Page 33 of No One Aboard
Tia lugged the two tanks to the stern and laid them on their sides. She had stored her mask and fins in a cabinet in the chart house, so she headed belowdecks to find them. The counter, which was usually tidy aside from the open ship’s log, had been papered with maps. Tia stopped what she was doing and peered at the navigational charts spread out beneath and around the log. A protractor and a ruler were lying on top of Georgia. Someone had drawn out their sailing route from New Haven to West Palm Beach in pencil with little dots along the way marking the projected coordinates. Icara Key was roughly adjacent with Southern Virginia. There was a different set of coordinates marked in the ship’s log, circled several times with a red pen. Francis’s handwriting. He must have left it as a note for himself.
Tia located her mask and fins and headed back on deck where she’d left the tanks.
Rylan came up beside her. “You’re pissed,” he said.
“Thanks for letting me know.” Tia double-checked her gear as Rylan fixed his octopus mouthpiece to his tank valve.
“Thimble...” He sounded more exasperated than apologetic, Tia thought.
MJ walked up behind them, wet suit bunched up at her hips. She mussed Rylan’s hair, and he ducked his head sharply.
“Like old times, huh? Lord, I haven’t been diving since two summers ago when we saw that eagle ray in Antigua.”
Rylan avoided eye contact. “Yeah. I’m so excited.”
The three of them dragged their gear to the stern of the boat where Nico had unhooked the lifeline and settled on one of the sunbathing mattresses to strum his guitar.The Old Eileen’s orange life preserver looked like a drop of sunshine against the deck.
Unwind Yachting Co.
Safe to sail in any gale!
Tia stood shoulder to shoulder with her father and her twin as MJ took charge.
“We’re going to enter with a giant stride off the stern,” she told them.
Tia couldn’t help but glance at her father. Was this going to be a fight, MJ taking charge of the dive? Francis, however, seemed fine. He leaned behind Tia to yank one of Rylan’s shoulder straps tighter.
“Make this signal once you pop up to the surface to show all’s well.” MJ tapped her fist to the top of her head. “Like so. Then we will all descend together. I’m not sure how this dive site looks, so be careful and stay with your buddy.”
“I’ll buddy with Rylan,” Francis said silkily. Of course he would. Since they were so close now. Tia looked to see Rylan’sreaction. He had his eyes on the deck. Where had all his excitement for the dive gone?
“No, you will not,” MJ answered with all the flexibility of a mountain range. A muscle jumped in Francis’s jaw, and Tia cleared her throat before the two could go at it again.
She would have loved to buddy with MJ, but the last thing Rylan needed was to spend this whole dive demonstrating skills for Francis. If he were paired with MJ, he could focus on the fish. He could relax. Tia wished she could just buddy with her brother, but Francis always stressed the importance of them being with a more experienced diver.
The things I do for you, Minnow.
“Dad, Rylan’s gotten to be your buddy for dives all year,” Tia said. “I want to go with you. Please?” She mustered her best daddy’s-little-girl eyes, and Francis gave in with reluctance.
MJ patted Rylan’s arm. “That leaves us, sonny. Do you have your underwater whiteboard? You can take notes on any wildlife we find.”
Rylan nodded but didn’t acknowledge Tia or her sacrifice. She would find a way to talk to him alone after the dive. He’d probably thank her then for taking one for the team.
“I can go in first,” Tia announced. Protecting Rylan did that to her, flooded her with a strange kind of pride. She wondered sometimes if his fear made her braver, if there was only so much strength between them and she preferred being the one to have it all.
Tia inflated her BCD so that there would be enough air to keep her floating on the surface, then put her hand over her mask and the regulator in her mouth to stop them from flying off on impact. She took a huge step over the side of the boat and crashed down fifteen feet.
When they were all in the water, MJ gave a thumbs-downto signal that they were ready to descend. Tia took a deep breath, hearing the telltale sign of the regulator’s Darth Vader breathing, and slipped beneath the surface.
Bubbles crowded her mask as Tia sank and blew gently through her nose to equalize her ears. Nico’s guitar-playing and the steady heat from the sun were inconsequential the moment they were underwater.
A sandy bottom was visible about sixty feet down, and to Tia’s left was a cluster of huge boulders, crumbs broken off of the croissant island. A school of electric blue and black fish nibbled curiously at the dark underbelly ofThe Old Eileen.Damselfish, Tia remembered from her dive pamphlet. They were some of Rylan’s favorites.
MJ swam in front and used a metal rod to tap on her gauge, the handheld device that told each of them how much air they had. Tia took the hint and made a mental note of her gauge, which pointed toward 2800 PSI. Plenty of air for a dive. She turned over the device to check how deep they had gone: already forty-five feet.
Francis caught up to Tia and waved to get her attention. He pointed at the rock cluster near the island. Tia signaledokay, creating a circle with her thumb and index finger, with her other three fingers sticking up, and stuck her ankles together and dolphin-kicked, pretending she was a mermaid. If it weren’t for the steady presence of the tank on her back, she almost could have been.
Her father paused after a few minutes and gestured at something nestled in the sand, flat and seemingly made of sand itself. It was a regular fish that had been rolled out like cookie dough and now skittered over the ground, paper-thin. The ocean never ceased to surprise.
