The most dazzling thing at the party was Harry, herself. John could not take his eyes off her. She wore a yellow sundress that was very short with thin shoulder straps.
Her nubile figure, outlined delectably in the sundress, unnerved him.
"Come on, you guys," Harry said. "Help yourself to some refreshments." She greeted John in passing, then went inside. He just waited for her to come out again. When she did, she introduced him to the other guests just to be rid of him, more or less as Charlotte had done at her party. He could not bear for her to do that.
"Don't be unsociable," she chided him. "Other people would like to meet an interesting guy like you." Harry did not bother to sound interested herself.
Seeing how familiarly she socialized with the marina boys, John wished he had never laid eyes on her before now, so they could begin a relationship without any unhappy
memories to depress them.
"Harry, with that dress on, you remind me of a honey bee," Joe said. "You goin' to the nest anytime soon?"
"Harry, you really think Southerners talk slower?"
"It shore dudn't mean they think slower."
"Well, Renny," Retta said, "don't you say 'they.' You're a 'we.'"
"Everyone in New England zips through conversations."
"What do they zip, though?
I don't know y'alls customs too well."
"Guys from the South are so sociable."
"Demonstrative, too," Renny added.
"Mummy said she ate at a restaurant with my dad when they toured Acadia National Park. The waiters and waitresses were all Southerners because they're more courteous to the guests."
"Are New Englanders uncourteous? Is that why y'all got the Southerners working there?"
"New Englanders are Puritans, right? The Pilgrims?"
"There aren't so many Puritans in New England today."
