Sadie Walker Is Stranded Read online

  Arturo split his time between dashing down into the covered cockpit of the Ketch and barking orders in broken English at the teenage boy. I learned that his name was Noah and that he also knew next to nothing about sailing. He did his best, his dark, curly head bobbing up and down as he tried to follow Arturo’s directions, the old man’s chosen assistant. It wasn’t obvious whether the position was voluntary or not. I sidled up to the Portuguese sailor. He—or actually his bushy beard—smelled strongly of stale cigarettes and port wine. Shane hid behind me, peeking out around my arm to stare shyly up at Arturo.

  “Anything I can do to help?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry. Not so hard for us. Straight,” Arturo said in his heavily accented English. He made a hatchet blade out of his hand and chopped it in a vaguely northern direction. “Straightforward, very easy,” he said, and then again, “don’t worry. Very straightforward.”

  Glancing at the maze of inlets and islands ahead of us, navigation looked about as straightforward as a bag of snakes. Peering down into the cockpit, I was temporarily cheered by the sight of fishing rods, wine bottles, tampons (Andrea’s influence there, I hoped) and a stack of plastic-wrapped white bread. Arturo lit up a cigarette with a match.

  “You go sit,” he said. “Take care of boy.” He tried to smile, his square, pointed badger face breaking out into a series of wrinkly crags. “You feel sick, you do your business over the side. Into the water.”

  Well, gee thanks, Art, without your timeless wisdom I might have just barfed on my shoes instead.

  When I ducked back out from behind the cockpit, Andrea was already busy making conversation with the German man. His long legs were stretched out in front of him, his trouser legs hiking up to reveal woolly green socks bunched into his loafers. Nobody wanted to talk to the blood-covered nurse—for obvious reasons—who was still crying quietly in a lonely corner of the boat. She had a wild head of raspberry red hair, swept out of her face with a banana clip. For some reason, the sight of her reminded me of what we had lost—our apartment, our day to day, our offbeat little home … I felt my own tears coming on and fumbled for the deck railing.

  Now wasn’t the time to break down. The Citadel was becoming a vague pattern of grays and browns in the heavy cover of fog. It was disappearing behind us. The wind rushed in around us, ruffling coats, mussing hair, making Shane cuddle against me more fiercely. It should have been exhilarating, liberating, but the urge to cry persisted.

  Wait for night, I thought. Don’t cry in front of the kid. Wait until nobody’s looking.

  THREE

  Finding privacy on a sailboat is like finding a Starbucks in the desert. You might desperately want it to happen, you might wish upon a star, but you’re better off accepting that you’re going to die, and not with a soy latte in your hand either.

  The first afternoon on the sea I got sick. Tremendously sick. Green-faced, projectile vomit seasick. This was an excellent first impression. Somehow, the little boy with the picky appetite was just peachy, but I felt like I had swallowed a live eel. Not surprisingly, I wasn’t alone in suffering from this affliction. The German, Moritz Kellerman, was seasick too.

  I didn’t expect to step onto the boat and become the designated tribe leader. Arturo, rightly, was in charge. His boat? His rules. But I know a thing or two about survival—not just because I was still alive and kicking despite zombies and food shortages and little-boy tantrums, but because my dad was the consummate outdoorsman. You can’t live in the northwest and not catch the bug to hunt, fish, camp or hike at some point. My dad, Alan (but come on, who really calls their dad by his first name?) was your typical weekend warrior. Which is why it’s more than a little surprising that he’s … well, not still around. Sore subject? Yeah, you could say that. Because everyone just loves talking about their parents’ untimely demise, right? And yes, I said parents, plural.

  Pardon the sidebar, but it’s now or never, or rather five empty pages while I collect myself and stop bawling like a tween outside Joe Jonas’s dressing room. Dad—Alan—no, Dad, liked to hitch up the trailer to the SUV on weekends and head for the nearest patch of prime camping ground. He rarely, if ever, washed that stupid trailer. Mom would get on his ass about it, asking why he insisted on leaving a grubby, mud-splattered disaster zone in the garage. There was limited space in there, and she didn’t want it taken up by what ultimately looked like an overflowing toilet. I was on my dad’s side in this. I liked that the trailer was messy and rugged. I liked showing my grade school friends, swaggering into the garage under the pretext of getting a kickball and just happening to show them how totally outdoorsy and badass my dad was. And how cool was it that sometimes I got to go with him? Street cred. I had it.

  He taught me about making fires, tying knots, all of the father-daughter bonding a former Boy Scout can stomach. Or are you a Boy Scout for life? Who knows? Anyway, Mom approved of this, to an extent, despite the fact that it meant putting up with a grungy trailer and more poison ivy rashes than you can shake a bottle of calamine lotion at. It was our time, and through mosquito invasions that made Normandy Beach look tame and collapsing tents and overcooked, cindered hot dogs, I learned to love it. It was misery as entertainment. Survival as a badge of honor. Like one of Pavlov’s dogs, the less I grumbled on these trips the more swag I got from Dad upon returning home. If I was quiet and uncomplaining there was Dick’s Drive-In for me on the way back, and that’s massive motivation for any little kid. Or anyone. Period.

  But my dad was always better at the whole camping thing, more of a natural. He could put a stale Swedish Fish on the end of a line and haul in a ten-pound whopper. Me? I could bait that sucker with the highest quality lures, night crawlers and worms and fucking diamond earrings around and I wasn’t going to get so much as a nibble. Thems the breaks, I guess, but it leaves a mark. I was never as in tune with nature as my father. He couldn’t draw to save his life, which always amused me and was one tiny thing for me to gloat about, but damn it if he didn’t seem like Paul Bunyan and Grizzly Adams and all those legendary woodsmen rolled into one. Mom accompanied us on these trips occasionally, but just like me, she didn’t have that survivalist gene. It was Dad’s area of expertise and he embraced it with the power of a thousand REI employees.

  And Dad should have made it and Mom, too, but that’s another story with another chance to send me into paroxysms of weepy regret.

  More important than my seasickness or wishing my father was there to help, was making sure Shane wasn’t one foot over the line of irreversible trauma. A quiet kid to begin with, it just didn’t seem likely that he would take being kidnapped and seeing Andrea and me going berserk well. And really, the sort of person who did take that kind of thing well would probably grow up to become a serial killer. Lucky for me, he wasn’t exactly hard to keep an eye on when trapped on a tiny boat. Well, that and the huge mess of curls on his head made him easy to spot from outer space. Or from an inch away, where he stood endearingly fused to my hip. Absence, however short, makes the heart grow even fonder, and in this case that meant fond to the point of paranoia. I was beginning to construct a giant papoose in my head, one big enough to put Shane in and strap him to my back for life.

  Fighting the urge to stick my head in a paper sack and never emerge again, I knelt next to Shane, catching my balance and groaning from the rocking of the boat. “So I’m not feeling great,” I said, putting my thumb over his cheek where, in better times, a dimple would go. “But I want to make sure you’re all sorted before I have a lie-down. Are you … Do you need a snack? We managed to save some stuff from the apartment.”

  Shane shook his head, paused, shrugged. My heart broke a little. What kid turned down a snack? Wasn’t there a rule somewhere in the parenting handbook that children, when presented with food, would always, always go for it?

  “No? You sure? Maybe some water … It’s good for you, bud. You need to stay hydrated.”

  He knew what that meant. Hydration was part of the everyday
vernacular now, even for eight-year-olds.

  “Okay,” he whispered, quirking his tiny lips to the side.

  “Good deal. Let’s do it.”

  Standing up proved a bit of a challenge. My stomach rolled, my eyes right along with it. Managing my own health and looking after Shane was not going to be easy.

  Andrea, always the pragmatist, saw me teetering on my feet and intervened.

  “I was getting him some water,” I mumbled, clutching my middle.

  “You sure? You’re looking about ten shades of green…”

  “I’ve got it.”

  I could handle this. I had to. Taking Shane’s hand, I stumbled forward, leading him toward the lowered cockpit and the supplies stacked up inside. The wind whipped at us, snapping the sails and ruffling Shane’s curls. Just a few steps and we would be there. Shane clung to my hand, his fingernails digging into my palm like talons. Yeah. No. The kid needed to see things were okay, that his surrogate mom wasn’t going to drop dead of seasickness any second. And maybe things weren’t okay, but that wasn’t the point. For now, he had to believe that we adults had our shit together. We would have our shit together and I would make that happen one way or another, no matter how bitchy and Momzilla I had to become.

  “Here we are,” I chirped, putting on a strained smile. My guts seemed to be having a jolly good time settling down, tricking me into thinking I was all better before they tossed like a dingy in a gale. “Water, food, blankets, stunning, brilliant artwork … all the fine amenities in life.”

  Shane shrugged. Tough crowd. I could do better.

  “Boats are pretty awesome,” I said conversationally, rummaging in Arturo’s cooler for a cup. There were several, all with naked ladies on them. Class act, that guy. I settled for Styrofoam, not optimal but better than faded titties and plastic smiles. “Maybe you can learn how to sail … I bet Arturo would teach you. And the other folks look nice, they can help out too.”

  Shane nodded. One point. I could do this.

  I rested against the edge of the cockpit while Shane drank his water. He gulped it down in one impressive go.

  “Slow down, okay? Tummies can get a little messed up on boats.” No kidding. “More?”

  Another nod. At least it was communication.

  Moritz Kellerman was getting a head start on the race to see who could empty their stomach the fastest. Hearing the dulcet tones of his vomiting in the background reminded my gut that it was slacking on the painful convulsions.

  “Are you all right?” Shane asked, blinking up at me and moving to the side, preemptively dodging whatever I horked up.

  “I just … need to sit. You can come with, but it might be pretty…” My stomach gurgled audibly. “… gross.”

  Shane finished his water and peered around me, his eyes shifting between Kellerman and me as if determining the likelihood that one of us would vomit on him if he came along. But he came with, the champ, taking my hand and leading me to the edge of the boat. I couldn’t help but grin a little. It wasn’t so bad to be looked after, even just for a brief moment. Shane joined the quarantined at the stern of the ship where the bouncing was felt less prominently and where a noticeable funk was beginning to settle.

  Your personal bubble space quickly breaks down when you’re confined to a four-by-four area with another human being. Instead of swapping stories or anecdotes, Mr. Kellerman and I swapped guttural heaving noises and despairing groans as we fell back to the deck, temporarily relieved only to be nauseous again ten seconds later. Poor Shane put up with it, sitting cross-legged and staring up at the seagulls, maybe willing one to swoop down and carry him away from all the puking and complaining.

  What do you think of when you think of boats? Romance? Adventure? Tasty fishes? None of the above for me, thanks. Just barfing and tons of it.

  Moritz and I spent the night flat on our backs, me half-hysterical and him making pathetic whimpering noises whenever another harsh wave rocked the sailboat and, by extension, our queasy insides. Shane slept a safe distance away, the blanket pulled over his head, probably to protect from the unattractive sounds we were making.

  Ah, the sea—the salt tang of the swift and freeing wind, the spray of the water, the chatter of playful otters and the incessant clutching of your stomach as you will that tiny bit of bread to stay down, please Jesus and all the holy saints, just stay down.

  I didn’t sleep much. In the morning it got a little easier and I dozed, flickering in and out of consciousness. My teeth were fuzzy, probably growing Christmas trees by now, and that unmistakable soup-smelling miasma of vomit hung around my face and neck. It was predawn when I woke for good, too disgusted with myself to fall back asleep. I glanced to see if Shane was up, but he was still dozing peacefully. Mr. Kellerman was sitting up, his knees clasped to his chest. He watched the first hints of sunlight playing over the eastern fringes of the mountains.

  “What a view,” I said, surely sounding more cheerful than I felt. He nodded.

  “I was lost for a moment,” he replied. “I thought I was nine years old again, waking up and seeing the Alps outside my window.”

  “Where was home?” I asked. This was a usual question. Everyone had shifted around so much in The Outbreak that we were all transplants, orphans.

  “Zurich,” he said softly. His voice was cultured, starched. I tried to imagine what he might have been before The Outbreak—a diplomat or perhaps a banker. He looked over at me, his dark hair swinging free of his ears. His eyes were startling up close, sparkling, as painfully earnest as a greyhound’s. “Yourself?”

  “Portland,” I said, “but I moved to Seattle a few years ago.”

  He nodded, glancing back at the crackling light of first dawn. I wanted to appreciate it, but all I could think about was home, Seattle. How far had we gone? How many, what, leagues? Was it too late to turn back? Distracted by the seasickness, I hadn’t had a chance to get that cry in. Now I was regretting it. I swallowed a thick lump and hoped Kellerman didn’t hear it.

  “Is he yours?” he asked suddenly.

  “What?” My pulse froze.

  “Shane.” Moritz nodded toward the crumpled form to my right. “Is he your boy?”

  We may have spent the night in a disturbingly intimate way, but I hadn’t been given the chance to tell him much of my personal history. He seemed to read my startled expression and lowered his eyes. I stared at him, rigid. And fuck, did I really look like a mom? Was it bad if I did?

  “He’s my sister’s,” I said brusquely. “My nephew. I need some water.”

  The German—or rather the Swiss—said nothing. As I stood and turned toward the cockpit, I saw him draw something out of his inner coat pocket. Maybe I’d ask him about it later, probe into his private life, poke around and make him uncomfortable. What was that in your coat? Did it belong to your son? Your girlfriend? I sighed and rubbed my forearms to get warm. He was just trying to be concerned, I decided. It wasn’t his fault that I was still touchy about losing Kat and inheriting Shane, and it was logical to guess that a woman my age with a young boy would be his mother. Everyone in our neighborhood had known that Shane was my nephew and that talking about my sister was a surefire way to earn a tense silence.

  I wasn’t his real mom, I reminded myself for the umpteenth time, but I had to at least act like I was.

  The big jug of clean water was in the cockpit, propped up beside the stack of white bread loaves. I tore off a piece of bread, softened it in a tin cup of water and ate. The sickness was abating and I hoped day two would be easier. This whole debacle was already reaching Gilligan’s Island levels of absurdity and I was ready for a strong dose of boring.

  Half-hidden in the cockpit, I could watch Mr. Kellerman without being seen myself. His back was to me, but I could see that he was studying the object he had pulled from his coat. It was a little square of photographic paper, a Polaroid. Weird. I hadn’t seen one of those in ages. Who even used a Polaroid camera anymore? Didn’t they stop making those when th
ey realized they were, ya know, completely fucking useless?

  The photo was too far away for me to see clearly. He turned it this way and that, examining it from every angle and then returned it to his coat pocket. His first instinct had been to ask if I had a child, so maybe he had his … or a wife. I ate another piece of bread and decided to leave him alone.

  We were all tender creatures now, wounded.

  A pair of fluffy white seagulls floated along beside the boat, drifting up and down like paper airplanes coasting on the breeze. Drifting and coasting … Totally unaware that, somewhere behind us, Seattle was burning again. Did they know? Did they care? In my illustrations, animals talked. Maybe those two seagulls were carrying on a silent conversation or maybe they were just fucking seagulls, focused on fish and fish alone.

  Uncle Arturo was soon up and moving about the boat. He ignored me, having his morning cigarette as he consulted a waterway map that looked like nothing but a series of loops and dots to me. The bloodstained nurse was where we left her the night before, curled up at the bow, her face pale and serious. It was too bad; she was a pretty woman and would probably break a few hearts if she learned how to smile … and ditched the blood-soaked uniform. Those tended to go over badly on a first date.

  Andrea found me in the cockpit and we shared a hunk of bread as she yawned and rubbed the sleepiness out of her eyes. She glanced at the stern, her glittering blue eyes filled with mischief.

  “What?” I asked, dreading the answer.