Beneath a Persian blue comforter patterned with scattered nosegays of mauve, magenta and dusky pink roses, Skye lay on her side in the darkening bedroom. Her eyes scanned the familiar room, moving from the walls, painted a light cornflower blue, to the framed reproductions of Degas’ Dancers at the Barre and Two [...]
Archive for the ‘Part One’ Category
Part One•Section XXXVII•Paragraph One
Posted in Part One, Section 37, tagged anorexia, counterpane, comforter, hue, value, hunger on November 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Part One•Section XXXVI•Paragraph 1
Posted in Part One, Section 36, tagged cell phone, Domine, fiction, loss, Parce, Shiraz, soup on November 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Reminded, suddenly, by his phone’s vibrating in his pocket, that he hadn’t yet picked up the message from Arden, Rennie groaned audibly, “C’mon, you old fleabag, you. Let’s go face the music.” Talisker pushed ahead of him as he entered the unlit vestibule. He called out, but no one answered. He [...]
Part One•Section XXXV•Paragraph 1
Posted in Part One, Section 35, tagged chrysanthemum, disapproval, fiction, sisal on November 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Talisker nudged his hand and leaned against his leg as Rennie stood looking at the front of the house, thinking about how he had tentatively touched the newly painted deck, just as his father had gently tested the surface of the boat, to be sure it was dry. If he hurried, he [...]
One•XXXIV•4
Posted in Part One, Section 34, tagged autumn foliage, Boston Common, centreboard, hull, rigging, sloop, Storrow Lagoon on October 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Rennie’s father had shown him how to prime the model, once it was mostly completed, and had let the boy try his hand at varnishing and painting.
”All it takes,” John had told him, “is a concentrated gaze and a steady hand.”
After varnishing the deck and mast, [...]
One•XXXIV•3
Posted in Part One, Section 34, tagged Beach Boys, John Alden Sloop, Kingston Trio, model ship building, Sloop John B on October 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
A few days into the project, Rennie’s sister had put on a record with the Beach Boys singing “Sloop John B.” Rennie and his father had gleefully sung along, altering the lyrics ad libitum (and so adding to the general, and atypical in their household, hilarity):
We come on the Sloop John A…
Each [...]
One•XXXIII•4
Posted in Part One, Section 33, tagged Adirondack chair, Cambridge, fiction, John Alden, sloop, wooden model shipbuilding on September 14, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Arden would be arriving home in two days and, he had figured, there would be just enough time before that to paint the porch deck and the two Adirondack chairs that he had found discarded at the side of the road earlier that summer. Putting the finishing touches on the baluster’s post caps, [...]
One•XXXIII•3
Posted in Part One, Section 33, tagged Assam tea, balustrade, capital, Celtic loaf, marmalade, pilasters on September 7, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The next morning, he had been awakened early by Talisker’s licking his hand. He had brewed himself a mug of strong Assam tea and hewn a thick slice of dark, nutty Celtic loaf, which he had toasted and slathered with soft butter and fine-cut lime marmalade (with Arden and the girls away, there [...]
One•XXXIII•2
Posted in Part One, Section 33, tagged baluster, balustrade, cricket, fiction, pilaster, porch on August 31, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
On arriving home, he had spread out a tarpaulin on the porch floor, set up a ladder and then, after carefully cutting in the edges of the beadboarded ceiling with Dimity, he had poured some of the thick cream-colored paint into a pan and started coating a small area with a roller that [...]
