Kelsey
Here is a thing I didn’t know about the yacht: It has a whole back porch that folds down like a
drawbridge, and when you’re sitting on it, your legs go right into the Atlantic. Here is another thing I did
not know: The Atlantic is cold. “Oh holy I—” “It’s not that cold!” “My toes!” I lift them out. Bruno
swishes his around like it’s bathwater. “Are there sharks?” “This is their home.” I scan the horizon. The
yacht rises up like a cliff behind us. The water slaps gently against the platform.
I lean my head on his shoulder. He made the whole boat stop just so we can put our feet in the water. I
didn’t realize he had to stop for us to do it.
“Are you looking forward to when your show resumes from hiatus?” he asks.
“Definitely. It’s a great cast and we’ve all gotten close. And it’s such a high to be out there.” I tell him
about our little backstage routines, and how the show is different every night. He doesn’t get how it could
be, and I explain the way the audience changes everything, and how the mood of the cast changes
everything, so that it’s like a kind of alchemy, and some nights
it’s this bright little golden machine and some nights it’s more like a lump, and you just have to ride it
out and get to the end.
He thinks about this for a while, and I watch him think. This is a guy who thinks so much more than
he says. He swishes his feet in the water. I swish alongside him, having gotten used to it, now. The water
makes little trails. The yacht must be drifting. Or maybe it’s the current.
“Why do you love watches so much?” I ask. He swishes his feet. Doesn’t answer right away. “They’re
incredibly complex,” he says. “Every watch has a personality. The metal itself carries a certain memory,
so no two components behave quite the same. The engineering has to compensate for all of it. Either it
ke eps time or it’s a bracelet.”
The last line catches on something in my memory, and I realize I’ve heard it before, or rather, read it
in the Sunday Ledger profile. “Either it ke eps time or it’s a bracelet.” There was a pull-quote, blown up in
gray next to his handsome, scowling face.
“So you like the challenge of watches?” “I suppose.” “What made you first get into them?” He looks
out over the water. “I took a pocket watch apart when I was seven or so, and I couldn’t get it back
together. Eventually I got it back running, and I liked the feeling of that, and I wanted to do it again.”
“What did it feel like?” He looks surprised by the question. “Just good.” “I love that.” His thumb is on
my cheekbone. “Why can’t I get enough of you?” “Because you can’t get me running perfect?” “I like
how you run just fine.”