“They’ll lose their wages.”
“If they drew their wages, would they have their wages, will you tell me that? If they wind up broke in any case, why not have fun? Besides, it solidifies the union spirit.”
“It’s — wasteful.”
“Your pretty dress is wasteful, for the matter of that.”
“But it’s pretty.”
“So is a strike, in its way — a lot of girls, finding the courage to lift their heads at last. Perhaps they don’t get all they want, but they had the fun of a fight. There’s an element of beauty in it.”
“To me it’s just foolishness.”
“Are you never foolish, Carrie?”
“Not willingly.”
“A little folly would become you, I think.”
The Saturday following our first meeting Grant came in for lunch again, and sat there very moody and didn’t eat any of his Korn on the Karb, although the way he wanted it was rapidly becoming a restaurant joke. Then he wanted to see me that night, but I couldn’t, and then he proposed that we spend the next day, which was Sunday, on the Sound. He said he had the use of a shack near Port Washington and a boat, and we could have a good time. Well, I thought, why not? I was all alone in the hotel now, and besides it was very hot. “Very well — if we get back by night.”
“You have a date?”
“No, but there’s a big meeting.”
“Oh, the union.”
“I’m an officer, you know.”
“So you are. All right, I’ll have you back in time.”
So on my way up to the cocktail bar, I hurriedly bought a little sport dress and hat, a bathing suit, slippers and beach robe. Sure enough, next morning at nine o’clock the desk phoned that a Mr. Harris was in the lobby, and I went down wearing my sports outfit and carrying the beach things in a little bag that went with them. I supposed we were to take a train at Grand Central, but he had a car out there, a nice-looking green coupe. It was very pleasant riding along without any train to think about, even if the traffic was so heavy we could barely crawl. It was about eleven o’clock when we reached the shack, which was on a bluff above a little cove, with steps leading down. Well, he called it a shack, but I would have said estate, for it was a very fine place, with luxurious furniture on the veranda, and a big hall inside with a grand piano in it and soft chairs all around. I couldn’t help expressing surprise. “Did you say you just — borrowed this?”
“Belongs to some friends of mine.”
“Do all your friends have such places?”
“I hope not. Some of them actually have taste.”
“It’s very luxurious.”
“And very silly.”
Now all of this was a complete evasion, as you will see, and I put it in to illustrate once more that during this period Grant was never frank with me. Also, he at once changed the subject. “What do you want to do? Swim, sail or eat?”
“Well — can’t we do all three?”
“That’s an idea.”
He took me to what seemed to be a guest bedroom, showed me the bath and anything I might want, and went. I changed into my swimming suit, put on my slippers, and tied a ribbon around my hair. Then I put the bathing cap into the bag, slipped on my beach robe, and went out. I thought I looked very pretty, but I forgot about that when I saw him. He was ready and standing at a table flipping over the pages of a magazine. He had on a pair of faded blue shorts, big canvas shoes, and a little wrinkled duck cap with a white sweater over his arm. But he looked like some statue poured out of copper, and the few things he had on hardly seemed to matter. The deep sunburn was all over him, but that was only part of it. He was big and loose and lumbering, and yet he seemed to be made completely of muscle. The hunch-shouldered look that he had in his clothes came from big bunches of muscle back of his arms, and in fact his whole back spread out like a fan from his hips to his shoulders. His legs tapered down so as to be quite slim at the ankles and altogether he looked like one of the Indians he was always talking about. He turned, smiled and nodded. “Ready?”
“All ready.”
“Come on while we still have a breeze.”
He picked up a wicker basket and started for the veranda. I said: “Is that our lunch? Where did it come from?”
“We brought it with us.”
“I thought I’d have to fix it.”
“It’s fixed.”
I took hold of the handle too, we went out on the veranda, he picked up a paddle that was standing against a post, and we went down the steps of the bluff to the beach. The lunch he put in a little skiff that was pulled upon the sand, then he dragged the skiff to the edge of the water and motioned me into the bow. He gave it a running push and jumped in very neatly. Then he picked up the paddle and paddled out to a sailboat that was moored to a round white block of wood that he called a buoy. He made the skiff fast to a ring in the buoy, and we climbed into the sailboat. It had no bowsprit or any thing, just a mast that went straight up from the bow, with one big triangular sail. He set down the basket, un wound some rope from a cleat, and began to pull up the sail. I helped him, and it took about a minute to get it up, and the boat swung slowly around and the sail began flapping in the wind. It was quite exciting. Then he went to the bow and cast loose, but held onto the short mooring cable that was attached to the buoy. Then he made me come and hold it, first showing me how to hold onto a cleat with the other hand so as not to be pulled over board. Then he went back to the tiller. “All right, I’m going to put her over, and for just one second it’ll slack. When it does, let go.”
He put the tiller over, and the boat gave a lurch and all of a sudden I felt the cable slack. I let go, and when I looked up we were moving away from shore, toward the other side of the cove, with the sail out over the side, but still flapping. I climbed back to the middle of the boat. He kept watching and then he stood up. “Now I’m coming about. She’ll go into the wind, the sail will flap like hell, then slam over, and for God’s sake duck for that boom.”
Suddenly he put the tiller over, the boat began to swing around and the sail set up a terrible flapping. Then without any warning it slammed across the boat, and I saw the boom coming and screamed and ducked. Then the sliding pulley to which it was attached by some ropes slid as far as it would go and caught it, and it filled, and the boat heeled over so far I thought we were going to upset. Then I saw we were pulling out of the cove very rapidly. Then the first swell from the Sound hit us and lifted us, and all sensation of being afraid left me, and I realized that for the first time in my life I was sailing, the way I had read about in books. I clapped my hands, and he laughed. “You like it?”
“I love it.”
Chapter Four
We sailed quite a little while, and then he came about, and payed out some of the rope that held the sail, and we began to move again, but we didn’t heel over. “Are we going back?”
“Just keeping in sight of home base.”
“Make it tilt. I like that.”
“We’re running before the wind. We only heel over when we’ve got it across us. And it’s a she.”
“Oh, yes, of course.”
It wasn’t exciting the way it was before, but the water was smooth and green, so it was still quite pleasant. After quite awhile, he said: “Now, how about that lunch?”
“I’ll get it ready.”
“We’ll both get it ready.”
“But you’ll have to steer.”
“Steer what?”
“Why — her.”
“You’re the funniest sailor I ever saw. Haven’t you noticed that for the last fifteen minutes we haven’t had even the sign of a breeze?”