Chapter 5: Strong Swimmer

Archer came on Wednesday, in a convertible, in a pink shirt.

I heard the car before I saw it.

Nobody drove down the yard's dirt road that fast unless they'd never paid for their own tires.

I was on the slip with a sanding block, working on the floors that would carry the new mast step.

Seth had cut them that morning from my napkin.

He'd pinned the napkin to the wall over the bench, under a strip of tape, next to a calendar from 2009.

Archer picked his way down the slip in his loafers, holding his phone up.

"Charlie. Thank God. I've been calling you for four days."

"I know. My phone shows the number."

"Then why didn't you pick up?"

"Because my phone shows the number."

Bess, up on a ladder against the hull, made a noise.

Archer glanced up at her, then at the two old shipwrights.

Then at Seth, who was planing a plank at the bench and hadn't looked up.

He lowered his voice.

"Can we talk somewhere that isn't a barn?"

"It's a shed."

"Charlie."

"I'm working, Archer. I get paid by the hour."

He laughed, then saw my face.

"You're serious. You're working here. For money."

"Nineteen dollars an hour."

"Your father's going out of his mind."

"He cut my cards before I'd finished leaving. He seemed pretty calm."

Archer took a step closer and put on his soft face.

I'd fallen for that face at twenty-three, at a charity dinner, when he said I had the saddest eyes in the room.

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