Still Summer

  “She likes him,” Tracy said to Olivia and Lenny. “She only had her first real boyfriend this year. And then that one went back to his rich sweetie. She generally thinks men are thick.”

  “Men are thick,” Lenny answered, laughing.

  “So what’s he fishing for?” Both of them smiled at the double entendre. Olivia lowered her hat.

  “He wants a barracuda,” said Lenny. “Then I can broil it and you’ll never taste anything like it, when it’s straight from the sea. You would be surprised at how good it is.”

  “Will he catch one?”

  “That’s the problem. He probably will, but he’ll have to cut five lines before he can bring one in.”

  “Why?”

  “Because barracuda can be monsters. Not only would he need to drag the fish, we’d waste it. We’d cut off a few fillets, and it would be shark food. What we want is a nice little barracuda, ten, twelve pounds. We can have dinner, and I’ll freeze the rest. We have all this food coming from another boat.”

  On the other side of the island, Michel’s fishing pole was thrust deep into the sand. He had Cammie pressed against a tree. She had her leg twined around his hips, their hands exploring each other’s every curve and cleft, outside their clothing.

  “You are going to get me fired,” he said. “I really, really have to catch a fish.”

  “You can say there weren’t any.”

  “He knows there are.”

  “You can say it got away.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “You can say a beautiful woman swam through treacherous waters for you.”

  “That, he would understand.”

  They knelt, then lay down. He kissed her throat. She unbuttoned his shirt and kissed his chest. This was impossible. He was being offered a lush box of sweets. He wasn’t going to pass it up. This script had not yet presented itself in his life. Sex had been great fun, like great exercise, no yearning afterward, each woman a memory that crossed his mind if he heard a particular song or saw a particular place. No more than that. What he felt about this girl, an acquaintance for two days, was odd and uncomfortable. She was so shy and so bold and so very young. He helped her remove the top of her wet bathing suit. “There’s nothing here but sand, Cammie. You’d get scratched up.”

  “There’s your shirt. And the rest of your stuff. And the rug is in the tender, isn’t it? Are you . . . Shit, listen. I’m not trying to give it away,” Cammie said, her eyes suddenly thunderous. She slapped her wet top against her chest and began tying it up.

  “Wait . . .” Michel’s line began to sizzle. “Looks like dinner! I didn’t mean it that way,” he said. “I just meant I had to catch this fish. I don’t have to catch the fish and rush it back out to the boat! Let me just catch it and wash my hands off. It’s not bending the rod enough to be too big. . . .”

  “Okay,” Cammie said, still dubious. “Here’s an experience, I guess. This is good. I’ve never seen a barracuda outside an aquarium.” She fastened the strap of her bathing suit around her neck. “We can come back later and make a fire, like you said.”

  “I don’t want to wait until later, Cammie,” Michel said, struggling to have as much poise as possible while working the fish from side to side.

  “You’ll be all fishy.”

  “I said, I’ll wash up. I have anisette.” Michel planted his feet on either side of the pole and hauled back. “It’s not a barracuda. It’s a jack. Maybe ten pounds.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “By the way it’s moving.”

  “Come on, Michel. Haul it in!”

  “You’re distracting me.”

  “You’re just afraid you’re not going to get it and you’ll look like an idiot in front of me,” Cammie said with satisfaction.

  Michel leaned back with all his strength, and the fish came flying onto the sand. Quickly, he threw it into a nest of bushes, where it lay, thrashing. Then he waded out and washed his arms and hands and splashed his hair and reached into the tender. He took the bottle of licorice-smelling drops that were supposed to deceive fish into taking baits and rubbed his hands with it. He removed the rug.

  “There,” he said, making his way back to shore. “I could have done this from the boat, you know. I didn’t have to come over here. I convinced Lenny there might be fish playing around little reefs underwater.”

  “You knew I’d come over, I think,” Cammie said.

  “No, I didn’t. Of course, I hoped you would. I didn’t take it for granted.”

  “Did you really buy toothpaste?”

  “No,” Michel said.

  “Do you have what you really bought with you?”

  “No,” he said.

  “And so we can’t do anything. Everything.”

  “We could, but we should wait until the right time.”

  “You probably have ten tropical diseases.”

  “No, I wasn’t thinking of that. I know I don’t have any,” Michel said.

  “So you’re concerned about pregnancy.”

  “Aren’t you? You’re nineteen years old.”

  “I am and I’m not. Concerned. I don’t think I’ll get pregnant.”

  “What if you did?”

  “I don’t know. What if I did?”

  “I wouldn’t like it if you had an abortion. I’m a Catholic. And between us, I feel that wouldn’t be right. So you have to think about it. If you got pregnant, would you have me?”

  “What do you mean, have you?”

  “Would you have me as your husband?” Michel had no idea why he was asking such a thing of a girl whose existence he’d been unaware of thirty-six hours earlier. But then, he thought about having a baby, as Lenny had a baby, and a wife, as Lenny had a wife. His wife, Camille. He thought about his mother’s face when she saw Cammie. Nothing he thought corroborated any image he had of himself. In fact, Michel thought, he had not entirely considered, until now, his own image of himself, or reflected on his private concept of who he was. He had simply seen himself in others’ eyes.

  “How I feel at this moment, I would have you,” she then said. “I was thinking about this last night. I know that you’re supposed to think and make lists and compare the person’s way of life to your way of life and see if they match. And they don’t. But I still . . .”

  Michel felt that he might inflate and, if untethered, float off earth. He felt like a diffident superhero, a stud whose stomach threatened to rebel, a humble child. He had to conclude that this was what people meant by love. He knew he had never felt it. He expected that if he were to measure it, he would be running a fever. He put his arms around Cammie, and they lay down together.

  That was the moment Olivia appeared out of the brush.

  “What?” Cammie cried out. “What’s going on?”

  “I swam over. Lenny was wondering about you. Michel,” Olivia said, shaking her head, “she’s a child.”

  “What are you really worried about, Olivia?” Cammie asked, her voice low and combustible. “Protecting me?”

  “Not really,” Olivia said. “Lenny says to bring the dinghy back. He says there’s wind coming.”

  “You must like to swim, like your niece,” Michel said coldly.

  “My niece!” Olivia spat. “Camille, this is ridiculous. Your mother would hardly—”

  “My mother trusts my judgment.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Well, you’re not my mother.”

  “Camille,” Michel said warningly, “we’ll just go back. We’ll come back when it’s dark. We planned to. Let’s not ruin it for the others.”

  “Go ahead and tell my mother, Olivia,” Cammie said, getting to her knees, then her feet. “Then I can tell her what I know about what you did, too.”

  “This is absurd,” Olivia said wearily. “You don’t even know this man.”

  “How can you say that? You of all people . . .”

  “It’s an entirely different . . .”

  Michel tried to inte
rcede, quietly. Then he gave up hope. He noticed something even more important.

  Lenny was right. Weather was coming. The water, so quiet moments before, had begun to lap and churn.

  “We need to go,” he said quietly. Olivia had turned her back. Cammie was red-faced. “It’s best not to take this . . . back to the boat. It will make Tracy unhappy, and Lenny unhappy. Olivia, this was private. I’m sorry if this seems offensive, Olivia, but it meant a great deal to me. She means a great deal to me. I know it seems impossible, like . . . at first sight. I don’t know why.”

  “Because she looks like a fashion model and she’s giving it to you like a whore, which she isn’t,” Olivia said in brittle cadence.

  Cammie turned to him, and he held her face against his chest as Olivia whirled and picked her way back to the tender, her spine arched. His gut lurched again. He would not be able to eat. It’s okay, he thought. He could feel this living girl in his arms, feel her lean into him, trusting, longing, grateful. He felt proud of this. He thanked his patron, St. Michael.

  Water was slopping in great willful fistfuls against the hull of Opus as they approached. Lenny always thought, at times such as this, of how old sailors were careful to be respectful toward gods they didn’t believe in. The weather was not threatening; but it felt stealthy. Lenny didn’t like surprises.

  “Idle until I pull them in and we’ll tie up,” Lenny said, leaning over for Olivia’s hand and then Cammie’s. Cammie’s hand slipped out of his on the first pass. Michel putted in a circle and threw the fish on board. “Cute,” Lenny called. “Jumped right into the boat. We’ll just drop anchor and let her drag. I think there’s going to be wind. If I was smart, I’d bring her around the other side. We’re exposed. But I think we’re out of time.”

  “Let’s get Cammie on board,” said Michel.

  “I’m ready,” Lenny called back.

  But the wind had other plans; and the tender bucked as Michel made his second approach. Michel cursed in French.

  “What should I be doing?” Cammie asked.

  “Nothing. I’m just not the prince of the sea today,” Michel said, tension stiffening his voice. He drew alongside again.

  Cammie stood and a wave lifted the bow of the tender out of the water. Leaning precariously to reach for Lenny’s hand and the overboard ladder, Cammie stumbled instead, knocking her hip on the oarlock, dislodging the oar, falling backward and disappearing under the water. Before Tracy could open her mouth on the cry that ballooned there, Cammie surfaced, spluttering.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart,” Michel told her, his hands secure under her shoulders. He pulled Cammie over the side as the others watched, breathless. Another wave broke, soaking both of them. Holly groaned.

  Lenny noticed Opus was drifting faster than he had imagined.

  “Here’s a rope,” Olivia cried out, kicking the first coiled length she saw into the water.

  Lenny watched the fifty-foot stern line unfurl into the water with dismay. But this was like a car wreck in slow motion: He had no time to point out what a rope that length could do to the propeller on the trimaran’s single engine. He could only hope for the best.

  “Let’s get the tender secured,” he shouted to Michel.

  “Her first,” Michel said, bringing the tender alongside, idling. This time, Lenny was able to pull Cammie, soaking wet, over the side, where her mother waited with a towel. “Okay,” Michel said; “Len, I’m sorry about the oar.” But he had barely finished when the tender motor began to cough, bicker, and then died.

  “No way!” Michel shouted.

  He pushed the starter again. The motor turned over but sounded odd. As Michel took hold of the tiller, the engine coughed and died. He grabbed the can. Was it too light? No. He grabbed at the other can. It was full. He reconnected the hose and started the motor again. It bickered and died.

  “. . . fuel!” Lenny heard him shout.

  “Pump it!” Lenny called.

  “I’m trying!”

  “Try harder!”

  Michel stood up. He pulled the engine up and checked for anything that might be tugging at the propeller. As he did, the wind shook the tender the way a naughty schoolchild shakes a soda pop can, and Michel hit his knees, hard, on the bench seat. Unable to hold himself balanced, he fell forward and struck his forehead.

  “Michel!” Lenny yelled. “Double shit!” Lenny cried. “Michel! Michel! This is nuts! It can’t be happening!”

  Michel didn’t stir. His arm flopped ominously with the motion of the small boat. The tender drifted.

  “Michel!” Cammie screamed, struggling out of the towel, making for the side, as Tracy fought to hold her back.

  “Oh, shit!” Lenny cried, kicking off his shoes. “I’ll grab him and row it over . . . I’m sure he’s fine . . .” Oh, please God, he thought, and I was pissed about a frigging can opener. “Hang on!” Lenny’s flat dive cleaved the churning water neatly and he made for the tender with sure, economical strokes. But the wind was watching; and Opus was drifting away, too fast. Lenny noticed the snakelike length of the stern rope, and treading water, he looped it around his chest and knotted it. There was enough length. He could still make the tender . . . easily. But how fast was it moving? He was caught between the boats, unsure. Lenny began to swim, harder now. The sky was darkening overhead, the clouds heaving. Soon the sun would set.

  Abruptly, Lenny turned back, now swimming for his boat and, he realized with almost comic import, for his life.

  “Cammie,” Holly said, “as soon as he’s close enough, you throw the life ring . . .”

  “What about Michel?”

  “He’ll come to his senses and row right to the nearest boat and be back by tomorrow. I saw him hit. It wasn’t a skull-fracturing blow,” Holly said, with more hope than conviction. Cammie looked at her, a kaleidoscope of panic in her great eyes.

  The sun lay down a line of rose and gold, a child’s crayoned horizon, as they struggled to keep Lenny in sight. By dint of his strength and the line, he was making time. Tracy flipped on the huge light.

  “Lenny!” she shouted. “Come on!”

  “Come on, Lenny. You can make it!” Cammie cried. Lenny’s head was a point in the sudden utter darkness, his arms working up the rope. Hand over hand, he closed on the side.

  Then a wave lifted one of the wings of Opus as if it were a loaf of bread. The women tripped and slid on the slick deck. Lenny felt the wave’s approach and struggled to free himself from the stern line. Why had he tied it around himself? The wet knot was intransigent; Lenny kicked backward. But the line seemed . . . it was hung up on something, but nothing he could see in the dark. To his horror, he saw his beloved hull rise, a monolith above his head. Involuntarily, he turned away. He heard Cammie screaming. Meherio, he thought. He felt the great silent gust of air that preceded the impact, and he felt the impact not at all.

  At nearly the same moment, all of the lights on Opus flickered for a moment. Even at so great a distance, Michel could see it. His head thundered. He tried to sit up and fell back again. There came the first bite of real fear. Where was Lenny? He could not leave Lenny. Or had Len left him? Michel searched the figures behind the lights on Opus for Cammie. He could not make out for sure which was she. So he chose one figure, fixing on it like a star. Because he did not die quickly, as Lenny had, and the night was long, he imagined, during his intermittent moments of consciousness, that Cammie had married him in that last moment when he glimpsed her silhouette, and felt for Cammie what Lenny felt for Meherio. What a man knows, Michel thought. He had felt at least that. Then at last the field of his vision was as blank as the night that surrounded him.

  Day Seven

  The sheer jolt of the disappearance having subsided, Tracy shoved her mind into gear. It was necessary. The others’ faces were like blank sand after a tide.

  “We have to start looking for them right away,” she said firmly. “There’s a good chance we can find them. We have a motor and they don’t.”


  She bounded up to the cockpit and turned the key. The motor shuddered and turned over. And then it stopped.

  “What’s wrong with it?” Cammie called, her voice dull as a dropped coin.

  “I . . . don’t . . . know,” Tracy answered, huffing, struggling with the key, as if it would matter, as if it had ever mattered when what turned out to be a minor thing—some minute wire or drop of oil in the wrong place at the wrong time—caused her car motor to fail her, for no apparent reason. She removed the key, reinserted it. This time, when she turned it, there was no response. Well then, Tracy thought, I will . . . raise the sail. Urgencies called for urgencies. It was a sail, after all, a bigger sail than she had raised as a girl, but a sail with a boom, and . . . it was only a sail. She could tack in a widening circle, while all of them looked for a trace of the tender, and worry about the motor later. It would be one of those drops of oil or loose wires, and the fact that it had happened now was not a hideous, portentous grotesquerie, but only a coincidence, an ill-timed coincidence.

  “Help me, Cammie!” Tracy shouted. “I’m going to raise the sail and look for them.”

  And for the next hour, she did just that, with Cammie and Olivia using the handles that operated the floodlights on the railings to sweep the inscrutable, unbroken surface of the sea.

  None of them noticed the wind rising. It was subtle at first, just a small freshening that gave Tracy a little more challenge in managing the boat’s turns—nothing she couldn’t handle, though it quickened her heart.

  And then the squall came, so quickly that Tracy wouldn’t have been able to lower the sail even had she known how. Abruptly, she found herself fighting to keep her windbreaker from billowing off her back as she fought her way down to the saloon.

  “What do we do?” Olivia called over the wind.

  “I think these sails are made to take this,” said Tracy. “Don’t worry. We’ll just ride it out and hope we don’t go too far.” She knew that they would go too far, but panicking Olivia seemed to her as unnecessarily unkind as wearing a ghoul’s mask into the bedroom of a jittery toddler.