I felt Sea Song tip slightly as Connie hopped aboard. “I see you’ve opened her up. Thanks, Hal.”
“No problem.” He pointed to his head, where a maroon cap with the Calvert Marina logo embroidered on it in white was mashed down over his wiry hair. “That’s what you pay me for.”
Connie laughed. “Enough of your BS, Hal! Just hand me the clipboard, will you?”
Although Connie’s bookkeeping is a mess, her seafaring life is governed by checklists. This is the part I hate: when she grabs that damned clipboard of hers with the laminated checklist and a black grease pencil tied to it with a string, looks around at the crew, makes some sort of quick assessment, and assigns everyone a job. I’d much rather be pulling on lines and cranking things, but Connie must have decided it’d be too strenuous in my convalescent condition, so she asked me to turn on the water cocks. “And don’t forget that one there, Hannah. It’s for the water supply that cools the engine.”
I lifted the floorboards near the companionway ladder. “Really, Connie!” I complained, my knuckles scraping on the fiberglass as I reached into the bilge and twisted the various levers until they were parallel with their respective hoses. “I don’t know why you bother. Craig never did. It’s not like the boat is going to sink or anything if you don’t turn them off each time you bring Sea Song in.”
“Hoses can develop leaks, floors can be ruined, so humor me,” she said, then handed me the handle for the bilge pump.
While I sat in the cockpit and worked my arm up and down as I listened to what little water there was in the bilge gurgle out a hole in the back of the boat, Hal and Dennis removed the lines that secured the stern to the dock and the spring lines at each side that kept the boat from crashing into the pilings when the tide in the Chesapeake rose and fell. The lines attached to the bow were still firmly tied. At a signal from Connie, Dennis untied the two remaining lines and flung them to Hal on the dock, who, in a matter of seconds, draped them neatly over the pilings before leaping nimbly back aboard. Connie flipped a few switches, turned the key, and started the engine, shifting smoothly into reverse. She backed Sea Song neatly out of the slip, then pointed her toward the mouth of the Truxton River.
Hal took the opportunity to reach inside the cooler, root around in the frigid water, select and discard several brands of beer until he retrieved a Samuel Adams golden pilsner. He shook the water from his hand, then reached into his pocket for a bottle opener. He popped the cap, flipped it overboard, and took a long drink. “I sure appreciate this chance to get out on the water. My boat’s out of commission. Hull delaminations.”
Dennis’s head swiveled in Hal’s direction, and a look I couldn’t read passed over his face. Whatever message he meant to convey was lost on Hal as he settled back against the seat cushions, picked absentmindedly at the label on the beer bottle with his thumbnail, and turned his full attention on me. “First noticed it after I got back from Puerto Rico.”
Connie spun the steering wheel expertly to the left, straightened it, then eased the lever that controlled the accelerator slightly forward. Sea Song’s speedometer inched upward to three knots. “Hal practically lives on that boat, Hannah. You wouldn’t believe the places he’s sailed on her.”
“Paul keeps promising to take me to the Virgin Islands.” Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes as I thought about how easily lifelong dreams could be shattered. I turned my head away and looked out over the water.
We were motoring past the point of land where the business end of Calvert Marina lay: Hal’s office, the ship’s store, a gas dock, a couple of sheds. Connie pointed to a huge, tentlike structure with something like streetcar rails leading into it from the water. “Pegasus is in there. He’s cut a hole in her to remove a large section of wet fiberglass. They’re shining heat lamps on her and letting her dry out for a few days before beginning the real work.”
“When do you think she’ll be back in the water, Hal?” I asked.
“About a month. Certainly in time for the Memorial Day regatta. Maybe you’d like to crew for me?”
“Not if you’ve got your heart set on winning.”
A smile exaggerated the creases in his suntanned cheeks, shaving years off his age. Something that I hoped was hunger fluttered in my stomach.
At the No. 2 flashing green buoy that marks the entrance into the bay from the Truxton River, Connie nosed Sea Song toward Holly Point. “Hoist the main!” she shouted.
Hal grabbed my hand and pulled me to the cabin top after him. We released the sail ties and raised the mainsail. He cranked the winch handle while I held the tail end of the line where it wound off the winch as the big sail rose slowly to the top of the mast. When the mainsail was fully raised, Hal took the line from me, wrapped it in a figure eight around a cleat, made a reverse loop, and pulled it tight. Connie adjusted the main sheet and pointed Sea Song into the bay. Meanwhile, Dennis cranked in the line that unfurled the jib sail.
The wind caught both sails with an audible snap that caused Sea Song to surge forward. Connie turned the wheel and squinted up toward the billowing mainsail, adjusting her course until the bits of colored string that were attached to the sail, called telltales, began streaming straight back. Sea Song cut through the water, a craft perfectly balanced between the natural forces of wind and sea. Smiling in satisfaction, Connie shut off the engine.
As I stepped back into the cockpit, I thought, This is the part about sailing I like the best. When the only sound you hear is the wind, the snapping of the sails, and the clean sloosh of water as it curls up, foaming and hissing, along the sides of the hull.
Several hundred yards off Holly Point, Connie tacked toward the Eastern Shore, trimmed the sails in tight, and Sea Song heeled to starboard. The cooler slid sideways in the cockpit, reminding me I was thirsty. I reached inside for a Coke. “Connie, Dennis, what’s your pleasure?”
While I dug around in the icy water, Dennis drained the remaining drops of beer from a bottle he had opened not five minutes before. I produced a can of Heineken and waved it in his direction; he eagerly made the trade. I watched him pop the top and made a quick calculation. Three glasses of wine at the reception, two beers already: It should turn out to be a relaxing day on the water for our friendly neighborhood policeman. Earlier he had stonewalled when I asked him, casually, about how it went in his interviews with the Wildcats. I decided to forget the direct approach and keep the beer coming in hopes it would loosen his tongue.
Before long Dennis went below, to use the bathroom, I thought, until I heard him call, “Hey, Con! Where’d you put Craig’s old tackle box?”
“It’s in the V berth, on the port side. The poles are on the shelf opposite.”
In a few minutes two long fishing poles emerged from the main hatch, followed by Dennis’s arm, then the rest of his lanky body. The trailing arm held a gray plastic toolbox, which he placed on the floor of the cockpit before returning to his seat next to me. Hal had already relieved Dennis of the fishing poles and had set them into rod holders attached to the chrome-plated stanchions on the stern.
Dennis lifted the tackle box to his lap and opened it, revealing a fascinating assortment of lures. I leaned over and selected an iridescent fish made out of a gooey plastic material that reminded me of the jelly shoes Emily made me buy for her when she was twelve, but it felt so creepy I put it right back. Plastic squids shared a compartment with wiggle jigs like big-eyed minnows in hula skirts, and in the next compartment lay something blue with flecks of gold still clipped to a cardboard card labeled “crippled crab.” “Yuck,” I said. In spite of all the decorative foliage, the one thing they all had in common was a nasty-looking hook hidden underneath somewhere.