His face was softening, his eyes were damp as he gazed into her own.
Lenore gave him a loving, apologetic smile. “And if other people can take Dramamine, or wear a patch for seasickness, then so can I.”
“Lenore...!”
She placed a finger gently against his lips.
“Shh. Don’t say anything. Just try to forgive me.”
He pulled her tightly to him, but she forced herself back away from him again so that she could look up sincerely into his face one more time. “I looked at that magazine again, Charles. It’s a beautiful boat. I think we ought to go look at it as soon as possible, before somebody else beats us to it.”
He stroked her hair, then cupped her face with his hands. “Lenore, you don’t really think I married you because you have the name of Poe’s romantic heroine, do you? She was doomed, after all, and dead! I married you because I fell in love with you. Your name was just the sign — in neon — that you were truly the right woman for me, like seeing the Nevermore tells me it’s the right boat for us. Your name only told me that we are destined to be together. It didn’t make me fall in love with you. I was so in love with you, I would have married you no matter what your name was. You do know that?”
“Of course I do, darling.”
“I can’t tell you how much this means to me, Lenore. Just to see you in here, showing an interest in my books! And you know what? Our first trip on the boat, we could sail to that Poe conference in the Bahamas.”
Lenore ducked her head into his chest again and muttered, “Nevermore.”
“What, sweetheart?”
“The name of our new boat, dearest. The Nevermore.”
On their way out to inspect the boat two days later, they hit every red light between their home and the yacht club where the Nevermore was docked.
“You’re sure this isn’t a sign, Charles,” Lenore gently teased him, “that we should stop and think about this before we make such a big investment?”
He smiled over at her, looking happier than she had seen him look in months.
“Not on your life,” he said, just as a light turned green. “It’s a sign that nothing can stop us now.”
“You even wore the correct shoes, Lenore!”
Standing beside her on the dock, with the Nevermore rocking gently in front of them, Charles smiled down at her feet in pleased approval. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d even know not to wear hard soles on a boat.” His words took on a teasing tone. “Are you sure it’s not just an accident that you have on those tennis shoes?”
“Right,” she said, teasing him back. “You know how many pairs of sneakers I keep in my closet.” The answer to that was none. “It was strictly an accident that I went out this morning and shopped until I found these.”
They both stared down at the cute little navy-blue canvas-backed shoes with the rubber soles. She’d been reading up about more than Poe. She’d also boned up about life at sea, learning, among other things, that it was considered the height of vulgarity to endanger precious wooden boat decks with shoes that might mar them, not to mention the fact that it was dangerous to wear slippery footwear on wet, rocking decks. Lenore intended to wear her new blue tennies, with their grip soles, to the next meeting of the book club, so they’d ask her where and why she got them and she would get a chance to tell the story of the marvelous sacrifice she was willing to make for love.
Charles inhaled deeply.
“Don’t you just love the scent of salt air, Lenore?”
She eyed a dead fish carcass that was floating at the waterline and bumping up against the side of “their” boat.
“Refreshing,” she said, with a finger under her nose.
“Did you take your Dramamine?”
She eyed the constantly moving boat. “I took two.”
As if escorting his queen onto her yacht, Charles offered his hand to help her cross from dock to deck without falling into the water.
“Cute little kitchen,” Lenore said, looking around it.
“On a boat it’s called a galley,” the sales agent told her.
“I knew that,” Lenore said, and smiled so charmingly that both he and her husband smiled back at her.
“Do you think you could cook in here?” Charles asked her.
“I don’t see why not,” she said. “It’s got everything. A stove, oven, refrigerator, freezer, even a garbage disposal and a trash compactor.” Leonore picked up a roundish purple and white object from a woven basket on the counter and began to toss it lightly from her left hand to her right hand and back again. “Just like home.”
“What’s that?” the sales agent asked, nodding his head at her “ball.”
“This?” Lenore stopped tossing it and held it up for the men to see more clearly. “It’s a turnip. Haven’t you ever seen a turnip before?”
The agent laughed. “I guess not.”
But Charles didn’t laugh.
Lenore saw that he was staring at the turnip with his mouth slightly open, as if he could take a bite of it.
“Is something the matter, Charles?”
He briefly hesitated, but then smiled — not at her, but at the vegetable. “Why, no. Definitely not.”
She gently placed the turnip back into the basket. “All signs still ‘go,’ darling?”
“They certainly are.”
“Do you want to see the cabins?” the agent asked them.
“We do,” Lenore said, with a happy lilt in her voice.
They moved into the master stateroom, where Charles and Lenore tested the built-in double bed by sitting on either side of it. At Lenore’s suggestion, the sales agent had withdrawn discreetly to allow them some time alone together in the cabin where they might soon be sleeping while at sea.
“Look at this, Charles,” she said, picking up a paperback book that sat on top of the bedside table on her side. “You said I could read to my heart’s content if we lived on a boat. I guess somebody else likes to read novels, too.”
He held out his hand to take the little book that she handed him.
She saw him read its title and heard his slight intake of breath when he saw it was Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey. Ignoring that, Lenore picked up a second book on the bedside table and said, “I’ve never heard of either of these authors, have you?” She handed him the second one. “How would you pronounce that name anyway? Mig-Non?”
“Mignon Eberhart,” her husband said, pronouncing it “Minyon.”
He drew out the word as if it held some secret meaning for him.
“Never heard of her,” Lenore said briskly. “What’s the name of it? Fair Warning? Maybe I’ll get to read a whole lot of things I’ve never heard of before, starting with Edgar Allan, of course.”
“Poe, yes!” Suddenly Charles threw the books down and flung himself off the bed. Looking excited, he turned toward his wife. “You feel it, too! Oh my God, Lenore! This really is fate. This is unbelievable. The portents couldn’t be clearer if somebody had painted a sign to this boat that said ‘Buy Me.’” When he saw that she looked uncomprehending, he said, “Sweetheart, have I ever told you about the only novel that Edgar ever wrote?” Seeming to assume that either he hadn’t or she wouldn’t remember, he said, “It was called The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Pym, Lenore! Just like the title of that book.”
Together they stared at Miss Pym Disposes.