By The Sea, Book Three: Laura (5 page)

"I'll never change."

"For sure."

When they were dressed Neil returned and
they duly admired his catch. Neil and Billy settled down amidships
to gut the small pan fish. Sam, feeling companionable, brought a
frayed manila hawser down below and began the slow, hard process of
splicing the damaged section, while Laura sewed on half a dozen
buttons torn off her husband's shirts and pants. A kerosene lamp
flickered over the table at which they both sat, dancing off the
browns and golds of Laura's hair and highlighting the gray-white
hairs of her husband's shaggy head.

Sam shoved aside a vase of cut wildflowers
and opened his ditty bag wide, poking around in it until he found
his heavy leather sewing palm. "Dang it," he muttered. "The palm
needs restitching. How can I use it to finish off the whipping on
the hawser?" he asked rather helplessly, looking at his wife with a
forlorn air.

Laura sighed. "Give me the palm. I'll stitch
it up for you while you finish your splice."

He flashed her a grateful grin. "We're a
team, ain't we, girl?"

"No, we ain't," she answered, looking
severe. "Not unless you at least
try
to straighten up your
language."

"Best give up
that
dream, Laura," he
said softly, without looking at her. "I am what I am."

She had begun to drag a length of linen
twine through a ball of wax before threading it through a large
sailmaker's needle. Now she paused and stared thoughtfully across
the width of the heavily scarred pine cabin table at her husband:
past fifty, a rock of a man still. Hopefully faithful, almost a
homebody, with an unquenchable love of the sea and sailing.
Hard-working in an inefficient way; all in all, a decent man. Her
heart softened toward him: she could have done so much worse.

"I guess I don't really expect you to
change," she said, taking his great, calloused, ham-fisted hand in
hers. "But you must understand that I'm not yet thirty. I
am
changing. I feel so restless .... How can I sit idly on the
Virginia
, twiddling my thumbs, while you go off on the
challenge of a lifetime?"

"It's a very short challenge, girl, a few
weeks at most," he pointed out. "You have nothing to occupy
yourself until then?"

Laura bit her lower lip as she traced the
outlines of his massive knuckles with her forefinger. "As a matter
of fact, a thought came to me when you said that the
Virginia
would be able to stay at a dock for the next
several weeks. You know how people always gawk at the boat when
she's tied up at a dock, as though she were a dinosaur from another
age. Which of course she is. Anyway, I thought we—I—could arrange
some sort of dancing parties on board, with simple refreshments. I
could charge not too much per person, and people love to see the
harbor lights, and I could hang lanterns all around—"

"Nothing doing. I won't have a bunch of
drunks tearing up the boat while I'm away," Sam said gruffly.

"Drunks! I meant punch or iced tea, that's
all. It would be during the early hours. Billy could play the
concertina. And if it makes you feel better, maybe I could hire
someone as a sort of—guard."

"And where's your profits in that case?" he
asked, the down-easter in him suddenly joining the
conversation.

"I can do it, then?" she cried, holding his
hand tightly in both of hers. "Oh, Sam—you won't be sorry!"

****

The
Virginia
was tied securely to the
docks, spruced up and ready for a party. After a week of grueling
work, her superstructure was a sparkling blend of polished brass,
crisp white trim, and soothing pale-green decking. Almost at once
word of Laura's project had made it around the docks. Some of the
fishermen, usually a stand-offish lot, had came round to offer
cast-off material, advice, or, joking, their "lazy,
good-for-nothin'" wives. Late in the week one of the men,
semi-retired and a self-appointed "wharf rat," had actually brought
a plate of oatmeal cookies which he claimed his wife made. He
wasn't married, everyone knew that; but Laura had smiled gratefully
and stored his offering below.

The dancing was to take place on the deck
area between the masts; the deck forward of that, still shabby and
unpainted, was roped off. Small old wood chairs, all of them newly
acquired and many of them newly glued, lined the bulwarks port and
starboard. A deal table covered in blue gingham and holding a large
bowl of punch was tucked between the
Virginia's
two oak
water barrels mounted just forward of the cabin house. The rigging
was laced with pretty lanterns, which Laura had fashioned from
empty gallon paint buckets she'd done up in bright colors and
drilled holes through to let out pinpoints of candlelight. All of
the material had been begged, borrowed, or possibly—Laura did not
always inquire—stolen.

Two anchor lamps, their fresnel lenses
magnifying the small kerosene flames inside, hung on each side of
the boarding steps which Billy had banged together from scraps of
wood. In the August twilight the
Virginia
looked like what
she wasn't: a young and pretty debutante decked out in diamonds,
waiting breathlessly to see how popular she was.

Laura was in her best dress, of
peach-colored rayon with flowing bell-sleeves and a round-cut
neckline which showed her slender neck and shoulders to advantage.
She wore no jewelry but had tucked a white rose in her hair,
filched from the garden of one of the colonial houses on the Point.
Perhaps she was overdressed; she didn't know. Maybe no one would
come, in which case what she wore would make no difference.

The signs she had posted around the
waterfront announced that the music would begin at eight o'clock
sharp. Billy was at his station, ready with the concertina; Laura
was ready to strike up the band. Neil was standing (not very still)
at his post, ready to wash out glasses for reuse. Everyone was
ready.

Eight o'clock came and went; no one showed.
Laura glanced repeatedly up the dock toward Thames Street. A
strange quiet prevailed.

"Play something nice, Billy," she said
nervously. "Maybe they need a special invitation."

Billy thought for a moment, then launched
into his best nice song, "The Ballad of Dying Lily." The dirgeful
wail of the concertina lifted and fell—Billy could make the thing
cry—while Laura made a fuss of adjusting one of the paint-bucket
lanterns.

What an idiot idea this was
, she
thought
.
Sam will laugh me off the
boat
when he hears.

"Evening, Mrs. Powers."

Laura swung around. It was the wharf rat,
Jake Patchers, standing at the newly constructed steps. Thin hair
slicked down, Sunday vest, and—horrors!—a white rose, identical to
the one in Laura's hair, stuck into his lapel. "Permission to come
aboard?"

He was, after all, a warm body. Laura
resisted the urge to laugh out loud at the dimensions of her
disaster, and welcomed him aboard. "Please do, Mr. Patchers. I'm so
glad you could come."

She led him to the refreshments and they
chatted painfully about the weather as he munched freely on his own
cookies.

"Now, I don't know a whole lot about
shipboard dances," he finally ventured timidly, covering his mouth
with his hand as he cleared his throat, "but mightn't it be
livelier all around if Billy played something, you know,
danceable?"

Shrugging, Laura went up to Billy, who was
whispering the lyrics of poor dying Lily to himself as his eyes
filled with tears, and said, "Play something sassy, Bill. Anything
but Dying Lily."

Billy looked offended—he was an artist,
after all—but dutifully switched gears and launched into a rousing
version of Fat Annie's Fat, Fat Fanny."

Laura returned to Mr. Patchers, held up her
arms, and said, "Will you dance with me, sir?"

They joined company and it turned out that
Mr. Patchers possessed a very respectable sense of rhythm. Laura
began to enjoy herself as they whirled and twirled while Billy
tapped his foot to the beat and Neil, amazed to see his mother in
the arms of another man, watched wide-eyed. When the dance ended,
Laura dropped into a deep, laughing curtsy which sent Mr. Patchers
into a minor convulsion of blushing and stammering. She stood up,
and there was applause. A small group of—customers?—stood eagerly
on the dock, ready to dance, ready to pay. There were at least one
two three four five six. Six! If no one else showed, she'd consider
the evening a howling success.

The boldest one among them, a woman dressed
extravagantly in violet, stepped forward. "I was waiting table when
I saw you tack your notice to the post outside, dearie. And I says,
finally! Something for them of us as likes to be where the real men
are." She dropped her coins into the contribution box with an
overly large "35 cents" sign next to it, and climbed aboard.
Clearly she'd been on boats before.

The violet waitress was followed by two of
her friends, dressed with similar intensity, and then by one sullen
male and one roguish one. The sixth member of the party, if it was
a party, was a very young man with bad skin and stringy hair who
seemed to be at least partly in love with the woman who wore a
black and magenta broad-diagonal-striped dress. He threw his money
in the box and took up a position behind the mainmast from which to
brood over his obviously unattainable desire.

Poor Billy found himself in the center of
the newly arrived
demimondaines,
who were fluttering around
him like a covey of pigeons, urging him to strike up a tune. Laura
was in a bit of a state herself—she had expected to be boarded, not
overrun—but the sound of money was to her the sound of music. She
gave Billy a signal to play, and so he did, a friendly, medium-fast
number. Laura watched the proceedings warily; the women looked all
too capable of becoming loud and unmanageable, and she didn't want
to have to give the money back.

But without alcohol it all seemed to go
well, and the next guests who trickled aboard seemed decent enough
types. Three or four tourists came on after that; by now Laura had
actually lost count of how much money she'd taken in. She felt
confident enough in the success of her shipboard dance to command
Billy to take a short break, although in the next breath she
ordered him to help little Neil wash out glasses, since the guests
had all descended en masse on the refreshment table.

"Oh well, these are things I'll have to work
out," she confided happily to Billy as she dashed down below to
make another batch of punch. She needed more refreshments, more
help, more room, more everything. It was wonderful to be found
wanting.

When she returned back on deck the punch was
completely gone and Billy had hastily resumed playing—"to avert,"
as he later said, "a terrible riot."

To Laura the situation simply did not seem
threatening. True, the women tended to get enthusiastic during some
of the faster dances, and Laura did see one or two shadows forward
of the mast in the forbidden zone, hopefully not drinking. And
she'd overheard more than one unkind remark about the oatmeal
cookies. But the money! It seemed to her a fabulous sum for very
little wear and tear. She owned a dance floor with a harbor view.
Why not use it?

The evening was winding down—or at least,
Billy was. The closing time had been clearly posted in Laura's
advertisements, so she did not feel like a killjoy when she
murmured to Billy to play something slow. He launched into a
poignant version of "Good Night, Irene," and everyone moaned. There
was no clearer tip-off that the ride was nearly over, and that the
night had been a success.

Laura turned to see yet another small group
preparing to board the
Virginia,
and she hurried over to
dissuade them.

"I knew it!" cried their ringleader, a
pretty, vivacious woman in a rather daring crepe dress. She turned
to her partner, equally well-dressed in white tie, and said, "You
and your wretched billiards game!"

It was perfectly obvious to Laura that the
group was made up of condescending thrill-seekers. She resented
being viewed as a sampling of how the other half lived. From her
higher vantage point on the
Virginia's
decks she scanned the
group: half a dozen socialites down from Bellevue Avenue, scouring
the waterfront for local color.

Her voice became ironic as she said, "It's
too frightfully bad that you missed it. It really was a splendid
'do.'"

She saw one of the men who had been hanging
back in the shadows swing around sharply at that. Clearly she had
given offense. Good.

But the pretty socialite had chosen not to
pick up on Laura's tone. "When will you have the next one?" the
young woman demanded.

Before Laura could answer, Mr. Patchers had
her hand in his and was pumping it politely. "Don't know when I've
had more fun. Must be shovin' off. Wife'll have a fit .... See you
at the next one Saturday. Bill says at least twice as many cookies
.... Good night, then."

"Saturday?" Laura stared blankly at the
little man's retreating form as a line of tired but satisfied
customers straggled around her and off the
Virginia.
She saw
the socialites fall in with them, murmuring among themselves; and
then she heard lilting, private laughter, which she assumed was
about her. In fifteen minutes the schooner was empty, and Laura was
wondering why on earth she'd bothered to paint the scuffed-up
decks.

****

The next evening Sam stopped by after
receiving a note from his wife. "I don't want to make a habit of
this," he warned Laura, still ebullient. "The rest of the crew do
without their women, and so should I. Well: How went the
evening?"