The Alaskan Laundry (37 page)

Fritz came by to check their progress. He followed the beam of her headlamp as she showed him where she had mixed up the two-part JB Weld epoxy, then grinded it down, using sandpaper, then emery cloth, before putting on another layer. “These old beasts need attention,” he said, running a finger over the fix. “They like to be taken in hand, held close. Loved. They're like dogs. When their owners leave them, they lose their hair, get bitter.”

“I don't think I've ever heard you get sentimental,” she said. “It's touching.”

He gave a slanted grin. “Speaking of which, you and that dog of yours holding up okay?”

“He's taking to the boat, I think. He likes peeing on the docks.”

Fritz shook his head, running his fingers along the maze of pipes above. “What can I say? This boat just needed someone crazy enough to take her head-on. Hey. You mind if I snip off a couple of those basil leaves for Fran? She needs some for her Thanksgiving stuffing.”

“That's why it's there.”

“Tara Marconi,” he said, shaking his head again. “You'll forgive me if I still can't get over it.”

She picked up her tubes of JB Weld. “I forgive you. Now you'll forgive me for kicking you off so I can get back to work.”

AT THE LAST MINUTE
she decided not to go to Fritz and Fran's for Thanksgiving, and instead collapsed into the salon cushions, still in her oil-stained mechanic's suit. Newt bounced Luis on one leg, holding a bottle in one hand, a can of Rainier in the other, staring into the wood stove.

“How's Old Man River and his trusty sidekick down there? He ready to turn this beast over?”

“Soon.”

“And then you go back to Philly for Christmas?”

“It depends if we run the hundred yards. But that's the plan. How would you guys feel about looking after the boat, and maybe the good monkey here?”

Hearing his nickname, Keta pulled himself up from the bed, made a show of stretching, and walked into the galley to rest his chin on Tara's thigh. “I know. But it will only be for a little, okay?”

Newt tried to fit the bottle between the baby's lips. “You are coming back, right?”

“What do you think? I'm gonna get the boat running, then abandon it, along with this love?”

“Sometimes it's hard to figure that curly head of yours, that's all.”

She thought about looking out the window at the Delaware, the navy yard as the plane descended. And then Connor. It couldn't help but be awkward. They could hardly speak on the phone.

“You thinking about your feller back in Philly?”

She took the can of beer from him, tipped it back until it was gone. “Apparently I'm not that hard to figure.”

“You get this far-off gaze. What's it been? Two years?”

“Two years and two months.”

He crunched his can beneath a heel. “But who's counting?”

“Careful of the floor,” she said.

“Feels like yesterday we were out on that breakwater, ain't it? And me thinking what in the hell has this girl gotten herself into.”

She laughed. “Feels like years ago when I was thinking just about the same.”

A RAINY DECEMBER SEVENTEENTH
. Petree was back after a break, eager to make the final push on the engine. She was in the galley, studying the manual, waiting for her welds to dry. Plume had Luis on her back and was busy unscrewing the oak edges of the countertop, cleaning them down with white vinegar and oil, leaving a sharp scent in the air. Despite her “free love” appearance and soft voice, the woman was neat and organized. Whenever a leaf on the basil plant turned yellow she nipped it off with her thumbnail. Tara lit lint and cardboard and yellow cedar scraps in the firebox of the Monarch, then set the kettle on the burner for coffee.

Plume was dribbling water into the dirt of the basil plant when she looked over at Tara, then back through the window. “There's some guy out there. He's been standing with his backpack for the past ten minutes, looking lost.” She checked again. “Actually, he's kind of cute.”

Tara checked her watch. The welds could use another half an hour at least. She closed her book, stood, and warmed a coffee mug with hot water. When she parted the leaves of the basil plant she saw a tall man in a leather jacket and sweatshirt with the hood pulled up against the rain. He was scruffy, with a high forehead, slow movements as he took something from the top pouch of his backpack. “Holy fucking shit,” she said, pulling away.

“What?” Plume looked over her shoulder. “You know him?”

She opened the door and went out on deck, expecting the spot where she had just looked to be empty. But it wasn't. Connor's face broke into a smile. He flipped his palms to the sky, shrugging. She ran down the gangway and gripped him, holding the back of his head, pressing him to her. Breathless, she managed to say, “What are you doing?”

The features of his face were more defined. His freckles lighter, almost disappeared over his cheeks. Fine wrinkles at the edges of his eye.

He looked up and down the length of the tug. “So you actually did it.”

She watched his lips, the dimples in his cheeks, the one on the right deeper than the left. She glanced down and flipped the brass zipper of her oily mechanic's suit with one finger.

He pulled up her chin. “Is it okay I'm here?”

She searched for the right words. After a moment of silence, all she could think of to say was, “Wanna help?”

“Yes,” he said, his features relaxing. He hefted his backback. “And, how?”

WHILE CONNOR SHOWERED
she went into the engine room, setting Petree's coffee on top of the hot water heater. Her hands shook.

“You okay?” Petree asked. “Look like you just seen the ghost of Soapy Smith.”

“I'm fine. What do we got going here?”

He splayed his fingers over one of the cylinders. “Touch,” he said.

She reached out. “It's warm.”

“That's right. Know what that means?”

“My welds are holding.”

“Damn right they are. The boy and I reamed out the pipes on all the heat exchangers. Opened up the sea chest to bring raw water in to cool her. All we need now is to clean out the oil strainers in the manifold. Take a look at this.”

He flipped a light switch and a glass peephole on a metal box lit orange, the flame reflecting off tanks strapped in by the oil reservoir. “Rigged that up myself. We'll change out the diesel filters, bleed the air lines. You give the oil screens a good scrub with a wire brush until the brass shines. I'd say a couple days and we're in business.”

Connor ducked beneath the bulkhead into the engine room. He was Petree's height, but looked unmarked, fresh-faced after the shower, so young beside the old salt.

Miles came back from the bow, where he had been working on the compressor. “Who's this?” he asked, wiping his hands on his suit, looking at Tara.

“My friend Connor,” she said. “From Philadelphia.”

Connor shook their oil-stained hands, then rapped his knuckle against an empty CO
₂
tank.

If there was a way she could take all she had learned over the last two years—not only about engines and combustion, but about biases and predilections, habits and quirks—she would share this so he would say the right thing.
I wish I could help you,
she thought.
All the missteps I have made, please don't make them too.

His mouth opened. “So where do we start?”

It was perfect.

WHEN SHE CAME DOWN THE LADDER
the next day, Connor was sitting at the table, drinking coffee with Newt. The Monarch gave off waves of heat. The manual for the Fairbanks-Morse was open to the page on the oil manifold.

“When do we get some sunshine around here?” Connor asked, nodding toward the volcano. It was just after eight. “Doesn't the dark drive you nuts?”

Newt stood. “We're going out to the cape to try and rouse up some winter kings. Y'all have fun down there in the dungeon.”

“You get used to it,” she said, pouring herself a cup, watching Newt step out on deck. She looked over his work pants and sweatshirt. “Sleep well?”

“Like a baby,” he said. He clapped his hands. “So what's the schedule? I've been reading about brass strainers.”

She finished her coffee, grabbed an apple. “Let's get to it.”

In the light of the headlamp he traced the engine manual with the pad of his finger, from a white steel tank just aft of the bilge pump through two brass filters, into the crankcase, to the Manzoni injectors, hitting three sides of the cylinders. He tapped a wood plank with the tip of his shoe. “Which means our filters should be here?”

He looked at her questioningly. Using a crowbar, she brought up the plank. Beneath, screwed into a timber, were two pint-sized cast-iron filters. “Bingo,” she said, catching his eye and giving a thumbs-up. He kneeled, shifted a lever, and removed the caps. Inside olive-colored residue was caked around the screens. Without waiting he reached in, his hand going black. With a squelch the screen lifted out.

“We've got gloves, C,” she said.

“Ach, it's fine.” He held the screen with the tips of his fingers, residue dripping into the bilge. If Miles or Petree had been here they would have yelled. Work smarter, not harder. She saw then that he was trying to impress her. He'd have to use industrial soap, even diesel to remove the oil from his hands.

They went back through the cargo hold and climbed topside, the strainers wrapped in diapers. A gentle gray rain made a shine on the silver deck. In the galley she lit candles and set out newsprint, and they both used wire brushes and brass cleaner to scrub.

There were so many things she wanted to talk about, she didn't know where to start. He appeared content. She wondered then how she had ever thought they were going their own separate ways.

There was an “Ahoy” from outside. Petree peeked in his head. “We're not straining cocktails in that thing, buddy,” he said to Connor. “Just so they're not gummed up is fine.”

Connor grinned across the table at her, as if this were an inside joke of theirs. His quiet, contained movements reminded her of Betteryear.

When she stood to make sandwiches, she noticed how Connor watched her. She allowed herself to feel his gaze, and didn't mind how his eyes rested on her back, kept her close.

“Nice job,” she said, picking up his strainer. It gleamed in the galley light.

“Not bad,” he agreed. “Not bad at all.”

Later that afternoon, Petree insisted Tara take his truck and show Connor town. He wanted to see the payphones at the library, the apartment where she first lived. “But first, show me that river you smelled when you arrived.”

It was three
P.M.
The air was already taking on a twilight glow. Shreds of cloud skirted across the sky as they drove north. The volcano appeared enormous across the water. Keta whined whenever Connor stopped scratching his head. Fur swirled in the air, blowing through the sliding cab window, catching on Connor's leather jacket.

“So you gonna give me a good improv line, or what?”

“Oh, man. You give me a prompt. Two of them.”

She squinted out the window. “Watermelon. Spanish Inquisition.”

He thought. “Can I tell you how hard it is to burn a watermelon at the stake? It's, like, ninety percent water. Doesn't work.”

“Are you kidding?” she said. “That's really good.”

“You think?”

Just beyond the ferry terminal she pulled onto the gravel road by the river. The few leaves clinging to the alders waved in the fading light.

“I kind of can't get over it. You coming here. It's not the Connor I remember,” she said.

“Yeah, well.” He opened his door and looked down toward the river and the grassy estuary beyond. “People change.”

She led him to the bank, holding back thorny branches of devil's club. Keta darted off through the salmonberry bushes, nose near to the ground as he worked some invisible trail.

She thought back to more than two years ago, when she stood on this same riverbank with Fritz, fish gasping in the shallows. Now she noticed the low angle of the winter light, how the sun reflected off the water and honed the lines of the trees. She knew she could walk farther into the valley, then up the side of the mountain into the muskegs and marshes, where the tufted bulrush would be turning yellow, the blueberry shrubs crimson as winter continued its dark, wet press.

Hands on her wrists snapped her out of her thoughts. He ran his fingers over her chapped and hardened skin. She looked down, pressed the toes of her boots into the gray sand, then up again, seeing what the light did to his green eyes. He brushed a curl from her face. Stretched out in those scarred wooden beds at the Bunkhouse, building the platform with Thomas, sharpening knives with a file on
Leda's Revenge
—through all this she had forgotten what it felt like to be touched.

Keta's white head appeared upriver. Panting, he watched them. Connor leaned over and kissed her, quiet and warm. She drew back when she felt the dog against her legs.

“It's okay, monkey. I know what I'm doing.”

OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS
she noticed how Connor paid careful attention to the idiosyncrasies of the boat that she was just herself learning. How far to turn the butterfly valve after using the toilet so that it wouldn't overflow the black-water tank and make the boat list to starboard. The importance of warming mugs before pouring coffee so the liquid wouldn't go cold. How to start the wood stove with yellow cedar, then spruce, and, before bed, putting on splits of hemlock, the night wood.

To her surprise, Connor and Newt hit it off. When the fridge handle broke, Connor took a set of deer antlers he found lying around, countersank them, and made a handle. This pleased Newt immensely. “An Alaskan brain on that guy.”