The Starboard Sea: A Novel (8 page)

Nothing more than coincidence and serendipity brought Aidan and me together, but something unspoken held us close. After our first few encounters, I always knew where to find her. She became like the weather to me. On bright days, she studied on the beach, and when cloud streets turned into autumn storms, I knew she’d be locked in her library tower. I fell into a habit of finding her.

We didn’t speak much at first. Mostly, I watched her study. I sneaked food into the library for her. Cider and gingerbread. Cranberry muffins. I hadn’t seen her at the dining hall, and from the stray oranges and jars of peanut butter in her room, it was apparent that she didn’t eat well. I would steal apples for her, place tea biscuits beside her.

“Why did you change schools?” Aidan asked.

We were in the library. Aidan had just finished reading
The Grapes of Wrath
. She rubbed her eyes and twisted her hair on top of her head, knotting the coil. Then she stretched her arms above her head in a V.

That simple motion of stretching reminded me of something Cal had done once. Sometimes, the whole world can come down to a single gesture.

“How did you end up here?” she asked me.

I shrugged, looked away for a second or two, and she asked me again, a third time, more emphatically.
“My roommate,” I said, “my best friend, actually, he died at school.”
“What was his name?”
“Cal.” I coughed. “Cal,” I said again.
“How did Cal die?”
She asked so plainly that I realized no one had asked me the question before. Not directly.
“You know, I’d like to tell you,” I said. “I really would. But I’m afraid whatever I’d say right now might be untrue. And I have no interest in possibly lying to you.”
She bit down on an apple. “So tell me something else. A story about Cal.”
I thought about it for a moment. “He stole a motorcycle for me once. A 1964 Triumph 500. All chrome with a black body.”
“How’d he steal it?”
“He never said. Usually he’d burst from trying to keep a secret, but in this case he was just too proud of himself. Loved keeping me guessing. We were only sophomores then, and we had been disqualified, unjustly, from a regatta in Connecticut. The coach refused to flag a protest. The rest of the sailing team still had to compete, so Cal and I went off together to explore the town.”

“Come on,” Cal said. “Lunchtime.” “I hope you have money. I’m hungry.”

“I’m flush,” he said, patting his wallet. “Grandma’s convinced that every month is April, so every thirty days, she mails me five crisp Bennies.”

We ate at the first restaurant that met Cal’s requirements: wide booths and roast beef sandwiches.
“You think Coach would reconsider a protest?” Cal pressed down on his sandwich and licked a flood of mayonnaise. “We totally gave way on that approach. Plenty of room. It’s like there are rules and you learn them and you use them to win. Then someone notices that your coach is a wuss and decides to wreak havoc over your life.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“I don’t understand how you can be so”—he searched for the right word—“blasé,” he said. Cal finished his potato chips and began eating mine. “What’s wrong?”
“Didn’t feel like sailing today. Almost relieved when they disqualified us.”
“That’s crazy talk.” He reached over to another table and picked up a white cloth napkin from a place setting. After carefully wiping his face and hands, he looked up at me. “Your dad was supposed to come. Wasn’the?”
I hadn’t been too upset about my father not showing. Not really. Happened all the time. But when Cal looked up, some switch inside of me turned on. Before I could stop myself, I began to cry. No sound. Just several round drops of mercury out of a broken thermometer. Cal didn’t say a word. He slid out of the booth. I tried to pull myself together before he returned. The more I tried to control myself, the more I couldn’t. Cal slowly and deliberately maneuvered across the dining room, gathering all of the white linen napkins from their place settings. Before any waitress noticed, he brought the cloth stack over to our booth and flourished the pile in front of me. Almost every napkin in the restaurant spread out over our table. Cal picked one up and held it out. I took my new handkerchief, blew my nose, and wiped my eyes.
“It’s just a game,” Cal said.
We left the restaurant and made our way back to the school. I was worried about the sailing team leaving without us, but Cal lagged and hummed to himself.
“Look at that.” He pointed to a gas station and sprinted across the street in front of a truck.
I waited for traffic to pass and joined him on the other side. Cal bent down beside a motorcycle.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s a classic.”
“A 1964 Triumph.” A short man in oversized coveralls came out of the garage. He looked like a bird washed up after a tanker spill, as though years of overturned oilcans had leaked together, forming a dripping, shapeless figure. He slid over to us, holding a rag in his hand and polishing a ratchet. “Fixed her up clean,” he said.
“Sure would like to take a ride.” Cal inspected the motorcycle, careful not to touch the body. “See how she handles.”
The grease man smiled. “Bike’s not for sale. Not for your joyriding either.”
Cal put his arm around me and patted my chest. “My associate here is rated third on the pro-am motor circuit. The man’s a legend.”
Our new friend gave me the once-over. “He doesn’t look like a legend.”
“A spin around the block.” Cal ran his hand down the leather seat.
“She’s a show pony, not a racehorse.” The man appeared to shrink in the sun, his coveralls growing long over his shoes and arms. He squinted his eyes and returned to the shade of his garage.
Cal stood in front of the bike, unwilling to surrender.
“Maybe if you’d said I was rated number one,” I offered.
“The man’s not a fool.”
We walked back to the campus. Our teammates had showered in the guest locker room and stood together collecting their gear. I went in, picked up my duffel bag, and headed out to the sports bus, where I promptly fell asleep in the backseat. When I woke up, we were already on the road.
I’m not certain when I noticed Cal missing. The bus felt too quiet. No one was arguing with Coach or asking the driver to change the radio station. I stood up and walked down the aisle. No Cal. Not stretched out napping or leaning back with a magazine. He wasn’t on the bus. We’d walked by a train station on our way into town, and I could only figure that Cal had decided to head home for the weekend. I kicked the seat in front of me, annoyed that I had been abandoned. I wanted to ask Coach but knew that Cal had probably left without permission. I had no intention of ratting on him.
A mile or two from Kensington, I heard a buzzing. A flyin-the- ear sound at first, then a swarm of mosquitoes, and louder, a wasps’ nest. I turned to look out the back window and saw Cal riding the motorcycle. No helmet or sunglasses, even. Just his hair plaited back by the wind. I pounded on the glass and waved. He smiled. He must have been going sixty miles an hour, but it was as though he managed to stand still in time and smile. And then he did the most amazing thing. He took his hands off the bike and lifted them both up over his head. In victory. The hero on his Triumph. No one has ever looked as beautiful to me. With that one gesture, in that single moment, he was the definition of perfection. That was when I knew.

“What did you know?” Aidan asked.
“I knew he was the best friend I would ever have.”
Aidan leaned in and stared. “That’s all?”
“I thought that was a pretty big thing.”
“It is,” she said, “a hugely big thing, but it sounded . . .” She started to

tie her hair back in a knot. “Sounded like there was more you meant to say.”
I stood up and, for the first time since we’d started these afternoon visits, I didn’t wait for Aidan. I left on my own.

After dinner, I wanted a cigarette. I went down to the Flagpole, hoping I’d be able to find a smoker, but it was dark and cold. At first, I thought I’d struck out, but then I saw someone sheltered on the beach down by the seawall. Lighting up.

I took the stairs down to the beach and shouted into the wind, “Hey, can I bum a smoke?”
“A what?” Coach Tripp turned around and exhaled.
“Busted.” I laughed.
“Who?” he said. “You or me?” He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a pack. “You’re welcome to it, but I will have to report you.”
I couldn’t tell whether he was kidding or serious. I waved him off.
“I know I’m not much of a role model, but the rules, such as they are, are still different for you.” He held the cigarette down by his side and flicked the ash. “Haven’t seen you around.”
“Been studying a lot.”
“It made me sad to see you quit the team. That thing with Race was just a freak of nature. You know, it’s funny,” Coach said. “Most shipwrecks happen within sight of land. You’re part of a long tradition. Sailors who screwed up before they make it out of the harbor.”
“Well, when you put it that way.” I laughed. “I know Dean Warr told you to look out for me. Sorry I disappointed you.”
“Even before the dean said anything, I was psyched at the prospect of coaching you. You know, I saw you and your friend at Nationals. Took notes. You two had a real synergy.”
“We grew up sailing together.” I ran my hand against the rough seawall.
“From what I saw, he seemed like a nice kid. It’s hard,” Coach Tripp said, “when someone does the tragic thing Cal did. Easy to blame yourself.”
“Dean Warr told you more than I thought.” I rubbed my hand, hoping to feel some of my skin scrape off.
Coach Tripp flipped open the cigarette pack and held it in front of me. I took one. He struck a wooden match and lit the tip.
“I was out the other morning, alone,” Coach Tripp said. “The winds calm. The sun breaking over the water. Birds quiet. Sailed right into this mass of green fog, moist, lush air. Washed my eyes green. I lost all sense of direction. I forgot that I wasn’t a novice. Actually thought that I might have drifted off. Thought I was trapped for good in some strange ether.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Nothing. I just kept her steady.” He stubbed his cigarette out against the seawall. “Fell out of the fog.” He paused to look at me. “I always fear I’m going to turn into one of those ghost ships. Like I’ll disappear and some stranger will find my empty boat.”
“The Flying Dutchman,” I said.
“No, that’s just folklore. I mean disappear for real. You ever hear of the
Marie Celeste
?”
I shook my head.
“She was a famous phantom ship, a giant brig who sailed out of New York only to be found near Gibraltar with no crew to speak of, her food supplies untouched, her sails at full mast. Couldn’t have been a pirate attack because all of the valuables were still on board.”
“What do you think happened?” I asked.
“Not sure I want to know. I enjoy a good mystery. Makes me happy that there are so many things I don’t understand. That’s part of why I like the ocean so much. All of that water makes me feel small and uncertain. You learn more about yourself when you’re afraid.”
It had never occurred to me that being scared or unsure could be good, useful, even.
We smoked another cigarette and talked about the wildness of the Atlantic, how the strange currents of the gulf stream forced a sailor north before he could travel east. Coach Tripp told me about a summer he’d spent fishing for swordfish in the dangerous shallows of the Flemish Cap. A lot of prep school teachers were rich kids. Guys struck sick with nostalgia for their own prep school glory days. I hadn’t figured out if Coach Tripp was one of these casualties or not. He loved sailing but not in a yacht club way. He actually cared about the history of sailing, how the trade winds helped determine empires. Coach hoped to recreate all of the famous early voyages. Like the Phoenicians, he wanted to cruise through the Pillars of Hercules and down the coast of Northern Africa. He’d studied charts and understood how Leif Ericson had navigated from Norway to Cape Farewell in Greenland and then all the way to the coast of Canada and the Bay of Jellyfish. Coach was a smart guy. I could learn something from him.
“Can you teach me about celestial navigation?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said. “It’s one of my minor obsessions. We should go out sailing sometime. Just the two of us.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’d like that.”
We finished smoking. Coach pointed to the dorm, and, without a word, we began to race along the beach, then up the seawall’s staircase and onto the grass. Dashing hard, fast, we stayed about even until we hit the path to Whitehall. Coach Tripp stopped short, smoothed down the front of his jacket, and fell behind. I continued to run straight up to my room and into bed. I slept well that night because someone had been kind to me.

FIVE

I’d made it through an entire day without visiting Aidan. Sitting in my room. Face-to-face with the blank essay page on my Princeton application. I’d used the word “beautiful” to describe another boy. I knew how it must have sounded to her. I also knew that it was exactly what I’d meant, exactly what I did not want to mean.

Aidan said nothing when she saw me back at the grand piano. I was still in dress code. A blue suit jacket and my favorite tie: yellow silk with small navy medallions, my mythical family crest. Aidan had made me a copy of her key, and I arrived before her, placing an apricot and a box of cinnamon graham crackers on what I took to be her favorite chair. Aidan entered wearing a black sweater that fell below her waist and flowed into a long skirt that covered her shoes. She sat down in the empty seat, across from my gifts, opened a blank book, bound in marbleized paper, and began to write.

“What’s in the book?” I asked.
“My journal,” she said. “Don’t you keep a journal?”
“I did. Once. At least I tried to. The stuff I put down was so dull, I

decided that if anyone else read it, they’d think I was the most boring person in the world.”
“Boredom is actually the most plentiful substance in the universe,”

Aidan said.
“I started making stuff up, just to sound more interesting. Stories about sailing mostly. Like a captain’s journal. Sudden storms. Sea snakes. Pirate battles. Islands of sea grass.”

“What made you stop writing?” Aidan swept strands of hair off her face.
“Cal found it. He copied some pages and plastered them around campus. Cal knew me better than anyone. Knew how to get a rise out of me.”
“So if Cal were here, what would he tell me about you?”
“Like how would he embarrass me?”
“No. I don’t want to hear anything goofy or mean. What would Cal say to convince me that you were one of the good guys?”
I didn’t have to think too hard to recall Cal’s favorite story about me. “Here’s the thing you need to know about Jason,” he’d begin before highlighting what in his mind was my singular achievement. I told Aidan how Cal and I had gone to grade school in the city together. “We had this teacher who gave out gold stars for every book report we did. I’m not talking tiny stickers but like these really big stars she cut out of foil. If you got enough of them you could trade them in for prizes. Stuffed animals and calculators. She even had this really nice desk globe, you know, the kind where the ocean is all black. That was the grand prize. Anyway, there was this kid in our homeroom, Paul Sullivan, a really sweet kid, you know. Everything made him happy. A pink eraser, pizza at lunchtime, indoor recess, you name it. Paul would just smile and clap and hug everyone. He was so fucking happy. Sometimes seeing him like that made me want to cry, I guess because I knew I’d never be that excited about anything. Poor kid had Down syndrome. Our teacher told us not to treat Paul any differently, but then the teacher did this really messed-up thing. She wouldn’t let Paul do any book reports so he could never earn any stars. The only time he’d get anxious or flap his arms and cry was when she’d hand out those stupid stars. Maybe I just wanted to make up for our teacher’s stupidity. I read a lot of books and did a ton of reports, and at the end of the year, I gave Paul all my stars. I didn’t tell anyone, I just did it. Then Paul went right over and told the teacher he wanted that globe. It was worth the most stars. She probably never thought anyone would earn that many. I remember Paul spinning the globe at his desk. I was nine years old and it was the first time I’d done anything nice for someone. Of course, Cal found out and blabbed to my mom.”
I paused and looked at Aidan. She smiled.
I said, “That’s what Cal would tell you about me. ‘Jason’s the nice one,’ he’d say. ‘He’d give you all his stars.’ ”
“So you were Cal’s hero.” Aidan folded her arms and tilted her head.
“No,” I said. “It wasn’t like that. We were just pals.” Telling the story made me feel embarrassed. Like I was full of fake humility. Cal had been less impressed by my generosity and more impressed by the fact that I hadn’t bragged about what I’d done. “You kept it to yourself,” he’d said. “That’s what makes you special.” I neglected to tell Aidan how for the remainder of grade school, I did my best to avoid Paul or how I always felt uncomfortable when he would run over to hug me. I leaned back and tried to touch the back of my head against the wall, but I lost my balance and braced my hands on the piano bench for support.
“You all right?”
“Fine.” I nodded and pointed to her journal. “I’ve told you my story. Now you tell me what’s in there?”
“Flotsam and jetsam. Scattered thoughts.”
“Unscatter some.”
“I don’t know. You think I’m bright, but there’s so much I can’t do. I can’t paint, or draw, even, but I love art.” She opened her journal. “My art teacher at my old school told me this story about Cézanne, about why he painted so many apples. It’s a silly thing, but I like to understand people through their obsessions. Like you with your sailing.” She paused and smiled at me. “Anyway, Cézanne grew up with this writer, Émile Something. Zola?”
I wasn’t sure whether I recognized the name.
“As a little kid, Émile was chubby and awkward,” she said. “He was a target for bullies, until Cézanne befriended him.” Aidan stopped and breathed. “Cézanne protected Émile. By way of thanks, the young writer brought the young artist a basketful of apples. Red tops and yellow bottoms.” She stood, walked over to the other chair, and picked up the apricot I’d left for her. “I guess in our case, the roles are reversed. You defend me, and you bring me snacks.” She tossed the apricot in the air and caught it. “Have you heard any stories about me? Have you asked anyone?”
I lied and said I hadn’t.
“The first thing I wanted to know about you was why you came to Bellingham,” she said. “Almost everyone comes here with a story. Mine always seems to change. Kriffo and Race tell people I’m a slut. Styuvie’s convinced that I’m a homicidal maniac. Once, I was peeing in a bathroom stall, when I heard Brizzey tell another girl that I’d given myself an abortion. In their minds, I’ve broken every taboo.” She turned and faced me. “I wish you knew me before I came here.” Aidan laughed. “I was fearless.” She turned her back to me and looked out the window.
She rolled the apricot over her mouth. Bruising the fruit and attempting to bite into the skin with just the softness of her lips.
“Who hurt you?” I asked.
“Sweet Boy.” Aidan offered the words to me. “That’s what I’ll call you from now on. If someone reads my journal and asks, ‘Who’s Sweet Boy?’ you can tell them.”
“Seabird,” I said. “That first day I saw you out on the breakwater, I thought you were a cormorant.”
“Mr. Guy’s right.” Aidan looked down. “You need a haircut.”
She stood at the window and finished the apricot. A small fruit, but Aidan took her time. I wanted to know what the apricot juice tasted like in her mouth. I liked wanting to know this. When she finished, she placed the pitted heart of the fruit on the windowsill. I pushed back on the piano bench and walked over to her. From the window, we could see the waterfront. The harbor decorated with sloops. Close to shore, the sailing team practiced maneuvers with Coach Tripp riding at a distance in a launch. The sun would set shortly, and I knew that the sea breeze would die down as the evening air cooled. I moved in close to Aidan, keeping a hand’s distance between our bodies. My chin parallel to her cheek.
“I’m going to summon a storm for you,” I said.
Aidan spoke in a feathery voice. “Will the ocean rise?”
“We’ll play in the rain together.” I brushed my neck against her hair.
My chest steadied itself against her back. For a moment, I felt that Aidan might lean in for support. Instead she turned and faced me. I’d thought of her with unblinking eyes, moving always, across the pages of opened books with rapid precision, but as she stood in front of me, her eyes looked slow and watery. I capsized into them. The sides of our noses touched. Her body stayed tense and rigid. I caressed her, searching for a response, rolling my tongue lightly, but deeper inside. She answered with her teeth. Kissing me with their sharpness. Scratching them along my lips. Defending herself with small bites. Our mouths together felt decidedly wrong. Hers, rough and agitated. Mine, lost but hopeful. The word “mistake” surged up along my spine, snapping my head back, swiftly, and away from her.
Aidan didn’t move. I half expected her to flee from the room. She creased her forehead. My lungs filled with shallow breath. Anxious for air, as though I had just been submerged for several minutes under frozen water. Aidan moved her eyes over my face, across my chest, and then away from me. I looked down at the discarded apricot pit.
“Your teeth,” I said. “They’re sharp.”
Aidan placed a hand over her mouth, horrified. I started to apologize but she pushed past me. I heard her kneeling on the floor, collecting books and dropping pens into her leather satchel. I wanted the texture of that worn leather to be the smoothness shared between us. Aidan stood in the middle of the room. I held my back to her and listened as she closed the piano cover over the keys and left.
In the harbor, I searched for Swedish boats. Half-ton cruisers that would keep a sailor, alone at sea, comforted by their sturdy construction. Weight and heaviness promising security. I’d never thought of sailing on open waters without a crew. Cal and I had planned to see the world together. I’d touched Cal on impulse, just as I’d done to Aidan. Cursing them both like characters in a German fairy tale. Pricking fingers on silver needles. The first time I kissed him, we were standing in front of a mirror in the entryway of my apartment. It was fall break of our junior year. Cal was leaving the next day for Anguilla. I was staying behind to have my wisdom teeth removed. The two of us were just talking and joking when Cal told me that he wished I could come with him, and instead of agreeing, I leaned in and kissed him. A solid kiss on the mouth. As we broke away, we both caught ourselves in the reflection. Two tall boys. Two red mouths. I could feel the strength of his body vibrating against me, and I knew that with one swift wrestling move, he could pin me to the floor and hurt me for what I’d done. He didn’t. To be with someone who is stronger than you. To have him relinquish his strength.
Without looking down, I picked up the apricot pit and placed it in my mouth, holding it under my tongue. The outside felt hard and scabrous. I ran the pointed tip along the bottom of my gums, until a shallow pocket of blood formed. I took the wooden shell between my teeth, splintering the edges and releasing an added bitterness. Holding the mixture loose in my mouth and rolling it over my tongue and palate like a rock polisher rinsing pebbles. As I swallowed the blood and saliva, bits of broken seed scratched down my throat. The heart of the fruit bulged from my cheek, reminding me of Kriffo’s chewing tobacco. Unable to spit or throw the seed out a window. Unable to reject the sharpness of Aidan’s kiss, I took the seed from my mouth and placed it in my breast pocket.