It was only when they were walking down the gangplank to the dock to get onto the
Abby-Rose
for a little cruise around the harbor that Ben wondered if he had ever told Tom Julia’s last name was Meadows. The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced he had introduced her simply as Julia.
The Local
W
ally was certainly in his element, laughing and cursing in equal measure as he headed the boat out with a load of people for a little cruise around the harbor. The ride was much more pleasant than Ben had anticipated, but it was easy to see why. He thoroughly enjoyed being in Julia’s presence, and he found himself drawn to her all the more.
She certainly was attractive enough. Beautiful, in fact. Her long, dark hair blowing in wild tangles in the wind mesmerized him. And he loved the way she smiled all the time, exposing wide, gleaming white teeth. Her lips were full with a hint of lip-gloss. He kept finding himself imagining what it would be like to kiss her. He couldn’t understand why she wasn’t already involved with someone else, but he was glad of that. Maybe she had avoided his questions because she was on the tail end of divorce or a bad relationship. It certainly was easy enough to pretend they already were a couple, and he was sure that’s exactly what anyone who saw them together would think. That made him feel good.
Julia had a natural grace and an engaging personality. But she also was a bit reserved, and she seemed reluctant to insert herself into the conversation whenever Ben reconnected with someone he knew. That suited him just fine. He sensed her feelings of isolation from the townspeople, and he shared them, maybe more than he cared to admit. He winced whenever someone called him by his nickname, “Gunner.”
As the boat rounded the headlands and headed down along the coastline, he found himself thinking how natural he and Julia were together, like they had known each other long before today. He stood as close to her as he could get, his hands braced on the railing, allowing the jostling of the boat on the water to let his shoulder brush against hers from time to time.
She didn’t seem to mind.
If anything, she moved a little closer so their arms were touching. He was impatient for the boat ride to end so he could get her alone.
Jesus, stop it,
he cautioned himself.
You just met the woman
, but he was already making plans for once they got back on land and she told him she had to leave, he was going to ask when he could see her again. He certainly got the vibe that she would be open to that. She actively engaged him in conversation whenever he wasn’t talking to old friends, and she seemed genuine when she laughed at his witty remarks and observations.
Ben had to admit that it felt good to be back out on the water, too … especially after breathing the hot, choking dust and fumes in Iraq for the last few years. When Wally took a hard turn, the people at the back of the boat got hit with a cool, salty spray. Everyone laughed, but Ben was thinking how after being in the desert for so long, the open ocean was a true miracle of nature.
He and Julia stood together at the stern of the boat as it skipped across the water, leaving behind a smooth wake that folded back into the shimmering surface. Leaning close so she could hear him above the throaty rumble of the engine, he pointed out various landmarks — small islands where he and his high school friends used to go to hang out, or coves and points on the mainland where he or someone else — usually a drunk fisherman — had done something so foolish it was amusing.
Capt’n
Wally slowed the boat as he came around to pass another lobster boat on the port side. Gulls swirled around the boat like a white tornado, looking for any chum that might fall into the water. A large golden retriever was standing on its hind legs, its front paws up on the gunwales as it watched the passing boat. The lobsterman — a grizzled, white-haired old coot — wearing a black rubber apron, barely looked up from his work baiting a lobster trap as he raised one hand and pointed in their general direction.
“That’s as much of a wave as you’ll ever get from old Peggy.”
“Peggy?” Julia said, raising an eyebrow. They had to bring their heads close together in order to hear each other. Ben had to resist the almost overpowering impulse to kiss her right then and there.
“Short for ‘Peg-Leg,’” he said with a wide smile as they left the old man behind, his boat rocking in their wake.
Julia laughed and said, “Do I need to point out to you that both words have two syllables? So ‘Peggy’s’ not really
short
for ‘Peg-Leg.’”
“’Course it is,” Ben said, smiling broadly. “It’s one word instead of two.”
Julia almost laughed.
“So how’d he earn his name?”
“Lost his leg in a boating accident. It was dense fog one day, and he was out
lobstering
, drunk as a skunk, and he ran aground. His leg got cut so bad the doctor had to take it off to save his life.”
“My God,” Julia muttered.
“And his dog? What’s his name?”
“Fred,” Ben said.
Julia eyed him as if she thought he was making another joke, but Ben nodded and said, “Seriously.”
“A guy named Peg-Leg … Peggy … in a town filled with people who have colorful names, and his dog is named Fred?”
“Ole’ Fred’s got better sea legs than half the town, too,” Ben said. “Funny story about Peg-Leg. When ole Peggy’s sober — which isn’t very often — he’s the nicest fellow you could meet, but once he gets a skin-f, he can be a real ‘
bastid
,’ as they say. One night he got to drinking, but he ran out of booze. He was going to drive to the liquor store out on Route One, but his wife wouldn’t hear of it. Turned into quite a ruckus, I guess, and she ended up taking his artificial leg and hiding it along with his truck keys.”
“No way.”
“She told him when he was sober enough to find his damned leg and keys, he was sober enough to go get more booze. Supposedly, he even tried to get Fred to fetch it for him, but Fred was having nothing to do with it.”
“You’ve got to be making that up,” Julia said, looking at him with a twisted half-smile
“Absolute truth.” Ben raised his right hand as if swearing in a court of law. “There’s lots more stories even worse … or funnier, depending on your point of view.”
Julia was silent as she watched Peggy’s lobster boat recede in the distance.
“Stick with me, kid,” Ben said, “and I’ll tell you stuff you wouldn’t believe in a million years.”
“So let me guess,” Julia said. “Your nickname is ‘Gunner,’ right?”
Ben paused, avoiding eye contact with her for a second or two, and then nodded slowly.
“Uh-huh.”
“Your friends have been calling you that all day, so it wasn’t hard to figure out. Is it because of Iraq?”
“Not really,” he said, still terribly uncomfortable with this topic.
“So what’s it mean?” Julia asked, still looking at him with wide eyes. She either didn’t get or was ignoring his discomfort. “Did you always go hunting or was it because you — well, you always wanted to be a soldier or something?
Ben said nothing.
“You must like to shoot things, then,” she said. “Do you hunt?”
Biting his lower lip, Ben shook his head, wishing to God she would let it drop.
“So tell me. Why ‘Gunner?’”
“It’s slang for — for …” He shrugged and let it drop, hoping she wouldn’t pick it up.
Julia started to say something but then caught herself and started smiling broadly. Then she laughed out loud.
“Oh, I get it … Gunner,” she said.
In spite of his embarrassment, Ben was charmed by the mischievous light in her eyes.
“I guess I’ll have to keep an eye on you,” she said.
Ben had no idea what to say to that, but before he could say anything, Wally took a hard turn to port and came around so they were heading back to the harbor. The boat bounced hard over its own wake, and Ben used the rocking motion to shift even closer to Julia. His body tensed, and he was waiting for rejection as he slid his arm around behind her. His smile widened when she leaned hard against him, not rejecting him at all.
For the first time, he thought about how good it was to be back home.
T
he sounds of festivities still going on down on the wharf receded as Ben and Julia made their way up the slope back to the parking lot behind the fire station. They walked slowly, and Ben found himself struggling to think of some clever way to draw out their time together.
“You sure you have to get back?” he asked. He kicked at a tuft of weeds and sent a spray of dandelion seeds flying.
Julia nodded. She had her hands clasped behind her back and walked with a swing in her step that was charmingly little girlish. Ben found it incredibly attractive, and he was desperate not to let her leave him. Not yet. They were silent until they got to her car. Then she turned around and, leaning her back against the car, took a deep breath. She smiled as she looked up at the perfectly cloudless sky. High overhead, a seagull wheeled in a wide circle.
“Thanks for a fun morning,” Julia said.
“And afternoon,” Ben added as he glanced out over the town to the clock on the Congregation Church steeple. It showed that it was a little after one o’clock.
Where did the time go?
he wondered.
Ben wanted to reach out and touch her but knew it wouldn’t be right to hug and kiss her even though that’s exactly what he wanted to do. Shaking hands certainly wasn’t going to cut it, was it?
“I was thinking —” he began, but he stopped when she lowered her gaze and looked straight into his eyes. Her brown eyes sparkled like chocolate melting in the sun. The coy smile she gave him was almost too much to bear.
“Thinking what?” she said.
Ben cleared his throat and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He didn’t like how nervous he felt standing next to her without taking her into his arms.
Ease off, dude,
a voice in his mind whispered.
“I was thinking maybe we should hang out sometime.”
Julia’s smile widened, exposing her teeth.
“’Hang out.’ That sounds so quaint.”
This was at least the third time she had called something he said “quaint.” Ben couldn’t tell if she was making fun of him or not.
“Yeah … I suspect things at The Local will be howling until all hours tonight. You want to see a slice of what life is
really
like in The Cove, you ought to come down later.”
“Sorry. Not tonight.”
“Why not?”
“I … can’t.”
There was a finality in her voice that told Ben not to push any harder.
“Some other time, maybe” she said. “That’d be great.”
“Cool,” Ben said and immediately cursed himself for sounding like a nervous high school kid who was trying to ask the head cheerleader to the prom. Would Julia think saying
cool
was “quaint,” too?
“Well …” she said. “I should get back and make lunch for my dad. He’ll be wondering where I am.”
Saying that, though, she didn’t make a move to get into her car.
Is she waiting for something?
Ben wondered.
He started leaning forward to give her a quick hug — nothing sexual … a friendly hug … nothing more — but she sensed what was coming and twisted away. She appeared to be laughing to herself as she opened the car door and sat down on the seat. Her hands gripped the steering wheel.
Ben held the door open for her and, once she was settled, nodded to her and swung it shut. He looked at her through the window, surprised by the intensity of his longing to hold her in his arms and kiss her.
What the hell is happening here?
he wondered.
But it didn’t matter.
He’d been without a woman — without any women — in his life for too long. It was good to feel this kind of attraction again, even if it never went anywhere.
Julia rolled her window down and smiled up at him, her teeth gleaming in the sunlight.
“Give me a call, then. We’ll do something sometime,” she said.
“Absolutely.”
Ben raised his hand and gave her a little wave as she started up her car. The engine ran with a smooth purr.
“Your number’s in the phone book?”
“The only ‘
Capozzas
’ on Steeple Road.”
Ben was still smiling as she shifted the car into reverse and backed around. Her tires raised a thin cloud of dust that drifted into his face as she drove away. She tooted the horn once and stuck her hand out the window to wave goodbye. Ben waved after her and watched the dust slowly settle onto his sneakers. It filled his nostrils with a dryness that instantly reminded him of Iraq, but he pushed such thoughts aside as he watched her car disappear around the corner.
Even after it was gone, he didn’t move.
He was listening to the quickly receding sound of her engine and the tires on pavement. Once she crested the hill, the sounds were gone. Only then did he turn around and start down the hill toward the wharf where the party was still going full steam.
“T
here you go, Dad.”