Waking Up Gray

by R. E. Bradshaw

  Lizbeth returned home around six o’clock, spent and a bit sunburned, even with the sunscreen. She took a shower, applied lotion to her reddened skin, and climbed the stairs to dress. She put on her loose fitting gray Duke tee shirt, to avoid much contact between clothing and skin, and added a pair of blue cotton shorts. She combed the tangles from the wind out of her dark hair and let it hang down around her shoulders to dry. She peered in the mirror at the single strand of gray hair she discovered yesterday, grabbed it between two fingers, and promptly yanked it out of her scalp. She didn’t feel like being gray, yet.

  She ate another salad for supper. Soon the weather would turn and the fresh vegetables, handpicked from local farms, would be gone until next summer. She couldn’t seem to get enough of them, as she crunched a cucumber slice drenched in ranch dressing. Store bought vegetables in winter just didn’t have the same taste. After supper, she poured the remainder of the wine from last night into a glass and went to sit on the porch. She took a book with her, but never opened it. She became enchanted with the people walking in front of the cottage. Tourists wearily dragged toward their cars after a hard day of sightseeing. Locals walked toward home at the end of their workday or headed toward the docks to begin the evening shift.

  Smells of frying seafood and grilling beef mingled in the air. A breeze blew steadily through the trees, bringing the aromas of suppertime from the restaurants where it mingled with home cooking in the village. Lizbeth sat listening to the different accents as the people passed her house. Two French Canadians’ elegant flowing romance language drifted in the air, before being drowned out by a young woman. Most likely from the Jersey Shore, she complained loudly in her sharp accent that there weren’t any hot nightclubs on the island. Lizbeth was most fond of the southern drawl in all its varieties. Southerners expressed themselves not so much with the words they used, but with the cadence and inflection of how they said them. Once again mesmerized by language, she did not notice Fanny had also come out on her porch until she heard her voice calling out to her from across the street.

  “Lizbeth, come on over, sit a spell.”

  “Thank you, Miss Fanny. I believe I will,” Lizbeth said, standing up and setting the still unopened book aside. She carried her wine glass with her as she crossed the street to sit with the older woman.

  “You got a might bit a sun today, there girl,” Fanny said.

  Lizbeth looked at her lobster pink legs. “Yeah, I guess I’m going to have to go up a few notches on the sunscreen.”

  “Nothin’ like the beach sun, I tell ya’.”

  “Oh, but it was worth it. It was a gorgeous day. I enjoyed myself, being tourist, sightseeing, and playing on the beach,” Lizbeth said with such enthusiasm it made the old woman smile.

  “Well, I hope so,” Fanny said -- an islander way of applauding someone’s statement -- followed by a hearty laugh.

  “Granfanny, who you up there cacklin’ with?” The voice snapped the old woman’s head around.

  “Well, look what the cat drug in,” Fanny said, smiling at the blonde approaching the porch steps.

  Lizbeth immediately recognized the blond head. It was Gray, Fanny’s granddaughter. Now, in the fading light of day, Lizbeth was face to face with the woman she had seen plant the kiss that Lizbeth had not forgotten. In fact, she thought about how it made her feel several times today. That feeling seized her again when she looked into Gray’s crystal blue eyes, the very same sparkling blue as the grandmother’s.

  Gray was tall, probably five nine or ten. She was muscular, but not overly so. Gray had the athletically toned body of a tri-athlete. Even though she possessed the androgynous good looks of a teenage boy, she had not lost her femininity. Her grandmother had told Lizbeth that she and Gray were about the same age. Lizbeth thought Fanny must have believed Lizbeth to be much younger than she was. Gray’s blond hair was really a darker color underneath; maybe a dark blond, but the sun had bleached nearly all the color from the top of her head. Her perfect white teeth shined out at Lizbeth, in stark contrast to her darkly tanned skin.

  Lizbeth could tell that this woman lived outside, yet her skin looked healthy and smooth, unlike her grandmother’s weathered face. There were a few wrinkles around the eyes, squint lines from years on the water, easily recognized in the locals who made their living from the sea. She was wearing long, brightly colored swim shorts and a white tank top over a sport bathing suit top. Gray moved with long easy strides up the walk, entering the porch, a small cooler clutched in her left hand. She extended her right hand toward Lizbeth as she closed the distance between them, smiling brightly at her grandmother’s guest.

  “Hi, I’m Gray O’Neal. Hope this old woman hasn’t been feeding you too much bull. She likes to do that to tourists.”

  Lizbeth could hear the O’coker accent in Gray’s speech, but there was something else catching her ear. It could be southwestern, Texas maybe. Lizbeth shook Gray’s hand, but didn’t have time to answer her, as Fanny jumped in.

  “She’s not no dingbatter, that’s Lizbeth Jackson, Minnie’s great niece, David’s girl.”

  Gray chuckled, releasing Lizbeth’s hand, turning to her grandmother. “I told you, I don’t remember people like you do. Hell, I didn’t remember half my own family when I moved back, can’t expect me to keep up with Minnie’s, too.” Turning back to Lizbeth, she said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you Elizabeth.”

  Lizbeth corrected her. “It’s Lizbeth. My sister is only a year older than I am. When she started talking, she left a couple of syllables out of my name and it stuck. Just say Liz and Beth and put them together.”

  Fanny wasn’t finished with the genealogy lesson. She interrupted the introductions with, “You ought to know who you kin to on this island. It can make for strange bedfellas if’n you don’t.”

  Gray responded, “I ‘magine,” another bit of island slang, meaning to agree with a statement.

  “Well, I don’t think we have to worry about that,” Lizbeth said, joking, and then added, “It’s nice to meet you Gray.”

  Fanny continued, “No, Minnie and me didn’t share no kin, we just grew up like sisters.”

  Gray looked at Lizbeth with a grin that should have belonged to a mischievous boy. She said, “Well, I guess that clears us to sleep together, Granfanny says we’re no kin.”

  The shock must have shown on Lizbeth’s face. Gray laughed at her expression. “Easy there, I was just kidding.”

  Lizbeth let out a weak laugh to cover her embarrassment. Fanny saved her from having to speak.

  “Gray, supper’s on the table. Wash up and eat, then come visit with us, before you go out a cattin’ tonight.”

  Lizbeth thought ol’ Fanny knew her granddaughter well, because if Lizbeth understood the meaning of cattin’, that’s exactly what Gray had been doing last night. Gray excused herself and went into the house, leaving Lizbeth and Fanny on the porch.

  “Miss Fanny, how old do you think I am? You said you thought Gray and I are about the same age, but she looks much younger to me.”

  “Gray’s forty-four. I ‘member you being a few years younger, but not by much,” Fanny answered.

  Lizbeth was shocked. “I just turned forty in July. Wow, she looks so much younger. I would have said early thirties at the most. Must be this healthy salt air.” She thought for a minute, then added, “Has she always lived with you, here in this house?”

  Fanny, it turned out, loved to tell a story, and she was out of the gate on Gray’s history. “Gray and her momma lived with me when she was growing up. Gray’s daddy, my son, was killed when his fishin’ boat sank, caught in a sudden storm. She was three. She was the first of my kin to leave here and get a college degree. Then she moved to Texas, worked at Sea World in San Antonio for seventeen years. She came back in 2004 for a while, when her momma got the cancer. After her momma died, she came home the next year and been here ever since.”

  Texas. Lizbeth had been right. She prided herself in recognizing dialects
and accents from around the country. Gray had been off the island for a long time and now the two regional dialects were fighting for dominance in her speech. Although, it appeared the banker brogue was winning the battle. It would have to, listening to Fanny speak every day.

  Part of Lizbeth’s brain was trying to grasp on to anything, the speech patterns, grammar, and pronunciation. She concentrated on the language to distract her from what the other part of her brain was screaming. When Gray shook Lizbeth’s hand and smiled at her, Lizbeth felt her heart pitter-patter the same way it did when a handsome man paid her attention. It had nearly shocked the breath out of her when the sensation of Gray’s hand in hers sent tingles up her arm. This was all highly disconcerting. The only way she could maintain focus was to continue to study Fanny’s speech and keep her talking.

  “I should probably remember Gray, since she lived here when we came to visit, but we were so busy being vacationers, I guess I never got to meet her.”

  “Oh, you met her. You were probably three or four at the time.” Fanny had begun another story. “That would make Gray seven or eight. She was runnin’ ‘round underfoot, trying to get people to pay her for chores. She had recently discovered the love of money. Gray ran pretty wild back then, since her momma and me both worked down at Mr. Sam’s hotel. The village raised her. Times were dif’rent. You couldn’t let a young’un run loose like that now.”

  Lizbeth remembered that her parents had only two rules while on Ocracoke. No swimming alone and be home by dark. It was a charming period where no one considered the thought of someone kidnapping children.

  Fanny went on. “Gray pestered your momma until she said she’d pay Gray to watch you and your sister playin’ in the yard while she went inside to make supper. Her job was to keep y’all in the yard.” Fanny started to chuckle at the memory. “Well, ol Gray there wasn’t much for babysittin’. She wrangled the two of ya’ till it stopped being fun and then her mind went to work. She found some rope on the back porch, told y’all you were playin’ pirates and tied you to a tree. She told y’all if you made noise the pirates would come and cut off your heads, and ride them around stuck on the bow of their boats.”

  By now, Lizbeth was laughing, too. She did not remember the incident, but she could picture it in her mind. Lizbeth said between giggles, “I guess she’d heard too many Blackbeard stories.”

  Fanny nodded. “That child has always been fascinated with ol’ Edward. For years she told everyone she was gonna be a pirate when she grew up.”

  “How long did she leave us tied up?”

  “Well, your momma came out of the house, because it got so quiet. She found Gray sitting on the porch steps, alone. When she asked where you kids was, Gray stood up and said, ‘Miss Jackson, I don’t know how you do it. Them young’uns is a handful. I had to tie ‘em up just to take a minute’s rest.’”

  Lizbeth joined Fanny in hoots of laughter. Gray stuck her head out the door, a biscuit still in her hand.

  She asked, “What are you two going on about out here?”

  “Your grandmother is regaling me with stories from your pirate past,” Lizbeth said, as the giggles subsided.

  “I told you that old woman is full of bull. Don’t believe half of what she says. She’s senile,” Gray said, poking fun at Fanny.

  “Drime,” Fanny said, which in island parlance was about the same as calling someone a liar. Lizbeth figured it was like saying, “You’re dreaming, if you think that’s true.”

  “She was telling me that this was not the first time we met,” Lizbeth said. “Seems you tied me to a tree when I was a preschooler and told me if I made any noise the pirates would cut off my head.”

  Gray stepped out the door, finishing the biscuit, clutching a glass of iced tea in her other hand. She swallowed and said, “Oh, that story. I had forgotten that, but I get reminded periodically when Fog Horn here gets to tellin’ stories.” Gray paused, and then winked, saying, “So, you’re one of those little girls. You’re all grown now. Come back for revenge?”

  Lizbeth, embarrassed by Gray’s obvious flirting, covered it by asking Fanny, “So what did my momma do? Did she pay her?”

  “Yep, she did. Said she wished she’d thought of it herself.”

  The three women laughed while Gray pulled up a chair to join them.

  Gray asked Lizbeth, “How long are you here for?”

  “I’ve rented the cottage through mid December. I’m working on my Master’s thesis. It’s the last thing I have to do, before I can graduate.”

  “You’re in grad school?” Gray asked.

  “Yes, but it’s a five year program and I actually just got my Bachelor’s last year. I kind of got a late start,” Lizbeth answered.

  True to the Ocracoke way, Gray did not ask why Lizbeth had started school so late in life. Most folks on the island felt that if you wanted them to know something personal, you’d tell them.

  Gray continued, “What’s your thesis about?”

  “I’m getting a Master’s in Linguistic Anthropology from Duke. My paper is on preservation of the Carolina Brogue.”

  “Well, you’ve come to the right place. Fanny there is an expert on the brogue,” Gray said, pointing at Fanny. “You’ll have to pick her brain.”

  “There’s been a mess of folk through here, recording how we talk,” Fanny said. “I always tell ‘em, if’n they had lived on this here island, they’d know how funny we think all the woodsers sound.”

  A woodser was a person who grew up on the mainland. Lizbeth was a woodser. She commented, “Yes, Miss Fanny, I imagine we do sound funny to you island folk.”

  Fanny indicated Gray with a nod of the head. “That one there come back here from Texas with more twang than brogue. She’s ‘bout got it out of her system, but it took years.”

  “That’s right. I came back with a shit kicker accent. Natives couldn’t understand me half the time, till I started picking the brogue back up,” Gray added.

  Lizbeth studied Gray’s smile. It was so contagious that she found herself smiling back at her. When she realized she had been staring, she quickly said, “It’s funny, most people say the bankers are hard to understand.”

  Gray chuckled. “You should see it when a foreigner, like a German, tries to talk to an O’coker. They might both be speaking English, but one can’t understand the other.”

  The three women talked for an hour or more about the island and how much it had changed since Lizbeth’s childhood. At one point, Fanny turned to Gray, saying, “I thought you were going to Gaffer’s tonight.”

  Gray shrugged, saying simply, “I reckon they can get along without me.”

  Lizbeth was inexplicably elated at that pronouncement. She didn’t want Gray to go. She was having too much fun talking to her. Gray was charming, not to mention easy on the eyes. Lizbeth found herself watching Gray’s full lips when she spoke. Her blue eyes appeared to twinkle in the moonlight. Lizbeth had never felt attracted to a woman in her life, but she knew that was what it was; she recognized the symptoms. Her palms were sweaty and her heart began to beat faster whenever Gray moved closer. When Gray leaned over her to place her tea glass on the table, Lizbeth felt her heart jump into her throat. Once again, she played the game with her brain of trying to concentrate on the conversation, while her inner monologue was questioning her very sexuality. She struggled like this for another hour and then stood up.

  “I really have to go home. The sun today took my energy,” Lizbeth said.

  Gray laughed. “You city girls need to work up to a whole day in the island sun.”

  “Yeah, I guess I over did it on my first day.”

  Fanny, who appeared to have dozed off, woke up when the other two started moving around.

  “Well, I reckon I need to go on in to bed myself,” Fanny said. “Lizbeth, would you like to go with Gray and me to church in the mornin’?”

  Lizbeth’s heart leapt at the thought of seeing Gray tomorrow. She was beginning to think an alien had inva
ded her body overnight. She could no more control this attraction than she could the tides.

  She answered Fanny, “I would love to attend church with you. What time should I be ready?”

  “We go to the ‘leven o’clock service,” Fanny said.

  Gray added, “The dress code is strictly casual. I wear shorts and my flip-flops.”

  “Sounds like my kind of church,” Lizbeth said. “Just come across the street when you’re ready. I’ll be waiting. Good night, Miss Fanny. Thank you for the hospitality.” Lizbeth went out the screen door.

  Gray followed. “It was good to meet you again, Lizbeth.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t feel the need to tie me up, this time,” Lizbeth joked.

  “I’ll only do that if your momma pays me again,” Gray countered.

  “See you tomorrow morning, Gray. I had a wonderful time.”

  Gray beamed that perfect smile at Lizbeth. “I had a good time, too. Goodnight, Lizbeth.”

  “Goodnight,” Lizbeth said, and then moved away to her own home.

  When Lizbeth closed her eyes that night, she saw the kiss again, playing out in her mind. Only, Gray wasn’t kissing the other woman this time. She was planting that sweet kiss right on Lizbeth’s waiting lips. Lizbeth’s eyes flew open. What in the hell was going on with her? She lay there mulling her attraction to Gray over, afraid to close her eyes, in the off chance that she would see Gray kiss her again. The exhaustion finally shut her eyes for her. She spent the night dreaming of more than a kiss with Gray. Evidently, her mind was enjoying itself, while Lizbeth’s ability to stop it slept soundly unaware.