by Jonah Black
“What was the weird part?” I asked her, my heart pounding.
“He said that I should ditch Thorne. That what I need is somebody who knows what I am. And you know what he said I was, Jonah?” Posie said.
“Uh-uh,” I said, although I knew. I definitely knew.
“A miracle,” she said. Her voice cracked while she said it, and she looked away from me.
“Wow,” I said. I felt like such an idiot. Why was it only possible to express what I felt for Posie when I was wearing a Bill Clinton mask? “So who was this guy?”
She looked at me and took my hand. The little boat was rising and falling on the waves. I think my heart stopped beating.
“Well, at first I thought it was Woody the Harvard guy. Then I thought maybe it was Wailer, but he wasn’t huge enough for Wailer. I mean, it was just this total mystery. And then I realized there is only one person in the world who could think that I’m a miracle. And the way I know is because I think he’s a total miracle, too,” she said quietly.
She took my other hand and drew her face very close to mine. Her breath flashed on my throat.
“Um, Posie,” I said. “Uh, I’m trying to figure out who you’re talking about.”
She was so close to me now our lips were practically touching. I put my arms around her back. She looked into my eyes like she was trying to read my mind.
“Jonah Black,” she said, almost whispering. “You didn’t go to any stupid Lemon concert on Friday night, did you?”
Honestly, at that moment Posie was absolutely the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. All those years growing up she was my friend, the little girl who used to play with fireworks and gunpowder. For the first time I saw her as a woman, strong and fierce and soft and delicate and looking at me like I was the most important person in the world. Actually, it made me feel a little seasick.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” she said. “Tell me it is.”
I answered her with my Bill Clinton voice. “It just depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is,” I said.
Then Posie kissed me. Kissing her was like losing gravity and suddenly becoming weightless, floating above everyone’s heads. The boat rocked up and down on the waves, and we kept kissing and kissing like we never wanted to stop. I couldn’t get enough of her.
“I meant what I said,” I told her, when we finally stopped for breath.
“When?”
“You are a miracle,” I said.
“I think you are,” she said. “I think we are.”
Posie reached down and grabbed the bottom of my sweatshirt and pulled it off over my head. My T-shirt came with it. She put her palms on my chest and rubbed it, like she was smoothing in lotion. My whole body was standing on end.
Then I pulled her windbreaker and T-shirt off, and there she was in her white bra. She reached behind her and unhooked her bra and the next thing I knew her bra was lying over the steering wheel of the boat and there she was. She definitely isn’t a little girl anymore.
We pulled off our shorts, laughing and staggering around like we were drunk out of our minds because we couldn’t stop looking at each other. And then I grabbed her and pulled her down on top of me. The bottom of the boat wasn’t exactly comfortable, but we didn’t care. We lay against one side and put our feet up on the gunwale of the other side and kissed until our lips got tired. Then we stopped and looked up at the sky, just holding onto each other. Big gray clouds began to cover over the stars, but I didn’t even notice. I was in a daze of happiness.
Then we started kissing again and each kiss was like this amazing conversation with somebody that understands you better than you understand yourself. Posie kissed my neck and my ears and my chest and the hair on the back of my neck stood up like cornstalks and I shivered all over. She put one finger in her mouth and made little wet trails on my forearm with it. I was going crazy.
Then she said, “It’s your first time, isn’t it, Jonah?”
I couldn’t answer her. I was embarrassed.
“It’s okay,” Posie said. “I’m glad it’s with me.”
“Me too,” I said.
“So what do you think? Are you ready to do it? Let’s do it, okay?” she said. “Please?”
I know this sounds stupid, but right then I felt as if I had left my body and I was hovering above everything like an angel, watching me and Posie getting ready to have sex. I mean, it was like my whole life had been building up to that moment. I thought about the times I’d watched Posie surfing and the funny look she gets in her eyes just before she spits out some tobacco juice. I thought about the first time I’d seen her when I came back from Pennsylvania, and how I didn’t even recognize her because she’d become so beautiful. And then, for no reason that makes any sense I thought about Sophie. Sophie crying outside the Great Hall at Masthead Academy.
“Jonah, what’s wrong?” Posie said, searching my face worriedly.
I shook my head. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m happy,” I said.
“Your face just went funny. You were thinking about something,” she said.
“It was nothing,” I told her, running my hand through her hair.
“Tell me,” she said quietly. “Tell me.”
I looked out over the side of the boat, past the gunwale where our four bare feet were sticking up into the air. I noticed that the sky was darker than it had been before. I also noticed that I couldn’t see any land.
“I don’t know,” I said dreamily. “I was just wondering where we are, I guess.”
“We’re about a half a mile off of Pompano,” Posie said. She pointed. “See the Lighthouse over . . .” She let her hand drop. “That’s funny.”
“What’s funny?” I said.
Posie got up and crouched over the bow of the boat. “Jonah, didn’t you drop the anchor?” she said, sounding nervous.
“Me? When would I have dropped the anchor?” I said, sitting up.
“I asked you to. Remember? Just before I stopped the engine,” Posie said.
“You didn’t. I mean, I didn’t hear you,” I said.
“Jesus,” Posie exclaimed, looking around wildly.
I stood up and looked around. There wasn’t any sign of land. Big waves were picking us up and down. The waves were like going up a hill in a little car.
“Dammit, dammit, dammit,” Posie said, on the verge of tears. “We’ve been drifting all night. I can’t believe this.”
She pulled on her panties and her shorts and her shirt, and picked up the radio in the steering console.
“Wait, Posie,” I said. “What are you doing?” I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I didn’t mind being lost at sea. All I wanted was to kiss her again. And I wanted to have sex.
“KYX Florida three niner seven this is Little Wing, do you read me over?” Posie said into the handset.
There was a crackling from the radio. I felt some spray on my back and realized it was rain.
“Christ,” wailed Posie.
I put my clothes on. It was the saddest thing I’d ever done in my life. I’m serious.
“KYX Florida three niner seven this is Little Wing, do you read me, over?” Posie repeated.
“Posie?” said a gravelly voice on the other end. Her father. “Thank God. Where in hell are you? Are you all right?”
“I’m okay, Dad,” Posie said. “I’m out in the boat with Jonah. We kind of fell asleep out here.”
“Where are you? Are you in the Ditch?”
“No, Dad. We’re . . . we’re in the ocean. We turned off the engine. We didn’t put the anchor down. We’re not really sure where we are,” Posie told him.
“Jesus, Posie!” her father said. “Don’t you have any goddamn sense at all? What’s wrong with you?”
“Don’t yell at me,” Posie said, her eyes filling with tears. “Dad, we’re lost. We’re in trouble.”
“All right, all right,” said her dad. “Calm down. I’ll call the Coast Guard. Where were you when you turned off the engine?”<
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“A mile off Lighthouse Point,” she said.
“What time was this?” he said.
“About one A.M.”
“Jesus!” Mr. Hoff growled.
There was a long pause. Posie started to cry. I put my arm around her.
“Okay, Posie, keep this channel open. I’m going to call the Coast Guard. I’ll be right back, okay?” he said.
“Okay.”
Posie put down the handset. “How could we be so stupid!” she cried, and whacked her hand against the steering wheel. Her bra was still hanging off it, and it fell onto the floor. I reached down to pick it up.
“Give me that,” she said angrily, swiping it out of my hand. She pulled her arms out of her shirt, strapped herself back into the bra, and put her shirt back on.
“We’re dead,” Posie said. “Dead!”
“It’s all right,” I said. “At least we’re together.” I really didn’t mind what was happening. I wasn’t scared at all. It was like I was stoned or something.
“Look at those waves,” Posie said, pointing at the water. “Monster barrels.” I wasn’t quite sure what she meant, but if Posie was scared, I knew I should be, too. I mean, Posie knows things about waves that nobody else knows.
The rain started coming down hard. The waves were almost four feet high. They slapped against the bow. We were getting drenched.
“Posie,” said her dad, on the radio. “Are you there?”
“I’m here,” Posie said. Her voice was very small.
“I want Jonah to set off a flare. Ask him if he knows how.”
She looked at me. “He wants to know if you know how to set off a flare.”
“Tell him yes,” I said. Somehow I took this incredibly personally. Why would people think I was the kind of person who wouldn’t know how to set off a flare?
“Where are they?” Posie asked her father.
“Under the captain’s chair. In a red box,” Mr. Hoff instructed.
“I’ve got them,” I said. I got out a flare and lit it with the lighter that was in the box and held it over my head. A second later it shot out of the cylinder in my hand and soared above us, exploding like beautiful red fireworks. I smiled and put my arm around Posie.
She shrugged off my arm. “Goddammit, Jonah, not now,” she snapped.
It’s like there’s this curse on me. For the first time in my life a girl looked in my eyes and said, “Let’s do it,” and not only that, it was Posie. And then, of course, there was this big disaster at sea. I mean, would it have been so wrong for us to have sex first, and then radio in for help? I mean, if you’re lost, you’re lost. You might as well have sex first.
The radio crackled. “Did you set it off?” her dad asked.
“Yes,” said Posie.
“Okay, wait a minute. Hang on.” There was a long silence. Then her dad came back.
“Okay, they’ve got you,” Mr. Hoff said. “There’s a fishing boat less than a mile away from you. They’re coming to get you.”
Posie sighed, and I felt a whole layer of tension fall from her. She started to shake. “We’re going to be okay,” she said, and only then did I realize that Posie had actually considered the possibility that we wouldn’t be okay. I put my arm around her again. I felt bad. Missing out on sex didn’t seem like the end of the world anymore. I just wanted Posie to feel better.
Soon we could hear the whine of the fishing boat’s motor, and then a bright beam of light shone through the night onto our little boat.
“Dad,” Posie said into the radio. “We see the boat. They see us. We’re all right. I’ll see you in an hour or so.”
“All right,” he said. “I’m glad you’re okay. We’ll talk when you get home.”
Posie turned to me and said softly, “We’re rescued.”
The fishing boat looked like something out of a Cuban boatlift or something. I mean, it was really old and patched up and barely seaworthy. The fishermen were probably trawling for pretty much any trash fish they could find and selling them as cat food. Two men in yellow slickers were on deck. One of them was holding a knife and gutting a bluefish that was swinging from a winch. There were guts all over the deck and blood on his slicker.
“Thorne?” Posie said.
The man with the knife looked at Posie, and then at me, and then at the other man, Thorne’s dad. They pulled alongside of us and tied up the Little Wing.
“Posie!” said Mr. Wood. “How are you, honey? Jonah Black? Good to see you, son.”
“Thorne?” I said.
Thorne just looked at us like someone had cut off his tongue.
“I thought you were working on your dad’s boat,” I said.
“He is,” said Mr. Wood. “Welcome aboard The Scrod, mateys.”
“The Scrod,” I said, looking at the boat. There were piles of fish guts everywhere. “It’s . . . I mean, it’s . . .”
Posie hugged Mr. Wood. She got guts all over her windbreaker. “It’s the most beautiful boat I’ve ever seen.”
She went over to Thorne. “Thank you,” she said to him, and kissed him, too. He was still holding the knife. “Thank you for rescuing me.”
“Thorne, let’s hose this bucket down and get these two some coffee,” Mr. Wood said. “Understand you’ve both had quite a scare.”
Thorne glanced at me and then at Posie, and in a second it was like he knew everything. He held out the knife and pointed it at me.
“You’re Bill Clinton,” he said.
Thorne’s dad frowned at him worriedly. “Come on, son,” he said. “Let’s hose down the deck.”
Thorne didn’t move.
“Thorne!” Mr. Wood commanded. “Now, that’s an order.”
“Yes, sir,” Thorne mumbled. He unwound the hose and started cleaning the entrails off the deck. Meanwhile, Mr. Wood led us down into the cabin, where he wrapped us up in blankets and poured us some coffee out of a big thermos. I don’t usually drink coffee, but this morning it tasted like the best thing in the world.
Mr. Wood got on the radio and told the Coast Guard that we were all right, and then he got back behind the wheel and headed toward Lighthouse Point. We were something like four miles out at sea. Thorne didn’t come below deck.
“He told me he worked on a sailboat,” I told Posie. “He told me they were giving rides to tourists.”
“He told me it was a catamaran,” Posie said. She took my hand. “Poor baby. He had to find out about us and now we’ve found out about him.”
“Poor baby?” I said, horrified. “This is the guy who was cheating on you with Luna, remember? I mean, like from practically the first day you started seeing each other. And you’re calling him poor baby?”
“What can I say?” Posie said, shrugging her shoulders. “I feel sorry for him.”
“You know, Posie, you’re really something,” I told her.
“You have to have sympathy for people, Jonah,” she said. “Things are hard enough anyway.” She looked at me. “You aren’t feeling bad, are you?”
“About what?”
“About us. About tonight.”
“Well, no, it’s just . . . I wish we’d, you know. Done it,” I said, blushing. I felt really stupid.
“Done it?”
“Made love.” As I said it, I realized there was no reason to feel stupid. I was with Posie, my friend.
“Oh, that.” Posie laughed and waved her hand like it was nothing. “There’s plenty of time for that!”
I don’t know why, but this struck me as the best thing I’d ever heard in my life. Maybe I was worried that Posie would only be interested in me way out in the middle of the ocean, away from everything. But when she said that, it sounded like she imagined just what I was imagining: a whole future, with the two of us together, having sex whenever we wanted.
“I love you, Posie,” I said.
She smiled. “Well duh.”
Then we kissed again. We kissed for a long time.
When we finally stopped, I looked u
p. Thorne was standing at the top of the ladder, looking down at us, and it looked like he was the one who was lost at sea.
There is one other not so great result of last night. I didn’t get to finish studying for the German test, and I totally screwed it up today. Which means, once again, I’m stuck in eleventh grade, and this time it’s for good. But the thing is, now that I’m with Posie, I honestly don’t care.
Nov. 7, 3:15 P.M.
I’m in Miss Tenuda’s class and we are stranded in the most boring part of American history, the dead zone between the Founding Fathers and the exciting rush up to the Civil War. It is so totally depressing that I’m doing this whole year of school over again, but I don’t care. Now that I have Posie, nothing else matters. I’d repeat eleventh grade a third time to be with her.
I have to say Miss Tenuda has been acting a little strange. She keeps pausing in the middle of a sentence and to look out the window, and we’re not sure if she’s ever going to start talking again. Not that that would be so bad.
I have to write about what happened after I got home from my night at sea with Posie. I got back to the house around eight in the morning. And when I walked into the kitchen, Mom was there, back from her book tour. She was just arriving, so she hadn’t been up all night worrying about where I was or anything.
I went over and gave her a big hug. It was weird how glad I was to have her back.
Mom hugged me hard and then stepped back to give me a once-over. “Jonah, look at you! I can’t believe how you’ve grown,” she said. She got up to put the kettle on the stove and then turned around, beaming proudly at me.
I kind of liked that Mom said that. I felt like I had grown since I’d seen her last. So much had happened.
“How was the book tour?” I said.
“Fantastic. Amazing,” she gushed.
“Great,” I said. “I’m glad.”
“Listen, Jonah,” Mom said. “There’s something I want to tell you.”
“What?” I said.
She seemed nervous, and I wondered if what she had to tell me had something to do with the guy that had answered the phone in her hotel room.
“I just wanted you to know that you’re never going to lose me,” Mom said. “I’m always going to love you, and I’m always going to be your mom.”