I watched the water ripple softly underneath my free-hanging feet, letting the early morning breeze tickle the wisps of hair that escaped the loose bun I threw my hair up in after waking up. The first crowns of sunlight were popping up over the harbor, bathing everything in a hazy golden glow that I never got tired of watching. You didn't really get sunrises like this in the city; the sky was always punctuated with skyscrapers or clouded over with smog. I guess you never know how much you miss something until it's gone. Cheesy line, but true enough.
"That's what, a three story fall to the deck?" Pope called out, causing me to turn around from my contemplative musings. John B was perched precariously at the apex of the newly-finished roof, lifting one foot from its surface like the world's most inexperienced tightrope walker. Not to mention the beer can clutched in one hand. "I give you about a one-in-three chance of survival."
Pope twisted and pointed towards me for approval. "I would have to concur," I shouted up at him, bringing one hand up to shield my eyes from the radiating sunlight.
"Should I do it?" John B asked, licking one finger and holding it out to test the strength of the wind coming off the water.
"I really wish you wouldn't!"
"Yeah jump," Pope replied over my mild protestations, aiming the nail gun he'd found among the construction equipment at the self-proclaimed daredevil above us, "I'll shoot you on the way down."
"Oh, you'll shoot me?"
"Why do I even bother?" I mumbled aloud to myself, twisting around fully to stand up and stretch out my stiffening muscles. John B winked at my annoyance, long brown hair falling in front of his face as the wind continued to blow through it. Walking over to where JJ sat sipping his own beer against a wooden beam, I nudged him with my foot.
"Scooch."
"Smooch?" he asked cheekily, pursing his lips together and squeezing his eyes shut. "Only if you ask nicely Sunshine." I pushed my palm to his face, pushing him backwards, until he caught himself with his hands and moved over so I could sit down beside him. I grabbed his backpack from its place propped up behind us and started rooting around inside.
"Did you bring anything other than beer?" I inquired, starting to feel a caffeine-withdrawal headache creeping through my skull. He shifted backwards a little so he could dig into one of the pockets on his cargo shorts, pulling out a can of cherry Pepsi and holding it out to me gracefully.
"For you, m'lady."
"Oh gross, I don't know where those have been," I groaned, but took it from him anyway. I made sure to wipe the hem of my tank across the rim a few times, like that would make a significant difference against any of the JJ cooties still lingering on it, and pulled the tab back with one finger. I had just taken a generous sip when Kiara came back to join us from her explorations inside the half-finished house.
"They're going to have Japanese toilets with towel warmers...this used to be a turtle habitat," she lamented, moving to stand in the middle of the deck. "But who cares about the turtles, I guess?"
"Well Kie, not rich Kooks who can afford not to care about our diminishing biodiversity-" I started to preach from my soapbox, only to be cut off by the three boys' groans. Pope held the nail gun pointed towards me now and I rolled my eyes, sticking my tongue out at him. John B had now caught Kiara's attention and she squinted up at him.
"Can you please not kill yourself?"
"Yeah and don't spill that beer! I'm not giving you another one," JJ shouted up at him too. But then he looked over at me, nudging the last can in my direction as an offer. "That is unless Ms. Knollwood over here doesn't want her share."
I opened my mouth, ready to refute his suggestion defensively; he knew I pretty much lost the taste for the stuff after my temporary move to the great state of Illinois. However, plans were foiled when a particularly strong gust of wind sent John B wavering unsteadily and the half-finished beverage splattered to the deck. He swore and struggled for a moment to right himself, while JJ groaned in annoyance,
"Of course you did...like right as I told you not to."
"Hey! Hey, uh security's here. Let's wrap this up, boys are early today," Pope observed, leaning over the deck's railing to look around at the ADT car that had just pulled up, a portly security guard rolling out of it. He pointed up to John B, who was beginning to slide down the shingles on his butt. "Humpty Dumpty, let's roll."
Everyone else hastily gathered our things and made for the exit, chattering amongst ourselves as we went. "Well surprise, surprise, it's JJ's friend Gary," I laughed, recognizing the red-faced indignation of the guard we had encountered a time or two. He was most definitely not JJ's biggest fan, but then again, most adults weren't.
"Gary, is that you?" JJ taunted from outside before following the rest of us into the house, "Gary, good to see you, man!"
I double-backed a few steps, yanking on his arm, and we bolted for the open-faced garage while Gary and his partner gave chase, cursing JJ's name. The low-hanging beams and hodge-podge of construction equipment laying around gave us the advantage, seeing as how even the most unathletic of us all (me) could still weave their way through the mess better than the two overweight men ever could. Gary did manage to cut us off right before our shoes hit the pavement of the driveway, almost catching JJ in a bear hug before he dodged right, calling out behind him, "Not much of a hugger!"
I watched Kie and John B leap over the neighbor's fence and land neatly on the other side, whooping and hollering for us to catch up. Pope went over next, falling rather ungracefully into the dirt, coming up sputtering and spitting out blades of grass. JJ followed him over, laughing and pulling at his elbow to bring him quickly to his feet. "Get up Pope, fatso's coming!"
Predictably, I sprinted behind the two, making a running jump at the panels of the fence but still having to kick my feet at the wooden planks to scurry over the top just before Gary's form hit the structure, successfully halting his pursuit for now. "Come here, you little pricks!" he shouted at our retreating figures, shaking his fist angrily.
My lungs were screaming by the time John B brought the van screeching to halt alongside the curb, palm laid flat against the horn to cause maximum disruption to the burgeoning Kook neighborhood. "Bus is leaving!" he called out, and Kie slid the side door open for the remaining three of us to jump inside with lilting laughter.
We all were still breathlessly giggling at our narrow escape, and Kie almost moved to slide the door shut but JJ stopped her, poking his head out to look behind us and laughed. Pope sat up to look through the back windows, pointing at Gary as he fruitlessly gave chase on foot while the van peeled away from the curb. "Check out Gary, gunnin' for a raise!"
JJ held on to the door's edge so he could lean half his body out the side, waving at John B to ease off the gas. "Hey wait, slow down, slow down," he requested, taking the last beer can and dangling in front of his nose. "You're so close! You can do it, there you go!"
"You're going to give him a heart attack!"
"JJ, all right, knock it off!"
Kie and I both protested as JJ finally chucked the beer out, letting the pressure of the can explode the beverage across the pavement and all over the security guard's pants. He teasingly called out over Gary's choice words for us, "They don't pay you enough, bro!"
Kie fisted the collar of his shirt, yanking him backwards onto his butt and scolded, "JJ, stop. Stop."
His laughter died down only a little, taking in both of our less-than-impressed expressions. "Oh come on," he chuckled, "That sort of initiative is just begging to be punished."
I could only roll my eyes and lean forward to roll the door shut, and John B took the slamming sound as cue to speed away again, taking us onto the highway and back to our part of town. Everyone else stretched out in the back for the ride but I clumsily crawled over Pope to get to the unoccupied passenger seat.
"Ouch! Meg, that was my finger!"
"Sorry," I muttered, finally settling myself next to John B and turning to look at the landscape rolling by. I whispered quietly to myself, "Why did I ever leave this place?"
I mean let's be honest, the Windy City, despite all its fame, had nothing on my little patch of island off the coast of North Carolina. The warmth, the beaches, the surf...what more could you ask for? Most folks had to buy a plane ticket, and then hop a ferry charter just to enjoy the scenery for a week or two during their spring holiday, but I guess I was just lucky enough that I got to take advantage of its beauty full time.
"I assume that was a rhetorical question?" John B asked with a smirk, tearing his eyes off the road for only a moment to glance over at me. I grinned apologetically; I tend to talk to myself a lot, and most of the time the four of them ignore it seeing as it's usually nonsense or merely my thoughts spoken out loud.
"Obviously," I replied, punching him lightly on the shoulder. Of course there was a reason we had to pack up everything and haul our family of four cross-country, even though in the end, it hadn't mattered much. We both returned to our own thoughts, staring ahead in comfortable silence while the rest of the gang lounged in the back. JJ sat in the seat behind John B, his baseball cap pulled low over his eyes and the gentle rise and fall of his chest hinted to the fact that he was planning on snoozing the rest of the trip home.
That's JJ, my best friend since the third grade. He's about as local as they come. Latest in a long line of fishing, drinking, smuggling, and vendetta-holding salt-lifers who made their living off the water. Best surfer I know. Just don't tell him I said that. Mild kleptomaniac (he tries to keep it together when Meg's around but usually fails) and a future tax cheat.
Kiara was leaning with her back against my seat. She had her feet resting on Pope's lap and hair tucked into a curly ponytail. Even with her earbuds in, I could just pick up on the low hum of the R&B music bumping softly from them.
And that's Kiara, or Kie, as we call her. When she's not saving turtles with Meg, or listening to Marley, or getting a dolphin tattoo, she hangs out with us. I'm not really sure why though. She's a rich kid actually. Foot in both worlds. Her family owns The Wreck, this Outer Banks institution. Total cash cow with the tourists. You know, I'm not really sure how her parents feel about us...we all sort of have a thing for her.
Pope was settled across from Kie, his eyes roaming back and forth across the page of some pathology book he picked up from the library a couple days ago. He caught my eye in the rear-view and smiled warmly at me which I returned.
That's Pope, the brains of the operation. Finalist for the Lucas T. Vanderhorst Merit Scholarship and the smartest person I know. Well maybe except for Meg? I don't know, they've both taken turns as the top of our class since anyone can remember and they both claim they deserve it more than the other. Little bit of a weirdo. But his father is this legendary character, Heyward. Anything you wanted on the island, Heyward could get it for you. I'm not sure what Heyward knew what to make of his oddball son, but it didn't matter. He was a Pogue, just like the rest of us.
We rolled through the last few mansions that made up Figure Eight. I decided to take a leaf out of JJ's book and curled up against the door to try and tempt a few moments of sleep. I had to go to work later that afternoon and then I should probably make a stop at my house to check on my dad. I really hadn't been home in a while.
Last but not least, there's Meg, or sometimes Meggers to rest of us. Sunshine, if you're JJ. Oh, and I guess if you have a death wish, you can call her Margaret. She's also a product of the Cut; befriended Pope when they were partnered together as hall monitors in the fifth grade, met the rest of us a couple months later, and the rest is history. Almost optimistic to a fault, which on the Cut especially, is rare. Keeps us out of trouble or tries to at least...I'm pretty sure JJ and I will send her into an early grave. She left about a year ago to live in Chicago with her family when her mother got sick. There was a fancy new drug trial they were testing there but her mom passed away soon after the move. Came back in the middle of this past school year and it was just her dad and her. She doesn't talk about her time there much and we don't ask. We're just glad to have her back.
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Soon enough, we were pulling up to The Wreck, the Carrera family restaurant. The jolting of the van stopping shook me awake and I took in the familiar sight of the battered ocean-blue sign over an unassuming white building. I reached around blindly, my flailing hand finding Kie's head, jostling her awake. She hopped out, saying her goodbyes and headed up the ramp to greet her dad, who was outside serving tables.
After dropping Pope off at Heyward's grocery store, the last stop on their route back to John B's (known as the Château to us) was my place. It wasn't much; it hadn't even really changed that much between when we left and when we came back to the OBX. Like almost every other house on the Cut, it was a simple one story with a screened-in porch out back. Originally coated in a bright canary yellow hue (after Mom's insistence we didn't paint it a 'boring' color), the constant battering of coastal rain storms had faded it to a dull, pastel shade.
A rickety dock stuck out into the marsh but it hadn't really been used in a while. We sold our small fishing boat when we moved and didn't bother to get a new one when we got back. Dad didn't go out fishing much anymore and I spent all my time on the HMS Pogue anyway. I clambered out of the passenger seat, wiggling my fingers as a goodbye and started back up the driveway to the front door.
"Meg, hey wait!"
JJ was jogging up to meet me, my forgotten knapsack outstretched in his hands. "Oh, thanks," I said, gratefully taking it from him.
"What would you do without me, Sunshine?" he asked dramatically, placing a hand across his heart. I pretended to think for a moment before answering.
"Probably just get it from John B's later but..." I trailed off with a cheeky grin and he scoffed, rolling his eyes with a smile.
"Just saving you the trouble, sweetheart," he said and my nose scrunched in a grimace at the nickname. John B honked the horn from the van, yelling at JJ to hurry up. JJ's middle finger flew up over his shoulder, but he started to walk away anyway. He turned around to face me, walking backwards a few steps and pointing at me in question. "We're all probably gonna hang at the Château tonight, you coming?"
I shook my head. "No, I don't think so. I work late tonight and I should probably get some laundry done soon anyway. I'm running out of things to wear," I called back, voice rising the further away he got.
He only shrugged, stopping and leaning back on the door to the van with his hands in his pockets. "Doesn't seem like a problem to me," he mused sarcastically, looking between John B and I whilst pointing a finger to his chest, "You know my vote's always for the ol' birthday suit."
I crossed my arms, giving him my best staredown but by now, JJ could tell when he was actually in trouble. My eyes flickered to John B exasperatedly, who merely held up his hands and hollered out the window, "Yep, we're leaving now!"
JJ gave me a sly wink, snapping the door open and swinging both legs inside before blowing me an exaggerated kiss. "I hate you!" I yelled at him as John B was backing away down the drive and JJ stuck his head at the window to shout back,
"No, you don't!"
I waited until they were out of my sight before I allowed the secretly endeared smile to return to my face; he was right, I didn't hate him. But some days, he really tested just how far he could push the limits of our rather relaxed friendship. The mockingly flirtatious behavior used to bother me, way back when Pope had first brought me into his little ragtag band of Pogues. I was the first girl the three boys had inducted in the fold and for some reason, JJ's usually harmless comments always succeeded in making the back of my neck flush red with embarrassment.
Maybe it was because, before they arrived on the scene, I wasn't used to someone's undivided attention and especially not if that someone was a boy. It was elementary school and I hadn't yet discovered how to tame my frizzy brown hair, I rocked a giant pair of purple glasses, my nose was always stuck in a book, and I had a name like Margaret so you can do the math. But then we grew up; I got contacts and learned the art of braiding back my hair, and by then, Kiara had increased our ranks to five. After that, I discovered JJ was just like that to everyone and his indelicate brand of humor began to just roll off my back.
I found the house to be unoccupied when I strolled inside, replacing the key underneath the mat in front of the door. Dad wasn't here, which I'd figured considering it was the middle of the work day; he'd be at the Figure Eight docks repairing the yachts and big-brand fishing vessels (you put up with a lot of shit, working for the Kooks, but they made up the difference in handsomely-sized tips).
After changing into different clothes for work, I threw the rest of my laundry into the washer and wandered to the kitchen to find something more substantial than my breakfast of soda and the package of fruit snacks Kie had distributed from her backpack during our sunrise rendezvous. A hastily scribbled note in my father's handwriting was stuck to the refrigerator:
Working later, getting supplies to board up for the storm after. Don't wait up.
I snorted under my breath, taking it from underneath the magnet and crumpling it before tossing it into the garbage. 'Waiting up' was a usually somewhat pointless pursuit, considering I knew the predictability of his nightly routine by heart; he's going to stumble through the door around 3 AM, reeking of whiskey, pass out on the living room couch and keep me up the rest of the night with his baritone snoring. Those nights (which are pretty much every night) are ones where I retreat to the comfort of the Château and besides, everything here is just a skeletonized remnant of what it looked like when Mom was still around anyway.
The sandwich I haphazardly threw together was enough to satiate my hunger for now, and after throwing my wet clothes into the dryer, I hopped on my bike and sped down the roadway. In a quick ten minutes, I was chaining it to the rail outside Coastal Rescue and Rehabilitation Center, the job I had secured for the summer. Rosie, my boss and long time mentor, was waiting inside for me after I punched in for the day.
"Got anything new for me today?" I asked her, walking up to the large, hard plastic tank she was currently peering over.
"Nothing much...got a call this morning about another suspected sea turtle trapped in the jetty but it was only a floating tarp. Probably fell off one of the fishing rigs," she replied with a laugh.
I chuckled alongside her and watched P582, otherwise known to us as 'Pebbles', swim around the exercise tank. "How's she doing?" I asked, reaching for the record binder still clutched in Rosie's hands. She handed it off to me without tearing her trained eye from the big loggerhead sea turtle making slow but steady laps around the perimeter.
Pebbles (nicknames were assigned to most of our patients, to ease communications) had been here since before school broke for the summer. A classic boat propeller strike case, she was one of the first patients I had directly cared for after coming on staff as an intern. Her's was a special case for me; I had been the one to help Rosie haul her from the sand she'd washed up on, bloody and battered, and helped patch up the gnarly wound running along the top portion of her shell. After the initial stabilization and round of antibiotics, it was just a matter of waiting for the jagged scar to heal over enough to clear her for release (and turtles, as a general rule, usually took their time).
"Oh good...pretty much the same," Rosie commented, finally standing up straight and together, we began to walk the rest of the facility. "Someone dropped off a donation of shrimp, which I think she enjoyed."
The rest of that evening's tasks went by without a hitch; it was very rarely that a shift went by without the center's cell phone buzzing in Rosie's pocket. I did love it here though. It was long hours, and oftentimes, this line of work doesn't come with a whole lot of reward. Animals often either come in with life-ending injuries, or for one reason or another, they don't make it through the rehabilitation process. It felt like with every case that came through those doors, my faith in humanity threatened to dip just a little bit more. But, I suppose it only made it that much sweeter when something came in that we could help, even better if we managed to get them back into the wild.
Rosie came and gave a presentation to our class in the fifth grade about her work at Coastal Rescue, and after which, I made Pope do our entire science project on sea turtles. I went up to her when she was packing up to leave, begging her to let me come to the center and help 'save the sea turtles'. She was flattered in the face of my uncurbed enthusiasm, but told me I couldn't do anything until I turned sixteen. However, she always made an effort to keep in touch and cultivate my interest until then. Now that I was older, I'm amazed at the fact that she never tired of me, never told me to stop emailing her with any and every question I could dream of, and never turned me away when I'd show up at the door asking for another behind-the-scenes tour. So I don't know why I was so surprised when she called me back at the beginning of the year and told me there'd be a paid position waiting for me, should I ever come back to the OBX. That had pretty much been the icing on the cake for me; a cherry placed on top of a very large stack of reasons to return home.