Liars and Fools (16 page)

Kathy was wrong. Mom wasn't waiting on the other side of some invisible curtain. She wasn't hanging out on some social networking site for dead people, or watching over me like a guardian angel. She was dead. She was gone.

She's not coming back,
Dad had said. And I knew that was true too.

nineteen

I woke before the sun came up. The square of sky outside my window was still dark, and beside my bed my alarm clock flashed
5
:
29
. I pulled on jeans, a sweatshirt and a fleece jacket, and tiptoed downstairs.

Dad always slept in on Sunday mornings, usually until eight thirty or nine, so I had at least three hours to myself.

I needed to see
Eliza J.

I grabbed an apple from the fridge, headed outside and stopped dead. Kathy's car was in the driveway, parked right behind ours. She'd stayed the night.

I didn't want to think about that or what it meant.

My bike was in the backyard, locked to the fence. I unlocked it silently and wheeled it past the cars and out to the street. I wondered if Caitlin had a babysitter, liars and fools or if she was at home alone. I wondered what she thought of Kathy spending the night with my father. I bet she hated it about as much as I did.

Just above the horizon, wide streaks as creamy white as sails were starting to light up the darkness. I swung my leg over the seat of my bike and pedaled off down the street toward the marina.

The sun was a tangerine semicircle emerging from a low bank of cloud, and the wind blew steadily through the deserted marina. I locked my bike to the rack and walked down the ramp to the water. Low tide. I listened to the clang and clatter of the wind blowing loose halyards against aluminum masts, the call of a gull swooping low overhead, the groan of dock lines pulling taut against their steel cleats.

As I turned onto E-dock, I could see the faded blue of
Eliza J
's sail cover. I hurried toward her and stepped on board. A halyard shackle clanked against the mast with a gentle chime, as if
Eliza J
was welcoming me back.

“Are you happy to see me?” I said softly. “Beautiful boat. I've missed you.” Mom was gone, Dad was with Kathy, Abby didn't want to be my friend anymore, but
Eliza J
had always been there for me. And I hadn't visited her for so long. Poor
Eliza J.
I ran my hand along the robin stevenson edge of the dodger, feeling the roughness of the tightly stretched canvas—and stopped abruptly as something caught my eye. The For Sale sign at her bow had been flipped over, a line drawn through the price. I leaned over the railing to get a look at the side of the sign visible from the dock.

SOLD
.

I sank down to the cockpit bench and pushed my hands against my ears, trying to muffle the roaring noise, even though I knew it was coming from inside my head.
Sold.
Dad must have known it last night and been too much of a coward to tell me. Or too busy maybe, too distracted, off for dinner with his stupid, lying hypocrite of a girlfriend. Who was, presumably, lying in his bed right now.

My nails dug into my palms, and my stomach clenched as tight as my fists. I wished I could go down below into the cabin and curl up on my old berth. I looked at the companionway boards and the padlock that held them firmly in place. It seemed so wrong that I was locked out. I turned away, blinking back tears, and looked out at the water. I wished I could sail away. I imagined standing at the helm, feeling the power of the wind lifting the sails, listening to the sound of the hull moving through the water, seeing the sea stretching out before me forever.

Standing up, I slid the blue canvas tube off the tiller, wanting to feel the smooth wood under my hand one more time. The canvas cover slipped from my hand and dropped onto the locker lid, making an oddly heavy clunking sound. I picked it up and ran my fingers along the inch-wide seam at the bottom edge.

There it was: the spare key Mom had kept hidden inside the seam of the tiller cover ever since the time I accidentally locked us out of the boat. I had forgotten all about it. I picked at the stitches with my nails until the seam loosened and I could ease the key out.

I looked around, suddenly worried that someone might see me, but the marina was empty. Just me, the crying gulls and the restless wind. I pushed the key into the lock, tugged it open, slid out the companionway boards, and let myself in.

Someone had stuck a rose-scented air freshener on the bulkhead, but the air in
Eliza J
's cabin was heavy with the dank musty smell of mildew and neglect. I opened the portholes and lifted the V-berth hatch, letting the breeze blow through. I switched on the house battery and turned on the cabin lights, brightening the gloom. Through the open companionway, I could see the sky getting lighter.

If Mom was here, we'd be getting the sail covers off, opening the water intake, starting the engine, pulling out the chart book. Unless we were just sailing to Sidney Spit or something. Mom knew that route like the back of her hand. Even I could do that trip without charts.

My breath caught in my throat. I could do it. Right now. And if I was ever going to sail
Eliza J
again, this was my last chance. Quickly, before the marina office opened and people started arriving and the docks starting buzzing with the chatter and hum of a blue-sky spring Sunday.

My heart was racing. I hadn't ever sailed alone. I knew how to start the engine and raise the sails and all that, but Mom was always in charge. This was a crazy idea. Plus, if the boat was already sold, I was technically stealing it.

On the other hand, if I didn't do it, I'd never sail
Eliza J
again. I wiped my cold sweaty hands on my jeans. It was now or never.

I glanced at my watch: just past six. If I got back on my bike and went home now, Dad wouldn't even know I'd been gone. Obviously, that was what I should do.

And I might have done it, if I hadn't remembered Kathy's car in the driveway.

I lifted the valve to let fresh water cool the engine, switched over the battery and scrambled back up the companionway steps. I pushed the throttle forward slightly and touched my finger to the stiff ridged rubber of the engine start button. I hesitated, holding my breath. Was I actually going to do this? Once I started the engine, I told myself, there was no turning back.

Sometimes starting the engine could be difficult, especially on cold mornings. It would strain and strain—
chugga, chugga, chugga
—but not turn over. I wasn't sure whether I would be relieved or disappointed if that happened now. I closed my eyes and pushed the button; the engine started, smooth as a kitten's purr.

I didn't want to sit here, waiting for nosy neighbors to arrive, but I was nervous about getting off the dock safely. Usually it was a two-person job: I would leap off the boat, untie the dock lines, help guide the boat as Mom reversed, and jump back aboard at the last possible minute. I had only docked and undocked by myself a couple of times, for practice. Mom had said docking was an important skill that I should learn.

I hoped I could remember everything she'd told me.

The dock swayed slightly under my feet as I stepped off the boat. I quickly untied the mid-ship lines and coiled them neatly on the dock. Then I untied the bow line and stern line and held them in my hands, feeling the lines tighten instantly as the wind tried to push
Eliza J
away from the dock. The breeze was a bit stronger than I'd realized. I held on tightly to the ropes and tried to guide the boat backward, but she was drifting too fast, and I was scared that if the gap between the boat and the dock got any wider, I wouldn't be able to jump it. I tried to pull tighter on the bow line and felt the rough rope tug against my palm…

Next time, let go of the rope.

I tossed the rope onto the deck and jumped aboard.

I put the engine in reverse, straightened the tiller and quickly ran to the bow. The wind was making
Eliza J
swing to starboard before she was clear of the dock, and her anchor, sticking out over the bow, was dangerously close to the boat in the next slip. I grabbed a boat hook from the deck, leaned over the railing and gave our neighbor's boat a good hard shove.

And we were clear. I had done it.

I put the engine in forward and motored slowly away from the docks, out past the rocky gray breakwater and away from the marina. I took one last look back, half expecting to see someone standing at the end of the dock waving and yelling at me to come back. Dad, maybe. But there was no one there.

I slowed the engine and unzipped the sail covers from the main and jib, stowing the canvas in a cockpit locker. Then I shackled the halyards to the sails and raised first the main and then the jib. This was always my job, wrapping the halyard around the winch, heaving hand over hand as the white canvas fluttered its way upward noisily, while my mother watched from the helm, holding the boat into the wind until I gave her the thumbs-up.

I pushed the tiller gently to starboard, and
Eliza J
's bow swung to port, away from the wind. The sails tightened as the wind filled them.
Eliza J
heeled over, leaning to one side as she headed away from shore.

Engine off. I caught my breath. This was our favorite moment, Mom's and mine: that moment when the diesel hum of the engine suddenly stopped and all that was left was the song of the wind and the sound of the hull gliding through the water and the deep gray-green of the ocean stretching out before us as far as we could see.
Ahhh…
Mom would give this long contented sigh and we'd both just sit there. Neither of us needed to say anything because we both knew how it was and that there was nowhere else we'd rather be.

I put my hand to my cheek and found my face suddenly wet with tears. There was no one watching, so I didn't bother wiping them away. I pictured Mom sitting across from me in the cockpit, and I let myself cry as
Eliza J
sailed on.

twenty

Eventually I ran out of tears, but not out of memories.

Out here, Mom seemed closer than she had since the day we'd heard the news about her disappearance. All those days we'd spent, the two of us, on
Eliza J.
I remembered playing Scrabble in the cockpit while we floated in a dead calm and waited for the wind to return. I remembered tinned pineapple and baked beans for dinner. I remembered seals and dolphins and, a couple of times, whales. I remembered getting caught in a storm one time when I was about ten, the banging and crashing and incredible noise of the boat, the way
Eliza J
heeled over so far that her rail was buried in the water, and the way the waves crashed over the bow and spray flew over the dodger and drenched us. I'd cowered in a corner of the cockpit, terrified.

But Mom had loved it. She'd reefed the sails, moving around on the wet tilting deck as agile and sure-footed as a cat, her wet hair whipping straight back in the wind. Finally, with the boat more level and the noise reduced to a slightly less deafening roar, she'd sat down beside me.
Fi, my darling, you have to
learn to love the sea in all its moods.

She was the one who'd given me Tania Aebi's book,
Maiden Voyage.
She'd believed I could do it. I looked out to the horizon and saw the dramatic snowy outline of Mount Baker, the sun slowly climbing higher in the blue sky, the waves of the ocean stretching out forever.

And for the first time in ages, I started to believe it again too.

The wind had started to pick up. I huddled in the cockpit, my hand practically frozen to the tiller and the canvas sail cover wrapped around me for extra warmth. Despite the sunshine, it was
cold
out here. The wind could suck every last bit of heat from your body. I glanced at my watch: ten thirty.

Dad must have been awake for a while—Kathy too, unless she got up early to sneak out. Dad might not know I was gone yet though. He'd probably think I was sleeping in. He often made waffles on the robin stevenson weekends, and any minute now he'd probably go up to my room to wake me up. I wondered what he would do when he discovered that I wasn't there.

Maybe he'd just assume I'd gone for a bike ride. That was the best-case scenario. Otherwise, he'd be freaking out. I felt a pang of guilt and pushed it away.

Surely I should be able to see Sidney Spit by now? I hadn't been plotting a course, just following the coastline, but now, with a clutch of fear in my chest, I realized that nothing looked familiar. Could I have missed it somehow? My teeth were starting to chatter from the cold, my nose was frozen, and my toes and fingers ached.

What if I'd missed it? Maybe I should turn back.

Don't panic, I told myself. I thought about the scene in
Maiden Voyage
, where Tania Aebi is heading out of New York harbor, sailing alone for the first time, and her engine dies. She'd been terrified, but she'd kept going. She hadn't given up.

Finally Sidney Spit came into view, a pale tongue of sand reaching out into the ocean. The wind dropped as we came closer and moved into the lee of the island. I couldn't wait to get anchored and warm up. Shivers ran through me in waves so intense, my whole body shook.

It was an easy place to anchor. The only thing I had to be careful of was not getting too close to shore.
Eliza J
had a five-foot draft, and the last thing I wanted to do was go aground in shallow water. I wasn't too worried: we'd anchored here dozens of times before. Half a dozen boats were snuggled in close to the beach, but there was plenty of room for mine.

I started the engine and dropped the sails, leaving them piled on the deck while I slowly motored in closer, looking for the perfect spot.
Right there.
It was as if Mom was there, giving me directions. I slipped the engine into neutral, ran up to the bow and lowered the anchor: hand over hand, nice and easy, letting the chain out a few feet at a time. The water was maybe twelve feet deep, plus the few feet from the water surface to the bow. If Mom and I were only staying for a couple of hours, we'd go for a four-to-one ratio and let out maybe sixty feet of chain. For staying overnight…