Wet: Part 1

by Rivera, S. Jackson

  “What tanks?”

  He swore again, calling her an idiot, muttering the slur just loud enough for her to hear. “Go around to the other side of the shop, to the tank room. Dobbs is filling tanks. You carry the filled tanks to the boat—so we can go diving. That’s what we’re all doing here. We need sixteen tanks. Put them in these slots.” He pointed to the tank slots that lined the sides of the boat.

  Is he mad at me? Maybe he’s just stressed out and needs a hand. “Sure. Anything I can do to help.” She headed to the other side of the shop and saw Dobbs take a tank off the noisy compressor and set it on the floor with several others.

  “Are these the tanks that go on the boat?”

  The compressor roared deafeningly loud. Dobbs wore earmuffs. He saw her and lifted one side so she repeated her question. He nodded. She’d never done this before so it took a minute to figure out the best way to carry them. Dobbs reached over and demonstrated how to grab them by the neck, and then he smiled kindly at her. He seemed like such a nice man. She grabbed one of the tanks the way Dobbs had shown her.

  “Man, these are heavy.” She’d seen people carrying two at a time the day before, but she’d never manage to carry two all the way around to the other side. She took one. Dobbs shook his head but didn’t stop filling the empty tanks.

  After three trips, Paul came around the corner. “What’s taking so long? We don’t have time for this shit.”

  “They’re heavy,” she said.

  He glared at her and stormed off to the tank room. She met him on her way back. He had one tank under his arm, one in that hand and another in the other hand. He glared at her again as they passed each other.

  “Geeminy! Moody is an understatement.”

  She went back for another and had just set it in one of the empty slots when Paul showed up with three more.

  “This is going to take all fucking day. Stay on the boat. I’ll bring them to you and you put them in the slots.” He irritably handed her the tanks one at a time, and she set them in the slots. He glared at her as she struggled with the job. By the time they finished, her arms hurt. She thought she was going to die.

  “Phew! What a work out.” She smiled at him, hoping that now that the job was finished, he could relax. He glared at her and walked off. She wanted to crawl away and find a rock to hide under. “What is his problem?”

  Everyone scheduled to be on the boat that day finally showed up, and again, the dock came to life with all the activity. Rhees watched, trying to learn, and she waved to all the divers as the boat pulled away. She wouldn’t have anything to do until the boat returned since Shelli, her instructor, had headed out to dive. Rhees’ next lesson wasn’t scheduled until the afternoon.

  oOo

  Claire showed up after the morning rush and went directly into the office. Most of the students not scheduled to dive never showed up until the boat returned—unless they were scheduled for the dreaded tank duty.

  Rhees wandered into the office to say hello. “Good morning, Claire.”

  “Good morning,” Claire mumbled back unenthusiastically, in hopes of getting rid of her. Rhees stood in the office for a while and watched Claire move about the office. Claire swore under her breath about having too much to do and not enough time to do it. “Is there something you need?” Claire asked, and not pleasantly.

  “I hate not having anything to do. Is there something I can help with?” Rhees asked.

  Claire was taken aback. “You’re joking, right? Well, ha ha,” she snapped. “Not funny.”

  “You just looked like you could use a hand . . . and I have nothing better to do.”

  “No one’s ever offered to help me before. Um . . .” Claire looked around the office. There was plenty to do, but she looked for the job she hated the most. “See those T-shirts in the boxes under that counter? They’re all messed up. Paul pulls them out when customers want to buy one, and he never folds them before putting them back in the wrong box.”

  “I’ve got it.” Rhees moved behind the counter, sat down on the floor, and started folding and organizing the shirts.

  “Thanks.” Claire watched for a minute, still amazed.

  Paul came through the tunnel, a narrow hallway between the office and the door on the other side of the shop, near the compressor room.

  “Claire. Have you seen that mother-fucking new girl?” he asked gruffly.

  Rhees froze. He obviously didn’t see her behind the counter. Claire sat at her computer and turned slowly, wondering if she’d heard him wrong.

  “What did you say?”

  “I’m looking for that bitch Rhees. You told her about the board, didn’t you?”

  “What in bloody hell is wrong with you today?” Claire asked. “Rhees is new, she won’t be on the board for a while.”

  Paul shot Claire a cold, if-looks-could-kill glare. “She’s on tanks and bathrooms. She already fucked up tank duty this morning. If you don’t explain the board, and get her on the bathrooms in the next few minutes, I might just kick her ass and finally fire yours. If it weren’t for Dobbs, I’d have done it a long time ago.”

  Claire stood and returned his stare with the same vehemence he sent her.

  “Dobbs isn’t the reason I’m stuck in this hell-hole of an office all day. If you want to be here instead of me, go right ahead. Fire me, you wanker,” she hissed.

  “Explain the damn board to her!” Paul boomed. “She’ll be on the same duties until she can learn to do her part around here.” He picked up a clipboard, wrote something on the page, and slammed it down on the counter before walking out.

  Claire looked at Rhees with wide eyes. “What the hell did you do?” She said each word with emphasis.

  Rhees searched her mind for the answer. “I don’t know. Nothing!” She thought of one thing—but that couldn’t possibly be it. “. . . I didn’t sleep with him.” Her voice was hoarse.

  Claire’s furious expression changed to admiration. “Come on. I’ll show you everything you need to know around here. You and I are going to be chums.”

  Chapter 5

  Four days later, Rhees arrived at the shop at five thirty in the morning. She wasn’t scheduled to be there until five forty-five, but she was sick of Paul telling her how late she was every day. She would show him by showing up extra early. “I dare you to tell me I’m late today, Mr. Grumpy Pants.”

  Paul had been treating her horribly. She never knew anyone could be so cruel, and she never would have believed she could hate anyone before now. She cried herself to sleep the first few nights and wanted to quit, but Claire urged her to not give Paul the satisfaction.

  “He thinks he’s punishing you,” she’d said. “You’ve said you don’t mind the work because you like to keep busy. So do the work and just ignore his foul disposition. It’ll drive him bonkers . . . and I like having you around. Please don’t give up.”

  Next to burying both parents within such a short time, it was one of the hardest things she had ever done, to stay and deal with such an unpleasant situation instead of running away. Claire had been right—knowing that he wanted to break her brought out her stubborn side. It kept her going.

  She made it a game. She’d never been a game player, but it spoke of satisfaction to some unfulfilled part of her to play this one. If she offered to sleep with him—the last thing she would ever do—he would win. If she quit and ran home—her normal tendency—he would win. She wasn’t experienced enough to know how to come out the winner, but she was darn sure he wasn’t going to win either.

  She could do grumpy. She didn’t like it, but she was used to it. Her dad had been a hard-headed, strong-willed, and quick-to-tell-you-his-opinion kind of man. Her friends were scared of him, but as hard and scary as he could be to deal with at times, he was protective of her and made her feel safe. And then ther
e was one sad fact always in the back of her mind—it seemed easier to stay and put up with Paul than to face her reality so soon. She no longer had a home to run back to.

  The experience had actually turned into a good thing for her, and it didn’t take her long to realize it. She had to search deep into her character for a stronger part of herself, a willful side that refused to give up—for once in her life. That’s why she came to the island in the first place. She didn’t expect to find it quite this way, but she convinced herself that the situation with Paul turned out to be more helpful than she’d anticipated her once-in-a-lifetime adventure to be.

  “Ha! I beat him.” The lock still hung on the office door and she reveled in her triumph.

  She checked the board and sighed aloud. Paul still had her on the same duties—the worst ones at the shop. She didn’t mind that as much as not seeing her name scheduled to be on the boat. She was ready. She’d finished her bookwork, had watched all the videos, and had taken and passed all the written tests, as well as all the underwater drills. She’d even passed the swimming test, her greatest concern.

  She’d never been a strong swimmer without fins, but the salty water of the ocean made her more buoyant than she’d ever been in a swimming pool, and it had been much easier than she’d expected. She would be officially certified as soon as Paul scheduled her on the boat so she could get her five dives in the open water.

  However, Paul, and Paul alone, decided who went out on the boats each day, and so far, she’d never seen her name on the board, except under the chore chart. Fourteen students at the shop and for some reason, hers was the only name that ever came to mind when he thought of tank schlepping and bathroom duty, but the last one to be on the boat. The whole thing was insult enough, but she stared at how he wrote her name on the board.

  Bathrooms: Danarya

  She reached into the chalk box, grabbed a piece, and climbed up on the bench. She used her fingers to erase the name she hated and wrote in Rhees. She stepped down and brushed the chalk off her fingers, beaming with satisfaction. She looked at the section of the board where students wrote their names to sign up to be on the boat. She’d written her name there every day, but Paul had so far, blatantly ignored that fact. It gave her an idea.

  She erased her name as Rhees, and wrote in, Danarya. “Maybe that’s the problem.” She laughed at herself, knowing it wasn’t true but a thrill shot through her, anticipating how it would get to Paul. This could be bad, she thought, but she didn’t care.

  She walked around the building, feeling a sense of relief that she had a few minutes to enjoy being there without Paul’s fuming eyes constantly scrutinizing her.

  She reached the other side of the shop and decided to check the bathroom. She could at least run the toilet brush around the bowl and sweep it out so he wouldn’t have anything to complain about. She didn’t think to wonder why the door was open and walked right in.

  oOo

  Paul jumped and almost fell off the toilet seat from the surprise when Rhees came barreling through the door of the bathroom and screamed.

  He let out a string of cuss words. “What are you doing here so early?” No one ever showed up early. He had no choice but to try to diffuse his embarrassment by acting annoyed. “No sense in wasting your timely arrival. Open up.” He tossed her his keys. Shit! “I suppose you’re going to have a lot of fun telling everyone about this.”

  “About what?” She sounded convincing as she walked away to unlock all the doors and turn on the computers in the office.

  He shook his head in disbelief. He’d figured out she was probably too nice to use this embarrassing situation against him; at least, she pretended to be. “Yeah, I bet it’d embarrass you more than me to tell anyone about this,” he muttered, knowing she couldn’t hear him. He reached for the toilet paper.

  “Damn it,” was only the first in another long stream of obscenities when he realized his childish antics had finally sneaked up on him and bit him in the butt, almost literally.

  “Danar . . .” he started to holler, but suddenly, there she stood, leaning against the door jamb, not looking his direction, but holding a roll of toilet paper, spinning it around on her finger with a smug look on her face.

  “Need this?” She didn’t do a very good job suppressing a knowing smile. “At first I thought you really needed to start rationing toilet paper. Make people come to the office to get their . . . what do you think, five squares? Because, you know, we really go through it around here.” She smiled again, pleased with herself. “But then I had this idea, a suspicion really. I started marking the rolls before I put them in the bathroom, because we did go through it so fast. Somehow, the same rolls mysteriously show up back in the locker. It’s the weirdest thing. I think you may have ghosts, a real poltergeist.”

  In spite of his position, she dared to turn and give him a very disappointed, disapproving glare. “I don’t understand why an intelligent guy like you needs to act like such big baby.”

  “I am big, and women call me Baby all the time. They call me God a lot, too.” He smirked.

  “You’re only building my case, you big baby.”

  “I am nawt a baby.”

  “Are too.”

  “Am not.”

  “Are.”

  “Not.”

  She rolled her eyes and tossed the roll of toilet paper to him.

  She had the shop all opened up, ready for the others to arrive, and sat waiting at the compressor to start their morning routine. Paul walked to the fresh-water shower provided for the divers to rinse off after their dives and washed his hands as Rhees watched with a look of wonder on her face.

  He glanced around, trying to see the problem.

  “Why didn’t I think of that?” She threw her hands in the air and smiled at him with wide eyes, as if he’d just invented water. “All this time, I’ve been trying so hard to ignore the fact that there are very few public bathrooms on this island and even fewer sinks. It’s been hard enough to know I can’t always wash my hands, but everyone else . . . Blech!” She stuck out her tongue. “I can’t even go there.”

  The next thought popped into his head before he could stop it.

  Why does she have to be so damned cute?

  oOo

  Paul went to work filling tanks while Rhees schlepped them to the boat. It’d become their routine. It wasn’t fair for him to make her do it, day after day—bathroom and tank duty were the worst jobs at the shop—but she never complained. She also never noticed how he’d stopped having Dobbs or Mitch show up early to help so he’d have the time alone with her.

  She picked up two tanks and carried them off. She’d never managed more than one before now. He actually grinned with admiration.

  Having her at the shop to help those extra few minutes left them with time to spare, and the two of them wound up awkwardly staring at each other. He certainly couldn’t let her have the satisfaction of besting him. He thought about what other dirty jobs he could have her do. The only thing that came to mind was his daily computer work. He hated what he called his Dailies.

  As office manager, the Dailies were originally part of Claire’s duties. She did them for about two months after he bought the shop. But one day, she declared she wouldn’t do them anymore; she flat-out refused. He threatened to fire her, but she called his bluff. Without her, he’d have to do all the office work, and that meant he’d never see the sun again.

  A thorn in his side, he told himself he only kept Claire around because she came with Dobbs. Dobbs was a good man, and with the exception of Mitch, he was the best friend he had on the island as well as the only person, together with his wife, he trusted to take care of things when he couldn’t be around. The Dobbsons had been at the shop, as acting managers, trying to save up the money to buy it from the aging owner, when Paul happened onto the
island three years before.

  Paul had been wandering the world when his travels brought him to the island and the shop. He felt a burning need to stay the moment he stepped off the plane. He bought the shop out from under the Dobbsons, paying cash, one of the many reasons for Claire’s disdain toward him. Claire did her job very well, and as much as he threatened on occasion to fire her, he didn’t want to lose her help. He had no choice but to tolerate her bad attitude until they saved enough money to buy their own shop someday. He didn’t mind the fact that it would take a while for them to do so.

  “Come on. I have a new job for you,” he said to Rhees. He led her to the office. “And if you touch my board again, you’ll be sorry,” he said in a simple, matter-of-fact way.

  “Oh really?” she answered sarcastically. “What are you going to do? Put me on your crap list?”

  He looked at her from the corner of his eye and had to bite the inside of his cheek so he wouldn’t laugh. He sat down at his personal computer and paused a minute, deciding whether he really wanted to do this. He finally gave her his password and started showing her how to do his least favorite job of all.

  oOo

  That afternoon, Rhees pulled Shelli aside to ask another question. She’d finished her lessons but until she successfully did her open water dives, Shelli was officially still her instructor. Since Paul purposely denied her the dives she needed to get certified, Shelli was stuck with her. Rhees always had a question or two, and Shelli did her job like a professional, but everyone knew Rhees wasn’t Shelli’s favorite person.

  Tracy and Regina believed Shelli to be jealous of Rhees, a sentiment shared by more than a few of the other students as well. Shelli was one of Paul’s favorite sex-mates. No one else, except some girl named Ginger, had been known to come close to being a girlfriend. Apparently, he made his position on relationships very clear: he wanted nothing more than sex, and being the most gorgeous man in the world, he got away with it. Girls practically waited in line for their turn.