“Better eat,” my dad said nodding to her plate.
M shook her head and said, “I cannot.”
“Serves you right then,” my dad said, pushing his eggs away and cracking open his paper. “It wasn’t a bachelorette party.”
M cleared her plate and left. I poured some cereal into my bowl and read the Do You Knows on the back of the box. Just like the good old bad days.
24
Satine caloris tibi est?
Hot enough for you?
Grandma Bramhall’s brown car jiggled down our dirt road right on time.
“Hi, dearie,” she said screeching her car into the driveway and waving her hand out the window. “Don’t you look pretty.”
You have to wear a dress to Handy’s so I was wearing the yellow one she gave me for Easter. Already it was so humid out that winter was starting to sound good again.
I waved back and ran into the garage to put my pogo stick away. When I came out, my dad was standing at the top of the stairs.
“Hi, Mom,” he said, one hand in his pocket and the other one lifted, palm out, in a wave. He looked tired, and tired of it, the way he always did now.
“Hi,” Grandma Bramhall said, poking her head out the window. “How’s the girl?”
“A little under the weather,” he shrugged. My lips made a U-turn. I kept my smile low when I walked to the passenger side of her brown square car.
“Well, dearie, if you’re going to make your own bed,” Grandma Bramhall sighed, throwing her hands off the steering wheel.
I knew the rest: if you’re going to make your own bed, you better be willing to lie in it, too. Grandma Bramhall said it a lot. But what it really meant was: who’s sorry now?
My dad started down the stairs, both hands in his khaki pants. “When do you think you’ll bring Apron home?”
“Oh, well, that depends,” Grandma Bramhall said, turning her head to shake it at me, sliding into the passenger seat. “On whether we decide to have dessert or not, doesn’t it, Apron? Did I tell you we are making three stops on the cruise, two in the Caribbean?”
I bugged my eyes out for her and rolled down my window. My dad said, “Sounds a lot more fun than fly-fishing.” Last summer she went to fly-fishing school and left notes all over the kitchen that said, Dear little people, I’ve gone fishing. Make yourselves at home.
Grandma Bramhall jerked the car into reverse before my dad could lean into the window. “Call me if she gets to be too much for you, Mom. I’ll come pick her up,” he said.
“Oh for God’s sake, Dennis. She’s more of an adult than you are.”
My dad tipped his head towards the stairs. “Yes. But it’d be a great way for me to get out of this shindig.”
“A man at a baby shower. Honestly,” Grandma Bramhall grumbled, turning around to see where she was backing out. Her head shook even cranked to the side like that, just a little slower, like it was up against something.
We couldn’t hear what my dad said next because of the dirt crunching under the tires. But when I looked up again, he was climbing the stairs, his hands still in his pockets.
After that, we were on our way. I punched around on her radio until I heard, “We Are the World” with Cyndi Lauper and her friends.
“Oh, I love this one,” Grandma Bramhall said, putting the petal to the metal and gunning it out onto Route 88, cutting off a #1 Maine Movers truck behind us. The driver let out a huge long beep, but Grandma Bramhall just threw her hands off the steering wheel and said, “Turn this up, dearie, will you?”
The driveway into Handy’s Boat Yard was so full of potholes that if you closed your eyes, you might think you were on a ride at Funtown Splashtown instead. Halfway down, there was a parking lot full of boats with every kind of sailboat and speedboat you could think of just waiting to be fixed or painted. There were long boats that could fit my entire class in them, and tiny boats that could only fit two people. But all of them had names like Sunrise Surprise or Sailendipity. I thought about what I’d name mine; nothing with an M in it.
Grandma Bramhall got going so fast down the driveway it looked like she was trying to launch us off the docks. Then at the last second she turned into the parking lot, tires screeching. Seagulls cawed all over the sky and the air smelled like God just burped after eating fish for lunch. White poop was drizzled on everything, including Grandma Bramhall’s brown hood already.
“Damn birds,” she said, shutting her door. Then we started up the walkway with old wooden piles roped together. I held the door for her, which had a knob like a helm.
“Thank you, dearie,” she smiled at me.
In the restaurant, the air conditioner was practically below zero and the fish smell from the outside turned into a fish smell sprayed with Pledge on the inside. Grandma Bramhall told a lady who looked too old to have bangs our names. Then we followed her into the dining room with dark wood everywhere and old people eating piles of fried clams.
Out the window, you could see the launching slope, where a medium-sized sailboat named The Portland Polly with a green hull was halfway into the water, waiting to go.
“I don’t think so,” Grandma Bramhall said when the bang lady stopped at a tiny table in the middle of the dining room. “I asked for a window. So my granddaughter can watch the boats.”
The bang lady pinched her face into too many wrinkles, just like I thought, and seated us at a new one.
“Isn’t this lovely,” Grandma Bramhall sighed bringing some ice water to her shaking lips. Even though her head moved a thousand miles an hour, she knew exactly how to sip without spilling a drop.
“Thanks for bringing me here, Grandma Bramhall,” I said putting my napkin on my lap and slipping my flip-flops off my feet, against the law but who was going to see.
“Nonsense,” she said opening her menu. “Anything you want. The world is your oyster.” She laughed at that. Then she leaned into her bag and pulled out three brochures, each of them with a big white ship on the front. “Did I show you these, Apron? Look where Mr. John is taking me,” she said holding them up like a fan.
I plucked out the middle one and unfolded it. There were pictures of happy people eating in fancy dining rooms or dancing under big chandeliers. And pictures of tan ladies sitting around the pool with one knee up reading, and pictures of people with their arms wrapped around each other smiling big while the sun set behind them. Not a person with a freckle anywhere. When I was done, I smiled up at Grandma Bramhall, who was looking down at another brochure now, studying it really, bending it this way and that, trying to find something. It wasn’t people with freckles though, because Grandma Bramhall didn’t have any. Just like me, my dad caught them from his dad.
I put the brochure back down and opened the huge book of a menu with so many adjectives Ms. Frane would have had a field day. Succulent, ripe, and perfectly roasted were all over the place. Plain tuna salad is my favorite, but at Handy’s the tuna is so fresh and chunky you can’t even eat it. Which is why I usually got the fried clams, except now it reminded me of the seals I needed to save. Yesterday, I took the pamphlet out of my drawer and checked off the Yes, please send me flyers to distribute box. You didn’t even need a stamp to mail it, that’s how desperate they were for help.
A waitress with tall hair and bright lipstick came over and said, “Mornin’ to yuh, ladies.”
Grandma Bramhall put on her glasses and held the menu about a mile away from her and said, “Yes, I’ll have a bloody mary and my granddaughter will have a—?” then waited for me to fill in the blank. I said, “Shirley Temple, please,” and then Grandma Bramhall said, “And I’ll have the crab roll and my granddaughter will have the—?” I said, “Grilled cheese, please,” making a heart on my sweating water glass before I took a sip. I was back to drinking water full time again, even though I could practically feel those hairy amoebas sliding down my throat, eyes closed and laughing like they were on a water slide. But I was finished eating meat. Hamburgers had parents, and I wasn’t about to eat anyone?
??s mother.
After the waitress took our menus, Grandma Bramhall put her napkin in her lap and said, “Excited for school to get out, dearie?”
“Yeah,” I said. But I wasn’t. I’d be spending most of my time trying to avoid M.
I picked up my fork and tried to balance it on one finger.
“Grandma Bramhall?” I asked quietly. “What does love mean to you?”
Something about that was funny to her, so she laughed. “Well, let’s see then, a three-stop cruise in the Caribbean?” My fork dropped, clanking against the water glass.
A few times while we were eating, Grandma Bramhall caught someone’s wrinkly arm walking by and asked, “Do you know my pretty granddaughter, Apron?” Then I would stand up to shake their cold hand and watch Grandma Bramhall smile big and say, “Oh, did I tell you about my cruise?” Two ladies said, “Yes, Dory you did,” and kept walking, but one old lady with a needlepoint lobster on her pocketbook shook her head and said, “No, for gracious sakes, Dory, do tell.” So Grandma Bramhall told her to pull up a chair.
I looked outside so I didn’t have to see those happy people dancing under chandeliers again. The Portland Polly was in the water now, puttering past the docks. Way out in the harbor, boats were bouncing up and down against the waves like pigeons pecking at birdseed. A small blue sailboat named 2 Have Fun was tied onto the dock and someone in red Nantucket pants and a dark blue polo shirt, wearing a white baseball hat, was spraying the bow down with a hose. I watched those seagulls dare each other to land on deck but then chicken out when the man aimed the hose at them.
“Did your grandmother tell you about the beluga whale?” the woman with the lobster pocketbook asked me. She was as old as Grandma Bramhall, but dressed fancier, with big gold earrings that matched her necklace and a red coat with gold buttons.
I shook my head and looked at Grandma Bramhall, in her same blue dress with white squiggles on it, a matching belt tight around her waist, always thick and soft. But Grandma Bramhall kept staring at one of the brochures while she said, “I don’t know anything about a whale, Betty.”
“Oh, you do too,” the pocketbook lady said, slapping the air in front of her. “That poor whale has been stuck in the harbor for days. Lost its way.”
“Well, I haven’t been here for days, Betty,” Grandma Bramhall said, picking her head up.
“I can’t remember there ever being a whale around here, can you?” the pocketbook lady asked.
Grandma Bramhall shook her shaking head at me. “No,” she said, her voice lifting a little. “Actually, I can’t either. Go down and have a look, dearie.”
I turned to the window and sighed. I didn’t want to go take a look, but Grandma Bramhall and the pocketbook lady had already swapped brochures once and were about to do it again, back to talking about upper decks and pineapples. So I stood. We weren’t allowed to be home until after two o’clock anyway, when M’s nurse friends would be gone. I had heard my dad on the phone last night promising to get them all back to the hospital by then, the beginning of their shifts.
I smiled at the bang lady on the way out, but she didn’t smile back.
25
Tempes omnia revelat.
Time reveals all things.
It felt like I stepped into a dryer by mistake. But the closer I got to the docks, the cooler the wind got, blowing across my forehead and whipping up my red hair.
I crossed the pebbled path and headed straight down the ramp, steep now at low tide. Everything creaked on the way down, so I held onto the railing. When I got to the bottom, the man in Nantucket pants was on his knees tightening a knot in the cleat. I walked over to the edge of the dock and looked into the deep green water. No signs of a whale anywhere.
“Apron?” someone said.
When I turned to look, I saw it was Mr. Perry. He wiped his hands on his Nantucket pants and stood.
“Hi, Mr. Perry,” I said turning back down to the water. I hadn’t seen him since the Meaningless Bowl.
“Well, hi, is your dad here with you?” he said checking out the ramp behind me.
“No. Grandma Bramhall is taking me to brunch.”
“Oh,” Mr. Perry said, worry falling off his face. Then he looked down at my dress. “Well, you’re a picture of loveliness.”
“Thank you,” I smiled, my freckles burning. In the water there was still nothing but slapping waves.
“Are you looking for the whale?” he asked, stepping closer to take a look for himself. “It’s a baby beluga, all white.”
I nodded. Mr. Perry was even more handsome with a hat on.
“Haven’t seen it myself. Though supposedly it’s been hanging around for a few days, must have strayed from its pack.”
That got me worried. “Are they going to kill it?”
“No,” he said quietly. “No one’s going to hurt it. All we can do is hope that it finds its way back home soon enough, while it still stands a chance.”
I nodded and then we stood on the edge of the dock together like that, waiting. Small bits of wind were blowing here and there, but the sun was still beating down, hot.
“Mr. Perry?” I asked softly. “Can I ask you something?”
He cleared his throat. Then with his voice much lower he said, “What is it, Apron?”
“Did Rennie have Jenny Pratt for a sleepover last night?”
He didn’t answer me for a second. “Jenny Pratt?” he said with his voice up to normal again. “As a matter of fact yes, she did, Apron.”
My stomach dented. Just off the docks, a man in a Boston Whaler screamed, “Yo’ Perry, you done?” But Mr. Perry didn’t answer. He waved him off with a flick of his wrist and said, still looking at me, “Uh-oh. Did Rennie make plans with you first?”
I watched that man turn his boat around and zoom off. And just when the wake from the Boston Whaler slammed into the side of the dock, I shrugged.
“Gosh, I’m sorry about that. You two remind me of sisters, though, and sometimes even sisters fight.” Mr. Perry said, smiling in a big goofy way.
I hung the ends of my flip-flops over the water and watched the waves banging against the docks. It had a life of its own now, the water, splashing back onto itself so hard that even the seagulls stayed away.
“Hey, I know,” Mr. Perry clapped, perking himself up and pointing to the boat tied next to him. “Do you want to take her back to the mooring with me?”
I turned around and looked up at the restaurant, then back to Mr. Perry who dropped his hose again, waiting for an answer. “You’d be my first passenger?” he said. “Just launched her this morning. Not even Rennie’s been on her yet.”
So I nodded and climbed aboard the 2 Have Fun, thinking of exactly how I was going to tell Rennie and Jenny Pratt that I had been on the boat before they had.
On deck things were really rocking. I held onto the side of the boat while Mr. Perry got in and pulled up the bumpers. Everything smelled new, like shoe polish, and the floor was the sandy color I should have had for hair.
Mr. Perry said, “Not yet,” when I asked him if he needed any help, so I leaned against the side of the boat and watched him wrap and store and turn things on. My dad gets too sunburned to sail, but Mr. Perry was brown as a bear.
“Okay, Apron,” he said, undoing the cleats and throwing the ropes into the boat. “We’re going to motor out to the mooring.”
I leaned over the side and dipped my hand in the water, watching five long fingernails grow. After they dripped off, one by one, I did it again and again. Until the motor slowed and Mr. Perry said, “Take the helm, would you?”
I looked around to see who he was talking to, but no one else was there and he was already walking up to the bow. Which meant for a moment, we were just floating; unmoored. We could have drifted anywhere—all the way up to Canada or straight into the rocks. Only time would tell.
I stepped over and took the helm. “Which way?” I yelled to Mr. Perry sprawled out on his stomach and leaning down over the side.
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“No way,” he said to all the lobsters and clams zip-ping along down there. “Just hold her steady right where she is.”
So I did. And even though I was still nervous, I could do it. I looked around at the names of some of the other boats. No Billow Bertha was black and long, and The Lazy Daisy was as yellow as my dress.
“There. She’s on,” Mr. Perry said, standing up and clapping his hands on his Nantucket pants. He walked back toward me with two dark handprints above his knees. “Time to call the launch. You’re going to love this.”
He told me to let go of the wheel, the boat wasn’t going anywhere now. “On the right side is a foghorn, can you go down and get it?” He pointed to the stairs leading into the cabin.
Below, there were two red cushioned benches, plus a sink with wine glasses hanging upside down over it, swaying back and forth with the waves. There were life jackets and radios and compasses, all tucked neatly into a shelf under the two round windows on either side.
“Wow,” I said.
“Great, isn’t it?” Mr. Perry yelled from the deck, winding up something else. Then, when I turned around again, I saw the foghorn hanging on a hook and my mom.
I froze.
It was a picture that I had seen before, when my mom volunteered for the sponge toss at the Falmouth Fair. Her hair was in a ponytail and her wet cheeks reflected like mirrors. She was laughing at the camera, at the person taking the picture, and right then I remembered Mr. Perry hitting her flat in the face with a sponge while Rennie and I watched from the side, grabbing each other’s shoulder to see if she was going to be mad about it, then watching her come around from the painted backboard with holes for heads, and smiling at Mr. Perry. That was when he took the picture.
I tried to act normal when I went back up on deck and handed Mr. Perry the foghorn. But I couldn’t look at him. He told me no, Apron, you try blowing it. But not how loud it was going to be, and when I squeezed that bubble, my ears felt like someone was trying to pull them inside out.