Whirlwind 01 – Finish Line – Pt. 02 by QuantumMechanic1957
This is the second part of the first story in my WHIRLWIND series. They are unrelated stories with a common theme; each one is based on a short, slightly unusual courtship, with a primary female character who believes that she cannot find love for some reason — and a primary male character determined to prove her wrong.
I visited Ireland once, for 13 marvelous days, and was enchanted by the lilting Irish speech. I have attempted to reproduce that in the dialogue of the Irish characters. WORD’s Spelling and Grammar Checker hated it. I hope the reader doesn’t find it too tedious. If so, please note that in the comments and I will use less of it in the remainder of the story.
In previous writings, I don’t think I handled ‘flashbacks’ well, so I wrote this one which has a number of flashbacks as its core. Be warned. There is also no sex.
I can tolerate few ‘Reality’ Shows. The AMAZING RACE is a notable exception. There are a dozen different spinoffs of the AMAZING RACE, each featuring contestants from a different country (i.e., Fantastic Race Canada, Fantastic Race Australia, etc., though the original AMAZING RACE is out of America with American citizens as contestants). This story hypothesizes the FANTASTIC RACE with international teams and slightly different rules.
FINISH LINE Part 2
Major Characters:
Lead Singers of the Celtic/Irish singing group ‘The Madri-Gals’:
Ariana Collins
Marie Kavanaugh
Linnae Jameson
Lavender Renaud
Cassie O’Hara
President and Web Administrator of the Ariana Collins Fan Forum:
Nathan Moore
The Teams for FANTASTIC RACE
(1) German national soccer champion and her husband
(2) Canadian hockey player and his wife
(3) French singer and her son
(4) Japanese pop star and her sister
(5) Captain of New Zealand rugby team and a young man (fan)
(6) American basketball star and young man (fan w/ Down’s Syndrome)
(7) Gold medal Chinese gymnast and her brother
(8) Italian Gran Prix driver and his mistress
(9) Russian ballerina and her daughter
(10) American rock star and young man (fan)
(11) Ariana (Irish) and Nathan (fan)(American)
Ariana and Nathan have survived the first leg of the race; in fact they came in in first place. But the race will only get more difficult from here:
CHAPTER 4 [Second Leg (Hawaii to Alaska) — Ten teams left]
The schedule was so tight that they had practically run out of the theater after the Meet & Greet session, and onto the buses. The only way Daniel had managed to avoid a cast mutiny for skipping the Race screening after the show was to arrange for recordings to be played on the busses.
Linnae was so anxious that the television was on before the door shut behind Ariana, bringing up the rear. Cassie made popcorn and started passing the basket, but within minutes it was forgotten on the floor as the episode unfolded. Curled up in her favorite chair, Ariana remembered….
While they had been the first team off in the morning, there had been more than enough time for all the teams to accumulate at the airport before the designated flight took off… to Alaska. After all too many hours in flight, and Nathan’s valiant attempts to learn more Gaelic, they had landed and the obstacles had mounted.
First had come panning for gold, to meet the Earth challenge. Then had come a trek across the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes to the lava cliffs of Mount Katmai for the Fire challenge. Then they had had to raise a Thunderbird totem for the Air Challenge. And they had been in third place when they had gotten to the shores of a sound. Drawn up on the pebbly shingle had been a series of two-person sea kayaks, neatly lined up under the boom cameras, ready for the Water challenge. There were also a line of power boats for the video teams to accompany each kayak, and these had been discretely just out of view of the cameras.
As they raced up, the first team was being dried off and the second team was being towed back to the shore, and it was easy to see why; the water was choppy, with four foot waves driven by huffing, puffing wind from a big, mean wolf. She had just dropped her pack and sighed over the unexpected break, but Nathan had swung off his pack and jogged down to the nearest kayak.
“You are no thinkin o’ goin out there now, are ya?” she had asked, incredulously.
“Of course. An opportunity to seize the lead.”
“Or be tha first ta drown.”
He had grinned at her and offered her a paddle.
She looked at his grin suspiciously. “Hae ya don this afore, then?”
His grin had broadened. “Do you trust me?”
Acutely conscious of the battery of cameras and their open microphones, she had managed to keep the dismay out of her response. “O’ course.”
So she had been presented with the fastest first kayaking lesson ever, which had ended on the not too reassuring note of, “If we flip over, just take a deep breath, lean as far forward as you can, and I’ll right us.”
Doubt assailing her every stroke, they pushed off the shore and plunged into the surf. Nathan pointed them into the waves and dug into the water with a will, dragging them far from shore very quickly. After a few hundred yards of wild tossing, the waves lessened and the wind seemed to ease. “The first and last two hundred yards are the hardest. Now just get the rhythm.”
So she concentrated on the rhythm he set, digging her paddle in on the left when he dug his in on the right, and trying not to speculate on how deep the water was or how long she might stay afloat in the frigid water if something happened. She glanced up when they were halfway across, feeling wildly elated that they would be nearly done, when something caught her attention. A black shape, like a six foot sail, was coming at them from the right. She stopped paddling. “Nathan, somethin on tha right.”
He had glanced to the right, and then stopped paddling. In a perfectly calm voice she heard him say, “Orca. Male. Big one.” He had shaded his eyes against the setting sun and called over the radio circuit to their video team, circling a hundred meters away, “Howard, I know you are listening, rogue orca approaching. If he upsets the kayak, take Ariana off first, I’ll keep him busy.”
More movement caught her eye, and she had to swallow hard, twice, before she could say, “Nathan, more comin in.” Going up and down on the waves and rocked by the wind, she couldn’t count the shapes, but there had to be at least a dozen. Her legs began to tremble, and she fought the urge to scream for the video team to take them off NOW.
Nathan’s sigh of relief was a shock. “False alarm. It’s just a pod’s alpha male making sure we aren’t a threat. He just wants to look us over.” About twenty meters away the looming dorsal fin, slender, slick and black as coal, smoothly submerged, and Ariana, despite Nathan’s reassuring tone, found that not seeing it was more nerve-wracking than knowing exactly where it was. With hardly a ripple, the orca thrust the front third of its body out of the water less than ten feet away and just hung there, its fist-size, black eye surveying them with an alien intelligence. Nathan had raised his hands and spread his fingers, and she copied him, not sure what good it would do. The whale’s body had to be at least as deep as she was tall, and she was certain that one flick of its tail would snuff their lives like wee candles. “Why are we doin this?”