Where Dreams Are Born

JANUARY 1-6

In all his boyhood dreams, he’d never pictured a woman on the boat. Of course he hadn’t hit puberty then either. At first, he’d imagined he and his grandfather sailing together. After he’d died, Russell had always pictured himself solo without really thinking about it. Once puberty hit, he’d thought about women and not sailboats. He hadn’t remembered the boats until Angelo heaved the calendar at his head. He tried to mentally place Melanie aboard, but it wouldn’t stick. And that was far more likely than Angelo’s wine lady. There was a laugh.

Solo. Why had he always pictured himself sailing solo?

“Careful what you wish for, buddy, you’re gonna get it,” he muttered under his breath.

Maybe he could wish for this. A couple dozen people all crowded together. Nothing more important to do than spend some time with each other. Thank god no one sidling up to discuss the next shoot, no one after his parents’ money. He definitely wouldn’t miss someone barfing while they held themselves upright with a palm in the middle of one of his ten-thousand dollar photographs.

He’d given his whole damn art-photo collection to MoMA on permanent loan. Pete, the head of the art handling team who’d come to cart it off, had practically cried on his shoulder. His diminutive wife actually had—oddly enough at a tiny tintype self-portrait by a young Bourke-White.

Russell was already closer to Dave and Perry than he’d been to most of the people at the final studio party. The people here from Perry to Dave and even Teri were more real than any of his former…associates—except perhaps Melanie.

He looked back at Perry and Dave with a shrug, “I’m just gonna sail.”

Dave looked a bit unsure but didn’t say anything.

Perry poured another short whiskey and rolled the glass back and forth between his callused palms. The surface rippled with golden light in the heavy cut glass.

“Pictures.”

He and Dave faced the old salt who continued to study his glass.

“Pictures? I dunno. Boats and port towns?” Russell offered. A real yawn once spoken aloud.

“Quiet streets and pretty women?” Dave added. That was a little better.

Perry slid back into his silence, but Russell would swear there was a smile going on somewhere behind that bushy mustache.

“What?”

The old man just shook his head and sipped his whiskey. With a wink, he took a couple of Russell’s Ritz crackers.

Russell woke when his boat shifted. Someone was aboard—without knocking on the hull first. Someone was breaking the first rule of boat etiquette.

Teri. Crap. Teri was coming on board. She’d been eyeing him toward the end of the party last night. Did she have a late night welcome ritual for any new single man on the dock? Certain parts of his body were indicating they wouldn’t complain about that sort of welcome. But no way.

He scrabbled about for his pants, knocked his head sharply on a deck support he’d been meaning to wrap in foam rubber. He was going to give himself a permanent crease in his skull pretty soon.

“Don’t be dumb, Russ. It’s just been too long since you’ve had sex.” Not since Melanie had jumped him Thanksgiving morning before he’d had a chance to tell that he was leaving for Seattle in a few hours.

She hadn’t stayed after the studio closing party that he’d flown back for a week later and he couldn’t blame her. Others had offered to stay, but he wasn’t that crass. Or, now that he thought about it, that interested. It hadn’t been a cheerful bash though it had all of the catering and blues band trappings of a good go.

The bright flashes before his eyes eased and he struggled into his pants as the boat rocked again. Then there was a step thudding back down onto the dock. He tried to think if there was anything to steal up on deck.

The forward porthole showed no one; no one crossing past the bow toward land. Who’d be up in the middle of the night prowling around the marina? He’d better stop them before they hit a boat that had something to lose.

He ran down the short companionway, the wood shavings and sawdust were prickly against his bare feet, and threw open the rear hatch. The cold hit his bare chest like a slap. He looked along the dock and could just make out a broad figure in a dark coat with white hair.

“Perry?” he half-whispered sending a puff of steamy breath out into night.

The old man waved a hand over his head, but didn’t turn around. He continued toward his battered old tug.

That’s when Russell heard it, the faintest sound at his feet.

He looked down.

Perry had left a cardboard box.

Russell shivered as the chill air wrapped around his body.

The box moved. There was something inside.

And then the box mewed.