Smooth Sailing (16 page)

*

After their afternoon sail, they set off on Kaatje’s bike. There were many people crowding the street, with most of them heading for the bars and clubs along Mako. But Kaatje went a bit further, away from the casinos and clubs, pulling over when they’d passed every commercial-looking enterprise. Dilapidated homes lined the street, and mangy brown dogs ambled along, looking like it had been quite a while since they’d had a good meal. “It looks like all of the action is by the casinos,” Laurie observed, trying to be diplomatic. She never would have stopped at a place like this by herself, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to be there with Kaatje.

“Yeah. That’s where you go if you want to get laid.” Kaatje quirked a grin. “That’s what I’m told.”

Laurie reached for her hand, then stopped herself. Kaatje must have seen or sensed her furtive move, for she nonchalantly took Laurie’s hand in hers as they walked.

“Is it okay to hold hands?” Laurie asked.

“Okay with me? Yeah. I’m the one who took your hand.”

Laurie squeezed her hand hard. “You know what I mean. I’ve never had to think about things like this, but my gay friends are always careful if they don’t know the neighborhood.”

“I know the neighborhood.” They walked past a scramble of parked cars and Kaatje nodded towards the entry. “Here we are.”

Laurie looked at the sign that read, “No Jerks” on a wooden post that seemed to demarcate the entrance. The place was open-air, with just a roof to make it a building. They passed four or five grills that held something delicious smelling. The crowd was ethnically mixed, with about three quarters of the patrons West Indian and the rest whites.

When they walked up to the bar, the bartender, a middle-aged West Indian man nodded to Kaatje. “Here’s my friend,” he said as he leaned over the pick-up area to offer a hug.

“Good to see you, Winston. This is my friend Laurie. Laurie, Winston.”

“Nice meeting you.” Winston smiled warmly. “What can I get you ladies?”

“Carib for me,” Kaatje said. “Laurie?”

“Is that a beer?”

“Yes,” Winston replied. “We have beer, soft drinks and Planter’s Punch.”

“I’ll have the same as Kaatje.”

“Sit down at a table and have something to eat,” Winston said.

“What’s fresh tonight?” Kaatje asked.

“Coffer fish, red snapper and lobster.”

Kaatje looked at Laurie and said, “Do you like lobster?”

“Sure. I like almost everything.”

“Great. Let’s have lobster and red snapper. And…” She narrowed her eyes, clearly thinking. “Macaroni and cheese, peas and rice, coleslaw and more peas and rice.”

“You know what’s good,” Winston said, chuckling as he wrote the order down.

Kaatje pressed her hand against the small of Laurie’s back and led her to a table. They sat, then Laurie looked around, finally asking, “How do they close up at night?”

“They don’t. Winston’s rigged up a way to lock up the liquor and he has a refrigerator over there that’s got a huge chain around it.” She shrugged. “People don’t tamper with his stuff very often.”

“I can’t imagine having a place in LA with no walls.”

“There are a lot of open-air places here. We call them lo-los. There are more of them on the French side, but I like this one.”

Laurie looked at the low-keyed crowd and saw that many of the people seemed to know each other. Kaatje returned several waves and a few greetings, but when their food and drinks were delivered, she focused on them and Laurie. “Ooh, this is good,” Laurie said, biting into the remarkably sweet bit of lobster that Kaatje held up before her.

“Spiny lobster. You probably haven’t had it before.”

“I don’t think I have, but there’s a really good lobster in Japan that I like. It costs an arm and a leg though.”

“This was twelve bucks,” Kaatje said. “Including the side dishes.”

“Fantastic.” Laurie looked around again, getting a sense of the place. “I like it here. No tourists.”

“Just one,” Kaatje said, looking a little sad.

It hurt the pit of her stomach to think of leaving. Laurie tried to get back to happier topics. “You’ve said you don’t go out much. Isn’t there much to do?”

“There’s enough to do, but I don’t like to go through my money too quickly. It’s much cheaper to stay on the boat and eat leftovers. Plus, I like to read a book and relax after being with the public all day. That works for me here.”

“Are you different in…Holland?” She’d heard Kaatje refer to it that way, but she was going to have to do some research on the different ways to refer to Kaatje’s home country.

“Yeah. Night and day. You’ll have to visit to see.”

“I’ve never really been to Europe. I just changed planes in Iceland once.”

“Well, you saw most of it,” Kaatje teased.

“I’d like to come.”
I would? I’ve never had the slightest inkling of an interest in Europe.

“I’d love to have you. I usually stay at my parents’ home, but I sneak off for quick trips to various places. I’m a good tour guide.”

“Maybe I should start reading travel guides.”

“What
do
you like to read, if not travel guides?”

“I’m not much of a reader. For pleasure, that is. I have to read a lot of things to keep up in my industry.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“You’re a bad liar. What about you? What holds your interest after a long day’s sail?”

“It depends on my mood. I like a good lesbian romance—”

Laurie almost spit her drink out. “Lesbian romance? Is there such a thing?”

“Yeah. Of course there is. There are millions of straight romance books. Why shouldn’t lesbians have them?”

Laurie stopped to think about that for a moment. “I guess that makes sense. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them though. Is there a big, blonde, arrogant looking woman on the cover with a smaller woman clutching at her?”

“Not usually.” Her grin was wry. “I read e-books. Cheaper and more environmentally friendly. And I don’t
just
read romances. I like technical books about sailing and travel. And I read about politics and social issues when I’m in the Netherlands. I like to go to used bookstores and pick up a suitcase full.”

Laurie took her hand, which had been playing with a pepper shaker. “Did you think I was making fun of you for reading romances?”

“Yeah. A little bit.” Her eyes were slightly hooded, but Laurie couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment or pique.

“I didn’t mean to.” She squeezed Kaatje’s hand. “I’m sorry.”

Kaatje looked into her eyes. “It’s okay. It’s just that I get lonely when I’m single. I was made to be in a relationship.”

“Ooh,” Laurie cooed. “I bet you do get lonely.” Her heart hurt from thinking about Kaatje sitting on her boat all alone.

“It’s reassuring to read a story about women falling in love and being happy. It makes me feel like I’m part of that community, even though the lesbian community here could fit in a bus.”

“Maybe I should read one. Although I probably wouldn’t feel like part of the community. I’m sure there aren’t any thirty-one-year-old straight women in them.”

Kaatje chuckled long and hard. “If it weren’t for straight women, there’d be no lesbian romances.”

*

Most of the other patrons had finished eating, but no one seemed in a hurry to leave. Children ran around, a dog or two tried to cadge a few morsels and the vibe could not have been more relaxed. Laurie had another beer while quizzing Kaatje about her family in Amsterdam.

“Yes, I’m the baby of the family. Daniël is six years older and Margriet is just fifteen months younger than he is. I think I was a surprise.”

“Maybe Margriet was too. Having kids that close together must be agony.”

“Hey, maybe Daniël was too. My parents might have had three surprises.”

“You’re a nice surprise. Tell me about your niece and nephew.”

“With pleasure.” She took out her phone and turned it in Laurie’s direction. “This gorgeous child is Roos, Daniël’s daughter. She’s seven and probably the smartest child in the world.”

Smiling up at her, Laurie said, “You’re clearly impartial.”

Clicking through, she stopped at a picture of a small boy. “And this is Thijs, Margriet’s baby. He’s going to be four by the time I visit. He’s equally adorable, and a very rough and tumble little guy. He’s going to be a sailor, just like his Tante Kaatje.” She lingered on his picture, looking at him with such fondness that Laurie could have choked up.

“They’re lucky kids to have you. Do you want to have kids?”

“I do, but I won’t.” Her head shook forcefully. “I don’t want to have to have a real job, and it would be impossible to raise a baby and work on the boat.”

“What if you had a partner who wanted to have one?”

“Not a partner.” Again, she shook her head. “A wife. I’d only have a baby with a woman I was married to. That’s the way to make sure the baby has two parents obligated to care for him.”

“Can you get married here?”

“Not yet, but I can in The Netherlands. And St. Maarten recognizes all Dutch marriages. I just need a woman.”

“You’re lucky. My gay friends will have to wait a long time for the US to allow gay marriage.”

“Again, I don’t know a lot about it, but from the little I know, the US isn’t very much like The Netherlands.”

“When will you visit your home again?”

“I have to go to a wedding in January, so I’ll stay there for at least a couple of weeks.”

“Sounds expensive.”

“Not too. My brother-in-law works for KLM. If I give him a few months notice, he gets me a great fare. But even if I had to dig into my savings, I’d go. Stefanie is a dear friend, and I put friendship above finances.” She shrugged. “You have to keep your priorities straight.”

Sure you did. But flying to Holland for a wedding and missing weeks of work sounded like something people wanted to do—but couldn’t. Somehow Kaatje didn’t play by the rules other people seemed to accept without question.

“But you said you go to Holland to escape hurricane season. When’s that?”

“I like to take the boat down island in July. If I pay someone to do my maintenance, I can take off right then.”

“When do you have to come back to work?”

Kaatje’s smile was a little haughty. “I can come back whenever I want.” She stuck her arms straight up and inhaled deeply. “Freedom.”

While her hands were out, Laurie took advantage of the bit of skin exposed by her shirt riding up and tickled her.

“Okay, okay. I’ll give you a serious answer. Depending on the forecast, I could work until September, but I’m usually tired by July. Then I start up again in November. “

That was probably the strangest sentence Laurie had ever heard. Kaatje had a job that was as close to a vacation as any job in the world. And she needed months to recover from it? Maybe she had one of those chronic fatigue diseases. That was the only possible explanation for an otherwise healthy young woman to need months of rest after sailing.

“You’re really tired? Like exhausted?”

“Well, not exhausted, but I need time in Holland to recharge. Seeing my family for a couple of months is like a tonic.”

“I’m sure it is, but who can afford that?”

“I can.” Kaatje looked smug again, and Laurie had an irresistible urge to wipe the smirk from her face.

“But that’s why you can’t afford to go out very often. If you worked more you’d have the freedom to do whatever you wanted in your free time.”

“Which I’d have less of.” She put her hand over Laurie’s and gazed into her eyes. “I don’t love money nearly as much as I love my family. My life is good because I see them for a long time every year. Having more money wouldn’t make up for missing Roos’ and Thijs’ childhoods.”

“I feel the same about my nieces.” Damn, that was an effective argument, but there were probably ten people in the whole world who could manage it. Still, loving your family was an awesome attribute. She took Kaatje’s hand and leaned over to speak softly. “It’s nice to find someone who feels that way. Most of the people I know left home and only go back when they can’t avoid it.”

“I love it here, and I plan on staying. But if I had to choose between staying here or seeing my family, I’d be back in The Netherlands in a heartbeat.”

“I guess I’d do the same, but The Netherlands sounds a lot more exciting than Cincinnati.”

“I don’t know Cincinnati, but Amsterdam can be a lot of fun. It’s the opposite of St. Maarten.”

“Uhm…do you have…is there anyone special…”
Stay out of her business! She’s already told you she doesn’t want to talk about her sex life.

“Do I have a girlfriend?” At Laurie’s weak nod, Kaatje said, “If I did, I wouldn’t be with you right now. I don’t cheat.” That was awfully good to hear. It was dreadful to meet someone you were attracted to and find out they didn’t keep their promises.

“I don’t either. Of course, that’s not saying much since I was never much into sex…until now.”