“I think what I like about it, and what I like about Flannery O'Connor's work in general is her sense of irony,” I say. “It's comedic. The title of the story is Good Country People, and that's exactly what her mother thinks the Bible salesman is. And yet he is the furthest thing from that. And even she, with her advanced degree, is someone who should know better, but she doesn’t. It’s almost funny. But then again, my own mother thinks I have a perverse sense of humor.”
“I think we might have that in common,” he says.
Our voices die down and all we are left with is a sweet silence that is both comforting and comfortable. I want to stay in this moment forever but we are quickly interrupted.
“Hey, you missed one hell of a lunch! Did you get some of that alone time you wanted?” Ellis Holte asks. She plops down on the lounger next to me and asks the guy who I've been talking to for a refill of her drink.
“No, he doesn't do that,” I interject. But he just shrugs his shoulders and says he will get it for her anyway.
“Are you seriously at this point, already?” she asks.
“What are you talking about?”
“You know what I'm talking about,” she says, pointing to her index finger adorned with a three-carat diamond ring in my face. It’s not an engagement ring, it’s a just because ring. “Are you already messing around with the help? I thought we would only be doing that when we are seven years into boring marriages, not while we are still single.”
"I'm not messing around with anyone," I say sternly.
I don't even know his name I note to myself. I run my tongue over my lower lip and repress the desire to talk to him again. Why do I even care?
Why am I so interested all of a sudden?
He is one of the only people that, no correct that, he is the only person who I have met who hasn't bored me. I couldn’t predict anything that was going to come out of his mouth and I want more of that.
Unfortunately, I don't see him again until later that night. His boss is watching his every move to make sure that he is doing a good job cleaning all of the decks of my father's boat. Of course, I could go up and talk to him myself, but I'm not quite ready to go that far out of my comfort zone.
After spending the whole day drinking, talking, and reading magazines, the girls are ready to shower, do their hair, and go out for a night on the town. Begrudgingly, I go through the motions as well. I finish before the rest and take a circle around the yacht, hoping to run into him again.
Him. The guy whose name I don’t even know.
Though I don't see him, I do see the manager. Mr. Madsen is in his sixties and has worked on my father's boat, overseeing all personnel, for as long as I can remember.
“Mr. Madsen, do you happen to know where I can find the guy who was cleaning the decks earlier today?” I ask as casually as possible.
If he wants to give me a knowing smile, he doesn't. Mr. Madsen is the epitome of professionalism.
“We had a few people working that position today. Henry Asher, Tom Cedar, and Elliot Dickinson.”
“Um, he was about six feet tall with broad shoulders and thick dark hair.”
“Oh, yes, you're referring to Henry Asher. He is probably downstairs in the crew quarters.”
“Thank you very much,” I say, going straight to the staircase.
Appalled, Mr. Madsen rushes over to me and blocks my way.
“I will, of course, get him to come upstairs to see you, Miss Tate,” he says quickly. “If you don't mind waiting in the living room.”
I don't really want to wait, but I decide to go along with it. The guests are not supposed to go down to the crew quarters. It has been that way since the beginning of time. Besides, I don't really want my friends to see me going down there anyway.
Before I have the chance to glance at my watch for the second time in five minutes, he appears in the doorway. He looks just as tall, dark, and handsome as he did earlier today, only this time the angles in his face and his muscles look even more defined as a result of the tan settling deeper into his skin.
“Hi,” he says, hanging his head just a little, before turning his eyes up to mine.
“Hi,” I say quietly.
“You wanted to see me?” His hair falls slightly into his face as he leans on the side of the wall like some sort of modern day James Dean.
What the hell do I say now? This is the first time I have ever even made an inkling of a first move on a guy. It feels foreign and unnatural and yet exciting at the same time.
“I was just wondering,” I say slowly, “if you wanted to join me ashore tonight?”
He raises his eyebrows before smiling out of the corner of his mouth.
“Of course,” he says confidently. “What did you have in mind?”
“Well, I was going to go out with my girlfriends. We’ll probably go dancing or something like that. Nothing is set in stone.”
Henry takes a few steps closer and sits down on the couch right next to me. I turn my body toward his so that our knees are nearly touching.
"Well, if it's not set in stone,” he says, “what do you think about doing something else instead?”
“Like what?”
“How about dinner at one of my favorite taco stands? Followed by a few drinks at a shitty but incredibly fun dive bar?”
Anyone else in his position would try to impress me by taking me to some fancy five-star restaurant and fumble through the wine list. Anyone else would try to pretend that they were a lot more worldly than he is, even though we both know that he works crew on my father’s boat.
But he doesn’t.
I am intrigued and surprised by his audacity. He is a breath of fresh air that’s so intoxicating, it leaves me disoriented.
2
Henry
At first, I thought that she was just like the rest of them. Rich, spoiled, and completely disconnected from reality. I had no interest in talking to her. Yes, she is pretty, gorgeous even, but there’s more to a woman than beauty, or there should be.
But as I watched her that morning, I saw that she was different from her friends. She didn't laugh as much, it was cursory at best. She smiled even less. It was like she was being forced to be there. It was like she was only complying with them.
But it's her boat, or rather it’s her father's yacht. How different could she be? It's hard to explain what came over me that afternoon, when I saw her sitting there on the deck all by herself while her friends were inside nibbling on their salads, getting drunk on rosé, and taking selfies.
Why didn’t she join them?
What is she reading on that tablet of hers?
It would have to be something stupid, right? There's no way she could know anything about real literature.
That’s why I approached her in the first place; as a joke.
I wanted to say something meaningful and being who I am, Flannery O'Connor was the only thing that came to mind. And that's when things got interesting. An obscure 20th century short-story writer somehow opened the door for me to someone I didn't even have an interest in talking to.
After her friends came back, and Mr. Madsen gave me a stern lecture about interacting with the owner’s daughter, especially in such a casual manner, he put me on downstairs duty cleaning all the bunk rooms, floors, toilets, and every other dirty job he could think of. I didn't see her again for the rest of the day until she called me upstairs and asked me to go out with her.