AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Luke
Durban, South Africa
I spent the first night Alexa was away alone on the cat, lying in the double bed, tucked away in one of the pontoons. I missed her terribly.
ALEXA: I'm in my bed on the plane, lying down in the lap of luxury, so I hope you're happy.
She sent me a pic of her first-class seat on British Airways. She was on a 747 and the seat was fantastic. At night, it laid down flat and the area was walled off by a sliding door that gave her privacy.
LUKE: I'm ecstatic that you have a nice seat. Enjoy. In contrast, my bed -- our bed -- is terribly lonely.
ALEXA: Aww... I'm so sorry. I miss you, too.
LUKE: While you're keeping busy with all the action on the plane, I am all alone, pondering the meaning of life...
ALEXA: It's good to ponder. You have John and Greg with you, so I expect the three of you will be having a good old time.
LUKE: We will, but I've grown accustomed to your presence, Ms. Alexandria Dixon, soon to be Marshall.
ALEXA: Me, too. We'll be together again soon. XOXOXO
LUKE: OXOXOX
John was going to arrive the following day so I would have some time alone anchored in the bay and then the two of us would continue our trip along the coast of South Africa. We'd cross the South Atlantic Ocean and would arrive on the southernmost coast of South America for the last leg of our journey up to the Caribbean and home.
I hoped Alexa would be able to join us some time before we got back to Patchogue but that would depend on how Candace fared over the coming week or two. She really wanted to see the islands but would probably miss out. I had no doubt she'd want to stay with Candace while she got settled back into their apartment. Once she felt sure that Candace could handle things, she'd fly to the closest port near our position and rejoin The Phoenix.
John would be with us, but she enjoyed his company, so I wasn't worried about the three of us managing on the leg home.
I hoped she could join us sooner than later, but Candace came first.
I went to sleep that night, reading over her texts which spoke of her flight and her layovers in Johannesburg and then Atlanta. By the time she arrived in Manhattan the next day, I was at the airport near Durban to meet John. He looked eager to see me when he finally arrived near the baggage area in the airport.
"Hey, buddy," he said, and we embraced, clapping each other on the back. "Long time, no see. The last time I saw you, you were the most eligible bachelor in all of Manhattan. Hell, probably in all of the East Coast of the USA. Now look at you," he said and pulled back, checking me over with a critical eye. "An old man of the sea. Replete with beard and weathered and tanned skin. All you need is a pipe and you’d be completely Hemingwayesque.”
I laughed at his description of me. Yes, I did look like an old sailor, my hair below my collar, a considerable growth of whiskers on my jaw, wearing a t-shirt and long-sleeved shirt over top, a pair of Bermuda shorts and some deck shoes. I even had an old floppy hat for good measure.
"You're just jealous that I'm living the dream," I said. "The sun, the sea and my sweetheart. That's all a sailor needs."
"Aye, matey," he said. "I can't wait to get out on The Phoenix again. Let's get my bags and get the hell out of Dodge."
So, we did.
Once we arrived at the marina where The Phoenix was anchored, all my cares seemed to fade away and so did John's. We took the dingy out to the cat and got John settled in to the bedroom in the other pontoon. Once he was unpacked, we sat down and went over the next leg of our journey. We'd be sailing up the coast of South Africa and then taking the shortest route to the tip of South America.
The evening before we were scheduled to depart, we picked up a bottle of good South African wine, and some fresh seafood and we had a nice barbecue on the deck of The Phoenix.
"Ahh, this is the life," John said. "Seriously. I missed the sound of the water on the hull. The cry of the gulls. The sun setting on the horizon..."
"You're getting all poetic on me," I said, giving John a grin.
"You have to admit there's nothing like it."
"No," I said. "There isn't."
"The only thing that could possibly compete would be liftoff from Cape Canaveral on the way to Mars, am I right?”
I didn't say anything. Of course, that had been my dream for the year before I met Alexa, after my disastrous breakup with Jenna. I wanted to use my considerable fortune to get in on the space race, maybe hook up with one of the other space entrepreneurs, with an eye to colonizing Mars. Now, I couldn't imagine leaving Earth because that was where Alexa was.
