Saving Wishes

by GJ Walker-Smith

  ***

  Adam took my coat as I shrugged it off. My eyes darted around the front room, trying to take in as much as I could before the Parisienne appeared.

  The cottage seemed much bigger than it looked from the outside. It was light and airy, with white walls and oak floorboards. Huge windows on the east wall boasted a view of the ocean. The sun cast a pink glow over the room and combined with the warmth of the open fire; I couldn’t help feeling a little more at ease.

  Gabrielle breezed into the room, drying her hands on a tea towel. “Hello.” She smiled. “I’m so glad you could make it, Charli.”

  I wondered if she thought I wouldn’t come. I knocked all prejudices aside, determined to play nice. “Thanks,” I replied, forcing a smile.

  Gabrielle’s demeanour gave nothing away. The only hint of nervousness she showed was the fact that she was still wringing her hands on the tea towel. “I hope you don’t mind eating early. I teach an art class on Thursday nights so I have to leave at eight.”

  “No, it’s fine.” I meant it. I welcomed anything that would make this ordeal shorter. Maybe she did too and that was why she had suggested I come over that particular night. “What sort of art classes do you teach?”

  My intrigue was genuine. I wasn’t surprised that she was artistic – every fibre of her being screamed artfulness.

  “Gabi’s a painter,” Adam announced proudly. It was the first time I’d ever heard him shorten her name. He pointed to a wall of framed paintings. “Those are all hers.”

  Most of the paintings were landscapes. Some were places I recognised; others were places I had only dreamed about. They were undeniably beautiful and I stood staring at them for too long to pretend to be unimpressed.

  “These are amazing,” I exclaimed.

  “Thank you. It’s just a hobby.”

  “You’re very talented.”

  “Thank you,” she repeated, sounding embarrassed. “Please, excuse me for a minute while I check on dinner.”

  I turned my attention back to the paintings. Adam stood behind me. “So what about you?” I murmured, “Are you artistic?” I knew he was perfect, strong and brilliant, but I’d never figured out what made him that way. My photography and my love of the ocean were my bliss. It bothered me that I didn’t know his.

  “Not at all,” he replied at once.

  “So what do you do, Adam? What’s your bliss?”

  “He studies too much, and he reads,” said Gabrielle as she laid dinner plates on the table. “And when he’s not doing that he’s running up the beach or doing some other excruciating form of exercise.”

  “Gabrielle, tais-toi, d’accord?” hissed Adam. I nailed him with my glare, reminding him of our ground rules.

  “You promised,” I whispered.

  Gabrielle giggled. “What did you promise her, Adam?” she asked, concentrating on the table setting.

  “He promised me that you would only speak English tonight.” I kept my eyes fixed firmly on Adam’s, too intimidated by Gabrielle to look at her. “I don’t understand French and I don’t speak French. I am my French teacher’s worst nightmare.”

  Gabrielle took me completely by surprise by laughing. “You have no idea.” She changed the subject tactfully. “I cooked salmon, Charli. I hope you like fish.”

  “It’s my favourite actually,” I replied, completely truthfully.

  “Adam, why don’t you show Charli around?” suggested Gabrielle. We walked down the hallway and he paused at a door, ushering me ahead of him.

  “This is your room?”

  He nodded.

  It looked too lived in to be a guest room. To the left was a wooden desk, roughly painted white in keeping with the rest of Gabrielle’s shabby-chic furniture. It was scattered with heavy textbooks and well-worn novels.

  “So this is what you do with all your spare time?” I asked, thumbing through a thick book.

  “Somewhat,” he replied.

  “You’re on holiday. You study on holiday?”

  “Some of the time.”

  I set the book back down and moved towards the window.

  “What else do you do?” I quizzed, pulling the curtain to peek outside.

  “Not much. It’s a very small town.”

  I smiled at him and he smiled back before quickly looking away. “You must do something, Adam.”

  “Do you really want to know what I do?”

  I nodded.

  “I count down the minutes until I can see you. I have even resorted to watching daytime soap operas just to distract myself.” He looked sheepish.

  “Soap operas?” I grinned.

  “And cooking shows,” he added, making me laugh.

  “You need a hobby,” I teased.

  “I have one in mind. I’ll show you if you’d like,” he said.

  The fact that we were in Gabrielle’s house changed nothing about the way my body reacted when he came near me. My knees went to mush and I was sure that she could hear my heart from the kitchen.

  “It’s outside,” he murmured, planting a kiss on my lips, so soft that I couldn’t be sure he’d actually touched me.

  We bypassed Gabrielle by sneaking out the back door. Adam led me across the lawn to a shed in the back corner. The shed – not much smaller than the house – was in a terrible state of repair. The corrugated iron structure was rusty, and I was doubtful that he could open the door without it falling off. He proved me wrong, and flipped the old-fashioned light switch.

  “A boat?” I choked in disbelief. “You bought a boat?” I ran my hand along the hull.

  He laughed. “Apparently she came with the house. I’m thinking of restoring her.”

  The old wooden sloop, perched on dodgy wooden trestles, looked to be about five metres long and was covered in layers of weathered blue paint. A messy pile of rigging and an ancient mast lay on the ground.

  He was certainly ambitious.

  “What do you know about boat restoration?”

  He walked around the structure, running his hand along the gunwales. “Absolutely nothing. But I’m a fast learner.”

  I didn’t doubt him for a second. “Do you know anything about boats in general?”

  “My dad used to take my brother and me sailing when we were kids. Nothing as grand as this old maiden, though.” He patted the boat, gazing at it with the same expression he liked to stun me with.

  “You can sail in New York?”

  The surprise in my voice made him laugh. “You can sail in New York,” he confirmed. “I’ll take you sailing on the Hudson someday,” he promised, stepping sideways and taking me with him. He danced me around the dilapidated old shed, waltzing to silent music, laughing. “Down to Battery Park, past Ellis Island and across to the Statue of Liberty.”

  “We can do that?”

  Our dance slowed to a stop. “I’m pretty sure we can do anything, Charlotte,” he whispered, before leaning in to kiss me.

  Even the softest kisses he bestowed on me burned down to the tips of my toes. Finally we broke apart, because we had to – wooden boats were flammable too.

  “Did you know this boat is special?” I asked, pointing in the general direction of the boat behind me as I tried to regulate my breathing.

  He chipped a few flecks of paint off with his fingers. “It will be, as soon as I can get all of this paint off.”

  “It’s already special.”

  Adam’s attention turned back to me. I never got tired of seeing him smile.

  “I get the distinct impression that you know something I don’t, Charli.” His formal vocabulary didn’t surprise me anymore.

  “Call it a hunch,” I said, grinning. I’m sure my lack of refinement when it came to choosing my words didn’t surprise him either.

  Spotting a crate full of old tools, I picked up a screwdriver. Scraping it along the side of the boat, I peeled away layers of paint.

  “Charlotte.” Adam groaned. “Please don’t hurt the boat.”

&n
bsp; “Underneath the paint it’s almost perfect. No rot or decay…strange for an old boat like this, don’t you think?” I ran my fingers along the wounded wood.

  “What does that mean?”

  Dropping the screwdriver back into the crate, I dusted off my hands. “There’s a wood here called Huon pine. It’s endemic to Tasmania. Huon trees live to be three thousand years old. They used to make boats out of it because the wood has a special oil in it that stops it rotting. The trees are protected now so they don’t log them anymore. Huon pine only grows a millimetre a year. It’s hard to imagine how long it would take a big tree to grow.”

  Adam looked stunned, trading glances between the boat and me. “Charli, that means this boat is about a billion years old!”

  “I told you it was special.” Triumph saturated my voice.

  He pulled me in close. “You’re special. How could you possibly know the things you do?” he asked quietly.

  “I don’t know for sure that it’s Huon, but it might be. You may have found yourself a hidden treasure.”

  “I already knew that,” he whispered.