‘That was four years ago,’ Anne thought bitterly, ‘and the first--and only--time I’ve ever cried.’ This was true. Anne hardly ever cried, but when she did, she was alone where no one could see her tears. If living on your own was tough in a normal situation, it was murderous for a seventeen-year-old barmaid in a pirate’s port. If you showed even the slightest insecurity, people would take advantage of you--the first lesson that her friends, Sandrea and Esmerelda, had ever taught her. The two girls were older than Anne by about five years, and had grown up in St. Kitts, the island port town that Anne now lived in. After her mother’s murder, Anne had stowed away on a Pirate Captain’s tartan, along with a young orphaned lad of about fifteen. He had shown her how to take food without the crew’s notice, to avoid detection, and what to do when they reached St. Kitts. She had offered to bring him with her to the tavern and get him a job, but he had refused, saying he would rather join the crew of a ship scheduled to pull in about the same time as the tartan. In the four years since then, he had become the captain of his own ship, and Anne was still a barmaid. Although she longed to join a crew and sail, no captain would hire her, saying, ‘’s bad luck to have women aboard’.
She cursed under her breath at the memory. One captain had even responded to her request by laughing her out of his cabin. ‘Fair employment,’ she remembered sourly, ‘Only if you a man under thirty whose been to jail six times and has four illegitimate children or wives to support.’ Strong spirited, fast, and an excellent sailor when given the chance, Anne had become used to rejection because of her sex. The only one who would even think letting her enter his service was ‘Calico’ Jack Rackam, the boy from the tartan, but he had been gone for six months and no one had heard from him in three. Anne sighed. Between drunken pirates, almost nonexistent pay, and the constant threat of disease, death, imprisonment, or worse, she figured that a death at sea would be a welcome reprieve from her current situation. She hoped he would be back soon; he and his first mate--and best friend, were the only real friends she had in the tavern.
Master Mark Jones had been Calico Jack’s best friend for as long as Jack had lived in St. Kitts. Jones had been the one that got Jack a position on his ship. In return, Jack had made Jones quartermaster once Jack became a captain. Anne wasn’t entirely sure how they had become so close, but she never bothered to ask. Jones had always treated him as though Jack were his younger brother. They were inseparable, and fairly predictable. Anne met Jones in the Maiden’s Tavern, where he and Jack came for a drink every time they made port. They had always ordered the same thing, sat and the same corner table, and hadn’t varied from their routine in the four years she had known them. After a quick glance at the evening sky, Anne determined that they should be coming through the door in three…two…
The door swung open and Calico Jack walked in, with Master Jones at his heels. Anne smiled; right on time. The pair made their way immediately to the table where Anne now stood, tipping their hats to Sandrea as she passed, but otherwise ignoring her. Sandrea’s face fell noticeably, and she shot Anne a smoldering glare, as though it was her fault that the two men did not condone the solicitation of the body. Seeing the indifferent yet polite way that the friends always treated Sandrea, you would think that the assumption was correct. Jack sat down, taking the bottle of rum off of Anne’s tray before she offered it. She shook her head and sat another bottle down in front of Jones, and then took the third for herself as she seated herself beside Jack. He breathed in sharply and stiffened so slightly at their close proximity that Anne didn’t notice as she turned her attention to Jones. They began to converse about this and that, catching up on the past six months, but Jack didn’t notice. ‘She’s too close,’ Jack thought. ‘She’s definitely too close to me.’
In truth, she was barely close enough to brush against his shoulder as she sat down, and only the one time. Other than that, she hadn’t touched him. She leaned over the table slightly, adjusting the shawl that she wore partly for warmth and partly for the barmaid’s uniform. After fighting with it for a moment, she muttered and took it off and laid it on the table, allowing the barmaid’s dress to be in full view. It was a dark red with a black corset over the waist, and an ‘empire’ waistline stitch, putting a lot of emphasis on her chest. The dress itself had no sleeves attached; instead, they were simply pulled up onto Anne’s arms, leaving her bare shoulders in plain sight. The top of the dress began a little below her shoulders, allowing plenty of movement under the arms, but just high enough to ensure full coverage of her torso. Well, mostly full. The front was low and tied with a string of leather, the ends of which dangled loosely from the end of the crisscross pattern that held the front of her dress together. Anne’s blonde curly hair had been pulled up and tied with another leather thong behind her head. She let her hair down, allowing it to fall around her shoulders.
Jones smiled at the girl and nodded his approval, “Much more becomin‘,” he said. “Now you look like a lady.” Anne pulled a face and made to put her hair up again, but Jack caught her arm. A bit startled, Anne looked at him in surprise. He recovered from the touch just enough to say, “It looks fine. Besides,” he began as he quickly let go of her arm. “As soon as Master Jones leaves you’ll ’ave it down in a thrice.” She hesitated for a moment, and then nodded before stowing away the thong inside her dress and saying, “You’re right, love.” Jack swallowed, and Jones grinned knowingly at his reaction. Jack shot him a glare, which Anne missed while drinking her rum. When she looked back up, the only thing she noticed was the close proximity of her arm and Jack’s. She suddenly slid over, rectifying this and losing the lightheaded feeling she’d had.
“So,” she started, trying to clear her head. “What did you do on your last little adventure?” She turned to Jack as she posed the question. Setting down the bottle he had just emptied, he replied, “Got a new ship. An’ since it’s bigger than our last one, I’ll be needin’ a larger crew ta handle it.” Anne sat up straighter; he had her attention. Jones produced a piece of parchment from the inside of his coat and laid it on the table. Anne spun it around to face her and studied it momentarily. It was a crew signup list. She looked from Jones to Jack and back again, “Can I sign?” she asked, slightly hopeful but still prepared for another rejection. The pirates looked at each other for a moment, exchanging a teasing look. Jack spoke first, “Well…I dunno if tha’s such a good idea, love,” he began. “Can you sail?”
“You know I can, Jack,” Anne cut in, ignoring the joke. “In fact, if I remember right, I’m better in the rigging than you are.”
He took the spur with a nod and continued, seriously this time, “It’s awful dangerous out there, Anne. Do you think you can handle it?” She sighed, “Try livin’ in this dump for a while.” To herself, she asked, ‘What’s he up to? He knows he’s not going ta change my mind.’
Jack watched her think, waiting to see what she would say next. To himself, he thought anxiously, ‘I hope she changes her mind. I dunno if I could take being trapped six months at sea with the girl that has me wrapped around her finger. Who am I kidding, anyway? I’ve seen what she does when men try talking to her. She’s even sent one out of the Tavern on ’is head. What chance do I have?’
Jones watched the two of them with a mild smile playing on his lips at the irony of it all. They were really in love, and didn’t even know it about themselves, much less about each other. It was a little sad. Jack couldn’t admit it because he was terrified of telling her. He thought that his feelings were one-sided and feared her rejection. Anne couldn’t admit it simply because she didn’t know. She was too naive to realize what love felt like, since she’d never felt it for herself before. They had spent the past four and a half years together, off-and-on, yet they couldn’t notice the change in the way they looked at each other. Or the way one’s eyes lit up at the mention of the other. Jones nearly laughed; they really were hopeless. Jack was watching Anne with the softest expression on his face, so full of longing that it appeared his heart might burst at any second. Anne looked right at him for a second, but didn’t know enough to understand what she saw so clearly.
Jones decided to end their misery, “All right, Anne. You can join the crew. I’ll even put you in the rigging, since that’s where your best skills lie.” Anne looked at him gratefully, and Jack looked mutinous. Jones knew why: Jack wouldn’t survive six months at sea with Anne without giving in and telling her how he felt. Jones ignored Calico’s discomfort in the excuse that Jack wouldn’t survive much longer in this silence, anyway. It was better just to get it out into the open and be done with it. That way, there would be no wondering about what could have been. ‘Like with Alicia,’ Jones thought bitterly. ‘She didn’t deserve what had happened to her. And if I had been sober enough, or good enough, Anne might still have someone to take care of her!’ It was true. Jones blamed himself and his drinking habit for Alicia Bonnie’s death. The night she died, he had been drinking in the very tavern where she was murdered upstairs. He had just sat aside while the only woman he had ever loved was strangled and beaten to death right above his head. Then, he had let her killer walk right past his table without so much as a glance. Jones would never forgive himself if something happened to Anne on his account, and he would kill Jack if he hurt her, even inadvertently. Master Jones finally stopped feeling sorry for himself long enough to tune back into the conversation going on at the table between his favorite ‘star-crossed lovers’.
Anne was trying to get Jack to explain where he had gotten The Discovery, the fastest Virginian in the known world. The closest to an answer Anne could get out of Jack was that he had ‘borrowed’ it from a sailor off the coast of Africa, and Anne wasn’t buying it. She said, “I’ll bet you three crowns I’ll ’ave it out of you in a thrice.” Jack was willing to risk it, “I’ll raise it to four, saying that I’ve got ta be sober when you try.”
“We have an accord,” Anne replied as they shook to seal the deal. “I’ll ‘ave it out of you in no time.”
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