Hope Between the Pages by Pepper Basham (ebook reader for surface pro .txt) 📕

be like this for us, that the way would be easy, the tide would always be in our favor, we would have a broad-beamed sturdy ship beneath us and the soft air of summer evenings in our hair and the gentle bay glowing golden in the evening light. At one wonderful moment, just before we came to the place where the river broadened and lost itself in the bay, Patti and my mother slipped into the wheelhouse, and we all stood together in the little cabin, savoring the flavor of our coming success, as if it were the sweet custard in a yeasty doughnut, and my mother put her arms around Patti and me, and it was such bliss that I almost forgot that the boat was sinking.

“People are going to love this,” said Patti.

“Do you really think so?” asked my mother. She wasn’t concerned or doubtful; she just wanted to hear Patti say it again, and like a good acolyte, Patti did.

“Oh, yeah. They are going to love it. It’s going to blow them up.”

“It’s really going to change this town,” I said. “Everything’s going to be much more elegant from now on.” I said it because I knew what my mother wanted to hear. She had in her mind’s eye and in her heart a vision of what an elegant excursion ought to be. It ought to be as elegant as a cocktail party in a black-and-silver movie from the 1930s. I suppose that no one could make a clamboat seem to be as elegant as that, which may explain the complete absence of clamboats from the sophisticated comedies of the 1930s. However, my mother had the vision, and she had infected us with it. She had the confidence that it could be done, that we could do it, and she had infected us with that, too.

“Where should we go?” I asked.

“Anywhere,” she said, blithely. “Anywhere you like. You’re at the wheel. Arcinella’s in your hands. You take her wherever you think she wants to go. Patti and I will keep the excursionists happy.” I think I expected her to wink after she said that last bit, to make it clear that what she’d said was just a joke, that this was only practice, but she didn’t. Instead, she tapped Patti on the shoulder, and the two of them returned to work, moving around the deck as if it were crowded with elegant excursionists who had to be kept happy.

I turned Arcinella toward the east and the broader part of the bay, keeping her moving along just fast enough for a smooth ride, but not fast enough to suggest that we had anywhere special to go, since the idea of a destination or the threat of a deadline can suck the air of elegance out of any excursion. At the leisurely pace of people with no particular place to go, we chugged our way under the bridge that crossed the bay, and into the waters off South Hargrove, where, with decorous elegance, I swung Arcinella in an arc as broad as the width of the bay, till she was turned west, toward home again.

The sun was down, and the stars were out, but there was still enough of a glow in the sky to silhouette Mr. Lodkochnikov in the bow, in his deck chair, where he sat smoking, looking at the stars, accepting with a nod of his head Patti’s offer of a little cognac: the very picture of an elegant excursionist and a satisfied customer.

WHEN WE REACHED Arcinella’s slip, I brought her in perfectly, so smoothly and gently that the bow barely touched the dock, and the champagne glasses on the tray that my mother had left on the roof of the cabin didn’t even jiggle. Mr. Lodkochnikov lifted himself from his chair, stretched, declared with a contented sigh that it had been “a lovely excursion, just lovely — the sky, the stars, the champagne, the beautiful ladies, the steady hand at the helm — everything,” kissed the hands of Patti and my mother, saluted me, and left for home.

We watched him walk away, then silently turned to cleaning up after him and his phantom companions. We said nothing to one another as we worked. I think that all of us shared the same desire: to savor our success personally, focusing on the part of it for which we felt individually responsible. For me, it was that perfect landing. I didn’t want anything to interrupt that period of self-congratulation. I had done well, and knew it, and I was proud.

WHEN WE HAD FINISHED, we stepped from the bow to the bulkhead and then to the margin of the roadway, and when we were all ashore, we turned to look at Arcinella. She was a little wet with dew. Her glossy paint glistened in the yellow streetlamp light and the silver moonlight. She looked neat, trim, elegant, and beautiful.

“She’s beautiful,” said Patti.

“Yes,” I said. “She is. I thought she was beautiful that first night we saw her, but now — ”

“It shows what a little spit and polish can do,” said my mother.

“And paint,” I said.

“And the right clothes,” said Patti. She raised her arms and pirouetted. “The right clothes, the right walk, the right talk, and you can turn a tramp into a lady. Thank you, Ella.”

She had embarrassed all of us, including herself. We looked at the ground for a while, and then my mother said, “Well,” and Patti and I said, “Yeah,” and we got into the car and drove to Patti’s house.

AT PATTI’S HOUSE, I got out of the car, walked to Patti’s door, opened it, and held it for her. She slid out, holding the long satin dress with one hand, and taking my hand with the other, and we held hands all the way to her door, where I said in a voice deeper than the one I ordinarily used, more like almonds than peanuts, “May I be permitted to tell you how