Float Plan Read online

  “What’s with the architect?” I picked up a paring knife and began cutting a lemon into wedges, even though it was her job. Usually I worked the floor with the other waitresses, but I’d been covering for Denise, who was out on maternity leave.

  “It’s a map,” Carla said. “He’s sailing around the world or something. I don’t know. He’s cute, but I stopped listening. He’d be perfect for you, though.”

  “What? Why?”

  She shoulder-bumped me. “Because you, Anna Beck, are in desperate need of a little seaman in your life.”

  “Oh my God.” I cracked up laughing and glanced over to make sure he hadn’t heard. His focus was on the chart book as though nothing else in the room existed. “You are the worst.”

  Carla leaned over and kissed my cheek. “But you love me, right?”

  “I’d love you more if you stayed to do the oranges.”

  “I have a date and I smell like a beer tap exploded in my face … because a beer tap exploded in my face,” she said, stuffing the lime wedges into the garnish caddy. “So I’m going to have to take my chances with your love.”

  “Should I wait up?” I shared an apartment with Carla and two other waitresses from the restaurant. Like flight attendant crash pads, the apartment mostly served as a place to sleep and I don’t think all four of us were ever there at the same time.

  “I wouldn’t,” she said with a grin.

  “Don’t forget to use a condom!” I called after her, but Carla was impossible to embarrass. She blew me a kiss as she left, calling back, “I plan on using several!”

  Lemon wedges complete, I dried my hands and worked my way down the bar, checking on customers. Introducing myself. Pouring fresh beers. Finally I reached map guy. “Ready for another drink?”

  “I’m good, thanks,” he said, his concentration fixed on the chart book in front of him. But he glanced up, and our eyes met. His were dark brown and soft, like you could tumble into them and land safely. “Oh, uh, yeah. I guess I’m having another Red Stripe.”

  “Okay, then.”

  “Please,” he added as I turned toward the cooler, and that one polite word did me in. It sounds ridiculous, improbable, and so patently absurd that I could fall in love with someone at first sight. But when I returned to him with a fresh bottle of beer, he gave me my very first Ben Braithwaite fuck-me grin—completely oblivious to its knee-weakening effect—and I knew right then he was going to be part of my world.

  “I’m Anna, by the way.”

  “Ben.” He reached across the bar to shake my hand. Carla was not wrong. He was cute in a boyish surfer-dude way. Definitely my type. His caramel-colored hair hung almost to his shoulders and looked so soft that I wanted to run my fingers through it.

  Instead I gestured at the chart, which had a pencil line running from Florida to one of the islands in the Bahamas. “Whatcha working on there, Ben?”

  “I just bought an old boat, an Alberg,” he said, and his face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. “It needs a bunch of work, but my plan is to fix it up and sail around the— Um, someone down the bar is trying to get your attention.”

  “Oops. I work here, don’t I? Hold that thought. I’ll be back.”

  He smiled, but those dark eyes were serious. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  That was the thing about Ben. He had no guile, no game. He was always earnest and sweet, and from the very beginning he offered me his whole heart.

  * * *

  The sky is dark when I reach Bimini, the pink-and-gold sunset long gone below the horizon. I hate sailing into an unfamiliar harbor in the dark, but I have no one to blame but myself. Nosing the boat to the wind, I roll up the jib and lower the mainsail. After thirteen hours at sea, my body is sore. My face feels as if it’s been stretched, burned by both sun and wind. And after taking down my shorts twice in the middle of the ocean to pee into the scupper drain, I’m ready for a hot shower.

  Using Ben’s spotlight, I scan the water for navigational markers as I approach the channel that cuts between North and South Bimini. It’s hard to see anything in the dark and there is very little ambient light coming off the islands. The Alberg stutters when the keel drags along the bottom and my heart stutters along with it.

  “No!” I throw the tiller over, trying to steer in the direction of what I hope is the middle of the channel, but the boat comes to a complete stop. “I am not running aground right now!”

  I shift the engine into reverse, hoping to back myself out of this mess, but nothing happens. The sound that escapes me is a cross between hysterical laughter and sobbing. I am so close to land that I could jump out of the boat and wade ashore.

  “Fuck.”

  I burrow around the lazarette for my phone to look up the tide table, but there’s no signal. Likely for the best—I don’t want to know how many texts and calls I’ve missed. I drop the useless phone back into the locker and pray the tide is incoming. Otherwise, this will be a long, long night.

  Since the boat isn’t going anywhere for a while, I climb down into the galley and make a turkey sandwich—the closest I’m going to get to Thanksgiving dinner. My mom is probably hurt that I won’t be there, and I think again about giving up this impulsive plan. Once I come unstuck, I could return to Florida. Beg for my job back. Live on the boat. Fake it till I make it. That would be fine, wouldn’t it? Except Ben wasn’t content with fine; he wanted extraordinary. Shouldn’t I want the same?

  If he were here, he would laugh at my embarrassment over running aground and say, “If no one saw you do it, did it really happen?” He’d hang a solar lamp from the boom, crack open a cold beer, and cue up a playlist of his favorite sailing music. He’d turn the moment into a party. When I finish eating my sandwich, I do all of those things, performing them like a summoning ritual that might bring him back.

  They never do.

  Without Ben, it’s too much. I switch off the music after a handful of songs and listen to the quiet, rhythmic shh-shh-shh of waves lapping against the shore. Except thinking about him makes me restless. I stand up and move from one side of the cockpit to the other, rocking the boat, hoping the seafloor will loosen its grip. I feel ridiculous, but suddenly the boat shifts. It begins to drift, pushed forward on the current. I quickly start the engine and steer back into the deeper part of the channel, where I stay until I reach the anchorage.

  There aren’t many boats as I stand on the bow to throw the anchor into the water, a relief because I don’t know how much line to let out, and even when it feels secure, I don’t have the expertise to tell when the anchor is holding fast. I turn on the anchor light at the top of the mast and hoist the yellow quarantine flag so customs officials will know I haven’t cleared into the Bahamas yet.

  The last thing I do as I crawl into the V-berth—still wearing my clothes—is say a prayer to God, Ben, and the universe that the anchor won’t drag in the night, that when I wake tomorrow morning, the boat won’t be smashed against the shore.

  drunken kaleidoscope (3)

  The sky is a faded blue when I wake, one that could mean dawn or dusk. The travel clock on the shelf beside my head reads 6:09. No help at all. It seems impossible that I could have slept all night and through most of another day, but when I climb out into the cockpit, the leading edge of the sun has met the horizon. The sunset sky is slashed with red and purple, like the work of a painter with an angry brush. Except, the saying goes “red sky at night, sailor’s delight,” so this is promising. Tomorrow should be a good weather day.

  The boat did not drift while I slept. It didn’t swing in the current and hit any other boats, either. A minor miracle. I walk up to the bow to double-check last night’s half-assed handiwork. Whenever we anchored somewhere together, Ben would wake every couple of hours to make sure the anchor was holding. Too much swing and he’d bolt out of bed, sure we were drifting. My relief leaches out of me, replaced by guilt. I should have been paying attention. Ben would have.

  But the anchor is doing it
s thing, and I feel more rested than I have in months.

  And hungry.

  Rowing the dinghy to shore for dinner on a tropical island sounds appealing. Reggae music from one of the waterfront bars floats across the water, but I’ve missed office hours for customs. Maybe no one would notice, but I’m not prepared to break any laws that might come with a hefty fine. Instead I pour a glass of red wine and make no-meat spaghetti that I eat straight from the pan.

  Tomorrow I’ll go to the customs and immigration office, and I’ll find a way to call my mom. She’s probably going out of her mind with worry, but my cell phone still has no signal and there’s no free Wi-Fi floating on the breeze with Bob Marley.

  Tomorrow I’ll decide what I’m going to do about the day after tomorrow. Crossing from Miami was the easiest part and I fucked it up. Do I gamble that my accidental good fortune will hold through an entire archipelago?

  Tonight I wash the dishes and lie on the foredeck, looking up at the night sky and remembering the time Ben and I did this together. He pointed at a constellation. I don’t remember which one, only that we were anchored in a mangrove-filled bay in Key Largo where the sky was so exploded with stars, it felt like the whole universe was at our fingertips.

  “There,” he said. “That little star at the bottom. That one is yours, Anna. Forever and always.”

  I didn’t remind him that sometimes the light we see is left over from dead stars. It couldn’t be mine if it was already gone. Had I paid better attention to where he was pointing, I might be able to find that star tonight. But it doesn’t matter. I already know how it feels to try holding on to the light of a dead star.

  * * *

  My second morning in Bimini dawns so bright, I have no idea how I could have slept through yesterday, but today I’m wide-awake. I inflate the dinghy and row to the marina, where there is a customs office. I bring along my passport, boat registration, customs paperwork, and cash for the cruising fee. Ben and I read horror stories about officials in the Caribbean expecting bribes or adding on “taxes” because no one has the authority to stop them, but the Bahamian officers are all business as they stamp my passport and accept my cash.

  Officially cleared, I go back to the boat, where I take a fast shower. After I’m dried and dressed, my hair braided, I lock up the cabin and go ashore.

  The island’s main road is lined with sherbet-hued shops, bars, restaurants, and homes, and there are more cars than I expected for an island that’s only seven miles long and several hundred feet wide. Bimini reminds me of a favorite toy, shabby and worn, but well loved. I step into a tiny blue grocery store, where I buy a SIM card so my phone will work in the Bahamas. My first call is home.

  “Oh, thank God.” Relief floods my mother’s voice, but I hear Rachel muttering in the background. Sometimes it’s like having two mothers, like I’m five instead of twenty-five. “I called the coast guard to report you missing, but they said there was nothing they could do if you’d left the country.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner,” I say. “I arrived really late the night before last and slept about fifteen hours straight. I only just came ashore and got my cell phone sorted out.”

  “I don’t understand this, Anna. What you are doing is foolish.”

  I didn’t call to fight with her, but my defenses go up. “You’re the one who keeps telling me it’s time to move on.”

  “But that is not what’s happening,” my mother says. “You are sailing Ben’s boat, living his dreams. You are not putting him in the past; you’re wallowing in his memory.”

  “Maybe I need to wallow.”

  “Anna, it’s been almost a year.”

  “I wasn’t aware there was an expiration date for grief.”

  “That’s not what I mean. You should talk to a therapist.” She sniffles and I realize she is crying, and I feel even worse. “I’ve never had to worry about you, and now that’s all I ever do.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t want you to be sorry, Liebchen; I want you to be happy. Ben would want you to be happy.”

  One of the worst things about life after Ben is how everyone seems to be able to predict what he would want. He’d want you to start dating. He’d want you to be happy.

  “Yeah, well,” I say, “his death pretty much sealed the deal on the exact opposite.”

  “Please come home.”

  “I can’t.”

  Mom breaks down in tears and I hear Rachel huff as she takes the phone. I steel myself for the oncoming storm. “Anna, you need to knock this shit off. Think about someone other than yourself for a change.”

  As kids, Rachel and I were close. Barely two years apart, we played together, went to school together. Until he left, Dad called us his two little peas in a pod. But after Rachel had Maisie, something changed. Sometimes I get a jealous vibe, but I don’t understand why. Rachel has a job she loves and a beautiful child. I have a gaping hole where my life used to be.

  “Tell Mom I’ll call her in a few days.” I disconnect and silence my phone.

  The crossing from Florida was definitely not an unequivocal success—not when I overslept, nearly got smeared by a cargo ship, and ran aground only a few yards from my destination—but maybe I’ve gotten all the foolishness out of the way. Maybe I can handle island hopping through the rest of the Bahamas and the Caribbean.

  Except the passage from the Turks and Caicos to Puerto Rico is about four hundred miles of open seas, battered by trade winds. There is no shortcut. And there is absolutely no way I can do it alone. I need to find someone to help me.

  At the marina there is a bulletin board pinned with business cards for diving charters and rain-faded flyers for fishing tournaments. I leave a note that says:

  WANTED: EXPERIENCED CREW TO ASSIST

  ON PASSAGE FROM TURKS AND CAICOS

  TO PUERTO RICO. SALARY NEGOTIABLE,

  MEALS INCLUDED. TEXT 555-625-6470 FOR MORE INFORMATION.

  Jangling with nervous energy, I leave the resort complex, heading south. The island is fully awake and busy with tourists buzzing around on golf carts and locals calling out greetings to one another as they walk down the main road. I turn onto a shorter street that cuts across the narrow island and end up at a cluster of tiny beachfront restaurants. A group of young men are hanging out around the doorway to one of the shops, talking loudly, drinking beer, and listening to the dance music that spills from speakers mounted on stands along the side of the building. Beyond the restaurants is the beach, where people have spread out their blankets. A dog rolls in the sand and children play in an ocean that’s so vivid—seafoam green and turquoise and cobalt—it hardly seems real.

  I step inside a restaurant called CJ’s, where I order an egg sandwich for lunch and grab a beer from the cooler.

  “You can wait out back,” the woman behind the counter tells me. “We’ll call you when your food is ready.”

  Behind the building is a wooden deck with picnic tables overlooking the beach. A couple of guys are drinking Heinekens and talking, but their accents are moving too fast for me to understand what they’re saying. I snap a picture of the beach with my phone, then sit on a bench beneath a shady pine to wait for my lunch. Content isn’t exactly the word I’d use for how I feel, but Bimini makes me feel a little bit lighter, a little bit hopeful. Right now an egg sandwich and a beer are all I need.

  * * *

  After lunch I buy a second beer and step down from the deck onto the sand. All around me, people are together. Families. Couples. Groups of college students who probably came over on the fast ferry. I wade out into the water and pretend it’s totally fine that I’m alone on a tropical island in the middle of a sparkling ocean.

  As waves wash against my shins, a brown-skinned boy no older than eight or nine, wearing dripping brown cutoffs that hang around his narrow hips, approaches me with a fistful of plastic dive sticks. “Will you throw these for us?”

  Behind him, other kids watch me with expectant faces.
One little girl in a bright pink bathing suit hops on one foot, trying to keep her balance on the shifting sand. Another boy bobs his head, as if willing me to say yes.

  “Sure.” I take the sticks, step a little deeper into the water, and fling them as hard as I can. The whole pack of children shriek and race into the water. They dive under, their feet churning the surface. One boy comes up with two. A girl with one. The first boy has the remaining three, held high above his head like a trophy. It reminds me of when my sister and I would dive for pennies at the bottom of motel pools when we went on vacation. The winner was the one who collected the most and Rachel almost always won.

  “Again, please?” the boy asks.

  “Ellis!” a woman calls from a nearby blanket. “Don’t be bothering the lady. She doesn’t need to entertain you.”

  “I don’t mind,” I say, accepting the sticks from Ellis. I throw them again, and while the kids are thrashing around in the surf, I head back up to CJ’s for another beer.

  At the order counter there are three white men dressed in pastel fishing shirts, swim trunks, and visors. The light-blue-shirted one sees me take a beer from the cooler. Of the three, he is closest to my age. He flashes a wide grin and says, “Let me get that for you.”

  And suddenly I’m incredibly angry at Ben. I know he tried to manage his depression. When we met, he’d been struggling most of his life to find a mix of medications that worked. But if he was suicidal, why didn’t he get help? Why didn’t he tell me? This was supposed to be us, together, not me on my own.

  Fuck you, Ben Braithwaite.

  I haven’t picked up a guy in a long time, but it’s ridiculously easy. All I have to do is hand him the bottle of beer, smile, and say, “Thank you so much. I’m Anna.”

  “Nice to meet you, Anna. I’m Chris.” His nose is peeling, freckled, and really fucking adorable. In fact, he’s covered in pale brown freckles. “This is Doug.” He gestures toward the guy in the pink shirt. Oldest. Mid-to-late thirties. Wedding band. “And Mike.” Yellow shirt. Thinning hair. Hot in a generic dumb guy sort of way.