Fortune's rocks_ a novel - Anita Shreve [126]
Olympia nods. “But you do know all about how you should not go into the water without an adult with you?”
“Oh, yes. But I should not go in today anyway.”
“No.”
She watches the boy stretch out his legs, which are long and spindly and dry. He digs his heels into the sand.
“Are they terrible?” the boy asks suddenly. “The stings?”
“I have never been stung myself. But I have heard that they are.”
“And you die?”
“You can die from them. But not always. Sometimes you just have the fever. There once was a policeman who got stung. His name was Tommy Yeaton. He swam into a school of jellyfish and got stung dozens of times. He died the next day.”
The boy seems to consider this new fact.
“Would you like to have a footrace?” he asks her suddenly.
“A footrace?” she asks, laughing.
“Yes,” he says. “We could start here and . . .” He scans the length of the beach. “Do you see there? That striped umbrella in the distance?”
“Yes.”
“Shall we say the first one to the umbrella wins?”
“Well . . . ,” she says, hesitating. She cannot remember the last time she participated in a footrace. Surely not since she was a child herself. But the boy’s request is so earnest, she finds it hard to resist.
“Why not?” she says, beginning to unlace her boots.
The boy jumps up. He draws a long line in the sand. “This will be our start,” he announces excitedly.
“All right,” she says. She discreetly pulls off her stockings and stuffs them into her boots.
The boy steps up to the start, leans forward, and puts a foot behind him in the traditional racing stance. Olympia leaves her boots and stockings with her hat, stands on the line beside the boy, and lifts the skirts of her yellow gingham just enough so that she will not trip.
“Are you ready, miss?”
“Yes, I think I am.”
“When I count three then?”
The boy races flat out, his chin up, his hair flying behind him, as if he had been taught to run this way at school. Olympia, feeling slightly awkward at first, bends into the run and tries to keep pace with him. Almost immediately her hair comes loose from its pins and flaps heavily against her neck. The boy, both wiry and strong, looks over his shoulder, and, seeing her so close to him, picks up his pace. The balls of Olympia’s feet dig into the sand. Her muscles feel pleasantly strong after so many weeks of domestic work. She lifts her skirts higher so that she can stretch her legs. She feels at first mildly embarrassed to be cavorting so, but then this embarrassment turns to a distinct sense of exuberance until she is nearly giddy with the event. She raises her face to the sun. My goodness, she thinks, it has been so long since I have felt like this.
As they draw closer to the striped umbrella, Olympia glances over at the boy and can see that she might inadvertently win the race. The boy runs with grace and determination, but his young legs are tiring. Olympia pretends then to be winded and slows her pace slightly. With the prize in sight, the boy, finding new energy, sprints forward to the umbrella, startling its owners, who are sitting on canvas chairs beneath it, and gathering so much momentum that he pitches into the sand. When Olympia reaches him, he is sprawled with his legs splayed open, trying to get his breath. She bends, taking in air. The boy has sand on his forehead and on his upper lip.
“You won!” she says breathlessly with her hands on her knees.
He is so winded that he cannot even smile. In a moment, however, a look of concern crosses his face. “You did not let me win, did you?” he asks.
She rights herself. “Of course not,” she says. “I would never do that.”
He brushes the sand from his face and limbs.
“I would race you again tomorrow if you like,” he offers.
“That would be fine,” she says.
“And perhaps tomorrow you will win,” he adds shyly.
She tries not to smile. “Then I shall look for you,” she says, “and tomorrow I will win.”
“Well,” the boy says. He stands up, but he seems reluctant to leave. “Do you have a boy?” he asks suddenly.