Under the Boardwalk: A Dazzling Collection of All New Summertime Love Stories (56 page)

"Climb aboard," Jody repeated dumbly.

"Just swing your leg over. Here, like this," Jeremy demonstrated and helped her over the side.

"We'll be ready for takeoff in just a few," Dember told them.

"You're the pilot?" Jody asked anxiously. "Are you certified or whatever it is you have to be to fly one of these things?"

Dember laughed. "Certified by the FAA, just like an airplane pilot. The balloon is regulated by the FAA, too, so it's subject to inspections and has to meet certain standards, just like a commercial jet. That make you feel any better?"

"Not really," she said under her breath.

"Well, then, if you're ready, I'm ready," the pilot told them, a bit too cheerfully, Jody thought.

How could anyone be that cheerful about going up into the air in a basket held aloft by a balloon?

Jody looked up above her head to where the enormous balloon seemed to fill the sky. It looked like a party balloon. A very large party balloon, but a party balloon all the same. She was just about to tell Jeremy that she'd wait for him on the ground when Dember yelled to the crew, "Untie her. We're going up."

"We're going up." Jody clutched at Jeremy's arm.

"Wait till you see the sun coming up over the water, Jody. It's like nothing you've ever seen, I promise."

"I've seen it from the beach," she said. "I liked it from there."

There was a whooshing sound from the burner, and she felt the basket begin to rise slowly. Panic began to overtake her, and she grabbed the edge of the basket, then made the mistake of looking down, rather than out or up. Below her feet, she could see lights from the cars below.

"Jeremy, we're in a basket," she told him. "You can see through it."

"It's okay, Jody, it's perfectly safe."

"Baskets are for flowers, Jeremy. Potted plants. Newspapers and magazines. Baskets are not for climbing into and flying over the ocean." Jody's eyes were closed, her hands clammy with fear, and it was then that Jeremy realized she was truly afraid.

It had never occurred to him that she might be afraid. He put one arm around her and drew her to him, and with the other brushed her hair back from her face.

"Jody, it's okay. It's safe, I promise."

"Where exactly are we going?" She asked, still not looking beyond Jeremy's chest.

"Wherever the wind takes us," the pilot nodded happily.

"Any idea where that might be?"

Dember laughed. "It isn't quite as random as you think. I get reports on wind speed and direction before each flight."

"Wind direction. Speed. Can't those things change?" she muttered.

Their pilot nodded. "They can. They do, at varying altitudes."

"How do you control this thing?"

"By adjusting the altitude of the balloon," he told her, and realizing that his passenger was more than just a little scared, took her arm and turned her to the burner. "Now, if we need to rise above an air layer, we heat the air inside the balloon a little. If we want to come beneath a layer of air, we vent it, let a little of the air out to drop the balloon. We use liquid propane gas, by the way, just like a barbecue. It burns quickly, to heat the air inside the balloon quickly, which allows me to make it ascend or descend as quickly as I need it to go. It's safe, I promise. I do this every day. I've never lost a passenger yet."

"That's reassuring." She nodded.

"Here now, hold on. We're going up just a little higher."

"More good news…" Jody squeezed her eyes dosed.

"Jody, look," Jeremy said gently. "Look at the sky. Did you ever see anything more beautiful? Colors more glorious?"

She peeked out around his shoulder, and in spite of herself, an "Oh!" escaped her lips.

"It's… it's like floating up into heaven," she exclaimed. "Oh, Jeremy, look at the clouds. And the ocean looks so
blue
. It looks bluer from here. And look at the boats out there… oh, it's amazing."

Jeremy smiled. He'd hoped that one look would make her forget her fear, and it had.

"And look down there, at the way the waves curl toward the shore…"

Jody was really loosening up.

"Can we go back over the town, over Ocean Point?" She asked the pilot.

"We will, on our way back to the launch pad. My intention is to go on down to the end of the island, then swing back inland a bit, then try to get back to where we started. If the wind cooperates, that's what we'll do. If it doesn't, then our chase crew will meet up with us at another landing site."

"How will they know where to find us?" She frowned.

"Radio," he pointed to the floor where the radio sat between his feet "But so far, the winds have been good. Spectacular sunrise, would you say?"

"Definitely," she sighed.

"Feeling better?" Jeremy asked softly.

"Much," she nodded, and turned in his arms to look into his eyes. "Thank you. This was a wonderful surprise."

"I'm sorry that you had a few bad moments there. I should have asked you first how you felt about hot-air balloons."

"I'm glad you didn't ask. I'd have said no and I would have missed this and I'd never have known what it felt like to watch the dawn over the ocean from the
air
. It's glorious, Jeremy. Everyone should see this, just once. Thank you so much for sharing this with me."

"You're welcome." He slipped both arms around her and nudged her into leaning against him, thinking that there was so much more he wanted to share with her. So much more he
would
share with her.

"And over there, off to the left, you can see all those trees there," their pilot was saying above the whoosh of the burner. "That's the start of the Pine Barrens. Of course, most folks around here call it the Pinelands, or just the Pines, since they know there's nothing barren about the area, which covers over a million acres. In 1983, the United Nations designated the Pines as an International Biosphere Reserve, 'cause there are species of plants back in there that are endangered or extinct every place but here. If we were to get close enough, you'd be able to see that the Pines are crisscrossed with a number of slow-moving streams of fresh water. You have your swamps back in there—cedar swamps, mostly American white cedar. Water the color of tea. Sphagnum moss everywhere. It used to be a big business, gathering sphagnum moss to sell. Still is, in some parts."

"You know a lot about the area," Jody turned to the pilot.

"My mother was a Piney," he told them. "Used to be a certain stigma attached to the word
Piney
, but these days, people are more proud than ashamed of the term."

''Why's that?" She asked.

"I suspect it's just a matter of coming to understand and appreciate the culture for what it is. Ethnically, the people here are a wonderful mix. German, Scottish, Irish, Swedish. Some Quaker, some Catholic. Russians. New England fishermen who came south to follow the whales before New Jersey was even a colony. I've heard even Hessian mercenaries who deserted after the Battle of Trenton came to lose themselves in the wilderness. Some still speak the dialect, back in there." Dember turned to Jeremy, who had been silent during the pilot's recitation, and asked, "You ever been?"

Jeremy had not expected the question, and his eyes drifted over the endless acres of green that now spread out below them like a fan. "Yes. Yes, I have. But not in a very long time."

"Beautiful, don't you think?" Dember's eyes were shining. "It's still wild. People too often think of New Jersey as being, you know, one overpopulated, polluted city after another. If they could only see this, the miles of forest…"

The pilot's voice droned on and on, extolling the virtues of the Pines and its history. And all the while, Jody was watching Jeremy's face.

His eyes followed the sea of green below even when Dember had switched course and had headed back toward the island. His face seemed touched by melancholy, his smile gone, his mouth taut, and he was, for an instant, a million miles—or a million acres—away.

"… but right now, we're over the bridge leading to Ocean Point. You see the bay there, and off to the left you can see the yacht club, the marinas…"

"Jeremy," Jody tugged on his sleeve, "where did you go?"

He looked down at her, a sadness in his gray eyes, and said simply, "Home, Jody. Just for a minute, I went home."

She wanted to ask him where home might be and why the thought of it disturbed him so. Maybe, before the week had ended, she might learn.

"Now, right there's the park…"

"Oh, and Jeremy, look! Down there. Right down there. There's the street where our old rental house was. The third street in from the bay! The house was right in the middle of the block, the seventh one… She counted the rooftops. "There! That one! Back then, the roof wasn't
blue
…" She tried to bring him back. "Do you see?"

"Yes," he nodded idly, still looking back over his shoulder to the blur of green that was diminishing in size as the balloon headed in the opposite direction.

Later, when the balloon had landed and they had thanked their pilot for a wonderful ride, as they sat in a diner—all chrome and glass—and waited for their breakfast to be served, Jody sensed that he was still not completely with her.

"Seeing the sun over the ocean like that, the colors… that may have been the most unforgettable moment of my life," she said, hoping to draw him back.

He nodded and said, "Good."

"What was yours?"

"My what?"

"Most unforgettable moment."

He stared at her for a very long time, and she began to regret having asked the question when he replied quietly, "I'm hoping it hasn't happened yet."

Jeremy leaned back as the waitress set down a white plate from which an enormous omelet threatened to overflow. "Maybe it will be this afternoon. You up for a little whale watching?"

And just that quickly, he had put it aside—whatever it was—and kept it hidden through the rest of the afternoon.

"This is incredible!" Jody shouted to Jeremy above the loud hum of the boat's engine. "It's been so long since I've been out on the ocean, I'd forgotten how much I used to love it."

Jeremy smiled and pointed to the left of the bow where a dozen or more dorsal fins broke the surface of the water, all at the same time.

"Oh, look at them!" Jody cried, leaning over the side of the boat to trail her hand through the water.

"Miss, try not to touch the dolphin," the weathered old guide told her. "Sometimes we humans have substances on our fingers that can cause skin irritations for them."

Jody removed her hand, but the rest of her remained as it was against the railing. The dolphin swam so close to the boat that she could have touched them, would have, had it not been for the warning. Much to the delight of the passengers on the boat, the dolphin leaped from the water, splashing their audience and playing with gleeful abandon for ten or fifteen minutes before swimming off. Jody turned to watch them, realizing for the first time just how far they were from shore.

"It's only a mile," Jeremy shrugged.

"I feel better when I can actually see land," she told him, looking down into the dark blue green of the ocean and wondering just how far below the bottom might be. Then again, she told herself, there are some things we are better off not knowing.

"There's a whale off the bow!" The shout went up, and all forty passengers rushed to the left side of the boat.

"Maybe now might be a good time to go up to that second level," Jody said nervously as the boat seemed to list to one side.

Jeremy laughed as he took her hand and led her up the narrow steps.

"There, now," he said once they reached the top. "Feel better now?"

"I do. It just seemed a little too crowded for comfort down there. Oh, Jeremy, there's the whale! Look at it! It's as big as a bus!"

"Bigger," he nodded, admiring the creature's agility, in spite of its size, as it turned and dived. "Look, there's a second."

Her eyes followed his finger to the right of the large mammal, where a smaller one had surfaced. In awe, they watched the two enormous creatures frolic before disappearing beneath the dark waters and appearing again some yards away, over and over, until finally they were farther out to sea than Jody wanted to be. She was grateful to hear the boat's engine as the captain prepared to turn the vessel about and head toward shore.

Overhead a gull swooped low to the water, searching, she guessed, for a mid-morning snack. The sun had burned away the rest of the clouds, and she wished she had worn a hat to keep the sun from her face.

A boy of about ten ran across the deck and stood atop the back of the bench seat.

"I don't think that's a very good idea," Jeremy told him calmly. "If the boat lurches, you could get tossed over the side."

"So what? I can swim." The boy said rudely over his shoulder.

"Think you can outswim him?" Jeremy pointed toward the water, and the boy's line of vision followed his finger to the dark fin that had just broken the surface of the water.

Jeremy stood to grab the front of the boy's shirt to pull him down onto the seat and to safety. The child landed with a plop, his face white and his eyes as big as saucers. "That's a shark," he said dumbly.

"That sure is." Jeremy agreed.

"Bobby, there's a shark," the boy called to the thin, dark-haired boy who poked his head out from the doorway.

"A real shark?" Bobby ran to the railing to see. "Hey, everybody, a shark! A shark!"

"So much for tender moments," Jeremy grumbled as the shark circled around and came back towad the boat.

"Hey, mister! How big is that shark?" The boy in the striped shirt asked.

"Maybe fifteen, sixteen feet long. He's a big one," Jeremy told him.

"Wow! If I had fallen in…" his eyes widened even more at the prospect.

"Shark bait," Jeremy nodded.

The two boys exchanged an anxious glance, then headed for the steps and made a noisy decent. Jody laughed. "You scared the bejesus out of them."

"There are some risks not worth taking," he told her as he pulled her closer, mindful of her sunburn, "and there are some that are. You, Jody Beckett, are a risk worth taking."