Swimming Lessons. Mary Monroe Alice

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СКАЧАТЬ I’d be coming home for your barbecue tomorrow. I couldn’t stay away.”

      “Your mama’s been cooking pies all week so you’d better be there.” The shorter of the men had eyes the color of sea glass and a thick gray beard that swaddled his cheeks like a wreath. He stepped forward to deliver a few good slaps on the back and mutter words of welcome.

      In contrast, the tall man in a worn but ironed flannel checked shirt straightened slowly to his full height. His once dark hair was now mostly gray and his tanned, weathered face had deep lines coursing across his brow, at the corners of his brown eyes and from dimple to chin. He didn’t smile but his dark eyes pulsed with emotion as he extended a callused hand.

      “Hello, Ethan.”

      She looked at Ethan and saw that he was looking at the man with the same intensity in his stormy brown eyes. And then it struck her how very much alike the two men looked.

      “Hello, Dad.” Ethan reached out to take the hand. They held tight for a moment and the emotion in the room was palpable. Then the older man jerked his arm and drew his son into a quick, fierce embrace.

      In another minute, everyone was talking and coffee was served, hot and bitter and loaded with sugar. Toy hung back by the door, peeking in. It was a cozy space, as worn and well used as the fishery itself. The paneled walls were covered with small, black framed photographs of the fishery and shrimp boats that dated back fifty years or more. She tried not to eavesdrop but she caught that the other man was Ethan’s Uncle Will and the woman was his Aunt Martha and that Ethan was catching hell for missing church and not visiting his mother in the past few weeks.

      His father, Stuart, was quiet in comparison to his sister and her husband, but his affection for Ethan was nonetheless obvious, as was the pride shining in his dark eyes. It was clear to Toy that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree in the Legare family.

      Ethan, while never boisterous, was as relaxed as she’d ever seen him. He clearly enjoyed being with his family. Smiles came readily, as did the laughter.

      Then her name was called and she was brought into the room. Introductions were made and hands were shook. They couldn’t have been nicer or more welcoming and she pretended she didn’t see the suggestive eyebrow wriggling of Uncle Will to Ethan as he nodded her way. She ducked her head and took a swallow of her horrid coffee. There was a matchmaker in every crowd.

      She was spared more chit chat when a gruff looking man with a cap over greasy hair shuffled over to poke his head in through the doorway.

      “The Miss Peggy’s coming in!”

      “That’ll be us,” Stuart said and set down his coffee.

      Immediately they filed out of the cramped office into the fresh, salty air. Toy lagged behind. Ethan looked back over his shoulder and catching her eye, waved her closer. When she caught up, he bent close to speak softly in her ear.

      “That wasn’t so bad, was it? No head chopping or bruises?”

      She turned to him “Why didn’t you tell me they were your family?”

      “And spoil all the fun? Nothing I love more than to drop the bomb that I come from a long line of shrimpers after listening to a tirade from a Turtle Nazi.”

      “I owe you one.”

      He replied with a look that, had it not been Ethan, she would have sworn was flirtatious.

      The long wooden dock was lined with tall cement pilings, and to these a line of boats, some seventy footers, some but twelve, were tied with thick, coiling rope. She read their names aloud as she walked by Carson Elizabeth, Explorer, Tina Maria, Captain Andy, Miss Charlotte, Miss Georgia.

      “Most of the fishing boats are named for women,” he explained. “Wives, daughters, mothers, sweethearts. It’s an old tradition, meant to bring good luck to the men while they are away at sea.”

      “Do you have a boat?”

      “Nothing big like these. Mine’s about eighteen feet and just for fun.”

      “And do you have a name for it?” she asked, shamelessly prying.

      “The Wanderlust.” He cast her a slanted glance.

      “Suits you,” she replied.

      Her attention was diverted by the sixty-two-foot Miss Peggy as it slipped into its watery square of real estate along the dock, growling and churning the waters. With the hanging nets on each side of the boat, she thought they looked like folded butterfly wings. The Miss Peggy was an old girl. White paint peeled from the wood and up close Toy could see the dread rust on metal. But she was still a graceful swimmer and slipped into her space as easily as a younger, smaller fishing boat.

      Two men in jeans and white rubber boots climbed out off the high boat to the dock far below as nimbly as ship rats. On board, a wiry, weathered woman with dark gray hair pulled back in a ponytail waved them off, calling out something in a heavy drawl that Toy couldn’t make out. While one of the men bent to tie the ropes, the other, a short, bald, barrel-chested man, came straight for Ethan and sucker punched him in the belly.

      Toy gasped as Ethan doubled over. Until she realized that he wasn’t grimacing in pain but laughter. The two men clung to each other, delivering velvet gloved punches like boxers in the ninth round while around them, the other men chortled, enjoying their antics.

      “Don’t mind them,” Stuart said to Toy with a good natured grin. “They been fools since they were boys.”

      Ethan slapped the other man’s back and turning, caught Toy gaping.

      “Toy, come over and meet Bigger. He’s the most conceited, ornery saltwater cowboy on the coast. He’s also my cousin. We went to school together when we were kids, or at least whenever Bigger showed up. Bigger, this is my colleague, Toy Sooner.”

      “Colleague is it?” he said with a thick drawl. Bigger lifted expensive black sunglasses to the top of his slightly sunburned bald head and gave her the once-over with eyes as bright a blue as a torch. She felt scalded and knew his mind was up to no good. What he saw seemed to please him, however, because he stuck out his meaty arm emblazoned with a tattoo and took her hand, squeezing tight.

      “What kind of a name is Toy?”

      “What kind of a name is Bigger?”

      Bigger turned toward Ethan, a smile pinching his lips. “She’ll do.”

      “Daddy!”

      A coltish young girl came running up the dock, all long legs and long black hair flying behind her like a mane. She leaped up to hurl herself upon Bigger, who grabbed her tight and gave her a whirl around the dock.

      In a more leisurely manner, a tiny woman with black hair and almond eyes strolled up the dock to join them. On her hip was a little boy, no more than a year, with hair as black as his mother’s. Bigger released his daughter and all bravado fled as, with something akin to reverence, he stepped forward to place a chaste kiss on his wife’s cheek. Their eyes met, his passionate, hers knowing. Toy read more love in that greeting than if Bigger’s wife had run like her daughter and hurled her tiny self into his powerful arms.

      Bigger took his son in his arms, pride beaming on his СКАЧАТЬ