“Of course. But why all the mystery?”
He took her arm. “Actually, no mystery. I was running late and thought it best to send a car.” He opened the gate and led her down the ramp to the walkway that took them past dozens of beautiful boats and to the end where a huge white yacht sat that must have been sixty feet long with a high flying bridge surmounted by radar antennae and other electronic fixtures.
“Is Donald Trump in town?”
“Donald Trump?”
He didn’t seem to appreciate the joke, and she felt herself flush. “You mean, this is yours?”
“When I get the chance.”
He took her hand and led her up the gangplank to the deck. “Welcome aboard the
The wide aft deck opened into an elegant main salon done in cherry with built-in beige leather sofas and chrome appointments. Next to a dinette area rose a cherry-and-chrome spiral staircase to the flying bridge. The main salon connected to four elegant staterooms plus crew quarters, also in cherry with plush beige carpeting and colorful accents. The cherry continued into the galley, a bright space with black marble counters and stainless-steel appliances.
“It looks like a Ritz Hotel suite on water.” She had to wonder about all the nose jobs it took.
“Thank you. When I can get away, it’s a lot of fun.”
He led her through the salons and into the steering station in the forward deck where two men were checking a nautical chart. “This is Cho and Pierre. They’ll be at the helm this evening.”
She shook their hands. Both men had coffee-colored skin and looked Polynesian and spoke with an accent that she could not place. Later Aaron would tell her that both men had Asian and Caribbean blood and were from the West Indies. They were resident surgeons in a fellowship training program allied with the Institute of Reconstructive Surgery that Aaron headed up. They would be accompanying him on his vacation to Martinique next month.
They returned to the aft deck where a table was set for two and a Boston caterer had laid out trays of shrimp, chicken cordon bleu, meat turnovers, cheeses, and fruit. There were also two fluted glasses and a bottle of champagne in a silver bucket.
The night was warm with a gentle breeze off the water. They sat across from each other at the elegantly set table. In the thickening golden light of the sun, Aaron Monks looked elegant in his blue and white.
Cho and Pierre pulled the boat into the harbor.
“How long will it take to reach Martinique?”
“We’ll do it in about ten days. We could do it faster, but there’s no rush.”
“Sounds wonderful.”
“Even more so when we’re down there. Have you been to Martinique?”
“I’ve been to Jamaica, but not Martinique.”
“Maybe someday you will. In the meantime…” He poured the champagne. “It seems appropriate that it’s Independence Day.” He raised his glass to hers. “To the new you and freedom from the old.”
She thanked him and clicked his glass.
While they chattered, she could see how pleased he was with the results because he could not stop staring at her, his pupils looking permanently dilated.
Nonetheless, she felt a tiny prick at the back of her mind. Perhaps it was the expectation that she was starting all over, that these procedures were tantamount to a rebirth—as if the needles, nips, tucks, and nose job meant she was officially divorced from her past, that like some exotic reptile she had molted her old self and was scuttling off in pride to a new dawn. The rhinoplasty was an improvement, and she was delighted. And perhaps it would take time for her interior self to catch up. But she felt like the same person inside.
Over the next few hours, Pierre and Cho took them for a sunset cruise around the harbor, passing some of the many islands that Aaron named and gave brief histories of, including Kingdom Head where, he said, in the seventeenth century a woman was executed for witchcraft. Rumor had it that her ashes and ancient Celtic ruins lay buried somewhere on the island. He was very knowledgeable about the seafaring history of Boston. He didn’t joke or laugh much, and she concentrated on his stories and resisted trying to lighten the discourse that bordered on a lecture.
But that was fine, and it was a glorious night with a magnificent view of Boston over the pearly lavender water and under a cloudless indigo sky.
The moon rose full on the harbor, and the setting sun silhouetted the skyline in flaming reds. Along the waterfront, buildings glowed like so many jewels floating on a black expanse. In a couple of hours the sky would be exploding in fireworks.
“They’re still talking about the suicide of that professor fellow in the news,” Aaron said. “That it was an act of confession. I imagine your husband must feel some relief in that.”
“I think he is. But it’s been bad press for the department, as you can imagine.”
“Of course. But maybe it’s behind them.”
She took a sip of champagne and wondered what Steve was doing at the moment. Probably poring over depressing crime reports. He’d love to be out here since he had a half-mystical yearning for the sea and always wanted to own a boat. Last year at this time, they picnicked on the Charles with Marie Dacey and her husband John and her friend Jane Graham and her husband Jack. Then they walked up the river to watch the fireworks.
“Well, I wish him the best.”
She suddenly felt a jolt. “Oh, my God.”
“What?”
“I forgot something.” She reached for her handbag and removed her cell phone. “Excuse me,” she said, getting up and moving away from the table to talk privately.
“I’m afraid you’re not going to have much luck out here.”
He was right, they were beyond range for a connection. She had gotten so caught up in the unveiling as Steve put it that it she had forgotten that tonight they had a date to talk.
“If it’s an emergency, we can use the ship-to-shore radio.”
She imagined him getting an emergency call from the coast guard that his wife was at sea with someone else. “No, that’s okay.” Steve was probably at the house calling her cell phone. He’d hang out there for an hour then head home, feeling jilted just as he was hoping to work things out with her. She felt awful.
“Are you sure?” Aaron asked. “We can go back in.”
They were at the outer reaches of the harbor, near the Boston lighthouse island. It would take an hour to reach the marina. And even if they got within calling range, Steve would have left, resigned to the fact that she had forgotten. “No. It’s okay,” she said, knowing that it wasn’t okay. But there was nothing she could do.
Later, under an outrageously starry sky, the fireworks show started.
It began with the faint strains of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the Hatch Shell playing “The 1812 Overture,” followed by a fusillade of cannon fire that sent up a roar from the crowd gathered along the Charles, filling the Esplanade and the banks between which floated the huge barges where the pyrotechnics were staged.
Then the sky opened up with fiery chrysanthemums in red, white, and blue, followed by half an hour of continuous starbursts and booms that echoed and re-echoed across the Boston Harbor. The cityscape flickered in colored fire under the canopy of smoke. Then for maybe two consecutive minutes the final volley turned the night into crackling, booming bouquets of Technicolor explosions followed by a moment’s silence then one solitary
And a million people said, “Waaaaaaaaaaw.”
They returned to the marina after midnight. Because of the holiday, the waterfront was still bustling with activity. They took a short stroll along the walkway of Atlantic Avenue and through Columbus Park. She tried not to think of Steve, although that was impossible. Her guilt kept surfacing throughout the evening, sometimes crossing with resentment that he had put pressure on her to reconcile just as she was emerging into postop, post-separation
