Chapter 4: Research

Wednesday started off a bit overcast, but the weather report promised clear skies for this afternoon and extending into the weekend. We'd needed the overnight rain, but I figured we'd gotten lucky that it was largely over by seven in the morning.

At that hour, I was once again waiting with my daughters. Melissa again happily ran off in Debra's care, bounding like a fawn toward the clubhouse to spend the day with her new friends. I noted that her tan was beginning to fill in her bare bottom nicely. If she had another week of this, she'd look like one of the Barracuda Beach Elementary School students.

Marcy muttered beside me, "How does she get that kind of energy at this ungodly hour of the day?'

I put my coffee mug on the counter in the registration shack. Rose, who had the duty, would take it back with her to the restaurant kitchen at the end of her shift. "I 'm not even sure I want to know. Let's go."

"Get in the truck?" she asked, taking in my shorts and T-shirt.

"Get in the truck," I agreed.

Without a hint of terror, reluctance or distaste, Marcy joined Tori in the cab of the pickup. She was learning - don't worry about your body. She was also learning naturist etiquette - first put down a towel to sit on.

Tori was, of course, happy to be there - she loves helping her daddy with his morning chores.

Sandy was, as usual, waiting at the BreadBasket's loading dock when we arrived. Tori hopped out first, being in the passenger seat, and Marcy hopped out second. Sandy cocked an eyebrow at me as she nodded her head toward Marcy - this was a different, more relaxed 13-year-old than yesterday.

"She seems much less jumpy than she did yesterday," Sandy whispered to me conspiratorially. "Does her mother know she's running around like that?"

"Why don't you ask her?" I suggested. I didn't bother to whisper. "She's the one struggling to keep some decorum, over there."

'Over there' was at the exit of the parking lot, which afforded anyone caring to look in their rear-view mirror with an excellent view of the BreadBasket's loading dock. Mrs. Mary Silvers was standing beside her sister's car, leaning weakly against the passenger door. Her body was shaking with silent laughter, and her grin was plastered from ear to ear.

"I'm astonished," Sandy admitted. "Marcy seems as confident as your own daughters. I remember when she started, her arms were trying to hide her, and now she's running around like she was born that way."

"Sandy," I chided, "she was born that way. So were you, it's just you were too young to remember it now."

Sandy slugged me in the arm, but gently.

"Some day you're going to come to Barracuda Beach, and you'll see. After fifteen minutes or so, unless someone were to mention it, you too will be acting like being nude is nothing to get upset over. Just like those two kids."

Back at the Resort, without even having to be told, Marcy helped unload the truck, took the pools' pH levels, and mucked out the horse barn. I caught her gently patting the nose of Patricia, the oldest of the plough horses.

"Come, young naturist in training. Your services are requested by outsiders."

She followed to the next job feeling quite dubious about the whole thing, although you'd think by now she'd have realized that nothing I had her do risked anything worse than sore muscles.

I led her to a pair of students from the State University. They had been doing a study on songbirds in Manatee Bay County, which included a survey of the population in the resort. The survey was done by netting a number of birds, identifying their gender and species, weighing them, banding them, and recording the data in a laptop computer. The two had asked me if we had anyone who could volunteer.

Marcy strode next to me, a puzzled look on her face as we approached the picnic table where the two budding biologists had set up their gear. "Ah, good sir and good madame, may I introduce your volunteer."

"I volunteered? Since when?" Marcy demanded.

I was happy to let her know. "You've been voluntold."

"'Voluntold'? Oh, great." Her reception to this tidbit of news was somewhat less than enthusiastic.

Her enthusiasm grew, though, as the two students, one male and one female, showed her how they planned to do the survey. She'd be doing a lot of running, and actually be allowed to handle the feathered friends.

I left her with them, after making dire threats as to what I'd do unto them if they permitted anything untoward to happen unto Marcy.

The rest of the day was spent sitting on the deck by the snack bar, talking on the phone, making last-minute arrangements.

Arrangements for what, you might ask? I have mentioned it before. On Tuesday, two of my guests from New England had come to me with a request. He'd proposed to her, about an hour before. Could we handle a wedding? On Friday? In the nude, of course.

Of course we could, I said, as I crossed my fingers behind my back. I usually have a lot more than three days to plan these things.

The call I was currently dialling was the one I had been putting off. I needed to find someone to officiate, and I started where I always start when I have to organize a wedding at the Resort: Reverend Samuel B. Harrison. He's a pain in my rear pocket, but if he hears that I've gotten another minister to officiate without asking him, he gets in a huff and starts to complain, loudly. Besides, my rear pocket was currently in my domicile rather than on my posterior.

"Ah, Reverend Harrison?" As I spoke, two couples sitting at nearby cafe tables looked at me in disbelief. I grimaced, nodded at them, and rolled my eyes skywards. "It's Paul Jackman at Barracuda Beach Resort." No point in annoying him more than I had to by adding the word, 'Naturist'.

His voice rattled back. I could just feel the waves of disapproval coming back through the phone. "Ah, have you seen the light? Are you shutting down that sinful place?"

"No, no matter how much you'd want us to. It's more something up your alley, though. We're having a wedding here at the Resort on Friday, and we're looking for someone to declare the happy couple husband and wife."