This story eerily parallels Huck’s own. He’d married his first wife, Kimberly, when he got home from Vietnam, and they divorced six years later, after her second unsuccessful stint in rehab. Then he met LeeAnn and they’d spent twenty blissful years together before she died in 2014.
“So who’s the new gal?” Huck asks. He knows that Maia would likely object to his use of the word gal, finding it old-fashioned or, possibly, offensive.
“Her name is Sheila,” Kyle says. He gives Huck a sheepish grin. “We met on the internet. Match dot com.”
“Really?” Huck says. Rosie used to encourage Huck to try one of those dating services, but to him it was utterly pointless. Who was going to want to move to St. John? A week’s visit, sure, two weeks maybe, but that didn’t make a life together. And no way was Huck moving back to the States. He didn’t care if Christie Brinkley came calling.
“Yep,” Kyle says. “She’s a civil engineer. She builds bridges in the Bay Area, the kind of bridges that can withstand earthquakes. Her husband died of Lou Gehrig’s disease two years ago. She has one son, grown up, who lives near me outside of Boston, so Sheila is moving east from Oakland and we’re tying the knot.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, how long have you been dating?”
“Nine months,” Kyle says. He waves his beer can in the direction of his friends. “They all thought I was rushing into things when I bought the ring after only six months. I can’t describe it. We just clicked. I flew out there one weekend, she came to see me on Nantucket a couple weeks later, then we went to Chicago, where she met Grover and he approved, then we did a week in Napa. At Thanksgiving she came to Boston and I introduced her to my kids. They loved her right away. I proposed when I dropped her off at the airport.”
“Are you worried about her moving in with you?” Huck asks. A week in Napa is one thing, he thinks; sharing closet space is another.
“I know it’s a gamble,” Kyle says. “But I’m sixty-four years old and life gave me another chance to be happy. Only an idiot would say no to that out of fear.”
Huck stares over the turquoise sheet of the water toward the verdant hills of St. John. Kyle must sense that his words have stirred something up in Huck because he claps Huck on the shoulder and says, “You hungry? We got enough sandwiches for everyone.”
They catch another barracuda, then Adam suggests heading over toward Little St. James and Huck agrees; the spot he picked has lost its magic, apparently. In the next place they troll, Ahmed catches a decent-size tuna, then Harry brings in a wahoo big enough to serve as dinner and Huck relaxes. He cracks open a Coke and turns up the Who’s “Baba O’Riley” and casts a line himself. He gets a fish on almost instantly and hands the line over to Grover, who reels in a second wahoo, bigger than the first. Then Kyle catches a tuna. Ahmed takes a nap in the shade. Huck overhears Adam talking to Grover about business school, and suddenly Huck knows what Adam wants to tell him—but he won’t let it ruin the afternoon.
At quarter past two, it’s time to turn the boat back. Kyle passes out Romeo y Julietas and Huck gratefully accepts one. He loves Cuban cigars. LeeAnn absolutely forbade them, so Huck can’t light up without feeling like he’s indulging in a guilty pleasure.
How does Irene feel about them? he wonders.
Life gave me another chance to be happy. Only an idiot would say no to that out of fear.
Huck thinks of the first time he saw Irene, her chestnut braid draped over one shoulder as she marched down the dock calling him “Mr. Powers.” Now that he knows her a little better, he realizes she doesn’t mess around nor suffer fools—but still, it was impressive, the way she talked herself onto his boat.
We just clicked.
Had Huck and Irene clicked? He would have a hard time saying they hadn’t.
Angler Cupcake.
There’s nothing like the wisdom of a twelve-year-old, Huck thinks. Maia was right. Huck misses Irene and that’s why he’s grumpy.
When they tie up back at the dock, Adam fillets the fish for the gentlemen and Kyle pours a shot of tequila for everyone. They clink glasses and throw back the shots. Kyle thanks Huck profusely and slips him a generous tip, which Huck nearly refuses because the guy has given Huck so much already. If nothing else, he has changed Huck’s mind about bachelor parties.
Temporarily, anyway.
They shake hands and say their goodbyes and Huck says maybe he’ll see them in town over the next few days, it’s not impossible, although Huck hasn’t been out since Rosie died.
“They were terrific!” Huck says to Adam once they’re gone. He slips Adam one of the hundreds that Kyle gave him. Those are the kind of men Huck would have as friends, if he had time for friends.
Adam stuffs the hundred in his pocket. “Cap,” he says. The boy looks green around the gills, downright seasick, as though he will be the one to upchuck off the back of the boat. And just like that, Huck is snapped out of the golden reverie that a good day out on the water provides. He’s back to real life: the money under his bed, the FBI, and whatever Adam has to tell him.
Huck decides to cut the kid a break and do the hard part for him. “You’re leaving me?” he says.
Adam nods morosely. “I’m moving to upstate New York to be with Marissa.”
Upstate New York? Huck thinks. What did this girl Marissa do to him?
“It’s cold in upstate New York,” Huck says. “It snows. A lot. And there’s no ocean.”
“I love her,” Adam says, and he swallows. “I’m in love with her.”
Huck nods. He yearns to tell Adam that, more than half the time, love dies, and it probably dies quicker in places like Oneida and Oneonta. But Huck won’t be that curmudgeonly skeptic today.
“They have lakes,” Huck says. “Great lakes. You can fly-fish.”
Adam looks so relieved that Huck’s afraid the boy might try to kiss him. “Yeah, that’s what I thought I’d do,” he says. “In the summer.”
Huck lights a cigarette and inhales deeply. “So you’ll leave in May, then? Or June?”
“A week from Tuesday,” Adam says.
A week from Tuesday, Huck thinks.
“Oneonta in January,” Huck says. “Must be love.”
That night after dinner—fresh, perfectly grilled wahoo that even Maia agrees is sublime—Huck heads out to the deck with his pack of Camel Lights and his cell phone.
Agent Vasco or Irene? He decides on one, then changes his mind and decides on the other. Then back, then back again.
Irene.
He’s almost more nervous about calling her than about calling the FBI. He is more nervous about calling her because he has no idea how the conversation will go.
She answers on the first ring. “Oh, Huck, is that you?”
Her voice stirs something in him. He exhales smoke. “It’s me.” He pauses. He had planned to say, I’m calling to check on you. Or I’m calling to see how you’re doing. But instead the words that fly out of his mouth are “I have a business proposition. My first mate, Adam, quit on me today and I can’t properly run my charter without a mate. So I’m calling to offer you a job.”
There’s a pause long enough for Huck to take a drag off his cigarette, consider the lights of the Westin below and the cruise ship headed to St. Croix in the distance, and castigate himself for acting like a fool. He should have gone with How’ve you been?