AllFreeNovel
Share Us
LONG ISLAND, MAINE
The way Mack Conway swaggered toward the harbor, Ginny Atkins would have guessed he’d hit the bottle a mite too hard, except it was only afternoon. Besides that, a Sunday suit poked out of his coat, his tousled head topped with a spiffy-looking fedora.
She waved at him with her scrub brush. Now that the busy season for lobstering had passed, it was time for three months of repairing traps and painting buoys for next year. Today, Pa had stayed home—“business to take care of,” he had said, and she’d been told to take advantage of the sunny day to work away at the grime and bait that scummed up theLady Luck’s deck.
Instead of sauntering past to the bustle of lobstermen and boys tending their equipment, Mack stopped right in front of her. “Fine day, Ginny,” he boomed, his voice deeper than normal, aging him past his nineteen years.
Ginny wiped her cold, wet hands on her trousers, suddenly feeling grimy in her scuffed rubber boots and brother’s overcoat. Who’d have thought ol’ Mack would outdress her? “Where you been, Mack?”
His grin spread even wider, like he’d been waiting on her to ask. “Took a ferry to the recruiting center.”
“Already?” And she tried, really she did, to keep the dismay out of her voice.
It had all happened so fast. One day, Roosevelt was saying they were likely to stay out of the whole mess in Europe; next thing you knew, Japan had sunk those ships in Hawaii and all the young fellows on the island were lining up to stuff themselves in uniforms.
“Can’t wait to lick those Japs.” Mack rapped his knuckles just under his shoulder. “Once we show ’em who’s boss, I’ll come back with so many medals pinned to my chest there’ll barely be room for buttons.”
Ginny watched him for a moment, her breath coming out in white puffs as seagulls filled the silence with unearthly screeches. There was a spark she’d never seen before on Mack’s face, a pride in the way he squared his shoulders in the hand-me-down coat.
With the lobster boat, traps, and know-how Pa had gotten from his father, Ginny’s family was one of the wealthiest on the island, on account of having steady work. The Depression had knocked other folks, like the Conways, down often enough that they stopped trying to get up. Mr. Conway was snow-in-the-woodbox poor, and she’d heard Mack mumble a dozen shamefaced excuses when her brother invited him to go to the movies or grab a soda.
“I bet you will,” Ginny said, rewarding Mack with a smile. If he hadn’t been weighed down with spit-shined shoes, he might have floated up to join the planes that were always zooming past from the Godfrey Army Airfield.
Then his smile faltered. “Say, Ginny?”
“Say what?” She jammed her hands deeper into her coat pockets as a sudden breeze rammed against her.
“Want to be my girl?”
She nearly toppled into the ice-cold ocean from sheer surprise, but Mack hadn’t noticed, studying the ground like he was. “Aw, Mack, you’re like one of my brothers.”
“No, I ain’t,” he insisted, jutting his chin up. “Anyway, nobody but you loves this island like I do.”
He had a point there. All that most young fellows on Long Island talked about was how determined they were to get away someday. Ginny hated that, hated it when folks took in the rocky coast with its snow-dusted firs and the scent of the sharp sea air and tossed it all aside like a ball of trash.
Mack was different, always had been. Maybe it was on account of his gran’s old tales, somewhere between history and lore, wrapping around his legs like seaweed and making him want to stay. Ginny had to admire that, and he wasn’texactlylike one of her younger brothers. Hadn’t she been thinking about how spiffed-up he looked, golden hair glinting in the sun?
“Fred said before I leave I’d better have a girl to wait for me,” Mack went on. “Plus, there’s gonna be a dance in town, and I need someone to take.”
Ginny’s shoulders relaxed. If that’s all this was, it was nothing serious. “You know I’d dance with you, Mack. And I’ll write you too.”
His eyes—she’d never noticed, but they were a nice bold blue, like the sky on a cloudless day—crinkled up with a smile. “This Friday, then?”
“Sure.” She was probably one of the only girls on the island with a store-bought dress. Pa had gotten it from a shop in Portland for her twentieth birthday the month before. Nice to have someplace to use it.
“All right, then.” Instead of saying something sweet or asking her what time he could pick her up, Mack mumbled a good-bye and charged away like he was getting a leg up on his basic training a few weeks early.
Well. Was she really Mack Conway’s girl now? Just like that?
She’d probably have to call him by his real name, Marvin, instead of the childhood nickname after the Atlantic mackerel his family fished.
Nah.No matter what, Mack would always be Mack to her.
Couldn’t be any harm in it, from what she could see. Mack was a decent sort, and it would do him good to have someone writing to him. His ma couldn’t read much, and his pa—well, it wasn’t right to speak ill of a neighbor, but he might not notice his son was gone.
Wasn’t very romantic, though.On the walk home, after theLady Luckwas scrubbed up proper, she compared Mack’s asking to all the declarations of love she’d seen in movies. He hadn’t even tried to steal a kiss.
’Course, she would have slapped him if he had.
