Chapter 8 #2
“Does he just buy his way out of everything?” I whisper to Steven. He shrugs.
“Mattie’s particular. He likes having things his way.”
So I’ve noticed. But if I want to play nice with the family, I can’t keep focusing on all the things that annoy me about Matthew. Especially not while I’m supposed to be enjoying paradise.
“Anybody wanna go for a swim?” I ask the boys, gesturing out to the sparkling water.
“Thanks, but no thanks.”
“C’mon, Matthew—this water’s stunning!” I say. “How can you not want to take a dip?”
“I’ve seen better,” Matthew says. “You think this is blue, try Moorea. Or the Maldives.”
“Remember that girl we met at the St. Regis?" Steven chuckles conspiratorially. “The one who had the birthmark on her—“
“Shh. Not in front of the kid, Steven,” Matthew interrupts.
My face reddens. We’re literally sitting on Cloud Nine and Matthew is complaining about not being in Tahiti?
“I’m getting in,” I tell the boys as I slip off the white t-shirt to reveal my very pale stomach. I may still be stressed over this morning with Caleb, but I’m going to at least try to enjoy my vacation.
“Fine,” Matthew says. “But we’re jumping from there.”
He points up to the third-story diving board I saw as we pulled in. Instantly my stomach tightens. I think I’ve done enough high jumping for one day.
“I’m good here,” I tell him. “But you go and I’ll video you!”
“Stella,” Steven says, “You can’t come to Cloud Nine and not do the high jump. It’s tradition.”
Matthew sighs.
“Don’t bother, Steven,” he says. “She’s obviously not interested in having fun.”
He looks disdainfully at my iced tea as he and Steven saunter towards the stairs, and I resist the urge to stick my tongue out at him.
All the better to read my book in peace.
But with one of the bar’s massive black speakers three feet from my face, it’s a little hard to concentrate on Dickens.
I pick up my bag and wander around to the back of the bar in search of a quieter table.
While there’s none to be found, I do find an unoccupied corner behind the kitchen where I can hang my legs over the edge.
I watch in awe as a silvery school of fish dances below my feet, their bodies swaying above the multicolored reef.
But there’s something else floating above the coral.
A darker shape that skims its black-tipped fin just below the water’s surface.
“Oh my god!”
I pull my feet back in, jumping up to stand as I recognize the form of a shark. In fact, once I realize what I’m seeing, I can count five of them. I look around, searching for someone to alert—there are swimmers out there—when a small Fijian woman carrying a large mesh bag comes around the corner.
“Sharks!” I bark, darting my eyes back to their circling bodies. “They’re everywhere! We need to tell someone!”
The woman peers over the edge, then throws her head back in a single-syllabled laugh. I tense, not sure what could be funny about a circle of toothy predators.
“These little fellas?” she asks incredulously. “They’re just reefies, hon.”
The woman looks to be in her mid-fifties, with skinny arms and a knockout smile. Her wild hair spirals out in all directions, forming a tangled halo around her head.
“Reefies?” I repeat back to her, wondering by what stretch of the imagination these things are ‘little.’
“Reef sharks!” she says, setting down the bag that’s almost as big as she is before lowering herself to sit. “Black tips, to be specific. They’re more or less harmless.”
I look at her sideways, trying to ascertain the significance of ‘more or less.’
“If they’re not dangerous, what are they doing circling around the barge?”
“Someone’s probably been throwing them scraps,” she tells me, darting a look at the kitchen. “It’s bad practice, but it explains why they’d be hovering in a group like this.”
The woman crouches down, reaching into the mesh bag and pulling out two salt-streaked snorkel masks. She motions for me to sit down beside her, and I hesitantly lower down, fully aware that my long legs mean my dangling feet are much closer to the water than hers are.
“Have a closer look,” she says. “Trust me, they won’t bite.
The reef sharks dart in repeating patterns around the back. They look like they’re about five feet long—the size of a very, very large dog.
“Are all the sharks in Fiji… er… ‘harmless’?” I say in quotes. Just because these guys aren’t great whites doesn’t mean they don’t still have dozens of razor-sharp teeth.
“Not exactly. We’ve got our share of bronze whalers, but they usually ignore you unless you’re carrying a bloody fish.”
“Good thing I left my severed fish heads in Chicago.”
“Ay, smart girl. Now, the tigers—those are the ones you have to worry about.”
“Tiger sharks?” I ask, thinking of a YouTube video I saw once of a ten-foot tiger shark taking a big chunk out of a surfer’s thigh.
“Reckon you won’t see one this trip, though. I’ve spent almost every day in the water since I was a little ‘un, and I’ve only seen two!”
I swallow. For all my phobias, I know better than to be afraid of sharks—more people are killed every year by toppling vending machines. But still, something about the thought of a toothy car-sized predator sneaking up on me in the water has me ready to run back to my lounger.
“So,” she asks. “You ready for a swim?”
“Very funny,” I giggle nervously.
“I’m not joking. It’s not every day you get the chance to get up close and personal with a couple of reef sharks!”
I shake my head vehemently. Ten feet away is close enough.
“If you say so,” the wild-haired woman shrugs, then winks at me before launching herself over the edge. I gasp, waiting for the blood bath to ensue as she plunges into the water. But the sharks don’t attack. In fact, they don’t seem interested in her at all.
She pops her head above water.
“See? Harmless!”
“That’s what Grizzly Man said before his bear friends ate him alive,” I remind her.
“Aw, c’mon. As long as you don’t do anything stupid, they’re of no danger to you,” she says.
“How do you know?” I ask, my stomach clenching each time one of the grey bodies darts towards her treading feet. “Are you a shark whisperer?”
The woman laughs, exposing her startlingly white teeth.
“Toss me that old water bottle, would you?”
I look back to the empty plastic bottle on the bench behind me. She wants me to throw plastic into the ocean?
She motions for me again, and I hesitate before throwing it in.
“These sharks are just curious—they’re hanging about in search of food,” she informs me. “But they’re not hunting. You can tell because their fins are splayed out parallel to the surface instead of tucked in at their sides. But watch.”
She ducks under the water and begins squeezing the bottle, making a crunching sound I can hear even above the surface.
Instantly, the sharks’ behavior changes.
They press their fins to their sides, darting forward with sudden speed towards her in an erratic swimming pattern.
I hold my breath. If these sharks start taking bites out of her, I’m the last person she’ll want help from.
She stops squeezing the bottle and resurfaces. Within seconds, the sharks calm down and return to cruising mode.
“See? The crunching sound of the bottle agitates them, but as long as a shark’s fins are in a docile position, you can tell you’re safe.”
She tosses the bottle to me and I catch it.
“Well?”
My heart starts pounding. I’ve been afraid of sharks as long as I remember, but I was terrified of bees before I tried beekeeping at Marianne’s bachelorette.
Now I love bees. Do I really want to come home from Fiji and remember the time I didn’t take the opportunity to swim with sharks?
Didn’t I already prove to myself once today that I can face my fears and come out (relatively) unscathed?
Plus, how jealous will Will and Mer be when I tell them what I did?
I take a deep breath before pulling the extra mask over my head, shimmying forward and plopping unceremoniously into the sea.
The water is warmer than I’m expecting, but being five feet away from the shifting predators sends a jolt of ice through my veins.
I’ve made a mistake. From above the water, these sharks looked so small, like I could maybe even take them if it came down to it.
But down here at their eye level, I can tell they very much have the advantage.
The reef sharks are easily as long as I am, and I can see the razor-sharp teeth waiting in their jaws.
Their vertical eye-slits scream back off, bitch.
I swear my heart stops for a good four seconds.
But then, I feel a gentle squeeze on my hand.
My shark-whispering friend is right here with me, and she doesn’t look afraid.
I squeeze back. And then, somehow, I start to breathe.
We float for a few moments like that—suspended in fifty feet of water, six sharks gliding past us like butterflies.
Huge, very toothy butterflies. But soon, I feel my fear dissipating.
The woman is right—they don’t want to attack us.
Just because they have rows and rows of blade-like incisors and lightning quick reflexes doesn’t mean they want to use them.
They’re as curious as we are, and maybe just as afraid.
I’m probably safer here than I am driving down the freeway.
After a few moments, we pop our heads back out of the water, my heart slamming like the bass from the bar speakers. My new friend shows me a swim ladder we use to climb back up to the dock.
“That was wild!” I gasp as soon as I can pull my snorkel out. “I can’t believe I did that! Am I insane?”
“You’re brave, is what you are!” she tells me, beaming. I shake my head.
“I can promise you that no one has ever used that word to describe me.”
“C’mon, give yourself some credit! It’s not every tourist who’d face certain death on the advice of a complete stranger.”
My mouth drops open.