A Fine Cast of Characters - J. Dane Tyler [12]
The boat’s nice, but it’s not a luxury liner. And the food is pathetic. It’s like airline food but warm. The only thing cold onboard is the beer, and I can only stomach so much of that. So I’m chugging room-temp water and listening to two fat guys laugh themselves a hernia. Woo-woo, what fun. Sure am I glad I won. Yee. Ha. Go. Me.
Kelly sighed again. She never used to be so jaded, and wondered if she was just getting old and cynical. The sound of her name drew her gaze to the aft of the vessel. It was the “first mate”, whatever that meant on a two-person crew. He’d made overtures at Kelly almost the entire trip and didn’t seem to understand subtle rejection. Kelly figured she’d have to resort to being direct if he didn’t get a clue. Most people call it “rude” and she supposed since she wouldn’t see the bozo again, she shouldn’t care, but ... she hated to be rude just the same.
“Kelly, aren’t you gonna drop a rod?” He smiled with nicotine-stained teeth at her, his dark, dry skin as weathered and cracked as a tanned lizard hide, his dirty, bleached-brown curls tussled by the breeze. She tried to fake a smile but couldn’t manage one.
“No, thanks,” she said, trying to sound less morose than she felt. “I’m just going to catch some rays.” She turned her face away from him and muttered, “... And stay the hell away from you, bean-breath.” She considered putting something on over her halter top, but the sun beat down warm. It was the last day; she’d deal with it.
Kelly heard footfalls on the deck and tensed, expecting the so-called first mate. She turned and instead found the other woman onboard, Samantha, looking as bored and sick of the trip as Kelly. She offered the tall, lithe blond girl a wan smile.
“Hey,” Kelly said.
“Hi,” Sam sank down, her taut, Hollywood-perfect body sliding onto the deck with the grace of a rope being coiled. Kelly tried not to stare, and tried even harder not to be jealous, but the girl was an amazing physical specimen. Five-eight, curved and contoured with muscle and just enough fat to make it feminine, and sexy, long golden locks and big, emerald-green eyes. She never wore make-up. No older than her middle twenties, and she was here with a man more than twice her age and more than double her weight. Kelly wondered again why.
“You okay?” Kelly stared off and closed her journal.
Sam hung her head. “I guess so. I’ll be glad when this is over. I just want to go home.”
Kelly shifted toward Sam and smiled. “What are you missing back home?”
“Hanging out with friends, mostly.” Her smile didn’t make it to her eyes. “You know ... Just doing stuff we like to do. We ... as in, younger people.”
Kelly nodded. “Does your husband go with you?”
Sam giggled. “He’s not my husband. We’re just ... I don’t know what we’re doing, really. But no. He doesn’t.”
Kelly nodded again, slow. “What’s up?”
Sam cast a worried glance at her. “Nothing, but if you want to be alone I can—”
“No, no,” Kelly put her hand on Sam’s knee before she got up, “that’s not what I meant. I just meant you look like you have something on your mind, that’s all.”
“Well, I was ... Hey, what’s that?”
Kelly saw Sam crane her head to one side, staring over her, off the bow.
Her heart pounded in her chest.
An isolated, dark storm cell piled just over the water’s surface. Lightning skipped from one section of the low, narrow, cloud. The brilliant flashes ripped one after another across the slate gray face, then ignited its bowels, and flashed down at the ocean. An intense curtain hung to the water obscuring everything behind the rapid, amoebic disturbance. The cloud seemed to pull itself along, tendrils extending from the main cloud and dragging the body along the water, then others doing the same. The cloud tacked toward the boat creeping along its belly over the waves.
“Storm,” Kelly intoned, her interest