Spartina Read Online Free PDF Page B

I’m glad I ran into you—I’ve got a favor to ask.”
    Dick didn’t want to scrape the bottom of his skiff on the sand. He tossed the stern anchor out, rolled up his boots, and waded ashore with the bow anchor. The skiff rode in a foot of clear water. Joxer looked at the boat. “She really is a beauty.” He turned to the others. “She’s not typical—Dick puts a higher prow on his boats. And a little more sheer—is that right, Dick?”
    Dick nodded. He was uncomfortable, but pleased. Joxer said, “And all you need is that little twenty-horse there … and she flies along.”
    Joxer pried open another beer. “Dick’s family used to own Sawtooth Island, Schuyler. You and the Pierce family are going to be neighbors in a way. Dick lives up that creek.” Joxer pointed out the creek and then turned back to Dick. “Schuyler and Marie bought the Wedding Cake house last year. That used to be your grandfather’s—or was it your great-uncle’s?”
    Joxer handed Dick the beer he’d just opened and sat down on a flat rock. The others sat on their towels in the sand. Dick leaned back against a round boulder. Barbara Goode said, “I love your boots. Don’t you, Marie? I love the way all those folds gather under the knee. They go all the way up the thigh, don’t they, when they’re unrolled? How do they stay up?”
    Dick finished chewing a bite of sandwich.
    “They hook on to the belt.”
    “For when you have to go wading, is it?”
    “That, and when you’re working in a cockpit just got a wave dumped in her.”
    Dick wondered that Mrs. Goode didn’t know all this. Or maybe she was just trying to draw the other woman out. If the other woman was like May, Mrs. Goode was wasting her breath. And making a fool out of him in his boots. When it was the two ladies that were barely covered.
    Schuyler sang, “ ‘I am a pirate king! I am a pirate king! It is, it is a glorious thing to be a pirate king!’ ”
    Marie had pulled a spare towel over her shoulders like a shawl.
    Dick envied people who could just open up and sing. Parker would do that in bars every once in a while, just as if he was a guinea, knew some guinea songs too, he’d puff up his chest like a bird on a twig and let go. He’d do guinea opera songs, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison.
    Joxer and Barbara Goode smiled at Schuyler’s singing. Dick recognized himself in Marie now—when Parker started singing, Dick slouched down in his chair.
    Dick finished his beer and stood up. Barbara Goode said, “Dick, before you go, we’ve got a couple of favors to ask. Joxer and Schuyler are doing a clambake here on the island and they need some help from someone. Could we get you to help? I mean, if we could buy the clams, and maybe some lobsters from you. And if you could show them how to dig the pit. And where to put the fire and the stones and the seaweed. Joxer
thinks
he knows, but I know you know. We’re going to have thirty people and I don’t dare let the two of them get it wrong.”
    Dick said, “I’m going out in a couple of days, I’m going to be fixing up a boat for a friend of mine.”
    Schuyler cocked his head. “You’re going out on the ocean in a fishing boat?”
    “Yup.”
    “I’m doing a little film—that’s what I do, is make films. You don’t suppose I could go along? Me and my camerawoman?”
    Dick was taken aback. “I don’t know. It’s for four, five days. It’s not like it’s … I suppose I could ask Parker.”
    Mrs. Goode said, “Well, let’s get the clambake settled first. Joxer, you and Dick have a little talk.”
    Joxer walked Dick over to Dick’s skiff. Joxer said, “This would be a big help. You can see how it is. Barbara’s getting worried, this is her shindig, along with Schuyler and Marie. Barbara wants them to get off on the right foot now that they’re moving in. So let’s say five hundred dollars to cover the raw materials. You know the stuff—steamers, quahogs, potatoes, corn—I don’t suppose