Tooner Schooner

by Mary Lasswell

  “That’s how it is with them Hi Fi’s,” Oscar said. “Mr. Cobb was impressed with Jasper’s muriels.”

  “Miss Tinkham invited him,” Mrs. Rasmussen said, “even if he did give such a stingy little few words about Tooner Schooner’s boat in his paper.”

  “A wonderful maiden-type lady,” Oscar said, “but if you get out of line, she can sure kick you in the chins with her dignity.”

  “Cut the music off,” Jasper said. “They’re having such a damn good time, running in and out of the different houses, it’s going to be tough getting them to the table.”

  “I think everybody has a kind of hangover from childhood, wanting to live in something like a gypsy caravan,” Miss Tinkham said.

  “Sure. Look at trailers.”

  “Must be twenty minutes past,” Captain Dowdy laughed. “Nobody’s sayin’ a word.”

  “How can they? Got their mushers full!” Mrs. Feeley was gumming away happily at a bit of backbone of lamb.

  Darleen and her husband sat happily at one end of the table. Next to them Daphne and her widower were deep in conversation.

  “You’d never think they was married, so nice to each other they are,” Mrs. Rasmussen whispered. “An’ Pierpont! He was the baddest little boy I ever seen in my life.”

  The lad in the naval cadet’s uniform was attractive in a thin, elfin way.

  “Long as they’re lettin’ him fly a plane, it’s good he’s on our side! Nothin’ in God’s world can change them devilish green eyes o’ his.” Mrs. Feeley reached around for a fresh beer. “But he’s a credit to her, when you think o’ the way we found both of ’em.”

  “What do you know about that Myrna bein’ in movies? Dancin’ an’ singin’ like crazy!” Oscar laughed.

  “They were a sorry-lookin’ bunch, all right. Mr. Cobb looks forlorn,” Miss Tinkham said. “Excuse me.”

  “I’m thinkin’,” Mrs. Feeley said to Oscar. “I’ll feel better when you’re paid back for Bus Town. I bet you ain’t charged in your work.”

  “Certainly not.” Jasper was indignant. “All we had was a job, eight hours of forgetfulness, till you let us have a home.”

  “Just see this!” Miss Tinkham came up excitedly waving a sheet of newspaper. “Faith, the substance of things hoped for!” She staggered a wee bit and Mr. Cobb kindly put out his hand to steady her. He champed contentedly on his pipe.

  “What is it?” Mrs. Rasmussen leaned over as Miss Tinkham spread the paper on the table.

  “It’s a tear-sheet from the Sunday edition of the paper,” Cobb said. “It was the least I could do, with the captain here and all of you having made the cruises on the schooner so pleasant.”

  “By God, it’s You!” Mrs. Feeley banged Mrs. Rasmussen on the back. The photographs illustrating the full-page spread were excellent. Mrs. Rasmussen sat at the wheel with her chef’s cap at a raffish angle. Behind her stood Captain Dowdy, smiling cordially.

  “Can I keep it?” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “Get you all you want,” Cobb said.

  “Lookit Miss Tinkham!” Mrs. Feeley discovered another familiar face. “An’ who is that hag got up to scare little children?” She peered at the picture. “Dearest Mother! It’s me!”

  Elisha Dowdy stuck out his hand and gripped Cobb’s shoulder.

  “I’m beholden. A whole page in the Sunday paper! Thing like that could give the boat a good name.”

  “You are practically a nationwide figure this very moment,” Miss Tinkham cried happily. “It’s too moving…This beautiful write-up can have the most far-reaching effect! The most unexpected results!”

  “It was handsome of you.” Mrs. Rasmussen shook hands with Mr. Cobb. “I’ll fix you a box to take home.”

  “Be right back.” The captain excused himself. “Goin’ up street to pick up a few Sunday papers!”

  “Don’t run off! We ain’t opened the presents yet!” Mrs. Feeley yelled.

  “He’s that pleased he’s gotta be off by himself for a minute.” Mrs. Rasmussen watched Sunshine’s long, soft look after the skipper’s retreating back.

  Miss Tinkham towered far above Mr. Cobb in the waltz, but the little columnist bumped along cheerfully. Mrs. Feeley got up to dance with Oscar and Mrs. Rasmussen took Jasper’s hand.

  “Fat as a tun,” she said. “Mrs. Feeley’s built like a hogshead, but ain’t she light on her feet?”

  “It’s like dancing with a mountain of whipped cream,” Jasper said. “Or diving in a feather bed. Sure fun. A man likes a nice armful of goodies. Now that Velma, she’s so solid it’s like dancing with a brick…”

  “Smokehouse,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “You see what I see?” She moved her head to indicate the odd-looking woman dancing with Red. Johnny and Velma were dancing, sawing away grimly. “Shame to leave Darleen sittin’ by herself, when a damn gatecrasher is takin’ up one of our men! Get closer, will you?” She craned her neck to get a better look when the rasp of a Klaxon horn was heard even above the blare of the music. All heads turned in disbelief. Mrs. Feeley stared around pop-eyed, wondering where the blast came from. She saw the woman dancing with Red. It certainly wasn’t anybody they knew.

  “The bloody crust of her!” Mrs. Feeley shouted to Mrs. Rasmussen. “Reckon Red brung her?” There was no time to answer because Jasper whirled Mrs. Rasmussen into the fast figure of the polka.

  “Pay attention, now!” he said. “Here we go!” Mrs. Rasmussen bounded away in his arms:

  “If there’s anythin’ I like it’s the schottische!”

  “Goddlemighty!” Mrs. Feeley’s shriek could be heard over the shrill A-GOO-GAH of the Klaxon. “It’s right out on the dance floor somewhere!” All seven couples were craning their necks wildly to see where the devilish noise was coming from. Mrs. Feeley and Oscar were cutting a complicated caper when Red and his partner came alongside and a horrible blast from the horn nearly rocked Mrs. Feeley’s head off her shoulders.

  “Stop the music!” she screamed. Pierpont ran and snapped off the switch. Mrs. Feeley had the strange woman by the shoulders shaking her. “What’s the idea of a Bustle Bumper like you bargin’ in here an’ creatin’ a disturbance?”

  Captain Dowdy shouldered his way into the crowd. “Care to dance, ma’am?” The captain put his arm around the strange lady’s waist and waltzed off without music…unless the repeated shrieks of the horn could be called music.

  “I’m mad enough to drink coke sody!” Mrs. Feeley shouted, and ran full tilt into the dancers. Mrs. Rasmussen dived between their legs, knocking the captain off balance, pot over kettles on the driveway.

  “She has that instrument of torture concealed somewhere on her person,” Miss Tinkham insisted. Mrs. Feeley grabbed the stranger’s skirts and hoisted them up, giving a view of ruffled can-can pants and red garters. She pulled the skirts into a knot over the woman’s head, covering big velvet hat, veil and all.

  Mrs. Feeley sat down with a thump, her legs straight out in front of her. She pointed hysterically to the wriggling stranger trying in vain to shake off Miss Tinkham and Mrs. Rasmussen. The crowd moved in closer. “Lashed around her waist an’ down the side of her legs with a bit o’ clothes line! What kind of a fizz-gig do you call that?”

  The men were howling. Darleen doubled over the table. Mrs. Rasmussen and Miss Tinkham held fast to the squirming intruder.

  “Don’t let go of her till I see the brazen face of the dirty hussy!” Mrs. Feeley raged. Mrs. Rasmussen and Miss Tinkham had the victim pretty well in the bag, arms pinioned inside the skirt and ruffled petticoat. “Hold fast, my dears!” Mrs. Feeley muttered. “We’ll soon know who the trollop is!” Jasper and Oscar came to help, but it seemed that they only delayed matters. “Outa my way.” Mrs. Feeley could stand their fumbling no longer. “Got her, Miss Tinkham?” Miss Tinkham and Mrs. Rasmussen had the interloper by the waist good and tight. The change of hold made the skirt and petticoat drop down. “One! Two!” Mrs. Feeley ripped off the big hat and the heavy black lace veil. The guests we
re reeling with laughter, holding on to each other for support. Miss Tinkham and Mrs. Rasmussen were speechless. “Gimme a beer,” Mrs. Feeley laughed. “I mighta knew it was Ol’-Timer.” Red turned the music on again and Captain Dowdy came up to dance with Mrs. Feeley.

  “We loaded that ’un, didn’t we?” He chuckled as he hopped from one foot to the other in a sort of nautical highland fling.

  “You scrimy B!” Mrs. Feeley giggled. “It was settlin’ down into somethin’ too much like respectability to be any fun.”

  “Mrs. Rasmussen never woulda said that. Serves me right for wastin’ my time on you,” he growled.

  “Me for a beer,” Mrs. Feeley said. “I can’t stand any more o’ that rout step. You better dance with Sunshine.”

  “Aw, her.”

  “An’ don’t miss!”

  “Maybe they laughed theirselfs out,” Mrs. Feeley said to Mrs. Rasmussen. Miss Tinkham and Red were coming out of Green Four with another stack of records. The dancing was slower and the music not so loud. Someone had doused a pair of baby-spotlights and reduced the glare. Overhead the moon glowed, big and velvety. The breeze from the bay was just right. “Da-dee-da-da-DAH,” Mrs. Feeley hummed softly. The Royal Hawaiians were at it again. “Cuss Red an’ his speakers out much as you like, they sure pick that music up lovely.” Mrs. Rasmussen nodded and moved over for Darleen and Johnny to sit on the bench near them. Jasper and Oscar pulled another one up beside them.

  “Whassat?” Mrs. Feeley heard something odd.

  “Sounds like a drum.” The captain lit Velma’s little black cigar for her and sat down by Mrs. Rasmussen.

  “It ain’t comin’ outa the record player,” Oscar said. The drumming got more pronounced, still in perfect time to the music of “Lovely Hula Hands.”

  “What the hell’s that?” Mrs. Feeley whispered, and pointed to a bundle that seemed to slither out of the shadows of the breezeway onto the driveway. The baby-spot picked up the barely moving figure. Mrs. Rasmussen heard the captain draw in his breath sharply:

  “Sunshine dancin’ the siva.”

  She wore the trappings of the taupó, bare from waist to neck, except for the great shark’s-tooth necklace. The fine-mat was folded gracefully into a skirt a little above her knees. Around her ankles she had tied pliant leaves of dark red croton plant. The part of her body that was visible glistened with oil. The bright red hair of the ceremonial headdress hung down around her shoulders. Above it the spires of the headdress quivered.

  “This is the McCoy,” Velma whispered. “I’ve got a book about it.”

  Sunshine advanced slowly and gracefully, her body held supple but erect. The bends were as stately as in a classic ballet, the line absolutely plumb. She seemed to bend at the ankles as well as at the knees and the waist. Even when she almost swept the ground in front of her with her knees, folding at the hips, not bending forward, her back was held perfectly straight and her breast high. The movements of her hands, wrists and arms were fluid as the tide, graceful as birds in flight.

  “It ain’t no hula,” Mrs. Feeley said softly. “She don’t jiggle nor wiggle.”

  “This here’s almost a kind o’ sacred dance,” the captain said.

  “I swear she ain’t got a bone in her body,” Mrs. Feeley said. “It’s the most beautifullest sight I ever see.”

  The drums faded down and the music slowed to the finish, leaving Sunshine sitting on the ground, each foot resting on the opposite knee, as she completed the form of the dance with movements of the arms and hands so delicate that Captain Dowdy thought of a gull settling into the crest of a wave. Nobody moved or spoke for a few minutes. Miss Tinkham and Red came out of the shadows where they had been beating out the rhythm on empty kerosene cans with spoons. Miss Tinkham put a sweater around Sunshine.

  “We’ve had it.” Velma got up brusquely. “God, what I wouldn’t give to present it just that way at the Club! Strippers get away with it, but something poetic like that’ll have to wear a top of some sort.”

  “I’m all hell to skelter.” Mrs. Feeley mopped her brow.

  “She thinks a lot of us to dance without no top, like that,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  Miss Tinkham nodded. “She does indeed; in the South Seas her fine-mats take the place of royal robes, royal standard and royal treasure. We are privileged.”

  “She must be big stuff back in her village,” Oscar said.

  “A taupó,” Miss Tinkham said, “is like a maid of honor, who officiates at all ceremonies. In a Samoan village, she enjoys all the privileges of a vestal virgin in ancient Rome.”

  “I’m sorry I laughed yesterday,” Jasper said. “Once you see the ritual, you know that not even the thickest lug could make a wisecrack about it.”

  “That is how it always is with any authentic work of art,” Miss Tinkham said.

  “I’m sorry,” Velma said, “I can’t stay. It’s Saturday night and I’ve been away from the Club too long now. Will you bring her around tomorrow?”

  “You’re sure the sight of the tropical storm in her native harbor won’t be too much of an emotional strain for her?” Miss Tinkham said.

  “She’s got to get back, hasn’t she?” Velma said. “If she’ll dance at my place thirteen weeks, she won’t need to stow away on a…” She looked at Elisha Dowdy’s stricken face. “There’ll be no need to stow away on a yacht.”

  Chapter 9

  THE SMELL OF FRESH COFFEE and broiling bacon drifted down the driveway and past Mrs. Feeley’s bedroom window. She looked out and saw that the rain in the night had left the pavement black and glossy.

  Mrs. Feeley rolled over and looked at the white ceiling of her little room. “What the hell musta happened last night?”

  Mrs. Rasmussen was in Miss Tinkham’s room helping her train her hair into a pony tail in front of the mirror.

  “Where’s the cookin’ comin’ from if you ain’t doin’ it?”

  Mrs. Feeley’s shower was short and violent. The three walked into their drawing-room-kitchen, as Miss Tinkham called it, and saw that, except for coffee, Jasper, Oscar, Red and Sunshine had waited for them. Captain Dowdy sat over in a corner wrapping and addressing copies of his treasured interview for mailing.

  “I et on board,” he said. “You look kinda kippy this morning.”

  Mrs. Feeley sat down at the table with a thud like a poled ox.

  “Send for a doctor,” she said. Her friends stared at her in silence. “Somethin’ terrible wrong with me.”

  Oscar came and sat beside her.

  “I’m sick, man. I don’t feel like havin’ a beer!”

  “’Y God, you gimme a turn there!” the captain said. “We never THOUGHT to open them presents!”

  “Sunshine had us spellbound last night,” Miss Tinkham said at last. “Anything else would have been anti-climactic.”

  “Here’s Velma,” Captain Dowdy said.

  “Looked like you’d be eaten out of house and home last night, so I brought a baked ham. I haven’t been to bed.” Velma’s eyes looked a little puffy. “Sat up and read that book on Samoa most all night. There certainly can’t be much wrong with a people whose ‘hello’ means ‘I love you.’”

  “Didn’t none of us feel like goin’ on with the hell-raisin’,” Mrs. Feeley said.

  Captain Dowdy folded up the last of his newspapers.

  “It would of been a kinda sacreligion.” Nobody said anything, surprised at the gentleness of his voice. “Ent ya gonna open the blasted boxes?” he shouted.

  “I second that emotion!” Mrs. Feeley said. “Let’s top that breakfast off with a nice cold brew.”

  “These is so big.” Mrs. Rasmussen looked at the packages. “What you got in ’em: furniture?”

  “Take ’em as they come,” the captain admonished.

  “What we need is a nice handy crowbar,” Mrs. Feeley laughed.

  “You’ve been peekin’, Mrs. Feeley!” Oscar laughed.

  “Put me on the lie detestor if you don’t believe me!”
>
  “This is from us fellows,” Jasper said. “You might’s well have it now.” Mrs. Feeley ripped open a package that contained modern, workmanlike tools.

  “Gawd, can’t I drill holes like mad now!” She flourished a brace and bit. “Lookit! The little baby crowbar! It’s grand!”

  “Bear a hand, will you?” Captain Dowdy tried to move out the biggest packing crate of all. Red and Jasper took hold of it and helped him haul it to the middle of the floor. “Lord!” he groaned as he tugged at the box. “I wish I’d a went to Yale instead a Hahvahd!”

  “What do we need with a iron safe?” Mrs. Feeley shouted. She began attacking the crate with her crowbar and quickly got to the excelsior and wrapping paper. Suddenly she stepped back and turned to Mrs. Rasmussen. “This is more in your line.”

  Mrs. Rasmussen came up slowly, almost reluctantly, and pulled away the last bit of brown covering paper. Her face was pale as she turned to the captain.

  “You shouldn’t orta done it.” She ran her hand lovingly across the white porcelain oven door.

  “Magnificent!” Miss Tinkham stepped in for her friend. “It will be the pride and joy of her life.”

  Mrs. Rasmussen stared at the floor.

  “Hell! Won it on a quiz show!” The captain slapped her on the back.

  “No you never.” She raised her face at last, her eyes filled with unbearable affection like a dog’s.

  “So I bought it,” he said gently. “They ent no pockets in shrouds.”

  “What the hell kinda party is this?” Mrs. Feeley shouted.

  “There’s just one more big item,” Jasper said, and the other three men moved over to help him. “We didn’t crate it, just put enough boards across it to keep you from monkeying with it.” He stood in front of the object tantalizingly. “Let’s unveil, boys!”

  The ladies were speechless. Mrs. Feeley recovered first.

  “You’ll all end up in the workhouse, every blasted one o’ you.”

  Miss Tinkham was on her knees, hands clasped in front of the little piano.