The Pirate's Daughter by Robert Girardi

eighteenth-century French priest, the Abbé Prévost.
    Cricket stood by, her arms crossed in disgust. “Dead weight,” she said when Wilson stepped over with his bag of books.
    â€œI’m not going on an eighteen-month voyage without anything to read,” Wilson said.
    â€œYou think you’re going to have time to read?” Cricket said. “Minute I catch you reading, we stick a mop in your hand.”
    â€œYou’re anti-intellectual,” Wilson said.
    â€œNo,” Cricket said. “I’m just anti that shit, whatever it is that’s turned you inside out.”

3
    It wasn’t until they reached the worn stone steps of the Mariners’ Union that the reality of the situation hit him. Wilson felt his chest contract, and he sank to the bottom step, short of breath. Annoyed and concerned at once, Cricket stared down at him.
    â€œWhat’s wrong now?” she said.
    Wilson’s white face was reflected in the darkness of her sunglasses. He made an inarticulate gesture. The stained Beaux Arts-era Mariners’ Union Hall rose up behind like the ruins of an ancient fortress. From bathtub-shaped niches in the facade, greening bronze statues of the great mariners stared out, their empty eyes full of the sea. There was Columbus holding the terrestrial globe, Magellan with astrolabe and sword, Sir Francis Drake cradling a model of the
Golden Hind
, Captain Cook peering through a telescope that had long since rusted from his hands.
    Cricket sighed, unshouldered her bag, and sat on the steps beside him. “Everything’s arranged,” she said. “All you have to do is go inside and sign your name on the dotted line—Lander, Wilson, ordinary seaman. Vessel,
Compound Interest
, bound for Rangoon and points east—and tomorrow at this time all the crap will be behind you.”
    She meant the city and its streets thick with people, the world full of complications, and roads leading to and fro across undulations of landscape—the entirety of Wilson’s life on solid ground.
    â€œI can’t go,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m sorry.”
    â€œWhat about all the stuff you just bought?” Cricket said.
    â€œYou can have it.”
    â€œDon’t do this,” Cricket said.
    â€œTell me one thing,” Wilson said. “Why me?”
    Cricket looked at him through her sunglasses, then she looked away. “These long voyages can be really lonely,” she said at last. “No one to talk to, no one to … Well, let’s just say that I liked your face the day you came into Nancy’s store with those ridiculous tarot cards. You seemed lost. Right then, I decided to take you away with me. And there’s something else. A practical reason.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œGuess.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI need a good gambler in my life.”
    â€œWhy?”
    She gave an ambiguous shrug. “I’ll tell you later about that,” she said. “When I know you better. Call it the story of my life.”
    â€œCricket, I’m not—”
    â€œI know what you’re going to say,” she cut him short. “It was beginner’s luck. O.K., maybe you could say that about the dogs last week, but not about the cockfights last night. My God, you were brilliant.
    â€œAlmost got myself killed.”
    â€œBut you didn’t. You were brave.”
    â€œI was scared shitless.”
    â€œThat’s what being brave is all about.”
    Wilson put his head on his knees and was silent for a while. The grime of the city filled the cracks in the old stone. Across the street a construction site pounded away, sunlight on the red-brown musty earth dug up by a backhoe. Such places always made him shudder. He closed his eyes and saw a black girder falling through the sky. Then Cricket put her hand on his shoulder, and the girder vanished before it hit