Wives and Lovers Read Free Page B

“I’m staying. I have a job, I’m self-supporting, and I can live where and how I want to.”
    Hazel was silent, watching the strip of sea expand on the horizon. She said, finally, “That business about all the boyfriends back home—malarkey, wasn’t it?”
    The girl didn’t answer.
    â€œThere’s only one boyfriend and he’s here, in this town. Is that your story, Ruby?”
    â€œYou’re very nosy,” Ruby said.

2
    At twelve-thirty George Anderson walked along the wharf towards the Beachcomber, a tall, heavy-set man wearing slacks and a sport shirt and a navy blue yachting cap trimmed with gold braid.
    Someone had told George once that he moved like an athlete, and ever since then he’d been extremely careful to move like an athlete at all times, eyes straight ahead, shoulders back, stomach in, chin up. This posture was no longer easy to maintain, partly because he was forty now and putting on weight, and partly because in such a position it was difficult to avoid stepping into the holes in the wharf or stumbling against the two-by-fours where it had been patched up.
    The wharf was eighty years old. It had been built to last forever but even the proudest citizens of Channel City were forced to admit that it wasn’t going to make it. Some of the holes in the planks were as large as fists and when cars drove along it or when a seiner accidentally struck it while docking, the whole structure swayed and tottered and the pilings squawked like gulls.
    George took a personal interest in the wharf. He liked boats and he liked money, and the wharf meant both to him since the Beachcomber was built on the end of it. Sometimes, when a particular hole got so big that there was danger of one of the Beachcomber’s customers break­ing a leg, George himself would come out and repair it, equipped with a bag of nails and a hammer and any piece of wood he could lay his hands on. One of the holes George had rather impulsively mended with the favorite chopping block of the Beachcomber’s head chef, Romanelli. After an exchange of bitter words with George over the incident, Romanelli went home and sulked for two days, drinking red wine and planning hot revenge. Unable to think of anything drastic enough and rather pleasantly tired from trying, Romanelli returned to work on the third day, docile and resigned, and George bought him a new chopping block and personally burned Romanelli’s initials on the side of it with a soldering iron.
    On each side of the wharf “No Fishing” signs were posted but these signs were traditionally ignored and by noon the railings were lined with fishermen of all races and ages and sizes. George nodded pleasantly to each of them because they gave the wharf local color and pro­vided interesting characters for the patrons of the Beach­comber to watch as they dined.
    He stopped behind an old woman wearing oil-stained jeans and a wide straw hat pushed back on her head. Her face was brown and lively and covered with wrinkles, like coffee being stirred.
    â€œHiya, Millie.”
    Millie jumped, clutching at her hat. “Jees, you scared.
    â€œI see you’ve changed places again. How’s the luck over on this side?”
    â€œThe same,” Millie said. “The same, no matter where I go. I got a jinx, George.”
    â€œGo on. You just have to keep trying.”
    â€œI tell you, I got a jinx. It don’t matter whether I use mussels or squid or sardines, or what I use. Listen, George, I got a proposition.”
    â€œNuts,” George said pleasantly.
    Millie’s propositions were always the same. They were a natural result of her jinx. Other fishermen might oc­casionally catch a stingray, but Millie hardly ever caught anything else. She usually pulled up at least one a day, and her problem was to get rid of it. If she threw it back into the sea it might be washed up on the beach and some curious child