Free Tooner Schooner by Mary Lasswell

the crest of a wave. Nobody moved or spoke for a few minutes. Miss Tinkham and Red came out of the shadows where they had been beating out the rhythm on empty kerosene cans with spoons. Miss Tinkham put a sweater around Sunshine.
    “We’ve had it.” Velma got up brusquely. “God, what I wouldn’t give to present it just that way at the Club! Strippers get away with it, but something poetic like that’ll have to wear a top of some sort.”
    “I’m all hell to skelter.” Mrs. Feeley mopped her brow.
    “She thinks a lot of us to dance without no top, like that,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.
    Miss Tinkham nodded. “She does indeed; in the South Seas her fine-mats take the place of royal robes, royal standard and royal treasure. We are privileged.”
    “She must be big stuff back in her village,” Oscar said.
    “A taupó,” Miss Tinkham said, “is like a maid of honor, who officiates at all ceremonies. In a Samoan village, she enjoys all the privileges of a vestal virgin in ancient Rome.”
    “I’m sorry I laughed yesterday,” Jasper said. “Once you see the ritual, you know that not even the thickest lug could make a wisecrack about it.”
    “That is how it always is with any authentic work of art,” Miss Tinkham said.
    “I’m sorry,” Velma said, “I can’t stay. It’s Saturday night and I’ve been away from the Club too long now. Will you bring her around tomorrow?”
    “You’re sure the sight of the tropical storm in her native harbor won’t be too much of an emotional strain for her?” Miss Tinkham said.
    “She’s got to get back, hasn’t she?” Velma said. “If she’ll dance at my place thirteen weeks, she won’t need to stow away on a…” She looked at Elisha Dowdy’s stricken face. “There’ll be no need to stow away on a yacht.”

Chapter 9
     
    T HE SMELL OF FRESH COFFEE and broiling bacon drifted down the driveway and past Mrs. Feeley’s bedroom window. She looked out and saw that the rain in the night had left the pavement black and glossy.
    Mrs. Feeley rolled over and looked at the white ceiling of her little room. “What the hell musta happened last night?”
    Mrs. Rasmussen was in Miss Tinkham’s room helping her train her hair into a pony tail in front of the mirror.
    “Where’s the cookin’ comin’ from if you ain’t doin’ it?”
    Mrs. Feeley’s shower was short and violent. The three walked into their drawing-room-kitchen, as Miss Tinkham called it, and saw that, except for coffee, Jasper, Oscar, Red and Sunshine had waited for them. Captain Dowdy sat over in a corner wrapping and addressing copies of his treasured interview for mailing.
    “I et on board,” he said. “You look kinda kippy this morning.”
    Mrs. Feeley sat down at the table with a thud like a poled ox.
    “Send for a doctor,” she said. Her friends stared at her in silence. “Somethin’ terrible wrong with me.”
    Oscar came and sat beside her.
    “I’m sick, man. I don’t feel like havin’ a beer!”
    “’Y God, you gimme a turn there!” the captain said. “We never THOUGHT to open them presents!”
    “Sunshine had us spellbound last night,” Miss Tinkham said at last. “Anything else would have been anti-climactic.”
    “Here’s Velma,” Captain Dowdy said.
    “Looked like you’d be eaten out of house and home last night, so I brought a baked ham. I haven’t been to bed.” Velma’s eyes looked a little puffy. “Sat up and read that book on Samoa most all night. There certainly can’t be much wrong with a people whose ‘hello’ means ‘I love you.’”
    “Didn’t none of us feel like goin’ on with the hell-raisin’,” Mrs. Feeley said.
    Captain Dowdy folded up the last of his newspapers.
    “It would of been a kinda sacreligion.” Nobody said anything, surprised at the gentleness of his voice. “Ent ya gonna open the blasted boxes?” he shouted.
    “I second that emotion!” Mrs. Feeley said. “Let’s top that breakfast off with a nice cold