by Jayne Louise
I got out my paddle and took a few strokes, not wanting to make much noise, and was able to steer the canoe along with the current. It wasn’t fast but I was able to rest, calm my breathing, and relax a little. There was no reason to hurry because the hard part was over. Soon the light on the water ahead revealed that the bathing beach was just around the corner.
I poked the bow of the canoe into the sand and walked forward to step out, moving the stern line to the bow and tying it off on one of the bulkhead pilings. Neither of them seemed to be about. The bags we had left under the bench we gone.
My heart started pounding again. I stole along the little beach, keeping one eye above the bulkhead. Maybe someone had shown up and they had to hide somewhere. That was more likely. At the boat ramp I crept up over the bulkhead and dashed for the tree. There was no sign of anyone. The only suggestion of where they could be was the rest rooms building.
For some odd reason the rest rooms are left unlocked. It must be for the campers at the campsite across the road, although that is over a quarter-mile away and this place is supposedly off-limits after dark. I always worry about rest rooms left open all night– it never seems like a good place in which to get caught by malevolent strangers. But as I tiptoed across the wide-open gravel parking-lot towards the building I could make out the distinct sound of water running in the shower.
Just outside the ladies’ room door I heard a familiar voice. ‘Pass the soap again,’ Jules said.
The twits! I flung open the door and announced, not loudly but in a deep, bold voice, ‘Anyone in here?’
Jules chirped in surprise. From the stall beside her came Jem’s calm voice, ‘Everything okay, Jayne?’
I made a face. Of course everything was secure– the bags stood along the opposite wall and obviously they had not had any unpleasant experiences. ‘Well, I had a bit of an adventure,’ I said. ‘But you guys could have left me my clothes out there.’
‘Hey,’ Jem said, ‘they were safer in here.’
‘Yes,’ I said through the stall door at her, ‘but I wasn’t so safe out there. What if someone had come while you were in here? What if they had come while you were in here, and I was out there? We all would have been caught.’
‘The ranger left,’ Jules said. ‘We know he won’t be back here for a while.’
‘The ranger,’ I said, ‘but not anyone else. We’re not the only people who know the ranger won’t be back for a while. Anyone in the world could have come in here. Someone looking for the bathroom, or someone looking for a little….’ I stopped then. ‘You know what I mean.’
They were both silent, still washing off. One or the other would put her arms up to rinse off. Neither of them said anything till Jules turned off her water. The stall door opened and she wrapped one of our towels round her head to dry off. ‘We’re sorry, Jayne,’ she said softly.
I leaned back on the wall with my arms crossed over my stomach sort of glaring at her. Jem was done in another minute or so and then stepped out, still dripping wet, going by me to the bag along the wall. The twit had not even taken out a towel for herself. I saw her rummage through the clothes– she had even packed them away in the bag– and came up with the smallest of the three towels we’d brought for bathing. ‘Well,’ I said then, ‘at least you were prepared for a shower in any case.’
She stepped away, rubbing her head with a towel, not wanting to talk to me. ‘I’ll go out and check our perimeter,’ Jules said, and went past her and out the door.
Jem stopped in front of the mirror and attempted to push her hair back on her head, finally going back into the bag for her brush. I watched her brush out that mane of hers till I realized how funny it really was. Here we were creeping around this big state park with the opportunity to do absolutely anything, naked or not, and here they’d decided to take a shower! ‘Well,’ I said at last, ‘it’s a good thing you did get to do this, because the boat yard is pretty locked up.’
She nodded. ‘Okay,’ she said, and wrapped her hair up in the towel then. ‘Well, there’s plenty of hot water, and we have that whole new bar of soap….’
I laughed. She laughed too. So I took a shower!
When I stepped out, still drying my head with the bath towel, the two of them were down by the bulkhead. Jules leaped up on top of a piling, arcing her back like a gymnast and then pirouetting before stepping off onto the gravel. Jem strolled off into the grassy yard, holding the towel up above her head like scarf fluttering in the wind. I had a drink from the fountain and shuffled out across the wide-open parking area again to meet them. ‘Hey,’ I called softly, ‘is anyone hungry?’
‘I am starved!’ Jules said, rushing up to me then. ‘When can we eat?’
I shrugged, folding my arms across my stomach. Jem sauntered over to join us and we held this little conference right in the middle of the most exposed part of this little recreational area. ‘I was thinking, I don’t feel like cooking anything,’ I told them. ‘Not in the marina. Not this late.’
Jem turned, waving the towel above her head a moment, and then said, ‘I don’t feel like wearing anything. Not here, not this late, whatever.’
We laughed. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘what I thought was we could get all our stuff out of the bathroom, and go over here to the picnic area, and have a bit of that cake for dessert.’
Jules immediately loved that idea and sprinted off to the bathroom. Jem and I followed, at more of a very slow walk. ‘It’s very relaxing here,’ Jem said to me. ‘I don’t know when I’ve felt so comfortable.’
‘A little too comfortable, for at least part of while you’ve been here.’
‘Yes, but… no one came. It’s the middle of the week. No one’s going to come.’
I nodded. ‘I suppose not. Still we could be more prudent.’
She nodded too. ‘Okay. Well, I’m sorry if you were worried, Jayne, but we weren’t.’
‘Okay, my point is just that you should have been. But look, we’re all together now. Let’s have our picnic.’
Jules had carried all the bags out of the rest room and we each picked one up, lugging them back across the gravel to the picnic area behind the fence. I left them to get out the cake and went back to the bulkhead to retrieve the canoe, setting myself adrift again and paddling up past the launching ramp to where there is a bulkhead around a narrow little drainage creek with a footbridge over it. It was the perfect spot to hide and moor the canoe safely.
When I joined them again they were setting out bits of cake on napkins from one of the bags. So the packaged sets of knife and fork that we collected from fast-food places and kept in the backpacks ‘just in case’ had been useful after all! The pieces of cake did not survive the lift onto the napkins very well, but we didn’t care. We scraped up bits of cake with our plastic forks and swigged warm lemonade straight out of the bottle and it was definitely enough supper to be having at 10:30 at night.
A few cars came down the curve in the road, their headlights illuminating half the woods where we sat from a quarter-mile away. They’d never penetrate far enough in for us to be noticeable but it was always a little disturbing. After our snack supper Jules ran the trash over to the cans by the rest rooms and Jem and I packed the half-gone cake into the backpack again. Jules came back across the parking area and then we all put on more Off and went for a little walk, wandering around the lumpy grass under the trees. There is a fence that borders the road and we climbed up and sat on it, saying we’d sit there staring out at the road till we heard the car approach, when we’d get off and run for it. One came by going up the road and it startled us, and Jem actually fell off the fence in getting out of sight. We all laughed long and hard at that. She’d landed on her back with her feet up in the air– if the people in the car had bothered to look to their left they’d have seen this chick’s bare bottom sticking up at them. Jules said we should just deliberately moon the next person who drove by, and we all giggled at that, but you know that is just not
us to tempt fate too much and before we even heard or saw the next car we had left the fence.
Another boat was going up the river as we emerged, and we sat under the trees at the bulkhead and watched as the guys pulled the boat up onto their trailer at the launching ramp 300 yards directly across the river. I wondered what the ramp was– if it’s public like this one it should have been closed by now. And I thought that we’d never seen anyone come in here this late anyway for a boat or for any other reason.
The next car that came down the road seemed to slow down, but there is a curve near where it goes by the water and they all be heard to slow down a little. We ignored it. The guys across the river had gotten their boat pulled up and someone went into the house next door for something. We lost the sound of the passing car behind the trees, which we expected. What we did not expect was to hear it coming up the driveway towards the boat-launch ramp.
We all whirled around. ‘Crud,’ Jules said.
‘Shhh,’ I said. ‘Are the bags safe?’
Jem nodded. ‘They’re on the benches.’
‘Not on the table?’
‘No.’
‘Good.’
I wasn’t worried about our voices yet. The car’s engine would mask them. I was only worried that it would be some people coming in here to get high. It’d be stupid– the ranger would probably come by while their car was here– but, like Dad says, ‘You can never account for people being stupid.’
Fortunately it was the state trooper. This was better because the ranger might get out of his car. The trooper never would. He would just pull in, give the area a quick look, and radio to the ranger that the place was okay. Then he would leave.
That’s what he did. We just crouched patiently beside the bushes along the bulkhead and watched. He sat there quite a while though, probably holding the whole radio conversation while sitting in Park, and then he backed out, turning the car so the headlights scanned where we had been sitting, and turned towards the driveway again. I got up from the bushes and hurried out to see him go, standing boldly in front of the launch ramp with my feet apart on the gravel even as his taillights were still winding their way out the driveway. Jules dashed out right after me and just caught the last of him as the lights disappeared into the darkness. We both listened. He turned right and drove off down the road towards the boat club and campground store. ‘That’s the end of him,’ she said.
I nodded. ‘He won’t be back. The ranger might be. And,’ I said, actually wagging a finger at her, ‘anyone else too. Just be glad no one needed the bathroom.’
‘I need the bathroom,’ she said, and paced off towards it.
‘Make sure all our stuff is out of there,’ I called after her. ‘Including the soap.’
‘Jem got it,’ she said over her shoulder at me.
Jem was sitting at the table having a last swallow of lemonade, and then we put it away in the bags and lowered them carefully into the canoe. ‘I’m sorry we have to leave tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I could get used to this.’
‘Hey,’ I said with a smile, ‘you’re away from home, and you’ve spent a whole night and day more naked than not. This doesn’t stink.’
She smiled back at me. ‘I didn’t get to wash my hair though,’ she said.
I nodded. ‘Okay, but if we leave really early, we can make it to the fishery before dark and have a nice swim there.’
She smiled even more at that. ‘If we leave really early, we might make it under the bridges before we have to get dressed.’
I laughed. ‘Well, they have to lift them for us, hun.’
‘Crud,’ she said.
We each took a turn in the ladies’ room and then boarded our canoe, gently backing it out into the river and turning it up tide, down river. Jem sat like a princess in the middle while Jules paddled her little heart out and I kept us away from the worst of the current. The night trip was pleasant– I could have paddled another few hours. It was only 11:30 and none of us were mentally ready to sleep. But by the time we got back to the boat we were all yawning. I went aboard first and retrieved the towing bridle from where it hung from the bow cleat, and Jem hooked it to the canoe. Then we turned the canoe stern-first to the current and tied it alongside like that, and when they had disembarked with all the bags Jules and I rigged the bridle to the back of the boat while Jem set the padlock through the paddles in the canoe and up to the boat.
Jules and Jem were to sleep in the dinette, but Jem and I sat up, having a bit more cake before brushing our teeth, and Jules fell asleep in my bunk. So Jem and I played a few hands of gin rummy on the dinette bed till we ended up falling asleep there together.
* * *
* * *
VI
The abandoned fishery
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
I’d set my alarm for 5:00, according to the tide. It would be against us till we were below the lower bridge, when it would crest and begin flowing out, carrying us down and out towards the Bay. I got out of the dinette bed, climbing over Jem who was spread out over more than half of it, and woke them both up. I put on the gray-green shirt from yesterday and found the bottom of Jem’s navy-blue bikini, just for a stroll up the dock. At the ice machine I left the two dollars under the clip and helped myself to two bags of ice. That’s how it works here.
Jules was done with the potty and dressed, at least enough for this, in time to help get us under wa. As usual I just took the padlocked cable off the deck cleat and closed it to secure the paddles in the canoe, and then let the line go from the bow so that the canoe would swing around with the current and follow the boat on the towing bridle as it should. Jules got the stern lines off the dock and I put the motor in gear for her to let the bow go. We were free.
‘Good-bye, boat club,’ Jules called softly at it as we moved off down river.
‘Five-thirty,’ Jem said from the hatch. ‘Not bad.’
I told her to call the Green Bank bridge on the cell phone. She wasn’t dressed yet and wasn’t good for anything else then. I guess she was really planning on doing what she said she would do after all. Then again, Jules was only in pink panties and a clean tanktop. That’s kind of how we are on the boat, you know.
The bridge guy was a little irate about being called so early but by the time we got there there was no need to radio him because the bridge was opening already. I gunned the throttle to charge right through, and then we realized there was a powerboat coming up at the same time. They were courteous enough to let us through first, actually against the Rules of the Road at sea which say the down-tide boat always has the right of way. We just waved like girls and he seemed very gracious. Maybe it was just the half-open shirt over the bikini bottoms!
We had enough gas that I was planning to ‘just let her rip’, open up the throttle and just hurry towards home. With the current coming at her Dove got up on plane and skimmed over the water. I even lowered the centerboard a little to give her stability in turns.
While the river was still mostly fresh I did slow to let Jules scoop up two bucketfuls to do our clothes, and she and Jem sat in the cockpit and washed our things from yesterday and Monday. There really was not much! –we hadn’t worn any underwear at all since we’d left except that Jules now had panties on. She’s definitely the panties princess in our house. She likes cotton panties more than anything else to wear. Then again I guess I do too!
At the Lower Bank bridge the bridge guy told us to hold and wait, because another boat was leaving the little marina on the other side of the bridge and needed space to back out. It was a big new sportfishing yacht from the boatbuilders there. I put the boat into a little turn and started circling just north of the bridge, but we all watched the big boat maneuvering out of its slip. Then the bridge began to open and we got to go through before the big yacht had started down river. We all waved, like three bubbly bimbos on a sailboat. Jem was still naked and just stood in the hatch, leaning forward against the rail to sort of hi
de herself. The men on the boat could see Jem’s bare shoulders but Jules, still in panties and the tank top and reclining back on her elbows on the deck, was probably even cuter. I sped up the motor again and tried not to look too dull myself as we towed our canoe through the bridge, on our cute little sailboat with shorts and shirts clipped to the lifelines, and headed down the river.
Jem turned her head, still leaning like that in the open hatchway knowing that I would block the men’s view of her bare butt because of standing up in the cockpit. I was actually tempted to sit down. ‘Nice boat,’ she said then.
‘Yes,’ I said, glancing around at it once. ‘Just remember when they start to move, they’ll be coming up fast.’
She made a smirk. ‘I’ll duck,’ she said.
‘Thanks for all your help.’
Jules came aft then, hanging on the shrouds a little, and asked about breakfast. ‘It is seven-thirty,’ she said. ‘Can I get us all something?’
Jem only shrugged, staring off at the Atlantic County nature preserve. ‘I want French toast,’ she said blankly, and looked back at the yacht that had started down after us. We were just going around the bend in the river and we’d be half hidden by the marsh grass for a while. But they’d be upon us in a moment when they wanted to move out.
‘There is no French toast,’ Jules said, stepping down behind her into the cabin. ‘Jayne, there’s doughnuts, and Pop-Tarts, and I can make some instant oatmeal.’
‘No, that’s sweet of you, doll. I’ll just have a doughnut. And juice, if you would.’
‘I would,’ she smiled, and Jem moved her bottom out of the way for Jules to bend down and open the cooler.
