The Summer Sail Read online

  “Hey, when did that happen?” She turned to Abby and pointed at her newfound loot. “Did your chips get mixed in with mine?”

  Abby grinned. “That’s all you, girlfriend. You’re our lucky charm.”

  Lee was amazed. Something was actually working in her favor. Things seldom worked in her favor. Not since college. Not love, not marriage, not a daughter who appreciated her. She had a long, storied past of being unlucky. The nice gentleman next to her smiled encouragingly. Maybe, she thought, this was all it took. A little roll of the dice, a shuffle of the cards.

  “I’m Lee,” she said, suddenly feeling brazen, and held out her hand.

  “Nice to meet you. Thomas. Hope some of your luck rubs off on me.” He took her hand and shook it—and proceeded to win the next four hands.

  At the end of the night, Lee walked away with four hundred dollars. A windfall! She couldn’t believe it. Thomas, who hadn’t done so badly himself, suggested a celebratory drink at Gatsby’s Lounge. There was a part of her that said she should go back to her room and crawl into bed. But there was another part that screamed, That’s what the old Lee would do. So, she went with Thomas. She learned that he was from California, a divorced dad with two daughters who attended college in Boston.

  “That must be so hard for you. The long distance and all.”

  “It is, or it was, I should say. It’s actually easier now that they’re in college. They don’t feel like spending time with me or their mother,” he kidded. “But now that I’m retired, I can fly out to see them on a moment’s notice. Like this cruise—it was a last-minute thing.”

  “What a good dad you are.” Her mind flitted to Lacey, whom she’d more or less had to light on fire to persuade to come along.

  “What about you?” he asked. Lee hesitated, then gradually, as she talked, she began to feel herself opening up. She hadn’t shared her story with anyone in such a long time. She tried to weigh the risks in her mind, but she couldn’t see any reason not to tell. What were the odds that she’d ever see this nice man again beyond this night, this boat? She figured a cruise was like a trip to Vegas—what happened on the boat stayed on the boat.

  “Well,” she began, as his finger boldly began to trace the knuckles of her left hand. “It just so happens that I have a daughter in college, too.”

  “You’re kidding. What are the odds of that?”

  “Probably pretty good,” she admitted with a laugh. “Considering we’re both, I think it’s safe to assume, middle-aged.” He smiled, and next thing she knew, the floodgates opened. She told him her entire life story—or at least as much as seemed pertinent. That she’d grown up in Charleston and never thought she’d return after college in New England, but then Lacey came along, and suddenly Lee was living back home with her own mom. How when her mom passed away, Lacey only six, Lee quickly had to learn how to be a single parent all over again. How much she adored Lacey but how lately they seemed only to fight, and how she wondered what the future held now that her daughter had flown the coop. Before long, Thomas was leading her by the hand back to his cabin.

  “But what about your daughters?” Lee demanded. She had enough sense to know that it was a terrible idea to go back to a cabin with two daughters in the mix.

  “They have their own cabin,” he explained, coaxing her along. When they reached his door, he kept trying the key card backward.

  “Here, allow me,” she said, taking the key from him. He took it as an opportunity to kiss her. “Hmm,” she said, pausing. “You’re a good kisser. I’ll give you that.” She struggled to get the lock to unlatch, and finally the door swung open. Before she knew what was happening, Thomas was kissing her up against the wall, his lips pressing on hers.

  “I want you to know,” she started to say as he began to pull off her dress, but the words got lost in the muffle of fabric. “I want you to know,” she tried again. “I’m not that kind of girl,” she managed at last, her sundress falling to the floor around her ankles, “who usually does this.”

  “Oh, I know,” Thomas murmured somewhere around her belly button. “I can tell.” And with that, he lifted her onto the bed, and she was unzipping his fly.

  Suddenly, her hands stopped his. She wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. “Do you, you know, have something?”

  “Do I ever.” He grinned, and Lee worried that he’d mistaken her veiled reference. But he fished in his jeans pocket to pull out the foiled protection, then placed it between his teeth and ripped it open. “Grrr,” he said, and she laughed.

  It wasn’t long before Lee thought, Well, then. This is what I’ve been missing. I almost forgot.

  Later, when she woke, the room was dark, and she had a momentary fright that she’d somehow stumbled into the wrong cabin. Then it all came flooding back. Lee rolled over to find Thomas on his back, sound asleep and snoring. Her head flared with pain. How much had she had to drink? Here she was telling Lacey to be responsible in college, and Lee herself had gone off on a drunken bender that would have put her college self to shame. She pushed up from the bed, bright streaks of light darting before her eyes, and stumbled into the bathroom. She flipped on the lights. When she glanced in the mirror, she hardly recognized herself. Eye makeup ran down her cheeks in black streaks, and the skin beneath her eyes puckered. Her hair stuck out at funny angles. She was a wreck.

  She splashed cool water on her face, then used the toilet. Lee considered searching for paper to leave a note, but it was dark. And late. And her head hurt. She could go on with the excuses. It was better if she just left. And so, she gently slipped out of Thomas’s room, allowing the door to click softly behind her. She carried her strappy sandals and her purse (her purse that held all her winnings!) as she made her way back to her cabin. Two girls, chattering about their night, passed by, and Lee momentarily wondered if they were Thomas’s daughters.

  When she reached her room two flights up, she tugged off her dress and crawled into the crisp sheets that room service had thoughtfully turned down. From the other bed came soft puffs of air from Lacey, sleeping like a purring cat. Lee rolled over onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. Without warning, a laugh escaped from her throat, and she slapped a hand across her mouth. Lacey stirred but didn’t wake. Oh my word, thought Lee. What on earth have I done?

  Maybe—she allowed herself to consider the possibility as she tumbled into sleep—just maybe, her luck had changed.

  6

  It was easy for Caroline to tell the serious cruisers from the first-timers. The veterans came armed with pink and yellow highlighters, ready to tag their favorite activities in the ship’s daily bulletin. They stuck whiteboards to their cabins’ magnetic doors so they could post their exact locations on the boat, hour by hour, for their families. They carried extra towel clips. At the cafeteria’s juice dispensers, they gripped their personal water bottles, not wasting time with the tiny plastic cups that the ship provided for the same purpose. They were getting their money’s worth.

  Caroline tapped out notes on her digital notepad from her lounge chair, a traveler turned social anthropologist. Javier and Sam had gone off to hit golf balls on the top deck. It was wonderful and unexpected all at once, an anniversary cruise for her friend that was turning out to be fabulous article material as well. Already, she’d e-mailed her editor in chief a few highlights. Did you know . . . she began, followed by a laundry list of facts:

  Roughly 20,000 eggs are consumed on board.

  1,000 gallons of ice cream are packed for each cruise.

  The ship sets sail with 7,000 pounds of potatoes.

  That if a person falls overboard, the ship can detect his exact position with sonar.

  On average, passengers guzzle 20,000 bottles of beer per sail.

  She could not have imagined the conversations she’d overheard—or some of the things she’d seen—if she’d tried. Like the woman who promenaded around in a tiny bikini that revealed her C-section scar, a prominent white zigzag across her tanned stomach
. Or the newlyweds who seemed to think that displays of affection on deck were entirely appropriate, even expected. Or the guy who sat by the pool with a bucket of beers and worked through them one by one. What was absolutely clear was that no one cared what anyone else might think. Beer bellies and wiggly thighs, saggy asses and lumpy arms, all were on full display. Lewd comments about the occasional voluptuous woman and idiotic conversations about the current state of American politics were thrown about with abandon.

  On the one hand, it was refreshing to be in a place where people clearly didn’t give a hoot what others thought of them. On the other, Caroline couldn’t quite get over the lack of self-censorship. People seemed to say whatever came to mind, wore whatever they pleased. She wasn’t sure if it said something about the types of folks that a cruise attracted or if it was a larger commentary on American society in general.

  She watched while a big man with an enormous belly danced across the pool stage to “YMCA,” throwing up his arms to form the letters. Who, she wondered, was happier? This man or a woman grabbing her skinny latte before rushing off to her Very Important Job in Manhattan? In an effort to be successful, Caroline wondered, had her fellow New Yorkers become tone-deaf to the siren call of good food and fun?

  Caroline shut down her computer and gulped the last of her iced tea. Later today, around dinnertime, they’d be docking in Bermuda. Passengers weren’t allowed to step off ship till tomorrow morning, but just to see the island would be exhilarating. Already, there was a list of places she wanted to explore: the Swizzle Stick Inn Pub. The popular beach at Horseshoe Bay. The quaint shops and churches of downtown Hamilton. Maybe the Crystal Caves on the other side of the island, where stalactites supposedly dangled from the ceiling like chandeliers.

  She glanced up to see Lacey walking by and gave a little wave. Lacey’s body was all sinew and muscle, which made Caroline sigh wistfully. A long time ago the measure of her hips had been nearly the same as that of her rib cage, but she’d had the misfortune of developing childbearing hips over the years without the benefit of having children. Fortunately, Javier appreciated her curves.

  “So, what happened with that Thomas guy last night?” Caroline asked. Lee was stretched out reading a magazine in the chair beside her.

  “Oh, you know. We had a drink. He’s nice, semiretired. Has two daughters in college.”

  “Then you two must have had plenty to talk about.” Caroline flipped over onto her stomach and waited for Lee to continue.

  “Mmm . . . hmm.” But Lee couldn’t get into it right now. Maybe later. The scent of alcohol still leaked from her pores, and if she moved too quickly, a sharp burst of pain galloped across her brain, despite the aspirin she’d taken this morning. If today was any indication, she was too old to party like that ever again.

  “Tell me about Javier,” she asked instead. “How are things?”

  A small ladybug landed on Caroline’s arm and she flicked it off with a finger. She shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t have much to report on that front. Trust me, you and Abby will be the first to know when and if there’s any news. He has six days left to propose. Seven, if you count Saturday morning when we disembark. Not that anyone’s counting.”

  “Ha!” Lee snickered. Leave it to Caroline to treat romance like a magazine assignment. Everyone had deadlines, even poor Javier. “You can’t mean you’re going to give him the boot if he actually fails to propose on the cruise?”

  Caroline narrowed her eyes at Lee. “Watch me.”

  “Wow,” said Lee, still trying to gauge if Caroline was being serious. “Doesn’t that seem a little—I don’t know—harsh for someone you love?”

  Caroline shrugged. “Probably, but he’s had three years. It’s not like I’m rushing him into anything. If you know, you know.” Lee stared at her. “What?” Caroline demanded.

  “And I’m assuming you know. That Javier’s the right guy for you?” Lee pressed.

  Caroline made a pftt sound. “Of course. Don’t be silly.”

  Lee squirmed in her chair. Did Caroline realize how ridiculous she sounded? “I’m sorry,” Lee said, shaking her head. “It’s just that you seem so sure everything will go according to plan, when this is romance we’re talking about. You love Javier, but you’re going to break up with him if he doesn’t propose on the cruise? You know that’s crazy, right?”

  Caroline shrugged. “Well, it’s not like I haven’t hinted. He knows I’m expecting something on this trip. And besides, someone has to draw a line in the sand. I’m not getting any younger. I want a grown-up house. I want to enjoy the benefits that come with marriage—you know, like tax deductions, shared real estate, security. All that stuff.” She waved a hand in the air as if it were obvious.

  “Wow. How very romantic of you,” Lee teased. Lee hadn’t always been Javier’s biggest fan (he was a little too handsome, a bit too debonair for her tastes), but she was beginning to feel sorry for him as it dawned on her what Caroline’s expectations were for this trip.

  “And you’re certain Javier knows that you want a ring?”

  Caroline shrugged again. “He ought to. I mentioned something the other week about figuring out the ‘next steps in our relationship’ in Bermuda. I assume that’s pretty much code for: I’m waiting for a proposal, right?”

  Lee frowned. “Not necessarily. It could mean a lot of things.” She was pretty certain that when a guy heard the words next steps, he either thought of a front porch stoop or tuned out entirely. But that was Caroline’s way: once she set her mind to something, it had better happen—or there would be consequences. “Maybe he thinks you want to get a dog.”

  Caroline grunted. “If he’s that dense, I’m not sure I want to marry him.”

  Lee considered the situation for a moment. Was Caroline setting herself up for disappointment? “What’s wrong with enjoying what you have?” she asked now. “You guys are practically married anyway. You already live together in that gorgeous loft apartment.”

  Caroline rolled her eyes. It was no secret that, of all the roommates, Lee was the most dubious about marriage. Yes, it had worked out nicely for Sam and Abby, but Lee could list on a single hand the number of friends who were happily married. Most of her girlfriends had separated, divorced, or stayed in their marriages for the sake of the kids. Caroline’s sudden focus on tying the knot struck Lee as misguided, slightly troubling. Was Caroline worried that Javier wouldn’t stick around otherwise? Should she or Abby give Javier a heads-up?

  After having lived together for four years in a cramped dorm room, Abby and Lee knew Caroline probably better than anyone. They understood, for instance, that she needed to be handled with kid gloves when it came to personal matters. She could be defensive, protective, inscrutable. Once in college she’d dropped ten pounds in a week. Only after Lee inquired if she was feeling okay did Caroline confide that she’d broken up with her boyfriend. Despite her tough exterior, Caroline grew weepy at sad movies, always stopped to pet a dog, and never missed donating to the Salvation Army bucket during the holidays.

  “Anyway, I’m going to talk to him,” Caroline said now. “Make it clear that I think it’s time we move things forward in a definite way. It just hasn’t been the right time.”

  “What hasn’t been the right time?” Abby asked, rejoining them, a plate of mozzarella sticks in her hand. She lowered herself into the chair beside Lee and set the plate on the table.

  “Oh, nothing.” Caroline laid her head on her hands, as if to say, This conversation is over.

  Javier, Lee mouthed silently before dipping a stick in the marinara. She took a bite and moaned with pleasure. “Do you remember how many of these we used to eat at the grill?”

  “Probably a million?” Abby guessed. “How on earth did we not graduate weighing three hundred pounds?” Abby thought back to when they’d befriended the guys who ran the downstairs café—a.k.a. the Grill—in their dorm. It was a friendship cemented in cheese and grease, in other words, the kind that lasted a li
fetime.

  “Speak for yourselves,” Caroline said. “Some of us did not frequent the Grill every night. We were busy studying.”

  Lee rolled her eyes. “Oh, c’mon, Caroline. You’re going to play the studious card again? You were just as bad as the rest of us.”

  “Not true!” She shot up in her chair and pushed her sunglasses onto her head. “Do I need to remind you that only one person in our rooming group graduated with honors?” Abby knew she was only half kidding. Caroline took great pride in this distinction.

  “Yeah,” Abby teased. “In sociology.”

  “That’s a hard major!”

  Lee and Abby started laughing. It was kind of fun that they could still raze Caroline about her major after all these years. In college, Abby had been jealous that, for Caroline, school seemed to come so easily, when it was all Abby could do to keep her head above water. She’d even spent a semester on academic probation. But then Abby had discovered art, and something clicked. She would be an art history major, and that had been what saved her. That and Sam, of course. Her eyes skimmed the pool for the boys.

  “Hey,” Caroline asked, “has anyone else noticed that lady over there?” She gave a nod toward an older woman a few seats away who appeared to be sleeping with her sunglasses on, her mouth agape.

  “Wow, very tan,” Abby said.

  “No, not that.” Caroline lowered her voice. “I’m worried about her. I’ve been watching her for about half an hour and she hasn’t moved. I think she might be dead.”

  Lee half laughed, half snorted.

  “Stop it!” Abby swatted Caroline. “You’re terrible.”

  “I’m serious. Do you think one of us should poke her? Maybe drop a book?”

  As if the woman had overheard them, she suddenly let out a loud snore and shifted onto her side.