36 Girl #3
She didn’t care one bit about any of that.
When William, her true love, had proposed to her, he had told her he wanted her to pick out the ring—he hadn’t wanted to get her something she didn’t like.
She had kissed him and said she didn’t need one.
He said he wanted to give her something, though.
It didn’t have to be a diamond, but he wanted it to be something that would last their whole lives.
A desk, she had said. Maybe a desk?
They had shopped for one. They had had so much fun going to antique stores, tag sales, and the big flea market in Norwich, but he had died before it could be delivered.
William was such a fine sailor. He had been captain of the sailing team at the United States Coast Guard Academy, and he had been asked to crew on Alastair, a maxi boat in the Newport to Bermuda Race.
Caroline didn’t know that much about sailing. She had met William in New London, where she had attended Connecticut College.
She had majored in art history and minored in psychology and loved how they both told stories.
In her art history classes, she would sit in the dark in the auditorium, gazing at paintings up on the screen, hearing her professors point out details that unlocked the world of the artwork.
Psychology did that too—unlocked the mysteries and secrets of people’s lives.
It would be understandable to imagine she had met William at a college event, because Connecticut College was right across the street from the United States Coast Guard Academy, where he had attended. But that’s not how it happened. They had met at a bar on Bank Street.
She had known instantly from his haircut that he was a Coast Guard cadet. He had looked at her and smiled.
She had said, “Hi, Coastie.”
He had said, “How can you tell?”
“Hmm,” she said.
“Okay,” he said, smiling.
“It’s obvious,” she said.
“Why?” he asked.
“Things,” she said. He was so handsome, and she loved his eyes, and everything in her body swirled into a tornado.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I just . . .” she began.
“The way I look,” he said.
She said, “Not the haircut.”
“No, then what?”
“Your eyes,” she said.
She had gazed strong and hard into his eyes and knew that they had already spent a lot of time staring at the sea.
Then she lowered her head and tried to think of how she could tell.
When she looked up at him, she saw beautiful sage-green eyes that had gazed at the horizon but that were at that moment focused only on her.
“Because you want to save people who are lost at sea,” she said.
“Well, I am in the Coast Guard,” he said, and they both grinned.
Oh, and the time that had followed. They met each other’s families.
After graduation, she got a job as an archivist at a museum.
He shipped out, and it had been nearly unbearable for both of them.
Somehow, they had survived his first deployment, gone crazy in love over his homecoming, and he had proposed.
He had loved the fact that she wanted a desk instead of a ring.
After searching for a while, they had finally found the right one at an antique shop in Black Hall. It was a tiger maple roll top with three drawers. She couldn’t wait until they could find a house together.
But that would never happen.
That year, he was chosen out of many sailors to crew aboard a yacht competing in the Bermuda Race.
“I don’t want to do the race,” he told her.
“Why?” she asked.
“Not sure,” he said. “I just have a feeling.”
She had gazed at him, into his eyes. She had never heard him say anything like that. William wasn’t superstitious; he didn’t have premonitions.
“There must be a reason,” she said.
He nodded. “There is. The boat owner seems very interested in you. He keeps asking about you.”
“That’s bizarre—I have no idea who he is,” she said. “What does he ask about?”
William seemed to think about it. “It started when I told him I’d asked a girl to marry me, and he wanted to know all about you. The strange thing is, I have the feeling he already knew the things I was telling him. That you attended Conn College, studied art history, worked in a museum.”
“How would he know that?” she asked.
“No idea,” he said.
“What does he do?” she asked.
“Basically, he’s rich. He likes toys—his yacht, his cars, his Rolex, his art collection.”
“How did he find you?” Caroline asked. “To ask you to be part of the race crew?”
“He follows everything about sailing, and he knew I was captain of the team. We’d met a few times, when he came to watch the races. He went to Yale, and he used to compete against the Academy back in his day.”
“Maybe he’s just an old romantic,” she said. “And he’s happy that you’re in love. You are, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I am,” he said.
“So go do the race and win it for me.”
“I can do that,” he said. He kissed her, and the whole world fell away, and it was just Caroline and William, and she forgot all about the creepy boat owner.
The entire fleet of the Bermuda Race blasted off from Newport, and they had fair winds the whole way down.
They were leading in their class, and William P.
Mayhew died of a head injury. No one saw it happen, but they had hit a storm ten miles north of St. David’s Lighthouse in Bermuda.
William was found unresponsive on deck, and the crew assumed he’d been struck on the head by the boom.
The boat owner was the one who called Caroline to tell her the news.
He had told her that he would help her through it. He knew how much William had loved her, and considering that her true love had died on his boat, it was the least he could do. He asked if she needed anything. She said no.
Six months after William’s death, the owner sent Caroline an invitation to a memorial that he was holding for William on board the yacht where he had died.
All the guys who had sailed with William on that race would be there.
They wanted to honor their crewmate, and they planned to unveil a plaque dedicated to him.
Caroline didn’t respond.
Her grief over losing William was so great, she stopped being able to get up in the morning.
Sunlight scalded her eyes, and she couldn’t bear the blue sky because it was so beautiful, and William would never see it again.
She couldn’t eat. She didn’t want to live.
The boat owner insisted she get the best care possible, and he arranged for her to be admitted into Maynard-King.
It was such an expensive, private psychiatric hospital, and Caroline said she couldn’t afford it, but the owner said she shouldn’t worry.
Out of respect and love for William, he would cover the cost.
And from there, Caroline became Girl #3. Now, when she looked at the jewelry, the diamond the woman made her wear, she thought of William, and of the desk, and of how they hadn’t needed anything shiny or fancy or expensive to cement their love.
She would go along with the people of 1740. She knew how to fake a smile—not just with her mouth, but with her eyes.
That was called a Duchenne smile. She had learned about it in college, in one of her art history classes, where they had studied portraits for clues to the subjects’ psychology.
The professor had told them to look for signs of happiness or grief, tension or anger.
He had told them how to examine the faces in the paintings, to pay attention to their smiles.
A Duchenne smile was genuine, full of true happiness, and it showed throughout the entire face, especially in the eyes.
It had to show in the eyes. It was very hard to fake.
Sometimes she thought that William’s death hadn’t been an accident. William died because of the boat owner, she thought. Because he wanted me to become Girl #3, he had to get rid of William.
She would go along with them for now, wearing the ugly diamond, pretending to be who they wanted her to be.
But she would make them pay.