Sailboat Story

I’ve got to tell you about Peter. My new assistant. Peter. Did you know that the name Peter means something like ‘rock’ or something like that. I think it’s Greek. Ha! All Greek to me, at least! Anyway, this boat is fabulous Royce and it’s what reminded me of this story. You see, I was in the office the other day putting something down on paper about someone I can’t really talk about…Rita Sanders Dillon…when Peter came in. It was right after the weekend, I think. It might have been a Tuesday, but I’ve been having such long weekends lately it’s hard to keep track of anything. Ha! More wine, if you have a chance, Marshall. So, Peter comes in to make me coffee or whatever the publishing house sent him to do and he’s walking with a bit of a limp. Now, I would never pry into anyone’s business, but I’m concerned. So I go over to him and I ask, “Peter, what’s wrong?” and the poor boy bursts into tears. I mean, he’s crying all over his desk, and this is a big boy. He’s like a Brazilian-Russian-Philipino-whatever, six foot three and built like an ox. Now imagine this man is just weeping in front of you. I didn’t know what to do. What would you do? Well, I know what you’d do Nancy, but I would never tell Royce. Oh, you know I’m just kidding. So he’s crying and sobbing and finally he starts to get out what‘s bothering him so much. It seems that he had been visiting some friends from college down on the coast of New Hampshire for the weekend. A house full of mid-twenties coeds; wouldn’t you just love to have been a fly on the wall? Anyway, on Sunday afternoon they all went out sunning on a sailboat just. like. this one. They found some lonely cove somewhere, dropped sail, and laid out. So, a few beers later somebody gets brave enough to start skinny-dipping and soon enough they’re all in. At this point in the story, I had to go get a drink of water. Ha! I mean, wouldn’t you? So, they’re all native in the water when Peter decides he’s going to go show off. Not that he’d need to after dropping his shorts I think, but it’s not my story. Thank you, Marshall. This wine is great, Royce. So, apparently he climbs up to whatever this hook thing is here on the mast and, being of super sound mind, jumps off, catching his ankle on the rail on the way down! He showed me the bruise. It was as big as my fist! So everybody swims toward him, rushes him back on deck, people are crying, it was very dramatic. They’re all so concerned about Peter that they haven’t noticed that no one ever dropped anchor and so they drift out of the cove and off to sea. Now by the time anyone has got any idea of what’s going on another girl at the back of the boat passes out and hits her head! So now half the people on the boat stay to help Peter while the other half run down to make sure this girl’s okay and nobody’s in charge of the boat! At this point I don’t know what I would have down if I were there. Probably sit and watch the naked kids run up and down the boat. Ha! So, Peter, after being fawned over by nearly-naked, post-college, hot cakes, pulls himself together enough to notice that the girl at the back of the boat is not doing well. Apparently she was an epileptic and had a pretty nasty seizure after the fall. By the time they got back to land it was too late; she had died! Peter was just heartbroken! He said he knew the family and had been involved with the girl and it was just devastating! Can you imagine? How horrible for everyone! So I asked Peter, I said, “What can I do? Is there anything I can do?” because what else can you say? At first he couldn’t think of anything, but he finally got up the courage to ask me for a few days off at the end of the week, for the funeral. I told him to take the rest of the week off, but he wouldn’t leave. He said it would be too much time for him to sit around and think about what had happened. Can you believe that? I was just blown away! You never think tragedy, real tragedy is going to happen to people you know, but there it was, just inches from my desk. So, anyway, that’s my sailboat story.