The Adie Lou putters down the channel, garnering admiring glances and appreciative honks from passing boats and captains.

I run my hand over its beautiful varnished wood and lean over to look out the side. I can see the wake reflected on the wood of my shiny Chris-Craft and my face reflected in the water.

I smile and wave at myself, just like I did when I was a girl and my dad was steering the boat.

“You look happy,” Scooter says, one hand on the wheel.

“I am,” I say. “Despite the fact I’m in a mountain of debt.”

“Not for long,” he says, nodding with his head behind him. “Look at what you’ve already created, the lives you’ve already impacted.” He reaches over and grabs my hand, and I hear a chorus of giggles behind me.

“Aaaahhhh,” three ladies from the women’s weekend sigh in unison.

After a full day of empowerment, many of the women are now acting like schoolgirls.

“Scooter,” one of the one women purrs. “You sound like you should be in a romance novel.”

“A boat captain?” another says. “How romantic.”

“A full head of hair and a full-time job!” Marge, who is in her seventies, exclaims. “Marry him now!”

The women laugh again.

I feel like I did when Justin Brown asked me to go steady on the school bus and placed a mood ring on my finger, and all the girls clapped.

“This isn’t very empowered of you,” I say, turning around in the front seat to face the women, who are seated in the small second row, which is just big enough to comfortably hold three.

I realize too late that my tone has a decided tsk-tsk to it and that I sound a lot like Iris Dragoon.

Marge, who admitted earlier to the group that she still hasn’t discovered who she truly is and desperately wants to write before it’s too late, says, “Everyone should be giddy when they’re in love.” She looks at me. “Or even when they’re in like. That’s not stereotypical behavior for women. It’s simply human behavior.”

The word love hangs in the air, and suddenly I want Scooter to gun the boat so the word will fly out of it.

“Hear, hear,” the other two women say, knocking me from my thought, holding up their champagne glasses to clink Marge’s.

“I think the teacher has just been schooled,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

I hold up my glass as a sign of a truce, and Marge clinks it and gives me a wink.

“Women are demeaned in American society for our emotions,” she says. “In other societies, it’s revered. Emotion is a strength, not a weakness. It’s ultimately what makes women better survivors than men. We’re in touch with how we feel. We don’t bury our emotions, so we’re able to cope better.”