Float Plan(15)
Keane hasn’t returned, so I leave a note that I’m running an errand, and hide the hatch key under the buffing sponge inside an old Turtle Wax tin. The tin is nearly as old as the boat and it’s one of those products that’s so common, no one would even think to look for keys inside. Still, I’m a little nervous and consider waiting for Keane, but I need to find an internet café before it gets too late.
The café is a short walk from the marina. I scan the title, attach it to an email to my mother, and return within half an hour. Keane’s red towel hangs over the lifeline, but he’s nowhere to be found. When I think about our afternoon in Nassau, I can’t pinpoint anything I might have done wrong. I bought everything on his list without complaint and spent more money than I’d intended. Something—or someone—on his computer must have set him off.
I watch a movie on my laptop while I wait for him to come back. Fix a salad for dinner with some lettuce that’s starting to go brown and the leftover fried mackerel. Make up Keane’s bed and mine. Try not to worry about someone I have no business worrying about. All around me, Nassau is wide-awake and pulsing with energy. People are laughing and talking throughout the marina. Even when darkness falls, boats motor up and down the channel. I distract myself with a book until my eyes get too heavy to stay open.
A boat-shaking thump jolts me awake, my heart hammering in my chest and my brain automatically assuming a boat thief or worse.
“Fuck.” The word is loud, clear, and Keane. I let out a shaky breath and climb up into the cockpit, hoping he hasn’t woken up the entire marina. I find him sitting on the floor, rubbing the back of his disheveled head.
“Are you okay?”
“Fuck.” He mutters it this time. “I didn’t mean to wake you. Had a bit of a crash landing, is all. Anna—”
“Are you drunk?”
“Aye, but, Anna—”
The alcohol fumes rolling off him are strong enough to light on fire. “Exactly how much did you drink?”
“Only four shots of Jameson.” He holds up two fingers and squints one eye, making me wonder if he’s so drunk, he’s seeing double. His accent is deeper, more Irish than usual. “But I lost count of the pints somewhere after eight.”
“Eight beers? Why aren’t you dead?”
“I’ll surely be asking myself the same in the morning, but, Anna, listen,” he says, his voice serious. “There’s something I need to tell you. It’s of critical importance.”
“What?”
“Swimming with the pigs is a terrible plan.”
The next destination in Ben’s chart book is Big Major Cay, an island in the Exumas inhabited only by wild pigs. Ben and I had loved watching videos of people swimming with the pigs and camping overnight on the beach. At the grocery store, I told Keane I wanted to go to Pig Beach. He’d simply nodded and grabbed a sack of potatoes so we’d have something to feed them. So I’m confused—and a little pissed off. “No, it’s not.”
“It is, Anna.” Keane lies back on the cockpit floor as if too drunk to stay upright. “They may well be fucking adorable with their wee snouts”—he gestures above his nose—“but they’ll eat all your spuds and want nothing more to do with you.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I’m more than a little pissed off now. “This is something Ben wanted to do, so we’re doing it.”
“Well, Ben was stupid,” he says. “Stupid for wasting his time on bloody fucking pigs and stupid for leaving you behind.”
His words leave a stinging mark on my heart, the way skin feels after it’s been slapped. I wait for him to apologize, or to say anything at all, but the silence is punctuated by the drunken snore of a sleeping man. The better person inside me wants to remove his prosthesis so his skin won’t get irritated, but I’m not the better person tonight. Keane Sullivan can go to hell.
I leave him lying in the cockpit and wonder if he thinks this whole trip is one big joke. If he’s humoring the silly runaway American girl to get himself a free trip to Puerto Rico. Except my thoughts catch on the last part of what Keane said—about Ben being stupid for leaving me behind—and I wonder what, exactly, he meant.
* * *
Keane sits up, groaning and blinking in the sunlight, as I step out on deck with my morning coffee and a bagel. He runs his hand over the back of his head. “Jesus.” He pulls his fingers away, examines them as if expecting blood, and looks up at me. “How big an apology do I owe you?”
“What makes you think you owe me one?”
“Because you’re looking at me as if you’ve found me stuck to the bottom of your shoe,” he says. “And if I didn’t, you’d probably have brought me a cup of coffee too.”
“Maybe even a bagel.”
“Ouch. What exactly did I say?”
“That swimming with the pigs is a terrible idea.”
He takes a deep breath and blows it out slowly. “Well, to be truthful, it’s turned into a bit of a tourist trap, but I should have kept that opinion to myself. It’s not my place to question your decisions. You’re the boss.”
“You also said Ben—” I stop. Putting Keane on the spot will be embarrassing at best. At worst, he’ll be forced to admit something he might never have said while sober—something I don’t want to confront. “You said Ben was stupid for wanting to waste his time on pigs.”