joe, always a convivial magnetic presence, started to chat up an attractive middle-aged blonde tourist. Her daughter, tanned dark as a local, stood next to her wearing a simple white summer dress that appeared to be transparent. Bobby was mesmerized. After awkwardly shifting on his feet and looking around the room for a few minutes, he got up the nerve to address the girl.

“Excuse me. Were you on Trunk Bay beach yesterday? I think I saw you there,” Bobby said. Kate stood five feet six inches tall, long silky dark brown hair that glistened as if coconut oil had just been applied to it, almond shaped light green eyes, pouty full lips, and teeth that looked amazingly white in contrast to her dark skin. Bobby could easily discern a shapely athletic figure under the gauzy dress. He tried not to stare.

“Yes, we were there,” she responded.

Bobby’s photographic memory instantly started to flash vivid images as his mind sorted through them like a high-speed collater.
It was her—-that girl in the tiny faded blue string bikini,
he recollected.

“I thought you looked familiar. Great beach, huh?” he said.

“Fantastic. Are you staying here on the Island?”

“Sort of. We’re on our sailboat anchored just offshore. We sailed here from Boston”.

“That’s so cool. Must have been awesome.”

“Oh yeah, it was beyond belief,” he replied.

“Is that man your dad?” she asked as she motioned to Joe.

Bobby paused before he answered, “Yes.”

“Is that your mom?”

“That’s her. I think she’s had like three of those drinks already,” she said as she laughed. “By the way, my name’s Kate.”

“Mine’s Bobby.”

“How long are you guys down here for?” Bobby asked.

“Another two days.”

Joe said to Kim, Kate’s mother, “Perhaps you both would like to join us for dinner? I think it’s easier to get a table for four here than for two.”

As Kim laughed and leaned into him, she said, “That would be fun, Joe, but we’re actually meeting a group of friends here for dinner.” Bobby’s heart sank.

“I have a great idea,” countered Joe. How would you ladies like to go sailing with us tomorrow? Kim cast a glance at her daughter whose sheer dress was gently being blown by the island breeze. Kate smiled back at her. “That sounds fantastic,” said Kim.

“Great. We’ll pick you up in our dinghy at 10:30 in the morning right on this beach. Don’t forget to bring a bathing suit,” Joe said.

The restaurant hostess came up to Joe to announce that the table was ready. Joe and Bobby bid good night to Kim and Kate.

As soon as Bobby sat down, he said to Joe, “You’re a genius. And you’re so smooth. Do you know who she is? She’s that girl I was looking at yesterday on the boat with my binoculars. The one in that tiny faded bikini. You know, the reason we picked that beach”.

“Well, how fortuitous.”

“I think she may like me, Joe,” Bobby said.

“Why shouldn’t she? Just relax and be yourself.”

For Bobby, the rest of the evening was a magical blur. The din of the music from the beach band, the smell of the bougainvillea in the humid night as it wafted its way through the open air dining room, the sweet pungent taste of the island food. As Joe and Bobby walked to the dinghy, Bobby looked heavenwards. The stars shined as brightly as those in the Institute’s planetarium, but they were real. Bobby sat back in the dinghy as Joe followed the moonlight path on the water that led back to
Dreamweaver
.

Ten thirty the next morning couldn’t come quickly enough. As the dinghy neared the shore, Joe waved and Kate and Kim left the shade of the sea grape trees and walked toward the water. Kate was wearing very tight white shorts and a bikini top covered by a thin light pink camisole. Her hair was tied back in a pony tail. It took all of Bobby’s mental stamina to keep from gawking at her long tanned legs. Once on board, Joe gave them a tour of
Dreamweaver,
and then with all of the flair of a sommelier in a five star restaurant, he opened a bottle of Dom Perignon that had been chilling in a silver ice bucket, and prepared mimosas for everyone. As he held his champagne flute up to the sun, he said, “I toast—- today. It comes but once.”

Joe and Bobby sailed the boat thru the Sir Francis Drake Passage on toward Tortola. The mountainous islands, azure blue water and dazzling sun were breathtaking. Bobby asked Kate to assist him with the sails, which she gladly did. He could feel her body pressing up against his own as she stood close to him and they bent to the task of hauling the sail ropes. After about ninety minutes of sailing,
Dreamweaver
anchored a few hundred feet from a pristine deserted beach on the easterly side of Virgin Gorda. Bobby and Kate went snorkeling for awhile, while Joe and Kim continued to drink Dom as Sarah Vaughn serenaded them.

“Joe—-Kate and I are going to swim to the beach. Do you guys want to come?”

“No, I think we’re content to relax here on the boat.” Bobby looked at Joe with gratitude. Kate and he swam into the beach and began to walk its soft powdery sand. Toward the far end of the crescent shaped shore, they climbed some giant rock formations and sat down high above the water looking out to the open ocean.

“God, this is magnificent,” said Bobby.

“Beyond beautiful,” Kate replied.

Bobby’s hand found hers. “Are you in school?” he asked.

“First year at the Fashion Institute in San Diego. What about you?” she asked.

“I’m in school in Boston. I’m a science and math major.”

“Where?”

“A combined program of MIT and Harvard.”

Kate laughed. “Oh, excuse me. A big brain here, I see.”

They chatted on as they climbed some more rocks, Bobby doing his best to keep his hand glued to hers. “I’m getting really hot. Let’s take a swim,” Kate said, wiping her forehead.

They walked down to the edge of the water. “Don’t you hate tan lines?” Kate removed her bikini top, threw it on to the sand and glided into the aqua sea, cocking her head to signal Bobby to join her.

Bobby wondered what he owed the gods for letting him play with Venus. He joined her and they swam underwater together among the schools of psychedelically colored reef fish. When they surfaced their tan faces glistened in the sun.

“You look so amazing,” Bobby said.

“You think so?”

“I know so. You’re gorgeous.” Kate laughed and swam some more and then, turned around and yelled, “Let’s race.” Bobby was a good swimmer, but not like her.

“Where did you learn to swim like that?” he asked.

“Swim team. I’ve been racing since I was six.”

He treaded water closely to her and looked into her eyes. She felt an intensity in his gaze quite unlike anything she had previously experienced. He put his arms around her waist. The buoyancy of the water supported them as her naked breasts gently pressed against his chest. They kissed, and then flipped over and floated on their backs holding hands as the sea gently rocked them. The sun was low in the sky but its heat still warmed them. The boat’s bell clanged three times.

“I think we have to head back Kate. Joe’s calling.” They swam back to shore to retrieve her bikini top and then swam to
Dreamweaver
. Joe was beginning to prepare dinner and Kim was helping to set the dining table.

“Did you kids have fun?” asked Kim.

“It was great,” said Kate.

The sunset on the boat was awe inspiring. Bobby and Kate went to the bow alone to watch it. Bobby stood behind Kate and lightly kissed her on the neck. He pressed against her and she leaned back into him.

Among candle-lit lanterns, they all feasted on local prawns, lobster, and Joe’s famous garlic mashed potatoes. A snappy chilled Domaine Fournier Sancerre complemented the main course, and a 1968 Chateau d’Yquem and Vosges chocolates were dessert. At the outset of the meal, Joe announced that since
Dreamweaver
was in international waters, it was the captain of the vessel who set the drinking age. Joe declared that seventeen was the threshold. It didn’t take long for everyone to be happily inebriated, and by eleven that evening, all passengers were ready to retire for the night. Bobby and Kate took one last walk around the boat to view the stars.