Smooth Sailing (37 page)

“I don’t follow American football, but when people are on a team that has worked together well, I know they often stay close their whole lives. You must miss them.”

Mentally cursing herself for allowing tears to come to her eyes, Laurie nodded. “I…I miss the camaraderie. I had a lot of friends, and some people I spent every day with for years. But more than that, I miss having something I have to get done. I’ve always been self-motivated, and there just isn’t enough here for me to be responsible for.”

“I had to grab her by the shorts to stop her from scraping the hull during a storm,” Kaatje said dryly.

“That’s an unpleasant job, and possibly dangerous, especially if you have to check the sacrificial anodes. Besides, you use ablative paint, don’t you, Kaatje?”

“I won’t let her do it alone, Dad. Don’t worry about it.”

Laurie exchanged looks with Antonia. “I guess it’s best. I have no idea what they’re talking about.”

“If you’re not going to start cleaning hulls, what will you do to stay busy?” Antonia asked.

“I don’t have a clue. I suppose I’ll just try to acclimate. I keep reminding myself that only a fool would look for things to do when she’s surrounded by such perfection.”

“You’re my fool,” Kaatje said, her look conveying her love.

Antonia said quietly, “Give it time, but don’t ignore your feelings. This is a massive adjustment, Laurie. It will take a long while to feel like you belong here. It’s a new way of life, a new country, a new partner. That’s a huge amount of change.”

“Then she has to get used to Amsterdam, where we should head pretty soon,” Kaatje said. “The tourists are drying up faster than ever this year. I’ve heard of five or six guys who’re going to pack up and move to another island.”

“You have enough savings to weather the slowdown, don’t you?” Theo asked. “I know you can’t take on any more debt.”

Kaatje answered, surprisingly, in Dutch. Laurie had no idea what she said, but Theo responded sharply. They went back and forth a few times until Antonia moved over near Kaatje and stroked her back while father and daughter glared at each other. Kaatje had very few faults, but getting angry when someone told her what to do would always be one of them.

*

After they got into bed that night, Kaatje rolled onto her side and lay there, not showing any sign of being awake. But Laurie knew she was still upset and didn’t want to talk about it. She considered letting it slide, but eventually couldn’t resist. “Are you mad at me and your dad or just your dad?”

“Just my dad,” Kaatje grunted. “He had to go out of his way to tell me he wouldn’t give me another loan, and that I’d better have some savings.”

“He loaned you the money for the boat?”

“No, his bank did.” She rolled over and lay on her back, staring at the ceiling. “I had to go through the usual approval process. I don’t think he helped a bit. But his bank offered the best rate, and that’s where I went. He acts like it’s his own money and he’s the one who decides everything.” She almost spat out, “He’s not even on the loan committee.”

“Try not to let it get to you. He cares about your security, that’s all.”

“I don’t need him to care about my security. I need him to leave me to my own business and him stick to his.”

Laurie snuggled into Kaatje’s reluctant embrace. “I know.” She rubbed her belly, trying to get her to limber up and accept some affection.

“Are you ready to go to Amsterdam now?” Her tone was just as cold as it had been when she talked about her father.

“We don’t have to decide that tonight.”

Kaatje pulled away, got up and sat on a small chair in the corner. “Yes, we do. I’m ready to go. If you weren’t here, I’d get online and make my reservations now.”

“Uhm…” That familiar fist was back, gripping her entrails like a vice. “How long do you want to be gone?”

“Through November for sure. I’d like to get busy and find clients for December since I’ve had some very lucrative Christmas sails. I really need to hustle to make money next year or I
might
wind up selling the boat.”

Ignoring that element of the issue, Laurie focused on the timing. “My sabbatical will be up before then. I’d…I think I’ve got to figure out something to do before I leave here.”

Coldly, Kaatje said, “Meaning?”

“It’s like your mom said, I’ve got to take some time to get comfortable. That’ll be hard to do in Amsterdam.”

“Why? That’s where we’ll spend at least three months every year. You have to be comfortable in Europe, too.”

“I know, I know.” The walls were closing in. The cabin was stuffy and she had to throw the sheet off to cool her body down. “What about the idea I proposed?”

Kaatje shook her head firmly. “I’m not going to buy another boat. It’s out of the question. This island doesn’t need more boats, it needs fewer. There are probably twenty of us competing for every client.”

“But you’re better at this than many of these guys. If we had two boats we could take bigger groups. We could specialize in long sails to multiple islands. There isn’t a lot of that offered here.”

“That’s because it’s impossible to stay busy. There isn’t an angle you can think of that someone else hasn’t already thought of. You’re not the first smart person to come to the Caribbean and try to find a way to make a good living, you know.”

“I know that, but I’m pretty good at figuring out how to take a process and make it better and more profitable.”

Kaatje got up and headed for the galley. “Fine. Now you just have to find a process that isn’t
The Flying Dutchwoman
.”

Laurie lay there and stared after her. Kaatje was rarely sharp or testy. Clearly, her father had upset her. But there was more to it than that. Laurie got up and put on a T-shirt and shorts and went into the galley. Kaatje wasn’t there, but the sliding doors to the cockpit were open. She was sitting, stark naked, in the captain’s chair, staring moodily out at the lights of town.

Laurie stood behind her and put her hands on her chilled shoulders. “Talk to me. I don’t want to take over your business, but if I’m going to be your partner, I
do
want to help you.”

“I know.” She patted her hand, then turned and kissed it. “But I can’t have you get too involved. Maybe later, after you really know how to sail and what the market’s like. But now you’re just guessing at things, and that makes me feel like you assume I haven’t thought of those ideas. It’s insulting.”

“Okay.” She sat down, now a few feet away. “I can understand that. If you’d made obvious suggestions about my project, I would have been irritated. But I think it’s clear I’ve got to find something to do here. And if you don’t want me helping with the boat…”

“I do want you to help. If you learn how to sail you could eventually be an equal partner. Then maybe we could get a second boat. But that would take years, Laurie, and I don’t see you having the patience for that.”

“Why would it take years? You know how hard I can work.”

Kaatje let out a long breath. “You learn by doing. You can’t know what to do in a bad storm until you’ve been through many of them. Books don’t substitute for experience.”

“I’m not sure that’s true. There have to be simulations we could work on.”

“Of course there are. But acting like there’s a man overboard isn’t the same as
having
a man overboard. You have to train your reflexes and your nerves as well as your knowledge. It’s more complicated than it looks.”

“Okay, okay. If we don’t have time for me to learn to sail, I’ll try to find a regular job on the island.”

“We’ve been through this. There isn’t anything on the island as complex or difficult as what you’ve been doing. Your project was as big as our national budget.”

“Well, have you given any thought to what Fernando said?”

Kaatje got up and walked over to sit next to Laurie. “I have. If you can find a job where I can work—sailing—I’ll go wherever you want. Any country on earth.”

That was such a stunning capitulation that Laurie’s chest tightened. Kaatje loved her island in the way many people loved their kids. It took a moment to come up with words to acknowledge her offer. “That’s a huge sacrifice. Huge.”

Kaatje looked at her with love filling her eyes. “I’d do anything to be with you. But I have to be able to stay busy, since you’ll be gone all day…at least.”

Smiling, Laurie said, “I know. The only thing Fernando thought might work would be to have me running the Miami theme park. We could finagle a way to have you run your business under a shell corporation in my name or something like that. It could work.”

“But I’d have to leave the country every six months.”

“Yes, but winter is prime season for charter sailing in Miami. You could spend summers with your family.”

“Without you.” She gazed at Laurie in the dark, her eyes seeming to penetrate the dim light.

“I’d take my vacation then.”

“The person who runs the park is going to take a long vacation in the summer? Ask the person who runs it now how that would go over.”

Laurie turned and put her hands on Kaatje’s bare thighs and squeezed. “We could work it out. It’s better than being apart all of the time, isn’t it?”

“Is that what it’s really down do?” Kaatje asked, sounding tired. “I get six months or nothing?”

“It’s no better for me!” Years and years of training herself to be calm flew away in the breeze. Her face was hot, her gut bursting with feelings she’d learned to tamp down. But she couldn’t control them now. They’d taken on a life of their own, and they scared her to death. “I want to be with you every moment, but I don’t have anything to
do
. I can’t make idle conversation with strangers all day. It’s not challenging enough for me. I want to accomplish something, make something work better, have something to show for my day.”

“Then get a job!” She got up and went to the starboard side and leaned against her chair. “There are jobs here. They’re not like the one you had, but it’s a job and it would keep you busy. Go work for my father. He’d love you.”

“We talked about that,” she said quietly, ignoring the outraged look on Kaatje’s face. “But the only jobs he ever has available are clerical.” She looked into Kaatje’s face, seeing, even in the dark, that it had colored. “I can’t do a job I could have mastered in high school! I could have been the CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation someday, Kaatje. I still don’t think you know how big a job I left for you.”

“I think I do,” she replied, her voice like ice. “And I think you want to go back to it. I believe you love me, but I also believe you love your job, and don’t want to leave it.”

“It’s not the job! The job was killing me. It’s the sense of accomplishment, the working with the team, the exhilaration from doing something next to impossible. I was never bored. Not for one second—”

“Not like you are here.”

Laurie stopped, her heart racing. It was time to face, then tell the truth. “I
am
bored. Not with you,” she said fervently. “But with taking clients out. It’s like I’m always on vacation, but there are other people around. I don’t like that,” she said quietly. “I want a job and an apartment or a house. I need more space. I need to get away from the boat after being on it all day.” She almost choked on the last sentence, but it was time to get it all out. “I need high-speed internet. I know it’s stupid, but that’s how I relax. You read books, I read business news on the Internet. But your satellite connection is awfully slow. Most of the time I don’t even bother, but it’s driving me crazy!” There. It was out. She was a shallow woman who needed mindless surfing on the Internet to feel complete.

Kaatje gazed at her for a long, long time. Finally, she said, “Okay. Figure out a way to allow me to work in Miami or anywhere else that has a body of water and I’ll do it. But I have to get a green card. I’m not willing to only see you for six months.” She stuck her jaw out and crossed her arms over her chest, looking like a battlefield commander. “That’s my best offer.”

*

Laurie spent a solid week and untold hundreds of dollars on phone calls to the US. Kaatje didn’t ask for updates, but things were vaguely stilted between them. One night, lying in bed after making love, Kaatje said quietly, “If it’s too hard to get me a work permit, I’ll just hang out in the US or wherever you want to be. I’d rather work but it’s not as elemental to my personality as it is to yours.” Laurie pulled her close and kissed her, relief flooding her. Kaatje was truly a fantastic partner. She was proud and independent, but still willing to be fully dependent financially—just to stay together. What a gift she was.

*

It took a few more days, but Laurie finally had enough information so they could discuss all of their options. They set up a nice dinner, with candlelight, in the cockpit, while half a mile out at sea. They both knew this was going to be a turning point, but neither knew the outcome.

Laurie started to speak, after carefully apportioning their food between their plates. She took a drink of wine and let it roll. “Here’s what I think we can get.”

Kaatje took a sip of wine, and Laurie could see her swallow nervously.

“The easiest thing is to get you admitted to a university. You could study anything that interested you. Oceanography…uhm…anything.”