by Neal, Toby
I wanted to cry.
Dammit.
I listened to the cassette and played with the diamond heart Sam had given me, as I twisted the ring on my finger around and around, and finally decided what I had to do.
Chapter 4
I got off the plane in San Francisco wearing my jade-green beret and scarf and the old pea coat. For once they were more than enough. March 3 in San Francisco was warm, the sky blue and depthless, the fog a far-off blanket on the other side of the city, and the hills across the bay green with spring.
I had left the suitcase with the broken wheel at the dorm and pared everything I brought down to my student backpack. In the baggage-claim area, I sat in front of a pay phone and fed in quarters. I dialed the number Rafe had given me.
It rang and rang, and as it did, I considered my folly.
Here I was, in an unknown city, with a hundred bucks I’d scraped together from the dining hall and a mouth sawdust dry from telling lies. Lies upon lies upon lies, for the first time in my life.
I’d told Shellie and Sam my parents had sprung for me to return to the Virgin Islands for spring break, and as much as it killed me to miss the time with them, I had to see my family. Sam had been crushed but pretended to understand. I’d told Henry the same thing, with a similar response, leavened by kisses of thanks for the ring. And then I’d told my parents I was going to be in New York with the Williamses, and we’d be traveling so not to bother calling their New York residence. I’d call when I could.
But here I was in San Francisco for the next week, no matter what happened with Rafe.
It had taken every cent of his check and more to buy the round-trip ticket out here. I couldn’t change it without a fee, and I couldn’t let anyone know where I was, and a hundred dollars wasn’t going to last a week in the city.
I didn’t have the faintest clue where to find Rafe or what to do next if he didn’t answer the phone. I’d begun hyperventilating with panic when the phone was suddenly picked up. “Hello?” A woman.
“Is Rafe there?” I knew my voice came out breathy and thin.
“No.” She sounded profoundly unhelpful. I wondered if this was a girlfriend.
“Um—this is his friend from out of town. He invited me here, gave me this number,” I said, unable to think of a smooth story to explain my desperation. “I’m at the airport.”
“Oh. You must be Ruby.” Her voice warmed considerably. “He’s down at the docks, but he told me you might come into town. Asked me to pick you up if you called. My name’s Lisa.”
“Oh, good.” Tears of relief prickled my eyes. “I don’t know my way around here. At all.”
“What baggage claim are you at? I’ll be there in fifteen. Look for a purple VW Beetle.”
* * *
The purple Beetle was decorated with butterflies on the hood, immediately making me inclined to like Lisa. My first sight of her, hopping out with cornrowed hair clacking with plastic beads and a bright sarong on over leggings, felt like a hint of home. This impression strengthened as she hugged me with shiny ebony arms, enfolding me in the smell of coconut and jasmine.
“Welcome to San Francisco!” she said.
“You smell delicious,” I said. “I hope you don’t mind me saying so.”
“Delighted to hear it.”
I stowed my backpack in the back. “Where are we going?”
“I thought I’d take you down to the docks. You can surprise Rafe.” Lisa’s eyes, dark as chocolate, gleamed with anticipation.
“What did he say about me?” I asked, unable to resist.
“Well, that he had a friend from Boston who might be visiting. ‘She’s a cute redhead; you can’t miss her,’ he said. And he was right.” Lisa smiled. She had amazing teeth that seemed to throw off light.
“Ha-ha. That’s nice,” I said, feeling my neck heat up. “So, are you roommates?”
“In a way. I run a boardinghouse. He has a room in it when he’s here between trips on the boat.”
I looked out the bug-speckled windshield, forcefully reminded of the difference in our lifestyles. How could this ever work? I didn’t want to be with a guy who rented a room in a boardinghouse between boat voyages!
It didn’t matter right now, I told myself. I was just here to see him. Just see what was what. Because I had to know something. About him, about me, about what we were together. So I could move on. So I could stop this ridiculous tug-of-war between men I liked.
It wasn’t like we were getting married or something.
San Francisco was very different from Boston. For one thing, it was hilly. Very hilly, with ups and downs and a lot of totally confusing side streets. The buildings were smaller than Boston’s skyscrapers. I loved the quaint rows of brightly painted little houses, in every style from Art Deco to Victorian, that marched cheek by jowl up and down the slanting streets.
Lisa drove ruthlessly and confidently, weaving through the suburban areas to the waterfront.
“I take it you’ve been here awhile. You really seem to know your way around,” I said, hanging on to the plastic sissy handle as we bolted through a changing light, dodging a homeless woman with a shopping cart filled with cats.
“Ever since I moved here from Puerto Rico,” Lisa said. “I love the city. And I love escaping it back to the tropics.”
“So has Rafe been boarding with you long?” I was hungry for tidbits about him, scraps of information that would help me get a clearer picture of this mystery man.
“Some years now,” she said, and then glanced at me mischievously. “I can tell you some things, if you want.”
“Yes.” As we approached the waterfront, my nervousness increased. “Anything. We don’t know each other too well.”
“He’s private that way,” she said thoughtfully. “But he loves good music, plays some drums occasionally. Reads a lot. Works with his hands and is very good with them. I save up all the things I need fixed around the house until he’s in port. He likes animals. I have a dog and he always brings home bones and scraps for her from eating out.”
She pulled the Beetle up at the curb in front of an industrial-looking wharf. PIER 27 was emblazoned on it. “Go through the turnstile there, and his boat is the Creamy Maid.”
“Okay,” I said. I got out, my arms wrapped around my backpack. I looked back at her, scared to be abandoned in this strange place. “Will I see you later?”
“Sure.” She winked. “Call if you can’t find him, for some reason.”
I watched the purple Beetle merge back into the hectic traffic and slung on my backpack, steeling myself.
I’d come on this crazy trip. There was nothing to do but go ahead and find Rafe. And hope he really had wanted to see me.
I approached the dock and went through the turnstile door. On the other side, rows and rows of boats stretched along the floating dock.
And there were three docks, each jammed with boats.
The air was redolent with the briny smell of the sea, the chime of metal fittings on rigging, and the intermittent squeaks of rubber bumpers hitting the boats as they jostled gently in their berths.
It was going to take me forever, walking up and down, to find the Creamy Maid.
I spotted a wiry old man, cigarette dangling from his bottom lip, winding rope beside a craft. “Do you know where the Creamy Maid is?”
“That way.” He pointed with the cigarette down the middle dock.
“Thanks.” I adjusted my backpack and walked forward. And walked. And walked, turning my head from side to side to scan the boats.
When I finally came upon it, the Creamy Maid was so big, so sleek and fancy, that the butterflies in my stomach multiplied. It was so enormous, it took up a whole arm off the dock.
I shouldn’t be here. This was unbelievably awkward. Rafe wasn’t going to be expecting me, and now I had to bug someone rich and important by visiting their boat?
I stood there, looking at the long, sleek shape of the Maid, her metalwork sparkling, her
rolled sails snowy. I set the backpack down, in need of a drink of water and to figure out what to do next. I turned and bent over, rummaging for the water bottle I’d stashed inside.
“Ruby?”
I stood and spun around, holding the water bottle, filled with both mortification that Rafe’s first view of me had been my bent-over ass in my best acid-washed Guess jeans.
“Hi, Rafe,” I said.
Rafe stood on the high bridge of the boat, holding one of the lines. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. He looked like a scrumptious pirate in a frayed pair of cutoffs, acres of tanned muscle and sinew shining in the early-spring sun. A bandanna held back long, sun-streaked hair.
“I’ll be right down.”
He slid from the top deck to the next one using just his hands on the smooth steel bars beside the ladder. He grabbed a navy blue shirt, hauling it on over his head as he tripped down the deck, slid down another level, and pattered down the gangplank toward me.
When he stood right in front of me, his eyes unbelievably blue, smelling like man and sunshine and the sea, I felt everything I’d gambled on coming together.
This isn’t that crazy after all.
“You’re really here,” he said on an exhaled breath. He was as nervous as I was; I could tell because I could see the pulse fluttering under his jaw and his voice was husky. I felt better, knowing that.
“I guess I am.” I smiled, and he scooped me in and lifted me off my feet in a bone-cracking hug. I squeaked even as I hugged him back, and he put his face into my hair and inhaled, knocking my beret aside.
“God, you smell good,” he said. “And you feel even better.”
“You, too,” I murmured. That potent cocktail of chemistry that had always been between us swirled in the air. “I shouldn’t be here. But I had to see you.”
“I’m glad you came,” he said simply. “No one else is on board right now. Can I show you around?”
“Yes, please. She’s beautiful.”
“She’s a handful, is what she is,” Rafe said, his teeth gleaming in that wicked smile I remembered as he looked back at me, towing me toward the gangplank. “But I’ve always had a way with wayward ladies.”
I was blushing too hard to reply to this.
We went over the boat from stem to stern, and I oohed and aahed over the gleaming galley, the shipshape staterooms, even the tidy little head he let me use.
I splashed water on my hot cheeks, looking in the mirror. My eyes had never been so green, and Sam was right. The jade-colored beret was great with my hair. I felt a little more confident coming out, but still amped up inside, as if there were too much wattage zinging around inside me to contain.
Rafe was wiping down the galley and turned to smile at me. “I still can’t believe you’re here,” he said. “I’ll lock up and take you to Fisherman’s Wharf for some crabs. I know a place we can have a picnic.”
“Sounds wonderful,” I said, and my stomach rumbled loudly in agreement, making us both laugh.
We chatted as he locked up, news about Saint Thomas and about his trip crewing the boat back to San Francisco. I told stories about Boston, carefully avoiding any mention of Henry or Sam.
Before I knew it I was getting into another battered truck, this one black. “Different land mass but the same vehicle.” I laughed as I slammed the door and felt the patter of rust on my boots.
“Gets me where I need to go.” He shrugged. “Next stop, crab!”
This lighthearted Rafe, expansive with excitement, eager to show me everything he could about his adopted city, was new to me. And I know I was new to him, too, more confident, someone willing to take a chance way outside my comfort zone.
San Francisco lent itself to romance. Every view felt magical to me, glimpses of a steely dark sea, the soft shroud of approaching fog, the famous red struts of the Golden Gate Bridge appearing and disappearing between the buildings.
The stand with the crab was rustic, not a tourist attraction but a stout man in a rubber apron with a bubbling pot and a couple of ice chests full of crabs. Rafe haggled with the fisherman over a couple of fresh Dungeness and finally got the price where he wanted it. We bought a loaf of crusty sourdough and a plastic ramekin of melted butter, and he took me to Fort Point.
We ducked through a hole in a barbed-wire fence around the deserted, decrepit fort, and I panted a little as he tugged me up a crumbling stairway.
“Are we supposed to be here?” I asked nervously.
“Of course not,” Rafe said. “That’s why it’s fun.”
He spread a towel he’d wrapped around the food on the top of the roof, and almost directly under the Golden Gate Bridge, I ate my first Dungeness crab with my fingers and watched the sun set and the fog roll in, and finally, when it was getting dark and chilly, he picked up the leftovers and piled them into the paper bag the crabs had come in, then reclined on one elbow.
“Come here,” he said softly.
I wasn’t far away, but I scooted the couple of inches that separated us, lying on my back beside him. I was glad of my pea coat now. I pressed back against his chest, and the chill wind off the ocean passed over me and around me, and in the fog that muffled everything but the blowing of the foghorn, I felt magically surrounded.
He picked up my hand. “You’ve got some butter. Here.” He drew that finger into his hot mouth, sucking gently. It was a replay of that time with the mango, and we both knew it.
“I think I see a little more butter.” He frowned and drew two of my fingers into his mouth.
From my angle I could see only the side of his face, the tanned muscular throat, the cheekbone, the angled, rugged jaw.
A man’s face.
Both Sam and Henry, for all that they weren’t much younger than Rafe, were still boys. But Rafe was all man.
The touch of his mouth activated every electric nerve ending that had just been waiting for him. I surged up and pushed him over onto his back, straddling his body, filled with that relentless hunger he’d unleashed in me so many months before.
I tore the beret off, and my hair fell around his face in a lava-red curtain, and inside that curtain I leaned down and kissed him.
Oh, how I kissed him.
I plundered his mouth with mine, my hands wandering up and down his hard body, my thighs clamped around his hips. I snaked my hand under his shirt to feel the wide, smooth arcs of his chest, touching his tight nipples, my aching center sliding up and down his jeans-clad pelvis. I could feel the hard ridge of his erection beneath me, and its nearness drove me mad.
I was insatiably hungry, on fire, and clumsy with abandon.
He let me work him over.
He let me feel all I could feel through our clothes, kiss him roughly and kiss him softly. He let me show him all I’d learned in the months since I’d met him. And finally, I curled against his chest, panting, resting my head on his shoulder.
I felt a terrible need to cry.
Because this wasn’t enough. It wasn’t ever going to be enough, I was beginning to believe. And not only that, he wasn’t taking it to the next level.
His arms finally came up around me then, gentle and slow, and he stroked me, from the top of my shoulders, down my back, smoothing over my ass.
And again.
And again.
“My Ruby one,” he said. “My creamy maid.” And he kissed my forehead and rocked me close and tender.
But he didn’t take what I was offering. He didn’t even slide a hand under my shirt to cup my breast.
I withdrew inside myself, ashamed of my overt assault, not sure how to react now that I’d made my intentions clear and he hadn’t reciprocated.
“It’s getting cold,” he said finally. “We should go. Lisa has a couch you can stay on.”
I was bitterly disappointed and tried not to show it as I rolled off and pulled the beret back on, wrapped the scarf around my flushed neck with quick hard movements, straightened myself, and buttoned up my coat.
“Sure,” I sa
id. “This was nice. I appreciated seeing this. Up here.” I made an arm gesture.
“Ruby.” He’d sat up, and he took my hand. I couldn’t see his eyes in the dim light. The foghorn called mournfully. Lights from the bridge flickered on the side of his face. “I’m not going to have sex with you. That’s not happening tonight, or anytime soon. Because I feel differently about you than I have for anyone, ever, and we need time. Time to see what this means.”
Those words weren’t what I wanted. I didn’t want to get to know him. I didn’t want to fall in love with him.
I just didn’t want to be a virgin anymore.
I wanted “First Night.” A week of “First Night,” and all the variations on a theme that we could come up with. I wanted him to use me up, fill me, bang me senseless, and wear me out, and I had every intention of doing the same to him.
I wanted to do that with Rafe until I’d worked him out of my system and broken the strange hold he had on me.
And then I wanted to marry someone like Sam, who’d make me laugh and whose life goals were similar to mine. Or even Henry, who’d spend his life trying to make me happy and fill my life with music. I didn’t want to be with someone who was a sailor, a surfer, a drifter, whose home was a boat on the sea and a room in a boardinghouse.
But I couldn’t say that to this beautiful man with his beautiful words. I couldn’t even put this whole shameful admission together in my own mind, but I knew it somewhere in my bones for a certainty.
“Okay. More time to get to know each other.” I shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant.
“I know you’re trying to figure things out, who to be with. I think we should go slow. Let’s just have some fun while you’re here, see the sights, get to know each other better. See where it leads.”
“I guess.” My cheeks burned with embarrassment. My idea of where it led had been to spend a week in bed with him, learning all the ways there were to feel pleasure.
“I can tell you had something else in mind.” I could see his wicked grin, even in the dim light. “And believe me when I tell you I’d like to take you up on it, show and teach you everything I’ve been fantasizing about doing with you. But you have to trust me. This is going to be better.”