Free Bunker 01 - Slipknot by Linda Greenlaw Page A

the

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    water, and in a dress. My grandfather came here from Italy to fish,” she added proudly.
    “I thought your grandfather came from Poland to work as a stonecutter in the granite quarry,” said Blaine.
    “Yeah. That, too.” Now Lucy sounded irritated. “Come on. Snap it up!”
    “Yes, dear.” As Blaine made his way to the edge of the water, Lucy followed me down the ramp and onto the float. I untied the dinghy’s painter, jerked the tiny boat around by the bow so that it lay with its side against the float, and hopped down into the stern seat, leaving the bow for Lucy, as she appeared to be the lightest of the three of us. Not to be out-done, and taking her cue from me, Lucy pushed her hair from her face, took a deep breath, and moved to the edge of the float adjacent to the dinghy’s bow. As she attempted a step onto the tiny triangular seat, her dress stopped her foot short of making contact. She quickly withdrew, hiked her dress up a notch, and tried again. I had allowed the slight breeze to blow the bow off just enough to keep the seat out of reach of the fully exposed leg. Again Lucy withdrew to a secure and square stance on the dock. “Need a hand?” I asked.
    “No.” Lucy shrank into a deep knee bend and reached for the painter, the bitter end of which was lying on the middle seat. Her long, perfectly manicured nails were one inch short of the line. She placed her knees on the float, gripped the starboard oarlock with her left hand, and stretched with her right. She easily grabbed the line, exhaled in relief, and gave me a “see, I can do it, too” smirk. She triumphantly pushed against the dinghy to right her full weight back on the float.

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    The boat moved out, rather than her weight up, leaving Lucy neither here nor there. She arched between boat and float like a human bridge. She held fast, seemingly trying to decide whether to lunge for dinghy or dock. The gap between the two widened, flattening the arch in her back to nearly hori-zontal. There really was nothing I could do to help at this point, even if I had wanted to. All Lucy managed to utter before splashing was “My shoes.”
    Blaine came sprinting down the ramp in time to see his wife treading water. Her wet black hair was plastered to her tiny skull, which bobbed up and down like that of a seal looking for a mackerel. I switched myself into the middle seat, placed the oars in their brass locks, and maneuvered back to the edge of the float. I hopped onto the dock, secured the dinghy, and moved quickly to assist Blaine, who was pulling his wife out of the ocean by her fragile-looking arms. Although, of course, I did not laugh, I was amused; I knew I was seconds from a real visual of the expression “mad as a wet hornet.” We worked together to haul Lucy first onto the float and then to her feet. The red dress clung to every curve, like a peach in heavy syrup to the side of a bowl.
    I didn’t know whether Lucy’s trembling was from cold or rage, but I broke the silence with an explanation to answer the puzzled look on Blaine’s face. “I think one of her spikes got jammed in these boards on the deck,” I said, dragging the toe of my sensible shoe along the crack between two eight-inch planks. “Ouch! Look at those legs! There must be a barnacle factory down there,” I said, drawing all attention to Lucy’s shins. Rivulets of salt water trickled from the lower

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    hem of the dress, over her knees, and onto her shins, where they mixed with blood from multiple scrapes. The shredded panty hose did little to contain the streams as they irrigated Lucy’s very expensive-looking shoes. Lucy’s fists were balled up tight. Her entire body stiffened with what I perceived as extreme ire and indignation.
    “Sweetheart, are you all right?” Blaine winced with what I understood to be apprehension and anticipation of a lashing wrath I was certain