Gale Lessons

The thing you need to know about me is I don't lose. Well. I do. But I don't like it.

My name is Cara Thorson, I'm twenty-eight, and I drive a forklift at the rebuilt port. Five days a week I stack crates higher than anybody else in the yard. So when Marco Willoughby told me, to my face, that I had "no feel for the water," I took it about as well as you'd expect.

Here's how it happened.

I was cutting through the harbor on my lunch break. Cool day, grey sky, wind coming off the northern sea in those flat mean gusts we get in October. And there he was, down on the dock, scrubbing the deck of this pretty little sloop like it was a pet he was grooming.

Marco Willoughby. Debate coach at the community college. Thirty-one years old and smug every single one of them. We'd gone to the same harvest dance two years back and he'd spent the whole night correcting people's grammar. Nobody had even asked him to.

"You're dripping salt water on my deck, Thorson," he said without looking up.

"I'm standing on a dock."

"You're dripping on my dock. Which supports my deck. Semantics matter."

"Wow!" I looked at the boat. It was a nice boat, I'll give him that. White hull, varnished wood, sails folded up like a sleeping bird. "This thing yours?"

"All mine. Be leaving for the regatta in her come spring."

"Right, the regatta. How'd you do last year?"

Silence. He scrubbed harder.

"You don't remember?" I said. "You don't remember the part where old man Voss's fishing skiff beat you? A skiff, Willoughby. With a cooler on it."

"That was a foul current situation and you know it."

"Sure. The current cheated you."

He stood up, slow, holding his scrub brush like maybe he'd rather have a sword. He had that debate coach look. Jaw set, eyebrows up, already drafting his rebuttal.

"What exactly do you do on the water, Thorson? Besides fall off paddleboards at the staff picnic? Because I hear that story every August."

That happened one time. And it was windy.

"I could sail that thing better than you," I said.

I want it noted that I did not entirely plan to say that. It came out on its own, the way stupid things do.

Marco laughed. Actually laughed, head back, hand on chest. The seagulls got startled.

"Okay. Okay!" He wiped his eyes. "Look, that's adorable. Really. But this isn't a forklift. There are no pallets. There's wind, and judgment, and about four hundred years of accumulated..."

"Are you offering a lesson or a speech?"

That shut him up for a second. Then he got this gleam. I didn't like the gleam.

"A lesson. Fine. This afternoon. You, me, the harbor loop. If you can't hold a course by the end, you admit on the community board, in writing, that the regatta is a real competition and I'm the best sailor in this village."

"And if I do hold a course?"

"Then I'll say it. In writing. On the board."

"Say what, exactly?"

"That Cara Thorson out-sails me. I'll even use exclamation points."

We shook on it. His grip was annoyingly firm.

"So, one o'clock?" he said.

"One o'clock. And I'm not paying for this lesson."

"Wouldn't take your money if you begged."

* * *

One o'clock came and the sky had gone ugly. Not storm ugly yet. Threatening ugly. The kind of grey that makes tourists leave early and locals check their gutters.

There was a third guy on the dock when I got there. Big shoulders, weathered face, no-nonsense haircut. Marco introduced him as Henry Denton. Thirty-four, sailing instructor, used to race, now mostly taught tourists and teenagers how not to drown.

"Marco told me about the bet," Henry said, shaking my hand.

"Great. So the whole village will know by Tuesday."

"Oh, by tomorrow. Weddings move news faster. Big one at the lighthouse hall this weekend, whole town's involved." He started tossing us life vests. "Anyway. Rules. Nobody dies today. Squall's coming in off the water around four, so we keep it inside the point. Agreed?"

"Agreed," I said.

"She'll be fine," Marco said.

"She'll be fine if you two stop arguing long enough to sail her." Henry stepped aboard and patted the mast like a horse. "Cara. Come here. This is the tiller. This is the main sheet. This line here is the jib sheet. You pull to trim the sail, you ease to spill wind. What do you do when the gust hits?"

"Ease the sail?"

"Good. Marco, what do you do when she eases the sail?"

"Nothing! I'm the instructor's assistant. I'm demoted and I accept it."

"You're demoted because you lost to a cooler," I said.

"CURRENT," he yelled, and Henry laughed into his fist.

Henry ran us through the knots. Figure eight. Bowline. Cleat hitch. Marco did his with these fast showy little flicks, like he was on TV. I did mine slow, twice, because forklift work teaches you that speed you can't repeat is just a mistake you haven't met yet.

"Your bowline's sloppy," Marco said, leaning over my shoulder.

"My bowline held. Your bowline is a performance."

"A performance that holds is called a good knot."

"A knot nobody else can untie is called a problem."

"You two are going to make me seasick and we haven't left the dock," Henry said. He handed me the tiller. "You first, Thorson. Take us out. Ease as you turn. Don't fight the wind, use it."

We pushed off. And okay. Okay. First five minutes were terrible. I oversteered, the boom swung across, Marco ducked with a yelp and I heard a sound come out of him I wish I'd recorded.

"Sorry," I said, not meaning it.

"You're trying to kill me before the regatta."

"Ease your main," Henry called. "Cara, watch the sail. It's luffing. Flapping means no power. Trim it in until the flap stops, then stop pulling."

I pulled. The sail filled. The boat leaned and hummed and picked up, and something in my chest went oh.

Oh.

This was like a big machine after all. A big machine that runs on wind instead of diesel. You read the load, you respect the load, you work with the load. I'd been doing that for six years.

"See?" I said, too smug. "Forklift instincts."

"Forklifts don't heel," Marco said, but he said it quieter. He was watching my hands on the tiller.

We ran the harbor loop twice. By the end of the second loop I could hold a course without jerking us around, and Marco had stopped correcting me and started muttering. Henry checked his phone and frowned.

"Squall's early. We should be tying up."

The wind had picked up hard. Real hard. The water had gone from choppy to angry, whitecaps everywhere, and the clouds behind the lighthouse were a deep, stormy gray. Henry took the tiller from me and we came in fast, waves slapping the hull sideways.

"Grab the dock line," Henry shouted. "Cleat hitch, like I showed you."

I threw it. Cleated it. Marco got the bow line. And just as we got the boat secured, the rain hit. Not a drizzle. A wall of it. Sideways.

"Run," Henry yelled over it. "Lighthouse hall, go, go."

We ran. The three of us, hunched over, up the dock ramp, across the bluff path, rain coming down so hard I couldn't see the harbor we'd just come from. Marco grabbed my arm at the fork in the path and pulled me toward the big white keeper's house with the lantern tower above it.

"Inside," he shouted. "Bridal suite's closest, Henry has the key, this way."

I didn't ask why he knew where the bridal suite was. There was no time. Thunder cracked so close it felt personal.

We burst through a side door into warmth and quiet. Henry shook himself off, dripping, and held up a hand.

"Power's out, storm knocked it, I'll go check the breaker in the cellar. You two stay put. And do NOT touch the parrot."

"The what?" I said.

But he was already gone, boots pounding down the stairs.

Marco and I stood there, soaked, in the fanciest room I have ever been rained into. White couch. Big windows with the harbour a grey smear beyond them. A fruit basket. And on a perch by the window, regarding us with one flat yellow eye, sat a large grey parrot.

"Percy," the parrot said. "Percy, Percy, Percy."

"He's the venue's rescue," Marco said, wringing out his shirt. "Kendra keeps him. She works here, runs the weddings."

"How do you know her?"

"I taught her sister. Debate class." He looked out the window. "That's a real squall. We might be here a while."

"We might," I said.

I looked at the couch. I looked at him. Percy looked at both of us.

"Percy," said Percy.

Then Percy did something no parrot should do. He launched off the perch, glided across the bridal suite, and landed on the latch of the window.

Which was open. Because of course it was.

"Oh no," Marco said. "No no no."

"PERCY!" bellowed a voice from the hall, and a woman came through the door at a dead sprint. Short, drenched, badge on a lanyard bouncing. Kendra, it had to be. Twenty-six, hair plastered to her forehead, eyes wild.

"He's OUT?" she said. It wasn't a question, it was grief.

"Window," Marco said, pointing.

The window was empty. Percy was gone, out into the storm, a grey shape vanishing into the rain.

Kendra made a sound like a kettle. "The Delgado wedding is TOMORROW. The bride asked for Percy specifically. She rescued parrots too, it's their whole thing, and if I lose him I am DONE, Marco, I am done and my sister will never let me hear the end of it because you taught her argumentation and now she wins EVERY fight at Thanksgiving."

"Hi, Kendra, good to see you too," Marco said.

"Do not hi Kendra me. He went toward the lantern tower, I saw a shadow go up." She was already moving, grabbing a flashlight off the mantel. "Tower stairs. He likes high places. He likes drafty high places, because he's a menace."

"We'll help," I said.

"You don't have to," she said, already halfway out the door.

"We're helping," Marco said, and looked at me like he was surprised to have said it.

The tower stairs were narrow and cold and the wind was doing something horrible in the gaps of the old stone. Kendra went first, flashlight bouncing. Marco went second, dripping on every step. I went last, and thought, absurdly, that this was a lot like a night shift. Bad weather, bad stairs, everyone yelling.

The lantern room at the top was glass on most sides and the rain hammered it like fists. And there, on the great lamp housing itself, sat Percy. Soaked. Enormous. Utterly calm.

"Percy," said Percy.

"Come here, sweetheart," Kendra crooned, arms out. "Come to mama, don't do this to me, not this weekend."

Percy looked at her. Then he hopped to the far side of the housing, right at the edge of the glass.

"He's going to spook," Kendra said. "If he spooks he goes out the vent, and I can't get in the vent, the vent is why he got rescued in the first place, it's a whole story."

"Block the vent," Marco said, pointing. "I'll come from the left, you come from the right, he'll move to the middle."

"That's... actually how he thinks," Kendra said, startled. "He herds. Okay. Go."

We went. And it worked. Percy hopped right into the middle of the lamp housing, wings half up, offended, and I got there first. Both hands. Gentle, because a two thousand pound pallet taught you gentle. I cupped him against my chest and he weighed nothing and everything and he said, directly into my ear, "Percy. Percy. Percy."

"Yeah, buddy," I said. "Percy."

Kendra made the kettle sound again, but happy this time. "Oh my god. Oh my GOD. Okay. Downstairs. Champagne tower, we have a champagne tower set up for a tasting tomorrow, do NOT let him near the champagne tower."

We did not let him near the champagne tower.

Percy let himself near the champagne tower.

Here's how it happened. We got down the stairs, power still out, storm still screaming, and Kendra put Percy's travel cage on a side table and turned around for ONE SECOND to grab his towel. Percy, who I believe is the smartest evil creature on this coast, opened the cage door with his beak. I watched him do it. I did not react fast enough.

He went up. We went after him. He found the highest point in the room, which was the top of the champagne tower, five tiers of stacked coupling glasses, a glittering glass ziggurat, and he landed on the very apex like a grey king.

"Do not move," Kendra whispered. "Do not breathe. I'll get the towel."

"He's on the glasses," Marco whispered back. "If he flaps, that's four hundred dollars of glass."

"I KNOW what it is, Marco."

Percy looked down at us. Slowly, deliberately, he shuffled one foot to the left. A glass tinged.

Everyone froze.

"He's doing it on purpose," I said. "He's bargaining."

"He does that," Kendra said grimly. "Last wedding he took a boutonniere hostage."

So there we were, three adults frozen in a fancy room, and the towel was on the table behind the couch, and the only way to get it without crossing Percy's line of sight was to reach over the back of the couch at the same time, because the couch was against the wall and the table was jammed in behind it.

Marco reached. I reached. My shoulder went into his shoulder and stayed there, jammed, both of us stretched over the couch back, hands groping for the same towel, faces about six inches apart.

His eyes were brown. Noted for later. His shoulder was warm through wet cotton, which was ridiculous, because we'd both just been soaked through by a storm and he should have been freezing.

"You got it?" he said. Quiet.

"Almost. You?"

"My arm's shorter than I planned."

"Everything about you is overplanned and undersupplied," I said, and he laughed, actually laughed, head back a little, and Percy took the opportunity to flap.