The Color of Water in July by Nora Carroll Read Free Book Online Page A

kitchen until after the war,” Mamie said to Jess more than once. “Most of the Indians were gone by then, and we couldn’t find staff for breakfast. I had it added on just for breakfast, you know. Never did I imagine . . . ” She spread her linen napkin in her lap, folding her hands on the table to say grace. “That we would dine here, Jess. Lord knows I never intended that.”

    “Don’t you think you should stop by to see the Miller girl? Maybe you girls could spend some time together. Have a little fun.” Mamie was spooning cream of mushroom soup into her mouth, pausing between each mouthful to carefully dab at her lipsticked mouth with her napkin.
    “Um, yeah, I guess so.”
    “Don’t say yeah, Jess. Say yes, ma’am.”
    “Yes, ma’am. I guess so.”

    At a quarter to six the next evening, there was a knock on the cottage door. Toni Miller was standing on the porch, wearing Levi’s and a red stretch tube top, smelling strongly of Hawaiian Tropic tanning oil. Toni threw her arms around Jess, who could feel the slick sheen of tanning oil on Toni’s bare skin. It was a relief to see someone her own age, even if it was Toni Miller.
    “A bunch of us are going to picnic on Hemingway Point tonight. We’re going in Phelps’s boat. You wanna come?”
    “Phelps is here?”
    “Got in last night.”
    Jess hadn’t seen Phelps around for several summers. He was a couple of years older, already a student at Yale. She remembered him well though. He had always been a leader at Wequetona, team captain for the relays, winner of the sailing cup, a little too arrogant for her taste. Besides, his mother, Mrs. Whitmire, had always struck her as kind of judgmental. How’s that mother of yours? she used to say. Even as a small child, Jess had understood that Mrs. Whitmire was not asking because she wanted to know the answer.
    “So are you coming?” Toni asked.
    “Of course.”
    “We’re meeting at the dock at eight.”
    After Toni had left, Mamie emerged from her bedroom, dressed for dinner in a blue ultrasuede suit. Her feet were shod in slingbacks of precisely the same shade of blue, and there was a small sapphire nestled at her neckline.
    “Who was that, dear?”
    “Toni Miller. She invited me to go to a picnic on Hemingway Point.”
    Her grandmother paled slightly.
    “At night? Hemingway Point?”
    “Toni said that Phelps is going to take us, in his boat.”
    “Is that Phelps Whitmire? That good-looking Whitmire boy?” Jess could hear that plummy tone in her grandmother’s voice, the one she saved for certain Wequetona people.
    “Yeah, I guess that’s the one.”
    “Well, all right then. If the Whitmire boy is going.”

    Toni was leaning out over the bow of the Whitmires’ red Chris-Craft wearing a pink bikini that had a thick white-plastic ring holding the two triangular pieces of the bra top together. She was still fragrant with the coconut scent of tanning oil. Jess was sitting in a vinyl-cushioned seat alongside the inboard’s housing, holding on tight to a grip handle, wishing Phelps Whitmire would slow down. Phelps was standing at the rudder, one hand clapped to his head to keep his Yale lacrosse cap on. Even though it was approaching dusk, he was still wearing his Ray-Bans. There was a bottle of Wild Turkey in a brown paper bag braced between his feet. He was pushing down hard on the throttle, cutting the turns sharply to make the boat crash over its own wake.
    Jess gripped the side rail tightly. She hated the way the boat skidded across the water, skid, bang, bang, skid, bang, bang, bang. The sound of the motor was deafening, and the stench was unbearable, old canvas, dead fish, and diesel fumes. Despite a lifetime of lakeside summers, Jess had never really learned to like boats. Hemingway Point was close, so close some people could swim to it. It couldn’t possibly be taking this long. Phelps reached down to pick up the Wild Turkey, wrenching the boat hard to the left as he did.
    He turned