A few minutes in a blindfold didn’t enhance Audrey’s other senses as much as she’d like, but she could still hear the flowing river as Sarah guided her forward. She and her girlfriend had been going on a drive and as soon as they’d turned onto the highway, Sarah instructed her to put it on. Audrey, willing to go along a little bit if something sexy might happen, acquiesced. Then the car stopped, they got out, and the blindfold stayed on. How the river came into this mystified her. Unsteady dirt shifted beneath her tentative steps, each plunging Audrey deeper into her faith in Sarah. She would not be led astray, even though she’d entered territory beyond her understanding. If she could just ask where they were going, why, it would be so much easier. But Sarah had a surprise in store, and Audrey didn’t want to make it seem like she didn’t trust her.
With a gentle tug on Audrey’s hand, Sarah led her out of the dirt and onto wood old enough to give a little. Though even without her eyes, Audrey could feel that weakness had soaked into the planks. Surely, Sarah wouldn’t take her all this way to push her into the river. The high effort was characteristic of her, but Sarah wasn’t a prankster.
“Just a few more steps. I want to get you in the right spot.”
“Right on the big red X?”
“Very funny.” Sarah’s fingertips tapped on Audrey’s shoulder blade though the holes of Audrey’s loose-knit sweater above it. Sunlight battered the edges of Audrey’s blindfold. A rare clear sky in springtime Pittsburgh prompted their outing, though now it all seemed much more premeditated than that. As if Sarah had conspired with the sky itself to surprise her girlfriend.
Audrey kept walking without Sarah’s prodding and got yanked by the elbow right before her last step landed. “Careful. You don’t want to go in the river.”
So she definitely wasn’t going in the river. That narrowed things down. Sarah gripped Audrey’s shoulders with loose fingers prepared more for caress than direction, and oriented Audrey toward the north. Or east? Which river was it? Still blindfolded, any direction seemed as good as any other. “Okay, take it off.”
It was sunlight’s turn to blind her. Light, denied the perception it was due for several minutes, extracted the debt all at once. As her vision returned, a brown-and-white blob appeared before her. A cow? No, too large and too in-the-river. It was a houseboat. The white was flaking paint; the brown was rusted metal. The houseboat looked as if it had been abandoned decades, centuries, eons ago. Every inch of its surface bore the evidence of time’s cruelty. Audrey was glad Sarah hadn’t made her get onto the boat, for fear that she might have immediately plunged through rotten floorboards. She said, “It’s a houseboat.”
“I got it!”
“It’s your houseboat?” The prospect of spending any amount of time on that wretched boat made Audrey nervous. But why? Despite its dilapidation, the boat itself proved that it could withstand the worst nature could throw at it. Sarah must have seen that too. It wouldn’t be so bad.
“No, silly. It’s your houseboat. It’s a gift!”
Audrey looked more closely at the boat. Her boat. One of the windows was shattered; every section of the railing around the deck was bent in one way or another, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was certain to find a dead body on board. “And… why did you get it for me again?
“You don’t like it.” Sarah leaned her head against Audrey’s shoulder, sending up a whiff of ginger-scented shampoo. “It just felt right to me, you know?”
“No, no. It’s not that I don’t like it. You’re right.” Audrey tipped Sarah’s chin up and stared into her enormous eyes, which always felt like a pair of spotlights. She tried to picture herself on the boat through those eyes. Tan, muscular, moving rope from one location to another. She saw herself drinking something with a little umbrella in it, reading a bunch of poetry in the cabin, laying out on the deck with Sarah at night and feeling the tickle of Sarah’s short hair on her neck and listening to the water go by. “I’m gonna check out the inside”
Sarah clutched Audrey’s hand. “Wait. Maybe this is enough surprise for one day.”
“I just want to see the inside of my boat. It’ll be fine.” Audrey kissed Sarah on the forehead. Some of the tension drained out of Sarah’s face. As she turned to face the boat, away from Sarah, her own smile dropped. There was something in the boat Sarah didn’t want her to see. The dead body? It wouldn’t surprise her. Aesthetically. An actual dead body would be shocking. Audrey stepped onto the boat and braced herself to plunge through, but it held her. The dust and dirt caked onto the glass door to the cabin withstood her attempt to wipe it clean. She held the door handle tightly. The worst case scenario was a pile of skeletons. The best-case scenario was a fully-renovated luxury cabin. The reality would be somewhere between those two, and that left a lot of room for good things.
When she opened the door, the smell hit her first. Not the rotting body stench that she feared, not that she’d encountered that before; Audrey had always believed that if she smelled a dead body, it’d be obvious to her, and she stayed ready for it. Instead it was a mildew so powerful it was as though it was being funneled into a concentrated stream directly up her nose. But it was a cloud that enveloped her, embraced her, and bounced her out the door.
She pushed the hair out of her face and stared at the river. What had Sarah seen in Audrey that made her think that Audrey belonged on this wreck? Audrey was reasonably handy, but had never expressed interest in salvaging lost causes like this. The sun caught the river. Each of the ripples flickered to life. Audrey looked up to the bridge behind her, gleaming in the light, looming far above all of Audrey’s problems. She returned to the cabin.
Holding the neck of her tank top over her nose, she stepped inside. The interior met her expectations. Dirty walls with paint molting off, a built-in couch with the cushions stained and torn up, and a pile of smashed chairs in the middle of the room. As she walked into the kitchen—the galley— she noticed that the floor didn’t so much as creak beneath her.
“They don’t make houseboats like they used to,” she said, affecting the sea-weary whisper that she assumed would come naturally if she chose to live on the boat. Not that she would. Giving up her small, but cozy, apartment to live in the houseboat would be a confusing decision. She approached the rust-ringed sink. Hope once again raised its head as she turned one of the handles. It spat rusty water into the sink at first, then acquiesced and released a stream of clear, if still risky, water. It could be a clean, simple kitchen. She shook it off, admonishing herself for getting swept up in this, of all moments. Clear water or no, this boat was a thing that was happening to her, not something exciting. She paused before exiting the cabin, put a wide smile on her face, then walked out.
As she emerged, Sarah rushed over, running in fast little steps. Her owl eyes could pick up any trace of disappointment on Audrey. With the first step, Audrey was okay with the rust. The second, the damaged furniture became an opportunity to make the space her own. The third, total faith the smell just needed a little airing out. By the time Sarah stood right in front of her, Audrey believed fully that the houseboat was perfect.
When Audrey woke up the next morning, in her little apartment with slanted and wood-paneled ceilings—one of three units a landlord had carved out of a single-family house years ago— the houseboat didn’t leap to mind. Nor during her shower, nor while she brewed coffee. Only when she opened her cabinet, with a natural wood pattern pasted on top and particle board showing in the cracks, in search of a coffee mug did she recall the derelict floating on the Monongahela river. Even in this apartment, she was the owner of a houseboat.
She poured her coffee into a unicorn mug that failed to delight her, then took it over to the couch, but upon sitting down found that it felt like she’d dropped herself onto a bench. The cushion’s padding had been compacted to nothing. Audrey hoped that just flipping the cushion would solve the matter, but the other side had the same problem. She’d just sat in that one spot too many times. Switching it out for the other cushion alleviated the immediate problem, but didn’t dull the sting of monotony.
What would living on the houseboat be like? It was just an idle thought, causing no harm. Something to kill time with while she repeatedly blew on her coffee until it was tenable to take a sip. Would she be like a sailor? Hardened by the sea, river, skin rough with salt. No, the Mon was a bit polluted but it was still freshwater. Would she dangle her feet off the bow and compose great poems in her mind and let them dribble out into uncertainty with the rest of the water? No, she stumbled over her words at the best of times.
With a wreck like that, everything would become a task for her own two hands. That must be what Sarah had seen in her. Not just that she was handy, but that Audrey was a person who could remake her life with purpose and vision. That version of herself could rebuild the cabinets, re-tile the floor, repaint the exterior, patch up the hull. A perfect symbiosis between woman and boat would form over time until she understood every creak and whine of the boat, and it knew perfectly the curve of her foot against the floor. What a life that would be. An hour later, when she left for work at the cafe, a vision of her callused hands against the railing of the boat, overlooking the water, still lingered in her mind.
In Audrey’s old bedroom, she could count on sunlight to peek through the curtains and nudge her awake. But her bedroom on the houseboat was below the deck, where the sun couldn’t reach. Nor could sound, except for the gentle flow of water. Before she could reach to turn on the light, the smell of mildew greeted her. For three weeks, it had been the first sensation of her day, every day. If she could eradicate mildew from the boat, the city, the world, purging it not only from existence but from memory by scouring the concept down to nothing, she would be pleased. She turned on the light, and the sting of adjusting to it helped the mildew fade into the background, where it would lurk for the rest of the day.
The kitchen now had a working fridge, and the flooring was a simple vinyl tile. Audrey had been warned that in a moist environment it would eventually warp, but it gave her one less thing to worry about for the time being. She retrieved a box of cornflakes from the cabinet– from which the mildew re-emerged, then faded. Cereal was boring, no matter how much sugar she dumped in the bowl, but mornings were difficult enough without adding cooking to the routine. Even though she had a stove that mostly worked—the pilot light always went out— she had all the excuse she needed not to cook. The kitchen was cramped and the smell of anything she cooked invaded every corner of the boat. If she burnt anything, and she would, she’d have to go outside to wait for the smoke to disperse or stand within the cloud.
Audrey took her bowl and went up to the deck. These were the mornings she’d pictured, once she’d acceded to the possibility of living on the boat. Sitting crosslegged on the cool wood, she took a deep breath of the fresh air; in the morning it was new and by the afternoon would be all used up. She took a bite, crunching her way through the birdsong from the trees. Even when she was moving onto the boat, Audrey had some worries that she’d have to move right back out, but the boat had surprised her. Audrey had seen the sun rise for eighteen straight days, and not once for over a year before that. Soon it would be nineteen, as a golden ribbon adorned the edge of the sky.
Was this what Sarah saw in the boat? Saw in her on the boat? Once the sun had announced its glory yet again, Audrey scarfed down the rest of her cereal. She had a shift at the cafe on land, but had to paint the walls before Sarah came by for dinner that evening, since Audrey didn’t want her to be dizzied by paint fumes. Audrey creaked open the paint can, dipped the brush in, then realized she’d forgotten a step. She balanced the brush atop the can full of white paint, tapped it once with her finger as if instructing it to stay, then returned with tape. Running the tape over every edge, getting it in each corner just so, she prepared her canvas. Finally ready, she held the brush aloft and, after a breath, put it to the wall. Painting was her favorite part of the renovation so far. Up and down, up and down. The fumes infiltrating her mask lulled her into a thoughtless state, where nothing existed but the action of her hand. Neither the past nor the future could worry her. The brush up, down: a breath in, out.
Across the river, the lights on the children’s hospital changed colors. Beautiful magenta light gleamed all along the top of the building. Fifteen years ago, it had been nothing. Now, a fun building to house the children in as they recovered. Did it help them, as they worked their way back to health, to know that anyone could look toward them and see something beautiful?
Audrey picked up the bottle of wine with her left hand, since her right arm was held between Sarah’s body and her own as Sarah rested her head against Audrey’s shoulder. It was a humid night, and warm enough that Audrey was sweating where Sarah’s skin touched her. Ambient light from the city blocked out any stars that the clouds didn’t already take care of. A cushion to help them feel like they were alone, that the universe ended at the horizon. She took a sip, bitter and cheap. This wasn’t a luxury houseboat with luxury wine: she sought wine that she could buy with all quarters without inconveniencing the clerk at the liquor store. Audrey handed it off to Sarah, who took a swig. She set the bottle down and a drip of red crept to the edge of her bottom lip and dangled, catching a twinkle of light. Audrey reached her free hand into Sarah’s hair and smiled as the coarse tufts brushed against the inside of her fingers, then leaned in to kiss Sarah.
There was always the sound of water running outside the boat. In louder moments, such as when Audrey blasted music as she painted a wall or fixed up the floor, it vanished. But in quieter moments, like when Audrey lay in bed, her field of vision taken up by the top of Sarah’s head and most of a pillow, as Sarah idly dragged a finger up and down Audrey’s collarbone, the water made its presence felt. A tender moment, one which Audrey was glad to share with the water. Sarah pulled her head back onto the pillow and her eyes met Audrey’s, the warm green overtaken by the orange candlelight which lit them.
Sarah said, “I have a confession to make.”
“I enjoy confessions. Let’s do it.”
Sarah bit her lower lip and looked up at the ceiling. “No. Nevermind. It’s embarassing.”
“I’ll die from suspense.”
Sarah brought her face back down to Audrey.
“Sarah. I’ll die. I’m dying right now. Only you can save me.”
“Oh my god, fine. If only to save your life, I’ll tell you… I always thought the houseboat would rock during sex.”
“You’ve been considering it?”
“I thought about it. Like it’s always been this really intense fantasy for me to fuck a girl who lives on a houseboat, you know? So-”
“A fantasy, huh?”
“Yeah. And you know how fantasy is. When everything distant is close-up, it doesn’t resonate like in dreams.”
“So true.”
“But it’s been super hot. When I got you the boat, I couldn’t stop picturing us fucking in here.”
Audrey murmured in response, nuzzled her head against Sarah’s, and pretended to be asleep. So that was the Audrey that Sarah saw on the boat. A pit grew in her stomach. All her repairs were nothing more than play-acting. Her sore shoulders were the signs of a body pushed beyond its ability. Suddenly the tan and muscle-bound self she’d been aspiring to felt like nothing more than a child clomping around in her mother’s heels. Audrey wanted to yell, to scream at Sarah for letting Audrey believe in a life that couldn’t exist. But what had she done? Bought a houseboat that she wanted to fuck in. Everything else had been Audrey. With no one to chastise but herself, Audrey stayed quiet.
Over the next couple months, Sarah came by the boat less and less often. Maybe the thrill of it all was gone, and hanging out on a boat that still smelled a bit like mildew wasn’t the most appealing option. Audrey chipped away at the endless array of tasks which the boat provided her, and autumn came and went and took with it any hope of sunlight.
Though Pittsburgh winters weren’t necessarily the worst. The vast expanse of north above it on the map testified to that. But still the frigid air stung as she dumped a shovelful of snow off the deck. The river, too lively to freeze, swept it away and absorbed it into its motion. At least it got something good out of all this. Short huffs escaped Audrey’s chapped lips and vanished amid the gray clouds. She wished she could retreat beneath a blanket like the city had. But once the deck was clear she had yet more to do.
The last few nights, she’d been awoken by drafts that overwhelmed the propane heater. Now she had a pile of cheap foam insulation sitting in the cabin. Carefully, she pried nails out from one of the walls. While she crammed the foam in, she reminded herself that it would be only a few months and then the weather would warm up. The boat would be fun again. To reach the other end of the wall, she had to contort herself with her face pressed against the wood, everything to give her shoulder another inch of length to staple it into place. Holding herself so close, the smell of mildew was again overpowering. Thinking about what she was doing instead of the smell was so difficult that she could only do it in five second bursts.
By the time she had all the foam into that wall, her face felt like someone had run a cheese grater over it, her shoulder tensed up in protest, and the pile of foam meant for the remaining walls seemed no smaller. She just had to make it a few months. And then what? There would be more repairs to make, more maintenance to do, more toil beneath the harsh sun. Without Sarah’s eyes, she couldn’t see that tanned and jubilant self relaxing against the railing after a long days work. Instead, a perpetual series of tasks lined up in front of her and demanded of her energy which she didn’t possess. And the stench of mildew, forever.
She stapled a few of the foam slabs directly onto the outside of the other wall. It would do. The ice on the windows would wait for a scraping. It didn’t matter, the boat wasn’t going anywhere. But maybe that was the problem.
Audrey walked onto the deck and stared at the rope tying the boat to the decayed pier. As her eyes traced the bristles, she could feel the rope rough against her skin, holding her in place on this boat that wanted more and more and more from her each day. And it was all for nothing. She was tired and grumpy and never saw her girlfriend. She didn’t meet new people because all her spare time went to the houseboat and if she did meet new people, they would think she was strange because, far from being a tanned amazon, she felt wind-chapped and haggard like a sea captain, and that was discordant with all the nice people at the bar with their uncomplicated smiles.
For as long as she stayed on the boat, she would belong to it. Not to herself.
Audrey unknotted the rope from the boat’s mooring, but the current alone couldn’t budge the houseboat from the place it had languished for the decade before Audrey came along. Fine, it would take more. She tossed out all of the foam and packed all her clothes into the single duffel bag necessary to contain them, and set it on the bank. Not much for weight, but it’d do. She splashed into the water and pushed. The cold water slithered around her muscles and sapped their strength; any little bit of warmth which she lent to the water trickled downstream. Her shoes slid against the wet rocks along the shore, and her already-numb feet didn’t have the grace to find solid purchase, but she pushed with everything she had and the boat started to move. Slowly, it drifted away from her.
Part of her wanted to chase it. To journey with it wherever the river decided to take them. Waking up to sunlight somewhere unfamiliar and watching the trees flow by her and over the days regain their greenery until they surged to life would be heaven. But even if it ended up on warmer shores, she couldn’t imagine a version of herself on its deck unburdened by exhaustion. It would drain the life from her. Soon, the houseboat ducked beneath the great rusted underbelly of the 31st Street Bridge, and then was beyond her sight.
A friend of Sarah’s had a room available in their house. When Audrey told Sarah what had happened, she tried to pretend it was an accident, but Sarah was less interested in the houseboat’s fate, and more interested in finding Audrey a place to stay that wasn’t Sarah’s apartment. Implicitly, Sarah did not picture Audrey as a cohabiting girlfriend.
Her new roommate guided Audrey through the apartment. White speckled countertops, a dingy hardwood floor that the landlords had apparently rescued from the university’s old basketball court. There were three other roommates, and the next day they’d have a house meeting to discuss chores and bills and how they were going to live together as a general concept. Audrey imagined herself bickering over shared food and cleaning, but didn’t let any of that displeasure show.
Two months later, she came home with yards and yards of thick black fabric spilling out of her arms. When she got to her room, she set it all down, unfolding each peal of fabric until a black expanse covered the floor. She nailed the fabric above and around each window, until absolutely no light could push through. Then the doorframe. From the top of the dresser, she retrieved three half-melted candles and set them along the windowsill. With that, she nudged the dimmer and there was no light but for the flicker of Audrey’s lighter. First, she lit the candle nearest to her and took a long smell of it. Vanilla. Then the next two, wildflower, and sandalwood. She turned on her phone, momentarily brightening the room far beyond what the candles could do, but she set it down once she found a video on YouTube: eight hours of running water sounds. Audrey cocooned herself in the blanket and imagined a moving river as she held a shirt which hadn’t quite dried after the last wash to her nose. The mildew and the scents from all three candles combined in a strange and wonderful way to become the past, the future, and a long, uninterrupted sleep.
God damn you're such a good writer, this was so beautiful and poignant and funny and sad.
"The worst case scenario was a pile of skeletons. The best-case scenario was a fully-renovated luxury cabin. The reality would be somewhere between those two, and that left a lot of room for good things." words to live by!!