by Jen Malone
She hesitates before finally making her way down the stairs, calling, “I’m only a few feet away if you two need anything.”
Her words are innocent, but the way she stresses “a few feet away” is not. Ha! For someone who didn’t even seem to consider the possibility of a Jonah-Cass hookup this morning, she’s sure making a point to let me know she’s nearby now.
“Interesting,” Jonah says.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“The way your mom’s mind works,” Jonah replies, grinning.
Oh god. He picked up on her innuendo too. I try to hide my mortification, rolling my eyes and saying, “Yeah, she’s a gem all right.”
He just laughs. “Seriously though, you sure you don’t want to crash too?”
“Nope. Wide awake,” I answer, discrediting my words with a giant yawn.
It’s contagious, and Jonah’s mouth opens so wide I glimpse a few fillings in his molar teeth. He catches me staring and I turn away, pretending to study the sea. It’s definitely much calmer, but I’m still eager for the sun to come up and eliminate the creep factor of not being able to see what’s out there in the inky darkness. Gimme a little horizon, please and thank you.
As if sensing my thoughts, Jonah says, “I promise I’m not trying to give you a hard time, but you do know those waves last night were no big deal, right, Sprite? I get the feeling your mom knew too—she seemed pretty composed moving around the deck.”
She did actually. Could I have been imagining her tense expressions earlier in the evening?
“Yeah, well, they were a pretty big deal to me,” I reply, turning my head to look at him.
The corners of his mouth twitch as he obviously fights a smile. “Fair enough.”
We’re quiet with our own thoughts for a long time after that, and although the sky gradually lightens, when it does a fog creeps in and envelops our boat in white wisps. A long, low trumpet sound rumbles across the water, followed a second later by two shorter, crisper blasts. Jonah sits up straighter.
“Figured that was coming,” he says.
“Was that a foghorn?” I ask.
“Yup. Christian has an electric one on Bytes. I would have held off until it got soupier out here, but if he’s starting his, we might as well. Since you missed your chance to sleep, mind if I ask for some help?”
I hope he’s gotten the correct impression over the last several hours, that I know zero things about sailing. I shrug. “Sure. What do you need?”
“First it would be great if you could warn your mom that we’re about to intrude on her sleep every two minutes until the sun burns this off.”
For all her “I’m only a few feet away” bravado, my mom is so dead to the world she’s barely coherent as I deliver the news. When I come back above, the air seems even thicker and the damp tendrils invade my nostrils and my throat, so that I’m almost suffocating. From the cockpit I can only make out the hazy form of our bow . . . and absolutely nothing beyond it. So much for holding off for soupier—we’re there now.
“Are we in any danger of crashing into rocks or a beach or anything?” I ask, fighting to keep panic from my voice.
Jonah has one hand holding up the lid of the bench I vacated and his head and torso inside, searching for something. He stays bent, but turns his face so his surprised eyes meet mine. “Crashing?”
He emerges with what looks like a fire extinguisher with a megaphone attached to its top and allows the lid to fall closed.
“Well, yeah.” I gesture at the curtain of white surrounding us. “There are peninsulas all along this coast, right? Are we out far enough to avoid them?”
He laughs, then immediately claps a hand over his mouth. “Sorry. Okay, so you really don’t know anything about sailing, huh?”
“Uh, I’m pretty sure I said as much once or twice last night.” I try for attitude in my voice, to cover my embarrassment at having asked an obviously idiotic question.
“I guess I just didn’t realize the level of novice. No worries, Sprite. Sailing isn’t everyone’s bag. The thing it teaches you, though, is that sometimes there are other ways to see than with your eyes.”
“Very New Agey.”
Jonah’s laugh rumbles in his chest and echoes around the fog-enclosed space. “All depends on whether you consider hard science New Agey or not. Here, c’mere.”
He gestures for me to move to the wheel, where he points at a series of electronic screens mounted on a dash above it. Obviously, I’ve noticed them before now, but the lines and random blobs of color they display are such gibberish I never paid close attention.
“The instrumentation here is acting as our eyes right now,” he says. “This one’s a chart plotter that uses GPS to show our course. It’s controlling the autopilot’s steering, and monitors the different depths we’ll cross along the way. So, see? We’re ten miles off the coast with no pesky peninsulas in our path. Rest easy.”
“What’s this one?” I ask, and earn myself a look of approval from Jonah.
“Ha! I knew you were the curious type. I predict the lure of sailing’s gonna grab you by the throat any day now.”
I bite my lip, fighting a smile. “No chance.”
“We’ll see. I like a good challenge. To answer your question though, that’s the radar, which tracks objects around us and, equally important, lets them track us. Look. This blip here is us. And those two over there are Reality Bytes and Tide Drifter. Otherwise, the coast is clear. Or I guess I should say ‘the sea is clear,’ since we can’t actually make out the coast.”
I roll my eyes at his lame joke. “Ba dum bum.”
Jonah grins, and I have to admit that I do feel much better. When he turns back to fiddling with the foghorn, I pause. “If there’s nothing around us, why do we need that?”
He glances at me, clearly considering something. Then he sighs. “Okay, so this really isn’t anything to be alarmed about, but even with the instruments helping, we do need to be alert because not all vessels broadcast radar signals, so the screen can be a little hit or miss.”
I raise my eyebrows and he groans. “Bad choice of words. Sorry. Uh, might as well add that we also cross shipping lanes out here, and by the time we appear on a container ship’s radar, it’s next to impossible for it to change direction fast enough to avoid us. Meaning it’s more on us to steer clear of them versus the other way around. Usually they’re pretty easy to spot, being that they’re gigantic and all, but in fog like this . . .”
Oh, perfect. One more thing to add to my list of worries. Falling overboard, capsizing, rogue waves, shark attacks . . . and now, being mowed down by something the size of an aircraft carrier. Or maybe even an actual aircraft carrier!
My eyes must be wide because Jonah touches my arm lightly. “Don’t worry, I’ve been at this a very long time. We’re fine.”
When I nod, he says, “Okay, need you on lookout, Sprite.”
I settle halfway between the bow and the stern with my back propped up by the mast, and stare into the wall of fog off the starboard side. Still standing at the wheel, Jonah raises the horn and sounds one long blast, followed by two short ones. They make my eardrums weep, but I’m willing to accept a little hearing loss to avoid being chopped into pieces by a tanker’s giant propeller. It deserves pointing out that no one in Pleasant Hill was ever obliterated by a container ship while biking to school.
When the ringing in my ears stops, I turn my head slightly in Jonah’s direction, keeping my eyes trained on the hints of water I can make out through the mist.
“You said you’ve been doing this a long time?” I ask.
“Forever.”
“Oh really, Father Time? You hide your age well, then.”
“Is that your super-crafty way of asking how old I am?”
When I steal a quick peek, the corners of his lips are doing that twitchy thing again. Damn. Busted.
“Maybe,” I answer, glancing away and pretending I’m not totally curious.
“I�
��m twenty. How about you?”
“Eighteen in November.”
“Hmm.”
Hmm? What does “hmm” mean?
When he doesn’t elaborate, I ask, “How many of those twenty years have you been sailing?”
“All of them.”
I laugh. “Well, you probably weren’t tying any clove hitch knots as an infant.”
“If you believe my dad, I was. Also, I’m very impressed you know what a clove hitch knot is.”
“Oh. I don’t, exactly. Drew’s been practicing all the different types over and over, and I guess I retained the name somehow.”
He bends closer to the screens, scribbling something on a piece of paper as he says, “You’re funny. Ignorance is bliss? You don’t think learning to sail yourself might make the trip more memorable?”
I snort. “The only thing I want to remember about this trip is how fast it was over.”
He jerks his head up to look at me. “Ah. Okay, then. Care to share?”
My smile is tight and I stare hard at the fog. The last thing I want is to drag a stranger into my drama. “It’s kind of complicated. Maybe some other time?”
I feel his eyes linger on me for another few beats, and then he issues a casual, “Yeah, sure.”
I steer us to a safer topic. “You were saying about your dad?”
Now it’s Jonah’s turn to snort. “Speaking of complicated . . .” He trails off, then adds, “Although he did teach me to sail, so I have to give him credit there. I have no early memories that don’t involve a boat.”
“Did you live on one, like Grace and Abigail?” I ask.
He holds up a hand to pause us for a second while he squeezes the horn: one long, two short. It does not get any easier on the ears with repeat performances. In the distance, another boat sounds its own call, then another does. Our little caravan, all accounted for.
When the echo dissolves, Jonah answers, “Nah, nothing like that. I grew up on Nob Hill. But my dad kept a racing yacht at our weekend place in Sausalito, and he took me out on the water all the time.”
Nob Hill? Racing yacht? Weekend place? I flash back on his fancy watch. Now it’s my turn to say “Hmm.”
He slides his eyes to me but doesn’t comment.
When he stays quiet, I ask, “So what’s San Francisco like?”
“Wait, are you saying you’ve never been?”
When I shake my head, he leans forward, and even a good ten feet away and with very little sun penetrating the mist, I can tell his eyes are lit up. “You have to let me show you around when we dock there. I love watching people experience my city for the first time.”
“Oh . . . um . . . sure, okay.”
His grin is self-satisfied, like he’s just scored a point, and I duck my head to hide my own smirk. I don’t think so, buddy. I’m not that easily won over.
I pretend to be so consumed by my lookout duties that I don’t notice him moving along the deck, stepping over ropes, until he’s just opposite me. He sits without comment, settling his back against the other side of the mast.
“Needed someone keeping an eye off the port side,” he says casually.
“Cool,” I mumble, before clearing my throat. “So I was asking what San Francisco is like. . . .”
Jonah answers quickly. “Water, water, everywhere.”
I groan. “No, not what this is like.”
“Ha! Not quite like this.” He turns his torso so he’s halfway facing me, our shoulders nearly touching. “The city’s built on hills, meaning most everywhere you go, you’re gonna at least catch glimpses down to the bay. You get so used to being near the water that after a while, it becomes part of you. I seriously don’t know how I let my dad talk me into Cornell. Can’t knock an Ivy League education, but being landlocked in the middle of New York State was probably the thing I hated most about college. Well, that and the crap-tons of snow.”
“Hated. Past tense. Mom mentioned something about you leaving school.”
He lowers his head and coughs. “Yeah, well. I was supposed to be on a plane back to campus yesterday, to work with my advisor on an independent study, so . . . I guess it’s done now.”
I mutter a quiet, “Wow.”
“Yup. Wow.”
“Are you dropping out for good?”
His voice retains its usual confidence. “I only deferred, for now. Even if I do end up withdrawing, I can take a few semesters as a leave of absence before I’d have to reapply. And I get to keep the credits I already earned, so . . .”
“Right. That’s cool.”
As someone who’s counting the days until college, I’m not sure I can relate to anyone wanting to leave it behind, but I do fully support the practice of free will. Especially since it’s been denied to me so much lately.
“So what’s your plan in the meantime?” I ask.
“Not sure. I’m gonna hang around Mexico for a bit to try to figure that out. I’ve been on kind of a predetermined path since around, oh, say, birth and it, uh, it was time for a detour and some reassessing.”
I open my mouth to ask a follow-up question, but Jonah picks just then to sound the foghorn. He stands and crosses to the instrument panel. When he returns a few minutes later, he doesn’t seem all that eager to resume our conversation.
We’re both quiet, other than Jonah continuing to blare the horn every two minutes. Eventually, to keep from nodding off—because holy hell am I tired, and being wrapped in a blanket of fog is not helping matters—I bring my knees under my chin and turn to face him. “What is it you like so much about sailing?”
He thinks it over for a second, and then he answers, “I don’t know who to attribute this to, but some poet once said, ‘the sea makes a man suspect he’s homeless and has no roof but dreams,’ and something about that’s always resonated with me.”
Okay, seriously? First he’s all over-the-top flirty and now he’s quoting poetry. Epic eye roll.
I would never say anything that rude to his face, but he must see something in my expression, because his eyes get wide and he shakes his head. “Wait. No. I swear I’m not that guy.”
I raise my eyebrows. “That guy?”
“You know,” he says. “The pretentious private school brat who wears a sweater knotted around his neck and snaps his fingers at waiters or checks out your best friend’s ass while his arm’s around your shoulder.”
My eyebrows remain up.
“Look! I can’t even snap.” He holds out his hand and demonstrates. His thumb slips noiselessly across his middle finger. “Honestly. It’s like a weird defect of mine. And I own exactly one sweater, which has never had its sleeves tied together.”
“What about the best friend’s ass?” I ask, earning a laugh and an appreciative look from him.
“Okay, I wasn’t going to go there, but since you did . . . I’m more of a leg guy, if you must know.” He gives me a wicked grin.
“Oh, I’ll bet you are.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, all wide-eyed and innocent.
“Nothing. I’m just guessing you do okay with the ladies.”
He looks scandalized, but the hint of laughter in his eyes betrays him. “I take offense to that characterization, I’ll have you know.”
“Mmm-hmm,” I answer.
He bops me playfully on the head as he stands to check the instruments once more before returning to sit beside me.
“Okay,” I say, once he’s settled. “Let’s go with your insistence that you’re not that guy. What’s with the poetry quoting, then?”
“I don’t like to admit it,” he says, with an exaggerated sigh, “but it’s possible there’s a note of truth in the private school brat thing.”
“Um, I believe you said pretentious private school brat.”
He smiles his appreciation again. “Way to call me on my crap, Sprite. I knew there was something I liked about you.”
I will myself not to blush, instead giving him a “what can I say” shrug that
makes him laugh.
“Well, if I am, I don’t mean to be,” he says. “I can’t exactly unlearn all the knowledge that was imparted to me, can I?”
“Well, you probably could refrain from trotting it out to impress the girls.”
He makes a show of looking around. “Wait, there’s more than one girl here?”
When I just shake my head in exasperated amusement, he asks, “Does that mean it’s not working?”
I roll my eyes. “Do you have an answer to my question about the ocean that doesn’t involve unknown poets?”
He smirks. “Do you have an answer to my question about whether I’m making an impression on you?”
I level him with a look, and he laughs. “Okay, you want a genuine, heartfelt answer, I get it. If I tell you what I love about the sea, in my own words, would that be satisfactory?”
I feign indifference. “For starters.”
He smiles, then gestures out to the expanse of water beyond the wall of fog. “I love how small and insignificant I feel out here.”
“That’s a good thing?” I’m stunned. “That’s what’s most terrifying to me, being all vulnerable and, like, completely at the whim of this crazy, uncontrollable, massive ocean.”
He nods. “Yeah, I get that it could feel that way. But it’s a matter of perspective, I think. I look at it as more of a big-picture thing. If I’m just this teeny tiny dot on the sea, it makes my problems seem kind of ridiculous in the grand scope. Know what I mean? Sailing sort of . . . lets me get out of my own way.”
He makes some sense, I guess.
But what if the person responsible for all your problems is with you at sea?
What then?
I try to fight a yawn, but Jonah catches me. “You look like you’re about to fall asleep sitting up. You ready to call it a night?”
I hesitate, but my lids are reaching the point where I’ll need toothpicks to prop them open soon. As much as I like talking to Jonah, I have to give in to my exhaustion.
“Would you mind? I’m really sorry, but my eyeballs are stinging.”