Nowhere but Here

by Renee Carlino

  3. Why did you sell J-Com Technologies?

  When I hit SEND, an error message popped up reminding me that I still wasn’t connected to the Wi-Fi. I fiddled for twenty minutes with it before finally resorting to typing the e-mail on my phone and sending it. Within half an hour, he responded in complete narrative form.

  Kate,

  I’m really sorry about yesterday. I didn’t conduct myself professionally and I apologize. I’m trying desperately to keep my personal life private. I’ll give you some background and then try to answer your questions as efficiently as possible. I was in the public eye from the age of thirteen when I graduated from high school. By sixteen, I had a degree from MIT and a brand new company, J-Com Technologies. After patenting new server technology, I was coined “The Boy Genius” in the media. It was a tough role to live up to. I was under a great deal of pressure, even with the unwavering support of my father, who essentially ran the company.

  Although my love for discovery and science never died, my interests and focus began to change back then. There was a night when I realized that all of the glory of my early success translated into money, but the money only made me feel empty. I had to teach myself to look at it differently, to look at the money as representing something more basic: clean water, food, vaccines, shelter, and for the very lucky, education. It was the realization that a third of the world’s population is poor, hungry, and dying of preventable diseases that pushed me to sell J-Com. I did not want to waste my time on what I felt were frivolous things, and that’s why I got out when I did.

  I took the money, started a foundation, and went to Africa, where I spent almost ten years traveling around, building schools and infrastructure. My foundation still provides vaccines for thousands, and we work tirelessly to provide small villages the proper resources to get plumbing and clean water. That is my passion. I spend several months a year there.

  The winery is my escape. I’ve also used it to test clean energy theories, but mostly it’s a home to me. I am single and live alone. My hobbies are typical. I am very close to my father, who lives in Portland. He’s a retired Boeing engineer. My mother was killed in a traffic accident four years ago. She was hit head-on by a girl texting on her phone. Because of that, I spend very little time around the technological gadgets I helped to invent. My mother’s death tore me up so badly that I needed to find something to focus my energy on, and that is why I bought the winery. I have one sibling, a younger sister in Boston. We’re not close. I think that about wraps it up.

  Again, I’m sorry for yesterday. I hope that experience didn’t taint your view of the winery.

  Kind Regards,

  R.J.

  And there it was. I had my story. I didn’t need to write an article; R.J. had basically done it for me: philanthropist, genius, douche bag with a heart. That was going to be my angle. The tragedy of his mother’s death drove him to buy the winery and escape into the hills of Napa Valley, leaving the tech world behind. I wanted to spotlight the winery in the article as well as the good he was doing in Africa with his organization, but I struggled with how R.J. had treated me during our meeting. I wondered if he really needed his ego stroked any more.

  I glanced at the clock. It was three fifty. I showered in three minutes, threw on a coat of lip gloss and mascara, and got dressed in a T-shirt, jeans, and flats. When I got to the stairway, Jamie was there at the bottom. I reached for the banister but saw him slowly shaking his head back and forth.

  “What?”

  He pointed toward my door. “Back in there, lady. You need sneakers and a sweatshirt.” I huffed and rolled my eyes like a teenager before turning and heading back to my room. When I came down the stairs, he was leaning his back against the banister with his hands in his pockets, looking relaxed and delicious. He was wearing jeans, a thicker black jacket, and his plain black baseball cap. He looked dangerous, and then he flashed me a dimple and it all went poof. No more danger. He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the door.

  “Where is everyone?” I asked.

  “Everyone who?” he asked without turning to look at me. We passed the front desk and Jamie shot his hand up in a wave. “See ya, George.” The same man who was working behind the desk the night before waved to us.

  “Who all is going sailing?”

  He stopped in the parking lot as we approached his truck and turned toward me.

  “It’s just you and me.” He hesitated, searching my face. “Is that okay?”

  “Yes, I just don’t understand why you made such a big deal about dinner if you already had plans to sweep me away tonight?” I said, fluttering my eyelashes coquettishly.

  “Dinner is intimate. This is sport. It’ll be fun.” He opened the passenger door. I hopped in. Chelsea sat on the sidewalk, glaring at us. He turned and spotted her. “You have to stay here, girl.” And then he pointed toward the inn. “Go lay down on your bed.” Her head dropped as she walked away slowly. She knew exactly what was going on.

  As we turned onto the main road, I rolled down the window and stuck my head out, letting the wind dry my hair. Jamie turned up the radio.

  “Who is this?” I shouted.

  “The Amazing. It’s a song called ‘Dragon.’ ”

  “It sounds old.”

  “It’s not. What are you doing, crazy girl?”

  “What does it look like, genius? I’m drying my hair.”

  He laughed, shaking his head. I closed my eyes and felt the wind whip my long hair all over. I listened to the music and let the lowering sun beat down on my face. When my hair was adequately dry, I rolled the window up and Jamie turned down the music.

  “All right, Katy, we need to talk about a few things.”

  “Yes, because I have questions, too.”

  “Well, first of all, I need to talk to you about the diabetes.” There were two rectangular canisters sitting between us on the truck seat, one orange and one black, both about the size of a sunglasses case. “The black case has my meter and insulin, and you won’t need to worry about that because I can do that myself. When my blood sugar is high and I need insulin, I’m usually alert. When it’s low, I can take these glucose tablets or drink some juice.” He held up a bottle of glucose tablets. “If it gets really low, I get groggy. If it gets too low, there’s a chance I could pass out.” My eyes got huge. He glanced over at me. “I’ve never passed out, but I’ve gotten really low. If I pass out, you’ll need to give me that shot in the orange case. It’s a glucagon kit.” He looked over quickly and then returned his gaze to the road. “Kate, are you okay?”

  “Yes. Where do I inject you?” He pointed to his ass and grinned. “Of course it would have to be there.”

  “I don’t think you’ll need to worry about it, but since we’ll be on a boat, I thought it was important to tell you.”

  “Are we going on R.J.’s boat?”

  “It’s my boat.” He snickered.

  “Yesterday, when you gave me the ride up the driveway, you called R.J. a douche.” He didn’t respond. I let a few moments go by. “Jamie?”

  “He can be, but he wasn’t himself in that interview. I think it was a case of paranoia, to be honest with you.”

  “He had a funny way of showing it . . . by hitting on me?”

  Shaking his head back and forth, he said, “I know, he was an idiot. R.J. usually tries to do the right thing, but sometimes it just backfires.”

  I quietly watched Jamie for a few minutes and studied his tattoos as he turned the steering wheel.

  “Where did you get your tattoos? They all look different.”

  “I’ve gotten them all over the world. I traveled a lot after college.”

  “They’re really interesting. Not typical at all. Do they mean anything?”

  “Yes. Some do.” He looked over, wearing a small, sad smile, so I decided to drop the subject.

  “Wh
ere are we going, exactly?”

  “We’re sailing out of Sausalito. That’s where I keep my boat. We’re almost there.”

  The sun was moving lower in the sky and the air was much cooler when we stepped onto the docks in Sausalito. “There she is.” He pointed to what looked like a thirty-foot standard keel sailboat. When I got closer, I noticed that it was an older boat with beautiful, polished wood decking, sleek lines, and a very tall mast.

  Once we reached the boat, Jamie immediately started unhooking cords and coiling up lines on the dock. He unhooked the safety cable and stepped on board easily, then turned and held out his hand for me. “Step up on the block there, Katy, and then onto the boat. You can have a seat. I need to get a few things ready.” He gestured toward a bench in the cockpit behind the large steering wheel. I watched as he removed covers from the rolled-up sails, hooked lines, and then removed the door leading into the bedroom below. He went down the ladder and then returned a few moments later with a blanket and red wine in a stemless glass.

  “Here you are. It’s going to be really chilly out on the water.”

  “I feel so spoiled. Is this what you do for all the ladies who visit R. J. Lawson Winery?”

  “Hardly,” he said as he continued setting things up and tugging at lines. “I usually sail with Guillermo, sometimes Susan or her son. I don’t really like going out alone, but I’ll go on short runs with just Chelsea once in a while.”

  “Cute. She hates me, by the way.”

  “Maybe she’s jealous of you.”

  “Are we really having this conversation about a dog?”

  “She’s like a person. You said it yourself.”

  “True. So tell me about the boat. How long have you had it? How long have you been sailing?”

  “I learned how to sail as a kid with my dad up north, but it wasn’t until last year that I had a boat of my own. I restored this beauty. I bought her for fifteen hundred dollars last year and spent three months bringing her back to life.”

  “Why am I not surprised? What’s her name?”

  “Heartbeats.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ll see.”

  The sun was setting behind the Golden Gate Bridge. To say it was picturesque would be a gross understatement. I was in awe. Jamie backed the boat out of the slip and then moved forward out of the channel to the open water.

  “Katy, what do you know about sailing?” His back was to me.

  “Nothing. I’ve never even been on a sailboat.”

  “You’re kidding. Please tell me you know how to swim.”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Well, I don’t think you’ll want to swim in this water, but it’s good that you know how. The life vests are under your seat just in case, and there’s a little emergency beacon and radio that you can turn on if something happens to me.”

  “That sounds very scary.”

  “Everything will be fine.”

  “What shall I call you? Captain Jamie?”

  “Or Captain Fantastic. Either one will do.” He turned to me and smiled.

  Once we were in the open water, Jamie stepped aside and said, “Okay, your turn to steer.”

  “Me?” I said with a shriek.

  “Yes, I need to raise the sails. We’re going to turn into the wind. See the arrow up at the top of the mast?” He pointed up.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s always pointing in the direction that the wind is coming from. If the arrow is pointing directly to the bow of the boat, then you’re in irons; you’re driving directly into the wind. That’s what you want to do if you need to stop the boat—just turn the boat into the wind. Okay, now take the wheel.” He put his arm around my shoulder, bending close to my face, and pointed. “See that buoy in the distance?” I nodded. “Just steer the boat in that direction. That’s your heading. I’ll get the sails up and then we’ll kill the engine, my favorite part.” He jumped up on the tiny decking space and held the safety cords as he walked along toward the sails. He removed some ties and quickly raised the mainsail and then returned to the cockpit. Standing right behind me, I felt him bend close to my ear and then I heard him inhale deeply. He put his hands over mine and turned the wheel about forty degrees to the right until we were heading right for the Golden Gate Bridge.

  “Okay, baby, that big bridge is your heading now. You can’t miss it, just steer straight for it.”

  “Ha-ha!” I said sarcastically. Try me.

  He adjusted some lines, pulling them from the winches and cleating them off. He turned a key and pulled a lever, killing the engine before quickly returning to his spot behind me. There was silence for a few moments, followed by the light sound of the wind and the water lapping at the side of the boat.

  “What do you hear?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Listen closely,” he said softly near my ear.

  It seemed like every sound was shut out, every worry, every care . . . gone. Once Jamie turned off the engine, there was only peace from the quiet and gentle movement. The sound of the city was a distant hum across the huge bay. The world looked like a painting, and the only movement I could see was the water around us. It was as if we were sailing across a canvas, painted with Impressionist waves, with the San Francisco skyline in the background. Sunlight dazzled us through the giant cables of the bright red bridge, silhouetting the monster in an almost frightening way. It was overwhelming to be so close to the bridge. There were no cell phones, no horns honking. Nothing. And then I heard it. I took a deep breath and said quietly, “Heartbeats. That’s what I hear. Yours and mine . . .” I turned to see him smiling.

  The wind picked up rather dramatically. I shivered and he wrapped one arm around my shoulder from behind while he used his other hand to grab the wheel. “Ready for some fun?”

  “I’m scared.”

  “I got you.” As soon as he turned the boat into a better heading, we immediately began listing dramatically. The wind beat much louder against the sails, and the forward motion of the boat sped up. I lost my footing a little, but he held me tight to his chest. We moved closer and closer to the massive bridge. It became bigger and more intimidating with each passing moment, but the truth was that I wasn’t scared at all. Jamie made me feel safe. Even against the rushing wind, the choppy waves, and the towering bridge, I felt bigger, like I could stand up to it all. The right side of the boat was way above us. We had all of our weight on our left feet when we started skipping, rising, and diving quickly on the waves.

  I was laughing and screeching with joy. I saw Jamie smiling, his grin so wide and so proud that it made my eyes water.

  “Are you enjoying yourself, Katy?”

  “This is . . . amazing.” At the last second my voice cracked, tears ran down my cheeks, and I shivered. I felt cherished, and even though I wasn’t sure where it would go with Jamie, I was enjoying every minute of the ride.

  He moved from behind me. “Here, sit, I’ll wrap you up. It’s getting cold.”

  I sat on the bench to his left on the low side of the boat. He handed me my wineglass from the cupholder and then quickly wrapped the blanket around me before getting back to the wheel. “We’re going to jibe. Normally the captain would say ‘prepare to jibe.’ ”

  “That sounds fun,” I shouted giddily over the sound of the waves.

  “It just means we’re turning with the wind, but the mast is going to swing around quickly. Keep your head down.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  We headed back to the docks in Sausalito. The entire way back, neither one of us spoke; we just took it all in. Every once in a while I would steal glances at Jamie, only to find him watching me and smiling. Once we parked in the slip, it took him about twenty minutes to put the covers on everything and tie up the sails. He slung an arm around my shoulders as we headed back to the truck,
and then he opened my door for me. “Hop up, cutie.” He ran his hand across my hair as I got in. I immediately looked in the visor mirror and discovered a red-cheeked, windblown, wreck of a woman. He was teasing me by making me self-aware about my hair. Quickly wrapping my frizzy locks in a bun, I turned toward him as he got in the driver’s side.

  “You were making fun of me, jerk.”

  “I was just playing with you.” His eyes dropped to my mouth. I shook from a chill.

  “You’re still cold.” He took off his jacket and draped it over my legs. I watched him, completely mesmerized, as he opened the black case from the compartment between us, pulled out the pen, and stabbed the skin on his stomach with a needle full of insulin. No blood that time. We were back on the road in seconds.

  “Chef Mark is making us dinner but the restaurant will be closed. It closes early on Wednesdays for karaoke night.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Not at all. We take our karaoke very seriously at R. J. Lawson.”

  “I am the karaoke queen.”

  He laughed. “Well, I am known far and wide in these parts as the white Otis Redding.”

  “Oh, we are so doing a duet. Which song should we do?”

  We were silent for a few moments, and then in unison both of us shouted, “Tramp!”

  We practically skipped through the parking lot and into the restaurant, which was already full of people directing their attention to a small stage set up in the corner. Judging by the turnout, karaoke was a very popular activity with the locals. I started feeling nervous about my performance until a very drunk group of women, who looked to be in their fifties, sang a horrible rendition of “Vacation” by the Go-Go’s.

  We sat at the kitchen bar where a waitress immediately brought out the plates Chef Mark had prepared for us. I had seafood stew in a light tomato sauce with French bread on the side. It smelled divine. Jamie had some kind of white fish. When he saw it, he smiled. “Oh good, we can share,” he said, boyishly. He grabbed a bottle of chardonnay from the kitchen. It was from a different winery, and I quirked an eyebrow at him. “We like to know what our competition is up to.”