Sea Change

“So what does draw them?” Jesse said as they walked up Washington Street. “Top-flight police work?”

“Probably that,” Jenn said. “And a full month of booze and sex.”

“Anybody sail?” Jesse said.

“Not in the evening,” Jenn said. “I mean, wow! Like Mardi Gras.”

“For us, it’s mostly fights and public urination and van-dalism,” Jesse said.

“Boy,” Jenn said, “just like Mardi Gras.”

“What’s up this afternoon?” Jesse said.

“I’m off a couple hours,” Jenn said. “Marty and Jake are going out and get B roll of the races.”

“Without you?”

“In a helicopter.”

“Without you,” Jesse said.

The crowd on the streets, even at midday, was thick and 6 0

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boisterous. The range of dress was extreme. Horizontal-striped shirts were popular, with three-quarter-length white canvas pants. There were a lot of women in big hats and gauzy dresses. Men in blazers and white flannels. Some of the crowd looked like eighteenth-century sailors. Some of them looked like they were at Churchill Downs. Jesse wore jeans and a blue short-sleeved oxford shirt. He had his gun and badge on his belt. Two young men and two young women, all in tank tops and cutoff jeans, were walking along carrying open bottles of beer. Jesse pointed at his badge, then at the beer, then, with his thumb, at a trash container chained to the lamppost. They looked like they wanted to argue, but none of them did. They dropped the beer into the trash and moved away.

“Zero tolerance,” Jesse said.

“Egad,” Jenn said at Daisy’s door. “Maybe we should have gone to the Gull.”

The door was open and the line of people waiting was out onto the sidewalk.

“Be the same,” Jesse said. “It’s like this everywhere.”

Several people on the sidewalk had drinks. Jesse ignored them.

“Selective enforcement?” Jenn said.

“You bet,” Jesse said. “They’re just waiting to have lunch.

They won’t do any harm. Besides, I don’t want to hurt Daisy’s business.”

“Is there actually a Daisy?”

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

“I’ll introduce you,” Jesse said.

“But first, could you arrest somebody at a good table,”

Jenn said. “So we can have it.”

“I’ll talk to Daisy. Stay here.”

Jesse slid past the crowd and in through the open door. He came back out with a strapping red-faced blond woman wearing a big white apron and holding a spatula. The woman pointed at Jenn.

“You Jenn?” she said.

“I am.”

“I’m Daisy, get your ass in here,” she said.

A woman in wraparound sunglasses and a large straw hat said, “We’ve been waiting half an hour.”

“And you’ll wait a lot longer,” Daisy said, “you keep talking.”

“But they . . .”

Daisy waved the spatula under the woman’s chin.

“My restaurant,” Daisy said. “I decide. Come on, Jenn.”

Jenn slid sheepishly in behind Daisy, and followed her to a table by the back window where Jesse was drinking root beer. Inside, the restaurant was not crowded. The tables were well spaced and the conversation was absorbed by carpeting and sailcloth that draped the ceiling.

“Sorry I left you twisting in the wind out there,” Jesse said.

Jenn sat down.

“A woman outside hates me,” she said.

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“Oh fuck her,” Daisy said. “I can’t find a table for the chief of police and his friend, what good am I?”

“Excellent point,” Jenn said. “Can I have a root beer, too?”

“Sure you can, darlin’, I’ll send the waitress right over.”

“Thank you, Daisy.”

“You bet,” Daisy said. “I was you I’d order one of the sandwiches, I just baked the bread this morning.”

Jenn smiled. Daisy swaggered off.

“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?”

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“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.