The Girl in the Mirror(14)
No way. I regret my teenage bravado. If Summer thinks I’m keen on a solo voyage, I’m going to have to let her down. Being all alone out there would drive me crazy in half a day.
“I’m joking!” Summer cries. “Do you think I would let you cross an ocean on your own when you’re already having such a hard time? Besides, I love you, Iris. I want to be with you! Don’t you see it’s perfect? You’ve got me all to yourself all the way to Africa. Ooh, Twinnie! After we’ve lived apart for so long, it’ll be such a bonding experience! I’ve never been so excited about anything in my life!”
She forgets where she is and lunges forward to hug me. Solomon lurches. I throw my body to starboard and press the oars down hard to stop both of us ending up in the sea.
4
The Surprise
I’m lying on a cushion in Bathsheba’s cockpit, my arms pressed against the warm grain of the teak deck. My body rocks to the sweet rhythm of the tropical sea, and the lightest zephyr, the ghost of the night breeze, ruffles my bare limbs.
No blanket here. I’ve slept in my underwear. I sit up and take my first daytime look at Thailand. Yanui Beach is quiet at dawn, with a few dogs dotting the sand, a couple of hundred meters from the anchorage. Behind the beach, the land is heavily wooded. It’s hard to connect this idyll with the bulging, jaded metropolis I glimpsed last night. The tables have been cleared from the beach, and the restaurants are hidden by foliage.
The other yachts anchored nearby are all ocean-going vessels. Each flies its flag from the stern, and from here I can pick out the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack. One sloop flies the Australian flag, like Bathsheba. The crews of these boats must be sleeping below. I can imagine I’m the only person left alive in the world.
Summer keeps a fruit bowl in the pilothouse, and I peel a banana and wander to the side deck to drop the skin overboard. At the splash, dark shapes flurry out from under the hull. Remoras. I remember these fish. They live under the hulls of yachts, pressed against the keel. They used to follow Bathsheba from one bay to the next, hitching a lift, living off scraps thrown overboard. They’re like ghoulish ladies-in-waiting. Banana skin is not to their taste, though, and they take one sniff and dart back where they came from.
I stare down, absorbing the emerald warmth of the sea. We’re anchored in deep water, but it’s so clear I can make out hints of the ivory sand beneath. I slept in the best bed in the world. Bathsheba’s cockpit is the right length for my body, and the clink of her tall rigging, the creak of her timbers, the lap of wavelets, these sounds are my favorite lullaby.
Summer, true to her word, has treated me as skipper since I stepped on board. Last night, she presented me with Adam’s sailing cap, which has skipper embroidered on it in gold thread. She has a set of these caps. Hers reads crew and is stupidly big on her head, and Tarquin’s baby-sized cap reads cabin boy. Summer carried my suitcase to Bathsheba’s stateroom, from which she had already removed her and Adam’s things, squeezing herself back into the snug port quarter berth she and I shared as kids. The starboard quarter berth has been converted into a cozy nursery for Tarquin, or I should say restored to a nursery, since this is where Ben used to sleep when he was small enough to need bars on his crib.
To get belowdecks, I had to step over two childproof gates: one between the cockpit and the pilothouse and another between the pilothouse and the ladder down to the saloon. The saloon occupies Bathsheba’s central space and comprises an open-plan galley, dining area, and leather couch. Everything was as neat and nautical as ever, and starlight was streaming in from the round ports and the deck hatches that serve as skylights.
Bathsheba’s layout is simple. From the saloon, doors lead aft to the quarter cabins, which are cramped and low, squashed under the pilothouse. Another door leads forward to the stateroom, which spans the width of the yacht, with room for a plush, full-size double bed and every convenience, even a TV bolted to the wall. The last door, of course, leads to the bathroom with its double mirror.
While I unpacked, Summer whipped up a spicy meal, gang garee gai; she remembered that I love Thai food. She poured me a glass of wine “to celebrate our reunion.”
“I’m sorry it’s not under better circumstances,” I said.
“But I’m so moved that you came for me,” she gushed. “You’re the best sister in the world. Let’s make tonight special. Tarky’s out of danger. He’s in good hands, and the doctor said he could be discharged in a week or two. So let’s focus on us.” She hesitated. “I feel I didn’t help things when I came to Queenstown.”
Only my sister could blame herself for the disintegration of my doomed marriage. She ought to have been exulting in having been proven right all along.
Summer has stuck to her plan of never telling a boyfriend about the will. Even though she’s gifted, good-natured, and gorgeous, she’s been dumped more than once, and I’ve seen her sobbing her heart out over some worthless loser. Yet she never wavered. She didn’t even tell Adam until after their wedding. What a honeymoon bonus for him.
I wish I had done the same with Noah. I didn’t want the will to influence Noah’s decision to marry me, but he was dithering, and I thought it might hurry things up a bit. Noah and I had been seeing each other in Melbourne for a few months, but then he accepted a junior partnership at a law firm in his hometown in New Zealand. When I rang Summer to tell her about his planned departure, she announced that she and Adam had just gotten engaged.