Page 48 of The Hitchhiker in Panama
“If this guy is spending all day with my daughter, I think I deserve to know what he looks like. Just in case.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’ll send you a picture. We took some photos yesterday.”
“That’s my girl.”
When I was off the phone with Dad, I spent a few minutes tidying up the few personal effects I had around Eivind’s room.
I wandered into the cockpit to look for Jonas. He sat in the shade, a black bucket at his feet and an old towel spread out on the bench.
“Hallo,” he said. “How are your parents?”
“Good. Dad said to say thank you for letting me go through the canal with you.”
Jonas smiled at me. “They are welcome. You were a good crew.”
“Even if I didn’t do anything?” I grinned.
Shrugging, Jonas said, “Everybody did something. You may not have handled lines, but you helped where you could. It is hard to throw people together in close places, but having you here has been good.”
“Thank you. What are you doing?”
“This is the winch.” He pointed to the bucket. I peered in and at the bottom was a collection of metal parts, gears, and pins, covered in a layer of water: the guts that made the winch work. “It needs to be taken apart and cleaned every so often. This one I had not had time to clean before the canal.”
“Can I help?” I asked.
“Sure. Take a rag here, and take a part out of the bucket and clean and dry it. Then lay it here on the towel.”
“What’s in the bucket?”
“Baking soda and vinegar. There is grease on many of the parts, and it helps to cut the grease.”
“Cool,” I said. I picked up one of the pieces and began to work, using my short fingernails wrapped with the rag to clean the old black grease out of the gears.
“What about you? What do you think of the crew?” Jonas finished cleaning a piece and set it down on the towel between us.
“Well, I like Eivind.”
Jonas snorted. “I heard.”
My face went scarlet. “Oh. My. God. We try to be quiet!”
“Lila.” Jonas laughed. “It is not that bad. We live on a boat, there is only so much space, and we get used to very little personal distance pretty quickly. It happens.”
“Still. That’s mortifying. I didn’t realize you were such a perv, Jonas.”
He laughed again.
“Honestly, it kind of surprises me to have as little drama as you do. Especially with a bunch of young, attractive single people.” We both went quiet. “What about you and Elayna?” I asked him.
Jonas sighed. “Nothing. We have not done anything in a while.”
I hummed in sympathy.
“Actually,” Jonas started. “Would you be okay with moving into Eivind’s room? And Elayna can go back to her bunk?”
“Yeah, no worries. Sorry about that.”
Jonas waved a hand. “It is okay. But maybe it is best if Elayna and I do not share a room anymore.”
