thing was a party. Someone had given George a little FIFA skill ball and that’s about all he needed. He carried it around like a pet. At the supermini across the street they had these ice pops, called duros—thick, fresh-squeezed juice frozen in a plastic cup—and we’d sit there licking them like deer at salt. Sybil loved the cartoonish toot of the public bus, and she loved to sit outside the supermini licking her duro. Whenever a bus arrived, a whole new wave of people would fawn over her and tousle her hair, like it was her birthday on the hour.
Funny thing was, after living in Bocas for a month, it wasn’t too hard to get used to living aboard the boat. I found the small space of the boat immediately comforting, like being straitjacketed. No oversize Ethan Allen sectionals, no ottomans, no flat-screen TVs, no free weights, no full-length mirrors, no garment steamers, ironing boards, or vacuum cleaners, no talking, life-size Minnie Mouses or Barbie playhouses with elevators, no plastic Exersaucers or bouncers or strollers, no cake stands, casserole dishes, waffle makers, decanters, no heirlooms, antiques, or gewgaws, no framed certificates, no eight-by-ten photos, no coffee-table books, no takeout menus, or paperwork from the previous millennium, no glass, no vases, no valuables, no art, nothing that could break, shatter, or make you cry if you lost it, which gradually, of course, changed the relationship I had to things, basically dissolving it.
Once we got her in the water, we discovered a laundry list of other necessary fixes, small & large. After an idle rainy season in the tropics, she smelled like a gym towel. The upholstery was a joke, as were the moldy life jackets. Her batteries were dead. The head pump didn’t work. I went back & forth on buying a new mainsail. After a shakedown cruise by myself in October, watching her heel, all sails set & drawing, I shelled out for a new mainsail. The engine worked perfectly. The dinghy was a tough little inflatable w/ an 8-horsepower outboard. Sybil named it ‘Oily Residue.’ The kids and I knocked around in ‘Oily Residue’ whenever Juliet needed some alone time. We circled the marina at Bocas, waving at all of Juliet’s boyfriends. I even taught Sybil how to steer the dinghy, and all the guys back on shore would pat her head and tell her what a fine sailor she was.
3 weeks turned to 4. 4 weeks turned to 5.
By the time you realize how over-budget you are, you’ve already fallen in love. I remember when I first saw her, sitting on stilts in the boatyard, her dirty keel exposed, while they blasted away at her with hoses. Took me a couple hours to believe she was real, & that we had done it, after so much doubt & back & forth & finally just the letting go.
The next day they got down to it and painted the boat with two coats of brick-red antifouling. I felt jealous pangs watching the men at the boatyard stroke her hull w/ paint. It seemed kind of intimate. OK, I’d be lying if I denied having vaguely romantic feelings for the boat, a kind of chaste but thirsty love, not unlike the attraction I felt for Juliet when she was in her third trimester, w/ big, jaunty breasts, awesomely wide-beamed.
(Please God, do not let Juliet ever find this log.)
The double Juliets, that was my idea.
Before the guys in the boatyard put her in the water, the last thing we did was scrape off the words on the transom and rename her.
The lettering was on the schmaltzy side, a loopy, romantic script.
Eventually there was my boat, just as I had imagined her:
‘Juliet.’
* * *
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As soon as we moved onto the boat, the differences in our skill level became clear. Michael was always doing something. Whenever we were at anchor, or if seas were calm, or the children were asleep, he could be found with a knife or shredding rope, or glaring at a broken shackle.
Back in Connecticut, I’d never once seen him smooth a tablecloth or fluff a pillow. The home, the children, had been