By the time she got to the booze-cruise gangplank, Viviane had mastered her bow-hip-forward sashay to avoid crashing into things, but as she swanned onto the reception deck, the grizzled booze-cruise captain took one look at her and cackled, “Why so stern?” The stern joke launched into an evening of nautical barbs about Viviane and her sailboat. Metaphors about anchors. Requests from men to “float my boat.” Queries if she was “naughty-cal by nature.” Pam’s wedding proceeded, of course, in the usual way, as jokes about prows and bows, ship-shape bodies, pier pressure, sea-men, and mast “heads” percolated. Eventually Viviane escaped the fray to gaze out at the nearly setting sun, and she saw herself on that horizon, sailing solo and alone, far from a decade’s worth of disappointment. The pull of that freedom feeling was immense, and lured by the shimmer, she slipped over the side, plunging into the salt, the wet, buoyed by the craft that was her sailor dress. And as the booze-cruise reception floated away, Viviane’s legs became a hull; her arms, strong masts. Her shoes, the anchor. Her dress, the jib. And as she set west toward the pink waters of the setting sun, she let the winds fill and bloom her sails.
4
Iron Horse Literary Review