could feel the primal ache of maternity, the press of time. And the torched ticket to Belize was long enough behind her that she could reasonably envision herself happily married someday, if it came to that, or at least pleasantly married. There were even moments she suspected she wanted that someday. After Ricky, though, Charlotte felt done with all the effort it took to get there—a bit like sailing: fighting against the wind only to turn around and land at the same place you started except older, sunburned or shivering, and with a lot less money.
Still, on Sunday morning she changed clothes three times before Eric came by, and when he took her bag of towels and sunscreen and his arm brushed hers, she pulled away like she had been burned. It left her angry at herself and freshly tongue-tied with him—tempted to cancel the date on the spot as if her irritating self-consciousness were his deliberate fault. And whatever she had found attractive when they first met was gone anyway—he was wearing shorts and boat shoes, and his long, pale legs with that black hair looking like something pulled out of a giant web. He looked so . . . so . . . academic, even if his travel stories had sounded fantastic. Maybe too fantastic. Maybe he was a product of his own verbal embellishments. She could hardly imagine him wrestling a jib across a bow. And she was letting him take her out on the open sound?
They took her car, as always. Eric didn’t even own one, living as he did in the heart of downtown where he could walk or take a taxi and sell the lease on his parking space. He had this habit of asking every cabbie where he was from, why he’d scrabbled his way halfway across the planet to this country, to Seattle, sometimes talking for long minutes with the meter still running. It had annoyed Charlotte at first, particularly when she was already worn out from work and could only think about eating or going to sleep, but she was beginning to find it kind of dear, she had to admit. Once, a driver had answered him with a gruff politically charged retort, and Charlotte left the car fuming, saying Eric shouldn’t have tipped him at all, but Eric had only laughed and handed the guy an extra five.
It was the perfect sailing day, according to Eric—sun breaking through in a tease of summer, a steady west wind that could take them leagues without a tack or luff. He was transformed out here, completely at ease so that even the natural gawkiness of his body gave way to a coordinated grace. It was the first time she had seen him or talked to him that she didn’t sense a surging current of thought engaging much of his mind. There were boats everywhere, colorful billowing spinnakers and the tilted triangles of a race clustered tight as a flock of white birds. The whole world was out to play. Once they were outside the harbor, she turned her face into the strong breeze and opened her mouth so the air seemed to fill her effortlessly, not just her lungs but her head, her entire torso, fill her to the tips of her fingers and toes as if she were a kite borne aloft, caught in an encompassing, superabundant natural force. She felt giddy, blindingly enlightened—how foolish she was to pretend she or any doctor had power over such unknowable physic.
Eric pushed the tiller and touched her knee in warning; the bow cut an oblique angle, and the boom swung easily over her head. She had put a scopolamine patch behind her ear to prevent nausea, and it was making her mouth dry and her eyesight blurry, but as the hull rose and fell across the steady chop, she felt a small knot tying itself in the middle of her stomach. She knew enough to focus on the horizon, tried to keep its level line her single orientation between the swell and dip of the gunwales, tried to recapture the momentary bliss of epiphany she had seen in that gulp of wind. A gust came over the water; she could see its approach in the rippling shimmer. The boat heeled, and Eric reached across
Still, on Sunday morning she changed clothes three times before Eric came by, and when he took her bag of towels and sunscreen and his arm brushed hers, she pulled away like she had been burned. It left her angry at herself and freshly tongue-tied with him—tempted to cancel the date on the spot as if her irritating self-consciousness were his deliberate fault. And whatever she had found attractive when they first met was gone anyway—he was wearing shorts and boat shoes, and his long, pale legs with that black hair looking like something pulled out of a giant web. He looked so . . . so . . . academic, even if his travel stories had sounded fantastic. Maybe too fantastic. Maybe he was a product of his own verbal embellishments. She could hardly imagine him wrestling a jib across a bow. And she was letting him take her out on the open sound?
They took her car, as always. Eric didn’t even own one, living as he did in the heart of downtown where he could walk or take a taxi and sell the lease on his parking space. He had this habit of asking every cabbie where he was from, why he’d scrabbled his way halfway across the planet to this country, to Seattle, sometimes talking for long minutes with the meter still running. It had annoyed Charlotte at first, particularly when she was already worn out from work and could only think about eating or going to sleep, but she was beginning to find it kind of dear, she had to admit. Once, a driver had answered him with a gruff politically charged retort, and Charlotte left the car fuming, saying Eric shouldn’t have tipped him at all, but Eric had only laughed and handed the guy an extra five.
It was the perfect sailing day, according to Eric—sun breaking through in a tease of summer, a steady west wind that could take them leagues without a tack or luff. He was transformed out here, completely at ease so that even the natural gawkiness of his body gave way to a coordinated grace. It was the first time she had seen him or talked to him that she didn’t sense a surging current of thought engaging much of his mind. There were boats everywhere, colorful billowing spinnakers and the tilted triangles of a race clustered tight as a flock of white birds. The whole world was out to play. Once they were outside the harbor, she turned her face into the strong breeze and opened her mouth so the air seemed to fill her effortlessly, not just her lungs but her head, her entire torso, fill her to the tips of her fingers and toes as if she were a kite borne aloft, caught in an encompassing, superabundant natural force. She felt giddy, blindingly enlightened—how foolish she was to pretend she or any doctor had power over such unknowable physic.
Eric pushed the tiller and touched her knee in warning; the bow cut an oblique angle, and the boom swung easily over her head. She had put a scopolamine patch behind her ear to prevent nausea, and it was making her mouth dry and her eyesight blurry, but as the hull rose and fell across the steady chop, she felt a small knot tying itself in the middle of her stomach. She knew enough to focus on the horizon, tried to keep its level line her single orientation between the swell and dip of the gunwales, tried to recapture the momentary bliss of epiphany she had seen in that gulp of wind. A gust came over the water; she could see its approach in the rippling shimmer. The boat heeled, and Eric reached across
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