Girl Unmoored (15 page)

Grandma Bramhall put on her glasses and held the menu about a mile away from her and said, “Yes, I’ll have a bloody mary and my granddaughter will have a—?” then waited for me to fill in the blank. I said, “Shirley Temple, please,” and then Grandma Bramhall said, “And I’ll have the crab roll and my granddaughter will have the—?” I said, “Grilled cheese, please,” making a heart on my sweating water glass before I took a sip. I was back to drinking water full time again, even though I could practically feel those hairy amoebas sliding down my throat, eyes closed and laughing like they were on a water slide. But I was finished eating meat. Hamburgers had parents, and I wasn’t about to eat anyone’s mother.

After the waitress took our menus, Grandma Bramhall put her napkin in her lap and said, “Excited for school to get out, dearie?”

“Yeah,” I said. But I wasn’t. I’d be spending most of my time trying to avoid M.

I picked up my fork and tried to balance it on one finger.

“Grandma Bramhall?” I asked quietly. “What does love mean to you?”

Something about that was funny to her, so she laughed. “Well, let’s see then, a three-stop cruise in the Caribbean?” My fork dropped, clanking against the water glass.

A few times while we were eating, Grandma Bramhall caught someone’s wrinkly arm walking by and asked, “Do you know my pretty granddaughter, Apron?” Then I would stand up to shake their cold hand and watch Grandma Bramhall smile big and say, “Oh, did I tell you about my cruise?” Two ladies said, “Yes, Dory you did,” and kept walking, but one old lady with a needlepoint lobster on her pocketbook shook her head and said, “No, for gracious sakes, Dory, do tell.” So Grandma Bramhall told her to pull up a chair.

I looked outside so I didn’t have to see those happy people dancing under chandeliers again.
The Portland Polly
was in the water now, puttering past the docks. Way out in the harbor, boats were bouncing up and down against the waves like pigeons pecking at birdseed. A small blue sailboat named
2 Have Fun
was tied onto the dock and someone in red Nantucket pants and a dark blue polo shirt, wearing a white baseball hat, was spraying the bow down with a hose. I watched those seagulls dare each other to land on deck but then chicken out when the man aimed the hose at them.

“Did your grandmother tell you about the beluga whale?” the woman with the lobster pocketbook asked me. She was as old as Grandma Bramhall, but dressed fancier, with big gold earrings that matched her necklace and a red coat with gold buttons.

I shook my head and looked at Grandma Bramhall, in her same blue dress with white squiggles on it, a matching belt tight around her waist, always thick and soft. But Grandma Bramhall kept staring at one of the brochures while she said, “I don’t know anything about a whale, Betty.”

“Oh, you do too,” the pocketbook lady said, slapping the air in front of her. “That poor whale has been stuck in the harbor for days. Lost its way.”

“Well, I haven’t
been
here for days, Betty,” Grandma Bramhall said, picking her head up.

“I can’t remember there ever being a whale around here, can you?” the pocketbook lady asked.

Grandma Bramhall shook her shaking head at me. “No,” she said, her voice lifting a little. “Actually, I can’t either. Go down and have a look, dearie.”

I turned to the window and sighed. I didn’t want to go take a look, but Grandma Bramhall and the pocketbook lady had already swapped brochures once and were about to do it again, back to talking about upper decks and pineapples. So I stood. We weren’t allowed to be home until after two o’clock anyway, when M’s nurse friends would be gone. I had heard my dad on the phone last night promising to get them all back to the hospital by then, the beginning of their shifts.

I smiled at the bang lady on the way out, but she didn’t smile back.

It felt like I stepped into a dryer by mistake.
But the closer I got to the docks, the cooler the wind got, blowing across my forehead and whipping up my red hair.

I crossed the pebbled path and headed straight down the ramp, steep now at low tide. Everything creaked on the way down, so I held onto the railing. When I got to the bottom, the man in Nantucket pants was on his knees tightening a knot in the cleat. I walked over to the edge of the dock and looked into the deep green water. No signs of a whale anywhere.

“Apron?” someone said.

When I turned to look, I saw it was Mr. Perry. He wiped his hands on his Nantucket pants and stood.

“Hi, Mr. Perry,” I said turning back down to the water. I hadn’t seen him since the Meaningless Bowl.

“Well, hi, is your dad here with you?” he said checking out the ramp behind me.

“No. Grandma Bramhall is taking me to brunch.”

“Oh,” Mr. Perry said, worry falling off his face. Then he looked down at my dress. “Well, you’re a picture of loveliness.”

“Thank you,” I smiled, my freckles burning. In the water there was still nothing but slapping waves.

“Are you looking for the whale?” he asked, stepping closer to take a look for himself. “It’s a baby beluga, all white.”

I nodded. Mr. Perry was even more handsome with a hat on.

“Haven’t seen it myself. Though supposedly it’s been hanging around for a few days, must have strayed from its pack.”

That got me worried. “Are they going to kill it?”

“No,” he said quietly. “No one’s going to hurt it. All we can do is hope that it finds its way back home soon enough, while it still stands a chance.”

I nodded and then we stood on the edge of the dock together like that, waiting. Small bits of wind were blowing here and there, but the sun was still beating down, hot.

“Mr. Perry?” I asked softly. “Can I ask you something?”

He cleared his throat. Then with his voice much lower he said, “What is it, Apron?”

“Did Rennie have Jenny Pratt for a sleepover last night?”

He didn’t answer me for a second. “Jenny Pratt?” he said with his voice up to normal again. “As a matter of fact yes, she did, Apron.”

My stomach dented. Just off the docks, a man in a Boston Whaler screamed, “Yo’ Perry, you done?” But Mr. Perry didn’t answer. He waved him off with a flick of his wrist and said, still looking at me, “Uh-oh. Did Rennie make plans with you first?”

I watched that man turn his boat around and zoom off. And just when the wake from the Boston Whaler slammed into the side of the dock, I shrugged.

“Gosh, I’m sorry about that. You two remind me of sisters, though, and sometimes even sisters fight.” Mr. Perry said, smiling in a big goofy way.

I hung the ends of my flip-flops over the water and watched the waves banging against the docks. It had a life of its own now, the water, splashing back onto itself so hard that even the seagulls stayed away.

“Hey, I know,” Mr. Perry clapped, perking himself up and pointing to the boat tied next to him. “Do you want to take her back to the mooring with me?”

I turned around and looked up at the restaurant, then back to Mr. Perry who dropped his hose again, waiting for an answer. “You’d be my first passenger?” he said. “Just launched her this morning. Not even Rennie’s been on her yet.”

So I nodded and climbed aboard the
2 Have Fun
, thinking of exactly how I was going to tell Rennie and Jenny Pratt that I had been on the boat before they had.

On deck things were really rocking. I held onto the side of the boat while Mr. Perry got in and pulled up the bumpers. Everything smelled new, like shoe polish, and the floor was the sandy color I should have had for hair.

Mr. Perry said, “Not yet,” when I asked him if he needed any help, so I leaned against the side of the boat and watched him wrap and store and turn things on. My dad gets too sunburned to sail, but Mr. Perry was brown as a bear.

“Okay, Apron,” he said, undoing the cleats and throwing the ropes into the boat. “We’re going to motor out to the mooring.”

I leaned over the side and dipped my hand in the water, watching five long fingernails grow. After they dripped off, one by one, I did it again and again. Until the motor slowed and Mr. Perry said, “Take the helm, would you?”

I looked around to see who he was talking to, but no one else was there and he was already walking up to the bow. Which meant for a moment, we were just floating; unmoored. We could have drifted anywhere—all the way up to Canada or straight into the rocks. Only time would tell.

I stepped over and took the helm. “Which way?” I yelled to Mr. Perry sprawled out on his stomach and leaning down over the side.

“
No
way,” he said to all the lobsters and clams zip-ping along down there. “Just hold her steady right where she is.”

So I did. And even though I was still nervous, I could do it. I looked around at the names of some of the other boats.
No Billow Bertha
was black and long, and
The Lazy Daisy
was as yellow as my dress.

“There. She’s on,” Mr. Perry said, standing up and clapping his hands on his Nantucket pants. He walked back toward me with two dark handprints above his knees. “Time to call the launch. You’re going to love this.”

He told me to let go of the wheel, the boat wasn’t going anywhere now. “On the right side is a foghorn, can you go down and get it?” He pointed to the stairs leading into the cabin.

Below, there were two red cushioned benches, plus a sink with wine glasses hanging upside down over it, swaying back and forth with the waves. There were life jackets and radios and compasses, all tucked neatly into a shelf under the two round windows on either side.

“Wow,” I said.

“Great, isn’t it?” Mr. Perry yelled from the deck, winding up something else. Then, when I turned around again, I saw the foghorn hanging on a hook and my mom.

I froze.

It was a picture that I had seen before, when my mom volunteered for the sponge toss at the Falmouth Fair. Her hair was in a ponytail and her wet cheeks reflected like mirrors. She was laughing at the camera, at the person taking the picture, and right then I remembered Mr. Perry hitting her flat in the face with a sponge while Rennie and I watched from the side, grabbing each other’s shoulder to see if she was going to be mad about it, then watching her come around from the painted backboard with holes for heads, and smiling at Mr. Perry. That was when he took the picture.

I tried to act normal when I went back up on deck and handed Mr. Perry the foghorn. But I couldn’t look at him. He told me no, Apron, you try blowing it. But not how loud it was going to be, and when I squeezed that bubble, my ears felt like someone was trying to pull them inside out.

Mr. Perry said, “Good job, kiddo,” after I handed it back to him.

I said, “Thanks,” but not: why don’t you have a picture of
Mrs. Perry
taped on to the wall down there instead?

Mr. Perry hung the foghorn on his belt loop, whistled something, then started tying and folding, while right in front of me three seagulls dive-bombed the water. You couldn’t see what it was, but something was stirring under there and all three of them knew it.

The launch motored up to us and the launch boy took my arm when I stepped into his boat. Mr. Perry went downstairs to close up and when he came back, his face looked like it had been painted white. That fog-horn wasn’t hanging on his belt anymore, either.

He didn’t look at me when he said, “Wait a minute” to the launch boy, he just kept walking up to the bow with a green plastic snake in his hands.

The launch boy said, “Don’t worry, it’s not real. Old lobsterman trick, supposed to scare off the seagulls.”

But I wasn’t tricked at all.

After Mr. Perry climbed on board with us, he stayed in the stern, one foot up on the side of the boat, looking back the whole time. I kept my eyes peeled straight ahead. The wind was blowing so hard it could practically erase your mind, unless you were me, who had too much to think about now. Like Mr. Perry and my mom, and my dad and M. You’re only supposed to love one person,
that’s
what love was supposed to mean, but no one was getting it right around here.

As soon as the bumpers hit the docks I jumped off.

Mr. Perry stepped off behind me and caught my arm before I could go anywhere.

“Wait, Apron,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to give this to you.”

He slid the picture into my hand and just then something big splashed next to us. Mr. Perry and I saw it at the same time: a long shiny white back.

“Will you look at that,” he whispered, leaning over the edge of the dock.

I stepped up. Shimmers of light exploded on top of the water faster than I could blink them out. He turned to me, but I kept my eyes down. I thought the beluga would be huge, but it was the same size as the dolphins I was going to save.

Mr. Perry started to say something, but the whale surfaced again, blowing water out of its spout, before disappearing again deep into the green.

He shook his head. “It never should have strayed.”

I held the picture out for him to take back.

“If you’re going to make your own bed,” I said quietly, then spun away and started up the ramp.

It was three o’clock by the time Grandma Bramhall bounced us back down our dirt road.
But even hearing “Glory Days” twice on the radio didn’t take the splinter out of my stomach.

Grandma Bramhall told me to go on in and take some Maalox right away, that I was probably coming down with something, but I told her I was fine, just not hungry for dessert.

“Grandma Bramhall?” I asked, looking over at her. “Can you come to my parent-teacher conference on Thursday?”

“Thursday?” she repeated, her shake cranking up. “I wish you had asked me sooner. I have Bertha’s twenty-year widow party. Sorry, dearie.”