Waking Up Gray

by R. E. Bradshaw

  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.

  Lizbeth took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She dug nervously into the sand with her fingers and said, “Gray, I don’t know where this is going. It’s so new and exciting. I know I’m not thinking straight, pardon the pun.”

  Gray chuckled and Lizbeth went on. “Let’s just take it slow, one day at a time, because to tell you the truth you scare the hell out of me.”

  Gray reached down, retrieving one of Lizbeth’s hands from the sand. She squeezed it lightly and smiled at her. “All right then,” she said, and stood up. She helped Lizbeth to her feet. Gray looked into Lizbeth’s face and then let her eyes wander down to Lizbeth’s chest. She pulled her eyes away and started laughing. She said, “Okay, but I don’t know how slow it’ll go, if you keep wearing things like that.”

  #

  Gray and Lizbeth killed an hour on the beach looking for shells and then loaded the tourists back in the boat. Gray took the boat back to the docks and the passengers disembarked. Lizbeth found it amusing when the tall Gray exchanged bows with her much shorter guests as they were leaving. The man who had taken Lizbeth’s picture was the last to go.

  He pointed at Lizbeth and said to Gray, in very broken English, “Very pretty.”

  Gray grinned. “Yes, she is.”

  Lizbeth was sitting on a short piling at the end of the dock smiling at Gray when she walked up. She stood up and fell in step with Gray toward home. Lizbeth was giggling when she said, “I think that’s the first thing either one of you said all day that you both understood.”

  They burst out laughing and continued to do so every time the
y looked at each other, all the way home.

  #

  Gray dropped Lizbeth at her cottage and then pulled a Jeep Wrangler out of a raised garage behind Fanny’s house. Lizbeth stood on her porch and waved goodbye as Gray slowly rolled down Howard Street. Lizbeth went into the cottage, showered the salt water and sand from her body, and changed her clothes. After making a sandwich for lunch, Lizbeth settled in for an afternoon of studying.

  Lizbeth listened to the radio while she worked. At one p.m., the Hyde County Emergency Services Department released a public advisory. According to the National Weather Service, Earl, now a category four hurricane, was making a northeastern turn off the coast and was forecasted to collide with the Outer Banks. Hyde County was expected to receive significant wind, rain, and storm surges that could flood the low-lying areas, both on the mainland and Ocracoke. Presently, they anticipated a mandatory evacuation for Ocracoke Island on Wednesday, September first, beginning at five a.m. for all residents and visitors.

  Gray’s grapevine had been on the money. Lizbeth thought about leaving. After all, a category four hurricane was nothing to take lightly. A storm of that magnitude carried sustained winds of 131 to 155 miles per hour and a storm surge of 13 to 18 feet. Lizbeth looked at the ceiling and thought about the whole room being underwater. She began to wonder if she was crazy for even thinking about staying.

  If she was going to leave, she should pack up now and go, but she’d never leave without saying goodbye to Gray. The wait in the ferry line was going to be long, with the hundreds of tourists all attempting to flee at the same time, and then she would have to drive another two hours to get inland. She looked at months of research spread around her. Lizbeth could lose it all if the house flooded. She immediately stopped what she was doing and refreshed the upload of all her files to her online backup. Lizbeth knew she wasn’t leaving, but she wasn’t taking a chance on her research.

  While she was waiting for the upload to finish, her cell phone rang. It was Mazie.

  Lizbeth answered, “Hey, sweetheart.”

  “Well, you sound chipper. Island life must be agreeing with you,” Mazie said.

  Lizbeth grinned to herself, saying, “Yes, I have to say it is exhilarating.”

  Mazie got to the point of the call. “I assume you are packing the car. When should you be home?” Mazie must have heard about the mandatory evacuation order, too.

  “I’m not leaving.”

  Mazie registered her shock with a high pitched, “What!”

  “Gray says we’ll be fine, so I’m not leaving,” Lizbeth explained calmly.

  “They said everyone has to leave Mother, that’s what mandatory means. And who the hell is Gray?”

  “You don’t have to leave if you own property and this is the Jackson house, so I can stay. Gray and her grandmother, Fanny, live across the street. Fanny is eighty-five and has never left the island during a hurricane and their house has been standing longer than this one. I think I’m safe.”

  Mazie wasn’t buying it. “Have they ever been through a storm as big as this one?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, in 1944 they endured a storm surge of 14 feet.”

  Mazie backed off a little. “Well, I see you’ve done your research.”

  “I’ll be fine, Mazie. Don’t worry.”

  “I’ll worry till it’s over, but if you really want to stay, I guess I can’t make you leave if the state can’t.”

  “No, you can’t,” Lizbeth said, and laughed.

  “Mom, you sound different, almost giddy. What’s up with you?”

  Mazie was very intuitive. She always had been. Even as a small child, she could discern Lizbeth’s moods. Although Lizbeth had tried to shelter Mazie from the pain in her marriage, Mazie always knew when her mother needed time alone or a simple hug. Their closeness made the rest of life more bearable, but right now Lizbeth wished Mazie wasn’t so perceptive.

  “It’s the sea air, I guess,” Lizbeth answered, trying to sound convincing.

  “I don’t believe it, but if you don’t want to talk about it, I’ll wait. You won’t be able to keep it from me long though. You’ll tell eventually.” Mazie’s laughter reminded Lizbeth of her own.

  People said the two looked alike. They had the same hair and eyes, but Mazie was tall like her father, which, Lizbeth thought, made her daughter look like a model. Lizbeth was so proud of Mazie. She was happily married to a wonderful man and she had achieved every goal she had ever set for herself. At least Lizbeth had done one thing right. She had raised an incredible young woman.

  No matter how much she admired her daughter, Lizbeth was not ready to share Gray with Mazie. She responded to Mazie’s last comment, trying to sound innocent, “There’s nothing to tell. I’ve had five wonderful days here and I’m just happy, that’s all.” She tried to change the subject. “I saw twin dolphin calves this morning. It was amazing.”

  “I wish I could have been there.” Mazie paused and Lizbeth heard someone else speaking. “Mom, I have to go, my car’s ready. Promise me you’ll be safe.”

  “I’m in good hands. These O’cokers won’t let anything happen to me, I promise.”

  “I love you, Mom.”

  “I love you too, sweet girl. Bye, bye.”

  “Bye, Mom,” Mazie said, and then added with a giggle, “I hope he’s good-looking.” Then she was gone.

  Lizbeth hung up the phone. She said to the folded phone in her hand, “Yes, Mazie, she’s very good looking, not he.”

  Oh, if she only had the guts to really say that. She had no idea how Mazie would react, but for some reason she wasn’t really afraid of it. Mazie was wise beyond her years. Somehow, Lizbeth knew Mazie would stand beside her no matter what. It was the rest of the world of which she wasn’t so sure. What was it Molly had said? “If you care more about what people think of you than being who you really are, then pack now, leave, and never look back.”

  “One thing at a time, Lizbeth,” she said aloud.

  After a few hours of studying, the five hours of sleep began to catch up with her. Lizbeth crawled in the bed in her room and took a nap. She dreamed of dolphins, and waves, and sunsets. She woke refreshed and was surprised to see that the digital readout on the microwave said seven fifteen when she walked into the kitchen. Gray must be home by now.

  Lizbeth was afraid Gray might have come over while she was sleeping and she had not heard her. She quickly made a salad of the remaining vegetables, forcing herself to eat it, even though she was anxious and really didn’t want any food. She went back upstairs, brushed her hair, and checked herself in the mirror. She changed to a fresh tee shirt, because her sleep wrinkled the one she was wearing. Satisfied that the white scooped neck tee and blue shorts looked good enough, she went out on the porch to look for Gray.

  Fanny was in her customary rocker. Lizbeth called out to her, “Good evening, Miss Fanny.”

  “Come on over, young’un, and sit a spell.”

  Lizbeth crossed the street and bounded up onto the porch. She took the adjacent rocker and fell into rhythm, rocking with the older woman.

  “Gray tells me yer stayin’ through the storm.”

  “She seems to think we’re safe, don’t you?” Lizbeth asked.

  “Lord honey,” Fanny said, chuckling. “When it’s my time, I’m a goin’. Runnin’ to the mainland won’t stop that.”

  This pronouncement did not reassure Lizbeth. “But you don’t think I’m making a mistake staying here?”

  “No, I think we’ll be fine. Don’t feel like a bad one coming.”

  Lizbeth was risking being caught in a nasty hurricane, because this old woman didn’t feel a “bad one coming,” but she thought she could trust Fanny and Gray. Where was Gray? It was almost eight o’clock.

  Trying not to be too obvious, Lizbeth asked, “Did Gray get her boat out of the water?”

  “She come back ‘bout an hour ago, dropped off the boat on the trailer and parked the Jeep. She went back to hope out some more folk
s.” Fanny used the word hope to mean help, another idiom. “She’s tied down the skiff, but she’ll leave it in the harbor staked out.”

  “Skiff? Is that what she does her crab pots and nets with?”

  “Gray’s granddaddy left it to her. She lets Cora Mae use it and Gray fishes on it some in the cold months.” Fanny winked. “Haulin’ tourons pays better than haulin’ fish.”

  Lizbeth smiled at the memory of Gray on the water this morning. “She sure is in her element out there on the water.”

  “Gray is as kin to a dolphin as you can be with two legs. She ain’t happy unless she’s in or on the water,” Fanny said.

  “I don’t know how she stayed away so long in Texas. She just seems to belong here.”

  Fanny scoffed, “She weren’t happy, I’ll tell you that. She drug back up here looking mommicked to death. The sea is life’s blood to her. She needs it. Gray wouldn’t survive out there in the world.”

  Lizbeth thought about Fanny’s comment. She knew the old woman was right. Gray wouldn’t survive, at least not happily, off this island. She’d be like the killer whales whose dorsal fins collapse in captivity. It was a visual clue to the great loss the animal felt. Gray could never swim in a circle; she would have to be free. A pain shot across Lizbeth’s chest.

  The women rocked silently for a few minutes, waving and speaking to all who passed on the street, most of them locals calling out Fanny’s name in greeting. The village was quiet, as most of the tourists had started leaving that afternoon. The sun had set on a clear sky, the calm before the storm.

  Lizbeth spent the quiet time mulling over what Gray said about being attached to something you knew was going away. Was it better to leave now, before anything happened? Would she be better off not knowing if Gray was the thing she’d been looking for, or would she spend the rest of her days and nights wondering what might have been? If Gray began to mean more to Lizbeth, would she be able to walk away, go back to Durham, and leave her here? Because that’s what it would come down to, leaving Gray behind. There was no way this ended any differently.