Sea Change

“Heavens,” Jenn said.

Jesse nodded.

“Daisy Dyke,” he said.

“Is that her real name?”

“No, I don’t know her real last name. Everybody calls her Daisy Dyke. She calls herself Daisy Dyke. She had to be talked out of calling the restaurant Daisy Dyke’s.”

“She is, I assume, a lesbian.”

“She is.”

“And she is, I assume, out.”

“As far out as it is possible to be out.”

“She have a partner?”

“She has a wife,” Jesse said. “They got married May twen-tieth, right after the Massachusetts law passed.”

“Mrs. Daisy Dyke?”

“Angela Carson,” Jesse said. “She kept her own name.”

“Is Angela a housewife?”

“Angela paints,” Jesse said.

“Well?”

6 3

R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

“No,” Jesse said.

“But persistently,” Jenn said.

“That would be Angela,” Jesse said.

Jenn ordered an egg salad sandwich on sourdough. Jesse had a BLT on whole wheat.

“Never order that on a date,” Jesse said. “Too messy.”

“What the hell am I,” Jenn said.

“I don’t know,” Jesse said, “but whatever you are, date is too small a word.”

Jenn smiled at him.

“Yes,” she said, “I guess it is, isn’t it?”

“We’ll come up with something,” Jesse said.

6 4

15

W ith the harbormaster at the wheel, they had visited five yachts, three of them

from Fort Lauderdale, anchored at the

outer edge of the harbor. The harbormaster was new. His name was Hardy Watkins. He was overweight and red-faced, and, on those rare moments when he took off his long-billed cap, he was mostly bald.

“Where to next?” Watkins said.

“How about that one over there,” Jesse said. “Black with a yellow stripe.”

He and Suitcase Simpson stood on either side of Watkins as the squat harbor boat plugged through the low swell.

R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

Among the yachts it looked like a warthog. Jesse wore jeans and sneakers and his softball jacket over a white tee shirt.

Simpson was in uniform. He carried a transparent folder with head shots from the sex video.

“Sloop there with the cutter rig,” Watkins said.

“Sure,” Jesse said.

He looked at Simpson.

“You know what a sloop is?” Jesse said. “With a cutter rig?”

“Hey,” Simpson said, “I grew up here. Paradise, Massachusetts, the sailing capital of the world.”

“So you know what a sloop is,” Jesse said. “With a cutter rig.”

“No,” Simpson said.

“Sloop’s a single-masted boat,” Watkins said.

“And a cutter?”

“Single-masted boat with the mast set further aft.”

“So what’s a sloop with a cutter rig.”