Before Adam left with the Knick-Knack in tow behind the pickup on Sunday morning, Jake warned him that it was going to be a load for the vehicle, and not to be surprised if it proved to be hard going. He also warned that even with extra brakes on the trailer to be prepared for the rig to take a long time stopping.

Adam barely made it to the highway before he found out that Jake was dead right, as he usually was. It was clearly going to be a long trip.

He kept his speed down on the two-lane roads before he got to the Interstate, and even there didn’t get up all the way to the speed limit; the pickup was working hard to maintain that. It was also burning a lot of gas. He topped off at just about the first gas station he saw, and had to fill the tank again before he got to the metro area. The last time he’d made the trip, without the boat in tow, he’d made it all the way from Winchester Harbor on a tank that was less than full when he left. Before he got very far, Adam made up his mind that he wasn’t going to trailer the Knick-Knack any more than he had to. He consoled himself with the thought that the boat that replaced the Knick-Knack was going to be too big to trailer, anyway – at least with anything less than a semi.

While it was a long trip, in some respects it was a pleasant one. He’d had a good day sailing with Carolyn, and had learned a lot, not just about sailing. If what she had said was true, the threat from Brittany toward Mary and Matty seemed much reduced. It wasn’t something he could be dead sure about, and it was clear right from the start that he still needed to be careful about security. Brittany might or might not have detectives on the trail right now, but that didn’t mean that she might not have them in the future. As far as he could remember, he hadn’t told Carolyn anything useful about their location – not even that they were in Canada, let alone Newfoundland – but he couldn’t be dead sure that two and two might not be put together in her mind somehow.

Still, sailing on the Knick-Knack with Carolyn had been a pleasant experience, especially since it had been his first excursion into the world of unattached women since Brittany had come into his life a quarter century before. While it might have been a reach to call it a date, in essence that was what it had been. He wouldn’t have wanted to guess whether something might work out with her in the long run, in fact doubted it would be possible considering her long and mostly unsuccessful history with relationships, but it was a start. Besides, given the relationship between Brittany and her, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea. That didn’t mean he might not call her up and ask if she wanted to go sailing again sometime after school was out for the summer.

He was tired and the pickup’s gas tank was getting low again when he pulled off the highway and down the two-lane road to the marina at Frenchtown Harbor. The place was busy – it was a good weekend for being out in a boat, after all – but despite everything he decided he’d better at least get the Knick-Knack’s mast up and the boat in the water while he had the pickup here. In theory he knew he could raise the mast by himself; Jake and Amanda had explained the night before how it could be done, but he remembered that it went much better with a couple pairs of hands to help. As it turned out, it was little trouble to recruit enough help to get the mast stood up and the stays pinned into place, and from there on things went fairly easily.

One of the things that Jake had warned him about was that backing up a trailer wasn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world if he hadn’t done it before. He hadn’t; getting the boat and trailer over to the ramp was easy, but backing it into the water involved a lot of confusion, swearing, and mistakes. Finally, one of the dock hands, a kid who couldn’t be old enough to be out of high school, took pity on him and offered to back the trailer into the water for him. The kid did it in a jiffy, and soon the Knick-Knack was afloat again. Adam offered the kid a twenty for his trouble, and to his surprise the kid turned it down, saying that it was just part of his job.

A few minutes later, after driving the pickup and empty trailer away from the ramp, Adam went down to the boat, fired up the Honda, and ran it over to the slip that was waiting for him. There was still plenty of work that needed to be done to get the boat ready to go sailing, and even though he wasn’t going to go out with it today there was no reason he couldn’t get it as ready as it could be.

He was busy feeding the mainsail into its track when he heard a familiar voice. “Adam, I didn’t expect to see you here.”

Adam looked up to see Beverly, the woman who was preparing his father’s estate for sale. He remembered thinking that it would be nice to get to know her a little better sometime after their business together was completed. “The same here,” he replied. “What brings you down here?”

“Oh, I’m just here with some friends who take me out in their boat now and then,” she replied. “I didn’t know you owned a sailboat.”

“I didn’t, until about this time yesterday. I just started sailing a little last summer, and I decided to buy this to have something to practice on. If it works out I may trade up in a year or two.”

“Going to take it cruising?”

“Well, probably not this boat,” he said. “It’s really more of a day sailer that you could spend an overnight on if you really wanted to. But if I decide to trade up, I might well take off with it for a while.”

“That would be nice,” she said. “Jack and I used to get out a bit when we were married, but then it was mostly to run over to Put-In-Bay to go drinking. Jack really liked that. It was a power boat, and bigger than yours. I often thought it would be fun to go north with it, maybe into Canada, but somehow it never quite happened.”

“A friend of mine and I spent a week in the North Channel of Lake Huron last fall,” he replied. “I think that was what sold me on the idea of getting a boat in the first place.”

“That must have been fun. I’d really like to go up there sometime. Hey, would you like a beer?”

“I’d love a beer,” he said. “Unfortunately, I didn’t think to stop and fill up the cooler before I got here. I was just too anxious to get off the road with this thing and get here at all.”

“That’s no problem, I’ll just run over and scrounge a couple from Dave and Alison.”

“If you don’t mind, I could stand the break. My nerves are pretty well shot from dragging this thing all the way down here.”

She headed up the pier a ways to a somewhat larger power cruiser moored there, and was soon back, carrying a couple cold cans of beer. “Do you mind if I get on your boat?” she asked.

“Oh, hell no. Come on, find yourself a seat, get comfortable.”

She stepped onto the boat, and soon was seated in the cockpit. “This is kind of neat,” she said. “I’ve never been on sailboats much, but I always thought it looked like it was interesting. How come you chose a sailboat instead of a power boat?”

“Long story,” he said. “Have I ever told you about my son?”

“I can’t recall if you have.”

“He was a sailor, through and through.” Adam found a seat himself – he’d been wanting to sit down, and over the next few minutes told Beverly the story of how Matt had bought the Mary Sue, met Mary in Newfoundland on the way to Ireland, and how the two had stayed together right up until he died. “That will be two years ago August,” Adam summed up. “I guess I wanted to follow in his footsteps a little, to see if I could get some feeling for the things he did. I don’t think I want to try sailing across the Atlantic, but I could change my mind.”

“Yes,” she said soberly. “I can see how that would influence you. Have you ever been on power boats much?”

“Some,” he said. “I have a friend who has a forty-footer fitted out for charter fishing, and I’ve been out with him a few times. In some ways it’s more comfortable than this, but let’s face it, a big boat like that just doesn’t have the, uh, romance I guess I’d have to say, that a sailboat has. I mean, it’s not an expense thing, it’s a way to feel a little closer to nature and the world.”

“You might have something there. Like I said, I never had the chance to do much on sailboats. Would you like to take me sailing sometime?”

“Yeah, I might like that a lot,” he smiled. “But give me time to get a little more used to this boat and sailing out of this place. I’ll even bring the beer next time.”

“We’ll have to work out the time to do it. I’m pretty busy a lot of the time on weekends, since that’s when the sales usually are.”

“Maybe we can get together during the week sometime. My schedule is a little more flexible than it used to be, and I can probably work something out.”

“It might have possibilities. We’ll have to try for something after Memorial Day weekend. Dave and Alison are planning on taking me down to Put-In-Bay then, so that could be fun.”

They talked for a while longer, until Beverly said she had to be getting back to her friends; they were going out for dinner. Adam gave some thought to seeing if he could manage to get invited along, but decided he didn’t want to, at least this time, if for no more reason than he felt tired and grubby. They agreed that they’d be seeing each other sometime over the course of the week, since there still was the work on his father’s estate to be taken care of, but at least a line of non-business relationship had been opened up.

After Beverly left, Adam piddled around the boat for a while longer, getting things set up for taking the Knick-Knack out on short notice, and mentally making a list of things he’d have to get for the boat and things he’d have to bring with him. Something to drink in the cooler and ice were near the head of that list.

Finally, he felt like he’d done about what he could do for today. He got on his prepaid cell phone and asked Chuck to meet him in an hour. There were a few more things to do, like unhooking the trailer, locking the hitch and chaining it to a fence, but they didn’t take long.

Needless to say, the pickup seemed a lot livelier as he drove it back toward the storage shed where he kept it. In a way, it was a shame that he had to store it, because he was coming to enjoy driving it more than he did his car. Perhaps it was a little like Carolyn had said; he wasn’t exactly the same guy when he was driving a pickup, wearing a flannel shirt and jeans, and over the last month or so he’d discovered that he sort of liked being that guy.

And maybe it would make his life more interesting. Just this weekend the Knick-Knack had been a little bit responsible for opening up his social life a little, what with it being the nexus of one date and a starting point for what seemed like could be another. He wasn’t sure he liked the boat-girl Beverly as much as he liked the business Beverly, but that was something he didn’t need to contemplate right at the moment; he was tired, after all.

Chuck was waiting when he pulled the pickup into the storage yard and put it in the shed. “I hate to say this, Chuck,” he said. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the last time I need the truck for a while. At least I don’t have any idea when I’m going to take it out next.”

“Well, when you want it, I’ll be there.”

Though his sedan was a lot more comfortable than the pickup, he didn’t feel as comfortable in it as he drove back to the apartment. Maybe he was a little different guy when he was driving the pickup. Driving the sedan was a hangover from his old life, the one he wanted to get rid of, however slowly.

Monday morning he was back to being a suit, and the Knick-Knack seemed far away. There was work to be done at the company, along with conferences with Bob and Fred about the management restructuring of the company. While it was clear that it would be a couple more months before the changeover could take place, there was no point in not being ready to do it. Bob had put together some good ideas for the process, and Fred had, too. Right at the moment, it looked to him like it was going to work about like he wanted it to.

The next couple of days were busy, and Adam didn’t get to take the time off he wanted to. In his spare time in the evenings he thought about the odds and ends of gear he would need for the boat, and one afternoon he got free early enough to go over to the marine store and spend some money. He spent a fair amount of time thinking about getting out and sailing the boat, and the more he thought about it, the more that maybe doing an overnight or two appealed to him. There were a few good places to go on the western part of Lake Erie, Put-In-Bay being one of them; he’d never been there before, but he started thinking about things like a sleeping bag and cooking gear he could take with him. Most of that stuff would be useful for when he got a bigger boat, if and when he did, so his musings turned into a couple short shopping trips.

He only got to meet with Beverly at his father’s house once that week – there were schedule conflicts – but he could see that things were progressing there. “To tell you the truth,” she told him, “we’d probably not want to schedule a sale for late July. Among other things, there are several prospective buyers that will be out of town in that period. Besides, there may be a hitch in the probate, you never know, and it would be a real problem to schedule a sale and have to postpone it.”

“You’re the expert,” he told her. “We’ll do this how you want to do it.”

“How about the first Saturday after Labor Day? We’re early enough that we can have plenty of chances to get it scheduled and mail notices to likely prospects.”

“Sounds good to me. Like I said, you’re the expert.”

“Adam, let’s do it that way, then. By the way, I still want to take a ride on that boat of yours sometime.”

“No reason we can’t,” he said, making a mental note to keep it pretty casual with her – it wouldn’t do to let things get much more than that while they were working on the sale. When it was over with . . . well, that was in the future and the bridge could be crossed when they came to it.

As luck would have it, the weather the next weekend was crappy – chilly, overcast, with a strong wind that occasionally carried driving rain. In no way was it a weekend to take the Knick-Knack out sailing, and it really frustrated Adam; he was getting itchy about getting out with the boat and coming to grips with it on his own. Sunday was a little better, although still not the kind of weather he thought he’d care about sailing in at this stage of his experience. After a while he couldn’t take it any longer, so got in his car and drove down to Frenchtown Harbor anyway, just to make sure everything was all right with the boat. He gave it a careful looking over inside and out; it appeared to still be dry inside so apparently wasn’t leaking any water. So far, so good.

The next weekend was the Memorial Day weekend, and the weather was a lot better; by now he was really itching to get out with the boat. He got down to the marina before the wind was up, spent a little time getting organized, and headed out the narrow channel with the Honda supplying the power, then just waited offshore a bit for the wind to come up. It did finally, a nice sailing breeze, and he just sailed up and down off the coast – it was the first time he’d been out with the Knick-Knack by himself, or any boat, for that matter. By the time the day was over he felt a lot more comfortable about his decision to buy the boat.

While he was sailing that day, he thought a bit about his desire to go out and go cruising a little; it seemed clear that just sailing up and down outside the harbor would get real old, real quick. It would be nice to go somewhere, even if it wasn’t far away, just for the sake of doing it, and not just thinking about it.

After he got the boat tied up that night, he spent a little time going over his chart book for Western Lake Erie, and after some thought decided that North Maumee Bay, a few miles down the coast, might make a good place to try out an overnight. Back at his apartment that evening he gathered some gear, including a sleeping bag and a few odds and ends of cooking gear, and took a few cans from his kitchen shelf, figuring they would do for food. He stopped on his way to Frenchtown Harbor the next day to fill his cooler with ice, beer and soft drinks, and set sail in the morning. It wasn’t the adventure that Matt had in mind when he’d set out of the same place a few years before, but at least it was stepping outside his experience a little.

He had all day to kill, so rather than going direct, he decided to go around West Sister Island, out in the lake a ways. The winds were favorable for getting there; he had a solid course laid in and a GPS to tell him he was getting close, but still it was good to see the old lighthouse on the tiny island. He sailed around it, then pointed toward North Maumee Bay, just to the north of Toledo.

The winds weren’t quite as favorable on this leg, forcing him to sail close-hauled most of the way, which meant an exciting ride if a slow one. He had to tack a couple times to make good his course, but as the day was winding down he sailed around the Woodtick Peninsula, and off into the north part of the shallow bay. It turned out it was more than a little shallow, and he bumped the bottom with the swing keel several times until he decided it wasn’t worth the effort. He got the sails down, the keel up and the Honda going, and found a quiet place to anchor out in the backwaters.

It was good to see the successful day to come to an end as he sat in the cockpit, eating canned stew and sipping on a cold beer. When he got right down to it, it hadn’t been that big a deal, nothing like as big a deal as the simplest of Matt’s ocean voyages, but it was a step in the right direction.

That night he unrolled the sleeping bag on one of the not very comfortable bunks, but slept well anyway, the first night he’d spent on the boat. It wasn’t quite like being on the Pixie up in the North Channel, but it was something he’d done himself, and he felt proud about it. This was going to work, and sometime in his future there would be more distant horizons to cross, more unknown harbors to explore.

His big adventure of the weekend wasn’t something he really wanted to share around the office; in fact, hardly anyone there knew he had the Knick-Knack at all, and it wasn’t something he wanted to brag about, at least not yet. But it would have been nice to share it with someone. He thought about calling Jake, but decided not to – it wouldn’t have been as big a deal to him as it was to Adam. But, after thinking about it a bit, he decided one evening to call Carolyn to tell her about it in detail.

“It sounds like you had a good time,” she said. “I’m still up for going out with you anytime you want to.”

“Fine with me,” he said. “It’s fun to sail by myself, but it’s more fun to have someone to enjoy it with. How about this weekend?”

“Saturday would work fine for me, but there are three graduation open houses I have to go to on Sunday.”

“Saturday it is, then. I’ll pack us a lunch and we can meet up around nine. Do you think you can find Frenchtown Harbor?”

“If I can’t that GPS navigation system I bought for my car and paid through the nose for isn’t worth what I paid for it. I hardly ever get to really use it since I usually know where I’m going anyway.”

The weather came off nicely, and Carolyn was waiting in the marina parking lot when Adam pulled in a little ahead of schedule. It took a few minutes to get the boat loaded up, and soon the Honda was taking them down the channel.

Just for the sake of doing something different, this time Adam headed north up the coast, at least a little bit to see what was there. It was busy out on the water, with a lot of pleasure craft, but it was a pleasant day to be sailing. As always with Carolyn, he had to be careful about what he said about Mary and Matty, but at least he didn’t think he said anything that might cause difficulties. Carolyn didn’t have much to add about Brittany from what she’d told him the previous month, except that she’d heard that Brittany had settled on buying a small house in Wychbold, although the move would be coming later in the summer.

Finally, they had to head back to Frenchtown Harbor. “I’m sorry this day had to end so soon,” she said. “I’d be willing to go with you again sometime, Adam.”

“I’d be willing to take you.”

“I know this is going to sound a little strange, but I like the idea of going someplace and spending the night on the water. I’d be willing if you felt up to that yet and wanted some company.”

“Sure, it sounds like fun. We don’t have to go to North Maumee Bay, though. I’ll have to take a look at the map and the weather forecast, but we could probably go somewhere a little farther away. Maybe the Bass Islands or Put-In-Bay, or maybe not. We’ll have to see.”

“That sounds like fun,” she grinned. “It’s a date.”

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