I get a small single room at the end of a dim hallway, painted peach like the inside of a conch. It’s early evening. I’m tired. I try to put myself to bed. But whenever I close my eyes, the bed sways. Opening my eyes stops the motion so suddenly that I have to physically brace. The room is too still. Everything is too itself. The bureau is a bureau & the chair is a chair & nothing moves. I sit up, overcome w/ nausea. I crank open the window & dip my face in the air. Some local teenagers gossip nearby underneath the jacaranda. Two girls & a boy, teasing one another, no different from kids you’d find in Hartford. I watch for a while. The boy has his eye on the bigger girl. He keeps glancing at her low-slung jeans.
I get dressed and go outside.
Portobelo is a beautiful, crumbling colonial town. Once important, it is now mossy & forgotten. The Spanish used it as a launching ground to pillage the riches of South America & send them back to King Ferdinand. Shadowed ruins of the Spanish fort remain on the hillside. After we survived our first overnight sail across the gulf from Bocas del Toro, we made landfall here & the kids played on those old cannons for hours.
Hey, I say to the teenagers, half out of loneliness. Teléfono, por favor? Teléfono público?
The big girl turns & looks at me, w/ the adoring smile for the boy still on her face. I almost catch my breath. She’s radiant, standing there against the cold, weepy walls of the conquerors.
Por allá, she says, her smile dimming.
The phone is obvious, just on the other side of the small plaza.
Muchas gracias, I say.
I stand in front of it for a moment before dialing. It’s evening in Connecticut too. He picks up, fumbles the phone like an old man would.
Hello?
Hello? Is this Harry? It’s Michael Partlow.
Michael Partlow, Harry says. Where the hell have you been?
In Panama, man. Just where I said I’d be.
I’ve been trying to reach you for two months—
You’ll never believe it—
I wrote emails. Called you a hundred times —
Get this. The SAT phone fell overboard. Like hours into our first sail.
Harry says nothing for a second.
I’m at a payphone in the middle of nowhere Panama. Harry?
I’m here, he says finally. How’s the boat?
Beautiful.
How does she sail?
Oh, she’s very balanced. Besides, it’s so calm down here. My seven-year-old could sail her.
(Pause.)
That’s good to hear.
She’s a wonderful boat.
Well that’s great. You’re going to make a bundle on the resale.
I look across the plaza. The kids are still there, eyeballing the world. Now another couple enters, novios. Dressed up for each other. Combed. Serious.
I’m getting attached to the boat, Harry.
He says nothing.
You should see her, I say. I’ve fitted her with a new mainsail, new wiring, new paint. We lost a couple cockpit cushions in a storm but otherwise she’s—
She’s a great boat.
She is.
But she’s not yours, Michael. She’s mine too. Remember?
I laugh, nervous for the first time. Well, ours. She’s ours.
I wouldn’t press the point, Michael, if I had been able to talk to you. This is a fully wired world. You could have sent me an email. There’s WiFi at every damned port. It’s not possible to disappear anymore.
That’s not how you talked when you were trying to sell me a boat, I point out.
You work in insurance, he says bitterly. You’re supposed to be predictable.