Relax, Mom
On the ferry ride home yesterday, I recalled one of my all-time favorite Nantucket stories. One afternoon when Micah was around seven, we were at the beach when we noticed the two lifeguards stationed near us had stopped their routine activities, which consisted of chatting up bikinied bimbettes and re-applying zinc oxide to their noses. One was pointing frantically while the other looked through his binoculars. After a whispered conference, they blasted the whistle three times, signaling everyone to get out of the water, pronto.
Swimmers hightailed it back and the rest of us left our towels to stand along the beach and gawk. We quickly saw the reason the swimmers had been called in: an ominous dorsal fin shimmying through the water, not twenty-five yards from shore.
People overheard the guards debating what to do next. Apparently, both doubted it was a shark. It was probably just a sunfish. One of the guards volunteered to go out on his board into the water to take a closer look. After Hasselhoffing it down to the water, he launched his board and paddled out toward the fin. He had almost reached it when we saw him suddenly jerk both legs out of the water and assume a kneeling position atop the board.
“I guess it really is a shark,” said a man standing next to us.
The lifeguard stayed there for a minute or two, looking awkward and more than a little terrified, but finally summoned up the courage to hang his head over the edge of the board and look into the water. He shook his head as the fin changed course and headed out to sea.
Swiftly regaining his bravado, he paddled back to shore, where everyone clustered around him.
“It was just a nurse shark,” he announced. “Perfectly harmless.”
The all clear signal was given, but people seemed to be reluctant to re-enter the water- except for Micah, who was already charging into the surf.
“Looks like the sighting didn’t faze your son,” said the guy next to us.
It had definitely freaked me out, though. “Mikey, I want you to stay close to shore,” I called after him.
Micah groaned in exasperation. “Mom, were you even listening? The lifeguard said it was only a Nerf shark.”