“The best part is through that door,” he said with a proud grin.
There was a wood veneer door on the side—the super-shiny and extra-swirly wood she had never seen outside of a car dashboard. The door slid back into a groove in the wall, revealing a not-huge bathroom, but still one much larger than a boat bathroom was ever likely to be. It had two sinks, with gleaming brass fixtures that emptied into perfectly scooped-out basins. There was a wall-length mirror surrounded by round bulbs, dressing-room style—so bright that it caused Clio to step back in alarm as her reflection blasted at her. On the wall there was a panel of controls—fans, a dimmer, volume control for an unseen sound system. The gleaming, ladder-like heated towel rack was large enough to accommodate the thickest towels available. The centerpiece of the bathroom was a bean-shaped tub with a dozen or two gold jets around its side and base. It was large enough for two people and encased in folding glass panels. There was a slight bulge on the side, presumably to give visitors a place to sit or a place to set the wine bucket. A gold-colored, wide-mouthed showerhead extended straight down from the ceiling, like some heavenly trumpet poking into the scene to announce that this…this was the bathroom spoken of in the beginning, and yea, it was good.
“This is for me?” she asked. “This room?”
“I know you came a long way to see me,” he said. “I know what you think. I wanted you to be happy.”
This was just weird. It was a nice thought, being given the nicest room on the boat and the shiniest of shiny boat bathrooms. But it was still a boat far, far from home, a boat that he could never have afforded. Clio felt her head get fuzzy and unfocused. It had been a very long day—her night had disappeared sometime during the flight and the time changes. And there was no phone or computer in this room.
“What do you think of the Butterfly?” he asked. “She’s named after you, after all.”
“What?”
“Clio,” he said authoritatively, “is the name of a family of sea butterflies. Sea butterflies are beautiful, colorful creatures.”
“I thought I was a muse,” she said. “The history muse.”
“You’re also a sea butterfly.”
“Which is what?” she asked.
He bounced at the knees a little and looked a little frustrated. She knew she wasn’t giving him what he wanted—daughterly praise about his toy—and it was starting to irritate him. That’s what he had expected. She could see it clearly. He had thought that the second she saw his yacht, everything would be good between them.
But Clio wasn’t biting. She walked over and sat on the bed, bouncing on it a few times. Like the carpet, it was sproingy in an expensive way.
“I’m kind of tired,” she said. “And how do I call home? Where’s the computer? Aidan had one. Is there another?”
Now he looked annoyed. He walked around the edge of the room, touching the tiny round light fixtures in the ceiling.
“We need to get stuff on board,” he said. “I’ll get you a phone. We need to talk anyway. Get yourself settled and meet me on the dock in twenty minutes. I’ll bring over your suitcase.”
When he was gone, Clio flopped backward, letting the deep down comforter envelop her. She closed her eyes. Her eyelids ached for some reason. This bed was nice, and if she just kept her eyes closed, she would fall into a deep sleep and none of this would bother her.
She forced her eyes open and pulled herself up off the bed, out of the door, and back down the narrow stairs. There was a lot of activity on the back deck, with things being passed up. She retrieved her suitcase from the thick carpet of the living room and dragged it along. The spiral staircase was really only wide enough to allow one person, and not even that large a person, to pass. It was also quite steep. She had to prop her bag in front of her, hoisting it step by step, adjusting it each time the stairs turned. After a few steps, she realized she couldn’t let go of the bag for a moment or it would fall on her.
Five minutes later, she was still only halfway up and swearing not so lightly under her breath, when she had the feeling that someone was watching her.
Aidan was leaning in the galley doorway, holding a large plastic file box.
“You seem to be having a little trouble,” he said, not making much of an effort to conceal a smile. Once again, she was struck by his bright eyes.
“No,” she said. “It’s going really well.”
“Want a hand?”
“I can manage it.”
“Your dad asked me to tell you you’re supposed to meet him outside.”
“Can you tell him I’m trapped?”
“So, it’s not going well?” he said. “That’s weird, because you seemed to have this under control. But I can understand if you’re not used to carrying your own bags.”
“I…” Another push. Unsuccessful. “…am used…to carrying my own stuff.”
“Obviously. You know, it might help if you turned it the other way. But I’m just saying…”
Clio looked at the position of the bag. He was right. If she could wriggle it loose and flip it, it would move. It was simple and obvious. So simple and obvious that she couldn’t just flip it in front of him and give him the satisfaction.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Great,” she said. “Just taking a breather.”
“Me too. It was a long walk from the deck.”
He knew what she was up to, and he was waiting and watching.
“So,” he said. “Boats, huh? You must like boats.”
“Not really,” she said.
“But you made a boat game. Have you guys owned this boat for a while? Nice boat. Very fancy.”
“It’s new,” Clio said, her annoyance coming through. “Very new.”
“Is this bigger or smaller than your last boat?”
Clio could take it no more. She flipped the bag. His smile grew broader.
It took her several more minutes to get the suitcase up and, with one final shove, to throw it into the vestibule in front of the door. Clio let her suitcase drop onto the thickly carpeted floor. It barely made a noise.
When she got back on deck, Aidan was picking up a computer monitor that must have just come off the raft. There were a few computer bits there—a plastic box full of wires and connectors, a silver case that looked like it contained equipment of some kind. Martin was on the floating platform, passing scuba gear to Julia. There was a lot more than they would need for a few casual dives.
“So,” she said to Aidan, “what exactly is all of this for?”
He tottered a bit as he tried to manage both the monitor and the box.
“Don’t ask me,” he said. “I’m just the help.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Julia and Martin looking at her, then turning back to the tanks and bags. There was a stiffness in Martin’s jaw and a fixed expression on Julia’s bony face. Martin was normally a talkative guy, so this silence was odd.
Her dad was coming up on the raft with Elsa and her bags.
“Come on,” he called to Clio as he pulled up. “Get in. Let’s go up to town.”
Clio stopped to help Elsa up into the boat. Martin picked up her white bag and hoisted it over the back wall. Clio stepped down into the raft. It was a lot harder to get into than to get out of. It was squishy and it kept bumping away from the boat, plus there was nothing to hold on to. Her dad didn’t seem to notice that she almost tumbled right over the side as she stepped in. It was Martin who reached over and steadied her.
“We’re going to a phone?” she asked.
“Sure,” her dad said, keeping his eye on the dock. “And we’ll get a gelato. There’s a great place up there.”
He said this a bit more loudly than was necessary. It sounded like it was for someone’s benefit.
“Dad,” she said as they puttered away from the Sea Butterfly. “What is this?”
“Let’s go up to town,” he said again. “We’ll get an ice cream, and we’ll have a little chat.”
The
re was only one little chat Clio wanted to have at this point, and it wasn’t with her dad over ice cream. She had to be careful when she reached Ollie. She couldn’t let her desperation make her sound crazy.
Then a new, positive thought came into her mind as she gripped the side of the raft. Maybe this little break in their as-yet-not-existent relationship had helped her. Maybe she had pushed it forward faster by making Ollie miss her. Maybe he was missing her right now. Distance was supposed to make the heart grow fonder—not that there was a lot you could do once this happpened. Because distance also makes it impossible to see the person you like.
Clio shook her head hard and looked up at the cliff. Too many thoughts bouncing around in her head. Now she just had to concentrate and get up the cliff, without (if it was possible) wanting to push her dad off it.
Just one thing at a time.
The Sea Rules
The town was definitely up. To get there, Clio and her father had to take an endless set of pedestrian steps cut into the stone. The climb was fairly serious and took their breath away. This worked well, as it prevented them from having much of a conversation until they reached the top.
They emerged on a busy square that fed into the main street. Every shop was open and bright. Clio scanned the signs for any that advertised computer access, but none did. This street was about shopping and eating, not getting in touch with would-be boyfriends over e-mail. She started to panic.
Just a few paces into the road, her dad stopped in front of a slender storefront with a large sculpture of an ice cream cone in front of it. The front of the store was open, revealing a long case full of astonishing colors.
“They have hundreds of flavors,” he said. “Best in town.”
He was smiling and still trying to impress, but his demeanor had gotten a little distant. Whatever this talk was going to be about, he thought ice cream would buffer the impact. Her father would never get that she wasn’t little anymore and that ice cream wouldn’t fix everything. Not that it had worked then either.
Still, Clio couldn’t help but be entranced by the variety. She had a weakness for brightly colored desserts and exotic flavors. She surveyed the offerings for five minutes until deciding to go for a cone full of jasmine gelato, just because it sounded fragrant and strange. Her father annoyed the busy woman behind the counter for a few moments by insisting that she surprise him. She either didn’t understand the English or she didn’t want some idiot tourist to make her pick something only to have him say he didn’t like it. Or she just had better things to do than choose other people’s flavors for them. He persisted in his loud, cheerful way. He often thought that other people were having fun with him even though they clearly were not.
Clio decided to take matters into her own hands.
“This one,” she said, stepping forward and pointing to the metal tray that contained a light yellow ice cream with a picture of a bee on the sign. “He’ll have a medium. In a cone.”
The woman looked grateful.
“What is that?” he asked as he accepted his ice cream. “Honey?”
“Do you even care?” Clio asked. “You asked her to pick it for you.”
“No,” he said. “I guess not. Let’s walk and talk. There are some things you need to know.”
“Is this the quiet moment you’ve chosen to tell me about this Julia person?” Clio asked. It was easier to do this on her terms instead of waiting for him to get around to it, building up to it with a long, heart-stoppingly awkward conversation about how adults sometimes had feelings about other adults. She had absolutely no doubt in her mind that he would present this as if she were twelve.
He stopped and gazed at her. He looked strangely young in the warm light of the street with his curly hair, his little hat, and his ice cream cone. It was disquieting.
“How did you know?” he asked. “Why am I even asking? You always know things.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I have magical powers.”
“Is there something wrong with your ear?”
Clio removed her hand, which she had automatically clapped over her ear again.
“I know this is weird for you,” he said. “If it bothers you, you know you can come and talk to me about it.”
He definitely didn’t sound like he wanted to talk about it. The words came out stiffly, like they were being read off a page by an inexperienced actor.
“What’s there to talk about?” Clio said. “You’re allowed. You don’t live with us anymore. You left. It’s all legal. You can do what you want.”
“Clio, I don’t know if your mother is—”
“And I’m not going to tell you,” Clio cut him off. “It’s fine. I just don’t want to know the gory details of your dating life, okay? Is that too much to ask?”
Instead of laying into a complicated defense of ear love, her father simply nodded. They walked a few paces in silence. He reached into his pocket and produced a small, clip-on orange walkie-talkie. He passed this to her, then continued walking.
“This is your com,” he said. “Everyone on board will carry one, and everyone has a number. You’re number five. Always identify yourself by your number. There’s a number list on the back.”
Clio flipped the com over. There, stuck to the back, was a small sticker with the following list printed in an extremely tiny font:
Ben Ford: 1
Martin Young: 2
Julia Woodward: 3
Aidan Cross: 4
Clio Ford: 5
Elsa Åkerlund-Woodward: 6
“What are we doing that we need these?” she asked.
They parted temporarily to let a bicycle pass between them.
“Some archeological work,” he said.
“So why the spooky secret-secret?” she asked.
“It’s just a precaution,” he said.
“A precaution against what?”
“Clio, all I’m asking you to do is take a com, use a number, and not to give out too much personal information. We have a nice boat with expensive things on it. That’s all. This is a perfectly common safety procedure.”
Clio seriously doubted this. Her dad always had to take things just the one step too far, to make a game out of everything.
“So why can’t I just say, ‘This is Clio, and I see a giant squid attacking the boat. Come quickly.’ What’s wrong with that? What’s with the number? Do you just want to be called Number One, like they used to do on Star Trek?”
“The numbers are easier to understand.”
“Not if I have to flip it over and see who Number Four is,” she said.
“You’ll learn the numbers.”
“But why?” she said. “That’s my question. I can’t walk around all summer calling myself Number Five. ‘Number Five got some sunburn today.’ ‘Number Five really liked that book you gave her.’ It’s stupid.”
“Clio,” he said, clearly running out of patience, “just follow the rules of the boat. Now, second thing you need to know. Your job. You are the official chef.”
“The what?”
“You love to cook,” he said.
“No, I don’t,” she said. “I’m the queen of takeout.”
Her father turned on his heel and started back in the same direction that they’d just come.
“You’re good at it,” he said. “You always were. Remember that soup you always used to make, the one with the little meatballs? That was great! And the cooking class in Japan?”
“Just because I can do it doesn’t mean I like to do it,” she said. “I haven’t made the meatball soup since I was ten. And the cooking class was one day. I learned how to cut a little faster. That’s all.”
“Everybody has to do something. Running the boat, setting the course, running the equipment…someone has to do it all. The galley is your domain. I’m giving that completely to you.”
“What’s Elsa’s job?” she asked.
“Elsa is our translator.”
“What is she going to translate?
” she asked. “We all speak English.”
“Look,” he said. “Elsa is not my daughter. I can’t tell her what to do.”
“This is your way of telling me that Elsa has no job,” said Clio. “Isn’t it?”
“One last thing,” he said. “I realize that you’re…that age. And that you’re going to be in close quarters with…a guy. But I just need you to know, that can’t happen, okay?”
“I guess those rules don’t apply to you, huh?” she said.
“That’s different,” he mumbled. “Clio, we’re adults, and—”
“Did it ever occur to you that maybe I already have someone?” Clio went on. “And maybe I had to leave him behind to come out to this pirate-dance camp or whatever it is we’re doing on the boat? Did you ever think of that?”
“Do you?” he fumbled. “I mean, your mother didn’t say.”
“Did you ask?”
“I figured she would mention—”
“No. Did you ask me? Have you shown any interest in what was going on in my life when you dragged me away from home? Do you even know who I am anymore?”
“Well,” he said. “Were you…seeing someone?”
“Whatever,” Clio said, having no idea how to answer the question. “I mean, if I’m lucky, he’ll still be there when I get back. But that’s not the point.”
This seemed to satisfy her father. The conversational arrow had whizzed by his head. The actual point had missed him entirely. As usual.
“Of course he will!” he said. “You just need to know, this is not a party cruise. This is a working vacation. You have to take it seriously. You have a job. So, no drinking, no fooling around. And the bedrooms are off-limits. You don’t go into Aidan’s room, and he doesn’t come up to yours. That’s the bottom line.”
“Whatever you say,” she said. “I’ll make sure to report myself if I’m ever having a good time. And I guess all the other usual things are out—dancing, playing cards, wearing red, smiling.”
Girl at Sea Page 6