Page 26 of The Sailor in Polynesia
I waved goodbye and headed back into the galley, ready to make my own sushi dinner.
* * *
The Fakarava Yacht Services office was a small house with a wooden porch. We weren’t the first cruisers to arrive: a couple and a family were already sitting on the chairs, their phones and laptops out.
Jonas disappeared inside to talk to the staff while the rest of us settled into a small round table. I connected to the Wi-Fi and let the notifications ping in.
I ignored my social media accounts for now and checked my personal email. I responded to a few emails from friends, wrote a long email to my sister, Dawn, and logged in to check my bank account.
Moving through the apps on my phone, I read over all the notifications and responded when I wanted to. I pretty much ignored anything having to do with my channel and focused on the personal, lovely things: random hellos from friends and long-winded updates from my close-knit family. There were familial group texts that made me laugh, my siblings and their families in summer shenanigans.
Wrapping things up, I checked in with theEikcrew. They had mostly brought their laptops and were working away, brows creased in absolute concentration.
I stood and stretched. “I’m going to go walk around town, check out the stores.”
Marcella stood up, dusting her hands off. “I need to shop too. I will join you if it is okay?”
“Sure.”
We took off down the road back toward town.
“Do you cook, Mia?”
I scrunched up my nose. “Not well. Certainly not like you do.”
“It does help to be professionally trained. What do you like to cook?”
“My mom was a big fan of complicated meals, and I grew up in Seattle where it is usually cold and rainy. I have a fairly extensive repertoire of stews and soups that do me no good here in the tropics.”
“Ah yes. You need some light summer soups. Italians are renowned for those.”
“Where are you from in Italy?”
“Campania, near Naples. The coast gives us amazing seafood, so that’s our specialty, at least in Italy anyway. But I went to the UK to study to be a chef.”
“Right. And Lila said you are leavingEik?”
“Yes. When we arrived in Polynesia, I sent out emails to my friends in the industry and several placement agencies. But this morning I got an email from a former colleague, Seb. He was connecting me with a job opportunity. Recommending me, actually.”
“Okay.”
“And I’ve slept with him.”
“Oooohhhh.”
We reached themagasin, a small local shop, which was the only place we could buy groceries here. Our conversation took a hiatus as we picked through the fresh produce: rubbery carrots, sprouting onions, green tomatoes.
After finding enough for me for a few days, I walked up and down the aisles of the shop. Everything was canned goods or snack items imported from overseas. I stuffed a few rolls of cookies into my basket and some tins of tuna.
There was a cheese display—we were in French territories, after all—and the cheese was remarkably cheap, stamped with subsidized stickers. I picked out several pieces and paid.
Marcella took a lot longer than me. In the end, I had one bag and she had five large reusable bags full of food, plus a backpack. The baguettes wouldn’t fit anywhere, so we stuffed them under our arms.
“It is a good thing I have you with me. Normally I make the men help me.”
“So this man. He’s recommending you for the job, so it must not have ended poorly, right?”
Marcella adjusted a strap on her shoulder. “It was a one-time thing, but we did get caught, and of course, I got fired.”
