Ahoy!

by Maggie Seacroft

  “Mmm. That’s precious. If we’re going down the pastel route, how about toothpaste blue?” I mused back and took a sip of the black coffee she’d placed before me.

  “Hey, where’s the gang?” I asked, tilting my head toward the vacant nook and noticing the case of baked goods had not yet been pillaged.

  “Oh, I dunno. I’m sure they’ll be along. I saw Jack Junior come back in his tiller boat not long ago. Maybe they went fishing or something.” She shrugged, slid a fritter on a plate in front of me, snagged one for herself, and continued to pour over the brochure of exterior paints and stains.

  Jack Junior, by the way, is Jack Ross Junior, though the suffix Junior is a bit of a misnomer. He is a man of seventy or so, and his father Jack Ross Senior died the year before, so relatively speaking, Jack Junior is just Jack. But, I suppose when you’re called Jack Junior for seventy years, it sort of sticks.

  He’s a fixture in our little community and, though he stands at only five-foot eightish – and blames his shrinking on global warming – he comes with a larger-than-life personality. Looks wise, he reminds me of the actor Jack Lemmon –– same hairline, warm smile, and a constant twinkle in his eyes. He’s quite often seen with Nat, and I tend to believe that in their former lives they were Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or some other set of pals constantly getting into shenanigans.

  “You seem in better spirits today,” I said, noting the absence of a Bugsy voodoo doll or, at a minimum, the deflated attitude I’d witnessed the day before.

  “Oh, well, Carlos was here last night,” Ags replied, looking up from the paint brochure and shooting me a wink. “He’s coming to see me again after soccer practice today.”

  “Do, uh, parents get a text or something if the game is called due to rain?” I kidded. From anyone else, I’d have received a punch, but Ags practically boasted about what being a cougar could land her.

  “Ha, ha, very funny. Anyway, he said he’ll help me with my to-do list courtesy of ole what’s his face.” Aggie rolled her eyes and hitched her thumb in the direction of the cottage of our resident taskmaster.

  “Oh, I’ll help you too. I bet we can have it done before the Fourth.”

  “You think?”

  “Oh sure, nothing to it. You might need a few more boyfriends to pitch in, and I’ll ask Nat and the boys if they’ll help,” I said and swiveled around on my stool to look around the store to see what else we might change while we were at it.

  Aggie’s store, the ingeniously named Aggies Place, is a cross between a convenience store, a hardware store, and a diner with a counter and little lounge area at one end which is cozified with a fake fireplace and big screen TV. The place is lacking any of that kitschy junk you might normally find in a tourist stop at the waterfront. No fake fishing nets on the walls, mermaid paraphernalia, or faux-nautical trinkets. Aggie’s coastal decorative touches are streamlined and classy with sepia-toned, maritime-themed photos hung in a gallery style on whitewashed walls alongside authentic finds from historic vessels. On days when business is slow, or when I just need a break, I head down to the store and soak up the atmosphere and latest gossip while I peruse the local paper in one of the soft leather club chairs.

  Over coffee and fritters, Aggie and I settled on an aptly named Water Blue for the wood siding. I’d never admit to it, unless possibly under the threat of death, but the more I looked at the exterior of her place, the more I agreed it needed to be refreshed. Before I left, I picked up a pack of gum and a bottle of lemon oil I’d need to prep a boat for showing later that day. Gleaming woodwork and fresh breath had become the tricks of my trade.

  On my way past Nat’s boat, I saw that the curtains were still drawn and I felt a little glum on his behalf, figuring his bum knee was acting up. He had one of those knees that gave him trouble on very rainy days and before a big swing in barometric pressure. I made a mental note to check in on him later. In my distraction, I narrowly missed skirting a puddle on the way back to my boat to send a few emails.

  ✽✽✽

  By the time one o’clock rolled around, I was just about ready to show the Just Aboat Perfect. You can’t tell merely from looking at them, but there is that certain faction of boat owners who, with little else for a creative outlet, dabble with what at the time must seem like a clever play on words when the opportunity arises to name their floating refuge. Just Aboat Perfect ranked up there with some of the other ingenious names in the marina, along with A Loan Atlast, Fishful Thinkin’, and Aquarotic.

  The Just Aboat Perfect was owned by a recently divorced chap who shelved his dreams of sailing, packed his bags, and headed east to shack up with the new love of his life. So, in the spirit of being neighbourly, and in the pursuit of a tidy sales commission, I offered to list and show the boat. I gave the woodwork a quick pass with a dusting cloth and the lemon oil I’d picked up, took down a few bulging spiders, and opened the windows to air things out. By the time I looked at my watch again, Stephen Richards, my would-be customer, was already ten minutes late.

  Richards had let me know he was a doctor and so I extended him a little more leeway than I normally would have. Not that I particularly care for doctors, but it’s not as though he could leave someone hanging during a prostate exam to tour the boat I was selling. He was also the kind of customer who preferred to text. Perhaps it was due to his busy schedule that he favoured this medium that trades warmth for efficiency. So, other than on his outgoing voicemail message, I’d not had the benefit of speaking with the man to ascertain if he was old or young or even if he suffered from turrets, for that matter. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

  After ten more minutes, I was about to give up on him, peg him as a no show, and head back to the Alex M. to do something productive, when a high-end hybrid sports car with very tinted windows rolled up at that tentative pace that suggests the driver is probably lost. Had to be him.

  I hate to admit it, but then and there I pigeonholed him as being either a young well-to-do tree hugger type or… Nope, middle-aged pretentious. Cool, those are fun too, I thought as he eased himself out of the car and ever so gently closed the door with an expensive-sounding, muted thunk. He was dressed in preppy tan trousers and a kelly-green designer polo shirt that probably came with a price tag in excess of my annual fuel costs. The only jewelry he wore was a watch that oozed success, and as I met him on the dock he walked toward me carrying an umbrella emblazoned with a logo that probably only meant something to the country club set. I flitted my eyes when I looked down at the weather-beaten dock boards and caught a glimpse of the shiny Italian-looking loafers he was wearing. Hard-soled shoes on a wet boat deck usually mean you’ll be slipping and falling on your ass. At least I had something to look forward to from the man who’d kept me waiting.

  “You must be Mr. Richards,” I said, extending a forced smile to go with my handshake. He could have called to say he was running late.

  “Hello,” he said, and there was a hint of a question in his tone as the word passed his lips and his hand slowly extended to meet mine.

  His tone didn’t surprise me. Since I’d assumed ownership of the boat brokerage, more than half of the emails I’d received began with Dear Sir or Greetings Mr. Michaels. Depending on my mood, the vigor with which I correct the author ranges from polite understanding to downright feminist scorn. In face-to-face meetings, though, I push aside those feelings of “persecution by chauvinism” and forge ahead in the name of commerce. I looked at Richards, peering down at me from his over six-foot frame with the squinty expression of a kid trying to solve a calculus problem. “Anything wrong?” I asked.

  “Not at all,” he said, and his cheeks got a little red.

  I shuddered on the inside as he not-so-inconspicuously took inventory of me from head to toe, and I vowed I’d have a steaming hot shower later that day to wash away the feeling it gave me. Even if he was a doctor. Though he could have been a doctor of bovine scatology for all I knew.

  I led Richards
to the boat hoping that if he bought it, he’d take it to another marina. Heck, I could even recommend one or two that I knew had vacant slips. I wasn’t so sure this man who looked to come from the toniest of neighbourhoods would fit in with the constituents of our little community, which is in no way a condemnation of Richards. While good fences make good neighbours, the absence of fences in the marina had proven to make for good entertainment, though our collection of wack jobs, exhibitionists, and chronic partyers was mercifully seasonal or at least reduced to weekend fair weather sailors.

  As I always do when I play matchmaker between floating haven and unsuspecting money donor — I mean prospective buyer — I tried to picture Richards owning the boat. The ‘44 DeFever Aft Cabin Trawler is basically a floating luxury cottage complete with combination washer dryer, two queen-size suites with showers, impeccable woodwork throughout, and a sundeck for all the gold-digging, model types money can buy. Yes, it’d suit him perfectly.

  Once aboard and inside, Richards nosed around, and I watched with interest like I was on some zoological expedition, observing the animal in an unfamiliar setting. Like dropping a zebra off in downtown Los Angeles. The zebra asked me a multitude of questions which increased in technical depth as he became more and more satisfied with each preceding answer. After one of those answers, he replied with a thoughtful “mm-hmm” and looked at me like he was sizing me up sizing him up. I walked him to the bridge where all the navigation equipment was up to date and the woodwork was gleaming thanks to a combination of lemon oil and elbow grease.

  Richards looked out across the bow through windows sprinkled with rain. “Do you have a little boat in this marina?”

  “No.” My reply was curt but polite, and I shook my head as if the gesture would fill the void in our flailing conversation.

  “No?” He sounded surprised.

  “No, I have a big boat in this marina.” I wasn’t boasting; it’s a big ass boat. At a deadweight of around 200 tons, if we went by size, my boat could beat up this boat any day of the week.

  “And where might it be?”

  “Oh, it might be over there,” I said playfully, mimicking the prose of Captain Condescending and nodding in the general direction of the Alex M. I didn’t really want him to know where I lived, although the three-foot-high letters Alex M. painted on the side of the boat less than a hundred feet away and the eight-foot-tall yellow M on the stack should have been a dead giveaway. I deducted points from him for being obtuse.

  He nodded. “What’s that boat there?” he asked, pointing to Nat’s.

  “Splendored Thing.” I was curt again, this time not as politely. I didn’t care for the way he asked the question.

  “Excuse me?”

  “That’s her name, Splendored Thing. You know, like the movie.” He looked to be about the vintage to recall the movie from which the boat derived its name, and his pretense that he didn’t was neither endearing nor convincing.

  “Do you know anything about it?” He asked the question as if he was already skeptical of the reply I’d not yet given him.

  “Other than it’s not for sale, I can tell you that it was designed by Ed Monk and is a ‘53 De Vries Lentsch 68 Motor Yacht,” I recited back to the man as though the text had been written on the chalkboard in my brain – somewhere up and to the right, to be specific.

  “That’s what I thought. How long is the boat?”

  “How long is the Lentsch 68 Motor Yacht?” I asked. My voice went up an octave at the end. I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly because the question was a tad bit redundant.

  “Yes.”

  “The Lentch 68?” I asked again, incredulously this time, wondering if I had misunderstood him the first two times.

  “Yes,” he said, and he seemed like he was getting testy.

  I paused and looked at the floor to keep a straight face as the corners of my mouth turned up. “Mr. Richards, the Lentsch 68 is sixty-eight feet long.”

  “Oh, that’s right, from–”

  I looked at him expectantly and waited for him to finish his sentence since I didn’t think he could. “Amsterdam,” I volunteered with a smile. “It’s not for sale. My best friend owns it and it’s his baby.” I glanced down at my watch wondering when Richards would go so I could tell Nat about him.

  “So, you’re a doctor?” I asked, forging ahead with polite conversation.

  “That’s right.”

  “What’s your specialty?”

  Richards paused. He’d probably been asked the same question about a thousand times. “Making people feel better,” he said confidently and smiled.

  Touche. I shrugged off the vagueness of his reply, chalking it up to someone who just didn’t want to discuss their job. I’d been there before, when I worked in finance and everyone and their brother would ask me tax questions. Likewise, I’m sure being a doctor isn’t a bed of roses, people always asking for advice about their ailments, rolling up their pant legs to show you some rash that wouldn’t ordinarily see the light of day.

  I showed Richards the galley and let him poke around in the suites and the engine room. The boat had been well-maintained and was immaculate. There was nothing I could say to detract from its appeal, but I didn’t foresee any issue with selling to someone else if Richards took a pass.

  Satisfied with his look around, we exited the aft cabin to the stern deck and, from the corner of my eye, I witnessed the inevitable. The feet of my inappropriately-heeled companion spontaneously splayed in opposite directions, though to his credit, he was quick to rescue himself from what would have surely been a fatal blow, if only to his manhood. I pretended not to notice, surprised with my self-restraint, but I knew I’d laugh about it later and I clicked the lock on the boat.

  When Richards stepped up to the dock, he extended his hand to me, which I was loathe to, though I did accept. Men generally like to feel as though they’re being chivalrous, and who was I to deny him. As he and I walked under his umbrella to his car, he said he’d think about the boat and would let me know soon. I was not optimistic; I’d heard those words many times in my eighteen months at the brokerage.

  However, I had another fun customer experience fresh in my mind and I was so ready to give Nat the play by play that I thought I’d burst. I slipped into Aggie’s, picked up two freshly-brewed mediums, and headed over to see my friend with the wonky knee. Once aboard the Splendored Thing, I banged on the stern door of the salon, then on the port side door of the pilot house. I cupped my hand at the windows to try to look in, though my efforts were stymied by the curtains Nat had put up to keep out of sight of looky-loos like me.

  “Peeping?” came a voice on the dock.

  It was our rookie marina manager who called himself an operations manager, and I’d expect he’d appoint himself VP of the marina or Supreme Marina Emperor within a week. At any rate, there he stood, in the drizzle. It surprised me only because he didn’t look the type to see the practicality in doing anything in the rain he didn’t have to.

  As I looked at him closely for the first time, I thought that if he wasn’t so darned snarky, he’d be alright to look at. Tallish with light brown hair combed back and with a pristine part on the right side. Even with the rain falling, it was hard to miss the startling blue eyes that punctuated his tanned complexion. The lines on his forehead led me to think he was close to forty if not a little over. He had a cleft chin and he reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t think who at that moment.

  “No, I’m not peeping, I’m just looking for my friend.” I banged on the door again, demonstrating my knocking technique as if I were giving a lesson on the subject.

  “Well, I don’t think he’s in. Didn’t you see enough of him yesterday and then last night on your evening stroll?”

  I’m sure I screwed up my expression when I looked toward the irritant on the dock, and then I felt myself arch an eyebrow. “Why don’t you stop spying on people and go buy some plastic dishes you can’t break?” I said, recalling the man’s
misadventures in moving the day before. For some reason, I immediately regretted my words. Sometimes, even I am surprised by what comes out of my mouth.

  “Anyway, I haven’t seen him today. Old guy, right?”

  Old guy? I took back the regret, squinted back at the newbie, and wondered what it would take to get him relocated like his predecessor, but I didn’t think I could stomach having an affair with the man, even for the greater good of my neighbours. “Old is a relative term and a state of mind, Bugsy.” I smiled back, happy to have finally had a chance to use the new handle I’d picked out for him.

  “The name is Beedle. Not Bugsy.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said and saluted the man. I looked down at the one too many coffee cups on the cardboard tray I held and thought the friendly thing to do would be to offer one to him. But I wasn’t in a friendly mood, at least not in the present company. So, I left Nat’s boat without another word to Bugsy and walked over to Johnny Fleet’s bait stand and offered my extra coffee to him.

  “You see Nat today, Johnny?” I asked, handing him the drink I’d been toting around.

  “Nope. Jeez, thanks, I could use this.” He smiled back at me like the coffee I’d just handed him was a winning lottery ticket.

  Johnny and I shot the breeze for a bit and I walked away a little puzzled and determined to check in on Nat later. Sipping my coffee on my stroll in the rain that sprinkled on my bare legs made me feel warm and cold at the same time, and when a drop of rain sneaked down the back of my raincoat, I shuddered.

  ✽✽✽

  I stopped in at my office to find an email from Dr. Stephen Richards – he has the kind of name that doesn't sound complete unless it's said in its entirety - thanking me for showing him the boat earlier and letting me know he was interested in putting in an offer, subject to a sea trial. He informed me that he had some time off and suggested we discuss “next steps” over lunch or dinner in the next day or two. He also asked if I would apprise him of the closest available date I could do so.