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 Sun and Sea 18 A James Gang Story by Mike C

   Feedback : mikec (at) nspace.net

   = = = = =

   "Mr Bentel says you can have anything you want, it's on the house."
Hazel told us.

   "Sit down, hon." Brenda urged her, "It's good news, isn't it?  You look
like you just got stung by the Lion fish!"

   "I went to ask Mr Bentel to charge the bottle to me and he says that all
your drinks are now free."

   "Ah, so it means he knows we're not gonna drink up all his expensive
cognacs!" Sherri said.

   "No I think it means Hazel feels the bottle is no longer her gift to us,
right?" Brenda said, and was answered with a nod.  "But we KNOW you wanted
to, so it's the same thing, isn't it?"

   "I don't know..." She looked stricken, "I wanted so much to tell you
that I would like to be your friend, and..."

   "Haze, I know we said some things that scared you," Sherri said, "But
you don't have to do anything - we'd STILL like you!"

   "No, that's not it!" Hazel said, "You've been so kind to me!  And I want
you to know that I am grateful!"

   "We should be the ones who are grateful!  You spend time to show us new
things and you're patient with us..."

   "That's my job!  But you make it easy and you are really nice to me...
You respect me!"

   "I got an idea," Brenda said, "Are you finished work here?"

   Hazel nodded.

   "Do you still want to buy a bottle of wine for us?"

   "Yes!"

   "Then come with me." Brenda led the way and we followed her, earning us
a glare from Rico at the door.

   "Why is Rico looking at us like that?" Sherri whispered, "Is he your
boyfriend?"

   "No way!  He just think he is - when he's not busy with someone else,
that is!"

   "So he's quite the ladies man!"

   "The ladies like his looks, they think he's Italian."

   "He's not?  I thought with his curly hair and his name..."

   "No way!" Hazel laughed, "He perms his hair and his real name is
Ricardo. He may have some Italian blood in him, but he lives with his Mama
in town!"

   "Wow, no wonder he thinks he something special.  He does stand out."

   "Yeah, he likes his job here - gives him more chances with the ladies...
And they tip more when he's around..."

   "Except he thinks you're in love with him like everyone else?"

   "Kind of...  He knows I have no boyfriend, so it means I'm available to
him."

   "But you don't share his feelings?"

   "No way!  He's a jerk!" Hazel nodded.  "But he teaches me about making
drinks, so that I can work the Bar on the beach - I can't be too unfriendly
to him!"

   "Yes, but..." Brenda had taken us to the plane and now went inside. 
"Wait here."

   She reappeared with a case of wine, "OK, now this way."

   "Where are we going?"

   "To the villa, where else can we drink this in peace?"

   "Oh..."

   "Oops, am I making you nervous, Haze?" Brenda stopped.  "We can go to
your place, if you want!"

   "I-I thought you...  and James...  What you said this morning, about
tonight..."

   "Oh, that," Brenda replied, "that can wait.  You're more important." She
nudged me, "You can speak, James."

   "You're right.  This is important."

   "Whoa...  that's so profound!" Amanda squinted at me, "Are you James, or
did we pick up another guy by mistake?"

   "Still me." I said, "Can you wait for me back at the lodge?  I'll be
right back."

   "Where're you going?"

   "I think I left some ice cream unfinished."

   I turned back up the Main house with their laughter trailing behind me.

   "You didn't go back for more ice cream, did you?" They accused me as
soon as I stepped inside the villa.

   "No."

   "So what was the unfinished business?"

   "I just had a talk with Rico."

   "Oh?  About?"

   " I reminded him that we just leased a piece of land from Mr Bentel, so
we'll be here all the time."

   "What about Hazel?  He's gonna stop harassing Hazel just like that?"

   "I told him Hazel's family asked us to check up on her and we would
appreciate him not hitting on her."

   "And...?"

   "That's it.  He values his job too much to risk it.  Certainly not for
someone who's turned him down every time."

   "So we're close family friends now?  Cool!" Sherri said and hugged
Hazel.

   "I believe this calls for a toast!" Brenda declared and picked up a
bottle, "Ta-da!  The Concha y Toro Grand Reserve Carmenere!" We looked at
Hazel, who'd turned red again.

   "Oops, do you speak Spanish?" Brenda asked.

   Hazel nodded, "A little..."

   "Then you should know that the vineyard calling itself the slang for
'Vagina and Penis' is one of the leading growers in Chile.  And this '02
vintage is a really memorable one"

   They went through the rigmarole of popping the plastic cork and passing
it around, taking turns sniffing it.

   "Good, I was afraid it may have turned on the flight over." Bren looked
at me, "While we're waiting for the wine to 'breathe', why don't we ask
James to edify us on this wine?" She laughed at the incredulous look on
Hazel's face.  "We all have the same teacher in oenology, but James is by
far her favorite student.  He even got away with cooking with a hundred
dollar bottle of Bordeaux, and STILL got laid afterwards!"

   "That was the '03 Cuvee Madeleine," I said, in my defense, "Not one of
their best years."

   "But who knows how good it'll be if you'd let it age and reach maturity,
which should be about now...  What a monumental waste!" She shook her head,
"So, murderer of good wine, what's special about the Carmenere?"

   "Well, most major wine-growing areas have a 'specialty', or signature
grape, which uniquely identifies the region.  Germany has Riesling; Tuscany
has Chianti, which is really Sangiovese; Bordeaux has Merlot, of course,
and Napa's claimed Zinfandel.  Most of these grapes can be grown elsewhere,
and, within limits, have similarities in taste.

   "The Carmenere, on the other hand is unique only to Chile, but for a
long time was simply and mistakenly called the Chilean Merlot.  Curiously,
it was this mistake that put Chilean wine on the map - their so-called
Merlot was sharply different to the Merlot made anywhere else.  For a while
this was attributed to the weather and the soil, but in 1994, analysis
revealed that some of their 'Merlot' crop was actually a descendent of the
Carmenere vine, one of the six legendary grapes of France, believed to have
been completely wiped out by the famous root rot which infected Europe.

   "But because the Merlot and Carmenere looked similar and had almost
identical growth cycles, the Chilean growers mixed the two and ended up
producing a unique varietal blend."

   "See?  James is a regular font of knowledge!" Brenda laughed as she came
back with water glasses and distributed the wine in it.

   "To Hazel, our new friend." She toasted.

   "Thank you, all of you..." Hazel said.

   "Hey, so we're family now!" Amanda stated, and added an extended hug. 
"Am I scaring you?" She asked as an afterthought.

   "A bit, I think...  I'm not used to speaking, or acting my mind and,
well, you all do that a lot."

   "Isn't that what families do?" Sherri asked, "When you're with your
parents and brothers, don't you just say what you want?"

   "I suppose...  Until they started making fun of me - my brothers, that
is..."

   "What happened?"

   "I loved diving, but I wanted to do something else, and they couldn't
understand it.  They thought I was getting wild ideas..."

   "And all you wanted was to take nursing."

   "I was willing to take ANYTHING!" She said, "They can't see that waiting
for the first guy to sweep me off my feet, getting married and having a
family was not the only option a girl has, not anymore!" She shook her
head, "For them, it is unthinkable a girl wants to be better than the boys,
so they laughed at all my dreams."

   "But your Mom understood?"

   "Well, she thought she'd try to give me a better future than tapping
conch 14 hours a day.  She sent me to Freetown to college and paid for my
nursing diploma."

   "She sounds like she's quite the lady!"

   "Yes, she is," Hazel smiled proudly, "Her conch stand was featured in
one of the dolphin movies and so it's a regular stop for the tourists. 
She's got 8 or 10 people helping her now, I'm so proud of her!"

   "She's one lady I'll have to meet!"

   "You said they're making another movie there now?  Is it a sequel?"

   "The sequel was talked about, but they are having scheduling problems.
Last season there was a dolphin special for TV shooting in Discovery Bay,
where the dolphins live, so they had to wait, but then had trouble fitting
the actor's timetables."

   "Wow, you sure are up to date!"

   "Mother hoped to be in this new movie - she enjoys the fame, and the
freedom it gives her.  And I called her this afternoon," She gave Amanda a
look, "I wanted to see if they could take you tuna fishing..." The rest of
her sentence was lost to Amanda's screams.

   "Damn, I had my mind set on kissing Hazel all over," Sherri said
dejectedly, "And now the girl's beat me to it..."

   "Should we try and rescue Hazel?"

   "She doesn't seem too upset by it." Sherri observed, then, "My, but she
blushes pretty!"

   I gave Hazel my hand and helped her get out from under Amanda.  "Now you
know what we have to put up with," I sighed, "She does this to us all the
time!"

   "Hah!  You should be so lucky!" Amanda sniffed and took Hazel's hand
back from me, "How 'bout we go ourselves?  Just you and me."

   "Umm...  Only if you promise not to do that again!" Hazel smiled weakly.
"What I didn't finish saying was that we have to wait a month..."

   "Aww...  That sucks!" Amanda moaned.  "Do you KNOW what my month's gonna
be like?" She made a underhanded gesture at me, "I have to stay with
You-know-who here; then there's the Colonel, who's determined to put me
into Crocheting class!"

   "We thought you WANTED to go to the Aeronautics University." Brenda
asked, "You can go back to USC if you like."

   "Ah, no.  The Colonel knows the ROTC guy at USC - who knows what they'll
do to me once they find out I skipped!" She turned to Hazel, "But, can I
stay here with you?  I'll call for my Crocheting assignments by phone and
we can do them together!"

   "Actually, I don't think they have Crocheting at ERAU," I said, "Just a
dozen flight-simulators and about a hundred planes.  Oh, and the
Kitana-Twins."

   "True..." She sighed, "But I'm not sure even that is enough to make up
for having to wait on you 24/7!" Amanda said glumly.

   "I DO have some good news from my mother, though ..." Hazel began,
looking at Amanda, tensed to jump out of her way.

   "Don't worry, Hazel." Brenda said, she waved Amanda over and sat her on
her lap, "Now no more craziness from you!"

   "There are three sites around here for tuna fishing..." Hazel looked to
make sure Amanda was still secured.  "There's one in Walker's channel, one
in the Bight, both close to Freetown; and the third is smaller, not as well
known, but I have the directions..." Another nervous glance, and she handed
Amanda a piece of paper, "The coordinates are on there...  from here, it's
two hours by boat."

   We waited for the explosion but Amanda just sat there.  "Okay, the
tarpon will have to wait," She finally declared.  "We do the idiotic plate
thing in the morning, and still make Hazel's spot by nine, fish three hours
before we head back to Robb's for tea." She looked at Hazel, "I'm sorry you
can't come - you did say you would be busy.  It's wrong, I know, to go
without you, but I hope you understand."

   Hazel looked around at us, bewilderment on her face.

   "What Amanda means, is that it's YOUR fishing spot, and we shouldn't
steal it from you.  By rights you have to be there...  So if you're busy,
we can wait until you have time..."

   "B-b-but..." Amanda was turning red like Hazel, torn between her honor
and her need to kill things.

   "Ahhh, right, I can see if I can take the morning off, and go
together..." Hazel managed, taking pity on Amanda's incipient heart attack.
"There's another problem; even though I said it's a small area, it is still
hundreds of miles of ocean, there is no guarantee the fish will be there."
She grew more animated as she warmed to her subject.  "Even commercial
outfits sometimes spend days chasing the schools, and they have sonar-nets.
For us, the tuna has to be within 200-feet of the boat and less than 40
feet below the surface.

   "Except for the occasional lucky strike, the only sure way we know of
catching tuna is really two separate steps.  First we have to lure smaller
fish to us - by chumming, then hope that the tuna see that and go up to
feed." We nodded, having had first hand experience with the feeding frenzy
the day before.  "So it's not as simple as dropping a line to where the
tunas live - they travel 50 miles a day, so finding them would be hard,
then we have to find enough small fish to bring them to the surface..."

   "Yeah," Amanda mulled, "We sometimes look for circling birds, which is a
sign of bait fish."

   Hazel nodded, "We always do that first, but it's a VERY huge ocean. 
Even to find that will need good luck.  In the Bight, sport fishing fleets
have towed kite-flyers behind them to spot the birds."

   We could hear the gears clicking in Amanda's head.

   "I'll go." Brenda suddenly said.

   "Go where?"

   "Weren't you thinking of using the Gymbler to locate the fish before
taking Jester?" Brenda asked.

   "Actually, I was thinking that we simply fly out there, look for the
fish, land and catch a few." Amanda said.

   "Assuming you find a clear patch to land in, what happens if the waves
pick up, say, to two-feet?" The wing pontoons were only 20-inches high, so
with deeper waves, the plane would flounder, unable to lift off.

   "Hmmm..." Amanda lapsed, no doubt considering some major structural mods
to her plane.

   "So let me take the plane, and you head out in Jester.  I have an hour
and a half before you get there, so if there's nothing, it'll save you
beating the waves." Brenda said, "Oh, incidentally, the C7 Flight-clearance
form only has James' and my name on it - they check passports here, so
they'll know you're not legal age yet!"

   "You are all pilots?" Hazel asked.

   "We all fly, and teach, planes call Ultralights, which the FAA recently
combined with several other classes of aircraft, so we all got an upgraded
qualification for ALL Sports and Light aircraft.  Of course there are some
of us who are 'marginally underaged', who will get their license lifted if
the authorities catch them flying!"

   "Of course 'marginally' is very relative!' Sherri laughed.

   "You are as marginal as me, little Missy!"

   "No honey, I'll be legal eight months before you!"

   "I knew there was a reason you're all wrinkled and dried up!"

   "I am just older and wiser..."

   "Granny!"

   "Pipsqueak!"

   Suddenly they stopped and looked around.

   "Damn, it's no fun when they're not trying to stop us!"

   "We decided that if you two want to be as immature as your passport
says, we're just gonna ignore you!" Smiled Brenda.

   "What a bunch of spoilsports!" Sherri pouted.

   Amanda sighed, "Okay, we'll let it pass, for now.  Anyway, if you fly
out to scope the site for us, it means you can't go fishing with us!"

   "I was going to stay anyhow.  The banks will be getting our affidavit to
freeze Marshall's assets and I may need to soothe some feathers before they
start playing nice." Brenda grinned, "I have just as much fun catching
scumbags as you do bluefin!"

   "We have to get Donnie to come along." Sherri decided, "The play list
still needs a LOT of work!"

   "It's a good idea Donnie comes," Hazel said, "He can help if we have a
problem."

   "Yeah, and maybe he can get us some of the frozen conch - that worked
really well as chum!" I said.

   "Hey, what about putting some on the plane?" Sherri said, "Then Brenda
can dump them over any schools of fish she sees!"

   "Hey, I may want fish but no way you're gonna stink up the Gymbler!"

   "I mean, outside, on the fuselage..."

   "There's the spot before the engine where the BRS is attached!" I
suggested.  The Gymbler was equipped with a Ballistic Recovery System - a
huge parachute designed to lower the whole plane to a safe landing should
its flight controls fail.  "We know it's reinforced steel tubing there, and
smack in the center of gravity.  So a reasonable load there should not
present any problems."

   "Yeah, a couple of nylon straps with a quick release from within the
plane..."

   "But make sure it doesn't blow back into the engine." The SeaSprite has
a pusher engine which sits behind the cabin, and possibly in the path of
anything released in front of it.

   "Lower down then, around the rear nacelle?"

   "No, too close to the rudder."

   "There's a pair of tie-down hooks just behind that - it's directly under
the engine, and shielded by the rear assembly as well.  We have to run the
release cord to avoid kinking the rudder linkage, but that will work!"

   "It will shift the moment..." Sherri grabbed her laptop, and work on it
for a minute, "83.4% so...  against Bren's 110-pounds, the tank can weigh
up to 90-pounds.  That's probably like six, seven gallons worth of chum!"

   "What can we put it in?"

   "We have these thick 12-gallon garbage bags." Hazel offered.  "And I've
never seen them break even completely filled!"

   "Perfect!  Half fill one and it's 'Bombs away'!"

   "We'll do some checking tomorrow, and maybe do a dry run if things look
good." Brenda suggested, stifling a yawn.  "But I must go to bed now.  I
recall someone promising to relieve me of my virtue!"

   "You ladies get ready," I rose, "After I see Hazel home, I'm coming back
to relieve ALL of you of your virtues!"

   "Why do you assume Hazel wants to leave?" Amanda asked.  "HER virtue may
be in need of relieving too!"

   "Ahh, no thank you!" She quickly stood, "Really, I can go myself..."

   "No, this is a gentleman's duty." I insisted, taking her arm and out the
door, "And you make me feel very much a gentleman."

   I took her hand as we walked down the hill to her place.

   "Here you are..." I bowed over her hand, "Safe and sound.  And no Rico."

   "Please remember to be gentle with Brenda!" She quietly reminded me.

   "I will..." I said, "And thank you for a lovely evening."

   "I...  I had a good time too!  I think I'm beginning to see what you
share with each other..." She said, "Oh, but I did not pay for the wine!"

   "You can pay me ten dollars."

   "Don't joke about that!  I KNOW the wine cost more than that!"

   "The wine was a token of our friendship, so your share, if you want to
pay something, is exactly a quarter of it.  But I would rather you not pay
anything, and just say you understand what I mean."

   She thought about it, then quietly, "I understand what you mean."

   I nodded, "Good night, Hazel." And when I opened my arms she came into
them.

   = = = = =

   (C) Copyright 2001-2009.  MikeC. All Rights Reserved. All Reproduction
for fee or profit forbidden.

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