Adrift
Copyright© 2025 by Gina Marie Wylie
Chapter 10
Sandy played a Bach Concerto with Harry. Even a minute into the piece, Sandy knew it wasn’t working. Harry glanced at her, shrugged, but continued to play. They both stopped after the first movement.
Then Jack, the Marine sergeant, came up, and he too had a violin. “Now, that was fine!” he said. “But we need a little toe-tappin’ music!”
He started playing. Sandy listened, astonished. Sixteenths and thirty-seconds. Notes that even with practice, she had trouble with. Effortless and elegant, as precise as any concert virtuoso could perform. Rollicking music, music that did indeed make your toes tap. Tap, in fact, faster than most people could manage.
Sandy looked around the room. When she had played, everyone had paid polite attention, and maybe one in ten cared at all. Most of these people had hated it. Yet, the Marine’s music had grabbed everyone, even the most serious of the doubters.
She wanted to do that! What is it about his music that gripped people the way it did? Some of it. Some people. Here and now, most of them!
She studied the man; she listened carefully to the music, and watched the audience. She had no apologies; she loved music. Yes, part of this was the music; part the greater was the man playing it. Sandy’s eyes went to Harry. No way you can play cello with this -- well, almost none. But it didn’t explain the dreamy look on Harry’s face as she watched the Marine.
Sandy knew her sister. They were, after all, closer than anyone else on the planet. Harry liked him -- maybe more than he liked him.
Sandy closed her eyes, bowing her head. Always, always, she’d let Harry have the things Harry had really wanted. This man was special! Harry had known it first. Sandy didn’t know how or why, but Harry knew he was special. Now, Sandy knew it, too. Every time in the past, she’d let Harry win when Harry really wanted something. Her sister beat Sandy every time they had a real fight.
Could she let it go this time?
Sandy returned to watching the Marine play. He was obviously enjoying himself. It’s music, Harry. You understand, in your own way -- a little. Anyone who can play like this, he’s special. It’s not going to happen, Harry, not this time. They were going to fight again. Sandy was sure Harry would win, but she just wasn’t going to quit this time. One day, Harry, your magic will wear thin.
Sandy looked around, feeling an enormous lump in her throat. Oh! My! God! Look around you, girl! Where are you? What is going to happen if she fought Harry?
The music finished, the Marine took a bow, and the audience went into overdrive with applause. She saw him look at Harry and felt total despair. That was not the look of fondness on his face that someone would have for a mascot ... his expression was intent, serious. He cares about Harry! She couldn’t! She just couldn’t!
Sandy felt a movement next to her, looked up, and saw the Chinese woman.
“Right now,” Mei Lei said softly, “you are telling yourself about the impossible dream. Your sister is a force of nature, Sandy Fredericks! I’m serious; she’s a cosmic force! Not easily balked! Dangerous to balk!”
Sandy met the woman’s eyes. “I won’t quit.”
“I know. In your shoes, I’d think the same thing.” She touched Sandy’s arm, motioned over towards a dark spot. Sandy went with her, her back ramrod straight, her mind bristling with anger.
“I won’t quit,” Sandy repeated defiantly when they were away from everyone else.
“I understand,” Mei Lei told her. “However, there are things you should understand.
“Today, Harry talked to Becky; she asked to help. When permission was granted, she pointed to you. ‘My sister too.’
“So I took you both in. Harry is...” Mei Lei laughed, “She will one day, if she doesn’t screw up, be our boss. She has imagination, force, and drive. Charisma. I have force and drive -- no imagination and less charisma.
“You and I, Sandy, we have what we have. Our gifts aren’t cheap and threadbare, but they don’t compare with Becky’s or with Harry’s.
“Sandy, please listen to me. Don’t do anything. Harry, the sergeant, and Becky, they aren’t our sort of person, no matter how much we like and admire them.
“And Sandy...” Sandy looked up at the woman who was very close to three times older than she was, “There is one last thing. Commander Shumway leads. She is competent, but even more unimaginative than me. In two, perhaps three, weeks, she will be dead. Sooner, if things fall apart.
“Lieutenant Riley tries to appear to be a clown. He’s nothing like a clown. At best, he’ll last another three or four weeks. Five to seven weeks from now, command will devolve on me. Even with Becky helping ... I don’t have what it takes to lead here. A week, I’d be happy to live a week in command. Maybe, if the gods smile on me greatly, two weeks. Hubris says, I’ll do better than I think in my dark foreboding. Three weeks.
“Sandy, in two or three months, I will be dead.”
Sandy stared at the older woman, shocked. Sandy shook her head. “It’s not that bad.”
Mei Lei laughed. “Sandy, if Bess hadn’t noticed the birds for another minute, likely as not we could have cut a few weeks from the schedule. One catastrophe and I could be leading tomorrow. Or be dead. Or you’ll be dead. Or our true loves.”
Sandy was not expecting the other woman to sink down, so her eyes were on Sandy’s level. “You and me, sister! Tonight, sister! Come share my blankets!”
Sandy blinked. Her first thought was that she had her own blankets. Then she realized what Mei Lei was talking about.
“I’m not like that,” Sandy said quietly and with dignity. “And I’m not old enough.”
“I am like that. There are a few things I am sure of: by morning, we will be cold. Having someone warm sharing our blankets will make that better. Also, if we are together, neither of us will be tempted to do something stupid -- you to fight with Harry, me trying to be calm when Becky goes to Tim. When our fondest dreams would kill us all -- we have to set aside those dreams, sister Sandy.
“All I wish is to share my blankets with a warm body,” Mei Lei added, her voice much lower. “I’ve been with no man and no woman before. Not ever.
“Always, I thought, there would be time later. I would find someone I could follow, someone I could admire. That was my definition of love. I found that Becky knew more of love than I did. She didn’t need to follow, and she doesn’t need admirers. She looks at what is right and what is wrong, based her choices on what she believes is right.
“I’m not stupid, Sandy. You and I care about certain people and if we were to try to go there it would be bad for everyone.”
“I’ve given in to Harry ever since I can remember. Not this time!” Sandy insisted to Mei Lei. “I don’t care what you say!”
“If you fight that fight, Sandy, people will notice. It will force them to confront an unpleasant truth: here we are, and the situation is such that normal rules, rules we’ve lived our entire lives with, are no longer valid. That confrontation will come, one day, sooner or later. When that confrontation happens, Sandy, the cause of it will find opinion against that particular rule change. Particularly something as simple as a thirteen-year-old and a man in his late twenties being together. They will say no and that rule will be embedded in stone, Sandy.”
“His music makes him special,” Sandy said stubbornly. “I understand his music and I understand him.”
Mei Lei sighed. “Sandy, you understand this much of a man.” She held her fingers a tiny fraction of an inch apart. “All his life, he’s known duty and work. Yes, he plays -- he plays music, among other things. Wonderfully and superbly -- but music isn’t his life. It’s what he uses to relax from those things that are important to him. Duty and work.
“I am an intelligence agent, Sandy. It is my job to learn things about people. I ask questions as often and as frequently as I can. About things, about people. Particularly about people, because the people are who make things, who make things happen.
“Sergeant Pierson grew up in the coal mining country of West Virginia and Pennsylvania. For generations, he and his kin have lived by digging coal out of the ground. Coal mining is hard, dirty, dangerous, never-ending work. Now, he’s a Marine. Marines are hard and dangerous. Marines fight mean and dirty, and they are steeped in duty, honor, and tradition.
“You, Sandy, are steeped in work too, but not hard work. You are a thinker who does things but more like me than like Harry or Becky. I am hard, very hard, cruel when I have to be. You, I think, can learn the hardness, but you will never learn the cruelty. You have feelings, passion, hot emotions. I have cold emotions: cruelty, hate -- even murder. But no passion, beyond Becky.
“You and Harry share the same genes, but you have very different lives. You two are blood sisters, and you and I are spiritual sisters. Harry has things you don’t, as do I. Between you and me, we are balanced, rounded. Harry is different; she is more complete than we are.”
Mei Lei barked a harsh laugh. “Now, I am getting too wound up, Sandy. Come, sleep with me. We can warm each other’s bodies and leave the heart kindling to others.”
Sandy didn’t know what to do. She looked at Harry, talking now to Jack Pierson. Bess and Griff had joined them, followed shortly by the president’s daughter. That was neat, Sandy thought. Someone that famous on the plane with them, and she’d never known it!
Sandy stared at her sister for a few more minutes, then turned to one of the fires and stared into the flames for a long time, thinking and thinking. Only Mei Lei’s gentle touch on her shoulder roused her.
“I am going to sleep,” Mei Lei told her. “With you or alone.”
Sandy looked at where Harry was sitting. Now, she was on the floor, next to Jack. Harry was asleep, leaning against his knee. Jack was awake, still talking to Griff, and Bess was next to Griff, also leaning against him. Sandy wasn’t sure if she was awake or asleep.
It’s not a fight she could win, was it? Not at all. With a sigh, she turned to Mei Lei. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
She went to the latrine. The smell was a little short of awful. Was it on purpose that the breeze that blew through there went from the main room into the latrine and then who knew where? Sandy suspected it was. Someone had used some thought on this, someone who knew what they were doing. Jack, probably. He or Griff -- Jack knows mines, Griff knows caves. It was, in a way, comforting.
Sandy returned, stopping at her bags, then carried an armload to where Mei Lei was and deposited them. She went back for the rest, this time her violin and an armload of mats. The two of them spread half the mats on the ground and then pulled more atop themselves.
Mei Lei closed her eyes, and Sandy spent a moment studying the older woman’s face. After a few minutes, Mei Lei opened her eyes again. “You should sleep, sister, Sandy.”
Sandy nodded, pitched her voice low to reply. “I know I said I’m not like that, and you said you weren’t really. But -- could we hold hands?”
Mei Lei smiled, and then took Sandy’s hand in hers. Sandy smiled shyly at her, and Mei Lei smiled back. Then Mei Lei reached down, brought one of the reed mats up to cover their heads, making it much darker. Sandy settled down, but felt the other lean close, her lips next to Sandy’s ear.
“Know, sister, that spies never tell all of the truth.” There was a soft breath on her ear, a softer kiss. “Sleep, sister.”
Sandy slept.
Alexis Ogden woke with a start; she was uncomfortable, but still sleepy-tired. Yet, someone had shaken her arm.
“Miss, we’re going out in a few minutes.”
She opened her eyes and saw one of the Marines standing next to her. Not unexpectedly, Tamara Lewis was awake as well, watching the Marine intently.
“Please don’t do this,” the agent spoke to her quietly. “You don’t have to prove your independence by taking the most dangerous job around.”
“Is it dangerous?” Alexis asked, standing up and stretching. “Is it now? More dangerous than having a margarita on my eighteenth birthday in a bar in New York City? Losing a purse to a mugger in London?” She laughed and shook her head.
The Secret Service agent frowned. “The first was flirting with jail -- you were told that. The publicity for your father wasn’t very good either. As for the other ... we were staying back on request. Your request.”
“Well, my father’s not here. Grandfather was a bomber pilot in World War II, Tamara. My father flew Air Force transports in Vietnam. And I’m here, looking forward to going for a little stroll.”
“It’s still dark outside,” Tamara told Alexis. “This would be a really bad idea in daylight. In the night, you’ll never see what gets you.”
“Tamara, why don’t you stay here, close to the fire? You wouldn’t want to get your nails mussed. Or have a run-in with your stockings.”
Alexis donned her jacket, put on her gloves, and her boots; all things she’d set out before going to sleep.
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