“ Oh, yeah… sure…”
Judy Templar located the necessary cash and tip, dropped it on the table and started away. She returned, however, for one last-ditch effort to get Cynthia to tag along. “You coming?”
“ Naw… Think I’ll just sit here.”
“ Come on, Cyn… We’ll just pretend to be looking at the boats. She won’t know any different. She’s too preoccupied with Paaaaatric-without-the-K anyway. Come on, Cyn… Cyn…”
“ Oh, all right, all right. Stop your whining. God…” They’d gotten up to go toward the dock when two young men not quite their ages intercepted them, asking if they’d care to dance. Judy whispered a bit of feminine philosophy in Cyn’s ear, saying, “What is it about a place like this? It never fails that in a place like this, the losers always find us. Are we wearing signs on our backs or what?”
One of the band members hit a bad note and it brought Judy’s attention full circle to the musicians and the fact that some people were dancing.
Cynthia wondered what her friend had just said even as she whispered back, “What is it about places like this that attract boys too young to drink and too cash-poor to buy me a drink?”
Both of them giggled, trying to mask their amusement with their hands and failing miserably to do so. Then they each grew more serious and stared at the other for the right answer to their would-be suitors.
Finally, Judy Templar said, “I’m sorry. I’m just going for a walk.”
Cynthia said, “I’ll dance.”
That left one of the boys tagging along in Judy’s footsteps toward the boats. He introduced himself as Todd Simon, said his father ran the local True Value hardware, said he went to nearby Sea Breeze High School, said he was graduating come June, enrolling at Florida State in Tallahassee in the fall, and said he thought she was “about” the prettiest girl he’d ever met.
But Judy only half listened, searching as she was for the boat that Tammy had gotten aboard. She scanned left and right, and when she finally zeroed in on it, she found that it had already been expertly maneuvered beyond the docks, and that it was now far out into the river-so far, in fact, that she couldn’t make out the name at the stern or the numbers below the bow.
A wicked thought flitted through her brain now: how she might disrupt Tammy’s romantic evening so easily by reporting the boat to the harbor patrol or even the Coast Guard, telling them she thought Patric was drunk when he pulled out of port and that maybe they should just have a look. If she had the name and numbers off the boat, it would be a simple enough joke to pull off, but she would have a tough time describing the boat without the details. Still, it was a stunning sailing vessel; not too many like her in the harbor, and if Judy worked fast…
As she stared out at the boat, lit now with lights that made it appear enchanted, she felt another wave of distrust of the man who’d whisked Tammy off, and she felt an uncomfortable, indescribable and grim sense of concern for Tammy’s well-being. She even thought about a line in a poem Mrs. Hargrave had kept shoving down their throats in high school, something by Coleridge or Keats or somebody like that which said: A savage place! as holy- arid enchanted/As e er beneath a waning moon was haunted/ By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
Maybe she was just jealous of Tammy; maybe she felt more vindictive about how the evening had gone than she wanted to admit. Maybe she was worse off than Cynthia in that way.“Bullshit,” she said aloud, alerting her “date” to her disquiet. Her fears were unfounded, she told herself. They didn’t compute. Tammy, like herself, had gone off with strangers met at bars before, so what was the big deal? Was it something her mother always said? That if it looks or sounds too good to be true, then it is too good to be true?
Judy continued to stare out at the boat as it slipped further into the distance. There was something about the boat which triggered her concern, but she wasn’t sure what it was. Earlier, when Tammy, Cynthia and she were idly playing with the swizzle sticks in their drinks, they’d seen the boat approach, and the sun’s final, shimmering rays had made it appear something out of a fairy tale. None of them had expected the man who got off that boat to come near them, but he had. He’d honed right in on them, on Tammy in particular, catching her up with his eyes, asking if he could buy them all a drink. But soon he had somehow maneuvered Tammy away from the other two.
Judy had watched the boat approach, had seen the name of the boat and had wondered about it, but she couldn’t recall it now. It had seemed odd to her, but then people named boats with words that spoke of very personal moments in their lives all the time, so the names of boats were often colorful, filled with innuendo or double entendre, like Money Pit or Reckless Nerve. Still, this one was just strange.
And there was something else nagging at Judy as she stood staring out at the boat in the twilight of the harbor lamps. Those thick black nylon ropes hanging over the bowsprit and at the stern seemed out of place, unnecessary bindings. Everyone nowadays used thick nylon ropes, but there was something odd about these lines.
“ How damned many lines do you need to secure a boat?” she asked herself aloud now while the boy beside her scrunched up his nose and raised his shoulders.
Todd Simon finally replied with a question, reminding her of his presence beside her. “What’re you talking about?’’ He continued to stand there, staring out at the distant lights of the boat with her, not knowing why.
It did seem odd to her. She knew a little about sailing, had taken a class years before, and these lines were in excess of what was normally used on a sailing vessel, although there were always innumerable lines. There was something else strange about the boat, too, something odd. Still, it was the several catch lines or ropes, thick nylon things dangling in the water, that stayed with Judy. Each line curled over the edge like a waiting serpent.
They couldn’t be anchor lines-not that many-and yet the ropes didn’t float or waft atop the water as one might expect rope to do if it’d simply been forgotten and left to dangle overboard. Even now, in the dark and in the distance, she could see the reflection of light off three distinctly different slick nylon ropes. Maybe it’s just where he stashes his beer, she thought; but he s got an entire galley below for that, she reminded herself, careful now not to ask Todd anything more. Each of the three lines she focused in on had some weight at the other end. Her curiosity remained unsatisfied. Foolish, she thought, being something of a sailor herself since she’d taken it up in college. Why intentionally create drag at the back of the boat that way?
Also below the reflecting light out over the bay, she could just make out Tammy’s silhouette pressed up against his. They were kissing, dancing, making out on the boat-so far just harmless petting. And since the boat was sitting still now out in the middle of the harbor, it didn’t appear that Patric was going to take Tammy too far off.
Tammy’s a big girl, she finally told herself. She can take care of herself.
“ I sure would like to dance,” said Todd Simon in her ear. “But a walk around the pier’s nice, too… I guess.”
“ You wanna dance?” she asked loudly, almost frightening her young suitor. “Then come on, we’ll dance.” She had to get her mind off Tammy and Patric, one way or another; her little fixation was only hurting herself. She hated Tammy more than just a little for having stolen her place beside Patric without the K. Forget it… forget her… forget him, she firmly admonished herself.
Still, the entire time she danced with the heir to the True Value in South Miami Beach, Judy thought about Tammy’s turn of luck with the accented Patric, who had deftly moved his huge sailing vessel from port within minutes. It was so beautiful, the kind of sailing vessel you dreamed of owning. It was trimmed with durable East Indian teakwood, that lovely golden-brown sheen all around, always looking as if just varnished.