About the Book:
By the age of 15, Deirdre was not happy at home. With a teenager's optimism she developed a logical plan for getting away and living on the go, on her own terms, which meant NOT using sex as currency and not doing anything (too) illegal. Her story unfolds as she tramps from Connecticut to The Bahamas, sailing yachts, taking odd jobs, coping with abuse and homelessness, and finally finding a home with a job, loyal friends, and even love.
Author Jonnie Comet categorizes Deirdre, the Wanderer as escapist fiction: 'It's credible reality, real settings, real entities, and real history, blended with a fully fantastic story line.' The story combines elements of classic literature, such as Tom Jones and Jane Eyre, each about a solitary character trying to make it while passing through the world, with the theme of self-reinvention as exemplified in The Great Gatsby.
Treating exotic settings as commonplace, it also owes much to the 'armchair-traveler' genre as popularized by Jules Verne: 'I originally wrote this book as a kind of "how-to" for running away from home, but, in the events following 9/11, the story's informational examples would no longer work. Focus for the book was shifted from a faux instructional narrative (ala Around The World in Eighty Days) to that of pure fantasy.'
The author will readily suggest that 'female adventurers are always good fiction; men read their exploits with salacious voyeurism and parental protection, and all women respect bold, independent, yet feminine protagonists.' Deirdre is appropriately flawed, yet, by her perseverance in the face of ugly odds and her inherent morality she represents the best stuff of which heroes are made.
About the matter-of-fact depiction of risqué situations, Comet says, 'It's just not realistic to assume this stuff would NOT happen to this character, or any girl in a similar circumstance. She survives drinking, crime, abuse, and legal lurks too; and they're also described in the story.' Through adversity the narrator emerges from a whiny, self-effacing teenager into an independent young woman. 'If you read the book you've got to feel sorry for her... and I've got to give you enough to wince at, weep at and worry about.'
At the end of the book, nothing is permanent; the author, who has sailed, surfed, played rock guitar, and taught high-school English, promises that, in the sequels, Deirdre will cover a good half of the world in search of a place she can call home.
'Deirdre, the Wanderer' is above all escapist fiction of the highest order. It is a beach book, a bus-trip book, a bring-it-along book that will transport the reader to a surreal reality enchanted by the narration of a modest and sympathetic heroine.
Excerpt:
Crossing the Stream
I traverse a boundary between past and future
West Palm Beach
Sunday
Fast Pitch was a 56-foot sloop built for the southern race series, with a plain angled bow, flush deck, scoop transom and probably a very flat canoe body and finned or deep-blade keel, the typical middle-of-the-road sort of ‘cruising yacht’ being raced in the world. Most strikingly the hull was a vivid turquoise– it looked pretty cool.
Under a bright yellow Sunbrella awning two men were standing up in the aft cockpit, fussing over some lines. I lowered the bag to the pontoon beside a neighbouring yacht’s dock box and, with my hands jammed into the pockets of my little tan shorts, casually strolled the length of the boat, looking it over and sort of waiting for them to notice me. I realised that was sort of arrogant– why would two grown men with plenty of life experiences pay any attention to some fifteen-year-old chick with no tan who simply happened to be looking over their boat? And I was nervous– I’d offered to crew for a race before, but I’d never insisted on a ride out of the country. How would they take to me? But my future depended on it. So I would speak up.
The moment one of them glanced over I said, clearly, ‘Excuse me?’
He nodded, too preoccupied to formulate a reply.
‘Are you the people leaving for Bimini tomorrow?’
He sighed, as if in frustration. ‘Supposed to be. Doesn’t look like we’re ready.’
‘Of course we’re ready,’ said the other man, and went below with a few tools in his hand.
I nodded. ‘Anything I can do to help?’
The first guy looked at me then. I saw his eyes go over me from head to toe and back again. At least I’d put the shirt back on. He made half a shrug and said, ‘Not really. What would you want to help for, anyway?’
I smiled. ‘Well, I have my reasons. I’m looking for a ride to the islands.’
He smiled too. ‘And this is your way of hitchhiking.’
I got a little red. But I was too close to let go. ‘Maybe,’ I admitted, ‘but at least I’m willing to earn my way. I’m pretty good on a boat, if I have to say so myself–’
‘Hold on a minute,’ he said, and responded to something the other guy called up to him. They held some kind of conference through the hatch– not about me but about some electronic equipment down below. Finally the first guy said, ‘Well the only way I know how to fix that is going up the mast.’ Then he lifted his head out the hatch and looked at me. ‘How are you about going up the mast?’
Was he serious? Was this my test? I drew a breath. ‘Done it before,’ I smiled. ‘Couple of times. What’s the trouble?’
He made a little smile too, shaking his head, and then turned to the guy below. ‘The hell with it. The whole goddamn trip’s only half a day.’ He sighed again in frustration and descended inside.
My sigh was of disappointment. I’d already come this close to a ride to The Bahamas– I could taste it in the back of my teeth. I paced forward a little along the pontoon, trying to look calm whilst frantically thinking up a new tactic. When I turned round again the guy was standing up in the cockpit, tilting his head back in a long swig of beer. He saw me approach again and said, ‘So what do you want to go to the islands for?’
I shrugged, still with my hands in my pockets. ‘I’d like to see them,’ I said. ‘If I make it I know some people in Freeport, you know.’
That was a lie. He wouldn’t know. ‘How come you’re not in school?’
I felt a little warm– but maybe it was the sun. Or maybe not. ‘I’m taking this semester off,’ I said, which was sort of true– right? ‘So what’s wrong up the mast?’
‘Oh. . . .’ He looked up as he sighed. ‘Downlead won’t work right. The Sat-Com system on this boat is a piece of shit–’ He stopped himself. ‘Sorry. It’s just that we’re looking at getting there by dead reckoning, if we have to go tomorrow.’
I nodded. ‘But dead reckoning is not the end of the world. I mean, lay in a course about one-fifteen magnetic and you’re there by dinner. . . right?’
He smiled at that. I guess I’d hoped he would. ‘So you sail, then?’
I nodded, shrugging a little. ‘On the Sound. I’ve raced a lot, on different boats, you know. Also I do a lot of yard work.’
‘And you want a ride to Bimini.’
I nodded. ‘So is this your boat?’
He scoffed. ‘No way. I can’t afford this.’ He looked over the deck for a moment. ‘We’re just the delivery crew.’
I nodded. The other guy stood up in the hatch then. ‘Calibration is still off,’ he said of one of the electronic navigation systems, ‘but at least it’s close this time.’
The other man nodded. ‘Time for a beer?’ They both laughed and agreed. Before the second guy went below the first turned to me and said, ‘You wanna beer or something?’
That was it. I was in! ‘Sure,’ I said casually. I knew I wasn’t likely to finish a beer without a tummy-ache or a headache. But if drinking a beer were the only way. . . . ‘Or a soda if you have it.’
‘Pepsi,’ offered the second guy, and went below.
Two minutes later I was sitting under the bright yellow Sunbrella awning of Charlie Anderson’s Fast Pitch, swapping sailing yarns and opinions about racing and boat design and whatever else with Jim and Gary, whom Mr Anderson was actually paying to sail his boat to Bimini. If ever there were a more desirable profession than that!
Jim, the first guy I’d met, told me he was a close friend of Mr Anderson. They both worked in West Palm at a brokerage firm. I wasn’t surprised, since the most high-profile yachts always seem to be owned by people in the money business. Gary was an old friend of his from the University of Florida who had gone to NYU for computer engineering and now ran his own tech company in Tequesta. They were both easy-going, open and trustworthy, and married with children my real age and even older. That was good– I wouldn’t worry about myself, then. The only worry I had was if their wives found out they were sailing to Bimini with a young unattached female. But I’d be okay with it if they were.
Needless to say they were both curious about what had brought me to them and where I was going and why– which I guess was understandable, considering how young I probably looked to them. I suppose they were both expecting some lame situation that I was some brainless teenaged runaway trying to get away from a rotten family up north by implicating someone in a felony like transporting a minor out of the country, you know. Hmmm.
But right then, sitting in the cockpit of Fast Pitch, I conceived of a response that would at once neutralise all suspicions about my present and keep me from having to answer any further questions about my past. It came to me in a second; but it was perfect, because, strictly speaking, it was not a lie. ‘I lost my parents recently,’ I said, ‘and just decided to take a break from school and get away for a while.’ –not specifying college or not, you know.
This was immediately accepted, and even if anyone might ever ask for more detail I could simply answer that I didn’t want to talk about it– which was true– and the curious would assume it was a delicate subject– which, for me, it was.
This time I gave my real first name. If these people would be taking me to The Bahamas there wasn’t any reason for an alias. There’d be Immigration to get through and passports to check and I needed to appear legitimate. So long as I arrived before any APBs about a runaway from Connecticut hit the computer, I’d be safe enough. The only worry then would be disappearing as fast as possible, either on this boat or on some other. But I’d manage that. . . somehow.
I had another Pepsi. The two men drank about eight cans of beer between them. By 20.30 they decided they’d best be getting home. Not much work had been done on the boat since my arrival, but Fast Pitch would certainly make it to Bimini tomorrow– and, now, it was clear that I would too.
Jim told me to be at the pontoon by 6.00. Fortunately I had a place close by in which to stay the night.
Back at the marina counter I had a burger and milkshake. The place was starting to get up into full swing and I decided I was in no mood for socialising nor for staying up late. So I crept round the perimeter of the yard in the darkness and secreted myself in the cabana, running my few soiled clothes in the laundry and taking another shower. Safely back inside the brokerage-yard boat again I took off the shorts and the t-shirt so that all my things would be clean for tomorrow. But I was too excited to go to sleep and sat up in the dark, repacking the bag to reassure myself I was all set and then just going through the yacht’s galley and chart desk out of curiosity. There wasn’t anything worth stealing and in fact I was more predisposed to leave a note, informing the new or old owners that I’d stayed here, that I liked their boat, that I’d have bought it myself if I could.
But I didn’t.
* . * . *
Monday
The alarm peeped at me at 5.15. I leaped out of the bunk, folded up the blanket immediately, and got into my clothes, the bright blue bikini with the same tan shorts I’d had on yesterday and my cute tropical-print shirt. By 5.30 I was out of the toilet and hiking south along the road towards the marina. Down the pontoon Fast Pitch awaited, closed up and empty. It figures! –I was the first one there.
I sat down on someone’s deck box and stared up the gangway at the yard. At first I thought there was some mistake and that this was not the boat, or that I had not heard the time or day right; but I knew I was right and I thought it inconsiderate of the others to insist that I be here so early. In fact I knew the time and day only too well– it was precisely the time that, had I still been in Connecticut, I would be rising to get ready for school.
At about 6.15 the Volvo turned in to the marina. Jim and Gary got out, and one of them saw me from the top of the gangway and waved. ‘Deirdre, right? he called. ‘Mind giving us a hand with some of this shit?’
‘Not at all,’ I said in a calm voice, and left my bag beside the deck box as I got up.
As we were lugging a cooler of beer and soda down the pontoon another Volvo showed up. Bridget, the only other female for the trip, got out of the back and marched down the gangway with her duffel, a Land’s End one like mine only in maroon. ‘You must be Deirdre!’ she said cheerfully. ‘Good morning!’
‘Hi,’ I said, panting after hefting the cooler over the lifelines with Gary.
There was some discussion about what to do with the cars and the keys, but Tony’s wife had come along and promised to take care of Jim’s car as well. I was introduced to her, but she was dressed for work and did not seem to have time for pleasantries. I didn’t care– I kept my head down, not wanting to be too memorable to anyone from the ‘States.
With only the most rushed and disorienting preparations we were off by 6.45, motoring out away from the marina towards the deep azure of the Atlantic. It may only have been because I was entirely new to the boat and all the people aboard, who had all sailed with each other before, but I missed the organised atmosphere of those races on the Sound before in which the skippers always went over the safety gear and procedures, clarified terminology of gestures and sail-handling orders, or at least gave some sort of pep talk to the crew. Jim was a nice guy, sure, but far too casual as a skipper, especially for a big boat headed offshore to a foreign country.
But I had too much more to think about than mundane safety-gear instructions or where the beer would be stowed. We were headed off to another country; and more than my first experience of sailing to a non-American port I was excited because I was gaining my freedom. Every inch of water that passed abaft the bow was one more inch closer to somewhere new and full of excitement and surprise. There would be no cold Connecticut for me, ever again.
The eeriest thing of all was that in carrying my bag below I had to consciously resist choosing a berth for myself. I had packed for an indefinite duration– possibly the rest of my life– and yet, in spite of the mental distance being covered for me, the sailing distance would be covered by nightfall. All I had to do was drop the bag on a settee and find something else that needed to be done.
The luxury high-rise hotels of Palm Beach passed by to port as we headed down and out of the bay. I scarcely noticed; there was no opportunity to scan the millionaires’ mansions along the bulkhead through binoculars. As the youngest and least important person on the boat it would be up to me to perform any task asked of me, and so I went readily to the base of the mast and helped hoist the main. Bridget and I ran up a 135 on the headfoil and the boat took a lean to port. Soon after we had passed the end of Palm Beach the engine was shut down and the course adjusted to leeward, and then we were on a very promising starboard reach heading out to the Atlantic, doing about eight and a half in less than twenty knots of air. Well, it was a race boat.
I confess it was only inadvertently that I saw the time– that is, to avoid tan lines I took off my watch. It read 8.10. And this was a school day. Back in Connecticut, first period had begun. I was now listed as absent and unexcused. In another 45 minutes or so the school would phone one of my parents, and then I’d be officially cutting school. Would they phone the police straight away? Had they already done it? There’d be an enquiry, and I’d be listed as missing– a ‘missing child’. Police in neighbouring states would be notified and searches would be conducted. People would assume ‘the worst’. I’d be eligible to have my face on milk-cartons and Channel 26. It was just as well I was where I was after all.
The usual cruising ennui soon set in and the guys broke out the beer. I had been expecting it and decided to keep myself sober and alert if no-one else would. At about 10.00 Bridget emerged from the cabin in a very pretty bright purple bikini, not the briefest of cuts but her tall strong figure was shown to very good advantage in it. ‘Hey,’ I said, ‘you look ready for the sun.’
‘Hey,’ she said back, with the same sort of smile I’d given her, ‘what the hell, right?’
‘Right,’ I said. My tropical shirt was mostly unbuttoned and they’d all seen I wore a swimsuit top under it. The satiny spandex bright-blue one was the newest and nicest one I had, a pretty modest, traditional cut with a halter-style back-hooking top and low-cut legs on the low-rise bottoms. Still I went below a few minutes later, on the pretence of getting someone a beer, and went in to the head to get out of the shorts. There’s something weird about the idea of peeling down my shorts in front of grown men, even when I’ve got a perfectly legitimate swimsuit on underneath, that never appealed to me.
Tony was in the galley when I stepped out. We braced ourselves as the boat heeled a little more. ‘Hey,’ he said, only offhandedly, ‘what’s up?’
I shrugged. ‘Is the beer cold?’
‘Cold? Hell yes. No other way to have it.’
I smiled, took a can out for Jim, and helped myself to a Pepsi. Up on deck the 135 was really pulling; the wind speed had dropped but we had been lifted and the boat speed was now approaching nine knots. The sun was nearly overhead and it had got deliciously warm. Jim had his shirt off. He was not badly built for a guy of about forty, and most importantly he seemed to have a good attitude about everything. Here it was January and he was drinking beer at 10.30, sailing a fancy yacht into The Bahamas. Not everyone can take that in the right frame of mind..
They let me have a trick at the wheel which was about as tall as I am, and I took a seat on the lee edge of the coaming and found a comfortably loose grip on the leather-covered rim with three fingers. The helm was beautifully well-balanced; I might not have been holding it at all, but the feeling of making the odd minor course adjustment gave me a sense of immeasurable power. A frothy white bow wave peeled off, going to suds along the side and the scooped-out transom that gave a very close view of the flat, seething wake, and occasionally a bit of mist would be whisked past my ankles. Ahead, fifty-odd feet of broad white fibreglass deck spread out before me, punctuated by a 65-foot spar and the brilliant black-and-yellow reacher Karen and Jim had set. I’d never sailed on anything like it and I swear the whole thought of sailing a boat like this, wearing a bikini, in the middle of January, gave me goosepimples. After all, I could have been sitting through algebra class at that moment.
‘So, Deirdre,’ Tony said, as though fully confident in my ability to hold a course and carry on conversation, ‘have you done much racing at all?’
I nodded, though my chin stayed fixed with my eyes on the compass. ‘Yes, but– nothing this big.’
That didn’t seem to matter to him. ‘Whereabouts?’
‘The Sound. I grew up there. Raced Lasers, Four-seventies, J-twenty-fours, and a lot of cruising-class boats.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Mostly day stuff, round the buoys?’
‘Yes.’ I glanced at him. ‘Nothing great, you know. Sailed the Block Island once; that was overnight. That’s all.’
He smiled. ‘Don’t apologise. Buoy racing is the heart of all competitive sailing. What many ocean sailors never realise is that every race is a buoy race. It’s just that some of the legs are longer.’
I smiled too. ‘Well, I think it has a lot to do with concentration,’ I said.
‘Yes, very much so. It’s too easy to lose your focus on a long leg. Especially if the weather’s nice.’ He turned and said forward, in a louder voice, ‘Holy shit, kids! Is this a nice day, or what?’
I laughed. It was absolutely delightful.
Bridget prepared a lunch. The guys had brought sub sandwiches from a deli, so it really meant she cut them and brought them up topside. I was still steering by then and, according to Jim, ‘doing a damn fine job of it too.’ I didn’t mind being the only one on watch whilst the others drank beer and ate. I’d looked for a boat ride because I liked sailing and was perfectly willing to do whatever I had to in order to deserve my keep and my passage. And so the ‘shrimp’, as Tony had begun to call me, or as Jim said, the one who ‘looks like she’s about fourteen, back there,’ the only one whose height could possibly be threatened by the diameter of the wheel, held the helm for another two hours, perfectly content in feeling like Queen of the Sea aboard the bright turquoise Fast Pitch.
Jim took Bridget aside and the two of them sat on the weather rail engaged in some serious-looking discussion. I let it go; I wasn’t about to judge any level of anyone’s relationship with anyone else so long as it didn’t involve me. But before long it became obvious that he was instructing her in the care of the boat. Bridget would be staying aboard in Bimini, minding Fast Pitch for the owners.
‘So is that what you did with that scholarship?’ Tony teased her. ‘Take the education and then use it to bum around the Caribbean?’
Gary and Jim laughed. I guess I did too, a little. ‘Hey,’ Bridget said smugly, ‘I’m not into that nine-to-five thing. I said I would see The Bahamas no matter what, and I’m going to.’
‘Typical woman,’ Tony said then. ‘They don’t need to take a real career seriously.’
The men laughed. But Bridget didn’t. ‘I take offence to that,’ she said seriously.
I stifled a laugh. I couldn’t’ve cared less about her ‘women’s lib’ sensibilities. It was true I had no real job, in the way that Tony meant. It was true that I didn’t care. What they didn’t know was that I was only fifteen.
‘Even Deirdre agrees with me,’ she said, and all eyes turned towards me. ‘You know what I mean. A man always makes his job top priority.’
I shrugged. ‘I’ve seen women do it too,’ I said quietly.
‘There!’ Tony said. ‘You see? It’s not just a guy thing then. Deirdre– what did you go to school for?’
I looked at him. How best to answer this. . . .. ‘To learn stuff. To get an education.’
Some of them laughed. ‘Ohhh, a liberal-arts major!’ Bridget teased.
I allowed that. ‘I just think,’ I said boldly, ‘that it’s more important to be smart and well-educated than well trained in one thing that you might not find a job in.’
They were all silent for a moment then. Finally Jim said, ‘A smart person’s answer, Deirdre. Ever considered marketing analysis?’
‘Turning corporate recruiter, Jim?’ teased Tony. They all laughed then.
I had no idea what they’d found amusing till then. Was he actually considering me as an employe? ‘I’m no misogynist,’ Jim said sincerely. ‘A woman’s got just as much opportunity as a man wherever I do the hiring.’
That impressed me, and I told him. ‘You don’t hear many men in positions of power say that kind of thing.’
‘Yeah, well, I don’t have all that much power.’
‘He runs the company,’ Bridget sided to me.
‘But,’ Jim continued, ‘when you get your degree, Deirdre. . . .’ He smiled at me then. ‘Just stay out of trouble between then and now, and you’ll be fine.’
I nodded, appreciating that. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get a degree after what I’d already begun, but it was comforting to hear I might be of value to someone. Honestly I think Bridget was a little jealous.
But she and I formed some kind of bond from being the only women on the trip, and when the men had eaten I offered to clean up and she and I got to talk in the galley. She was 22, a recent graduate from university in Philadelphia, who had lost a chance at a very competitive graduate scholarship and come down to Florida to crash on an aunt and sail boats for a while. She was adamant about seeing the islands before the fall when she was to return north, and identifying me as someone with a brain and a sense of responsibility she asked me what my plans were. I said I was open to anything, that all I had in mind was seeing the islands in sort of the same way she would. Right then we realised our good fortune and agreed to hang out together in Bimini and see where we’d end up. We both expected to move farther into the Caribbean; she expressed a lifelong desire to reach Nassau and I said the same thing about Tortola. After reading all those stories of pirates on the Spanish Main and all that, Tortola seemed to me like the most exquisite landfall on earth.
When they heard of our plan the men only laughed. But I think this whole cute little discussion, much more than merely amusing others, definitely cemented in both our heads that at least for the short term Bridget’s future and mine would be closely connected.
The trip across is only about 75 miles, which under such a steady breeze we covered in a little over ten hours. Bimini was sighted at about 17.20 and Gary handed me the binoculars for my first glimpse of The Bahamas. To anyone else it might have been anticlimactic, but to me that hazy grey lump was like a vision of Oz. For the first time in my life I was somewhere else. I’d never go back again.
Jim radioed in and confirmed the place he had reserved at a pontoon. Bridget and I dropped the reacher and under main and motor Jim piloted the boat straight in towards a little harbour. There were a few large hotels but mostly it looked like a pretty quiet kind of resort. Once we’d passed the breakwater a Boston Whaler approached with two white-uniformed officials aboard. A lump rose in my throat. It was test time. Would I pass or be rejected by customs before I’d even stepped off the boat?
Jim waved casually to them, and they raised a megaphone and called over. ‘American?’
Well, there was a flag! ‘Yes!’ Jim called back.
They drew alongside, parallelling our course. ‘How many aboard?’
‘Five,’ said Jim.
‘Anything to declare?’
Jim shook his head. ‘Nothing but the boat. We have a permit.’
The official was noting the information on a clipboard, bracing himself in front of the boat’s console. ‘How long is your stay? Less than a month?’
A month! Here I thought they’d worry about more than a few days! Anything could happen for me in a month.
Jim replied in the affirmative and was invited to the customs office in the morning to sign the forms. Then the customs guys turned off and powered away. ‘That’s it?’ I asked Jim quietly.
‘That’s it,’ he smiled. ‘What did you expect? Strip search?’
I got a little red. ‘Well, more than what they did, I guess.’
‘Naah. They get American boats all the time. We don’t have drugs or guns. No-one’s breaking any laws here.’
I was glad he believed that so naturally.
Water was shallow here; the depth sounder beeped on and off all the time. Yet despite seven feet of draught Jim steered us expertly, turning the boat into the wind within heaving distance of the pontoon. Minutes later we had made ourselves fast, and then people were going below and getting their gear in order. Gary and Tony had a room reserved at a hotel. They’d be flying back tomorrow. I pitied them but, as they said, their work schedules might only have allowed one or two days off. Jim would be here an extra day getting the boat ready for the owners and Bridget would be staying on longer to help.
Of course I would be too.
Amidst all the hectic shifting of lines and sails I did not recognise the whole gravity of my own arrival here. But once everything was secure everyone shared a few beers in the cockpit and I slipped away from them all, lowering myself over the side and reaching one tenuous foot towards the pontoon. Still, it was a floating thing; it would not try the intensity of my sea legs. I paced the length of the boat, as though checking the lines– one of the guys teased me about being the ‘quality control inspector’ –and then, with just the tropical shirt on over the bikini, wandered up towards the quay. Behind me, the voices of Bridget and the men on the boat barely carried even halfway to the gangway. Above, the town was sleepy, almost invisible in the quiet and stillness of early evening and unheard inside the fence of the marina. It intrigued me, but there would be time to explore it later. For now I was only interested in one momentous achievement for myself.
At the top of the gangway I turned and looked back. There was nothing particularly special about the sight of the bright turquoise boat, a hundred yards away, lying at a pontoon upon the crystal-clear aquamarine water– in spite of the tropical colours it was something I could’ve seen in any yacht yard anywhere. Then I observed Fast Pitch’s port given under her name in gold leaf: Miami. But I was not in Miami. I was not even in Florida. I was not even in The United States.
Slowly I turned round and solemnly, in the face of such a profound reality, stepped off the gangway onto the pristine white gravel of my future.
West Palm Beach
Sunday
Fast Pitch was a 56-foot sloop built for the southern race series, with a plain angled bow, flush deck, scoop transom and probably a very flat canoe body and finned or deep-blade keel, the typical middle-of-the-road sort of ‘cruising yacht’ being raced in the world. Most strikingly the hull was a vivid turquoise– it looked pretty cool.
Under a bright yellow Sunbrella awning two men were standing up in the aft cockpit, fussing over some lines. I lowered the bag to the pontoon beside a neighbouring yacht’s dock box and, with my hands jammed into the pockets of my little tan shorts, casually strolled the length of the boat, looking it over and sort of waiting for them to notice me. I realised that was sort of arrogant– why would two grown men with plenty of life experiences pay any attention to some fifteen-year-old chick with no tan who simply happened to be looking over their boat? And I was nervous– I’d offered to crew for a race before, but I’d never insisted on a ride out of the country. How would they take to me? But my future depended on it. So I would speak up.
The moment one of them glanced over I said, clearly, ‘Excuse me?’
He nodded, too preoccupied to formulate a reply.
‘Are you the people leaving for Bimini tomorrow?’
He sighed, as if in frustration. ‘Supposed to be. Doesn’t look like we’re ready.’
‘Of course we’re ready,’ said the other man, and went below with a few tools in his hand.
I nodded. ‘Anything I can do to help?’
The first guy looked at me then. I saw his eyes go over me from head to toe and back again. At least I’d put the shirt back on. He made half a shrug and said, ‘Not really. What would you want to help for, anyway?’
I smiled. ‘Well, I have my reasons. I’m looking for a ride to the islands.’
He smiled too. ‘And this is your way of hitchhiking.’
I got a little red. But I was too close to let go. ‘Maybe,’ I admitted, ‘but at least I’m willing to earn my way. I’m pretty good on a boat, if I have to say so myself–’
‘Hold on a minute,’ he said, and responded to something the other guy called up to him. They held some kind of conference through the hatch– not about me but about some electronic equipment down below. Finally the first guy said, ‘Well the only way I know how to fix that is going up the mast.’ Then he lifted his head out the hatch and looked at me. ‘How are you about going up the mast?’
Was he serious? Was this my test? I drew a breath. ‘Done it before,’ I smiled. ‘Couple of times. What’s the trouble?’
He made a little smile too, shaking his head, and then turned to the guy below. ‘The hell with it. The whole goddamn trip’s only half a day.’ He sighed again in frustration and descended inside.
My sigh was of disappointment. I’d already come this close to a ride to The Bahamas– I could taste it in the back of my teeth. I paced forward a little along the pontoon, trying to look calm whilst frantically thinking up a new tactic. When I turned round again the guy was standing up in the cockpit, tilting his head back in a long swig of beer. He saw me approach again and said, ‘So what do you want to go to the islands for?’
I shrugged, still with my hands in my pockets. ‘I’d like to see them,’ I said. ‘If I make it I know some people in Freeport, you know.’
That was a lie. He wouldn’t know. ‘How come you’re not in school?’
I felt a little warm– but maybe it was the sun. Or maybe not. ‘I’m taking this semester off,’ I said, which was sort of true– right? ‘So what’s wrong up the mast?’
‘Oh. . . .’ He looked up as he sighed. ‘Downlead won’t work right. The Sat-Com system on this boat is a piece of shit–’ He stopped himself. ‘Sorry. It’s just that we’re looking at getting there by dead reckoning, if we have to go tomorrow.’
I nodded. ‘But dead reckoning is not the end of the world. I mean, lay in a course about one-fifteen magnetic and you’re there by dinner. . . right?’
He smiled at that. I guess I’d hoped he would. ‘So you sail, then?’
I nodded, shrugging a little. ‘On the Sound. I’ve raced a lot, on different boats, you know. Also I do a lot of yard work.’
‘And you want a ride to Bimini.’
I nodded. ‘So is this your boat?’
He scoffed. ‘No way. I can’t afford this.’ He looked over the deck for a moment. ‘We’re just the delivery crew.’
I nodded. The other guy stood up in the hatch then. ‘Calibration is still off,’ he said of one of the electronic navigation systems, ‘but at least it’s close this time.’
The other man nodded. ‘Time for a beer?’ They both laughed and agreed. Before the second guy went below the first turned to me and said, ‘You wanna beer or something?’
That was it. I was in! ‘Sure,’ I said casually. I knew I wasn’t likely to finish a beer without a tummy-ache or a headache. But if drinking a beer were the only way. . . . ‘Or a soda if you have it.’
‘Pepsi,’ offered the second guy, and went below.
Two minutes later I was sitting under the bright yellow Sunbrella awning of Charlie Anderson’s Fast Pitch, swapping sailing yarns and opinions about racing and boat design and whatever else with Jim and Gary, whom Mr Anderson was actually paying to sail his boat to Bimini. If ever there were a more desirable profession than that!
Jim, the first guy I’d met, told me he was a close friend of Mr Anderson. They both worked in West Palm at a brokerage firm. I wasn’t surprised, since the most high-profile yachts always seem to be owned by people in the money business. Gary was an old friend of his from the University of Florida who had gone to NYU for computer engineering and now ran his own tech company in Tequesta. They were both easy-going, open and trustworthy, and married with children my real age and even older. That was good– I wouldn’t worry about myself, then. The only worry I had was if their wives found out they were sailing to Bimini with a young unattached female. But I’d be okay with it if they were.
Needless to say they were both curious about what had brought me to them and where I was going and why– which I guess was understandable, considering how young I probably looked to them. I suppose they were both expecting some lame situation that I was some brainless teenaged runaway trying to get away from a rotten family up north by implicating someone in a felony like transporting a minor out of the country, you know. Hmmm.
But right then, sitting in the cockpit of Fast Pitch, I conceived of a response that would at once neutralise all suspicions about my present and keep me from having to answer any further questions about my past. It came to me in a second; but it was perfect, because, strictly speaking, it was not a lie. ‘I lost my parents recently,’ I said, ‘and just decided to take a break from school and get away for a while.’ –not specifying college or not, you know.
This was immediately accepted, and even if anyone might ever ask for more detail I could simply answer that I didn’t want to talk about it– which was true– and the curious would assume it was a delicate subject– which, for me, it was.
This time I gave my real first name. If these people would be taking me to The Bahamas there wasn’t any reason for an alias. There’d be Immigration to get through and passports to check and I needed to appear legitimate. So long as I arrived before any APBs about a runaway from Connecticut hit the computer, I’d be safe enough. The only worry then would be disappearing as fast as possible, either on this boat or on some other. But I’d manage that. . . somehow.
I had another Pepsi. The two men drank about eight cans of beer between them. By 20.30 they decided they’d best be getting home. Not much work had been done on the boat since my arrival, but Fast Pitch would certainly make it to Bimini tomorrow– and, now, it was clear that I would too.
Jim told me to be at the pontoon by 6.00. Fortunately I had a place close by in which to stay the night.
Back at the marina counter I had a burger and milkshake. The place was starting to get up into full swing and I decided I was in no mood for socialising nor for staying up late. So I crept round the perimeter of the yard in the darkness and secreted myself in the cabana, running my few soiled clothes in the laundry and taking another shower. Safely back inside the brokerage-yard boat again I took off the shorts and the t-shirt so that all my things would be clean for tomorrow. But I was too excited to go to sleep and sat up in the dark, repacking the bag to reassure myself I was all set and then just going through the yacht’s galley and chart desk out of curiosity. There wasn’t anything worth stealing and in fact I was more predisposed to leave a note, informing the new or old owners that I’d stayed here, that I liked their boat, that I’d have bought it myself if I could.
But I didn’t.
* . * . *
Monday
The alarm peeped at me at 5.15. I leaped out of the bunk, folded up the blanket immediately, and got into my clothes, the bright blue bikini with the same tan shorts I’d had on yesterday and my cute tropical-print shirt. By 5.30 I was out of the toilet and hiking south along the road towards the marina. Down the pontoon Fast Pitch awaited, closed up and empty. It figures! –I was the first one there.
I sat down on someone’s deck box and stared up the gangway at the yard. At first I thought there was some mistake and that this was not the boat, or that I had not heard the time or day right; but I knew I was right and I thought it inconsiderate of the others to insist that I be here so early. In fact I knew the time and day only too well– it was precisely the time that, had I still been in Connecticut, I would be rising to get ready for school.
At about 6.15 the Volvo turned in to the marina. Jim and Gary got out, and one of them saw me from the top of the gangway and waved. ‘Deirdre, right? he called. ‘Mind giving us a hand with some of this shit?’
‘Not at all,’ I said in a calm voice, and left my bag beside the deck box as I got up.
As we were lugging a cooler of beer and soda down the pontoon another Volvo showed up. Bridget, the only other female for the trip, got out of the back and marched down the gangway with her duffel, a Land’s End one like mine only in maroon. ‘You must be Deirdre!’ she said cheerfully. ‘Good morning!’
‘Hi,’ I said, panting after hefting the cooler over the lifelines with Gary.
There was some discussion about what to do with the cars and the keys, but Tony’s wife had come along and promised to take care of Jim’s car as well. I was introduced to her, but she was dressed for work and did not seem to have time for pleasantries. I didn’t care– I kept my head down, not wanting to be too memorable to anyone from the ‘States.
With only the most rushed and disorienting preparations we were off by 6.45, motoring out away from the marina towards the deep azure of the Atlantic. It may only have been because I was entirely new to the boat and all the people aboard, who had all sailed with each other before, but I missed the organised atmosphere of those races on the Sound before in which the skippers always went over the safety gear and procedures, clarified terminology of gestures and sail-handling orders, or at least gave some sort of pep talk to the crew. Jim was a nice guy, sure, but far too casual as a skipper, especially for a big boat headed offshore to a foreign country.
But I had too much more to think about than mundane safety-gear instructions or where the beer would be stowed. We were headed off to another country; and more than my first experience of sailing to a non-American port I was excited because I was gaining my freedom. Every inch of water that passed abaft the bow was one more inch closer to somewhere new and full of excitement and surprise. There would be no cold Connecticut for me, ever again.
The eeriest thing of all was that in carrying my bag below I had to consciously resist choosing a berth for myself. I had packed for an indefinite duration– possibly the rest of my life– and yet, in spite of the mental distance being covered for me, the sailing distance would be covered by nightfall. All I had to do was drop the bag on a settee and find something else that needed to be done.
The luxury high-rise hotels of Palm Beach passed by to port as we headed down and out of the bay. I scarcely noticed; there was no opportunity to scan the millionaires’ mansions along the bulkhead through binoculars. As the youngest and least important person on the boat it would be up to me to perform any task asked of me, and so I went readily to the base of the mast and helped hoist the main. Bridget and I ran up a 135 on the headfoil and the boat took a lean to port. Soon after we had passed the end of Palm Beach the engine was shut down and the course adjusted to leeward, and then we were on a very promising starboard reach heading out to the Atlantic, doing about eight and a half in less than twenty knots of air. Well, it was a race boat.
I confess it was only inadvertently that I saw the time– that is, to avoid tan lines I took off my watch. It read 8.10. And this was a school day. Back in Connecticut, first period had begun. I was now listed as absent and unexcused. In another 45 minutes or so the school would phone one of my parents, and then I’d be officially cutting school. Would they phone the police straight away? Had they already done it? There’d be an enquiry, and I’d be listed as missing– a ‘missing child’. Police in neighbouring states would be notified and searches would be conducted. People would assume ‘the worst’. I’d be eligible to have my face on milk-cartons and Channel 26. It was just as well I was where I was after all.
The usual cruising ennui soon set in and the guys broke out the beer. I had been expecting it and decided to keep myself sober and alert if no-one else would. At about 10.00 Bridget emerged from the cabin in a very pretty bright purple bikini, not the briefest of cuts but her tall strong figure was shown to very good advantage in it. ‘Hey,’ I said, ‘you look ready for the sun.’
‘Hey,’ she said back, with the same sort of smile I’d given her, ‘what the hell, right?’
‘Right,’ I said. My tropical shirt was mostly unbuttoned and they’d all seen I wore a swimsuit top under it. The satiny spandex bright-blue one was the newest and nicest one I had, a pretty modest, traditional cut with a halter-style back-hooking top and low-cut legs on the low-rise bottoms. Still I went below a few minutes later, on the pretence of getting someone a beer, and went in to the head to get out of the shorts. There’s something weird about the idea of peeling down my shorts in front of grown men, even when I’ve got a perfectly legitimate swimsuit on underneath, that never appealed to me.
Tony was in the galley when I stepped out. We braced ourselves as the boat heeled a little more. ‘Hey,’ he said, only offhandedly, ‘what’s up?’
I shrugged. ‘Is the beer cold?’
‘Cold? Hell yes. No other way to have it.’
I smiled, took a can out for Jim, and helped myself to a Pepsi. Up on deck the 135 was really pulling; the wind speed had dropped but we had been lifted and the boat speed was now approaching nine knots. The sun was nearly overhead and it had got deliciously warm. Jim had his shirt off. He was not badly built for a guy of about forty, and most importantly he seemed to have a good attitude about everything. Here it was January and he was drinking beer at 10.30, sailing a fancy yacht into The Bahamas. Not everyone can take that in the right frame of mind..
They let me have a trick at the wheel which was about as tall as I am, and I took a seat on the lee edge of the coaming and found a comfortably loose grip on the leather-covered rim with three fingers. The helm was beautifully well-balanced; I might not have been holding it at all, but the feeling of making the odd minor course adjustment gave me a sense of immeasurable power. A frothy white bow wave peeled off, going to suds along the side and the scooped-out transom that gave a very close view of the flat, seething wake, and occasionally a bit of mist would be whisked past my ankles. Ahead, fifty-odd feet of broad white fibreglass deck spread out before me, punctuated by a 65-foot spar and the brilliant black-and-yellow reacher Karen and Jim had set. I’d never sailed on anything like it and I swear the whole thought of sailing a boat like this, wearing a bikini, in the middle of January, gave me goosepimples. After all, I could have been sitting through algebra class at that moment.
‘So, Deirdre,’ Tony said, as though fully confident in my ability to hold a course and carry on conversation, ‘have you done much racing at all?’
I nodded, though my chin stayed fixed with my eyes on the compass. ‘Yes, but– nothing this big.’
That didn’t seem to matter to him. ‘Whereabouts?’
‘The Sound. I grew up there. Raced Lasers, Four-seventies, J-twenty-fours, and a lot of cruising-class boats.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Mostly day stuff, round the buoys?’
‘Yes.’ I glanced at him. ‘Nothing great, you know. Sailed the Block Island once; that was overnight. That’s all.’
He smiled. ‘Don’t apologise. Buoy racing is the heart of all competitive sailing. What many ocean sailors never realise is that every race is a buoy race. It’s just that some of the legs are longer.’
I smiled too. ‘Well, I think it has a lot to do with concentration,’ I said.
‘Yes, very much so. It’s too easy to lose your focus on a long leg. Especially if the weather’s nice.’ He turned and said forward, in a louder voice, ‘Holy shit, kids! Is this a nice day, or what?’
I laughed. It was absolutely delightful.
Bridget prepared a lunch. The guys had brought sub sandwiches from a deli, so it really meant she cut them and brought them up topside. I was still steering by then and, according to Jim, ‘doing a damn fine job of it too.’ I didn’t mind being the only one on watch whilst the others drank beer and ate. I’d looked for a boat ride because I liked sailing and was perfectly willing to do whatever I had to in order to deserve my keep and my passage. And so the ‘shrimp’, as Tony had begun to call me, or as Jim said, the one who ‘looks like she’s about fourteen, back there,’ the only one whose height could possibly be threatened by the diameter of the wheel, held the helm for another two hours, perfectly content in feeling like Queen of the Sea aboard the bright turquoise Fast Pitch.
Jim took Bridget aside and the two of them sat on the weather rail engaged in some serious-looking discussion. I let it go; I wasn’t about to judge any level of anyone’s relationship with anyone else so long as it didn’t involve me. But before long it became obvious that he was instructing her in the care of the boat. Bridget would be staying aboard in Bimini, minding Fast Pitch for the owners.
‘So is that what you did with that scholarship?’ Tony teased her. ‘Take the education and then use it to bum around the Caribbean?’
Gary and Jim laughed. I guess I did too, a little. ‘Hey,’ Bridget said smugly, ‘I’m not into that nine-to-five thing. I said I would see The Bahamas no matter what, and I’m going to.’
‘Typical woman,’ Tony said then. ‘They don’t need to take a real career seriously.’
The men laughed. But Bridget didn’t. ‘I take offence to that,’ she said seriously.
I stifled a laugh. I couldn’t’ve cared less about her ‘women’s lib’ sensibilities. It was true I had no real job, in the way that Tony meant. It was true that I didn’t care. What they didn’t know was that I was only fifteen.
‘Even Deirdre agrees with me,’ she said, and all eyes turned towards me. ‘You know what I mean. A man always makes his job top priority.’
I shrugged. ‘I’ve seen women do it too,’ I said quietly.
‘There!’ Tony said. ‘You see? It’s not just a guy thing then. Deirdre– what did you go to school for?’
I looked at him. How best to answer this. . . .. ‘To learn stuff. To get an education.’
Some of them laughed. ‘Ohhh, a liberal-arts major!’ Bridget teased.
I allowed that. ‘I just think,’ I said boldly, ‘that it’s more important to be smart and well-educated than well trained in one thing that you might not find a job in.’
They were all silent for a moment then. Finally Jim said, ‘A smart person’s answer, Deirdre. Ever considered marketing analysis?’
‘Turning corporate recruiter, Jim?’ teased Tony. They all laughed then.
I had no idea what they’d found amusing till then. Was he actually considering me as an employe? ‘I’m no misogynist,’ Jim said sincerely. ‘A woman’s got just as much opportunity as a man wherever I do the hiring.’
That impressed me, and I told him. ‘You don’t hear many men in positions of power say that kind of thing.’
‘Yeah, well, I don’t have all that much power.’
‘He runs the company,’ Bridget sided to me.
‘But,’ Jim continued, ‘when you get your degree, Deirdre. . . .’ He smiled at me then. ‘Just stay out of trouble between then and now, and you’ll be fine.’
I nodded, appreciating that. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get a degree after what I’d already begun, but it was comforting to hear I might be of value to someone. Honestly I think Bridget was a little jealous.
But she and I formed some kind of bond from being the only women on the trip, and when the men had eaten I offered to clean up and she and I got to talk in the galley. She was 22, a recent graduate from university in Philadelphia, who had lost a chance at a very competitive graduate scholarship and come down to Florida to crash on an aunt and sail boats for a while. She was adamant about seeing the islands before the fall when she was to return north, and identifying me as someone with a brain and a sense of responsibility she asked me what my plans were. I said I was open to anything, that all I had in mind was seeing the islands in sort of the same way she would. Right then we realised our good fortune and agreed to hang out together in Bimini and see where we’d end up. We both expected to move farther into the Caribbean; she expressed a lifelong desire to reach Nassau and I said the same thing about Tortola. After reading all those stories of pirates on the Spanish Main and all that, Tortola seemed to me like the most exquisite landfall on earth.
When they heard of our plan the men only laughed. But I think this whole cute little discussion, much more than merely amusing others, definitely cemented in both our heads that at least for the short term Bridget’s future and mine would be closely connected.
The trip across is only about 75 miles, which under such a steady breeze we covered in a little over ten hours. Bimini was sighted at about 17.20 and Gary handed me the binoculars for my first glimpse of The Bahamas. To anyone else it might have been anticlimactic, but to me that hazy grey lump was like a vision of Oz. For the first time in my life I was somewhere else. I’d never go back again.
Jim radioed in and confirmed the place he had reserved at a pontoon. Bridget and I dropped the reacher and under main and motor Jim piloted the boat straight in towards a little harbour. There were a few large hotels but mostly it looked like a pretty quiet kind of resort. Once we’d passed the breakwater a Boston Whaler approached with two white-uniformed officials aboard. A lump rose in my throat. It was test time. Would I pass or be rejected by customs before I’d even stepped off the boat?
Jim waved casually to them, and they raised a megaphone and called over. ‘American?’
Well, there was a flag! ‘Yes!’ Jim called back.
They drew alongside, parallelling our course. ‘How many aboard?’
‘Five,’ said Jim.
‘Anything to declare?’
Jim shook his head. ‘Nothing but the boat. We have a permit.’
The official was noting the information on a clipboard, bracing himself in front of the boat’s console. ‘How long is your stay? Less than a month?’
A month! Here I thought they’d worry about more than a few days! Anything could happen for me in a month.
Jim replied in the affirmative and was invited to the customs office in the morning to sign the forms. Then the customs guys turned off and powered away. ‘That’s it?’ I asked Jim quietly.
‘That’s it,’ he smiled. ‘What did you expect? Strip search?’
I got a little red. ‘Well, more than what they did, I guess.’
‘Naah. They get American boats all the time. We don’t have drugs or guns. No-one’s breaking any laws here.’
I was glad he believed that so naturally.
Water was shallow here; the depth sounder beeped on and off all the time. Yet despite seven feet of draught Jim steered us expertly, turning the boat into the wind within heaving distance of the pontoon. Minutes later we had made ourselves fast, and then people were going below and getting their gear in order. Gary and Tony had a room reserved at a hotel. They’d be flying back tomorrow. I pitied them but, as they said, their work schedules might only have allowed one or two days off. Jim would be here an extra day getting the boat ready for the owners and Bridget would be staying on longer to help.
Of course I would be too.
Amidst all the hectic shifting of lines and sails I did not recognise the whole gravity of my own arrival here. But once everything was secure everyone shared a few beers in the cockpit and I slipped away from them all, lowering myself over the side and reaching one tenuous foot towards the pontoon. Still, it was a floating thing; it would not try the intensity of my sea legs. I paced the length of the boat, as though checking the lines– one of the guys teased me about being the ‘quality control inspector’ –and then, with just the tropical shirt on over the bikini, wandered up towards the quay. Behind me, the voices of Bridget and the men on the boat barely carried even halfway to the gangway. Above, the town was sleepy, almost invisible in the quiet and stillness of early evening and unheard inside the fence of the marina. It intrigued me, but there would be time to explore it later. For now I was only interested in one momentous achievement for myself.
At the top of the gangway I turned and looked back. There was nothing particularly special about the sight of the bright turquoise boat, a hundred yards away, lying at a pontoon upon the crystal-clear aquamarine water– in spite of the tropical colours it was something I could’ve seen in any yacht yard anywhere. Then I observed Fast Pitch’s port given under her name in gold leaf: Miami. But I was not in Miami. I was not even in Florida. I was not even in The United States.
Slowly I turned round and solemnly, in the face of such a profound reality, stepped off the gangway onto the pristine white gravel of my future.
The Kindle edition of Deirdre the Wanderer is available at Amazon.
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