The Girl in the Mirror(22)
From the age of fourteen, I played along with Summer’s sweet dream, pretending that the will wasn’t going to stop me marrying for love. Like Summer, I wasn’t going to tell any of my boyfriends about the money.
In truth, from the day of Dad’s funeral, I had a plan. The day I turned eighteen, I would marry someone. Anyone. I would go hell for leather at this baby-making lark.
My eighteenth birthday was looming, and I was about to propose to my boyfriend at the time (Kash—the name suited him perfectly) when I realized my mistake.
I wasn’t that excited about my future. The money was going to be fantastic, obviously, but I was going to be married to Kash, whom I had chosen for his likely willingness to go along with the scheme, but who otherwise didn’t inspire me as a life companion. I couldn’t care less that I wouldn’t have the fairy tale wedding Summer was fond of imagining for herself, but the shameful rush to the registry office, the pregnancy wreaking havoc on my body: what teenage girl wants that?
A couple of weeks before my birthday, I asked Kash, as though it were a whimsical, off-the-wall question, how much money he would have to be offered to marry me and have a baby.
“Fifty bucks,” he said. “As long as we’re only married on paper, and I wouldn’t have to, like, see the kid.”
I started thinking. Did I need to rush into this? Summer wasn’t seeing anyone. My plan had assumed that Summer was like me, that she might also elope as soon as she turned eighteen to get the money.
But Summer would never do this. I knew it in my heart. No furtive scramble to the altar for her. She would be open and true. She would get married when she fell in love, and she would do everything the proper way. Announcement, engagement party, big wedding. These things take time.
I had time. I had eight years before Virginia turned eighteen. The odds were that I would find someone better than Kash. Worst-case scenario, I’d marry whomever I was dating when Summer announced her engagement. Best-case scenario, I’d actually fall in love before then.
In hindsight, Kash would have made a better husband than Noah. The irony is not lost on me.
After hours of boring reverse negotiation (Who can be the sweetest sweetie-pie?), Summer and I settle on a watch schedule. Summer claims to enjoy sailing through the heat of the day and doesn’t mind staying up late, watching darkness fall. It’s getting up in the pitch black that she struggles with, being wrenched from sleep. So she’ll keep watch from noon till late afternoon, then I’ll take over while she prepares dinner—we both know she’s the better cook. We’ll eat early, while it’s still light, and she’ll take the sunset-to-midnight watch while I get a few hours of sleep. Then she’ll wake me, and I’ll stand watch till dawn. From dawn till noon is flex time; we’ll see which of us is more tired.
“So I’m making a pregnant woman stay up till midnight every night for a fortnight,” I say. “That hardly makes me sister of the year.”
“You have to sleep sometime.” Summer beams. “I’ll be fine. You’re almost as obliging as Adam.”
We fall into a routine of day and night, wake and sleep, sun and starlight, and Bathsheba flies across the Bay of Bengal. It’s as if Dad is still on the boat; we instinctively follow his old rules. We never leave the cockpit without clipping our harnesses to the jackstays that run the length of the deck, and as an added precaution, before stepping onto the deck, we call the other to come and watch. Most of the time, though, the sails can be handled from within the cockpit.
If something needs to be done on the foredeck during Summer’s watch, I generally do it for her. In fact, I don’t think she leaves the pilothouse during her watches. She’s not fond of handling the sails. That’s fine with me. All I need is for her to be a pair of eyes so I can get some sleep.
During the first week of our passage, I discover changes to the yacht, improvements that Adam has made. I thought Bathsheba was perfect, but I have to admit that the bigger fridge allows for luxury dining to a standard I didn’t think possible at sea. Night after night, Summer serves up fresh Thai cuisine as if she’s a specialty chef on an ocean liner. Adam has also installed an extra water tank, so instead of stewing in our own sweat until we reach port, Summer and I can shower every day—a quick, cold shower, but that’s all you need in the tropics.
Summer showers at noon using the cockpit’s open air shower, a simple handheld showerhead, taking advantage of the privacy offered by an ocean passage. I’m treated to a daily striptease, and there’s no more schoolgirl underwear. It’s all whorish bras and lacy G-strings in white and pink and scarlet.
“Adam bought me this,” she coos, dropping a sinfully tiny piece of satin studded with diamantes onto the cockpit floor. As the cold water runs over her warm skin, she shows off her lush body, her all-over tan, to the sun. She rubs wild rose shower gel over her full breasts and her almost-flat belly, and it froths in her irritatingly neat line of pubic hair. Her nipples are already swelling with pregnancy, darkening from pink to ruby red.
Her fresh underthings, always matching, always Victoria’s Secret or Agent Provocateur, are waiting for her, hung over the tiller. Now I know why she left the prim stuff back in Wakefield. Her tastes have changed.
I used to be the lingerie queen, poring over catalogues, trying on the kinkiest numbers in the most luxurious stores. But I racked up too many debts, and my collection has suffered. The whites have faded to dishwater gray, the cups are sagging, and half the time I can’t even match the bra to the knickers.