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So there you have it. Poetry is anarchy, and I still don’t like it. Though these were better than Longfellow’s. One could never end a recitation of one of his poems with a chorus of frog noises.
When conversation died down, I offered the safest option possible for the next book: Shakespeare. Miss Cavendish banned all the comedies as being “frivolous and full of suggestive material,” soHamletit is. Martina has apparently always wanted to read it—she doesn’t say much, but when she does, it’s often surprising.
I do so hate stories where people die. You’d think that during a war, of all times, we’d want to read something more uplifting.
Hand is cramping from writing notes. Which, I should add, no one has requested to read. I asked Miss Cavendish if we could simply list the titles we discussed, but she insisted that every committee she’s ever been on has kept minutes. Next week, I’ll see if I can recruit another victim to be secretary and spread the burden around.
eleven
GINNY
MAY 3
It wouldn’t be so bad, writing letters to a boy on a Sunday afternoon, if only something interesting happened to talk about.
Mack had made good on his promise, sending Ginny three letters already, all stacked up on her bureau. Like her, he’d only gone to school through fifth grade, and even then had apparently dozed off during spelling lessons. Probably penmanship ones, too, but as messy as they were, his letters were full of first-rate stuff: pranks on his chief petty officer, the USO chocolate bars he’d smuggled out, and descriptions of his seasick landlubber comrades when they’d first braved the seas, headed for somewhere in the Pacific.
And all Ginny had to scribble in reply was the same old routine: foundry shifts, tracking down free lunches around town to save a little dough, and walking on the beach, which was where she was now. Poor Mack would die of boredom from her letters before the Japanese could get him.
A beady-eyed seagull scrabbling over the rocks looked far too interested in the remaining half of her baloney sandwich, so Ginny stuffed it in her mouth. “Don’t you try it,” she mumbled around the crust.
Hamletlay discarded at the foot of her blanket. Ginny had tried to read it for Martina’s sake. It had started out all right,with talk of a ghost and revenge and such. But then some fellow named Horatio went on for pages about “harbingers preceding still the fates” and something called a “moiety competent,” which sounded like something a big-city lawyer would say. Better to count the dead bodies, skim the last scene or two, and fumble her way through the discussion with no one the wiser.
That sure wasn’t interesting enough to tell Mack about. Ginny sighed at the half-blank letter. She quickly jotted another question to fill up space, then said she missed him, because that’s how Mack had closed his last letter. Even that didn’t quite feel right.
Do I really miss him ... or do I just miss the island?
Never mind that. Mack almostwasthe island.
Until he sees the world and backwaters on you, some taunting part of her niggled.
Well, if that happened, she’d change his mind right back ... or dump him. She sure wasn’t leaving Long Island. Once she got enough money to buy back land on the island after the navy was done with it—and maybe her own lobstering boat and traps for good measure—she was staying put.
In the last letter from her family, Ma told her that Pa had settled into his job in Portland so much that she wondered if he really would go back to lobstering at the end of the war like he’d promised. But it couldn’t be true, only wishful thinking on Ma’s part. Pa would never sell theLady Luckoutright. But if they got into debt, if Ma got into the money the government had given them for the house ... well, anything could happen.
Still holding the letter, Ginny watched the waves come in, beating a sheen over the narrow stretch of beach that ran between the rocky shoals. It wasn’t hard to pretend that she was home again while closing her eyes to breathe the salt-tanged air and feeling the spring wind tug wisps of her hair inland. But it wasn’t quite the same.
She’d tried wandering down by the landing before cominghere, but seeing the boats and sailors, the sea air filled with familiar hollers and smells, only made her homesickness worse, like taking to a choppy sea with a full stomach.
A bark drew her attention down the beach, where a tallish, broad-shouldered fellow, sleeves rolled to his elbows, was tossing a stick for a German shepherd with brown markings like eyebrows. The dog leaped into the air, all muscle and grace, chomped down on the stick, then headed bullet-straight back to its master.
She gave a whistle of appreciation. “Now,there’sa handsome one.”
The dog, of course.
Ma had grown up on a farm where the dogs herded sheep and the cats ate mice, so she’d never warmed up to the idea of a pet. Ginny had adopted the strays who hung about the harbor, giving them names and slipping them scraps whenever she could.
Ginny stood, careful to tuck Mack’s letter under her lunch pail so it wouldn’t blow away in the breeze, and waved her arms. “Hey there! Mister!”
The young man turned toward her hailing and jogged over. Closer now, she noticed an eyepatch slung across his face under tousled dark hair, like a pirate. The dog, cheated out of his game of catch, bounded after him.
“Can I pet your dog?” she asked, once he got within hailing distance. That seemed more pressing than how-do-you-dos.
“Sure,” the stranger said, smiling amiably. He was a fresh-faced fellow despite the eyepatch giving him a world-weary look, probably not much older than she was. “Though he’s not actually mine.”
Ginny dropped to her knees, knuckling the German shepherd’s neck. Sand flicked onto her legs as the dog wagged his tail, panting and craning his head to get a better look at his new friend. “Dognapping this early in the day?”
His laugh was warm and strong. “Miss Cavendish—she livesup there on the cliffs—likes me to take him for a walk some afternoons. I’m new to town. Just started working for her.”
