The calls came from three different directions. “Woody! “Look out! Jump!”
Woody Kapok let go of her Sunfish halyard and whirled
around to see a boat trailer
rolling swiftly down the gravelly bank.
It was aimed right at her.
With a desperate lunge, she flung herself out of its path and tumbled
backwards into the knee-deep water of Sloop Harbor.
The trailer
whistled past her, missing her right leg by inches. It smashed into the side of her small
boat with a sodden thump.
Her Sunfish rocked wildly, the half-raised sail flapping
like a giant wounded bird, and crashed into the boat moored behind it. Both boats ground together, their rub
rails squealing, churning up the
water.
For a moment there was a complete silence. Then a tired voice said, “Say, I’m sorry about that. No harm done, I guess.” A pudgy figure trudged down the
steep bank that led from the parking lot to the tiny beach.
Woody slowly sat up in the warm water and grimaced at the
speaker. Her right hand and
left thigh stung, and she knew
she’d landed on some of the sharp-edged oysters that dotted the sandy
bottom.
“Actually, there’s a lot of harm done, Flora. I think Woody has some bad cuts,
and her hull is cracked.” Crash Caladesi splashed agilely to Woody’s side, and pulled her upright
with one well-toned arm. Woody
accepted the athletic woman’s help gratefully.
“She certainly is cut. What were you thinking to let go of your
trailer like that?” Ibis Lagoon
joined them, shaking her mane of
titian hair in irritation.
As usual, it settled back
into perfect shape, matching
her perfect figure, oval face, and dainty hands and feet.
“Hey, it was an honest mistake. Anyone could let go of her trailer in
this loose sand.” Flora Belcher
gazed at the indignant women around her. Little intelligence peered out
from her dull, muddy eyes. Her
frayed, too tight “lucky” sailing shirt that she wore every week had long since
faded from red to mottled pink.
“It’s OK,” Woody said, as other Windlasses began to crowd
around. Even some of the pram
sailors hurried over, their tiny boats left half-rigged in front of the pram
shed. It looked like all 127
members of their women’s sailing club were arriving. She blushed in embarrassment. “I’ll live. Accidents do happen.”
“Uh, I
think…. Neither Woody or Lotus will be able to sail today,” came a hesitant
voice. Shy Holly Highland was
timidly stroking the bright blue splash board on the boat behind Woody. “That crack goes through the hull on
Woody’s boat, and this piece has been knocked right off on Lotus’ boat.” She regarded the perpetrator with
reproachful eyes. “It’s even worse
than what you did to MY boat last week, Flora. Are you … uh…. going to…uh… pay for
repairs?”
“Me? I can’t
afford anything. Sorry.” Flora turned away and tugged at her
trailer. “Somebody give me a hand
with this. I think one of the
wheels is stuck in a crab hole.”
Woody turned away also, breathing heavily through her
nose. Screaming was useless, and
she didn’t have anything to throw unless she took off one of her water
sandals. Flora never took
responsibility for her actions. Every since she’d joined the club the fall
before, the woman had left a swath of damage. And she didn’t seem to care.
Woody wasn’t the only one worried. Indigo St. Joseph waded to her
side and put one beringed hand on Woody’s
shoulder. Her diamonds
winked in the bright Florida sunshine. “Flora will certainly not
reimburse you. If I were you, I’d
just buy a new boat,” she murmured in disdain. “Take this one right to the dump. Or let someone make a nice planter out
of it. ”
Woody splashed saltwater on the thin trickle of red
coming from an oyster cut on her leg, and pressed the shallow wound shut with
her thumb. The blood stopped
instantly. Behind Indigo, up in the
narrow lane that doubled as a driveway to the boat club and pram shed plus being
a long, narrow parking lot, the
rich woman’s brand new pearl black Jaguar glistened like a giant beetle. “I
can’t afford a new boat, Indigo. I
guess I’ll dig out the first aid kit, and worry about my boat later.”
She limped
up the ramp that led to the aging boat shed, standing aside as four chattering women carried a pram
toward the floating dock. They
flashed her smiles and friendly greetings, and kept going.
Inside the crowded pram shed, Lotus Canal was licking the
inside of a candy wrapper. The
tall, thin woman turned the twisted foil, searching for any missed molecules of
chocolate, then tossed it in a
trash can with a resigned sigh.
“What’s this I hear about my boat getting torn up?” she asked. One long arm snaked out to grab a
sweating can of non-diet cola from a bench. She took a deep swig, and sighed in
satisfaction. “Is it bad?”
“Bad enough,” came a gravely voice from behind Woody. A nicotine-stained hand thrust the red
First Aid box at Woody’s chest.
“Sit down, kiddo, and let’s have a look at that leg.” Knotty Edgewater stuck her ever-present
cigarette into the exact center of her mouth, and gently pushed Woody down on a
bench in front of the bulletin board. “Both of you two are out of the
races today, unless you can pop rivet and fiberglass all the broken parts in the
next fifteen minutes.”
“That’s sure not going to happen,” Woody winched as her
fellow Windlass daubed iodine on her cuts. An ash formed at the end of
Knotty’s cigarette, trembled for a long moment, then slowly toppled down to just
miss Woody’s leg.
“Since you two are all dressed for the water with no
place to go, you’re welcome to come aboard the Gorgeous Bass Gal and help out
the race committee. There’s room.”
Skipper Bowline tugged at the bill of her ever present baseball cap. “Skipper’s Guaranteed Bass Guiding
Service” was the logo printed on the cap.
For the hundredth time, Woody wondered what Skipper’s hair really looked
like under the ever-present cap.
Maybe nobody knew. Maybe
Skipper slept in her hat when she wasn’t guiding tourists who came to Florida to
fish. But it was a nice
offer.
“Thanks. I
think I’ll take you up on that,” she smiled warmly back at Skipper. “You have a beautiful boat, and if
you’re sure there is room, it’s the only way I’ll get on the water
today.”
“Me too, Skipper.”
Lotus chimed in. Somehow
she’d found a package of Oreos, and was busily opening the package with one hand
and her teeth while the other hand clutched her cola can. “I’m not even going to go look at my poor
crippled Sunfish until we get back.”
“Just try not to scratch the paint,” the fishing guide
tugged at the bill of her cap again.
“I just had it painted, and the gel-coat needs time to harden. It cost me an arm and half an ankle, but
I’ve got four fishing trips lined up, starting tomorrow. With luck and some good tips, I can pay
off the paint job, and put a good sum away for boat payments.”
Woody finished blowing on her stinging cuts, and rose to
her feet. “Knotty, thanks for the
first aid. No bacteria would dare
invade that cut now.”
Knotty nodded gravely, flinging more cigarette ash to the
floor. “Keep it clean if you can.”
She closed the first aid box and sauntered away.
Woody called to the fishing guide, who had wandered to the open door of the pram shed and was
watching the parking lot with wide-eyed attention. “Skipper, I’ll get my lunch and join…” she was interrupted by a loud series of
crashes and yells from the parking lot.
Woody joined Skipper on the porch of the pram shed, and
looked at the scene before her with disbelief.
Flora Belcher’s dirty green sedan was jammed nose first
into the side of Indigo St. Joseph’s black Jaguar. Behind her back fender, Flora’s empty trailer had somehow
jack-knifed, and was actually sitting on top of two trailers parked diagonally
against the west curb. The wheels
of Flora’s trailer rested squarely on top of two boats still strapped to the
trailers. And those trailers had in
turn been violently pushed into the neatly parked line of other Sunfish waiting
to be launched. Even from a
distance, Woody could see the splintered wreckage. Half of the boats and trailers in the
parking lot were damaged.
“Son of a …..” Skipper’s sunburned hand clamped onto her
fishing hat. “What an
idiot.”
In the hushed silence, Crash Caladesi loped up to Flora’s
car, wrenched open the driver’s door, and yanked the ignition key out. Not saying a word, the muscular woman
threw the key ring against the side of the pram shed. “I’d throw your keys into the middle of
the marina,” she grated, “but
somebody is going to have to move your blasted car. Now get out, right
now.”
Moving slowly, Flora emerged from her car, her doughy
face sullen. As her right foot
emerged, a half-full liquor bottle fell out onto the asphalt. Flora quickly snatched it up, cradling
it like a baby. “Not my
fault,” she whined. “There’s not
room enough to turn around. Not my
fault. You should have given me
some room.” She shuffled toward the
east side of the pram shed, where Skipper’s bright white bass boat sat in a
vacant slip between a long line of moored power boats.
“Let’s separate the damaged boats,” called their Captain.
This year’s elected leader, she was a lively woman in her 60s who barely looked
a day over 40, “If we work fast,
and there’s not too much damage,
maybe we can still get in some sailing.”
For the next half an hour, Woody found herself part of
a crew pulling individual Sunfish out to the
mainland side of the marina, where a large parking lot offered ample spaces to arrange the wounded
boats and trailers.
Other crews quickly formed to move the undamaged cars and trailers to the
far side of the boat club.
Two of the
trailers were too damaged to roll, but the twisted wreckage was slowly
unraveled. Used to working
together as teams, the women worked efficiently. There was an angry buzz in their
voices.
Woody winced as sweat ran into one of her fresh
cuts. Their Captain was conferring with the Race
Captain, a languid young mother
that Woody knew held a Ph.D. in linguistics. Another woman, a retired news
photographer, had her camera out, and was busily taking pictures of the
damage. Now and then two
other women came up and pointed out possible photos – Woody knew both of them
worked as insurance brokers.
The scene was organized confusion with women working in groups and
darting back and forth.
“Used to be, any time a car scraped another one, you
called the police,” murmured Knotty Edgewater as they walked back down the
narrow driveway that led from the pram shed to the mainland. Her ever present cigarette bobbed up and
down with each word. “Now they tell
you to not even call the police unless somebody’s been murdered. And look at the
flag pole – the abandon course flag is going up. Nobody is sailing today – all the races
have been cancelled. What a
mess. I wish somebody would just
murder Flora.”
Woody nodded wordlessly, trying to ignore her stinging
cuts as she strode along.
It looked like all
the mangled boats, trailers and cars were finally untangled. Not for the first time, Woody
wondered how Flora had managed to wreak so much havoc. Ever since she’d joined a year ago, the
woman had managed to alienate almost every member of their friendly, loving
group. True, the Windlasses
took their racing seriously, but beneath all the competition was a deep sense of
… what? Friendship? Liking? Family, she decided.
Nodding at her definition, Woody looked around at the
moored power and sail boats that filled the slips inside the marina. It was a pretty sight. Maybe her boat could be fixed with a bit
of fiberglass…..
Something pink was drifting just under the stern of
Skipper’s bass boat, the Gorgeous Bass Gal. Woody’s eyes went past it, then
snapped back. It looked like… yeah,
it had to be Flora’s shirt.
Woody pointed toward the bit of fabric. “Looks like Flora lost her shirt. It’s going to sink pretty soon. She
better borrow a boat hook from
Skipper and pull it out before it does.”
“Good riddance,” Knotty snorted, her cigarette
bobbing. “That old rag is a
disgrace. Granted, we sure don’t
care about fashion around here, but
that shirt has the stains of every meal she’s ever
eaten.”
“True.”
Woody grinned at her friend.
“Let it sink. Now if you can
manage without me for a minute, I’m going to the
bathroom.”
“Have fun,”
Knotty walked over to join two women bent over a dented trailer
fender.
As Woody walked past the pram shed, headed toward the
big, one-room boat club that was used for meetings, pot lucks, and parties, she was startled to hear a rising
moan.
Holly Highland was walking unsteadily along the narrow
walkway that separated the slips.
Her breath was coming in gasps, and she seemed about to
faint.
“What’s the matt….” Woody began, but Holly suddenly
darted forward to grasp Woody’s arm in a painful
grip.
“It’s…uh….it’s… you see…uh…”
“What is it, Holly?
Are you alright?”
“Flora,” the shy woman burst out. “It’s Flora. She’s in the water, and there’s blood
all around and her head’s all
misshapen…. and…. and …I think….uh…. Woody, I think she’s
dead!”