On the sixth night, the co-op crew drove by.
Two bucket trucks and the big digger derrick. Coming back from setting a new pole out by the county line.
They came down our street. Our street isn’t on the way to anywhere. They came down it slowly. In a line. On purpose.
The first bucket truck honked twice.
The second one honked three times.
The man driving the digger leaned all the way out his window and hollered, “Save me a plate, Schmitzy!”
Rick put his face in both his hands. His ears turned bright red.
But when he took his hands away, he was grinning.
“They are never going to let me live this down,” he said.
“No,” I said. “I don’t suppose they are.”
Marlys raised her coffee cup at the trucks as they went by. One of the linemen raised a hand back at her.
By then, people were stopping.
Not a lot. But some.
A few cars slowed way down going past. The Lutheran pastor’s wife walked her dog past our house twice in one evening. A boy on a bicycle circled the cul-de-sac three times and finally asked if he could sit in the boat after we were done eating.
I let him.
I never said one cross word to any of them.
And I never said one cross word to Rick.
Every single night, I cooked a real supper. I spread the good tablecloth over the bench seat. I lit the Mason jar candle. And I climbed in.
My sister Deb called that night from Marshalltown.
“Karen Ann,” she said. “Half of Marshall County knows you’re eating supper in a fishing boat.”
“Only half?”
“Are you trying to embarrass him?”
I thought about it. Deb deserved a real answer.
“No,” I said. “I’m trying to show him. If I’d yelled at him, he’d have yelled back. And then the boat would still be sitting in the driveway, and we’d both be mad. This way, he has to sit in it.”
“And look at it.”
“And look at me,” I said. “Across that bench seat. Every single night.”
Deb was quiet for a while.
“You always were the smart one,” she said.
“I’m not smart,” I said. “I’m just tired of making gravy on high.”
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