“And the irony is that we’re all stuck with each other for the foreseeable future,” Richard says, laughing his stupid dorky laugh.
That’s not irony, that’s the damn point, I think.
Richard clears his throat and looks to his angry new wife. “But I think if we’re all going to survive this, Lacey, you’ll need to start being more courteous to your sister. She means well, despite the way she comes off.”
“Thanks,” I tell him dryly. Real compliment there.
Lacey just huffs, arms crossed. She can barely look at me. Finally she says, “Sorry.”
“There we go,” Richard says. “All is well.”
Yeah right. We haven’t even made it out of the Bay of Islands and we’re all ready to kill each other.
Or at least, everyone is ready to kill me and vice versa. This trip is going to turn into an unfair battle of three against one, three fucking serious grumps, versus me, the only normal person.
Thankfully, the early morning argument didn’t set the tone for the rest of the day. It actually passed by in a fairly peaceful way, probably because I put in some extra effort to keep my mouth shut and stay out of everyone’s way. Believe it or not, conflict isn’t my forte and the boat isn’t big enough to handle all my anxiety over it either.
We also come up with a routine of sorts for the next ten days, something that Tai says is extremely important when you’re trapped on a boat and time seems to work differently.
At night, Lacey and Richard will take the ten to three a.m. shift, then Tai and I will wake up and take the three a.m. to eight a.m. shift.
At 10 a.m., I will make breakfast (the only meal I’m good at).
At 1 p.m., Richard is in charge of lunch
At 6 p.m., Tai will make dinner.
At any time during the day Lacey will make bread or cookies, since she’s got the same level of cooking skills as I do and can only bake stuff. But Tai does say making bread on a boat is a popular thing to do during a long voyage, and that it’s something we’ll all look forward to.
Then, at sunset, we’ll all sit up top and have a couple of cocktails (heavy drinking is banned since we’re all on watch and I guess falling overboard is a real thing…Tai looked at me when he said that).
Meanwhile I’ve started a tradition of my own. After I put all my stuff away (well, almost, the big suitcase does take up a whole loveseat), I took out one of my blank notebooks I bought in the San Francisco airport. It has this really gorgeous cover, textured floral patterns over metallic pink. I decided to turn it into a log of sorts.
Currently, I’m sitting in the cockpit, facing away from Richard who is at the wheel, while Tai is making dinner downstairs. The journal is in my hand, as is a new pen that has the Golden Gate Bridge, a little reminder of home. Land disappeared from sight a few hours ago and Richard says we’ve traveled about a hundred nautical miles. The sun is low in the sky and bright gold and there’s nothing but ocean around us.
I begin to write.
Daisy’s Log: Day 1
I am writing this journal in hopes of having some sort of respite from what is sure to be a tumultuous voyage across the sea.
Okay, I don’t know why I’m writing this like it’s 1881 and is actually going to be read by someone, lol.
Anyway, I’ve never been good at keeping a diary but I hope I do this time since I’ll probably need someone to talk to that isn’t one of the three grumps on board.
I suppose Richard, AKA Little Dicky, isn’t a grump like Tai, nor is he super serious like Lacey. But he is a dork and he’s in cahoots with the two of them, so he’s not to be trusted.
He’s watching me right now as I write this, staring down at me through thick glasses. He’s a hybrid of Bill Gates, Milhouse VanHouten, with a bit of Ross Gellar thrown in. Don’t believe me? I asked a question about kiwi fruit and I got an hour-long lecture about pollinating, bees, and manuka honey.
Richard aside, everyone else seems to have calmed down from this morning. That was pretty intense. I really hoped that Tai would have sailed me back to the dock and dropped me off, but no such luck. We’re all in this together, which I guess is another term for making each other miserable.
But yes, Lacey has been nicer and even Tai has loosened a little. I can hear music playing down below, some reggae group, and Lacey and Tai are talking animatedly about something interesting. I have to say, I’m looking forward to dinner, just to see what kind of meal Tai can prepare. And then of course there’s cocktail hour, which we all desperately need. At least I do. I’ve needed a drink since I stepped on this boat.