After searching for a while, they had finally found the right one at an antique shop in Black Hall. It was a tiger maple roll top with three drawers. She couldn’t wait until they could find a house together.
But that would never happen.
That year, he was chosen out of many sailors to crew aboard a yacht competing in the Bermuda Race.
“I don’t want to do the race,” he told her.
“Why?” she asked.
“Not sure,” he said. “I just have a feeling.”
She had gazed at him, into his eyes. She had never heard him say anything like that. William wasn’t superstitious; he didn’t have premonitions.
“There must be a reason,” she said.
He nodded. “There is. The boat owner seems very interested in you. He keeps asking about you.”
“That’s bizarre—I have no idea who he is,” she said. “What does he ask about?”
William seemed to think about it. “It started when I told him I’d asked a girl to marry me, and he wanted to know all about you. Thestrange thing is, I have the feeling he already knew the things I was telling him. That you attended Conn College, studied art history, worked in a museum.”
“How would he know that?” she asked.
“No idea,” he said.
“What does he do?” she asked.
“Basically, he’s rich. He likes toys—his yacht, his cars, his Rolex, his art collection.”
“How did he find you?” Caroline asked. “To ask you to be part of the race crew?”
“He follows everything about sailing, and he knew I was captain of the team. We’d met a few times, when he came to watch the races. He went to Yale, and he used to compete against the Academy back in his day.”
“Maybe he’s just an old romantic,” she said. “And he’s happy that you’re in love. You are, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I am,” he said.
“So go do the race and win it for me.”
“I can do that,” he said. He kissed her, and the whole world fell away, and it was just Caroline and William, and she forgot all about the creepy boat owner.
The entire fleet of the Bermuda Race blasted off from Newport, and they had fair winds the whole way down. They were leading in their class, and William P. Mayhew died of a head injury. No one saw it happen, but they had hit a storm ten miles north of St. David’s Lighthouse in Bermuda. William was found unresponsive on deck, and the crew assumed he’d been struck on the head by the boom. The boat owner was the one who called Caroline to tell her the news.
He had told her that he would help her through it. He knew how much William had loved her, and considering that her true love had died on his boat, it was the least he could do. He asked if she needed anything. She said no.
Six months after William’s death, the owner sent Caroline an invitation to a memorial that he was holding for William on board the yacht where he had died. All the guys who had sailed with William on that race would be there. They wanted to honor their crewmate, and they planned to unveil a plaque dedicated to him.
Caroline didn’t respond.
Her grief over losing William was so great, she stopped being able to get up in the morning. Sunlight scalded her eyes, and she couldn’t bear the blue sky because it was so beautiful, and William would never see it again. She couldn’t eat. She didn’t want to live. The boat owner insisted she get the best care possible, and he arranged for her to be admitted into Maynard-King. It was such an expensive, private psychiatric hospital, and Caroline said she couldn’t afford it, but the owner said she shouldn’t worry. Out of respect and love for William, he would cover the cost.
And from there, Caroline became Girl #3. Now, when she looked at the jewelry, the diamond the woman made her wear, she thought of William, and of the desk, and of how they hadn’t needed anything shiny or fancy or expensive to cement their love.
She would go along with the people of 1740. She knew how to fake a smile—not just with her mouth, but with her eyes.
That was called a Duchenne smile. She had learned about it in college, in one of her art history classes, where they had studied portraits for clues to the subjects’ psychology. The professor had told them to look for signs of happiness or grief, tension or anger. He had told them how to examine the faces in the paintings, to pay attention to their smiles. A Duchenne smile was genuine, full of true happiness, and it showed throughout the entire face, especially in the eyes. It had to show in the eyes. It was very hard to fake.
Sometimes she thought that William’s death hadn’t been an accident.William died because of the boat owner, she thought.Because he wanted me to become Girl #3, he had to get rid of William.
