Charlie St. Cloud Page 0,9
home.
Tink kneeled on the deck and pulled the mainsail from the canvas bag. The sheet was folded like an accordion, and he began to spread it out. Tess bent down to help. “It’s gorgeous,” she said, stroking the green taffeta outer layer. This wasn’t any old piece of sailcloth, like the one she had cut from a bedsheet and stitched for her first boat. This main was a state-of-the-art laminate with Kevlar fibers, built to ride out the worst weather in the world, and everyone in her company had worked weeks fine-tuning it.
“Sure hope we spelled my name right,” she said, pulling the corner of the sail to the mast, where she unscrewed a shackle and attached the tack. She kneeled on the deck, turned the winch, and began feeding sail to Tink. Inch by inch, he put the slides on their track, and the green sheet began to climb the mast.
Tess smiled as the triangle emblazoned with her company name—CARROLL SAILS—took to the sky. Mariners on five continents would see it, and with any luck, they would want one for their own.
She turned the winch more slowly now, and the main was almost two-thirds up the mast. Almost unconsciously, she felt light air tousle her hair. Without checking the weather vane, she knew the wind was from the northeast, the first feelers of that low pressure. The susurrus of the sails, luffed by the breeze, and the tickle on the back of her neck told her it would be rough later on the water.
Tess loved the wind and its ways. As a girl, it had been her constant companion. From a sunny morning twenty years ago when she ventured into the harbor in her first Brutal Beast, she had always tracked the ripples on the water and the lean of the tall grass on the shore. She knew the difference between true and apparent wind, and she had mastered the air in every form, flying hang gliders and sailplanes, racing Windsurfers and catamarans, and—to the horror of her mother—thrilling to the free-fall of parachutes.
As a woman, she had made the wind her livelihood. Straight out of Williams with a physics degree, she went to work for Hood Sails in Newport, learning fast and immersing herself in the advanced science of modern sail design. She worshiped Ted Hood, a Marbleheader and America’s Cup skipper, who knew more about striking a curve on a spinnaker than anyone on earth. But after a couple of years, she realized she just didn’t like having a boss, and even worse, she hated spending her days running computer models on lift and drag ratios. So with $186.40 in the bank, she quit and moved home.
Dad went in on a bank loan with her, and she opened her own sail loft on Front Street, determined to compete with the big boys. Within a year, she had hired a dozen of the smartest designers, cutters, and sewers in the area. She made a family of them, paid them better than anyone around, and encouraged this team to dream up ways to make boats go faster.
Now the wind was picking up, and Tess cranked the winch, but the sail suddenly seemed to jam. She pushed hard on the handle, then Tink gave a hand, but the sail wouldn’t move.
“Better get up there to take a look,” she said.
“Want to hoist me?” he said, patting his belly.
“Nobody’s that strong.” She walked over to one of the lockers, pulled out the bowswain’s chair, fastened it to another halyard, and positioned herself on the wooden seat.
“Up, up, and away,” she said, and with a few good tugs of the line, Tink lifted her in the air.
A seagull wheeled overhead as Tess soared to the top of the forty-seven-foot mast. She grabbed hold of the pole and could tell immediately that the halyard was jammed.
“Release the downhaul,” she yelled to Tink. Then she reached into her pocket for her army knife, jammed the point under the halyard, and lifted it back into the sheave.
“We’re clear,” she shouted. “Just give me one more second. I love it up here.” She looked down on the town curving along the waterfront. She saw fishermen on the rocks casting for stripers. Across the harbor, kids were flying kites on Riverhead Beach. In the distance, she made out the mausoleums and obelisks of Waterside Cemetery sloping down to the shore. Her dad was buried there under a Japanese maple. When her mother chose the spot, she wanted