“Well, shit, Sandy, that’s tough, but don’t take it personally. I mean, they’d have been out anyway, wouldn’t they? It’s their job to be out. Fishing boats, windsails, yachts, surfers. I’m sure it wasn’t just Lively Lady on the water.”
“You didn’t see the waves. I told them you were lost, and a lot of extra people went out, and now everyone’s angry,” she said. “The police say they’re going to look into your finances. They don’t really believe—”
“Listen,” said Vern firmly, “they’re paid to be suspicious.”
Silence.
“Of course you’re upset. Of course you are.” And thank God for that, Vern thought. Upset was good. Plausible, believable. As long as Sandy didn’t go overboard on the guilt thing. “If you weren’t upset, it would look pretty funny, wouldn’t it?” Vern went on in this vein as the silence got longer and longer. “They can’t touch you,” he said. “Keep your mouth shut and they can’t touch you. There’s not the slightest proof. You want us to get married, don’t you? You want us to get the money?”
Finally Sandy stopped sniffling and agreed to these propositions. Vern hung up feeling only semi-nervous, but it was late August, four full months, before Sandy called again. By that time, Vern was working at a marina along the St. Lawrence and beginning to worry about getting himself to a warm-water port. Then one night the phone rang, and when he lifted the receiver, he heard the sound of traffic in the background. Instantly, he could smell the exhaust from the Clam Shack and diesel fuel and late-summer heat on tarmac: the convenience store parking lot, Sandy on the phone, insurance.
“We’ve done it, haven’t we?” asked Vern.
“Yes,” said Sandy.
“We’ve really done it!” he exclaimed and whooped over the line like an Apache. On the other end, Sandy was quiet, but Vern did not notice.
“I need to see you,” she said when he had congratulated her, exclaimed about their good fortune, credited his own brilliance. There were things to straighten out, Sandy said, fiscal manipulations and complications, a new account in the Bahamas, other details. She was precise and organized, all business. Vern would be best not to return to the States, certainly not to Connecticut. Especially not by boat. Sandy was very explicit about that. “Don’t even think about it,” she said.
In his euphoria, all this was minor stuff. “Hey,” Vern said, “I’ve got to take a boat down to Nassau next week, and I’m supposed to pick up another crewman. How about it? A little holiday for you. Fly to Quebec, we sail to the islands. It’s an easy trip. Get our cash and we’re on our way permanently, baby.”
Sandy said something about her job.
“This is a new life,” Vern said. “After all that’s happened, you need to get away, to make a fresh start. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Sandy, but her voice was odd. “Yes, I wanted to make a fresh start.” She began to cry.
“I know it’s been tough,” said Vern. “It’s been tough for me, too.” He’d been lonely in Quebec, he told her. He couldn’t wait to see her.
She arrived by plane a week later, thinner and paler than he remembered, her eyes hidden behind sunglasses. She had five thousand dollars in cash with her, which was helpful, and from the way Vern felt himself relax when she stepped through the doors at the gate, he realized he had been half afraid she might not come. She could have cashed that big check and lost his phone number. She could have, but, fortunately, there she was. Gorgeous as ever in a white summer dress and a red jacket, still in love with him, and set to make a fresh start as his wife. Vern put the latter thought aside and swept her into his arms.
There was a moment’s awkwardness, then she laughed at his hair — bleached blond — and his full beard and his French sailor’s shirt.
“You wouldn’t have recognized me, would you?” he asked when he put on the wire-rimmed aviator glasses he’d affected.
“Not at first glance,” she admitted.
“So there’s nothing to worry about. Vern Lanyon’s dead, gone, and forgotten.”
Sandy nodded, agreeable to the death of Vern Lanyon, to the trip, to everything he suggested. Vern felt how foolish he’d been to worry. And really, who wouldn’t like the boat, a big, handsome Hatteras, beautifully fitted, that was being run down to its new owner in the islands? Vern had everything prepared in anticipation of her arrival, and they left at dawn the next morning, cruising into the cool, golden light of the seaway. All down the Canadian coast, they slept on board, remaining on the water except to put in for gas and food.
Vern was a touch nervous when they reached the States, but in the mass of late-summer yachtsmen, no one gave them a second glance. Just the same, Vern was pleased with his preparations, with the success of his disguise, with the foresight which had obtained papers for Sandy, too. “It’s your ultimate role,” he joked. “A completely new life.”
“For how long?” she asked.
“Long as you like,” he said.
“And then take on another life, maybe,” she said. “When we’re tired of this one.”
Vern decided she was teasing and passed the remark off with a smile. But she’d suggested a possibility. Oh, Sandy was fine. Easy to take, good with the boat. There’s nothing wrong with Sandy, Vern told himself a couple of times a day. Of course, she was quieter than before. She didn’t make the little dirty jokes she used to make. And she liked to sit on deck at night, staring at the white wake of the boat.
There were other things, too, if Vern had troubled himself to count them up, like the day they stopped at Cape May, and Sandy disappeared for twelve hours. Just disappeared without even her wallet and seemed surprised when he questioned her, when he was concerned. She’d gone for a walk, she said, and perhaps she had, because Vern saw no sign of Coast Guard boats or police. Only his nervousness had magnified her absence, which was an odd thing, sure, but not quite enough to make a reasonable man worry.
Especially not when they were sliding down the edge of the continent towards a fortune. The days took on a heavier warmth, losing the bright crispness of the north in languid humidity. The sea warmed up enough so that they could swim even out from shore, and they got in the habit of taking a dip every afternoon. Sometimes they saw dolphins and one day, off Fort Lauderdale, the black fin of a shark.
“Nothing to worry about,” Vern said. “They come for blood. Otherwise they’re really not that dangerous.”
Sandy got out of the water anyway, and lay sunbathing on deck, her eyes sweeping the water. When he was finished swimming, Vern sat beside her on the warm boards and talked about what he wanted to do, about the kind of boat he’d like to buy, about the possibility of starting a charter business in the islands. “I’m going to stick to what I know from now on.”
Sandy was noncommittal. She was already finding the endless, hot, blue-and-gold days oppressive, and she could not see herself crewing a boat or whipping up meals in a galley kitchen for the paying customers.
“I can’t go back,” Vern said. “You said so yourself. Not for a few years anyway. Got to get myself established in a new business in my new identity. That’s the key.”
“And what about me?”
“You’ve just got a big insurance settlement. What’s more natural than that you should invest your money? Buy into a company, say? It just needs to be something I understand, like boats. I understand boats just fine.”
“I was thinking on a personal level,” Sandy said. Her voice was quiet, uninflected. There were disquieting moments when Vern remembered how she’d looked on stage as that vindictive Spanish virgin and sensed that she was now giving a slightly imperfect performance.