She heated a small pot of soup on the stovetop and poured it into a single bowl without laying a second one out for me. My stomach growled. I didn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. I eyed her, eyed the bowl, eyed the pot.
“If you’re thinking about whether you could knock me out with the pot and take my food, it’s a bad idea. You’re taller than me, but you’re weaker than you think, and I’m stronger than I look.”
“I wouldn’t! I was just wondering if maybe you’d let me scrape whatever’s left from the pot. Please.”
She nodded after a moment. I stood over the stove and ate the few mouthfuls she had left me from the wooden stirring spoon. I tasted potatoes and seaweed, salt and land and ocean. It burned my throat going down; heated from the inside, I felt almost warm.
I looked around the room for the first time. An oar with “Home Sweet Home” burnt into it adorned the wall behind the stove. Some chipped dishes on an upturned plastic milk crate, a wall stacked high with home-canned food, clothing on pegs. A slightly warped-looking classical guitar hung on another peg by a leather strap; if I’d had any strength I’d have gone to investigate it. A double bed piled with blankets. Beside the bed, a nightstand with a framed photo of two women on a hiking trail, and a tall stack of paperback books. I had an urge to walk over and read the titles; my father used to say you could judge a person by the books on their shelves. A stronger urge to dive under the covers on the bed, but I resisted and settled back onto the ground near the stove. My energy went into shivering.
I kept my eyes on the stove, as if I could direct more heat to me with enough concentration. The woman puttered around her cabin. She might have been any age between forty and sixty; her movement was easy, but her skin was weathered and lined, her black hair streaked with gray. After a while, she climbed into bed and turned her back to me. Another moment passed before I realized she intended to leave me there for the night.
“Please, before you go to sleep. Don’t let it go out,” I said. “The fire.”
She didn’t turn. “Can’t keep it going forever. Fuel has to last all winter.”
“It’s winter?” I’d lost track of seasons on the ship. The scavenger woman wore two layers, a ragged jeans jacket over a hooded sweatshirt.
“Will be soon enough.”
“I’ll freeze to death without a fire. Can I pay you to keep it going?”
“What do you have to pay me with?”
“I have an account on the Hollywood Line. A big one.” As I said that, I realized I shouldn’t have. On multiple levels. Didn’t matter if it sounded like a brag or desperation. I was at her mercy, and it wasn’t in my interest to come across as if I thought I was any better than her.
She rolled over. “Your money doesn’t count for anything off your ships and islands. Nor credit. If you’ve got paper money, I’m happy to throw it in to keep the fire going a little longer.”
I didn’t. “I can work it off.”
“There’s nothing you can work off. Fuel is in finite supply. I use it now, I don’t get more, I freeze two months down the line.”
“Why did you save me if you’re going to let me die?”
“Pulling you from the water made sense. It’s your business now whether you live or not.”
“Can I borrow something warmer to wear at least? Or a blanket?” I sounded whiny even to my own ears.
She sighed, climbed out of bed, rummaged in a corner, and pulled out a down vest. It had a tear in the back where some stuffing had spilled out, and smelled like brine. I put it on, trying not to scream when the fabric touched my sunburned arms.
“Thank you. I’m truly grateful.”
She grunted a response and retreated to her bed again. I tucked my elbows into the vest, my hands into my armpits. It helped a little, though I still shivered. I waited a few minutes, then spoke again. She didn’t seem to want to talk, but it kept me warm. Reassured me that I was still here. Awake, alive.
“If I didn’t say so already, thank you for pulling me out of the water. My name is Gabby.”
“Fitting.”
“Are you going to ask me how I ended up in the water?”
“None of my business.”
Just as well. Anything I told her would’ve been made up.
“Do you have a name?” I asked.
“I do, but I don’t see much point in sharing it with you.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m going to kill you if you don’t shut up and let me sleep.”
I shut up.
Inside the Music: Tell us what happened.
Gabby Robbins: I remember getting drunk during a set on the Elizabeth Taylor. Making out with a bartender in the lifeboat, since neither of us had private bunks. I must have passed out there. I don’t know how it ended up adrift.
I survived the night on the floor but woke with a cough building deep in my chest. At least I didn’t have to sing. I followed the scavenger as she went about her morning, like a dog hoping for scraps. Outside, a large picked-over garden spread around two sides of the cottage. The few green plants grew low and ragged. Root vegetables, maybe.
“If you have to piss, there’s an outhouse over there,” she said, motioning toward a stand of twisted trees.
We made our way down the footpath from her cottage to the beach, a series of switchbacks trod into the cliffside. I was amazed she had managed to tow me up such an incline. Then again, if I’d rolled off the sled and fallen to my death, she probably would’ve scraped me out of my clothes and left my body to be picked clean by gulls.
“Where are we?” I had managed not to say anything since waking up, not a word since her threat the night before, so I hoped the statute of limitations had expired.
“Forty kilometers from the nearest city, last I checked.”
Better than nothing. “When was that?”
“When I walked here.”
“And that was?”
“A while ago.”
It must have been, given the lived-in look of her cabin and garden. “What city?”
“Portage.”
“Portage what?”
“Portage. Population I don’t know. Just because you haven’t heard of it doesn’t make it any less a city.” She glanced back at me like I was stupid.
“I mean, what state? Or what country? I don’t even know what country this is.”
She snorted. “How long were you on that ship?”
“A long time. I didn’t really pay attention.”
“Too rich to care.”
“No! It’s not what you think.” I didn’t know why it mattered what she thought of me, but it did. “I wasn’t on the ship because I’m rich. I’m an entertainer. I share a staff bunk with five other people.”
“You told me last night you were rich.”
I paused to hack and spit over the cliff’s edge. “I have money, it’s true. But not enough to matter. I’ll never be rich enough to be a passenger instead of entertainment. I’ll never even afford a private stateroom. So, I spend a little and let the rest build up in my account.”
Talking made me cough more. I was thirsty, too, but waited to be offered something to drink.
“What’s your name?” I knew I should shut up, but the more uncomfortable I am, the more I talk.
She didn’t answer for a minute, so by the time she did, I wasn’t even sure if it was the answer to my question at all. “Bay.”
“That’s your name? It’s lovely. Unusual.”
“How would you know? You don’t even know what country this is. Who are you to say what’s unusual here?”