Author Note: I wrote this short story back in high school–it may even have been my first! Let’s see if it’s any good.

The bow slapped over lazy waves. Sea batted his side. He spat and shivered. It was cold, tart, nauseating. His immediate thought was industrial runoff or the Charles. By now salt crusted his cheeks. If he touched them, he might have mistook it for stubble. But it would flake, crystal powder, on his fingers.

“Jib’s luffing.”

He hadn’t noticed the faint pucker of sail, but might have, if Garett hadn’t snapped. Bastard. Cody yanked the left jib sheet, but it didn’t feed any further from the cleat.

“Come on, man.”

“YOU come on. These goddamn gloves were your doing.” The synthetic leather grips were useless soaked. Cody bit the Velcro loose and flopped until the glove slingshotted off. Over the side. His clammy palm grated the bristled rope, but he managed to reel it in. “Shut up,” he muttered, but his skipper said nothing. Instead, a coarse, sopping object cuffed Cody’s neck. The glove landed in the leaking cockpit, strung with seaweed. Cody jammed the glove in his lifejacket and glared beyond the breakwater.

Seconds of clearing the harbor, the boat careened into the wind. The boom clipped Cody’s ear. He heard Garett land like a cat across the hiking straps, grinning smugly from the port rail as the boat rocked the other way. Cody clambered to switch the jib and joined him.

“What the hell?”

“I would’ve told you we were tacking, but I didn’t want to profane the silence.”

“Quit it. It’s small craft warning and I only weigh 118 pounds. I need to know when we’re tacking so I don’t get concussed by the boom and fall out.”

“It’s the spontaneity, plus the shitty weather and your skimpy constitution, that makes it fun.”

Cody ground his molars. “I can’t believe you’re skipper.”

Garett hiked out, slicking the neck of his Bodyglove wetsuit. The green lacquered hull reflected his brown curls. “I want to win, same as you. Only I know how to do it better, ergo,” he whipped back up, beaming from the cold, “I drive. You just gotta loosen up. You, I mean. Not that sail. Seriously, trim or we’ll lag.”

Cody jerked the rope an inch. We’re not even at the course yet. He lurched forward—the boat rocked in whiplash zigzags. He turned murderously to Garett, who was shoving the tiller back and forth in the water, powering them toward starting line.

“Skulling’s illegal. We’ll get carded.”

Garett laughed. “We’re not even at the course yet.”

Two dull orange buoys segmented the line. Otherwise, the bay was all seaweed.

Tweeeeet Tweeeeeeet Tweeeeeeeeeeet.

Adelaide breathed the steely air.

“This morning was red,” her crew told the top of the mast. She rolled her eyes at the back of his lifejacket, a bloated hunch of yellow over the daggerboard.

“That’s antiquated, Finn, do I look like an old wife? I don’t even need you on the rail, see. You’re better off in center.”

“No keel, no wind,” he mused, twiddling the boom vang that kept brushing his nose. “But there’s still that small craft advisory thing.”

She propped her chin on the tiller extension. “These are 420’s, Finn. Not optis or lasers or prams. There’re two of us and one wind.” When she raised her head, her chin peeled off the tiller extension, leaving a rubber hickey.

She trusted Finn. He followed orders, unlike her crewmates from past regattas. She knew why—he wanted her spot. She saw it in his lingering hands when he helped fit the fiberglass rudder into the pegs. So to prove himself a skipper, he was the best crew. But he’d made himself irreplaceable. Coach told him to stay put.

They coasted off the northern buoy. “Ready. Tacking,” she said, tipping the tiller away. The rudder churned eddies through the glassed harbor. She loosed the sail and Finn unhooked the left jib sheet. They hopped nimbly under the thundering luff of the main and landed in choreographed sync on the rail.

Easy, she was about to say, but the sails bagged in full as they finished the turn. They flexed their ankles against the straps, hiking out like dogs against leashes, until the boat seemed to register their counterbalance and retired to its even cruise. Past Finn’s drawstring hat, the rest of the racers darted by the line. They were likewise hiking, tilting, careening… She thought the sudden disturbance had been an artificial wake. A teenager at his dad’s wheel, maybe, though she hadn’t heard a motor, or the skip of a prow over the sea dunes. Then she saw the sky. It looked like asphalt.

Tweeeet Tweeeeeeeeeeeet.

Adelaide peered through the clear pocket in the jib. The judges on the coach boat, a corroded blue dingy, saluted the sky and recoiled.

“STARBOARD!”

She slid into the cockpit, cutting the tiller against her knee, as a green-lacquered hull planed straight for hers. Finn ducked as their steel sidestay rig clipped the other boat’s reach. She turned and scowled at the smug, Bodygloved skipper.

“Foul!” he barked, cocking an eyebrow over his Ray Bans.

“Doesn’t give you the right,” she muttered uselessly, pulping the mainsheet.

“I think we have other things to worry about,” Finn said, gazing past the main’s taut battens and patchwork registration. The sky was now lose gravel, loosening.

“Shit. I’m pulling over.” She steered through the pacing fleet and turned into irons beyond the Southern buoy. Facing straight into the wind, the boat stuttered.

Tweeeeeeet, Tweet-Tweet-Tweet.

“Fuck. Okay Finn. Put on the harness.”

“We don’t have ti—”

“Just shove it on!” Finn scrabbled under the boom and pulled the harness from the stowaway pouch, spilling the spinnaker from its rollup. He untangled the loops and garters, kicking through with the smuck of squeezed rubber. The boom slapped his temple like a metronome to the wind. Adelaide called for her windbreaker and Finn banged against the daggerboard, cussing sharp as a zipper as he tossed her the rubber coat. Frizzing her braid on the airtight collar, she shimmied the Ziploc jacket over her life preserver. And frowned at the view.

The buoys had become browned specks. She and Finn had taken so long, the waves had shoveled them off to oblivion. But it hadn’t been that long. It could only be—

Tweeeeeeeet!

—Thirty seconds, then, and sixty left. Adelaide pushed the tiller. The boat groaned, prow tipping, sea spraying sidelong now, and the wind barreled into the sail. Adelaide almost lost the mainsheet as the main puffered full. She angled the bowline between the buoys. The tell tales stopped flapping, now level tadpoles. “Come on, Blue,” she told the boat.

It bucked. Wind buffeted Adelaide’s eardrums and tipped her dangerously. She stretched her spine like a carpet unfolding, but the boat only teetered farther on end. “Finn!”

“On it!” He hiked over the rail, backbending now, to tug the boat even. Water pearled like acid soda from the hull. Now they were rabid dogs against chains. Adelaide’s wrists ached, but she kept the main as tight as she dared, aiming a close haul inside the northernmost buoy.

Tweet Tweet Tweet.

The other racers were already poised on the line, luffing in irons like dead geese. Adelaide grit her teeth and angled further downwind.

Finn coiled the jib around his knuckles. “’Laide?”

“We’re tacking anyway,” she snapped. “We’ll get there faster if we overshoot first.”

The boat cruised like a magnet, just outside the buoy.

Tweet Tweet.

“That’ll start us on port!” Finn shouted, hair flattened.

“Shoulda thought of that before you forgot the damn harness.”

Tweet.

They skimmed beyond the buoy, zeroing closer to the horizontal of the starting line. Finn looked back and forth. “’Laide… LADY!”

Twit—She rammed the tiller toward her—Twit—water gushed—Twit—They jibed. 270°—Twit—The buoy lurched toward her—Twit—They skirted the rudders of the other racers, fiberglass scraping, gliding toward the coach boat and the green hull—

TWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!

He rode each wave like a saddle. Pompous. “720! GREEN CARD! Cody, get the card.”

Cody’s ears pinked. “Dude, there was no foul.”

“They gotta know I mean business,” Garett said, popping a knot of pitcher’s bubblegum on his tongue. Cody’s nose scrunched. Garett could be an arrogant prick, but that was last season’s gum, a perpetual salty wad in his life jacket.

They had drifted next to the coach boat—Garett toasting his shades to the blonde—until the whistle shrieked to zero. Now they coasted on starboard at the nose of the fleet, hogging all wind from the racers below and behind. For all his chatter, Garett read tell tales for direction and waves for incoming puffs like no one else could. Bastard.

The boat rocked violently. The wind pitched them perpendicular. The daggerboard surfaced like a waterwheel spoke. Cody leaned over the side, but his bodyweight alone wasn’t enough to plunge the keel back underwater.

Garett beat him to the rail. “Come on, you child. Work those ninety pounds.”

“One-eighteen!”

“What’s another twenty pounds against the elements?” Garett sneered, arching his back like a seal toward the cold. “Hook up.”

Cody stepped on the rail, poised to lock the harness into the bungee trapeze. He looked to Garett for the order. The skipper was holding the tiller extension by the very tip. One slip, and—

“Shit!”

The boat cracked into a white cap. The boom razed their scalps, foam blasting, and pitched into irons. Cody, still unclipped, almost somersaulted out, dangling by his fingers to the trap handle. Garett snatched the tiller back, righting the boat, before Cody drank any more salt. By then, they’d lost wind. Time. Distance.

Garett was quick to recompose. “What are you looking at? We’re behind. Get onto the trap and don’t fuck up again, or I swear to God if we capsize I’m not pulling your ass back in.”

Adelaide jibed around the marker. She let go of the main. The boat rocked sideways on its broad reach. They would sail downwind for the marker opposite.

Her crew wrestled the daggerboard up. “Holy fuck, we’re in first. Nice goin’ Lady.”

“Finn, spinnaker,” she hissed. Finn scurried for the halyard. As the spinnaker bagged, he clipped on the bowsprit and fed it before the wind. Adelaide tugged the lines. The extra sail ballooned around the forestay, blue with red accents. They gained at least five knots. Enough of a push that the bow dipped underwater. The boat flooded until Adelaide heeled to the stern.

“Fly on the trap and lean this way, will you.” Finn hoisted himself onto the rail by the bungee trapeze, tiptoeing her way. Bunching the jib sheet and spinnaker line in one hand, he hooked the harness with the other.

The boat groaned. She looked up at Finn. Suddenly they were airborne. No—they were keeling like a beach umbrella in hurricane. Adelaide reeled in the main, cutting its susceptibility to the wind. But she’d pulled too much. A draft must have caught the underside. The spinnaker twisted on itself. They were jibing. Blue, you son of a bitch.

Adelaide lunged, forearm raised like a car stop. “Finn, get down!” The boom crashed overhead. It bowled like a wrecking ball into her wrist, too powerful to stop. Yelping, she released the boom and switched rails as they turned. “Finn, spinnaker! Let go!”

Nothing. Just ripples. The trap delved off rail, along with the spin line. A jellyfish spiraled through the sludge. No, it was his drawstring hat, the khaki brim nudging her ankle.

Adelaide strained over her side, trying in vain to right the slant. She couldn’t balance Finn and the wind. Especially downwind, with only half a daggerboard for fulcrum. The boat sloped toward the foam. If she capsized, she would turtle, with Finn stuck underneath.

Adelaide unknotted the end of the main. The boom disappeared in its own irons, catching the jib. She let that go, too. The spinnaker deflated, and the pole dipped underwater. The boat continued weakly, a goose without wings. But it was flat now. Adelaide abandoned the tiller, dove for the trap and yanked up.

It was like raising a wet sail. Only a deadweight one, fully submerged, with a bungee rig that relaxed an inch every hair she gained. The waves parted around the metal trap hook. Eyes blurred, she grabbed the belt underneath. With one fierce wrench, she heaved him close enough to the surface to grab the yellow lifejacket. He spluttered salt in her face, eyes burning, and climbed up her arm. The cockpit thumped as he slid in.

“Holy goddamn motherfucking noseful of shit!”

“Easy sailor. You okay? Here, let me see—” He reached past her for the hat. His movements were coherent, but his face was grey. Adelaide watched him refasten the drawstring under his chin, his fingers bloodlessly slow. “We’re flagging the coach boat.”

He stared at her, dazed. But otherwise unyeilding. “No. We’re almost there.”

“Halfway there!” But she knew that tendon in his jaw. Whenever it quivered to the surface, he was beyond reason. She ran her hands through her braid. “Fine. You drive.”

He looked like he’d slapped her. “What?!”

“We’re finishing strong, you brain-dead fucker, so I’m taking the strong parts. Now grab the tiller before I chuck you overboard.” Blanching, he tottered over the cross beam and fumbled with the handle. Once he held it, she squeezed in front, reworking the jib and spinnaker.

“Ready,” he called. He trimmed the main until it rotated in its socket.

They resumed their run, now third place. But the wind picked up too, and the downwind race course stretched further from the shore, into the howling blue. “Luff!” Adelaide called.

“I’m skipper!” he yelled, teeth gleaming at the cement sky. “I want to see us fly.”

Adelaide bit her lip. When the boat pitched again, she took the ropes in her numb arm and the trap in her good one. Then crouched onto the rail.

“You can’t do that!” Finn screamed. She locked her legs,

“I JUST DID,” and craned fully out. Salt nicked her face. One slip and she’d free fall. No suspensions, no buffer between her and the icy sea debris. It was the only way she imagined sailing now, laying flat into the ocean spray. Acrobats didn’t use harnesses, so why should she on her trapeze? The handle slicked under her gloves. She dug in until her nails bit crescents in the leather. The other racers had abandoned both trap and spinnaker. Cowards, she thought.

Finn laughed. “I’m driving! He told me don’t do it, but guess what, Lady?”

“You JUST DID,” she finished, roaring with him as they passed the second place boat. She beamed back at her new skipper. Then noticed the dark tears. Finn was crying blood. Squinting, she made out a red stain at the brim of his hat. Against his wet hair she hadn’t seen the welt, but it was plain against the khaki. “Jesus, Finn. Pull over. You’ve got a mad gash!”

He mopped his eyes. “Almost there.” Adelaide tilted her head to see the green hull upside down, right in front of her face. The Bodygloved skipper, first place, gawked over his shoulder. He could’ve hiked out and rested back to back with her.

“Starboard!” she shrieked as Finn broke the stalemate. He laughed, blood dripping from his right ear. The Bodyglove fumed at his crew.

“Cody, will you look at them. Trap NOW!”

He clutched the rail. “Fuck off, man. I don’t exactly share their gusto for injury.”

Garett pumped the rudder. “Well you’re gonna need the trap once we raise the spin.”

“No spin, no nothing,” Cody retorted. “It’s too windy. Look, the refs are calling it.”

Garett frowned at the blue and white checkered flag. “I think that’s a blimp. Can’t see it.”

“I can. It’s N. That’s ‘Abandon Race’, dumbass. It must be the weather.”

Then came the whistle, shrill as a fire alarm. The other racers jibed for the breakwater. Garett deflated in a theatrical sigh and turned toward the harbor.

“Hey,” Cody said, “I don’t think the others know. They’re still going.”

Garett peered at his opponents’ stern. “Blue… Blue, Bluebe—” The rudder fizzled in the wake like a hot blade so that half their name was eaten by sea foam. But Cody made it out.

“Bluebeard.”

Garett cackled. “Way to botch a sick name. Blackbeard, would’ve been so badass.”

Cody shook his head. “No, Bluebeard’s a thing. He’s that psycho with a castle, who kept his dead wives in a chamber and told each next wife to stay put in the other wing. But they always strayed and became the next corpse. Curiosity killed the cat, I guess.”

Garett pondered the legend. “Blackbeard’s better.”