"Aldridge, Ray - Filter FeedersV1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Aldridge Ray)

If only that long-suffering person were still alive, Teresa would still be living at home, still taking the occasional course at the local college. Teresa's faith in glorious change might still be intact. But in fact her mother had died and left her nothing much but the Nembutal, which was so far past its expiration date it probably couldn't do the job anymore.

Just before she fell asleep, she thought of the old ketch, and felt a vague envy for its crew, thinking of all the lovely romantic places the boat must have visited.

Late the next morning she went to her part-time job at the Shipshape Chandlery. Her other boss, Bob Johnson, greeted her cheerfully. Bob was as attractive as the Sailorman was repellent, a tall athletic man with white-blonde hair and the mahogany complexion of Nordics who spend too much time in the sun. Bob would probably be crusty with skin cancer some day, but presently he seemed overwhelmingly healthy. And happily married. Ah well, she'd thought, when he'd told her about his wonderful wife.

"So, how's the novel going?" he asked, as he did faithfully every time he saw her.

"Coming along," she lied, just as faithfully.

"Good, good." He went to the back and began unpacking a shipment of stainless fittings.

For all his regular polite inquiries, Bob no longer attempted to engage her in serious conversation regarding her alleged novel. She supposed that by now he understood her well enough.

In fact she owned a portable electric typewriter, a box of typing paper, several hundred pages of notes, and an opening chapter. At increasingly lengthy intervals she got out the opening chapter and retyped it, but she'd long ago realized she was never going to grow up and be Joyce Carol Oates. In the first place, nothing had ever happened to her, so what could she write about? Also, she lacked self-discipline. Luck. Talent. And all the other necessary stuff.

No, she was just one of the multitudes who use an imaginary writing career as an excuse for not having a life. She'd once said, in a burst of rare passion, to someone who didn't care: "When you're sliding downhill toward middle age and you work at shit jobs and you live in motels and you have no lover or child or friend, people want to know why. It's nice to have a halfway plausible excuse. And when you have no lover or child or friend, no one's going to care enough about you to try to correct your delusions. It works out fine." Early in the afternoon she took her break in Bob's upstairs office, which had a fine view out over the harbor. As she sipped her coffee, she again noticed the old ketch, which had either moved or dragged anchor during the night, so that it was now much closer to the mainland side of the harbor.

Teresa could clearly see the woman who emerged from the main hatchway. She had short hair as white as Bob's, and at first Teresa thought it was white-blonde like his. She seemed young, despite the lethargic way she moved. She was thin and brown, she wore stylishly ragged cutoffs and a bathing suit top.

She boarded an old wooden dinghy and began to row ashore. She paused frequently, leaning on her oars as if catching her breath; this added to Teresa's impression that the woman was ill. Finally her dinghy grounded on the strip of dirty sand below the chandlery.

When the woman looked up, Teresa felt a little shock, though not of recognition, the woman was a stranger. Perhaps it was her unusual looks, which were not entirely lost. Actually, Teresa thought, with reluctant admiration, she was still striking, with sweeping brows and large dark eyes. Her mouth was still wide and rich, her cheekbones dramatic, her skin unwrinkled.

She gazed at Teresa with what seemed a wistful expression. Teresa was abruptly uncomfortable, but she waved, and instantly the woman looked away.

She was at the counter by the time Teresa returned from her break.

"Can you help me?" The white-haired woman had a low soft voice and opaque eyes.

"Sure," Teresa said. "What do you need?"

The woman fumbled a wadded slip of paper from her pocket. She read from it, squinting slightly. She wanted a hundred feet of half-inch dacron braid, a tube of bedding compound, bulbs for the running lights, shaft zincs . . . and a dozen other items.

"Long list. Been out for a while?" Teresa asked, as she measured out the rope.

"Yes . . . it seems that way." The woman's eyes went a little cloudier.

"Where'd you come from?"

Her eyes never seemed to meet Teresa's directly, after that first time. Now her gaze slid away, she seemed to be studying the stuffed marlin over the Chandlery's front door. "Isla Mujeres. That was our last port."

"Oh? Was it nice?" Teresa finished bundling the rope and rummaged through the zinc trays. She didn't know why she kept attempting to make conversation. The woman clearly would have preferred an entirely businesslike exchange.

"It's nicer than Cancun," the woman answered, uneasily, as if she feared that Teresa would next interrogate her on the specifics of the matter.

But Teresa wasn't bold enough to keep trying. She gathered up the rest of the items and put them in two cardboard boxes. The woman paid, then stood looking at the boxes in perplexity. "I guess I'll make two trips," she said.

"I'll help you," Teresa said, and took the heavier box. Her customer seemed surprised, but smiled dimly.