Float Plan by Trish Doller

Author:Trish Doller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

* * *

“We have a decision to make,” Keane says as we sit together in the cabin, eating scrambled eggs with leftover lobster from a second dinner with Corrine and Gordon. Today we’ve officially overstayed our cruising permit for the Turks and Caicos. If we stay longer, waiting for the perfect weather, we’ll have to pay an additional three hundred dollars. Despite the rain, I’ve grown comfortable here, maybe even a little lazy. I dread the crossing. But I’m not sure I can afford to stay.

“This is probably the end of it,” Keane says. “Once this system breaks, we should have decent weather for the rest of the trip. Maybe we should wait it out.”

“But you need to get to Puerto Rico,” I say. “This is slowing you down.”

“I am exactly where I want to be, Anna.”

My face grows warm, but I don’t have the luxury of dwelling on what that means. Not when we have to decide what to do. Not when, really, I already know. He was right about the intimacy that comes with living on a boat. In the past eighteen days, I have learned that he hops to the toilet at 4:00 A.M., especially if he’s had a lot to drink. He eats too fast from years of squeezing in meals aboard racing sailboats. And that he sleeps deepest on his back. We are tuned in to each other’s moods. We share meals, chores, and, now, a dog. Sometimes I catch him looking at me with his feelings, bare and unguarded, flickering across his face. I don’t understand why he would want a messed-up girl like me. Yet in those moments, when his longing calls to mine, thoughts of Ben always interrupt, reminding me of what I lost.

“If we leave now, the crossing is going to be brutal,” Keane continues. “Under the best of circumstances, this is the kind of trip that can wear down your soul. In weather like this, you’ll feel as though you’ve sold it to the devil.”

“Do you have enough money to stay?” I say. “Because if I’m going to make it to Trinidad and get back home, I need to be more careful.”

“I could pay it,” he says. “But it would be dear to me, as well.”

“I’m scared of the weather.”

“Then let’s wait,” Keane says. “We’ll divide the cost and stay until we get a window.”

Queenie jumps up on the cockpit bench and turns her soulful eyes on him. He makes her give him a high five—a work in progress—before giving her a bit of lobster. He looks at me. “What do you think?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“Do you think I can handle the crossing?”

He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t even consider. “Yes.”

“So let’s go,” I say. “We’re ready. Let’s go now.”

Like the good surrogate mother she’s become, Corrine tries to talk us out of leaving. Gordon listens to the weather forecast and quietly suggests we wait, but says that if we’re determined to go, we should sail as far as Big Sand Cay and anchor for the night.

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