Emerson and Spencer

chapter two

She began to pull the mainsail up before she realized that she had no idea what she was doing. "That's upside down," came a voice. Spencer was walking up to her, grinning. "Here. Like this," he said, pulling the sail down. And then rigging it up again. "Thanks," Emerson said, and, deciding on attempting nonchalance, "I remember you. Weren't we in the same class or something?"

"Yeah. We were. And of course I remember you, Em." She smiled. And between Spencer's swift, concise rigging and Em's strong knots, they managed to fully prepare their boat for sail. Then they pushed off from the shore, into the heart of the ocean. Their speed produced tiny ripples of water lapping at the sides of their boat, threatening to spill in. Spencer and Emerson began talking soon after they had sailed out to sea. Em liked Spencer instantly, probably even more than when they were at the same school, and his easygoing attitude and skill when skippering made it easy to talk to him while sailing.

"So why are you here, then? Doing this camp." Spencer asked Emerson.

"Uh, my mother makes me do these kinds of things. But this one I actually wanted to do."

"Fair enough. So I take it you're not too close to your mum, then."

"How did you know?"

"You called her your mother. Not mum."

"Yeah. She doesn't really know me.  No one knows me, really. Don't even think I know myself."

“So why are you here?” Emerson asked. She was genuinely interested.

“Me? I’m a bad kid. Or so they tell me.”

“What!? How are you a bad kid?” Emerson’s memories of Spencer as a child were fragmented, but she did recall his aptitude for goody-two-shoes attitudes.

“Meh, I got into some trouble. Some kid hospitalised my cousin. I let him have it. No one really cares if you have a story when you beat someone up. They only care if you did anything. And if you did, and I did, well, you’re screwed.”

“What happened?”

“Well, I got tried at court. That was fun. They sent me to juvi for a week. It’s really not much time. More it’s the fact that you’re behind bars that’s scary. I don’t really know. So since then, I’ve certainly had a while to think about how I’m gonna sort my life out and build a new one for myself.”

“Oh god Spence. What do you wanna do?

“I’m going to move to Stockholm. Then, I’m gonna be a short film director there.”

"I can imagine you there, living that life. It suits you."

 And they kept on talking, starting on something meaningless and somehow progressing to something meaningful. Spencer had a knack for noticing thing that others don't notice, and Emerson was a natural conversationalist. They talked and sailed and talked and sailed for hours. Or was it minutes? Ten hours? Thirty seconds? Each moment flowed into the next into a wave that never crested.  Time didn't matter.