It had been a grueling day and Beverly was eager to leave everyone's problems behind for a few hours. Nonetheless, Dana's case continued to worry her as she walked to the garage.
What a horrible mess, she thought as she got into the car and headed home.
The drive to her boat was so short her car never fully warmed up. The community clinic had been built on property purchased from the resort complex where her boat was docked, and was close enough to not allow much time for reflection on patients, or anything else.
Beverly had always been very health conscious and knew she should be walking to work instead of driving such a short distance, but the occasional need for a convenient car during the day, or for going out after work with her growing group of friends usually won out. Youth and an active lifestyle had allowed Beverly to start residency in very good shape. She'd always been an attractive woman and maintained her body weight at around 130 pounds, plus or minus, but her six foot frame made her appear slim.
Much of League City sits on the southern shore of Clear Lake where Beverly's marina and several others could be found. For years, she had longed to leave the frigid winters of her childhood home behind and pursue her dream of a life on the water. She found it on the gulf coast of Texas.
The dream had become a reality when she was accepted to the University of Texas' Medical Branch, "the branch," for residency training. It was a well known fact that medical residents often chose to stay in the area in which they did their training, and she wasn't about to get overly invested in a place other than one on the shore.
The last five years since medical school, four of them in training, had passed quickly, most of it spent in the Clear Lake/Galveston area. After residency, she worked at the Harris County Jail in Houston while waiting for the recent opening that led her to the community mental health center where she had worked the last few months. The jail was a filthy and sometimes dangerous environment, but it had been a tremendous learning opportunity and she never regretted it.
When Beverly did walk to and from work, the route home took her across a large parking lot for the office building next door, then past the resort hotel and its parking, down a long flight of stairs past the hotel swimming pool, across the marina parking lot and onto Dock 2 where her boat slip could be found about two-thirds of the way down and on the left.
The marina was usually very active on the weekend, but not so much during the week. Except for the sound of gulls speaking to one another, things were usually quiet. Beverly was one of only two so-called live-aboards on her pier. The title not only afforded her special status among her dock mates, but it came with a special marina fee as well. Another little hidden cost of living the dream.
Today was Thursday. Beverly would put in another full day at the office and then, TGIF. Her neighbors would probably be out in force this weekend, as the weather was predicted to be spectacular. Sunshine, mid eighties, it was to be a relatively cool and beautiful summer day in paradise. The pier would be crowded with boat owners, visitors, and people heading for the charter boats docked at the end of the pier to attend some wedding, private party, or corporate dinner.
It always amazed Beverly to be sitting on the pier beside her boat and have a full wedding procession march by, along with cakes, liquor, food, flowers and everything else that went with it.
Occasionally, it wasn't such an orderly and enjoyable sight when the boats came back, however, and discharged their load of drunks. Every so often, a loud splash could be heard followed by cursing when a drunk party-goer stumbled into the water. Occasionally she would have to fend off men, rarely women, making unwanted advances. Beverly had to discourage one from coming aboard with her one evening, knocking him off the finger pier and into the water of the slip next door.
Boats in her marina were docked at right angles to the main pier with these fingers separating them from each other, providing a walking space along the side of each boat. Beverly's boat was an older motor cruiser, with approximately thirty years good use, but it was in great shape having been recently painted and refitted before she bought it. It wasn't what she had dreamed of living aboard, but she'd quickly realized she couldn't afford a nice sailboat large enough to live on comfortably.
Beverly often thought about where her love of sailboats might have come from. Her family didn't sail; she had no relatives with enough money to own boats, at least of any size; and she had never lived on or even near the water. The only thing she ever came up with was that it might have something to do with wind. She was intrigued by how sailplanes and gliders use the wind to fly without power, and even took soaring lessons at one point. But what about sailing? All of a sudden it came to her.
Growing up, Beverly had a favorite TV show about a medical examiner living on the California coast in a sailboat. She had watched this show without fail every week and was entranced by his life, both as a doctor and as a sailor living on the boat. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that her decision to become a doctor may have had its roots there as well. It had been a long journey in life getting to pier number 2.
"Hey there."
Startled out of her analysis of the past, Beverly looked around to see where the decidedly male voice was coming from.
"Up here, topside in the hatch."
She noticed his head and shoulders protruding from a hatch in the deck at the bow of one of the fishing yachts just a couple of boats down and across the pier from her slip. The boat was located closer to the parking lot than hers and she'd walked by it many times without seeing him before.
Beverly knew there was another live-aboard on her pier and had thought this was the boat, but she hadn't seen anyone around it until now. It was lonely on the pier during the week after the weekenders left and she'd been eager to meet the boat's owner and hopefully make a new friend.
Beverly moved closer and to the side of the boat which was docked bow first in the slip. She guessed him to be in his late twenties or early thirties. His long sleeved shirt was buttoned all the way up which she thought strange, but assumed it was for protection from the sun. His face and what she could see of his neck were well tanned, and what appeared to be naturally brown hair had been bleached almost blond by the sun. Except for the shirt he appeared to fit the local norm, at least for the marina hunks Beverly had seen, usually well tanned, blond and muscular.
Seeing that he had her attention, he said, "Hi there, my name is Dan. I've been out of town on business several weeks and haven't had the chance to say hello. You're the other live-aboard on the pier, right? I've been wanting to meet you."
"That's right, my name is Beverly. I've been around a few months now. Glad to meet you at last, Dan. I guess we've just been missing each other."
"You too, Beverly. Do you get that big boat out much?"
"Actually, no. Most people work their way up to a boat this big, but I wanted something comfortable to live on while I learned the ropes. Truth is, I haven't had it out at all since I bought it and had it delivered to this slip, but I'll be taking lessons as soon as I can work them in," Beverly said, somewhat embarrassed by her inexperience.
"It's hard to believe that sixty-footer is your first boat. I admire your gumption. Most people spend a ton of money working their way up to the boat they really want, thinking there's something magical about boat handling. The fact is, all twin screw boats handle the same way and I think the larger they are, the easier they are in some ways."
"Thanks for the encouragement, Dan. As nice as my boat is, my dream has always been to have a sailboat large enough to live on and take anyplace I want. I couldn't make that happen with my first boat, but at least this one gets me here on the water where I want to be. What led you to live on your boat?"
"I'm actually just the captain of this boat; it isn't mine. The owners pay me to keep it up and take them wherever they want to go. That's why I've been away the last few weeks. They have a much larger boat for traveling and we just got back from Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. This boat is their weekend play around and fishing boat, and the one I live on. They like to keep it here to take advantage of the resort. The big boat is docked behind their house. We take this one to Red-fish Island in the Bay and on down to the Galveston Yacht Basin for the fishing season and when they want to entertain people there where they lease another slip year round. Have you been to Galveston yet?"
"Have I ever! I just spent four years there finishing my psychiatric residency program. I'm pretty well burnt out on Galveston, but I can see why it would be a great place to have a boat and to entertain relatives or clients, or just hang out."
"Psychiatric training? So you're a shrink? Did you go to the Medical Branch?" Dan asked, obviously impressed.
"Yes, the main hospital in Galveston and their outlying clinics around the area."
"Where are you working now?"
"The community mental health clinic in the human services building. You can almost see it over in that direction," Beverly said, pointing. "In fact, it's so close I can walk to work from here, not that I do as much as I should."
"Psychiatry sounds like an interesting way to make a living. What kind of people do you see?"
"Oh, the usual. Two eyes, a nose, a mouth. Nothing too exotic," she said and laughed. "Sorry, couldn't resist. People from the community that don't have the resources to see a private psychiatrist. My patients are usually on some sort of state or federal assistance."
"I like your sense of humor," Dan said smiling. "How do you like the work?"
"It has its frustrations like everything else, but it suits me for now. I wanted to ask what your boss does for a living. It sounds like he's done very well for himself."
"He's done it with tugs. His company provides push boat services all up and down the gulf coast along the Intra-coastal Waterway and into Galveston Bay up to Houston through the ship channel. He can afford whatever he wants. They're already thinking of replacing the big boat and he has only had it about eighteen months! All the better for me, though. I get paid per foot of boat length per year and I get to live on this boat to boot. It's a pretty sweet deal."
"That sounds pretty good to me too. I might have enjoyed that kind of a job myself, had I known about it before I went in the direction I did. As it is, I work five days a week at the clinic. It's a real grind and I find myself thinking about Friday and the weekend by Wednesday most of the time. Where do you go around here on the weekends?"
"I'm not around all that much, but this area has anything you could possibly want. Food wise, I don't think you can beat it. What do you like?"
"Good seafood, great Mexican food, and I consider myself a pretty good judge of margaritas and red wine," Beverly said, her mouth beginning to water at the thought.
"Have you been to Geo's across the main road over there in the shopping center? They have the best gold margarita around here, and there are a lot of good margarita places in this area! Believe me, I've tried most of them."
"You're not the first one I've heard that from, Dan. One of the weekenders told me about it over a month ago and I've been hooked ever since. Where do you like to get seafood?"
"I know a place on Galveston Bay that some of the locals around here don't even know about. It's on the water in San Leon at April Fools Point about 10 miles from here. I'm dropping my boss and his wife off there for dinner tomorrow evening. They wouldn't mind if you want to go for a ride, and you can try out some of the best seafood around here. Oysters are still in season. Do you like them on the half-shell?"
"I love them actually but, unfortunately, I know too many nasty little medical facts to be comfortable eating them. I'd have to find out what the local communities down there do with their sewage before I could even think about eating a raw oyster," Beverly said, pretending to gag at the thought.
"Yes, that IS the problem with knowing too much," he said. "Would you like to come with us? It'll be fun, and you'll love my boss and his wife. He's a good, down to earth likable guy in spite of his wealth, and she's a locally prominent artist. She's painted some pictures of pelicans that will knock your eyes out, but she won't sell them. It drives people around here crazy."
Beverly hesitated, deciding how she should respond. She would love to go with him, and the fact that he was a great looking guy made it all the more tempting.
"That sounds great Dan, but I don't want to impose on your boss and his wife and I'm actually kind of committed to hanging out with some of the weekenders after work tomorrow. Why don't you come by after you get back? We'll be at the yacht club with a bottle of cab, if you want to join us," Beverly said, while nodding toward the decked over and covered slip not far away.
"Sounds like a plan I can live with, Beverly, see you later." He then disappeared back down the hatch he had come up from, and went back to doing whatever one does down a hole in the deck of a boat.
Beverly spent the rest of the evening relaxing in her boat's salon area with a glass of red wine, thinking about the day's events. Going on a boat ride with someone she'd just met and his rich friends was something she had been very tempted to do, but caution won out. She was too careful for that kind of impulsive behavior and would have to get to know him first and find out if he's who and what he says he is. The longer she thought, the more she found herself hoping he was. She would find out more about him at the yacht club and see where it led. Her inclination was to go slow, but it didn't hurt to have a little curiosity.
What would it be like to go out with him, get a little tipsy, and come back to 'rock the boat' with such a hunk? She wondered.