Changes in Latitudes Page 21

  Jonah smacks my hand. “Those are for Uncle Chris. I told you to order yourself the large!”

  I stick my tongue out at him and snatch another when he returns his eyes to the road. Without turning his head, his hand snakes across and grabs it from my fingers. He glances at me, then pops it into his mouth.

  When he finishes chewing, he says, “Okay, now what are you on about, Sprite? Sailing expressions are negative?”

  “It’s true!”

  “So what do I get if I name a whole ton of positive ones?” he asks.

  “What, like a bet? Okay, I’m down with that. I challenge you to come up with one positive sailing saying to cancel out each of my negative ones. You really think you got this?”

  He glances at me. “Without breaking a sweat. Though I do need to know what’s in it for me.”

  I peek in my purse. “I have . . . four dollars, one tube of sunscreen, and the sea lion Christmas ornament I bought yesterday. Take your pick.”

  Jonah says, “I would never take Gus.”

  I stare at him in confusion and he shrugs. “I named your sea lion.”

  I turn the tiny plastic animal over in my hand as he asks, “What else do you have there? Sunscreen and four bucks? Neither interests me. What, oh what, could a little wood sprite have to offer that I might want?” I groan and his eyes go comically wide. “What? I don’t know why your thoughts went to the gutter. Maybe I have something perfectly innocent in mind, which I do, but I’m not telling you until after I win. You can do the same.”

  “Okay, fine,” I concede. “I’ll come up with the negative ones, you go positive, and we’ll see who’s the last woman standing. I’ll start: ‘weather the storm.’”

  “I don’t think you know the definition of negative, my friend. It’s a good thing to weather a storm. It means you came out the other side.”

  “The connotation is bad. No one wants to have to weather a storm. If you hear that phrase it’s someone trying to feed you a line, because you’re miserable and in the middle of something.”

  Jonah rests his hand on the gear shift between us. “Hmm. I’m gonna give that to you, but I’d like the judges to note that it’s under protest. Okay. Positive one: ‘smooth sailing.’”

  I narrow my eyes and take a sip of my soda. “Fine. You got lucky, mister. My turn again. ‘Has the wind knocked out of his sails.’”

  “Which never made sense to me,” Jonah says. “How do you knock wind? You knock heads, wood, knees. But air?”

  “Doesn’t matter, because it’s a negative one and I’m winning.”

  Jonah makes a turn and the harbor comes into sight. “Pfft. Whatever. Hold on. Lemme think . . .”

  I sneak another fry and gloat. “Can’t find one, can you? Whereas I could go on and on with the negative ones. ‘Unanchored,’ ‘at the mercy of the winds,’ ‘dead in the water,’ ‘between the devil and the deep blue sea’!”

  He holds up his hand. “You are scraping the bottom of the barrel with these, Sprite. Which, by the way, is a sailing expression.”

  I stare at him. “What does scraping the bottom of the barrel have to do with sailing?”

  “Food was stored in them during ocean crossings and when they were getting low, the cook would have to scrape the sides and bottom to get every last morsel. So is ‘bite the bullet.’ They used to give sailors bullets to bite down on when they had to do surgeries at sea, before anesthesia was a thing.”

  “Proving my point. All sailing expressions have bad connotations.”

  Jonah pulls into a parking spot near where Minecraft is tied up and waiting. “I refuse to concede this.”

  “Now, land ones, on the other hand . . .”

  He turns off the engine and faces me, tucking a hand under his chin as he waits for me to illuminate him.

  No problem there. “All good ones. ‘She’s so grounded’—compliment. ‘On solid ground’—implies security.”

  “That’s not fair. I know there are more good sailing ones.” He’s quiet for a second and then exclaims, “Ha! Got one! ‘A safe harbor in the storm.’”

  I gather the empty fast food wrappers from the floor, to let him know we can move on because this contest is all sewn up. “Which really just means you’ve come in from sailing and gotten close enough to the awesome that is land to be protected again. Admit that I’m right. Land rules.”

  “Says the wood sprite.” He scratches his cheek. “Okay, okay. Prepare to surrender. Ready?”

  I crumple the trash in my hand and humor him. “Dazzle me.”

  He pronounces proudly, “‘Mother, mother ocean, I have heard you call.’”

  I laugh in his face. “That is not an expression, Abrahmson! That’s a Jimmy Buffett lyric! Soo doesn’t count.”

  He hangs his head, and I say, “I’ll just go on then. ‘Putting down roots’—generally considered a good thing.”

  “Depends who you ask. On the other hand, ‘footloose and fancy-free’ sounds pretty darn positive and is a sailing term. Bottom of the sail is called the foot, and if it’s not attached to the boom, it’s footloose and causes the boat to sail all over the place.” He puts his own drink up to his lips and slowly takes a sip, looking all cocky and confident. Then he pulls the straw away and shakes the clearly empty cup; only a few ice cubes rattle.

  “And that’s a good thing?” I ask, offering him my soda.

  His face falls. “I mean, I guess not when it’s happening on your boat, but the expression . . .”

  I snort. “Face it, the cliché writers had it out for sailing.”

  Jonah extracts the crumpled wrappers from my hand and stuffs them inside his cup. He steps out and tosses the trash into a nearby can before circling to open my door and propping an elbow on the roof to lean in over me. “First of all, there is no such thing as cliché writers. What do you think, people with Rasputin beards sit at desks coining sayings for the masses?”

  I grab the bag of fries and my drink and gently push him away so I can join him on the asphalt. “Sore loser. You’re a sore loser. What’s the second of all?”

  “Hmm?” He steps close, backing me against the car.

  “You said ‘first of all,’ which generally implies a ‘second of all’ to follow.”

  “Oh. Second of all . . .” He leans into me. “Second of all . . . this.”

  His lips find mine, and I may have been talking about being on solid ground a minute ago—I may actually be standing on solid ground—but I practically float away. When we finally break apart, I murmur, “What was the topic again?”

  He steps back. “I thought of another one while we were kissing.”

  “Your brain cells worked during that kiss?”

  He offers a bemused smile. “Windfalls. Nautical term, commonly referencing a stroke of luck, but used to mean ‘when a rush of wind speeds up a vessel’s progress.’” His arms cage me in place. “Used in a sentence: ‘Meeting you was a real windfall, Sprite.’”

  “Okay, that was so sweet I’m awarding you the win.”

  Although I’m kind of feeling like a big fat winner myself right now.

  Jonah does a victory dance in the lot, then returns with an especially wicked grin. “This is excellent. As mentioned, I have my prize all picked out.”

  I brace myself. He picks a piece of nonexistent lint off my shoulder and says, ever so casually, “From here on out, I’d like you to refer to me, in all instances, as Pirate Sexytimes.”

  My eyes go wide and I slump a little. “Oh. My. God! You did read my texts that day I dropped my phone!” I duck out from under his arms and put both hands on my hips. “I can’t believe you would do that!”

  He shrugs, and his eyes dance. “Are you sure you didn’t mean to say ‘I can’t believe you would do that, Pirate Sexytimes’?”

  “Are you going to be impossible about this now?”

  He tucks a finger into my belt loop and tugs me close. “Are you sure you didn’t mean to ask, ‘Are you going to be impossible about this, Pirate
Sexytimes?’”

  27

  Batten down the hatches—another negative boat cliché to rub in Jonah’s face. It’s also what we need to do in preparation for today’s sail.

  Just the name Gale Alley sounded scary enough to convince me things were going to be far worse than they actually were. Point Conception, however, does not sound nearly as ominous.

  And yet.

  The way everyone shares war stories about it in the marina and the way we had to sit at dock for so long, waiting for perfect conditions, and the way even Christian looks wary when he discusses our strategy for rounding it with the rest of our caravan . . . I get the message loud and clear. Big Bad Wolf stuff.

  “Okay, so we’re sure we don’t want to go wide, right?” Mom asks. The group of adults (which includes Jonah, in this instance) is huddled around nautical charts in the cabin of Reality Bytes. Drew and I let ourselves get roped into playing Chutes and Ladders with Abigail and Grace, while I keep one ear on the other conversation.

  “We’d have to go out at least forty miles to avoid the compression zone around the mountains,” Christian answers. “Even then, that stretch of channel between San Miguel and the Point can be a beast if we hit bad conditions. I think we’re better tucking into the countercurrent near the shore, like we discussed. We’ll just go like hell and send prayers to the gods of calm seas.”

  I don’t pretend to understand half of what he said there. How is it that my fate is about to be decided by “prayers to the gods”?

  “Forecast is saying light five- to fifteen-knot winds, but those usually double on the Point itself, so let’s be prepared for twenty-five to thirty and steep waves, okay? Keep the rain gear and harnesses prepped,” Miranda says.

  God, the mood in here is so tense.

  It stays that way as we return to our respective boats. Drew hangs behind to sail with Christian, and Jonah joins us, but this is no “fun date at sea,” even if we weren’t trying to keep things between us on the down low. This is all business.

  I head to the cabin and make plenty of sandwiches and fill thermoses with coffee, zipping everything into a soft-sided cooler and bringing it above to set inside a bench. I sit and watch Jonah and my mother run through a pre-sail checklist.

  “Sprite, come help,” Jonah says, gesturing me over.

  I shake my head, and he leaves Mom’s side by the mast to crouch in front of me. I glance at my mother, because his position is borderline intimate, but she’s busy winding the long ends of a rope in loops between her elbow and hand.

  “I don’t sail, remember,” I tell him.

  “Got some news to break to you. Since you’ve refused to address me as Pirate Sexytimes, I’ve devised a new prize.”

  I steal a peek at my mother and lower my voice. “I thought that makeout session last night was your prize!”

  He offers a regretful smile and a smirk. “Nope. That was just bonus for a job well done.”

  I can’t hold in my laugh. “You’re a nut.”

  “I am most definitely a nut. Know what else I am?”

  I lean back and wait.

  “A truly excellent sailing instructor. I spent five summers teaching classes for kids at my yacht club. I figure you can’t be that much worse than the little boy I found swinging upside down from the mast after getting tangled in the halyard.”

  I cross my arms. “You’re going to be impossible today if I don’t agree to this, aren’t you?”

  He rocks back on his heels and smiles. “That would be affirmative.’”

  I gulp. It doesn’t seem like the ideal scenario for a learn-to-sail experience, but I guess I could use a distraction, and if it gets too intense, I can always bail.

  “Fine.” I stand and wipe my palms on my thighs. “But I’m not promising to like it. Where do you want me?”

  In response, Jonah arches an eyebrow suggestively, and the corners of his lips twitch. I ignore both and brush past, trying not to let him see my shoulders shake with laughter. He catches up and points me toward the bow of the boat. When we pass my mother, she glances at us, but doesn’t comment.

  “Okay,” Jonah says, once we’re standing in the very front. “We’re going to sail downwind to start, so we need to unfurl the jib.”

  “English, please.”

  He puts a hand on his hip and points to the sail closest to us. “We’re gonna put this thing up, so it will fill with the wind coming from behind us and carry us faster toward our destination.”

  “Cool.”

  He reaches around me to grab a rope and puts it in my hand.

  “Pull,” he orders.

  “The rope?” I ask.

  “The line. On a boat, ropes are referred to as lines.”

  “Whatever.” I pout but do as he says, and the sail starts to unroll. When it’s fully extended, Jonah nods in satisfaction.

  “Not too bad, right?”

  I make a face and he laughs. “Okay, I’m gonna help your mom hoist the mainsail. You take notes.”

  I trail him back to the cockpit, where he demonstrates how to wrap the halyard (another rope—no, line!) several times around what he calls the “winch drum” and then pulls the remainder through as my mother feeds it to him from her spot at the mast. When it’s free, my job is to coil it for storing. Jonah shows me the difference between finishing off the halyard in a way where we can quickly yank it apart if we need to lower the sail in an emergency and tying the knots around the coiled dock ropes, which we won’t use again until we stop for the night. It actually isn’t all that complicated. But then again, we are still at dock.

  Soon enough, though, everyone radios their state of readiness and we cast off and head for open sea. I still have an anchor in my belly over what might be ahead for us.

  All is supposed to be calm until we reach the Point, so once we’re under way, Mom—who, so far, has resisted any comments whatsoever on my sailing tutelage—goes below to answer some emails and get out her rain gear in anticipation of the larger waves that await.

  I stand next to Jonah at the wheel as he tells me, “Okay, sailing is really just a matter of feeling the wind. We’re gonna start with a beam reach, which means we’ll position our heading so the wind is blowing straight across us—sideways.” I watch the flag at the top of our mast for wind direction while he maneuvers us.

  “Okay, now steer right for a minute or two and watch the sails. Then try it with the wheel to the left. You’ll be able to see how the sails respond to different wind positions. Eventually, we want to find that sweet spot where they’re not luffing.” He steals a glance at me. “Flapping. Sorry, I’m trying to speak English. Nautical has its own language.”

  “What’s that all about? Why can’t we call starboard ‘right’ and lines ‘ropes’?” I ask, following his instructions and studying the sails as I do so.

  “Obviously because then we wouldn’t sound nearly as snooty. I thought that was clear.”

  I laugh. “Okay, okay. Proceed.”

  “That’s pretty much it. It’s really just about filling your sails with enough wind to get you where you want to go. It’s not rocket science.”

  “That’s it?”

  He shrugs. “More or less.”

  Somehow it always seemed more involved. I’m maybe a little embarrassed I’ve been so actively avoiding it.

  Jonah shows me how to trim the sails for optimal speed and then leans close to whisper in my ear. “Don’t look now, but you’re sailing, Sprite.”

  I’m sailing.

  Huh.

  We’re moving fast—really fast—skimming along the tops of the small whitecaps as if we’re the boss of them—and I did that. There’s a world of difference between riding in the backseat of a car and the exhilaration that hits the first time you pull out of the driveway in the driver’s seat, with the windows down and the radio blaring. This might be even better because there are no speeding tickets or stoplights out here.

  I breathe in the crisp wind and let it fill my lungs and pu
ff out my chest. The coastline off our port side winks in the sun, looking small and insignificant from this angle.

  “Do you think it’s weird we don’t have to file a flight plan with anyone before we leave?” I ask Jonah.

  “A flight plan?”

  I grin. “Yeah. The thing that lets air traffic control know you’re up there, so if you don’t land where you say you’re going to, they can worry. I mean, even when you’re out for a day hike, you’re supposed to let the park ranger know which trail you’re taking, so they can send search parties if you don’t come back. But, like, we could just take off for China right now and no one would know or care. Couldn’t we?”

  He tilts his head. “I guess so. I never thought about it like that.”

  “Well. It’s not a very comforting thought, is it?”

  “Where’s your spirit of adventure, Sprite?”

  “Oh, it’s here. It would like to stay here and not in a watery grave, is all.” I pause. “Are you the least bit afraid for Point Conception?”

  To his credit, he doesn’t laugh off my question. He considers for a moment and then says, “Hard to figure out which parts are fear and which parts are exhilaration.”

  “Meaning . . .”

  “Meaning, sure I’m scared. But I’m more scared of not trying stuff and living a totally boring, mundane life. Besides, if you’re telling me you want to be a botanist, you must have some of that adventure bug in you too. That’s not typically a desk job, at least I don’t think.”

  He . . . might be right. Do I? Could I?

  “‘The greatest life is one spent choosing curiosity over fear,’” Jonah quotes.

  “Another of your philosophers?”

  “Author. Elizabeth Gilbert. She wrote that Eat, Pray, Love memoir. Did you read it?”

  I shake my head. “Nope. But I like that you’re an equal-opportunity quoter when it comes to gender.”

  Jonah raises his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, I’m all about the brain, not the reproductive parts it shares a body with.”