Love's lovely counterfeit - James M. Cain [20]
She shot the canoe onto the gravel just ahead of him, stepped to the bow, and jumped out. Seizing his hand, she ran him up and down the beach, until he was a little dry and a little pink, instead of blue. Then she whipped up his overcoat from the bow of the canoe, put it on him, and held it tight against him, her arms around his body. Only then did he begin to talk: a lame, chattering explanation of his sorry performance. It seemed that he had forgotten the peculiarity of the lake, that it remained at an icy temperature until Lowry Run dried up, in July, and the inflow of cold water stopped, giving the sun a chance. However, he said, just let him get his second wind and then he'd go down again.
She listened, and when his shivering stopped they climbed into the canoe and shoved off. They paddled back to the spot they had left and sat silent, he trying to screw up his courage to drop off his coat again and go off. The boat began to shake, shiver, and twist, but he didn't have the curiosity to look and see what she was doing back there. He stared vacantly, first at the sunlight that was now touching the hills back of the shore, then at the water. When the boat went down like an elevator, until the water was within a few inches of the gunwale, he gave a frightened yelp, and only then did he turn his head. The stern was sticking straight up in the air, and she was on the ledge, in pants and brassiere, smiling at him.
"Hadn't you better move aft?"
"Guess that would be a good idea."
She was but a few feet away, and certainly quite an eyeful, but there was no desire in the look he gave her, after he had crawled aft, and adjusted feet, paddle, and coat to the feminine clothes that were draped over the strut. There was only relief; somebody else had taken over his dreadful task. She continued to smile, but checked all details in the boat with her eye, particularly that the shot in the bow made it easily manageable. Only when he was safely settled did she catch the truss above her, chin herself, pull up her feet, and complete the first stage of her climb. Then she reached the top of the parapet and stood there, a pink figurine in the pink morning sunlight, scanning the road for cars. His voice rumbled up, a little peevish: "Look, I'm getting dizzy. If you don't turn around you'll be going over backwards."
"I am going over backwards."
"You're—what?"
"Well, what's the use of doing a front dive and winding up ten feet further out than I want to get? With a nice back dive I'll half circle around and come right down on the barrel. You haven't forgotten our darling little barrel, have you?"
"If you come down on it."
"Oh, I'll come down."
"Little cold down there, you'll notice."
"Oh, for a man, yes."
"Oh, a woman don't feel cold?"
"Not the way a man does, I've noticed it often. I don't care what the weather is, a man's got himself all bundled up in exactly twice as many clothes as a woman wears. Why, look in any street car, and—"
"You haven't forgotten our barrel, have you?"
"Oh, that."
A shadow crossed his face, and he looked up to see her in the sky, her arms out, her head back, her back arched in a perfect back dive. Then she floated over, and struck the water with a quick, foamy splash that shot high in the air. She was down a long time; then she came up, with gasps like the gasps that had shaken him. With one hand she pitched a barrel hoop into the canoe, with the other a lump of wet concrete.
"Know what I'm thinking?"
"Look, June, I'm thinking. Cut the comedy."
"I'm thinking how funny you looked. When you came up. And you started to snort. And your eyes started to roll. You looked like a wet puppy."
"O.K., so I looked like a wet puppy."
"A wet puppy."
It had been Ben's turn to shoot the canoe up on the gravel, run the shivering swimmer up and down the shore, and wrap her in a coat. They had taken turns in the boathouse, to dress, and felt a little better when they were back in the car, their clothes on, the motor giving heat. But it wasn't until they got their breakfast that they felt like themselves again. They