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Zusatztext 54319561 Informationen zum Autor Morgan Callan Rogers Klappentext "An authentic page turner…. Rogers [vividly] captures this era of Elvis records and small-town Maine fishing life." -Down East In 1963! twelve-year-old Florine Gilham enjoys an idyllic childhood in small-town Maine-until her beloved mother vanishes. Untethered and adrift in the wake of her disappearance! Florine finds her once-cherished joys-watching her father's lobster boat come into port! baking bread with her grandmother! and causing mischief with the summer folk-suddenly ring hollow. When a figure from her father's past comes calling! Florine must find the courage to lay down roots of her own. Set against the gorgeous backdrop of the Maine coast! Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea is an extraordinary snapshot of a bygone America as seen through the eyes of an iconic New England girl. 1 After we almost burned down a summer cottage, my friends and I were not allowed to see each other for the rest of July and August. It was 1963, and I was twelve. After the fire, my parents decided that they should take me in hand lest I end up in jail. Grand, my grandmother who lived across the road from us, usually took care of me while they worked. Daddy made his living as a lobsterman and had to haul traps every day. My mother, Carlie, was a waitress at the Lobster Shack. She cut back on her shifts to keep me out of trouble. Being under Carlie’s playful eye wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened to me. I had her pretty much to myself for the last two weeks of July, and we did something different every day. We got ice cream cones at Ray’s General Store up the road and sat on our front steps eating them and watching the water wink at us from the harbor at the end of The Point. We hiked from our backyard through the woods to the nearby State Park and ate snacks at the picnic tables there. We hung out at the Lobster Shack, we window-shopped in Long Reach, the town closest to The Point, danced and sang to Elvis records, played cards, sunned ourselves, and goofed off. On the day I was to remember best, we packed a picnic, piled into Carlie’s 1947 Ford coupe, Petunia, and set off up Route 100. We passed through Long Reach, went over a bridge spanning a wide river, and drove toward Mulgully Beach, which made up the nail on a thick finger of land. We were to meet Patty, Carlie’s friend. Patty waitressed with Carlie. Her hair was buttercup yellow, her eyes were light blue, and her dimples were so big she could have hidden marbles inside of them. She didn’t take any crap, either. Rude customers had glasses of water accidentally spilled over their laps, or they’d have to wait a minute too long for her to serve them. Once, a table of ten didn’t tip her and had the nerve to show up again. “I’m getting them good,” Patty told Carlie and me. In between smiling and serving, she went out into the parking lot and let the air out of one of their car tires. As they stood outside wondering what to do, Patty went out and demanded, and got, her tip. I liked her style, although Grand might have said, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” Carlie always got her tips. Whereas Patty flirted and giggled and made it known that she was full of hell and proud of it, Carlie didn’t have to flaunt it. Carlie lit up a room like a bright light and people were drawn to her. I thought the sun and moon circled around her. So did Daddy. I always called her Carlie, never mother, mom, mommy, mum, or ma. She was eighteen years old when she drove Petunia up from Massachusetts. Daddy told me that she swept him off his feet in front of Ray’s store. “I was done hauling for the day,” he said, “and I thought I’d walk up to Ray’s for a six-pack of ’Gansett. The sun caught on the bumper of a car parked outside the store and I was pretty much blinded by the shine. Then someone blocked it. It was t...
