The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything: A Novel by Macdonald John D

Author:Macdonald, John D. [Macdonald, John D.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780307827159
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2014-01-13T16:00:00+00:00

Nine

NOT UNTIL KIRBY STOOD up did he see, beyond the end of the concrete bench, a little pile of clothing—a pair of lime slacks, white sandals, a white blouse with a yellow figure, a yellow jacket, a white purse. He picked them up and put them on the bench. The items missing were the blue-green nylon bra, the matching panties.

Her voice came from ten feet behind him. “Hey! Hey, sugar, this is more damn fun!”

He spun and saw her there in the sunlight, brown and beautiful, winded, glowing with excitement. The sun glinted on the gold watch in her hand. She put her fingers on the stem of the watch. “Give it to me!” he yelled, but she was gone before he could say the last word.

He heard thin cries, almost but not quite like the yelping of the gulls. He looked far down the beach to the north where the crowd was the thickest and it seemed to him that all the people down here had gone mad simultaneously.

He squinted against the glare and thought he saw Bonny Lee appear and disappear again in the middle distance, but he could not be certain.

He began to realize that he had made a poor estimate of her response to the red world. Bonny Lee had a totally pragmatic mind. She would not give a damn for theory. All that would concern her was that it worked, and he had given her the clue as to how to make it work. Though—from the viewpoint of his limited experience—she had given him ample, skillful and luxurious proof that she was a woman grown, and even though she had devised a philosophy of existence which seemed to suit her and seemed to work for her, he remembered that she was but “twenny, practically,” that there was a child inside the woman, and the child had never had much chance for the games of childhood, and that she was a hoyden, reckless, irreverent, comical and inventive. He remembered, too, that she was in bursting health, firm, fleet and tireless.

He squinted at the people running to and fro in the distance, yelping, and he wondered if he had not inadvertently loosed upon them on this pleasant Tuesday morning something just as fearful as a playful tiger. He remembered the mischief and the satisfaction of tucking the gull under the fat boy’s shirt. He had astonished himself with that act. Surely Bonny Lee would go a good deal further than that before astonishing herself.

He wondered if he should walk down the beach and see what was happening. But Bonny Lee would expect to find him at the bench.

He saw two figures coming up the beach at a dead run. They seemed more energetic than fleet. He stared at them as they went by. First one would hold the lead and then the other would overtake her and pass her. They seemed to be heading for the parking lot. They were a pair of young women of rather generous construction, naked as a pair of eggs.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.