4
Dear, dear readers! It's been so long! Petra has just heard that her mom, sister, and step-father are flying up to Pelican to check on her and drag her home. Yes, I've been lazy. Yes, I've been negligant. Yes, I'll try to do better. Sorry for the long pause. At some point in time I'll post the first quarter of the book in one shot and then follow up. Hey. thanks for hanging in there.
“And they’re flying up here! Up here, Malcolm! Do you know what this means?” I loudly whined on the verge of hysteria.
Malcolm’s shoulders shook as he tried to contain his laughter. He was mostly successful, but the grin would just not go away.
He held his arms out to me and I flung myself into them. A temporary safe haven from my own approaching hysteria.
“There, there. If there’s nothing you can do to stop them, you may as well stop worrying about what might happen.”
“Malcolm, that all sounds very good, but you’ve no idea what you’re talking about. You’ve no idea what they’re like. I don’t want them here.”
“Petra, you can’t stop them. So just stop thinking about it.”
“I can’t help myself. I’m obsessed. My brain will think of no other subject than my impending doom.”
Malcolm’s sleepy eyes turned warm and a slow smile lit his face. He took me by the hand and started to lead me down the hall.
“Petra, I think I know a way to get your mind off this subject.” And he opened door number one.
*********************
Ferry day. A big ferry day. I was sitting on the boardwalk in front of the Wet Goods drinking a Club Drink, a brass monkey. It was a little foul, but I was willing to tough it out.
I hadn’t wanted to go down to the breakwater and mill around waiting for the ferry. No place to sit, nothing to do. All new hires would have to walk past us to get to either bunkhouse anyhow. And I certainly wasn’t alone. The benches in front of the Wet Goods were packed shoulder to shoulder with men. The harbor entrance was also fairly congested, as well as the railing on each side. There were lots of local men, fishermen who hadn’t left the harbor yet, and me. I was hanging with Jaimie, Tim, Clark, and Enrico. Most of the men wanted to see the two new girls they’d heard had been hired. I admit I was curious, too, but I also wanted to get a look at the college boys. Not that I wanted one for myself. Jaimie wanted one for herself, though, so I’d had to come to help her scout. My current secret friend was suiting me just fine. But Clark had been right and there’d been a pretty thorough mass firing of dead, new-hire weight, so while there was a new crew coming in, there was also about a dozen workers heading out. No surprises there.
There was something thrilling about watching the ferry slowly glide through the inlet and up to its dock. It was so much larger and grander than any of the fishing vessels. The weather was good, i.e. not raining, and I could see that people were standing on the deck of the ferry watching the town get closer and closer, just as we were watching them approach. It always seems to take an eternity for the ferry to actually dock, get tied up, and have the ramp come down. Twenty minutes or better of staring back and forth. But that wasn’t the case with me today. I felt ultra-relaxed and just kicked back, waiting for the parade. Thank you, brass monkey.
While townspeople rushed back and forth, coming off the ferry with their shopping, or preparing to board for a trip to town, a slow convoy of newbie slimers approached, Lauren leading them, laughing with her head tilted back, arm on a good-looking college kid , and turning to laugh and flirt with those following behind. They all looked various degrees of smitten. I counted approximately eighteen of them and bringing up the near-rear were two terrified, freaked out, all-natural, not-overly-washed, wannabe-hippie chicks. Yes, terrified.
“Hey, there they are! Hey, beautiful, come have dinner with me, yeah, both of you!”
“Nah, come down to my boat and let me show you around.”
“Oohh. Look at the scared little girls. Don’t be scared, little girls, we won’t hurt you!”
Luckily, my cohorts were silent, appraising, but silent, and it was the fishermen who were being complete ass-holes to the poor girls. I turned and glared at a couple of them.
“What? You jealous?” one asked me.
I rolled my eyes and looked toward Clark and we both laughed.
“Oh, yeah, I’m jealous, because you are such a man and I wanted you for myself and now those two new girls are going to be fighting over you and I just won’t stand a chance.”
“You should be a little nicer,” the guy told me, “or you’ll always be alone.”
Clark and I both rolled our eyes and shook our heads.
“You’re not jealous, are you?” Clark said under his breath to me.
I shot him a look. “Now I’m going to start getting paranoid. Should I be jealous?”
“No,” he said, “the odds are still in your favor.”
“Somehow, that wasn’t exactly the reassurance that I was looking for, but thanks for pointing out the math.”
He smirked and didn’t reply. We watched as the group walked on toward the Cold Storage, the guys looking around with curiosity and the girls looking like they were going to hold hands and make a break for the ferry.
“They don’t shave their legs,” Enrico announced. “I can’t abide that.”
I raised my eyebrows and whispered to Clark. “I’m impressed. I didn’t know he knew the word abide.”
“And I bet they don’t shave their arm pits either. Nasty.” That, of course, from Enrico again.
“I don’t care,” Tim announced. “I wouldn’t turn either one of them down. They were kind of cute.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “like finding Bambi in your headlights.”
“Oooh, catty,” Tim said.
I raised my eyebrows and shook my head in disgust, then turned my back to him. Guys are too weird when you go girl-watching with them. Except Clark. He’s always just annoyingly Clark.
I turned to Jaimie.
“So, ok, did you pick one out?”
“I don’t get to just pick one out!”
“Why not?”
“What do I do if he doesn’t want me?”
“Geez Louise! There were like, eighteen of them! Pick out another.”
Jaimie just looked at me for a second. “How?”
I stared back. “We really have some work to do, girl. I didn’t have much confidence when I arrived here, but I can’t believe how lacking in confidence you are!”
Tim snorted. “You didn’t ‘lack confidence’. What a crock.”
“I will have you know that I did too lack confidence and was a meek, retiring little wallflower until I met all of you.”
Clark, Tim, and Enrico snorted in unison.
I gave them a mild glare. “So,” I announced, “you guys had better get to work. It should be you guys who help Jaimie gain her confidence.”
My words were met with looks that varied from disgust to panic.
“Then you’d better teach her how to be a girl first,” Enrico told me.
I looked at him in horror, unable to believe that he could be so callous of Jaimie’s feelings. I glanced over at her and could tell that she was quietly mortified.
“Don’t worry,” I told him, “No problem, piece of cake. And don’t worry. Jaimie needs men friends, not self-centered little ass-holes.”
Clark and Tim exchanged glances with me and I realized that they agreed. At least they were both intelligent enough to recognize just how uncalled for that was.
“Let’s go, Jaimie. Time to go do girlie stuff.” I grabbed her and pulled her along, determined to give her a real make over, get her just a little drunk, and then practice her wiles on someone safe like Clark and Tim.
“Tim, you and Clark come on down to the cabin in a couple of hours. And feel free to leave that dog Enrico at home.”
