Buried At Sea by Paul Garrison Page B

came to realize, both a rich man's toy and a potent machine. Shannon's parents' health clubs were making money hand over fist, but none of the stuff they owned—house, ski house, SUVs, diamond jewelry—seemed as costly, as extravagant, or as purposeful as Will's yacht.
    "Do you mind my asking what Hustle cost?" Jim asked one evening in the cockpit.
    "I bought her cheap," Will answered casually, pausing for a sip from a tall gin and tonic.
    "Hong Kong's the best place in the world to get a bargain on a boat." The old man had emerged from his paralyzing depression and seemed to have forgotten the fear that had driven him to change course. He was, this evening, in one of his talkative moods. So talk, Jim thought. You talk, and I'll ask questions till I nudge you around to "they."
    "Why are boats cheap in Hong Kong?"
    "That's how far couples sailing around the world to save their marriages get before they admit it was a lousy idea," Will said.
    "Sailing or the marriage?"
    Will grinned. "Both
    don't get me started on marriage. I know you asked Shannon
    to marry you."
    Jim regretted going into it, but Will had gotten him talking one night. Will's grin broadened, exposing remarkably straight teeth. "I won't be the naysayer. You poor deluded fool. Fact is, Hong Kong was the only place I could afford to buy. These days, every time you turn around there're newer, richer new-rich parvenus crawling out of the woodwork, driving prices up. And I was broke."
    Jim had worked for a number of well-off clients, but he was sure that Will was the richest man he had ever met. Will's kind of broke had nothing to do with how to pay next month's rent.
    "My last divorce had really wiped me out. Ruinous—though worth every penny." Jim looked away, irritated by the bluster. Aging macho man Will, with his faded Marine Corps tattoos and "manly"
    proclamations, was acting like an Ernest Hemingway retread.
    "Am I offending you?" Will asked.
    "Like you said, I was hoping to get married. I'm looking at the upside."
    "Actually, I'm curious. Why'd she say no? Good-looking guy, sleepy eyes girls go for, and all them muscles . . . Did you tell me your parents were divorced?"
    "No!"
    Will gave him a quizzical look. "Something tells me—stop me if I'm wrong—they should have been. A long time ago."
    "Why do you say that?"
    "You're a nice kid. You're very polite. You have good manners. But you dislike older people. I'm guessing they put you through the wringer."
    Jim stood up and climbed out of the cockpit. Crouching low and gripping the safety lines that fenced the decks, he headed forward.
    "Hey, relax," Will called after him. "Forget I said that. Nobody knows about anybody else's marriage, especially their parents'. Inge had it right: The Dark at the Top of the Stairs."
    Jim kept going. Timing the roll of the boat—he was finally getting used to it—he swung through the narrow alley between the mast and the thick wire stays that guyed it—the shrouds, the side stays were called shrouds—and worked his way along the foredeck. At the bow he propped himself within the rails of the pulpit and gripped the forestay, which was thrumming with the press of the wind on the jib, and stared down at the water the hull was cleaving.
    It wasn't that he hated older people. He didn't hate anybody. But he did carry baggage—
    Shannon's word—filled with his mother's frustrated longings and his father's inability to do anything about them. In reaction, he had learned from watching his mother not to want too much. While from his father, he feared, he had learned not to hope for too much and not to try too hard. So in a way, Will had guessed right.
    He had always equated age with discouragement, disappointment, and deceit, and he had dreamed that when he left home the world would be a sunnier place. For some reason, he had ended up commuting to college, not moving out until graduation. And after three longish relationships with gloomy, troubled women he had begun to