“It’s the Shah,” she said. “They were talking about it at work. The ex-Shah of Iran is here. For an operation or something.”
“They have to close Broadway for him?”
“It’s his ten wives and their camels.”
“Very funny.” He grabbed her hand and made her hurry.
She tripped over a filthy man sleeping across the sidewalk. “Sorry!” she said to him. She wanted to love New York the way Luc did. But it was so dirty. So full of humans walking, rushing, sloughing off their skin, coughing and expectorating, or lying discarded on the sidewalk with the trash. Luc had assured her New York City was the only place for a dancer to be. Dance capitol of the world, he said. He dove right in. The constant current of people and traffic and sights and sounds and hopes and needs were everything he had ever wanted. Fiona clung to the side. The chaos that nourished him overwhelmed her. Too many people. Each one with a story. Who was that man with no shoes? What was wrong with that old woman’s face? Where was that child going alone? Luc was the Silver Surfer slicing through the torrent and she was an old sponge and couldn’t absorb it all.
But that was the night they met Nathan and Luc got fired for fraternizing with the guests and she quit in solidarity and Nathan hired them as crew. And here she was. Newport was so pretty. The shops around the wharf were closed for the winter, but she could tell they were upscale places. The sun was shining and a cold breeze blew in from the sea with a fishy tang. Gulls squawked and swooped in the sky, like wishes soaring upward. Just one, she thought, just one wish. She closed her eyes.
“Please, I wish, I wish no one—especially Luc—ever knows how terrified I am.”
She would act brave. She would become brave. She’d read an article in a women’s magazine about the Secret Door to Success, taken the quiz, and learned that acting flows into being. She could act as if she loved it and she would be a sailor. She would. The smell of diesel, the cramped foam bed, the constant motion and her queasy stomach—it would all be wonderful. It was wonderful. And forever she would have this experience. Forever. That was something, wasn’t it?
I wish. She opened her eyes. I wish it were all over.
The wind whipped through her light jacket—the only one she’d brought. It was blue suede, a hand-me-down from a roommate, and she loved it, but it was too small to button over her striped sweater. Her eyes watered. Her nose was running and she knew it was red. She bent her head to the wind and continued toward the boat—home.
At the top of the dock leading down into the marina, there was a metal security gate tied open with a frayed blue and white rope. Blue and white were so ubiquitous they had to be the official nautical colors, like the white gulls against the blue sky, the blue sea and the white froth of the waves. Too bad the sky was gray and the water in this marina was a dark, army green topped with shiny oil slicks and a plastic bread wrapper.
Three men—none of them Luc—stood on the boat’s deck. Where was he? She hoisted her packages, put her shoulders back but gasped as she almost lost her balance on the swaying dock. It was like trying to walk on the back of a sea serpent. She hated it—she was cold and her hands hurt and Luc wasn’t waiting for her and, truth be told, she hated the boat’s unrelenting rocking too. And the smell, saltwater mixed with diesel fuel and bird shit, and how fragile the boat seemed, temporary, as if a year from now it would be gone, just bits of boards and plastic cushions floating out to sea. Nathan said it was brand new, built by the very best Taiwanese boat builder with the finest teak and materials money could buy. But the linoleum was already peeling off the galley’s little strip of floor and only one burner on the two-burner stove worked and she knew something was wrong with the engine because Nathan and Joren kept arguing about it.
She tottered down the dock, legs wide. The men watched, Joren with his bright hair and Nathan in his dirty sweater. The third man had to be Doug, the new crewmember. She was surprised when he stepped off the boat and came up to help her.
“Are you Doug? Thanks.” He took most of the bags. “I’m Fiona.”
His face was as round as a full moon, with broad cheeks, small brown eyes, and a five o’clock shadow although it was still morning. He had to be at least thirty. He wore a navy blue stocking cap pulled down over his ears and all his clothes looked too large for him: a giant green wool coat circling his body, enormous black gloves, flapping khaki pants that were both too wide and too short. Even his bright white sneakers flopped against the boards as he walked.
“Careful. Everything’s breakable.”
He nodded. She was glad to see he was also unsteady and slow—like her—as they walked down the dock to the boat. It was the newest and nicest boat in the harbor with a bright white hull and a turquoise stripe. She told herself again and again it was the very nicest boat.
Joren gave a little wave and went down into the hold. Nathan waited for them on deck smoking a cigarette. His smoke blew sideways with the wind. Clouds were moving in, turning the sky to dark wool. The temperature had dropped. Rain, Fiona thought, maybe even snow, was coming.
Nathan held up his hand. “Wait. You can’t get on. Remember? You have to ask permission to come aboard. Like that: ‘Permission to come aboard?’ I mean it.”
Fiona rolled her eyes. Nathan and his ridiculous protocols.
Obediently, Doug asked. “Pe…pe….pe…permission to c…come aboard?” His eyes slid to her and away. His cheeks went red, more from embarrassment she realized, than the cold. She’d never met a stutterer before. Why had Nathan asked him to say it?
Nathan grinned at Doug and then raised his eyebrows at Fiona. “Permission granted. To both of you.” He held out his hands for the bags and Fiona noticed his long and dirty fingernails. Not like a doctor’s hands at all. Where was Luc?
She and Doug handed the bags over. Doug gestured for Fiona to hop into the boat first. She hesitated. The distance between moving dock and moving boat was wide. She could see herself falling in between, ending up wet, freezing, most likely crushed against the splintery wood pylons. She had struggled yesterday and today Luc wasn’t here to help. She grimaced and leapt. Too far—she banged her knee against the wheel. It hurt enough for tears.
“Want me to look at it?” Nathan’s face was all concern.
“It’s okay.” She rubbed her knee and forced a smile. She turned to Doug and saw him standing on the dock making the same calculations she had. She held out her hand to him and was surprised he took it—the second time he had surprised her.
“Thanks,” he said.
She smiled. “Too cold this morning for a swim.”
Nathan put his hand on Doug’s shoulder. “Doug was my patient,” he said.
“Ca…cancer.”
“Quite a large tumor. It damaged his left inferior and middle frontal gyrus, plus the head of the candate nucleus. That’s why he stutters. Won’t last. Probably. Not sure. It’ll be interesting to see.”
Fiona watched Nathan’s hand on Doug’s shoulder, the way his fingers prodded and squeezed. There was something in his eyes too when he looked at Doug, like he was looking at a specimen. Nathan yanked off Doug’s cap.
“Hey,” Doug complained.
A red mountainous scar ran up and over Doug’s shaved head from ear to ear, like the strap on a pair of headphones.
“It’s quite remarkable, isn’t it?” Nathan’s eyes shone. “A truly extraordinary job. One for the journals.” He clapped an arm around Doug’s back. “And here he is, crewing on a sailboat.”
Doug grimaced, tried to grin, his moon face even wider, rounder. “Fu…fu…funny thing is, I never st…st…stutter with my Latin.” He nodded toward a flock of seagulls in the