She warbled and came wobbling toward me for Grape-Nuts, but I just walked right by. Did not even turn my head. Kegeled. I did not, do not, want to be a weird lady involved only with a duck. And cat. I don’t. Was walking over the drawbridge as a motorboat glided below—like a 1967 Mercedes convertible skimming the milky green. The one I learned to drive on, my stepfather turning from the dunes and darkening sea to regard my hand on the knob, my blowing hair, tanned colt knees, eyes unblinking toward the road. With a flick of a finger he bid me take it to sixty-five, seventy, who gave a goddamn what the sign said, this was a Mercedes: only fools followed the rules. His rare, narrow-eyed smile. Squinted own guilty eyes so only they knew if they glowed. In the butter-yellow boat below me: two men, shirtless with firm, bare arms resting on polished sideboards.
