Stranded
Kathryn M. Burke
The Outer Banks of North Carolina! What a wonderful spot for a summer vacation, especially if you've spent most of your life in a landlocked area like Columbus, Ohio.
I'm Jimmy Gardner, and my parents decided to treat me to this vacation as a way of celebrating both my eighteenth birthday and my acceptance to Ohio State (sure, it's mostly just a dopey football schoolâbut hey, it's close by and won't cost too much). My high school career wasn't all that stellar, but was just good enough to get into OSU. The downside of the vacation was that my annoying older sister, Janice, who was twenty and would be starting her junior year at the same eminent institution of higher learning, would be tagging along. She and I didn't exactly get along so great. She'd become one of these feminists who thought all guys were criminals-in-the-making who didn't "respect" women the way women deserved to be respected. I guess her only virtue, in my opinion, was that she was quite a lookerâbut more on that later.
The vacation got off on the wrong foot, as my dad was delayed by urgent work at his office and wouldn't be able to join us for a day or two. So the three of us bundled into the car ourselves and headed out. We figured that, with all three of us sharing the driving, we would get there in pretty good timeâand we did.
It was damn hot in the Outer Banks that August, but that's what we wanted. We were all good swimmers, and we packed various bathing suits to take advantage of the kinds of sandy beaches that people in Ohio can only dream about. And I have to say that having not one but two nice-looking females, both of whom would be dressed only in swimwear for long periods of time, was one of the things I was most looking forward to on this trip. I'm referring, of course, to my sisterâand my mom.
My mother (she had the old-fashioned name of Mabelâwhich she hated all the time she was growing up until Dad came along and said it was "charming") had had Janice when she was only twenty, so right now she was fortyâand looked a lot younger. She was petite (no more than five foot four) and slender, but really curvy here and there, especially where it mattered. All my guy friends said she was just the cutest mother they'd ever seen; in fact, they'd started using another term about herâan acronym, I think it's calledâwhich, when I finally understood what it meant, made me want to punch them in the face. But on reflection, I couldn't say they were wrong.
She had this delicate, oval face that was somehow tinged with melancholyânot that my mom was sad a lot, or at all. In fact, a lot of the time she seemed
spooked.
She was one of these people (and I'm sorry to say there are more women like this than menâno disrespect toward females intended!) who seem scared of everything. She was a wonderful mom, and I loved herâbut when I got to be bigger and stronger and taller than her, I think she began to be afraid even of
me.
That's silly, isn't it?
That first day of the vacation, we were just tired from all the driving we'd done, and we managed to get to our cabin on the Outer Banks pretty late in the day, so we did nothing but go right to sleep. Luckily, the place had three bedrooms, so I wouldn't have to shack up with my annoying sisterâsomething she would have hit the ceiling about anyway. The next day we just loafed around, not really knowing what to do. Dad was usually the one to organize our vacation schedules, and he wouldn't be showing up until the next day.
After dinner, I saw a place near the shore where you could rent little speedboats and go on your own self-guided tours of the area. That sounded like a good idea to me, but both Janice and my mom were hesitant. I managed to persuade Mom to go with me, but Janice drew the line, giving me this look that said,
There's no way I'm stepping into a boat with
you
driving it!
Okay, I'd never driven a speedboat before, but how hard could it be?
So Mom and I took off while Janice went back to the cabin for some peace and quiet. I made a joke about what she might be doing all by herself, and she swung her little fist at meâbut I dodged it with ease.
Mom and I got into the boat, which really was pretty small. There was still a lot of daylight, since sun set pretty late at this time of year. After getting some elementary instructions about how to run the vehicle, we set off on our journey.
Did I mention that Mom had changed into a strapless one-piece swimsuit that clung to her bodyâfrom breasts to buttâin a way I'd never seen before? I could tell she was hugely self-conscious about showing off her "assets" to her own son, and she tried to avoid my gaze as much as she could. I myself was wearing only swimming trunks: it was still pretty warm, and I figured we might land on some remote beach and have a swim.
The boat was pretty easy to manage, and we were exhilarated by having the wind strike our faces, the spray from the water coming up and giving us a nice little bath, and of course the spectacular view of the overall terrain. I decided to head for a spot where no one else was: maybe I could pretend I was on that stupid old
Gilligan's Island
show and land on a "deserted island." Of course, there were no islands here, just this long peninsula; but you could dream, couldn't you?
I guess I went a little too fast. It was easy to do with this boat, which had a lot more power than you expected. As I was heading toward the coastâwhich really looked pretty damn desertedâshe got up from the back of the boat and said: "Jimmy, please be careful!"
Her words had the opposite effect, because when I turned my head to look at her and say, "We'll be fine, Mom," I kind of lost track of where I was. With a little scream, she tried to wrestle the steering wheel of the boat out of my handsâand the end result is that we bumped hard against something in the water (apparently a submerged rock) that caused a loud crash. The boat's motor immediately died, and we came almost to a standstill.
And then I noticed that there was this big hole in the side of the boat, and water was flowing in.
"Omigod, we're gonna drown!" my mother cried out in a tiny little high-pitched voice, as she looked at the hole in the boat with both hands plastered to her cheeks.
"Mom, we're not going to drown," I said.