Free Float by Joeann Hart Page A

removed his glasses, and lifted his binoculars, this time paying attention to which end was what. When he got the fleet in focus, it was as he suspected. After four hours, no one had crossed the line, and the race was over. No winner and no loser. Good for Nod.
    Syrie Shuttlethwaite loudly flipped through a magazine. “There are plenty of fish in the sea,” she said, dipping her oar in. Porch etiquette declared that if you could hear a conversation, you were included. “If they caught lesser-known fish, there’d be plenty of waste for everyone.”
    “There’s no demand for the odd fish,” Duncan said. “Besides, it costs money to refit a boat for different species, and it’s a big risk if the fish doesn’t catch on with the public. Slocum still has to explain what pollock is to tourists.”
    “The problem isn’t with the pollock, it’s with Slocum,” said Syrie, closing her magazine with a sharp slap. Chandu looked up at the noise, as did her own little dog, who had been sleeping on her knee. It was so small it was more like a cat in drag and could have balanced on the tip of Chandu’s nose like a biscuit. “You know I adore the man, but the way he cooks, he makes fish sticks taste like an alternative species.”
    “Maybe we’re the alternative species,” said Osbert, staring out to sea.
    “At least he tries,” said Duncan, defending his friend. “He wants to do something different at Manavilins. He wants people to experience seafood in all new ways.”
    “New is good, isn’t it, Duncan?” said Syrie. She picked up her drink and fished a slice of lime out of it and tossed it in his direction. It landed at his feet with a splat. Was she flirting with him? Or was she still carrying around some residual anger over him leaving so suddenly way back when? The fact that he could never read her went a long way toward explaining why he bugged out when he did. With Cora, they were usually surfing the same tide, and if he didn’t understand her actions, she was happy to explain her thoughts and his as well. She sometimes accused him of being as tightly shut up as an oyster, but he much preferred to have her interpret him than to try to untangle the mess that was his inner world. But lately she’d been saying he had to learn to sort things out on his own, so he could pass it all down to his kids, and therein lay his problem. He didn’t even know where to start.
    Like now. Was new good or not? Thankfully, he didn’t have to respond to Syrie because two racers entered the porch talking loudly as if they’d been in high seas all day instead of the calm harbor.
    “I say you should be penalized,” said Tim Roland, stepping over Chandu. “Passing a foot!”
    “We weren’t sure, and what if we’d been wrong?” asked Jerry Fadiman. “We would have lost the race for nothing!”
    “But you weren’t wrong. It was a foot. A human foot. Does that mean nothing to you, Fadiman?”
    “Foot, schmoot. The rules say you have to stop for anyone that has fallen off your boat—they say nothing about stopping for an unknown foot. The committee boat went back for it when we told them. I think we’ve done our duty.”
    “The race was called,” said Tim, throwing his hands up. “You could have spent all day retrieving the foot, and you wouldn’t have lost an inch in the standings.”
    “We didn’t know the race was going to be called, did we?” said Fadiman. “We’d all do everything differently if we bloody well knew the future.”
    And then the two men disappeared to the bar, both trying to get through the door first, their discussion having turned to a race five years ago when someone hadn’t stopped to help a windsurfer blown out to sea, and the penalty exacted for that. The racers had a very strong collective memory.
    “That’s horrible,” said Syrie, and she pulled her own two feet closer to her.
    “Josefa Gould found a knee the other day on Colrain,” said Duncan. “They suspect it’s Slocum’s