The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing - Melissa Bank [19]
I wonder if she knows more or less than I do. I say, "Well, I forgive you, Bella." And as soon as I say it, I do.
—•—
Yves drops us off at the docks and points to a sign for Cap'n Toby's Day Cruises, where we find a blond-bearded he-man heave-hoing a cooler onto the dinghy.
Jamie says, "Are you Cap'n Toby?"
"Tom, actually," he says. "James?" and the two shake hands.
I don't know why, but I instantly like this salty dog with his sunny hair and sunburnt tip o' nose. He is like a counselor and we are campers. "Chips ahoy," I say.
He chuckles and extends his huge blond-haired brown arm to me and helps me onto the little boat. He says, "Welcome aboard."
"Thanks, Cap'n," I say.
He motors us out to a huge beautiful sailboat, and the sight of it puts the wind back in my own sails. I see the boat's name, The True Love, and think of the one from The Philadelphia Story. To myself I say, "Yar," in my best Katharine Hepburn accent.
After Tom hauls the snorkeling gear and cooler and life preservers onto the deck, he asks if Jamie knows how to sail.
"Not really," he says.
You probably could if you let yourself, I think. It's like Shakespeare—after a certain point, it just comes over you.
Jamie says, "I've only sailed Sunfish."
It's a wind-management game, I think.
"Sorry," I say to Tom. "Landlubber."
Jamie says, "Can you sail it alone?"
"Not a problem," Tom says, and it isn't. He moves around the boat like the expert he is, and we're off. Tom works the sails, sometimes steering the wheel with one foot.
Jamie puts sunscreen on his legs and arms and chest, and hands it to me.
"No, thanks," I say.
I let the two of them go through the usual questions—where we're from, where he's from, where we're staying, why he stayed.
I go to the front of the boat, and stand in the wind. I do actually feel yar, as much from having the wind in my face as the Floating House at my back.
When we get near Buck Island, Tom drops the anchor and takes out masks and snorkels and flippers. I say that I've never snorkeled before.
He tells me I'll love it and takes my mask, which he spits into. Then he rinses it in the ocean water. "Cap'n," I say, "I can't believe you just spit in my mask."
He laughs. "Just how you clean it, matey," he says. And asks if we want to smoke a joint.
I say, "Are you going to spit on it?"
"Already did."
My own matey gives me a look.
"Better not," I say.
I climb down the ladder into the pale green water and under. I am amazed by the coral and sand and then I see my first fish. Yellow-and-white stripes! Then I see a school of blue ones. Then orange. They let me swim right up to them. I'm having such a good time, I laugh underwater, dancing in my fins. I am Flipper. I am in the undersea world of Jane Cousteau. I am hunting for treasure. Fending off sharks. I am Bond, Jane Bond.
But it's not easy for me to breathe through the snorkel, and I'm claustrophobic in the mask; I go up to the surface to demask and desnorkel. And then I see Jamie in his mask, and I bob and giggle, as he flippers over to me. He takes off his mask and snorkel and suggests we explore the island.
We walk in, now clumsy in our big-feet fins. "Wasn't that the coolest?" I say.
He says, "That was cool," but in his tone I think I hear the talk we are about to have, and I stop feeling so joyous.
At the shore, he says, "What the hell were you doing with that guy?"
I am stunned. "What are you talking about?"
"Flirting with that guy," he says.
"Cap'n Tom?" I say.
"I don't believe you," he says.
" I don't believe you," I say. But I feel like a fish clown in my flippers and have to take them off before I go on. "We're just friends," I say, mocking him. "Besides, I don't think everything needs to be spelled out."
"Okay, he says, I get it."
"Good," I say. "Now multiply how you feel times six days and five nights."
"So, you're getting back at me," he says.
"No," I say, "I wasn't. I wasn't flirting with that guy. I just liked him."
We walk and walk. We