“. . .Somewheres. I’d just kind of put it away somewheres.” The wind was in her dress, molding it, and clasping her hands about the rail she let herself swing backward to the full stretch of her arms while the wind molded her thighs. Pete’s coat, buttoned, ballooned its vented flaring skirts.
“Yes,” he said, “I can just kind of put it away myself, when I want. . . . Look out, kid.” Jenny had drawn herself up to the rail again. The rail was breast high to her, but by hooking her legs over the lower one she could draw herself upward, and by creasing her young belly over the top one she leaned far out over the water. The water sheared away creaming: a white fading through milky jade to blue again, and a thin spray whipped from it, scuttering like small shot. “Come on, get back on the boat. We are not riding the blinds this trip.”
“Gee,” said Jenny, creasing her young belly, hanging out over the water, while wind molded and flipped her little skirt, revealing the pink backs of her knees above her stockings. The helmsman thrust his head out and yelled at her, and Jenny craned her neck to look back at him, swinging her blown drowsy hair.
“Keep your shirt on, brother,” Pete shouted back at the helmsman, for form’s sake. “What’d I tell you, dumbness?” he hissed at Jenny, pulling her down. “Come on, now, it’s their boat. Try to act like somebody.”
“I wasn’t hurting it,” Jenny answered placidly. “I guess I can do this, can’t I?” She let her body swing back again at the stretch of her arms. “. . . Say, there he is with that saw again. I wonder what he’s making.”
“Whatever it is he probably don’t need any help from us,” Pete answered. . . . “Say, how long did she say this was going to last?”
“I don’t know . . . maybe they’ll dance or something after
