Buoy

by Maggie Seacroft

“I’m Randy’s son, sir.”

  “From?“

  “Ohio, sir.”

  Jack Junior looked at me with urging eyes and I sensed he’d run out of questions already. “Well, my friend here, she doesn’t trust you, so to keep her off my back, do you mind if I give ‘em a call, you know…”

  I raised my eyebrows at Jack, surprised at the ease with which he made me out to be the bad guy.

  “Russ Shears” let out a little laugh and looked at me. “Oh, sure. Go ahead and call them, sir.”

  Junior shot me a smarmy smile. “Ok, what’s the number, son?” he asked and pulled out his cell phone from the holster on his hip. A fashion tip he’d acquired from Bugsy.

  “The number, sir?”

  “Yeah, just give me the number. Haven’t talked to Randy since he was a little jasper…” Jack tapped the screen to open the phone app.

  “Five one three…” The man-boy closed his eyes and looked up as if that ever really helps anyone remember anything. He let out a huff and frowned. “See, it’s in my phone and my phone’s gone too.”

  Oh, that’s convenient. Jack looked at me and I raised both eyebrows. It was my turn to be smug.

  “If there’s any way you can get in touch with my grandpa, I’m sure he could—“

  Junior waved off that suggestion. “He’s on a plane by now and it’s a long flight. Besides, if I know Bob Shears—and I do—he’s too cheap to spring for wi-fi on the plane. Sorry, son.” Jack began to pace again.

  “Well, did you two solve this one yet?” I heard a loud baritone say above crunching footsteps behind me.

  When I turned, I saw Bugsy. Blue-jeaned, blue-shirted, tanned, dimpled Bugsy, his dirty blond hair askew, a clipboard in his hand. It’s times like these he can appear haltingly handsome, and I suddenly found myself where Aggie was not long ago in mono-syllabic town.

  “Solve?” I asked.

  “Yeah, Aggie told me. How are ya, Jack?”

  “Good, good, just-just you know…“ he said and nodded in the direction of the mystery man.

  Bugsy looked at the kid. “So, no ID, huh?”

  The kid shook his head. “No phone either.”

  Bugsy smirked at me, knowing I’d be in my element. He knows if there’s one Elvis song to sum me up, it’s got to be “Suspicious Minds”. “How about your social media? You have Facebook? Instagram?”

  “Oh yeah, sure, Facebook!” The kids eyes lit up.

  Bugsy tucked his clipboard under his arm, did a quick draw to retrieve his phone, and tapped on the ubiquitous social media app icon as I sidled up to him on one side, and Jack Junior flanked him on the other. A few taps later, there it was. A social media profile for Russ Shears. Intrigued and incredulous, I let my fingers do the walking on the screen of Bugsy’s phone and helped myself to some scrolling. Russ Shears kept his posts to a minimum, and his profile picture was the logo for the Ohio University Bobcats.

  Bugsy cleared his throat in an annoyed fashion and, when I looked up to meet his eyes, he gave me that look I knew well, the one I considered faux consternation. “Hmph,” I said, recalling the University of Ohio shirts I’d seen “Russ” lay out on the ground earlier. I scrolled some more.

  “Are your fingers clean?” Bugsy asked.

  “Are they ever?” I guffawed and continued. Russ Shears followed various pages, including a few bands I’d never heard of, the Cleveland Browns, and a Red Sox fan page. He also listed over four hundred friends including one Robert Shears. I double clicked on that picture to make sure it was the same Robert Shears we knew. Tall, tanned, bushy white hair, coke bottle glasses. That was him alright. As I reviewed his profile, I noticed that the option to message Robert Shears was greyed out with a comment beside it. “Invite Robert Shears to download Messenger.”

  “Hmmm,” I let out involuntarily.

  “Well, there ya go, kiddo!” Jack Junior looked up from Bugsy’s phone with relief. His smiling Irish eyes met my less-than-jubilant pensive gaze. Something still didn’t sit right.

  “So, it’s ok? I can stay on my gramps’ boat?” Russ looked at us hopefully and pushed himself to his feet.

  “Sure, son. I’ll take you there myself.” Junior slapped the kid on the back.

  Bugsy re-holstered his weapon and untucked the clipboard from under his arm. “Well, now that that’s settled, I’ve got to get going,” he said and looked at his watch.

  “Big afternoon?” I asked.

  “Actually, I’m off to find the Gee Spot.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “The-the-the-the what now?” Jack Junior gripped Bugsy by the forearm. He wasn’t getting away without explaining this little nugget.

  “You’re what?” I hardly recognized the sound of my own shriek.

  Bugsy blushed a little then smiled. His dimples punctuated his grin like quotation marks.

  “The Gee Spot.” He looked from one of our faces to the next, lingering in the suspense. “It’s a boat, supposed to be showing up today in short-term dockage. Should be here by now.”

  I rolled my eyes and let out a sigh that was slightly aggravated, slightly relieved. Despite the fact I wasn’t completely sold on how I felt about Bugsy, I didn’t cotton to him discussing female anatomy and his pursuit of it.

  “Oh, I think I might have seen them on their way in the bay. Couldn’t make out the name. About a fifty-footer,” Junior said, nodding.

  “Probably them.” Bugsy looked down at the paper on his clipboard. “You, uh, want to come with me, roll out the welcome wagon?” he asked in my direction.

  “First of all, that’s not an expression, and second of all, why not,” I replied, my curiosity piqued. I had to get a look at these people. See, since my relocation to the Marysville Marina and my latest occupation of selling boats, it’d become quite apparent to me that some folks use boat ownership as a way to advertise their creativity. Take, for instance, people like my friend Nat who name their floating refuge in homage to one of their favorite movies. The Splendored Thing was named for the 1955 romantic classic Love is a Many Splendored Thing starring the hunky William Holden. Some folks opt for a play on words, like the boat I’d sold that summer to Doctor Stephen Richards—the Just Aboat Perfect—and then there are the attention grabbers who name their boats things like the Gee Spot. It makes me wonder what, if it were socially acceptable, they would name their kids.

  “I’ll… I’ll come too,” Jack Junior said, bounding to catch up with us. “You don’t mind if we make a pit stop first, do ya son?”

  “No, sir,” came the predictably polite response from his sidekick, and we all made our way toward short-term dockage. And no, it had not escaped me that we were going looking for the Gee Spot in the zone identified on the marina map as STD.

  Now, just as a point of reference for you, the Marysville Marina is divided roughly into long-term or permanent dockage—comprised of year-round riff raff like yours truly and the weekender set—and short-term dockage where coastal cruisers find our little community a nice port of call on their way to places like Ensenada. As we approached STD, I could see its latest arrival, a fifty- foot trawler with European lines. Probably Dutch. She had a dark blue hull, black bottom, white superstructure with gold striping, and written in big letters that were made to look windswept, Gee Spot. An older woman clamored out of the cabin as we got closer.

  “Well, hi there, cousins!” came a twangy greeting I was not expecting and, based on the look he gave me, neither was Bugsy.

  “Hi,” I was the first to say, and my greeting was followed by a chorus of similar sounds by my posse.

  The seventyish-looking woman on deck was about five foot nothing with silver-blonde hair in a short trendy cut. She sported tan Sperry top siders, a long-sleeved white t-shirt, red Bermuda shorts, a navy neckerchief, and big gold hoop earrings. Her tanned skin looked as though it’d seen ten thousand sunsets, but there didn’t look to be any shame in her game, and I just hope that when I reach her age I am as sporty and as adventurous even if it’s only
with my hairstyle. I spied a bottle of Corona in the cup holder of a deck chair. Maybe it was five o’clock where she’d been most recently.

  Bugsy looked at his paperwork. “You must be–“

  “Gladys,” she said, bounding to the dock with more energy than someone half her age. She extended her hand out to each of us with a firm yank up and down. “Hey, Ginny, Geraldine, get your keesters out here, we got company!” she bellowed over her shoulder toward the boat.

  I smiled and nodded. Gladys, Ginny, and Geraldine. Got it, the Gee Spot.

  “This-this is your boat?” Jack Junior asked, his voice trickling upward.

  “Sure is. Well, one third,” she twanged and turned to look back at the boat to see her compatriots exit to the stern deck on their way to joining us on the dock.

  “Bill Beedle, I’m the manager, and this is–“

  “Why, I bet they call you Bugsy, don’t they?” the twangster insisted.

  “Most people don’t.” Bugsy cleared his throat. “This is Alex Michaels and Jack Ross Junior and uh… Russ Shears,” he said, indicating toward each of us in turn.

  “Oh, y’all work here too?” the twangster went on.

  “No,” I piped up. “We live here. We volunteer as tour guides though, if you want to see the highlights.” I smiled and nudged Jack Junior who seemed a little stunned.

  “You mean there’s more highlights than seein’ this tall drinka water?” she said with a playful grin, looking Bugsy up and down.

  “Plenty,” I mumbled with a smile as I observed the two women from the boat who were now on either side of Gladys.

  “Ginny, Geraldine, this here’s Russ, Alex, Jack, and Bugsy,” Gladys gestured to all involved.

  “Um… oh, never mind,” Bugsy interjected then sighed. There was no use in protesting; once a Bugsy always a Bugsy.

  The Ginny and Geraldine who rounded out the Gees of the Gee Spot couldn’t have been more dissimilar, and I wondered how three such incongruous women had managed to get together and stay together. While it was obvious Gladys was southern, Ginny was clearly of northern descent. Her Baston accent gave her away when she said hello, and I couldn’t tell from Geraldine’s greeting from whence she hailed. She simply murmured quietly and nodded.

  Not only were their greetings completely unique from one another, the ladies looked nothing alike. Ginny, the northerner, a very thin woman, wore a black and white gigantic sun hat. Peeking out from under it was a tight blonde chignon. She wore black capris, a white cotton sweater, crisp white sneakers, and her most defining accessory may have been the Jacki O sunglasses she put back into position after making her greetings. Her skin was pale and porcelain-like. She reminded me of an older Grace Kelly, and I pegged her somewhere in her sixties or even late fifties–but definitely younger than her years based on how conscientious she seemed to be with her sun protection.

  Geraldine, by comparison, looked like the quintessential flower child. She was less angular than her friends, a nice way of saying she was a little plumper, and her long grey curly hair hung down like Spanish moss halfway down the layers of blouses and necklaces she wore which topped a flowery, flowy peasant skirt. From the hem of her skirt to her ankles, you could make out shrubs of thick silvery hair on her legs which ended at her strappy leather gladiator sandals. She was somewhere between the vintage of Gladys and Ginny but I’d bet she’d lived more lives than both of them combined, and the liver and sun spots on her forearms and hands looked almost artistic.

  “Are you ladies staying long?” I asked.

  “Oh, round about ‘til Thanksgiving or the day after. I ‘spect you have some papers for me to sign, handsome?” Gladys directed toward Bugsy. Obviously.

  “Yes, I do,” Bugsy said toward his clipboard. I smiled when I observed the hint of red on his cheeks.

  “Well, come on aboard.” Gladys beckoned with her hand. “Time’s a wastin’. Say, you want a drink?” she asked as she drifted toward the gangway.

  “No, it’s uh, a little early for me and I’m working,” Bugsy replied.

  Gladys turned toward the rest of us before setting foot on the stern deck, Ginny and Geraldine in tow. “How ‘bout y’all?”

  “No, I can’t, I’ve got some work to do, but I’ll stop over later,” I said. “If you’re looking for the fifty-cent tour guide, though, I live on my tug over there.” I pointed in the general direction. “The Alex M., can’t miss it,” I said and smiled.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve got to go too, right, son?” Jack said toward Russ, already pulling him away.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Alright, we’ll see y’all later then,” Gladys said. “Well, come on now.” She took Bugsy by the elbow and, when I last saw him, he was looking back at me with a touch of fear in his eyes.

  ✽✽✽

  Two hours and what felt like innumerable crazy phone calls later, I needed a break. My last phone call came from a regular. I won’t refer to him as a customer because, frankly, I never expect for him to buy anything I have listed. This time he’d called under the guise of asking about a new workboat I’d featured on the website, though eventually the conversation turned to the topic of his latest conspiracy theory. One time he even told me we were all living in a simulation. I remember that day in particular, because it was the day before I got my new keyboard—his ramblings had caused me to spew out my green tea across the number pad of the old one. With crazy on the mind, I decided to go over and, to quote Bugsy, roll out the welcome wagon.

  I took the steep set of steps down to the galley, plucked a bottle of white from the rack, tied a bow on it with some sisal string I keep in the junk drawer—it’s right beside the scotch tape, rubber bands, thumbtacks, and old fridge magnets. “You’re in charge, Georgie.” I patted my black cat on the head, and he gave me the stink eye before I ventured out the stern door.

  On my way down the dock, I did a quick check of The Splendored Thing. Nat’s pride and joy, where we watched old movies on Saturday nights and discussed everything from philosophy to knot tying, and I don’t mean the subject of marriage. Since his “departure” from the marina in June, I’d been appointed caretaker of the vessel thanks to his lawyer, Cary Tranmer. Truth be known, the boat would one day be willed to me, along with his vintage truck and a horrendous amount of equities and, once things were made final with the estate, I’d decide what to do with all that. In the meantime, I’d moved her from Nat’s former slip to a spot close to me so I could keep an eye on things. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s not like the Marysville Marina is rampant with crime. The last remotely felonious event that took place was, I believe, the stuffing of the ballot box at the judging table of the July Fourth show-and-shine for boats.

  As I made my way toward short-term dockage, I noticed Bugsy, chatting with Jack Junior on the Fortune Cookie. “What’s the matter, you hiding from the Gee Spotters?” I chided him as I neared the boat.

  “Hardly,” he said flatly and got to his feet. “Thanks, Jack. See ya, Michaels,” he said, stepping onto the dock and heading in the direction of Aggie’s.

  “See ya,” I replied faintly. It wasn’t like Bugsy to take off so abruptly after seeing me; usually he waits for me to say something stupid or insulting first. I stepped onto Jack’s boat. “What’s up with him?”

  “Hmmm? Oh, he was just here to talk about something.”

  “What kind of something?”

  “Guy stuff.” Jack’s eyes flickered at me as though I wouldn’t understand.

  “What kind of guy stuff? You guys get together and talk over strategies of how to do a one cheek sneak or discuss the best urinals in town?”

  He smiled. “No, nothing like that.”

  “Let me guess, you were spying on the Gee Spots,” I said, my eyes landing on the binoculars nearby.

  “I was not spying. I-I-I was just looking around. You know, you never can be too careful. Why-why we don’t have a neighborhood watch program here, you know. We get some shady types coming here and—“


  “Jack, I think we’re safe.” I squinted to look in the direction of the visiting boat. While I doubted the ladies were up to no good, they were up to something. “What are they doing? Let me see your binocs,” I said and beckoned them forth with my hand.

  “Oh, some pagan dance ritual, I think,” he grumbled.

  Yeah, that was likely. I put the glasses up to my eyes. “Mmhmm, no pagan dances, sorry. Looks more like Tai Chi. Hey, why don’t you go join them?” I moved my arms to shift my magnified gaze. “Hey! Is that… Is that Sefton over there?”

  “Yeah, that’s him.” Jack shook his head disgustedly.

  “Jack, the Lord hates a coward. Just go!”

  He shook his head again. “Nah, if they wanted my company, they’d ask. Besides, they’re not my type and they’re only here for a couple weeks.”

  “Well, I’m heading there now,” I said, handing back the binoculars and hoisting the bottle of wine I’d carried. “I hope they like white. You sure you don’t want to come with?”

  “No thanks, kiddo. I think I’m just going to sit here. I’ve-I’ve-I’ve got to finish this book and—“

  “Ok, but if you change your mind, that’s where I’ll be. May take them uptown, you know, check out the bakery, the ice cream place, Harbor Pizza. You know, the landmarks,” I said, realizing that the landmarks for me seemed to revolve around food rather than cultural sites like the Marysville Museum—which by the way contains a heck of an exhibit on barbed wire. Or so I’m told.

  “No. Thanks. You go have fun,” he said, offered a weak smile and opened his book to the piece of paper he’d used as a bookmark. No kiddo, no sweetie, no dear. That wasn’t like him, and I walked down the dock wondering what was eating at Jack.

  ✽✽✽

  I can’t tell you exactly what happened when I went to the Gee Spot. The next morning, it all seemed like a bit of a blur. After Sefton and I took the ladies on a tour of Marysville, they took us on a tour of Jamaica via rum, Russia via vodka, and Ireland via some whiskey sour drink they whipped up onboard. One thing I do recall is the nature of the common bond that unites the women. They were all three, at different times, married to the same man. And each invested part of their divorce settlement into the boat that would become their floating home, steadfast in the notion that they’d never see their ex-hubby again since he’d never had any luck finding the g-spot in the past. Sefton had walked me back to my boat that night, and I was surprised to see him looking so sprightly the next morning when I ambled into Aggie’s.