Storm Tide Read Online Free PDF Page B

migrating birds, endangered reptiles, marine and terrestrial mammals—all to keep a golf course from flooding.
    The retired population, educated and well-to-do, had made it through the Great Depression and World War II and weren’t about to be gaveled to silence by Johnny Lynch. They carried copies of Robert’s Rules of Order to town meetings. They understood that protecting the environment meant protecting their property values. It was the retired population that voted in new zoning regulations: one new home per acre instead of four; that supported Audubon and tied Johnny up in court. They had time on their hands and they used it to organize. After twenty-four years they voted Johnny Lynch out of office—but he still controlled three of five seats on the Board of Selectmen at least until the upcoming election.
    The Monday after the party, I received four phone calls before noon. From the Committee for Civic Responsibility: “Hello, David. Why don’t you come to one of our meetings to talk.” From a local reporter: “Is it true you’re running for selectman?” From my sister: “What the fuck would you want to do that for?” From Judith: “Have you made up your mind?”
    Judith and I spoke every day, on the phone or over coffee. We discussed strategy, the three candidates who had already declared for the one seat up for grabs, some of the issues. But not the real one, not until that night in her office.
    “This is insane,” I said, watching the fire in her gas grate. “I’m not the kind of person who does this.”
    “Maybe that’s why a lot of people want you to do it.”
    “What lot of people?”
    “Everyone we polled,” she said.
    The word “poll” made me laugh. We were talking about Saltash, a town with a pharmacy that had to special-order any drug stronger than aspirin, with no place after Labor Day to buy a pair of socks.
    “People think you’re hardworking and honest, David. They think you listen to them when they talk. They think you’re very bright.”
    “By Saltash standards.”
    “By any standards. Including my own,” Judith said, quashing any doubts I had about why I was considering this at all.
    At first I thought it might be revenge. Taking power, sitting in judgment. I thought it might be the idea of becoming an important person again. Even making my mother proud. But it was Judith. It was her attention, my name on her lips.
    It was being invited upstairs on a freezing winter night, sitting in a wing chair by her fire. It was books all over the walls and photographsof her in a white sundress in Mexico and Arles. It was her chin in her palm as she waited me out, her eyes lingering on my shoulders and hands. “So what have you been thinking?” she said finally.
    “About running?”
    She laughed. “Is there something else?”
    “I think you know there is.”
    “And would you like that to happen?”
    Neither of us spoke for a long time. “Judith, you have a husband. And from what people say, Gordon is a very nice man.”
    “You didn’t answer my question.”
    “Yes,” I said. “I’d like it to happen. If I didn’t feel I was taking you away from someone who’s weak, who can’t defend himself, who—”
    Judith closed her eyes. She held up her palm: stop. When I did, she said this: “David, you can never take me away from Gordon.” We both heard the chill in her voice. “There are no models for the way Gordon and I live. We do not fit a mold. We do not ever try to hurt each other. We don’t have affairs. We do have close friendships. Do you understand?”
    I did not. I said I did because I could not imagine refusing this gift.
    “It’ll be all right,” she said, kneeling on the rug in front of me, laying her cheek on my lap.
    She undressed me slowly. She moved her fingertips from my neck to my breast bone to my nipples. She sighed when I touched her. She grabbed my wrists to govern the speed and pressure of my hands. She wanted it to last, she whispered. It had to