Free The Diamond Bikini by Charles Williams Page B

the bosom thing back on. “I wish they wouldn’t play that.”
    Dr Severance glared at her. She came over and picked up her glass and went inside the trailer to get a drink.
    As soon as she went in the door Dr Severance looked at Pop and Uncle Sagamore and sighed, and shook his head real sad. “There you are, gentlemen,” he says. “That’s what a nervous breakdown will do for you. Some people will try to tell you it’s no worse than a bad cold, but you saw it with your own eyes. Her mind just stopped dead there for a minute and she was lost, and the only thing she could grab hold of was clear back in her childhood. All the little girls in her social set had to go to dancing school and take ballet lessons.” He shook his head again.
    “Well, that’s too bad,” Pop says. “It sure is shame. But you can see she’s had a lot of trainin’. She might have made a great dancer.”
    Uncle Sagamore nodded too. “She sure has the knack.”
    When Miss Harrington came back she had two drinks with her. She walked over to where I was and smiled down at me. “What’s your name, junior?” she asked.
    “Billy ma’am,” I says.
    “Well, Billy, they seem to have left you out when they passed the drinks around, so I brought you a coke.” She handed me the glass, and says, “Why don’t you and me walk down to the lake and see if it looks good to swim in?”
    “Why, it’s fine swimmin’,” Pop says. “As a matter of fact, I was just thinkin’ I might be able to spare a little time off from work, an’ teach you.”
    “Down, boy,” Miss Harrington says. “I already know how to swim. And I know all about being taught.”
    She went back in the trailer and in a minute came out with her handbag slung over her shoulder. We finished our drinks and went down through the trees towards the lake.
    Uncle Sagamore and Pop started to get up like they wanted to come too, but Dr Severance shook his head at them and says, “Boys, I wouldn’t. Why don’t you just stick around and talk?”
    * * *
    When we came out in the open we was right close to where Uncle Finley was working on his boat, Miss Harrington stopped and looked at it and at him hammering away up on his scaffold.
    “What in the name of God is that?” she asked.
    I told her about Uncle Finley and the Vision and how they figured all the sinners was going to drown when the rain started.
    “Well, they sure got some ripe ones around here,” she says.
    We started to go on past, and just then Uncle Finley looked around from his hammering and saw us. He just ignored us, like he had me and Pop, and took another swing at the nail with his hammer. Then all of a sudden he jumped and jerked his head around again and stared at Miss Harrington like he hadn’t really seen her the first time.
    He waved the hammer at her. “Jezebel!” he yelled.
    Miss Harrington stopped. She looked at him and then at me. “Well, what bit him?” she asked.
    Uncle Finley walked along the scaffold towards us, still craning his neck at her and pointing with his hammer. “Bare naked Jezebel!” he says, furious like. “Paradin’ around here with your legs a-showin’, and causin’ sin.”
    “Oh, crawl back in your fruit cake,” Miss Harrington says to him.
    “He can’t hear you,” I says. “He’s deaf as a post.”
    We started to go on. Uncle Finley kept walking along the scaffold looking at Miss Harrington’s legs and yelling, “Jezebel,” and when he came to the end of it he didn’t even notice. He just walked right off into thin air.
    Lucky he dropped the hammer and managed to grab the side of the boat, or he’d have fell about six feet and likely hurt hisself. When we went on he was still hanging there with his face against the planks yelling, “Sinful, naked hussy—” and trying to turn his head so he could see.
    We walked on down to the edge of the lake. There wasn’t any trees right here. There was a little sandy beach and the water looked shallow close to the shore.