Charlie St. Cloud Page 0,25

he had broken his back saving it, and he wouldn’t be happy watching her blow it on repairs. He was an old-fashioned sailor who didn’t like expensive fiberglass boats with Kevlar sails. “Sailing,” he liked to joke, “is the fine art of getting wet and becoming ill, while going nowhere slowly at great expense.” And yet, if the ocean was in your blood—and the two were almost chemically identical, he liked to remind her—you couldn’t stop yourself from going to sea no matter how much it cost or how quiet the wind.

She sat silently for a few moments and she could hear his voice. God, how he howled at his own jokes. He would slap his knee, his eyes would squint, and his face and neck would turn red as he unleashed a big laugh. It was only a distant sound in her mind now, gray cells rubbing together, but the memory made everything all right. She waited for more of his laughter—more of that feeling somewhere deep inside. And then suddenly she heard the gunning of an engine and an awful drone. It sounded like a buzz saw. It was coming from just over the hill.

Tess jumped up, her dad’s laughter disturbed, and stomped off to see what on earth was causing the ruckus.

What have you done with your precious life? Florio’s words had lingered in the air long after he had gone off to the fire station to partake of the wine and cheese reception in his memory. No matter what chores were there to distract Charlie, the question followed. In the Dalrymple family plot, he poured the cement foundation for a new headstone and searched for answers. On the Mount of Memory, he chopped up an oak that had fallen in the storm and he wondered. What had he done with his second chance?

He watched a squadron of geese take flight in a tight V-formation, honking as they cleared the treetops, circling once over the grounds, then winging across the harbor. One thing was for sure: He had spent far too much of his precious life battling those evil creatures. Sure, painters came to Waterside to capture them quaintly on canvas. Old ladies showed up to feed the goslings with bags of crumbs. Little did they know, the gaggle was a public menace. They chomped on grass, devoured flowers, dirtied monuments, and even attacked mourners.

On this fine afternoon, Charlie sat on a bench by the lake with Joe the Atheist, who had invented an ingenious method of scaring off the loathsome birds. It involved deploying an armada of remote-controlled toy motorboats.

“PT-109, ready for attack,” Joe said.

Charlie’s mind was elsewhere. “You think you’ll ever do anything important with your life?” he asked.

“What are you talking about? This is important,” Joe said. “We’ve got a job to do.” He looked through a pair of army field glasses and positioned a metal box with a joystick in his lap.

“I’m serious. You think you’ll ever amount to anything? You think God has a plan for you?”

“God?” Joe said. “You kidding me? I believe in luck. That’s all. You’ve either got it or you don’t. Remember last year? I was one digit away from winning thirty-four mil in the Mass. lottery. You think God had anything to do with that? No way.” He shook his head. “Someday, I’ll hit it big. Till then, I’m stuck with you.” He smiled and leaned forward. “Look! One more squadron of geese at two o’clock by the Isle of Solitude,” he said. “Requesting permission to attack.”

“Permission granted,” Charlie said.

Joe jammed the control stick forward. A gray patrol boat zoomed straight for the birds. The engine blared and a horn hooted. “Two hundred feet and closing,” he said, peering through the binoculars. “.08 knots. Target acquired.”

As always, the boat worked perfectly. With much panic, the last remaining birds scooted along the water, took flight with a few flaps, and soared over the trees. The little boat banked hard, swooping close to the shore, kicking up a wave of spray. And then Charlie saw a young woman standing on the far side under a willow. She was tall, beautiful, and was waving toward him. She seemed to be shouting, but her words were drowned out by the droning engine. He recognized her from town: It was Tess Carroll, the sail-maker.

“I’ll catch you later,” he said to Joe, who was focused on maneuvering PT-109 back to its little dock.

“Ten-four,” he said.

Charlie jumped in his cart and steered around the