Chapter 7: Rain on the Hull

Slip fourteen turned out to be a thirty-foot sailboat with a blue hull and a cabin the size of my bathroom.

Its name was painted on the stern in white script: Second Wind.

Thursday had started grey and ended in a downpour, and I stood on the dock in a yellow raincoat I'd borrowed from my mother.

Lark popped out of the hatch, soaked to the elbows, with a towel around her neck.

"You came," she said.

"You told me to wear something waterproof. I thought we were going sailing."

"In this? I'm not a lunatic."

"What are we doing?"

"Dinner," she said. "Below."

I stepped over the rail with my bag of groceries and a Tupperware of sticky toffee pudding.

The cabin was small and warm and smelled like cedar and coffee.

A narrow table folded out from the wall, a bunk ran along one side, and a string of tiny lights hung under the hatch.

Rain drummed on the roof, steady as a metronome.

"You live here?" I asked.

"Since I was twenty-two. It was my grandfather's. The marina lets me stay in winter if I clear the ice."

"It's perfect."

"It leaks in two places." She pointed at a bucket. "That's Sheila."

"You named the bucket."

"She's earned it."

I laughed, and the boat rocked gently under us.

I took off the borrowed raincoat and hung it on a hook.

Lark put the kettle on a single burner, and I unpacked the Tupperware.

"Sticky toffee," I said. "Dates, brown sugar, a pool of toffee on top. It's the dessert I make when I'm sad."

"Are you sad?"

"No." I thought about it. "I'm the opposite of sad, and it's scary."

She leaned against the little counter and studied me.

"Cass," she said.

"Cass made me promise."

"I heard her. I was at the door."

"You listened?"

"I walked back for my keys."

She rubbed her neck.

"I'm sorry she did that. I'm sorry I'm the reason you had to lie to her."

"I didn't lie. I said I'd make a cake."

"That's lying with your hands."

I set the pudding down and came across the narrow cabin.

"I don't like lying to her," I said. "She's been my best friend for fourteen years."

"She came to my father's funeral and stood next to my mother for three hours."

"I know."

"But I don't like not seeing you either. I've known you a week, and I've been thinking about you at the oven."

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