Rules of the Boat

You wake at six to the smell of something burning.

You're up the companionway in two seconds flat. The galley is fine. The engine is fine. On the cockpit bench, Lena is sitting cross-legged with a frying pan balanced on a camping stove you forgot you owned, staring at four slices of bread that have gone the color of tires.

"Good morning," she says, with great dignity. "I made toast."

"You made charcoal."

"I made toast for longer than necessary." She looks up at you, and the sun hits her face, and for a second you forget to be annoyed about anything. She's washed her face in seawater and her hair is sticking up on one side, and she's wearing one of your old sweatshirts from the hook by the companionway, so big on her it hangs to mid-thigh, the sleeves shoved past her elbows. It's the first time you've seen her without the windbreaker zipped to her chin. It's the first time she looks like a person instead of a person hiding.

"Where did you get my number?" you ask, sitting down across from her. "Last night."

"From the sign on your pier. 'Second Wind Charters, call Ethan.' There was a little drawing of a dolphin." She hesitates. "About last night. The messages."

"Lena."

"I'm not taking any of it back," she says quickly. "I just want you to know I meant it, whatever it sounded like at midnight. Midnight is a bad time for a person who's been raised on protocol. Everything comes out either too formal or too true."

"It was fine. It was more than fine."

She looks at the toast. "Good," she says to the toast.

You make real breakfast. Eggs, Stelio's bread, tomatoes. She watches every move you make in the galley like she's going to be tested on it.

"We need rules," you say, setting a plate in front of her.

"I'm excellent at rules. I've had them my whole life."

"Different rules. Boat rules." You count on your fingers. "One. When I say duck, you duck. Don't ask why. The boom doesn't care that you're royalty."

"Duck. Understood."

"Two. You don't go up on deck in daylight near other boats without the cap and the glasses."

"Cap and glasses."

"Three. Nobody touches the radio but me. Four. You wear a life jacket when it's rough."

"Is it rough now?"

"No."

"Then I'm not wearing it." She takes a bite of egg. "Five?"

"Five. You tell me if you're scared. You don't have to explain. You just tell me."

She stops chewing. Looks at you for a long moment.

"Nobody has ever made that a rule," she says.

"Well. It's my boat."

"It's your boat," she agrees softly, and goes back to her eggs.

You weigh anchor at eight. You're about to show her how to coil the anchor line when she takes it out of your hands, flakes it down in neat figure-eights and then, without looking, ties off the end in a perfect bowline. Then a clove hitch on the rail. Then a rolling hitch on a stanchion, just to show off.

You stare at her.

"I told you," she says. "I'm very good with knots."

"Where did you learn that?"

"Sailing lessons. On the lake at Monteverra, at the summer house. From when I was seven until I was fourteen." She ties a sheet bend, pulls it tight. "I had a little dinghy called Pesciolino. Little fish. I capsized it about forty times. I loved it more than anything."

"What happened when you were fourteen?"

"My mother decided it wasn't a suitable hobby for the heir." She says it lightly. Her hands don't stop moving. "Too dangerous. Too much sun. Bad for the complexion. The photographers liked me better in white than in a wetsuit." She finishes the knot and looks at it. "They sold Pesciolino. I never found out to whom."

You don't say anything. You take the line back gently and coil it, and she lets you.

"For the record," she says, "I had no idea I still remembered any of that until my hands did it."

"Your hands are smarter than you are."

"Everyone's hands are smarter than they are." She smiles, crooked, and it nearly knocks you over the rail. "Teach me the rest."

So you do. All morning, sailing north up the lee of the islands with the wind behind you. How to read the telltales on the jib. How to feel when the boat wants to round up. When to ease. When to trim. She forgets half of it immediately and remembers the other half better than you do. Twice she gets the Second Wind into a groove so sweet the hull starts to hum, and both times she looks at you with her mouth open, like she just heard music for the first time.

"Is that it?" she asks. "Is that the feeling?"

"That's the feeling."

"Why would anyone ever do anything else?"

You think about uniforms. About reports. About a gray office and a door closing. "Some people don't get to choose."

She glances at you sideways. She doesn't ask. You're grateful.

At noon you switch on the radio for the weather. You get the news first.

"…the palace now says Her Royal Highness is resting comfortably," the announcer says, "but sources close to the royal household tell RadioMarenza that a private reward is being offered for any information about the princess's movements in the last forty-eight hours. Members of the public with information are asked to contact the Royal Protection office."

Lena, at the wheel, goes very still.

"Resting comfortably," she says. "That's a nice touch."

"Shh."

"…and in an emotional statement this morning outside the Castelvetro family home in Santa Lucine, the princess's fiancé, Signor Lorenzo Castelvetro, spoke to reporters."

A man's voice comes on. Warm, smooth, a little rough at the edges in a way that sounds practiced. You've seen his face on magazines at the ferry kiosk: golden hair, film-star jaw, a smile like an invitation. Half the kingdom has a crush on Lorenzo Castelvetro. The other half pretends not to.

"Elena, if you can hear this," he says, and his voice catches, perfectly. "Wherever you are. I'm not angry. Nobody is angry. We just want you home, safe. Please. Just call. Let us help you."

The announcer moves on to the weather. You switch it off.

The wind fills the silence. The sails creak. Lena keeps her eyes on the horizon and her hands on the wheel, at ten and two.

"He sounds worried," you say carefully.

"He sounds rehearsed." She doesn't look at you. "Lorenzo isn't worried about me, Ethan. He's never been worried about me in his life."

"Then what's he worried about?"

She's quiet for so long you think she won't answer.

Then she says, "He's worried about what I took."