“Now you get bashful, after laying out here for all to see,” Gray teased.
Lizbeth was embarrassed, but more amused by Gray than shamed. “I couldn’t sleep. I came out here to get some air and I must have dozed off.”
“Yeah, I saw you this morning when I went to work.”
Lizbeth rubbed her eyes. “What time is it?”
Gray stood up and looked at her watch. “Quarter after eight.”
Lizbeth squinted up at Gray and said, “Oh my God, I’ve only been asleep for five hours,” and with that, she fell back on the pillow and closed her eyes.
Laughing, Gray said, “Get up. I want to show you something. Meet me at the dock at nine o’clock.”
Lizbeth didn’t move. “Okay, I can sleep longer though. It’s not that far.”
Gray yanked the blanket off Lizbeth. “No, you can’t. You need to eat. No fainting, remember. And besides, if you come down there with your hair like that you’ll scare the tourists.”
Lizbeth’s eyes popped open. Suddenly seized with what she must look like, her hands flew to the top of her head. Her hair was sticking out in all directions. She had slept hard after she finally passed out. She probably looked like hell. Now she was truly embarrassed. She snatched the blanket back from Gray and covered her head.
Gray chuckled. “Too late. I’ve already seen it. The image is burned into my brain.”
From under the blanket, Lizbeth said, “Go away.”
Gray pulled the blanket from the top of Lizbeth’s head, so she could see her face. She leaned down and was inches from Lizbeth when she said, “No. Not until you get up. Come on, you have to see this.”
Lizbeth caved. She had to. Gray’s eyes were dancing with delight. She evidently thought it was important to share something with Lizbeth. Lizbeth couldn’t resist her.
“Okay, I’m up. Just go away while I get dressed.”
Gray was excited. She started toward the front of the porch. “Okay, meet me at the dock, just before nine.”
Lizbeth stood up, self consciously wrapping the blanket around her. She called after Gray, “Wait. What should I wear? Where are you taking me?”
“I’m taking you on the boat. Wear whatever you want.” She stopped at the corner of the porch, just before disappearing out of sight. “Glad we got that out of the way.”
Lizbeth, confused, asked, “Got what out of the way?”
Gray’s infectious grin returned. “I already know what you look like when you wake up in the morning.” Then she disappeared around the corner, her laughter staying behind, ringing in Lizbeth’s ears.
#
Lizbeth rushed around making a bowl of microwave oatmeal and eating it standing at the counter. She quickly showered and dressed. She pulled her hair back in a ponytail, and then covered her body in sunscreen before putting on her two-piece, tropical colored bathing suit. It wasn’t a tiny bikini, but it was sexy enough for her age, she thought. She slipped a pair of blue Russell workout shorts over the bottom of the suit and grabbed her oversized white oxford to put on over the top. She rolled down the top of the shorts and rolled up the sleeves of the oxford, leaving the front unbuttoned, exposing her flat stomach. Lizbeth had decided to play hardball with Gray. She was trying to look as sexy as possible, while looking very casual about it. The straw hat and sunglasses made her appear mysterious. Just the effect she was going for.
With a couple of water bottles, sunscreen, and a towel in her canvas bag, she met Gray at the dock at five till nine. Eight very excited Asian tourists, ranging in ages from toddlers to grandparents, surrounded Gray. It appeared to be one family. One of the parents, with a toddler in her arms, was translating for the group, and not doing so too successfully. Gray was trying to explain something, using her hands to demonstrate and speaking loudly, as Americans tended to do when attempting to have a non-English speaker understand them. Lizbeth thought it would be a miracle if the Asian woman could understand Gray through her thick Carolina brogue, especially with that Texas accent thrown in the mix.
When Gray saw Lizbeth, she stopped talking in mid-sentence. She froze there, her mouth hanging open, staring at Lizbeth as she approached. The outfit had had the desired effect. One of the tourists turned around and saw Lizbeth.
The middle-aged man got very excited and quickly grabbed his camera. He aimed it at Lizbeth and started snapping wildly, while repeatedly shouting, “Ashrie Judd! Ashrie Judd!”
Gray started laughing. She doubled over and grabbed her knees. Lizbeth couldn’t help but laugh, too. She approached the man and was finally able to convince him, through the interpreter, that she was not, in fact, Ashley Judd. Gray gradually stopped laughing, but an occasional giggle still seized her while loading passengers on the boat. She placed Lizbeth on the double bench seat at the console, while she made sure the kids were safely in life vests, comfortable, and ready to go.
Gray cranked the dual Yamaha engines and then went to the front and untied the dock line from the bow. She returned to the stern, untying its dock line and then sat down beside Lizbeth behind the wheel. Gray backed the boat away from the dock and then turned the bow toward the channel leading out of the harbor. As they slowly crept across the slick surface of the sheltered harbor, Gray turned to Lizbeth, still giggling.
“You do kinda have that Ya Ya Sisterhood, Ashley Judd thing going.”
Lizbeth, who had developed quite a skill mimicking accents, said in her best Louisiana drawl, “I’ll take that as a compliment, suga’.”
This cracked Gray up again. She was still laughing when they cleared the harbor and she stood up to navigate the channel. Gray gradually fed gas to the throttle until they were skipping across the chop on the surface of the Sound, heading for Ocracoke Inlet. Lizbeth had to keep her hand on top of her hat to keep it from blowing away. Gray occasionally smiled down at Lizbeth, but mostly kept her eyes scanning the top of the water.
From her vantage point, Lizbeth had a perfect view and even though the beauty of the shoreline and sea surrounded her, she couldn’t keep from looking at Gray. Gray was in her element. The love of what she was doing radiated from her pores. Lizbeth thought Gray had been correct when she said some people were just born where they should be. Gray O’Neal was born to be on this water.
As they neared Portsmouth Island, Gray banked the boat to the left, slowing to a crawl when she reached the middle of the smallest stretch of water between Ocracoke and Portsmouth. Gray was focused on the water, searching for something. In a moment, she saw them and gave the boat some gas. Soon the boat was in the middle of a pod of bottlenose dolphins.
Lizbeth saw them about the same time the tourists did. One of the tourists stood up to film with his digital camera, but Gray made him sit down using hand signals. She shook her head and smiled at Lizbeth. Lizbeth knew what Gray was thinking and mouthed the word dingbatter to her. Gray started laughing again. Gray was finding Lizbeth exceedingly funny this morning.
The dolphins jumped and played around the boat. Gray sat down on the seat with Lizbeth, but she was still looking around at the water. Then suddenly she grabbed Lizbeth’s arm and pointing with the other hand said, “Look.”
There in the pod were two tiny dolphin calves. They were more than four feet long, but still babies in comparison with the adults in the pod. Both seemingly identical calves swam close to and in unison with one adult.
“That’s extremely rare,” Gray said, leaning in to Lizbeth so she could hear her over the engine and the wind.
“What is?”
Gray explained, “I think they’re twins. Most dolphins give birth to only one calf at a time. If they have multiple births, the calves usually die, but these two look extremely healthy. She must be a good mother or the other mothers are helping her feed them. You are witnessing one of those amazing things I was telling you about.”
“I’m glad you came to get me. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss this.”
“I think they are coming in to catch fish. The swells out there are driving schools of fish into the Sound.”
Lizbeth looked beyond the surface of the Sound to the ocean waves crashing through the shallow inlet. The water was beginning to get choppier the longer they stayed where they were. Gray headed the boat back to the leeward side of Portsmouth Island, leaving the dolphins behind. The island offered relief from the steadily building wave action. Gray pulled the boat up to a long pier with a ladder leading down to the water. The pier was built way up out of the water and the ladder had to be used to exit the boat.
Gray had tried to explain to her passengers before they left the docks that she didn’t think the old man or the toddlers would be able to climb the ladder. The interpreter finally understood and nodded at Gray. In broken English she said, “We go to beach.”
Gray turned the boat around and headed for the Sound side beach on the north end of the island, explaining to Lizbeth it was the most sheltered area she could drop these people, so the water wouldn’t be too deep and the undertow was minimal. The tourists had not come prepared to spend very long on the beach. They were all in shorts and shirts, wearing socks and tennis shoes. Gray raised the engines so the propellers were barely in the water and then ran the bow of the flat bottom boat up onto the beach. She killed the engines, jumped over the bow with the anchor line, and set it hard in the sand. She did all this with the grace of an athlete.
Gray was able to make the passengers understand they needed to take their shoes and socks off, then stood by the bow and helped them off one by one. She helped Lizbeth down, by lifting her off the boat and plopping her down in the sand. Lizbeth was beginning to understand how Gray stayed so fit. She lifted tourists for a living. She had picked Lizbeth up by the waist as if she was a feather.
Gray led Lizbeth away from the tourists who were now excitedly chatting among each other. When they got about two hundred yards from them, Gray plopped down. She patted the sand beside her and Lizbeth sat down.
“Is this what you do all day?” Lizbeth asked.
“No, I usually just drop them off either on the beach or at the pier and then come back for them four hours later. I run back and forth all day picking up and dropping off. Some days there are more trips than others.”
“This is the perfect job for you. You really shine out here on the water.”
“Yeah, I guess I’m lucky to get to do what I love.”
“Why are you staying this time? Is it because of me?”
“I wish I could say it was, but no. This is my only group today. Heard through the grapevine they’re going to do a mandatory evacuation later today. The water’s going to be too rough here in a little bit, so I cancelled the rest of the tours. I need time to get my boat out of the water and tied down before nightfall.”
“I didn’t listen to the radio this morning. Is Earl going to hit here?”
“I still don’t think it will come to shore, but it’s so huge the outside bands will hit us. If it turns closer, it could get pretty hairy.”
“When will it get here?”
“They’re saying Thursday night, but they’ll start evacuations this evening I’ll bet.”
“If it’s mandatory, do I have to leave?” Lizbeth asked.
“No, they can’t make the people who live here leave; just the tourists have to go. If anybody asks, tell them you just moved here and you’re one of the Jackson’s that owns the house. I mean, if you want to stay that is.”
“I’m staying if you’re staying,” Lizbeth said, without hesitation.
Gray grinned. “I guess you’re staying then.”
Lizbeth smiled at her. “You’ll keep me safe, won’t you?”
Gray looked over the top of her sunglasses at Lizbeth. “Yeah, I’ll look out for you. Fanny’d have my hide if I didn’t.”
Lizbeth played coy again. “Oh, so you don’t care what happens to me, just that Fanny might get after you.”
“It’s not that I don’t care, it’s just I’m more afraid of Fanny than I am of you, at the moment,” Gray answered.
Lizbeth threw her head back and laughed. “Gray, I can’t imagine you being afraid of anything.” She paused, then looked at Gray. “Wait a minute. You said, ‘more afraid.’ Does that mean you’re afraid of me?”
Gray grinned. “A little.”
Lizbeth was going to have fun with this tidbit of information. “And what, pray tell, makes a big strong girl like you afraid of a little old gal like me?”
“That outfit for one,” Gray said, laughing. Suddenly a look of seriousness took over her smiling face. She looked at Lizbeth for a second, and then said, softly, “I’m afraid I might like you too much.”
Lizbeth got serious too. “And that’s a bad thing?”
“Wouldn’t do to get attached to someone who won’t be around very long.”
Lizbeth hadn’t thought that part of this through. She would be leaving the island in December. What would happen if she did get too attached to Gray? Gray would never leave this place and Lizbeth couldn’t stay here. What would she do here with no job and no place to live? No, Gray and Lizbeth were on two different life paths. They just happened to have crossed those paths by a twist of fate. If Lizbeth hadn’t come here to work on her thesis, they would never have met, but they had and Lizbeth was totally smitten with this woman. She had to say something. Gray was waiting for a response.