Waking Up Gray

Other R.E. Bradshaw titles:

OUT ON THE SOUND
(Adventures of Decky and Charlie, # 1)

SWEET CAROLINA GIRLS

THE GIRL BACK HOME

RAINEY DAYS
(Rainey Bell Series, #1)

Coming Summer 2011:

Rainey Nights
(Rainey Bell Series, #2)

WAKING UP GRAY

R. E. Bradshaw

© 2011 by R. E. Bradshaw. All Rights Reserved.

R. E. Bradshaw Books/May 2011

ISBN 13: 978-0-98357-200-8

http://www.rebradshawbooks.com

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For information contact
[email protected]

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author and publisher.

Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and events portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblances to actual persons living or dead or events are entirely unintentional.

The very first acknowledgement I need to make is to the North Carolina Language and Life Project (NCLLP) at North Carolina State University and to the public television stations of UNC TV. It was while watching the NCLLP production of “The Carolina Brogue” that the idea for this novel began. Growing up on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, I was immersed in the Brogue for most of my life. It is a charming and unique feature of the area and I encourage anyone who hasn’t visited the Outer Banks to do so, but if you cannot, at least take a listen to the brogue in its purest form. Information about the NCLLP can be found on the website:
http://ncsu.edu/linguistics/ncllp/index.php

To the readers who took a chance on an unknown independent author, I am eternally grateful. It is your words of encouragement that keep me at the keyboard. I would be remiss if I did not mention the wonderful women in the Facebook group, Readers of Author R. E. Bradshaw. Thank you for many hours of laughter and inspiration.

To all the authors and readers in the Virtual Living Room, who have offered much needed advice and help, God bless you.

Kaycee, thank you for being patient while working with this newbie. Editing my manuscript could not have been easy. I promise to work on the comma situation.

Catherine, you have no idea how much I appreciated handing the formatting over to you.

Patty Henderson, you are a Godsend. Thank you, thank you.

Chris, Linda, Dawn – Thank you for keeping me laughing and sane.

Lynne, you have been my best friend for twenty-five years. Your constant love and encouragement have been a blessing. I am so lucky to have you in my life.

Mom, thank you for reading to me and beginning my life long love affair with books.

Dad, thank you for your undying faith in me.

Jonathon, you are the best son in the world and we are so proud of you. Thank you and Kendra for handing out my books to all your lesbian friends.

And lastly, but definitely not least, Deb, you are and have been the wind beneath my wings for twenty-four years. This is just one in a long line of dreams you have made come true. I love you and thank you for believing in me.

“Only that day dawns to which we are awake.”
Henry David Thoreau

The Hatteras Class ferry, drafting at only four feet through the shallow inlet, was packed with tourists trying to hang on to the last vestiges of summer before school and jobs beckoned them home. The floating behemoth rumbled and roared its way through the Pamlico Sound, carrying a full load of cars and campers, followed by a chorus of seagulls. The larger black-backed scavengers squawked and screeched, with the gray Laughing Gulls adding their trills to the mix. Children and adults alike giggled and squealed while tossing pieces of bread above their heads as the large birds swooped and dove to within inches of their faces. Some of the more brave souls held the bread aloft until a bold gull would dive in and take it from an outstretched hand. Those passengers still spooked by the movie, ‘The Birds,’ remained at the bow of the boat, far away from the action at the rear.

On this, the last Friday in August, the sun blasted its rays down from a beautiful clear blue sky. Off the coast, a tropical storm was heading straight for the Outer Banks of North Carolina, spurring the current influx of tourists to enjoy the weather while it lasted. Next weekend would be the Labor Day holiday, one of the busiest times of the year, but the weather reports were ominous. It was, at the least, going to be a wet weekend. Today there were no signs of the offshore disturbance. The ferry pushed the clear green water aside as it made its way across to Ocracoke Island. The deck began to sway with the waves, when the vessel broke out from behind the protection of Hatteras Island, and moved out into the ocean waves pouring into the Sound through the inlet.

Mary Elizabeth Jackson Moore, Lizbeth to family and friends, studied the name on the side of the ferry, “Chicamacomico,” from her perch on the hood of her car. She knew the name from the historic life-saving station in Rodanthe. She passed through the tiny village, at the north end of Hatteras Island, an hour and a half ago. Lizbeth was on the last legs of a long journey, both figuratively and literally. She started this trip from her home, in Durham, that morning, but the voyage began many years ago. Now, she was crossing from Hatteras to Ocracoke Island on a ferry named Chicamacomico, and the word mesmerized her. She knew it was an old Native American place name, previously designating the area around the present day village of Rodanthe. It wasn’t what it meant, as much as how it felt in her mouth when she said it. It was something about the rhythm of the syllables that made her smile.

Lizbeth loved words, old and new words, words naming things and places no longer in existence; all words fascinated her. From her first memories, she had been in love with the dictionary. She studied words for the fun of it and then found out someone would give her a degree for that. She was currently in her final semester of study in Linguistic Anthropology at Duke University. By taking classes through the summers, she would graduate with a Master’s Degree in only five years. She was headed to Ocracoke to complete the final assignment, her thesis paper.

Lizbeth intended to spend the next three and a half months studying the Carolina Brogue, unique to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. She needed to collect evidence to support her theory that the almost Cockney accent and word usage were a product of many years of isolation on the barrier islands. This isolation protected some parts of the original speech, brought to this country by the islanders’ English and Irish ancestors. It was a dream project for Lizbeth. She had been coming to Ocracoke all of her life. As a child, she had fallen in love with listening to the “hoi toide” accent. It was a pure pleasure to study it, in hopes of preserving the quickly disappearing brogue of old. The sound of a native islander speaking was part of the charm of the quaint village community on the south end of the small island.

Lizbeth Jackson - she dropped the Moore after the divorce - was not the typical college student. She began her first undergraduate courses at age thirty-five. She turned forty in July and found her first gray strand of hair this morning. Lizbeth started her education at Duke after raising a daughter and while divorcing a husband. Years of seeing to everyone else’s needs and wants had left her tired and unfulfilled. After the divorce, Lizbeth decided to take care of her own desires for a while. The results had been astounding and the woman she had been destined to be, before life got in the way, began to emerge. She was happy and satisfied with her current path.

A young man took his shirt off in front of her and threw it into the back of his Jeep Wrangler. He reached in the Jeep and started a Jimmy Buffet CD, turning it up to overcome the growling ferry engines. From behind her dark sunglasses, Lizbeth watched his tanned muscles ripple. She was beginning to think it was true that women reached their sexual peak at forty. She had started to pay more attention to the men around her, finding the ones her own age uninteresting, but those young hot studs all over the Duke campus were becoming increasingly attractive. She smiled at her inner cougar. The young man by the Jeep looked to be in his early twenties, around her daughter’s age. Well, it never hurt to look. After all, she was forty, not ancient.

Lizbeth’s arms began to tingle under the glaring sun. She reached into the canvas bag beside her, pulling out sunscreen, and applying it to any exposed areas. She had a beautifully rare combination of fair skin, dark hair, and piercing blue eyes. At five foot six, she was equipped with long lean muscle, and could still wear the same size jeans she wore at twenty-one. She was blessed with a fast metabolism and maintained an exercise regimen since the birth of her only child. Lizbeth Jackson might have been forty, but she wore forty very well, so well in fact, much younger men frequently asked her out. She hadn’t accepted any of their offers, but the idea of a twenty-something suitor was starting to appeal to her.

She leaned back against the windshield of her car and bathed in the warm sunlight while the ferry started the wide turn toward the Ocracoke docks. She was going to live on an island, a magical place treasured since childhood, until mid December. Then she would graduate, beginning the New Year with a Master’s degree and a job in the state library system; it was all arranged. Lizbeth smiled to herself. Her future held the greatest of possibilities. No more looking back at what might have been.

Jimmy Buffet crooned from the Jeep stereo. The song was ‘A Pirate Looks at Forty.’ Lizbeth sang along to herself. The ferry rocked through a wave set and life was good.

#

Lizbeth disembarked the ferry with a smile and a nod from the khaki clad ferryman, as her car bumped up the ramp. She turned the sixty-five Mustang, a prize from the divorce, to the right and onto NC Highway 12, joining the line of cars making its way slowly toward the village at the far end of the island. There were only thirteen and a half miles from the Hatteras Ferry dock on the north end to the Swan Quarter and Cedar Island Ferry docks on the south end of the island, but with the traffic, it took Lizbeth nearly thirty minutes to drive it.