Chapter 16: Founders Day

By noon on Friday the whole harbor was strung with paper flags.

A stage had been built out over the dock on rented pallets.

In front of it stood a long folding table with five name cards.

The harbor commission would sit there at seven.

Landry Shore had paid for everything, including a sign over the lemonade that said so.

I walked down the middle of it with my hands in my jacket and nobody in front of me.

"Wyatt! There he is!" A man from the hardware store caught my arm. "Big night. We're all so proud."

"Thanks."

"Anything you need. Anything." He squeezed my elbow and moved on.

Four more people said it before I reached the grill.

Each of them looked at me the way they had looked at me for eleven years, as a good story with a limp.

Brody was at the grill with a spatula and an apron that said KISS THE COOK.

He was handing out burgers to the same men who had called me Turtle at the cookout.

Every one of them was laughing at something he said.

He saw me and held up the spatula.

"The guest of honor," he said. "Hey, buddy. Let me get you a plate."

"I'm not hungry."

"Sure, sure. A word, then?"

He walked me around the side of the stage tent, behind the sound board, where the canvas hid us from the crowd.

The friendly face came off him.

"My dad's got an envelope," he said, quietly. "Your girl's mother knows what's in it. I'm told you do too, now."

"I do."

"Good, that saves me a speech." He smiled at a passing child, then turned back to me, still smiling.

"Tonight I introduce you. You say a few warm words about the Landry family and a fresh start for the harbor."

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