by Jen Malone
As far as I’m concerned, we can sail straight through to Mexico with only a couple of quick stops to replenish gas/water/food, but Mom looks nervous as she hangs up the radio. She returns upstairs without a word.
The forecast is still concerning when Christian radios again a few hours later.
“I guess I have to defer to your expertise here. But I’m—” Mom pauses and steals a glance at me. I’m pretending to play solitaire at the table, but obviously eavesdropping. She turns her back and cups her hand over the radio transmitter as she speaks in a lowered voice. Her words still echo clearly through the cabin. “I’m just not thrilled about sailing through Gale Alley at night. Over.”
Gale Alley? What the hell is Gale Alley?
Christian’s voice is calm as he replies. “Copy that. We need to make the call now though. Hunters Cove is too exposed to the open sea, which means once we pass Port Orford, we’re committed to staying the course until we reach Crescent City. Over.”
Mom is still turned away from me, so I can’t see her face, but the way she tugs a hand through her hair is a tell. She wants to stop. Instead she says, “Let’s aim for Crescent City, then. I trust your judgment. Over and out.”
Once again she climbs the steps without a glance in my direction, but I swear I can feel tension coming off her in waves.
I have my computer fired up when Drew bounds down a minute later. “Did you hear? Night sailing! Pulling an all-nighter. Effing A, huh?”
“Uh, did you hear the Gale Alley part? I just Googled it, and check this out: ‘The area stretching three hundred nautical miles between Cape Blanco and San Francisco has the most consistent big waves of any area on the West Coast, and high sustained winds, earning it the nickname “Gale Alley.” Winds build quickly and create steep breaking waves.’”
I don’t read him the next part, which talks about the one to two sailboats per year typically lost in storms along this stretch. I wish I could unsee that myself. At home when there’s bad weather, you close the windows or grab an umbrella. You complain about how frizzy your hair gets. But out at sea, it’s life or death. And not just life or death. My life or my death. Or Drew’s. I can’t believe my mother would put us in this position.
I climb the steps and confront her. “Are you sure about this? Because I just went online and Gale Alley sounds pretty freaking terrifying.”
Mom schools her face into a smile, but I’m sure I’m seeing strain in the corners of her lips. “Oh, honey. You can’t believe everything you read on the internet.”
“So it’s not true that one or two sailboats are lost every year? What if we’re the statistic for this season?”
She relaxes. “Sweetheart, that’s in a storm. We’re adjusting our schedule so we can avoid sailing in a weather system or any of its aftermath. It will be totally fine.”
I’m not so sure. I peer over her shoulder at whitecaps that suddenly look more menacing than they did when I was up here a few hours ago. The water isn’t deep green anymore. It’s blue-gray and steely. Is it my imagination or do the swells look bigger too?
A hard pit forms in my stomach. I learned the tough way that getting broadsided by the bad stuff is terrifying, but getting hints that something’s coming is its own kind of scary.
In the distance is the faint outline of Tide Drifter, and somewhere behind that is Reality Bytes, but otherwise it’s only open water in three directions and a far-off, fuzzy, and barren coastline in the other.
We’re all alone out here. Tiny and vulnerable. Which is exactly how I feel right now. This time last year I was safe in Pleasant Hill, spending my summer afternoons at the pool or scooping Rocky Road, secure in the knowledge that my parents were in love. And it was perfect. Really perfect.
I get—I honestly do get—how relatively nontragic this divorce stuff could all sound. Believe me, I do. I know there are kids out there with way worse problems. Way, way worse.
It’s just that when you have something special one day and then it’s taken away the next, it’s a tragedy whether it fits the criteria for others or not.
And now I could legitimately die out here.
13
As darkness falls, the winds pick up and whistle ominously, even over the hum of the motor, which we’re using because it’s too intense out here for the sails. Even after I shut all the hatches, I can still hear the gusts calling, “You’re not safe, you’re not safe.”
Conditions seem to be worsening by the hour, despite Mom’s hollow-sounding reassurances that these are regular Southern Oregon seas, and the breaking waves and wind have nothing to do with Christian’s storm forecast.
She and Drew have worked out shifts for the night, so one can steer while the other naps. Or, in Mom’s case, dozes in five-minute spurts on the bench in the cockpit, since she can’t exactly leave someone who learned to sail two weeks ago in charge. The boat’s autopilot is set, but in weather like this, someone needs to be standing by, alert.
It wouldn’t make any sense for me to offer to help with the sailing tasks for the first time ever in these seas, but I want to contribute. I won’t admit this out loud, but Mom and Drew have this whole “we’re gonna get through this night together” camaraderie thing going on and I need to be part of it because otherwise I will go out of my mind.
Without prompting, I make soup and grilled cheese for everyone for dinner, fill the coffeemaker, and prepare plenty of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, so whoever’s on duty can eat easily while keeping a hand on the wheel. I drink plenty of the coffee myself, so I can stay awake. I may not be able to sail, but I can follow simple instructions and fetch things. And I can provide moral support. That I can do.
If Mom’s surprised at my sudden willing participation, she doesn’t make a big deal about it, which is a relief.
I also offer Drew my berth to catch a nap, so he’ll be rested enough to take over for Mom. It takes about thirty seconds before he’s snoring loud enough to drown out some of the wind. I set up camp in the cabin, keeping one ear out for the radio and another out for any calls for help from Mom above. I fervently wish I’d never watched A Perfect Storm.
I send a quick group text to Jess and Tara. If I die tonight, you can have my Toledo Sunrise concert tee to share.
Neither answers, which means they’re probably at the movie theater where Jess works. It’s a Monday night, which is when the employees get a sneak peek at a film set to open that weekend. If I were with them, which I would be, I’d be trying to make my Raisinets last through the opening credits and turning around to glare at Jess’s coworker Brad, who finds it highly amusing to try to land popcorn down the girls’ shirts.
I would gladly endure a thousand kernels in my bra right now, if it meant being there instead of here. Even the Zen art of bonsai cultivation is not doing anything to lower my stress levels.
Abigail has been saying hi by radio now and again, and it sounds like a party in their cabin every time she does. I know they’re way more used to life at sea, but doesn’t anything rattle them? I expect Abby again, but when the radio crackles to life around midnight, it’s Christian’s voice that sounds loudly.
I grab the transmitter. “Sunny-Side Up, we copy. Over.”
“How’s your evening? Over.”
He sounds relaxed, as if he’s waiting on a corner for a bus.
“We’re hanging in, I guess. But a little freaked out. Over.”
“Freaked out? Over.”
“Yeah. The pitch black, with these winds and the waves and . . . everything. Over.”
“Is your mother sharing these concerns, plantita? Over.”
I went up to refill her coffee before Drew came down to nap, and she was joking around with him, but I noticed her knuckles were white on the steering wheel. I’m positive she’s only putting on a brave face for us. After all, I now know what a master she is at keeping her true nature concealed.
“Yes. Over.”
The radio is quiet for a long time, and I wonder if something’s gone wrong. What
if Reality Bytes was taken out by a rogue wave? Oh god, why didn’t I consider the possibility of rogue waves before? Now I have something new to worry about.
I’m about to go on deck to investigate when his voice returns. “I have a suggestion. Over.”
“Oh, okay. Over.”
Drew peeks out from my room. I mouth “sorry,” because obviously the radio screeching woke him, but he shakes his head and crosses the cabin to stand next to me.
“It seems unbalanced to have two extremely experienced sailors here and three less-experienced ones there. What about swapping Drew and Jonah for the night? Over.”
I nearly laugh that he would term me “less experienced.” How about “no experienced”? Drew snatches the transmitter from my hand, grinning ear to ear. “Yes! How do we make that happen? Over.”
“Drewwwwww,” I hiss.
He’s all innocence. “What? Sounds totally logical.” But he can’t keep the smile off his face. “Oh man, I can’t believe I get to sail a real yacht. Like a giant-ass one!”
The radio crackles, and Beatriz barks in the background. “I doubt your mother would want Drew out in your dinghy, so we’ll pull up alongside and make the transfer. Tell her to hold course and cut the engine. Be there shortly. Over and out.”
Drew begins racing around, stuffing items into his backpack. It’s like he just scored tickets to the Super Bowl or something. He finishes in seconds, and I follow him above to deliver the news.
“Who was on the radio?” Mom asks. “I could hear it squawking, but this stupid wind . . .”
I expected her to welcome the help of a seasoned pro, but after I fill her in on the plan, she frowns and asks, “This was Christian’s suggestion? He thinks I need help?”
Kinda. Sorta. Well, the suggestion was his, anyway. It just may have been prompted by me. But I can’t trust her to be honest with me, so what choice do I have but to take my and Drew’s safety into my own hands?
When I nod, she squints into the dark. “Wow, I thought I was proving myself better than that with my sailing today.”
The wind leaves her sails (and now that I’ve seen that happen in real life, I totally get the metaphor). I feel a little bad. I genuinely thought she was freaked out. It definitely felt like she was tense underneath all her bravado.
We all peer through the darkness as Reality Bytes closes in. Some of the waves are big enough that its cabin lights disappear temporarily at times, but it grows steadily closer until we can make out the yacht’s outline. Soon the indistinct shapes take form to reveal a mast, a hull, and furled sails.
It isn’t until it’s bearing down on us that I give real thought to the logistics of transferring two people between the boats. The only reference point I have is scenes from films where a puffy-sleeved pirate, wearing an excess of guyliner, swings on a braided rope from the mast of his black-sailed ship onto the deck of the innocent sailors’, where he lands effortlessly on two feet. I try to picture my brother wearing a puffy blouse. Nope.
“How are we going to do this?” Mom asks, and adds, “That was a rhetorical question” when both Drew and I shake our heads. Reality Bytes is close enough now that I can identify Jonah at the wheel and Christian tying barrel-shaped objects to the outer side of the railing running along their port side.
“Foam-padded bumpers,” Drew says, interpreting my confused expression. “You use them when at dock, when there isn’t decking between you and the crafts on either side, to keep from scratching each other’s paint jobs.”
How does this kid know so much about sailing already? He’s like a freaking sponge.
“So he’s gonna get close enough for us to bump each other, and then what? You just step across?” I ask.
“Looks that way,” Drew replies.
“I don’t know about this,” Mom says, eyeing the waves slapping our hull. We’re riding them down and up more than left to right at the moment, but every so often one breaks in a different direction and sends our boat tilting to the side. My stomach must really be adjusting to life at sea because it’s hardly been revolting, but it does a flip at the thought of keeping two vessels aligned enough for someone to cross from one deck to the other.
It’s almost a comical proposition, except there’s nothing funny about it, because we’re talking about my baby brother here.
“Hello there!” calls Christian. The wind whips his words past.
“Is this necessary?” Mom shouts back, but he cups his hand to his ear to indicate he hasn’t heard her. We’re almost parallel, but there’s still a good twenty feet of open water between the two boats. Forget comical; this is insanity.
Christian and Jonah trade places. Beatriz stands a ways back from the railing, wagging her tail and wearing a doggy life jacket that’s clipped to a short tether of some sort. Animals are supposed to be good at sensing danger, so maybe the wagging is a good sign. Then again, how could a dog know what we have planned?
They reverse, back across a wave, and approach again. This time they’re much closer, but nowhere near close enough. A third attempt brings them right alongside us.
A wave sends us dipping low, and the railings of the two boats clink loudly, well above the bumpers. I witness Christian’s cringe before a spray of seawater catches me in the face.
Christian tosses a rope onto our boat and instructs Drew, “Use a cleat hitch knot and tie it down to your deck.” Although our engines are off and the sails are down, the boats are still being tossed by the waves, and Mom tries to steer us straight again whenever one turns us to the side. Jonah’s doing the same in his cockpit. I can’t see his face because he’s got the hood pulled up on a yellow rain slicker identical to the one the Gorton’s Fisherman wears on the packages of frozen fish sticks my mom made on nights Dad had faculty dinners. But his wide-legged stance is relaxed, and he’s not even wearing a life jacket. Mom would die if any of us were ever up above without ours, but in this weather? I’d meld mine to my skin if that were an option.
“Okay, Drew, step to the outside of the rails and hang tight. When the next wave rocks you this way, grab on to my hand.”
Ummmmmmmm? I peer at the good six feet of inky-black, angry sea between our boats. He wants Drew on the other side of the railing? The only thing separating us from that ocean?
Mom leans away from the wheel and yells, “Christian, I don’t think—”
But Drew has already followed instructions. One leg is over, then the other. Both arms extend behind him, hands grasping the metal rail, as he leans out over the expanse of the black, ominous water. His face looks a little green in the deck lights, but he’s hesitating a whole lot less than I would be. In fact, I’m not even sure I can watch. Christian has one hand out and a life ring in the other. Not exactly the most soothing of sights.
The boat tilts, and before I can even react, Drew steps off into nothingness.
14
Beatriz barks and my heart jumps to my throat.
Drew’s fingers close over Reality Bytes’ railing, but one hand slips. Christian’s arm shoots out and grabs Drew’s wrist as my brother scrambles to get a foot onto their deck. He dangles from the side of the boat for a second and then his leg is up and over the railing.
Mom thumps a palm against her chest and yells, “You almost gave me a heart attack!”
Drew waves and smiles like he didn’t just do the scariest thing ever. Christian passes the life ring off and switches places with Jonah at the helm as I realize, with a sick feeling, that we have to do it all over again. Well, not we exactly, but . . .
I tense as Jonah approaches the edge, finally buckling a life jacket around his chest before climbing to the outside of the railing. He watches the waves for a minute and then, as a swell dips both boats toward each other, jumps easily from one deck to the next like he’s a cat hopping between couches or something. Grinning at me, he says, “Hey there, Sprite. Mind if I pop over for a bit?”
He confidently unwinds the rope from the cleat, tosses it onto Reality Bytes t
o separate us, and somehow manages to sweet-talk Mom into taking a break below to warm up with some tea.
Then he flashes another easygoing grin at me as he grabs the wheel and expertly steers us over a wave. Christian called Jonah an “extremely experienced sailor” and he clearly wasn’t kidding. I’m so relieved to have someone in charge whose competency I trust that I slump onto the bench and finally allow myself to relax.
“Second star to the right and straight on till morning,” Jonah says, hours later. The autopilot is steering us, and the wind and seas have both calmed considerably. He plops down next to my mother on a bench in the cockpit and puts his elbows behind his head before leaning back and stretching his legs in front of him.
“It already is morning,” my mother replies.
From my perch on the opposite bench, I peer up at the vast expanse of sky, searching for hints of dawn. “What time is it, anyway?”
Jonah pushes up a sleeve to check the fancy-looking watch on his wrist.
“Four forty-three,” he answers. “Almost an hour past when you were supposed to take a sleeping shift, Mrs. McClure.”
“Elise. Remember?” my mother answers drowsily. I can tell she’s exhausted.
“Like I said before, don’t feel like you have to stay up here on my account,” he says. “I’m used to pulling all-nighters and everything’s under control.”
For all Mom’s earlier opinions on Jonah, there’s no way she can say he’s been anything but courteous and respectful. She must feel the same, because she says, “We really appreciate your help, Jonah. I think we’ll take you up on your offer.”
She stands and stretches her fingers to me. “C’mon, Cass, let’s go get a few hours of rest; then I can relieve our intrepid sailor here.”
“That’s okay. I’m good for now,” I answer, ignoring her hand and instead adjusting the balled-up beach towel I’m using as a pillow.
What started out with my wanting to be up here so I could see any bad stuff coming has turned into me being way too lazy to move a muscle. Plus, though I hate to admit it, Jonah has me a tiny bit intrigued. I’m telling myself it’s just the novelty of someone new on our trip, when we’ve had only the same seven faces to stare at for so many days.