Pilgrims Don't Wear Pink Read online

  “No, definitely not here to tan.” He laughed. “I use my extreme farmer’s tan to distract the opposing side when we play shirts versus skins in Ultimate Frisbee. I can’t lose that competitive edge.” I snorted. “I’m going kayaking. With Neil.”

  Garrett pointed to the shoreline, where Neil was sitting in a yellow two-seater kayak. I waved at Neil, who waved giddily back with his good arm.

  “Wait, how can Neil kayak?” I realized there was something wrong with that picture. “He’s still all bandaged up and stuff. He can’t use his shoulder or arm or anything. And I’m not a kayak expert, but I’m pretty sure you need your arms. And shoulders.”

  “Yes, both are important,” Garrett agreed. “But I ran into him the other day, and he was so bummed about not being able to kayak—it was one of the main reasons he wanted to film the documentary here—I offered to take him out in a kayak and paddle him around. I mean, it’s not the same, obviously,” he said, shrugging, “but I figured it was better than nothing.”

  Would that even be physically possible? It’s not like Garrett was a super jock. I mean, obviously. But then I looked at his arms. He actually had much nicer arms than I would have thought, arms that definitely looked like they could paddle around the world’s tallest documentary filmmaker.

  “Wow. That’s really nice of you, Garrett,” I said.

  “Oh, I don’t mind.” He shrugged again. “I like kayaking.”

  “I’ve never gone.”

  “Well, you should!” His eyes lit up. “If you want, sometime, we could—”

  “Hey.”

  Suze squeaked. Cam was standing on the opposite side of my beach chair, across from Garrett, miles of tanned torso shining in the sun above a low-slung plaid Abercrombie bathing suit.

  “Hey, Libs.” Cam reached down to tousle my hair, which was continuing its curling summer trend and currently threatening to explode from the ponytail holder I’d casually tossed it up in. “Hey, man, what’s up,” he said, nodding nonchalantly at Garrett.

  “Not much,” Garrett replied tersely, clenching his jaw. “Bye, Libby. Suze.” He turned and abruptly left in the direction of Neil and the big yellow kayak.

  “Someone’s got an extra-big stick up his ass today.” Cam snickered.

  “Hmm,” I said dryly, and straightened my sunglasses on my nose. To be perfectly honest, at the moment I wasn’t all that happy with Cam either.

  “Aw, come on, babe, not you too,” he groaned.

  Not-me-too what? Not-me-too with a stick up my ass? Great. Thanks. I snippily flipped a page of Martha.

  “Aw, Libs, you’re not upset about the Showdown, are you?”

  Flip. Flip. Flip.

  Truth be told, I was a little upset about the sea shanty shambles. Cam had gotten trashed, completely ditched me, let his friends basically call me a slut in front of the whole museum, and to top it all off, he’d missed my “Proud Mary” moment of glory.

  “You know I wanted to spend more time with you. I’d be crazy not to want to spend every minute with you.” He grinned. “But I had to leave. Scrubs was so wasted, I needed to take him home.”

  Scrubs? Was that a person? What the hell kind of name was that? Flip.

  “Come on, Libs, you know how it is. Scrubs is my boy. I couldn’t leave him hurting like that.”

  Flip. Flip.

  “Okay, I think I know what you’re really mad about.” He sighed heavily. For some weird reason, he darted a nervous glance over to the shoreline, where the napping girl and the family were. After a quick look, he turned back to me and sunk to his knees, crouching by my chair. “Libby, I’m really, really sorry about my friends. Some of the things they said were way out of line. They’re really not that bad. My friends are just assholes when they drink. And I know that doesn’t excuse their behavior, and I should’ve said something, but they’re my friends, you know? It’s complicated.”

  I looked at him for the first time, and he really did look truly, deeply sorry. I was falling into those gray-blue eyes, unable to tear myself away.

  “Please, Libby. Please say you’ll forgive me. I am so, so sorry,” he said sincerely. “Let me make it up to you.”

  “Well,” I hemmed and hawed. God, I just couldn’t say no to him! He was just too cute. “What did you have in mind?” I conceded, and immediately a beatific grin broke out across his impossibly handsome face, like the sun bursting through rain clouds.

  “I wanna take you out on my boat,” he said excitedly. “Come on, babe, you’ll love it. It’ll be really fun. And romantic, out there on the water.” He smiled devastatingly. “Just say yes.”

  Oh, I wanted to. I really, really wanted to—more than I should have.

  “But . . . Suze,” I protested halfheartedly. “I shouldn’t leave her.”

  “Aw, she doesn’t mind. Am I right, sweetheart?” He turned the full force of his charms on to Suze, who stopped breathing.

  “Suze?” I poked her to make sure she was still alive.

  “Go. Libby. Go,” she said in three little gasping breaths.

  “Then it’s settled.” He stood, pulling me up with him. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the napping girl sit up. “Come on, come on, let’s go,” Cam said, strangely urgent. I grabbed my beach bag, stuffing in my magazine, Pocahontas beach towel, and the denim cutoffs I’d worn over my navy and white polka dot bikini as Cam dragged me away and I skidded along the sand in my striped flip-flops.

  The Camden Harbor Town Marina was just adjacent to the public beach, mere steps off the sand and down the dock to Cam’s boat slip. For someone working at a maritime history museum, I was appallingly ignorant when it came to sailing, boats, and all that jazz. What’s worse, I had no real desire to be better informed. Whenever the conversation turned to boats, I completely, instantaneously, zoned out. Like people might as well be speaking Farsi. So as Cam waxed rhapsodic about his “nineteen-foot gaff-rigged wooden lapstrake daysailer sloop with outboard sails and boom tent,” I knew all I’d remember was that the boat was white and cute.

  It really was very pretty, with white wooden sides and a gleaming dark wood interior. As I climbed in and settled myself into the tiny bench seating area, I couldn’t help but notice that the boat was in flawless condition—impeccably maintained. Cam clearly lavished a lot of love and attention on it.

  “Welcome aboard,” he said proudly. “Babe, meet my baby.”

  “What’s she called?” Boats were shes. That I did know.

  “Fanny Hill.”

  “Like the titular prostitute in the eighteenth-century erotic novel?”

  “Ummm . . . yeah.” He looked really surprised. “You’re smart, for a girl. People don’t usually get that.”

  “History nerd.” I shrugged, choosing to let that “for a girl” comment slide.

  “Right.” He looked oddly disconcerted and immediately started busying himself with whatever business it took to make a boat actually sail.

  There was a good breeze, and before I knew it, the marina was disappearing into the distance, becoming a smaller and smaller speck of brown against the beach. Sailing was fun! We were flying along the water. I stuck my head over the side, straight into the wind, totally heedless of whatever madness was sure to be wreaked upon my hair.

  “I love this!” I called to Cam over the roar of the wind. He flashed me a smile and a double thumbs-up. It was too windy to really talk, and Cam was busy tacking the jib boom or something most of the time, so I just enjoyed the wind and the sea and the waves and the sky. We blew past a chain of little islands and an old lighthouse. I wondered if there was a feisty codger with a shotgun inside.

  It felt like only minutes, but it must have been much later when Cam expertly navigated us into a small cove in one of the islands, as the sun was starting to set.

  “Oh, how beautiful,” I said with a sigh, as the sky turned pink.

  Cam finished whatever he was doing and came to join me on the bench.

  “Beautiful? Next to you, the s
unset could never compare.” He gazed deeply into my eyes and recited:

  “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

  Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

  Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

  And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.”

  Oh my God. It was like a movie. But better. Because it was real. He leaned closer and pushed an errant strand of hair out of my eyes. His hand lingered on my cheek.

  “Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

  And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

  And every fair from fair sometime declines,

  By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed.

  But thy eternal summer shall not fade—”

  BZZZZZZ. BZZZZZ.

  Cam leaned back slightly, startled. “Are your boobs vibrating? Or are you just happy to see me?” he cracked, laughing at his own joke.

  “That joke doesn’t make any sense.” I wrinkled my nose. “I—oh—right! Boobs! Vibrating! Phone!” I’d gotten used to keeping my phone in my bra. It was really convenient. So I’d stashed my phone in one triangle of my bikini top before I’d left the Lettie Mae and promptly forgot it was in there. Scrambling away from Cam to have enough room to maneuver my elbows, I extracted the phone. Dev! I hurriedly slid it open.

  “Dev! Dev! Are you okay?!”

  All I could hear was crying. Huge, racking, gut-wrenching sobs. And then the phone went dead. I held it up. No service.

  “Nooooo!” I shouted, waving it around over my head, looking for reception.

  “Libs, what’s going on?” Cam was trying to get a comforting arm around my shoulder, but I was still doing a service-searching flail.

  “It’s my friend Dev,” I explained, slightly hysterical. “He’s doing this awful, scary internship at a teen fashion magazine, and he was crying, which means he’s either really upset or Meryl Streep just killed him.”

  “Uh . . . okay.” He stared at me blankly.

  “Either way, I need to get back to land and talk to him now.”

  “What do you mean, get back to land?” Now he just looked confused.

  “I need to get back where there’s service. My friend is really upset. Or in trouble.”

  “But . . . but we were gonna watch the sunset,” he said in a tone that suggested we weren’t going to be watching anything.

  “I—I know,” I stammered, “but my friend—”

  “I’m sure your friend is fine,” he whispered soothingly, stroking my arm with one hand and maneuvering the other one around my waist. “Don’t worry. Don’t think about him. Think about us.” He leaned in. “Here. Now. Together.”

  “Cam.” I pulled back as he leaned in to kiss me. “Seriously. Please take me back to shore. Now.” I had never heard Dev cry like that, and I needed to be in a place where I could be there for him.

  “Come on, Libs, seriously?” Cam looked like he didn’t believe me.

  “Seriously. Cam. Take me home.”

  “Fine,” he snapped, sighing with frustration and pouting like a kid who’d just been told he wasn’t going to Toys “R” Us.

  The ride back to the marina was chilly—and not because of the setting sun. Cam maintained a frosty silence the whole way back.

  “Thank you, Cam, for taking me out on your boat,” I said as I hopped out on the dock. “I had a nice time.”

  “Well, I’m glad one of us did,” he muttered. “Thanks for showing your appreciation. I could tell you were really grateful.”

  I stared at him, shocked. I’d never heard that tone in his voice. But immediately the ugly look on his face melted away into the sincerest contrition.

  “God, Libs, I am so sorry,” he apologized. “I was just upset that we didn’t get to spend more time together.” He smiled sheepishly. “I just want to be selfish and keep you all to myself. Forgive me?” Cam stuck his hands in his pockets and looked shyly down at me.

  “Of—of course.” I leaned up and kissed his cheek, somewhat warily. “Now, I really have to go—”

  “Of course, of course, go call your friend.” He shooed me onward. “Go!”

  I waved and jogged away over the sand back towards the museum. I dialed Dev nonstop the entire walk back to the museum, but I never reached him. Aargh! I was furious with myself for missing his call. How many times had Dev been there for me, and now, when it was my turn to be there for him, I was gadding about in a sailboat! I was the worst friend ever.

  Garrett was standing on deck, watching the sun dip into the water, munching contemplatively on handfuls of Froot Loops he pulled out of a giant cereal box.

  “How was your day?” he asked, eyes still on the sunset.

  “Not the best,” I admitted.

  Garrett’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. “I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not, really. I’m hardly surprised.”

  “Mmmm.” I decided not to press him for an explanation but instead reached for a handful of Froot Loops.

  Together, we munched our way through the cereal box, watching as the ocean swallowed the sun and night fell.

  “Well, I guess I’d better get ghost hunting. Not that there seems to be much point,” he added dejectedly.

  “Can I stake out with you?” I asked, on a whim.

  “Really?” His eyebrows rose above his glasses in surprise. “You want to stay up with me and watch for the ghost?”

  “Yeah, why not.” I shrugged. “It might be fun. And I’m getting bored just hanging out in the fo’c’s’le reading in the dark.”

  “Well, yeah, okay. I guess so.”

  “I promise not to do anything even remotely Nancy Drew,” I said seriously. “No old clocks, no hidden staircases, no mysterious letters, nothing.”

  “Then it’s a deal.” He grinned.

  We headed down to the fo’c’s’le to grab our camping lanterns.

  “Frank was the brunette, and Joe was the blonde, right?” I wondered out loud, only semiconscious that I was speaking.

  “Frank and Joe who?” Garrett handed me my lantern.

  “Hardy.” I took it and flipped it to its brightest setting.

  “Nancy, what did we just talk about?” he warned.

  “Right. Gotcha. Jinkies.” That was Scooby-Doo, which was a whole other set of teenage detectives, so I reasoned it was fair game. Garrett shot me an exaggerated glare but didn’t say anything.

  “You ready?”

  “I was born ready.” I followed Garrett’s retreating back deeper into the belly of the ship. “Where, um, are we going?” I picked my way carefully over the uneven wooden planks.

  “The galley. Which is the kitchen-slash-dining area of the ship.”

  “I know what a galley is!” I protested. “I’m not that nautically impaired.”

  “Just making sure,” he said, turning a corner.

  “I’m really not as stupid as you think I am,” I muttered.

  “I don’t think you’re stupid,” he said, surprise audible in his voice.

  “Well, that’s news to me,” I muttered again. “But you did, didn’t you?” I challenged him.

  “I will admit I may have . . . underestimated you,” he said grudgingly. Victory!

  “Wow, did the infallible Garrett McCaffrey just admit he was wrong about something?” I teased.

  “Hardly. I admitted to a miscalculation, not an error.” He sounded like his smug old self, but there was a little something in his voice that made think that if I could have seen him, he would have been smiling.

  God, it was dark and creepy in there. I really, really didn’t like it. The boat rocked very gently from side to side, causing the ropes and lanterns that swung from the ceiling to cast shifting shadows along the sloping walls. The camping lantern could barely keep the oppressive blackness at bay. I couldn’t imagine how Garrett did this all alone night after night. I would have peed myself or something. “Here we are.”

  The galley itself was a tiny room crammed with kitchen supplies that
opened into the biggest room I’d seen so far on the Lettie Mae. It had a long wooden table flanked by wooden benches, all nailed to the floor. Tin mugs and plates were set all the way down it, and barrels lined the walls.

  “Every time there’s been a sighting, the ghost has been spotted at the other end of the dining area,” Garrett continued. “So I’ve been hunkering down in the galley, sort of hiding behind these fake sacks of cornmeal.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” I stepped into the galley and over a few sacks. “Is there any way we could maybe construct a slightly larger, harder-to-penetrate barrier using more sacks?”

  “Libby, the sacks aren’t for protection; they’re so we remain unobserved,” he said, joining me in the galley. “You’re not . . . afraid of the ghost, are you?” he asked curiously.

  “What! Um, no! Obviously not!” I denied it a little too vehemently. Now that Garrett had finally admitted he’d underestimated me, I didn’t want to lose my newfound cred. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I am not scared at all. At all. Not at all. Nope. No sirree, Bob.” I shook my head.

  “I’ll get you an extra sack of cornmeal.” He dragged one over and added it to the pile.

  “Danger is my middle name,” I was still babbling. “Libby Danger Kelting. So bring it on. Bring it on, ghostie. Ghostie ghostie ghost ghost. Ghostface. Ghostface Killah.”

  “Um, what is going on? Do you have a crack problem I don’t know about?” He flicked off both of our lamps, plunging us into complete darkness.

  “High on life, Garrett. High on life.”

  More like high on crazy-adrenaline-fear-rush. Why was I being such a baby? There was no such thing as ghosts. I mean I knew that, obviously. But way down there in the darkness, trapped in the depths of the ship with no easy way out, it was really, really scary. I scooted a little closer to Garrett and hoped he didn’t notice. Not that it was going to help, because I seriously doubted Garrett could save me from anything. Except from, maybe, I don’t know, losing a Battlestar Galactica trivia contest. Or from a cyborg. As long as it was on a computer screen, that is.