Troubled Sea Read Free Page A

live to see her transformed into a much belated honest woman.
    The growl of an outboard motor broke into Hetta’s woolgathering and she saw Jenkzy streaking flat out towards the lagoon a quarter mile ahead. Jenks loved to open the throttle on the fifteen-horsepower Evinrude, get up on a plane, and “blow the soot out.” He would doze on the warm sand near the lagoon until she arrived.
    Almost stumbling over a dead gull, Hetta turned her attention back to the beach. Her pesky companion was pecking haphazardly at a piece of glistening plastic at the water’s edge. “Dammit bird, why don’t people clean up after themselves,” Hetta groused. Being a dedicated self-appointed beach sweeper, she resented any human originated flotsam on her beach.
    The gull scolded the package as if in agreement, annoyed that something so inviting to the eye should prove inedible. Hetta made a beeline for the intrusive object, shooed the bird away, picked up the plastic bag, shook loose most of the damp sand, and looked inside.
    “Wow!” she whooped, startling her feathered escort airborne, “wait ‘til der Jenkster sees this.”
     
    “The water’s plenty warm,” Hetta later wheedled from HiJenks ’s swim platform. When Jenks failed to respond she splashed him.
    Jenks, distracted, mumbled, “Yeah, okay,” and smeared a couple of salty drops on his glasses.
    “Hey, in this lifetime, Jenkins. Right now there’s no wind and the water’s warm. You know damned well that can change in a heartbeat.”
    “I’ll be there in a minute,” he said, still scrutinizing the Global Positioning Satellite receiver Hetta found on the beach earlier in the day. “This is the best thing you ever hauled back from beachcombing.” He hit a button and the little handheld GPS displayed their present longitude and latitude on its liquid crystal display screen. “Even the batteries are still good.” He wanted to play with it more, but Hetta intervened.
    “I’ll whine soon,” she warned. “Come on, let’s snorkel to the reef. It’s more fun if you come.”
    “Yeah, right. You just want some frontline shark fodder,” Jenks teased, then regretted his words. Hetta was afraid of the water and worked hard to overcome her fear. She had progressed to swimming and snorkeling near the boat, but only in shallow water where she could see bottom. And never without her body suit.
    Already sheathed from neck to foot in turquoise and black Lycra spandex, Hetta sat on the platform, swim fins dangling in the water, dive mask pushed up onto her head. She knew that a thin covering of shiny fabric afforded little protection from any sea creature hell bent on doing her harm, but it gave a modicum of confidence. At Jenks’s shark comment she jerked her fins from the water and shot him the finger. “Just for that you go first, fish bait,” she growled, then hummed the ominous two-note theme the whole world now associates with Jaws .
    “Aye, aye, Jackie Cousteau. You know, you look cute in that body suit.”
    “Yeah, right. I look like a Jimmy Dean sausage dressed for a Venetian harlequin ball. All I need is a jeweled mask with feathers and I’d qualify for a Fellini film.”
    “I think you look cute,” Jenks insisted, pulling on his own extra long suit worn more for warmth than protection. His lanky frame harbored not an ounce of extra insulation.
    They slid into the water and paddled fifty yards to a reef fronting the hotel. Hetta pried open a rock scallop with her dive knife and, within minutes, they were surrounded by darting, jewel toned fish. Some shy types, like the blue and pink stareye parrotfish, hovered on the fringes, while the less glamorous triggers and bullseye puffers grew bold. Hetta made sure they all got a bite of scallop, and not of her.
    An hour later, Jenks was back on deck fiddling with the newly found GPS while Hetta made tuna salad sandwiches on their own homemade sourdough bread.
    “Someone must have dropped that GPS overboard during