It's BIKINI Day! #5 Marley Gibson

Huge congrats to Linda for her new release DEATH IN A BIKINI! I have it ordered from Amazon.com and can't wait for the mail room guys to deliver the package to me. What a fun book!

There's nothing more fun that going to the beach...right? We've all had beach adventures that helped form a part of our lives. I know when I was in high school, everyone went to Panama City Beach, Florida for Spring Break. If you were a lowly freshman or sophomore, you usually had to have a parent, older sibling, or guadian as a chaperone. But back in those days, if you were a junior or senior, you were usually allowed off by yourselves for your beach adventure.

Such was the case my senior year. My friends Maree, Scarlett, Chris, and I loaded up in my mother's 1982 Pontiac Grand Prix and headed for Panama City...a short three-hour drive from where we were in South Alabama. Of course, all the cute boys we had our eyes on were going to be at the beach. Not just the guys from our high school, but the guys from the other two high schools in town. Jackpot! We could lay out on beach towels, drenched in Tropical Blend suntan lotion (no sunscreens back then...don't you dare do that now!) and wear sunglasses so none of the cute guys could see us checking them out while they played volleyball.

My adventure was one that memories are made of. You see, for the longest time, I had a major crush on a younger guy at the other high school. We'll call him John Doe. (What? You think I'll admit his real name? LOL!!) John was a doll and only two years younger than me. I did everything I could to get his attention, but alas, he only thought of me as a friend. The dreaded friend catagory.

Well, one day during Spring Break, John's playing volleyball (and providing me with ample eye candy) and the ball comes over and lands on my towel. I play coy and won't give it back to him. I know...how bold of me, eh? Soon, he gave up the game and asked if I wanted to go swimming. He wanted to race (are you kidding me?) out to the sandbar. Okay...anything to get attention from John and spend time with him. We raced out to the sandbar (I stayed pretty even with him, despite the fact that my hairdo was now ruined) and hung out in the shallow water of the sandbar. He was all doing the splashy-splashy thing and I was doing it back in a most girlish teasing way. It was heaven under the sun in the big blue ocean.

Lo and behold, not twenty feet away from us, we see a menacing fin. Holy crap! We were really far out and this was Not Good. John told me not to panic, although panic definitely painted his voice. "Just stand still," he said. Are you freaking kidding me? With a possibly shark nearby? This was when I took the opportunity to launch myself onto him. Literally jumped on his back and wrapped my arms and legs around him. What? I was scared out of my wits! He held onto me, sort of putting himself between me and the fins that were getting closer.

This was it. I was a month shy of graduating from high school, I finally had the attention of my crush (although not exactly as I'd planned it), and we were about to be an afternoon snack for Jaws and his two friends.

I could feel John shake as I was draped on him like a cheap suit in the water. We clung to each other trying to figure out what in the world to do. A secret, insane part of me never wanted to leave that sandbar...but, hello...gray fins at eight o'clock!

That's when John turned to me. "You're a really fast swimmer. We could make a run for it."

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah." His blue eyes were so confident and hypnotizing that I would have swam TOWARDS the sharks if John had asked me to.

"Okay."

"You sort of have to get off me, though," he said with a laugh.

I did, but he held on to my hand. I could tell the brave little toaster wasn't as couragous on the inside.

He looked at the fins. He looked at me. "On the count of three...we swim like hell."

"Okay," I said, trying to steady my heartbeat.

"One. Two. Three."

John dropped my hand and took off like a scalded dog. I followed immediately, not turning back to see if our sudden splashing had caught the attention of the sharks. I swam like Satan himself was chasing me...to the point where I passed John and nearly left him in the dust. But we'd made it back to the shore, each of us crawling on our hands and knees into the sand, coughing and gasping for breath. He crawled over to me, pulled me into an embrace as we both collapsed to the sand. "We're safe."

Oh boy...was I.

Then I heard my friends run up, interrupting my delicious moment following a near-death experience with the boy of my dreams.

"Did y'all see them?" my friend asked.

John let me go and moved away. "Yeah...there were sharks out there."

"No," my friend said. "They're dolphins! A whole school of them. They're so cute."

John and I turned to each other and laughed our butts off. Yeah...we'd just run from Flipper. Ah well...

Needless to say, that was the extent of our beach adventure, but all these years later, I still remember it like it was yesterday. Now, I'm much more relaxed at the beach. I'd much rather curl up on the towel, far from the sharks...or dolphins...and sit next to my wonderful hubby while I read a great book...like Linda's DEATH BY BIKINI!

Congrats again on the release, Linda! I wish you all the best with the book!

Hugs,

Marley = )

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