behind Arturo, watching him maneuver the vessel. He seemed to be the only one of us Arturo could stand, maybe because the boy seemed to be genuinely fascinated by the whole sailing thing. The two men couldn’t be any more different. Noah was rail-thin, with white, peachy skin and a thick head of wavy hair. Arturo was stocky and paunchy and creased like a golden raisin.
“I was thinking…” I began, walking alongside Andrea as she went in search of soda. “We’ve got a decent supply of food for now, but we could use more. If we did some fishing we could dry what we catch, you know, in case later times are leaner. We wouldn’t have to land even … we could just, you know, float.” Lay anchor? Put in? Fuck it. Subway cars are more seaworthy than yours truly.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Andrea said. She turned to her uncle, calling to him in Portuguese. I knew a bit of Spanish and it was similar enough in spots that I could make out her suggesting the fishing thing. Arturo considered the idea, chewing on the end of his cigarette with one brow in the air. Then he called something back, trundling down into the cockpit.
“He has to bait the line, but I think he’s happy for an excuse to do something new.”
“It’ll be a nice change of pace,” I said lightly. “Instead of doing nothing on a slowly moving boat, we’ll do nothing on a completely motionless boat.”
“Have a drink,” Andrea suggested, straightening her ponytail. “Or is Auntie Flow paying Auntie Sadie a visit?”
“Language,” I hissed. Shane smiled, just a little, but enough to demonstrate the fact that he had clearly heard Andrea, and maybe even understood her. Damn it. The last thing I needed was those two making an unholy alliance.
I glanced at the water. It didn’t look inviting exactly, but it did have a certain allure about it, exclusively because we were all beginning to smell. “I could seriously use a bath,” I muttered, thinking aloud. “It’s not too choppy out there…”
“Go in,” Andrea said laughingly. “There are no sharks around these parts. Scout’s honor.”
“A fear of water is totally rational,” I said. She snorted. “Well, it is . There could be anything down there … like … like…”
“Fish? Seaweed?” She gasped, covering her mouth with both hands. “ Algae ?”
“Now you’re just trying to provoke me.” We would all have to wash up eventually, and who better to prove to Shane that there was nothing down there to fear than someone who had a totally normal and rational fear of drowning?
“You really think it’s safe?” I asked, peering over the edge of the boat at the water.
“Sure,” she replied, “but you know it’s going to be freezing cold, right? Just be fast. I’ll watch Shane and stay close to the edge in case you start to seize up.”
At that, my skin broke out in gooseflesh preemptively. Just glancing at the cobalt blue surface of the water made my limbs try to shrivel up and recede inside my body. The placid surface resembled one unbroken, glassy film of ice. Heavy pine branches like green furry arms hung over us as the boat came to a stop a dozen or so yards from the shore. The pebbly bank was empty, as dark as pitch with the thickness of trees. Shane got up and stood against the rail, both pudgy arms over his head as he grasped the bar and stared out at the dark gloaming of the forest.
“I’ll be quick,” I assured him. “Just in and then back on the boat.”
“Can I come in too?”
“Not yet. Let me test it out first. You can keep watch and make sure I’m safe. Then maybe we can go closer to shore where it’s shallow and you can have a try.”
I hated denying him, but I wasn’t about to let him paddle around in water this deep. Even I wasn’t perfectly comfortable with the idea of going in. “It’s going to be super cold too,” I added. “And you don’t want to get sick…”
“What if you get sick?”
“Well … I won’t. I promise, how
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