So Much for Dreams Page 8

  When dawn came, she found that she had succeeded in making a thorough mess of the bedding without getting much rest. She dressed and went out, told herself all through breakfast that she had to concentrate on Cathy, forget Joe. She must start her search.

  She called Sharon first. The telephone connection was bad, a ringing sound hovering around Sharon's voice.

  "It's Dinah. I'm calling from Mexico."

  Sharon squeaked, "You mean you're down there searching for Leo's unknown Cathy?"

  "That's right. Sharon, do you have any idea—I just wondered if you might have been back into Leo's files, if—"

  "Look, Dinah, this isn't exactly according to regulations, but—I've been working at it. Actually, worrying at it, and I think from the description you gave, it’s got to be Cathy Stinardson. She's—"

  Sharon broke off and Dinah heard papers rustling. "She's seventeen, five foot four, redhead. She ran away from her foster home a little over a year ago and we haven't heard a word from her. She—just a sec while I—there it is. Last September Leo made a note on her file that she was living with a fellow named Peter, that they were hitting the road, going travelling. There—No, I've got nothing on Peter. I checked with my brother. He's on the police force and—anyway, he ran it through the computer, but there's nothing. Apparently there's no real way to check if she left the country. She doesn't have a passport. I managed to check that, but it doesn't tell you much. A Canadian can go to Mexico on just a birth certificate, you know."

  "Yeah." She gripped the receiver, bit her lip. "OK, thanks Sharon. I'll—At least I know her last name now."

  "Call me. Let me know if you find her." Sharon's voice was sympathetic. "We should be able to do something if you find her. She was a ward of the court and … if she'll let us."

  The morning was already hot when Dinah went outside. At the tourism office, she found an English-speaking clerk who obviously wanted to help, but had little to suggest. Migración, perhaps. Or the policía.

  At the immigration office she was assured that no foreigner under the age of nineteen could get into the country without being accompanied by both parents, or possessing a notarized letter of permission from the parents. Dinah knew Cathy could not have had a letter, and that she had somehow gotten into the country. In any case, the immigration authorities could not help, had no record of the girl.

  At the police station she went through several smiling officers before one spoke enough English to tell her that they had no record of the Canadian girl. He assured her, though, that a lack of records at migración did not mean Cathy was not in La Paz. If she’d had her tourist card validated at a border crossing, there would be no record in La Paz.

  No one knew anything about a Canadian girl who had been in La Paz in February. Not the police, not tourism, not the immigration authorities. They were all too polite to say what they thought of Dinah's sanity, but as the day went on she realized herself how futile it was. Warren, damn him, had been right.

  What could she do?

  Doctors? Everywhere she walked she saw doctors' offices. There were so many she’d never be able to visit them all, and would a doctor tell her if he were treating Cathy?

  The stores were still open in the early evening, and she bought two loose cotton dresses in a little shop on the waterfront. The dresses were cooler than her jeans, but more modest than the sundress she had worn on the last day driving down the Baja. She wasn't about the wear the sundress in town. As Joe had intimated, the Mexican men were very taken with her blondeness. She attracted a lot of smiles and whistles, but found that although it was sometimes embarrassing, it wasn't offensive. The admiration seemed to be combined with a courtly air of reverence for her femininity. The other side of machismo, Joe had called it when she mentioned it once.

  She next day she simply walked, and looked. Along the waterfront, along the streets with their little, crowded shops. Walking. Looking. Hoping to see Cathy. Too hot! Too many memories of Joe, little nudges, hurting with a ridiculous intensity. She had known the man for only two days. She kept telling herself that, reminding herself that he was almost a stranger. It didn't work.

  After the beaches, she walked through the shops, looking for a cute, pregnant, redheaded teenager. In the afternoon most of the stores closed and she found herself out in the street in the hot sun. Siesta time. If she had any sense she'd follow the Mexicans' example.

  She went back to her hotel room, showered and lay down on her bed. She tried to think of someone else to ask, somewhere else to look. The post office?

  The next morning she spent a frustrating hour talking to first one post office official and then another until someone produced a man who spoke English. He only confirmed what she feared. Lots of people got mail addressed to Poste Restante. The post office did not keep track of them.

  Finally, she went to the hotel desk and asked, "How would I find someone on a boat?" The clerk shrugged his bewilderment. There were many boats out in the harbor. He wasn't certain he had understood her properly.

  ***

  Would Joe be as hard to find as Cathy?

  She felt an aching desire to hear an English-speaking voice. Joe's voice. Dinah was wandering aimlessly when she saw a middle-aged woman driving a rubber dinghy up onto the beach. She looked American or Canadian, not Mexican. Middle-aged and approachable.

  "Excuse me, could you tell me how I'd go about finding someone on a boat out there?"

  The woman straightened from fixing the dinghy rope around a rock. Her hair was reddish, going gray, her face open and friendly. "What's the name of the boat?"

  "I don't know." Dinah swallowed. She had an awful urge to cry. "The man's name is Joe."

  "A friend?" Her brown eyes were mildly curious. "There must be five or ten Joes out there."

  "I don't know his last name." Why didn't she? Why hadn't she asked?

  The woman shrugged. "Wouldn't help anyway. The yachties go by boat names. Hardly any of us bother with last names for the people. We're kind of an odd outfit, I guess. You're not a yachtie, are you?"

  "No. I'm a Canadian, but that's not equivalent, is it." They laughed together and Dinah added, "My name's Dinah."

  "I'm Winnie. Is your Joe a Canadian? A Canadian Joe." Winnie frowned, muttered, "I wonder if the fellow on Free Moments isn't Canadian. Joe or John or—he was up in the States, but I think he's just—" She broke off, opened her mouth wide and shouted, "Hey, Russ! Hey, over here!"

  A man part way up the beach stopped and looked back. Winnie called, "Hey, who's the guy on Free Moments?"

  Russ walked two steps towards them, stopped and pushed his hands into his pockets. "Joe. He helped me fix that coupling when it went." He added something else that Dinah didn't catch and turned to walk away.

  Joe. The man who walked away when things got complicated. But he'd helped Russ with his coupling. He'd seen Dinah to La Paz with her overheating Oldsmobile. His eyes were icy, often cold, but there was a lot more underneath.

  Winnie was saying, "He's anchored down by the Gran Baja hotel. You can get a ponga to take you."

  A ponga was an open boat with an outboard motor on it. The one Dinah hired was piloted by a young Mexican who showed her to her seat with a flourish and an admiring smile. He didn't speak English, but he was accustomed to looking for boats in the harbor. She said "Near the Gran Baja hotel," and he set out as if he knew what he was doing. He stood up with one hand stretched down to grip the throttle of the outboard, his eyes narrowed, peering forward over the big bow. They meandered through the yachts in a zigzag pattern, moving fast. When the ponga headed for the back of a boat with an American flag, she said, "It's a Canadian boat."

  He grinned and said, "Canadianse," and she agreed with a smile. After that they made quicker progress through the boats, stopping only to look for the names on boats that had Canadian flags, or no flags at all.

  After a while, Dinah forgot her tension and became involved in studying the boats. How many were there? A hundred? Two hundred? May
be she would come down to the shore with her sketching block later, try to catch the feeling of these boats that came from everywhere in the world. Romance, adventure. She wondered if she had been right in thinking Joe was running from something. This was a world of its own. She was a girl who needed a fixed address, but she had no right to put her standards onto anyone else.

  "Alli!" The driver pulled back on the throttle and Dinah grabbed the edge of the boat to keep from falling over on the seat. The driver was still standing, his equilibrium amazingly undisturbed as the ponga surged on its own wake, coming to rest beside a sailboat.

  A faded Canadian flag was flying from the back. The name, Free Moments, was painted on the bow. There was a woman on board, hanging wet towels on the lifelines with clothespins. The wind was catching each towel as she placed it, streaming it out in a straight line away from the boat. As the ponga drew alongside, she stepped over to the edge.

  "Is—" Dinah's voice broke off. Either it was the wrong boat, or she shouldn't be here anyway. "I'm looking for a Canadian named Joe."

  The woman looking down at her was wearing shorts and a tank top, full-figured and gorgeous. If Joe had this at home, why would he kiss her and touch her as if …?

  The full lips frowned, then grinned. "Joe? Are you particular, or will any old Joe do?"

  Her grin was infectious and Dinah found herself smiling back, saying, "I guess I'm particular. Is he around? He might be the wrong one. He's probably the wrong one."

  Please let him be the wrong one! She had been fooling herself, saying it was for Cathy that she was here. For Cathy, yes, but for Dinah, too.

  "Hey, Joe! Come on out of there! Company!"

  A dusty back emerged from what seemed to be a hole in the back deck of the boat. Dinah heard a voice, his voice.

  "Yeah?" It was his body, stretching, pulling the kinks out of a back that had been too cramped. His eyes, expressionless as they found Dinah. "Come aboard." He didn't smile, didn't frown. He walked stiffly, loosening up as he came towards the middle of the boat where the ponga was bumping against the side. He was naked except for a brief pair of swimming trunks.

  He greeted the Mexican in Spanish, said to Dinah in English, "Come on, señorita, before he puts a hole in my hull with that banging." He held a hand down and she fumbled, then found a foothold and was up on the deck with him, terribly aware of his nakedness and of the other woman.

  She handed some pesos down to the ponga driver. He swept off his hat to her, then backed his boat away, whistling and grinning.

  The woman’s name was Alice. Joe introduced her, but didn't explain who she was, what she was to him. Maybe it didn't need explaining. Dinah felt herself frozen inside, and wondered how she was going to get through this visit.

  She pushed her hair back. She had showered and shampooed it only this morning, but it was clinging damply, tendrils lying against her flesh, intensifying the heat. "It's cooler out here on the water," she said nervously. "I—I really—"

  "I'll get a refresco," offered Alice, dropping the towels on the top of a shiny winch and disappearing through a hatch into the bottom of the boat. "Ice," she called back. "We've got ice! Of course you want ice, don't you?"

  Joe was still brushing the dust off his naked chest. Dinah had the crazy conviction that she could feel his skin, that it was her fingers touching, brushing. "Yes," she agreed. "Ice would be lovely."

  She found herself sitting in a deck chair, saying stiffly, "I thought I'd come out and thank you for helping me down the Baja."

  His knee brushed hers as he sat down, his bare flesh, her knee exposed by the sweep of her skirt. Then he was sitting in the other deck chair, too close.

  "I've been sanding the lazarette. I want to get it repainted before I leave."

  "What's a lazarette?" Leave? She swallowed and curled her fingers around the arms of the chair. He was leaving. She knew that. He'd told her before. The South Pacific. She made her hands relax and forced her mind to concentrate on Alice, forced her lips to return his smile.

  He was saying, "… aft deck, sort of a hatch for storing ropes and such. I've got my stern rope locker back there." He shrugged. "Well, anyway, I—How's the search going?"

  Alice came back up on deck. She had lean, hard, curvy legs. She looked like Raquel Welch. Dinah made herself smile. "Thanks for the drink." Refresco must be soda pop, because this tasted like straight ginger ale. To Joe, she said, "I haven't found her."

  Alice asked, "Are you looking for someone? Who is she?"

  "A … a friend. She's seventeen." She described Cathy in detail and Alice frowned.

  "I haven't seen her, or if I have—" Alice shrugged shapely shoulders, said, "Joe, why don't I make the trip to the market while you and Dinah visit?"

  Dinah looked at the varnished wooden mast, stared at the ropes and fittings that must all have some purpose. Alice went below, returned in a wrap-around skirt and leaped lightly down into a rubber dinghy. When she was gone, Dinah still didn't know what to say. If Joe was her man, she wouldn't walk away and leave him with another woman.

  Joe didn't seem to feel the need for many words. He leaned back and sipped on the icy drink, said idly, "Thanks for giving me an excuse for a break," then said nothing more. The silence wasn't bothering him and after a few moments she realized that it was a nice silence, comfortable, that the motion of the boat was subtle and soothing. She closed her eyes.

  She heard Joe get up, but it seemed too much effort to look. His footsteps were quiet, as if he were in bare feet. She remembered the look of his bare feet and resisted the temptation to turn and look. Today he was wearing so little that he didn't bear too much looking at.

  Music came over the water. Later she realized that the music was here, coming from inside his boat. Her fingers slackened and the glass was gone, a brief brush of Joe's fingers. She smiled. "I really shouldn't sleep," she said with a whisper.

  "Why not? Relax, the boat's not going anywhere." Then he was gone and she heard after a while sounds that might be sanding. When she opened her eyes, everything was blue and quiet, the wind a soft caress on her face, a big blue canopy overhead shielding her from the sun.

  Why not? She let her eyes close again and the soft motion of the boat in the water took over, blending with the music she could not identify.

  It was the splash that woke her. She sat up, felt a sense of peace and well-being mixed with confusion. The water. A boat. Joe's boat. She relaxed a little and looked around, brushed at the drops of water that had splattered her arms.

  "Want to come in?" He was a few feet away, treading water, licking drops of the salty stuff from his mustache. "It's nice. The perfect cure for a hot afternoon." Tempted, she looked down at her dress and he said, "Don't worry about it. Strip off to your bra and panties. None of the other boats are close enough to know the difference."

  He disappeared in a surge of water and bubbles. She stood up, trying to see where he had gone. She saw a glimpse of one white foot towards the front of the boat. The other boats were all around, but when she focused on them, it was hard to see details. She fingered the thin fabric of her dress and wondered if she would be insane, then wondered who would pat her back if she remained up here on deck, hot and sweaty and repressed.

  "To hell with it."

  No one heard her. No one saw, either, as she stripped off the dress. Thankfully the bra she was wearing was reasonably modest, and she wasn't wearing skimpy bikini panties. She was covered, although heaven knew what would happen when the water hit her. She hesitated another second, staring at the water where she had last seen Joe, then she balanced on the rail and dove in.

  The water closed over her with a cool, refreshing wetness. She swam underwater for a few strokes, then surfaced and pushed her hair out of the way. Then she dove down again just as Joe came to the surface. When she was breathless from swimming underwater, she floated to the surface and turned on her back to kick her way in a lazy circle around the boat.

  She stayed in the water when he g
ot out. She had her doubts about the modesty of her outfit once it was soaking wet. She closed her eyes to put off the moment of finding out, rolled over and struck out slowly in another circle, this time on her stomach. Eventually she tired and came to a rest hanging on the bottom rung of his boarding ladder. She couldn't see any sign of Joe. She climbed up quickly and found a big towel draped over the chair where she had been sitting. That was nice of him, preserving her modesty without saying anything about it. Quickly, she wrapped herself in the towel.

  "Thanks!" she called. "That was delicious!"

  "Wasn't it," He came up from below, head first, then his bare chest with drops of water still drying. His chest hair had dried in a tantalizing swirl that led down towards the waist of his trunks. "Here's a shirt,” he offered. “It's big, should cover everything while you get your underwear dry."

  What about Alice? Was the other woman never coming back? Wouldn't she think this was odd, Dinah lazing around in Joe's oversized shirt? Dinah swallowed, then let Joe show her how to use the sun shower to rinse the salt off her body. He had rigged up a privacy curtain around the cockpit and she showered with the contents of the plastic bottle, rinsing the salt off and shampooing her hair for the second time that day, using his shampoo ... or Alice's. Then she dried and put on his shirt, hanging her underwear on the lifeline with clothespins and trying to pretend they weren't there.

  Joe brought her another cold drink, this time iced water with lime squeezed into it. She joined him in the deck chairs and sipped, asking, "Are you going to give me a tour of your boat?" She had forgotten her need to make excuses for coming out here. Except for the thought of Alice off shopping somewhere, being here seemed like the most natural thing in the world. And he was dressed now, shorts and a cotton shirt. That made it a little easier to look at him without her mind going wild.

  "Sure." He took a deep drink. "In a few minutes." He looked at her, grinned. "That shirt looks better on you than it ever did on me."

  "It's big." And a good thing! She needed covering for her thighs, something to make it possible to pretend she wasn't naked underneath.