Water Lessons (22 page)

They had been seated at the table for perhaps ten minutes, sampling the crackers and wine and looking out at the theatergoers walking down Charles Street South. Then she brought up their new Cajun acquaintance.

In the growing darkness of his flat, Jim stopped typing on his laptop. He propped his feet up on the arm of his couch. To his left stretched the Nantucket Sound, its advancing waves barely discernible in the scant moonlight. He was still shaken by Maureen's strange reaction over lunch.

After leaving The Littlest Bar, they had walked west back up to Park Street and flagged down a cab. They started out toward Stephanie's, but then opted for Pigalle. The maî”tre d' seated them near the window like old times. Maureen kept silent for over a minute.

"Interesting man, wasn't he? The Louisiana guy?" she said.

"He was that," he said. "That attorney was friendly, too, a bit shy, and not as interesting. Maybe that's just 'cause we didn't give him much of a chance to speak. But the musician… now he's intriguing, no doubt."

"Something you said has been on my mind."

He looked back at her with dread.

Jim swung around on the sofa, set the laptop down on the coffee table, and walked over to the sliding glass door. He put his eyes within an inch of the glass. Out on the bay, gray water stretched for miles, with no hint of a vessel.

"So you might move home," Maureen had told him at dinner. "I mean, you said it right there. It kind of slipped out of you. You may one day move away. But I realize now I could never move away from my parents. Or my mom's parents. You aren't completely anchored to, or
committed to
, this area. And
me
."

Twenty minutes afterwards, he finally regained his composure. She had done it. She had instigated a quarrel.

When he first met Maureen, on that first date in early January, she had shared far different plans: she hoped to stay on in New Orleans after her graduation seven months before, but she simply assumed she could not land a job there in her field. She admitted she moved back to Massachusetts as a sort of afterthought or default, simply to recoup and rest and maybe circulate her réŽsuméŽ. But now it was clear she would never settle anywhere but New England.

He had indeed enjoyed his time in the Northeast. In a way he could see himself committing to New England. Even so, his heart told him this land was not for him. He felt a pull to a different land, the land of his birth and bloodline. Yet with Maureen's latest declaration, she vied to change the rules and the stakes of everything.

Jim returned to the sofa and sank into the cushion. He took up the rock glass of bourbon and allowed the smoky burn to course down his throat into his belly. As Jim smacked his lips, he realized the Woodford Reserve bottle in his kitchenette was empty. He walked over to the refrigerator, pulled out a bottle of Sam Adams, and opened it. He ambled back toward the sofa and lay down, his back upright against one of the arms, his legs and feet resting comfortably on the cushions.

Stupid microfiber sofa. I wanted brown leather. But Maureen had squashed the idea. After all, as she said on that day months ago, we may very well both be using this furniture soon.

Jim brought the longneck to his lips, raised the bottom high, and guzzled nearly half its contents. The fog within his head grew denser by the minute. How strange to cross paths with the likes of Jean-Luc Decareaux in a tiny Boston watering hole, seemingly light-years from his home. Was it fate? Perhaps he was meant to learn something from the man that day.

Always watch the drink
, the man had said,
and never stop prayin'
. Also exiled by a hurricane, Decareaux knew all the many pitfalls that could hound such a person. This line seemed uncanny. The Cajun saw into him better than he expected.

Jim set his Blackberry alarm for seven forty-five. This week or next, he and the men would complete the overhaul of the schooner. Soon the
John Paul Jones
would not only need to be seaworthy, but also in tip-top shape for the voyage up the coast—with children on board.

Random thoughts of Freddy, Decareaux, Maureen and her parents, his own parents and brother, Liam and his Boston friends, and his new sailing team flashed faster and faster through the cinema of his mind. Perhaps it only furthered his exhaustion. In minutes, Jim was lost in sleep.

When he woke, the room was full of shadows, only illumined by a nearby lamp. Jim rose slowly from the couch and slinked toward the bay window. All this turmoil was ruining his sleep, his peace. What had jolted him awake?

He blinked his eyes rapidly, still lingering in the realm of dreams. That last part of his nightmare remained, there several feet from him: the coffin propped upright in the corner, Freddy emerging decomposed in the burial suit Jim had bought him, stepping forth with hesitation. Jim could not see his eyes. He glanced hard, but they were shut, sunken. Then the wraith vanished. Ah, it was the end he could expect, that all should expect. But Freddy had met it too early, too harshly, without comfort…

Outside on the Sound he could see nothing, merely darkness. Again, he imagined his father at that very hour. It was two hours past midnight. George Scoresby had retired to bed, and when the clock struck five, Jim's
 
mother Rachel would rise for the rosary and Mass, and his father would be off to his office to pore over his maps and logs.
 

Was his father right? If Jim didn't move home soon, would he be increasingly swallowed up in a new life, and in a flash his father and mother and much of his family would be gone and he himself would be an old man, his life almost done?

Nonsense. His father was just pulling out all the stops. Ol' George missed him just that much.

Regardless, he must press on with his life in New England. It would be reckless to give it all up now and crawl back home. And Maureen…

He had commenced the mission. He must, for once, complete the task.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

At twenty past eight, the door of the Melville Boat Brokerage office opened. In walked Jim, his hair still damp from his morning shower.

"Well, look who it is!" Bill laughed like a fiend. "You look a little hung-ovah! Rise and shine, ya highness!"

Jim stopped in the middle of the room, gripping his thermos. "Sleep problems."

"How was the trip, man? Commodore run ya aground?"

"Perfect weather. Kids did very well."

"Those Harbor Islands are pretty nice. Interesting little formations, them drumlins. Formed by glaciers, ya know? Anyway, I guess we're set for the last big push."

"We're on track to finish this week," Jim half stated, half asked.

Bill clapped his hands once with excitement, as if on the verge of declaring some important news. "As long as Donovan don't sleep too late, little Joey DaSilva don't slip out early to meet some hot young broad, and Chief don't sneak some sauce on his lunch break, I'd say, we're lookin' good for finishin' Friday, man."

"Excellent," Jim said. "I'm psyched."

"You
should
be, Jimmy. We started crankin' on the deck this morning. I s'pose we coulda started with the hull."

"Meh, the order is irrelevant. Long as we work hard and steady, we'll arrive at the end."

"That's it. We'll get there, man. Let's go check her out, shall we?"

Walking down the stairs, they found DaSilva and Chief on the deck. Chief was hammering a board in place. Their stereo played James Taylor. The earnest, crystal-clear vocals and the minimalistic yet beautiful acoustic guitar chord were unmistakable.

"I, too, have seen fire and rain," Jim shouted to the crew.

"Great folk singer, isn't he?" Bill nodded. "He's a local boy. I've seen him many times, both when he's played out here and in western Mass."

Chief appeared at the rail, joined by DaSilva. They both stood, smiling down at them, Chief's hands at his hips and Joey slouching with his arms at his sides, the faintest timid smile accenting his face.

"There he is!" Chief said. "Commodore Henretty didn't drown ya this time?"

Laughter erupted from various areas of the shop.

Jim attempted to keep his lips fast together but he was unable to prevent them from yielding into a smile. He glanced down at the cement floor and shook his head. "Fortunately, this time I watched for the swingin' boom."

Donovan, in all his ruddy-cheeked, grease-stained glory, appeared at his side.

"Sure ya didn't fall into the deep?" Chief jeered. "At least once? Twice?"

"My eyes were wide open this time, believe me," Jim said. "So y'all already working on the deck?"

"Of course." Donovan raised his brows. "Much progress. There ain't much left to go."

"I'm comin' on up." Jim walked around the boat.

Donovan and Bill followed, ascending the rolling metal stairwell. Chief stood next to DaSilva, who pointed at the gaping hole in the deck, perhaps ten feet by fifteen feet.

"That's all we got left," the boy said. "Don't fall in."

Jim nodded his head with pride. The men had made much headway. A quarter of the deckboards were brand new, nailed into place, and only needed buffing and staining.

"You men are doing great," Jim said. "All I missed was part of Friday and all of Saturday, but what's our status on the hull?"

"We got a good, I'd say, three, maybe four days left," Bill said. "This deck's maybe two days, with the buffing and the staining included."

"Well…" Jim muttered, narrowing his eyes and holding a fist to his mouth in thought. "Change of plans! Chief and DaSilva, y'all stick to the deck. The next couple days, it'll be Bill, Donovan, and I on the hull. If y'all need another hand on this, gimme a holler. I can help stain or buff. We may finish around the same time."

"We're gonna need some more stain," DaSilva said.

"Six more buckets," Bill said. "We gotta stain the whole deck. And we need a few more buckets of paint for the hull. After the woodwork's done down there."

"Write me up a list," Jim said. "Add what they need, brand, color or whatever included. I'll drive into town at lunch, stop at the hardware store again."

"You may be from Louisiana, but you're still a good guy," Bill said.

Jim shot him a wry grin. "All right, let's attack it!" Jim led Bill and Donovan down the rolling stairwell.

For the next few hours, Jim helped Donovan and Bill nail the hull boards in place, while Chief and DaSilva worked on the deck. The men passed the list among them. Soon there were eight line items.

At eleven-thirty, the outside door keycode beeped. The door swung ajar. Walter strode inside wearing his khaki shorts and white canvas boat shoes as he fixed his Ray-Ban sunglasses in the neck of his white polo shirt.

"Lookin' very Cape Cod-ish, Commodore Walt," Jim said.

"Gotta look the part, my boy," Walter said. "The clothes make the man, as Shakespeare had it. Well, greetings, gentlemen! How goes it with the old leaky dame, ya damned salty dogs?"

"Actually, we're on target to finish Friday, as you predicted," Jim said.

"I tell ya, men, this fine beaut looks just marvelous," the Commodore said. "It should, after all I spent on her! When my wife caught wind of this purchase, she nearly filleted me alive!"

"So…" Bill emerged from behind the boat. He stood with his hands on his hips, smiling with his trademark mischief. "Seriously, Cap'n. How did ya get back in her good graces this time, if you may divulge?"

"Really wanna know? I made another large donation to the Church. And I booked her and her friends another two-week stay in Tuscany."

A few laughed, but Jim kept mum. Walter's words made him queasy.

"But there's a little method to my madness, gents." Walter clapped once, loudly, his eyes flashing. "I'm giving Kathleen her wish, sendin' her across the pond those same weeks we sail this beauty down to New York Harbor."

A fierce cheer tore loose from Jim and all of his men. The cry of jubilation shot up into the steel rafters as they waved their hands in the air. The Commodore had taken many of the Melville men on two-day, three-day jaunts, but never on a trip of such duration. And never to such an exciting destination as New York City.

"Great idea, sir!" Donovan clapped his hands with gusto.

This is great, Mr. Henretty!" Bill shouted. "You know who ya real friends are!"

"Nice!" Jim said. "This sounds like an excellent trip. Everybody'll be happy: you, Kathleen, us!"

"Two weeks on board this baby, all the way to the Big Apple! Stopping in ports all along the way. Grilling and drinking on deck
every night
. Everyone can bring a guest! What could
possibly
be left out, my boy? Now, lemme see this old lass!"

"Here, Cap'n," Bill said. "I'll give you the tour."

The men showed him the slowly shrinking cavities in the hull and deck.

Afterwards, at the foot of the ladder, Walter Henretty nodded, his arms joined behind his back. "I cannot deny it. You men are doing just fine. Now don't let me keep ya."

"Actually we were just breaking for lunch," Jim said. "But we'll resume in about an hour."

Walter marched toward the door. He motioned for Jim to follow. "Why don'tcha accompany me to town, sonny boy? We'll grab a quick bite. I'm goin' on a little errand."

"Good idea," Jim said. "I need to grab some things for the men at the hardware store. We should take my truck."

Jim walked faster and pulled alongside the old man. They headed down the path and up the driveway to the truck. Jim turned the ignition and revved the motor three times.

The old man raised a fist and cheered with glee. "Yes! Let's hear her rooaar!"

"Hahaha! Come on, ol' Betty Sue!" Jim shouted. "Come on, baby!" He worked the shift and eased on the accelerator. The old Chevy rolled forward from where it was backed up against one of the closed garage doors. Jim rolled down his window with one arm. With the other, he steered the truck out onto the driveway, between the oaks, maples, and birches, toward the road.

The old man also rolled down his window. He pulled his pipe from his shorts, along with a matchbox and small tin of tobacco. Walter quickly packed and lit the bowl. Jim looked over at Walter, who sat silently puffing away with the slightest of grins. The old man maintained his silence the entire way to Osterville's Main Street.