When morning came, Amanda woke to realize that the kitten was still asleep next to her head on what served as a pillow. It felt warm and dry now, and seemed content. Without moving, she looked at the kitten only a couple of inches away. She didn’t want a boat cat; it seemed like it had the potential to be a real pain in the neck. But she realized that she had one now, whether she wanted it or not – and remembering her thoughts from the night before, she realized she needed one.

“Well, good morning little cat,” she said softly. “I guess it’s going to be you and me, now.” The kitten started purring in agreement. If there had been any remaining question in Amanda’s mind, it was settled with that.

Amanda lay there for a few more minutes, just looking at the kitten and listening to it purr. This was going to complicate things. She was well aware of what it would take to care for a cat – there had been an ongoing series of cats in the Lewis family from well before she was born. She was going to need cat food, kitty litter, and other such things, none of which were impossible to get, but would be needed pretty soon.

And the kitten needed a name; it was hard to just call it “little kitten” or something like that, and she needed to be getting it used to having a name. But what to call her? Right for the moment, considering that they were on Rag Doll, the idea of “Rags” or maybe “Dolly,” sounded like a possibility, although as far as she was concerned, “Rags” was a dog’s name and “Dolly” sounded a little silly as a name for a cat. Besides, either one could be confusing, considering the name of the boat. But she was a little doll of a cat, there was no doubt about that, and would fill the kind of duty her dolls had done when she’d been a little girl. She remembered one of her favorite dolls from many years before; she’d named it “Beffy.” That sounded like it might work; she could change her mind so long as she did it fairly soon.

“Beffy,” she said softly, “I’ll bet you’d just love to lay there and purr, but I’ve got to get up and use the bucket. Then I’ll see what I can do about getting you a little more cat food.”

It finally took picking Beffy up and setting her to one side so Amanda could throw back the covers and get up. It was only a couple steps over to the bucket, so she pulled down her panties and relieved herself. She quickly realized that it seemed cool outside the sleeping bag, so she pulled on a bra, then the sweats she’d been wearing the night before. That felt much better.

Remembering her promise to Beffy, she got in the cooler and dug out the partly emptied can of tuna from the night before. It still wasn’t a good idea to overfeed her, so she spooned out a dollop of it, maybe a little larger than the night before, but not a lot larger. It didn’t take Beffy long to hop up on the counter and stick her little nose in the cat food dish.

As Amanda watched the kitten eat, her mind was working. At least for the time being Beffy was going to have to stay in the cabin when she wasn’t around – maybe until the gators that seemed to infest this place holed up for their winter’s nap. But that meant that some preparation would have to be done, and she didn’t want to leave Beffy alone for too long. Might as well do it, she thought. It’s going to have to get done before I can do anything useful.

While Beffy had her attention on the cat food dish, Amanda slid back the hatch and looked out. It looked like it was going to be another nice day at first glance, but her mind was not on that; she took a careful look around the deck to make sure there weren’t any gators hanging around looking for a morning snack. After last night, she realized she was going to have to be damn careful about that. She didn’t know if the lizards came up onto boats, but right now she wasn’t going to bet against it.

But at least there were no gators on the deck, nor any in the water nearby, and none laying up on the pier or in the parking lot, either, she noticed with some relief. Goddamn things, she thought. They could really get to be a pain in the ass.

Might as well get this over with, she thought. She looked around again, seeing nothing in particular happening around the boat yard; maybe it was still a little early. She grabbed her car keys and wallet, opened the companionway hatch and went out into the cockpit, closing the hatch behind her. “I’ll be back real soon,” she said to her tiny compatriot. “You be a good little cat.” She closed the top hatch, stepped off the boat, and walked over to her car.

In a couple minutes she was out on the main road. It was tempting to go into Earlene’s for breakfast again, but didn’t feel like she wanted to take the time this morning. She drove a couple miles to where she knew there was a Winn-Dixie, went inside, and hunted up the pet supplies. She wound up buying a bag of dry kitten food, some canned food to make sure the little cat had a well-rounded diet, and a big bag of cat litter. She also bought some small plastic storage bowls, and a cheap cake pan that seemed like it would work well for a litter box. It seemed like it would hold her for today. She came across a collection of paperback books near the checkout line and grabbed a couple of cheap mysteries more or less at random. That might help things out in the evenings, she thought.

Back in the Chevy, she started to head back to the boat yard but realized she was hungry, too. Again the thought of a stop at Earlene’s crossed her mind, but she didn’t want to take the time. There was a fast food drive through not far away, so she settled for a breakfast sandwich and a large foam cup of coffee. It would do, although she knew she’d really rather have a decent breakfast. After that she headed back to the boat yard where, with a little bit of relief, she found Beffy curled up and sleeping in the nest of rags she’d made for the kitten the night before. Apparently she hadn’t gotten into anything.

It was only the work of a few minutes to set up the litter box, and to set out a bowl of water and a little dry food for the little cat; the bustle woke her up, and Amanda took the opportunity to show her the litter box. She got the idea immediately, and used it right away. “That’s it, Beffy,” Amanda told her. “You’re going to be a good little cat.”

While it was tempting to sit and play with Beffy for a while, Amanda knew she needed to be doing something, too. It was a nice day outside, so that seemed to call for doing something on deck – she couldn’t expect every day to be nice enough to work outside. In a few minutes she had a screwdriver and sanding block, working on removing some seemingly useless fittings in the vicinity of the cockpit, leaving the companionway hatch open. After a while she noticed that Beffy had stuck her head out to see what was going on, but for the moment it didn’t seem like she was interested in going on deck, not that Amanda could blame her for that. But after a while, she got a little more adventuresome, and got down into the cockpit to come over for some petting.

Amanda obliged her – she knew it was important to establish a relationship with a young cat early on, and besides, it was nice to pet Beffy and listen to her purr. “You know, Beffy,” she grinned, “you’re slowing down production, but I don’t think I mind a bit.”

It was about that time Cordy came by and noticed Amanda petting and playing with Beffy. “I see you’ve got a new addition to your crew,” she smiled.

“Yeah, I guess,” Amanda told her. “We had quite a little adventure last night.” Amanda went on to tell Cordy of rescuing the kitten from the alligator.

“I guess that’s part of the reason we don’t see many stray animals around here,” Cordy said, grinning at the sight of Amanda and the cat. “I haven’t seen that little cuss around, at least.”

“She’s going to be staying in the cabin, unless I’m out on deck. That whole thing scared the hell out of me. I was afraid he was going to get up on the boat, so I kept things battened down pretty tight all night.”

“Probably not a bad idea. They’re most active at night. You’ve got a very lucky little cat in your hands. But like I told you yesterday, in a month or six weeks we won’t have to put up with the gators for a while.”

“Thank God for that,” Amanda sighed. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to get used to them.”

“Oh, there are probably things up in your neck of the woods I’d have trouble getting used to,” Cordy said, stepping up on deck, mostly to give Beffy a little petting. “It’d be nice to have a cat,” she added. “We’ve never had one. Ma just doesn’t like them.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure Beffy won’t mind if you come over to give her a little petting once in a while. It got a little lonely last night before I rescued her.”

“I’ll bet. So how’s it going today?”

“Really, just messing around, since I wanted to keep an eye on Beffy and get her used to me,” Amanda replied. “But it’s all stuff that has to get done sooner or later.”

“Maybe I’d better get over and get started painting,” Cordy sighed. “That’s going to be a pain in the ass but at least it’ll be good to have it done. Maybe that will let you get back to work, too. I’ll stop by and see you and Beffy again.”

Amanda made good progress on the cockpit the rest of the morning. There were some wood fittings that needed to be removed, sanded down, and varnished, but that was something that could be done more or less inside on a less than nice day. Unfortunately, as she worked she found several more items that had to be added to her list, fortunately, none of them major, but all needing to be done.

Beffy was busy too, mostly batting rusted out screws around on the cockpit floor. After a while she got tired of that, came over to Amanda and rubbed up against her to ask for some more petting, and of course Amanda was glad to oblige. After a bit more chasing rusted screws around, Beffy found a quiet spot in the corner of the cockpit, curled up, and went to sleep.

It might be a little bit of a pain in the neck to have the kitten around, she realized, but it sure made things a lot more fun and less lonely.

Sometime after midday, Amanda took Beffy down into the cabin, served her up some more cat food, and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for herself, which she ate along with drinking a can of pop from the cooler. After eating, Amanda added to the work list and played with Beffy for a bit before she went back outside and got back to it.

The afternoon went much the same way as the morning had, with fairly serious work around the cockpit interspersed with petting and playing with Beffy. By now Amanda had begun to see that Beffy was going to be a real help with this project – or at least keep it from being quite so damn dismal, which amounted to the same thing. The two of them finally had dinner together – cat food for Beffy, of course, and canned stew for Amanda. After washing up in the evening, Amanda lay half-upright on her sleeping bag in clean sweats, getting through a few chapters of a mystery while Beffy lay on her lap. Eventually, she pulled off the sweats and got into her sleeping bag, with her little kitten curled up on what passed for a pillow, purring as Amanda petted her lightly until both of them fell asleep.

Amanda found Beffy asleep on her pillow while it was still early the next morning. She could get used to that, she thought; in little more than a day the kitten had changed a lot of her attitude about the chore she faced in working on the Rag Doll.

As she was getting dressed, Amanda thought it would be all right to leave Beffy alone in the cabin for a while. It would be nice to have a decent breakfast, and there were a couple other things she needed to do. So, once she’d fed the cat and rolled up her sleeping bag, she checked for alligators, found with relief that none were around, then went outside and closed the hatches tightly.

It was just a short drive over to Earlene’s Kitchen. The place was busy inside, but Roseanna was waiting tables and Earlene was busy in the back, so presumably things were back to normal. There were only a few empty seats, but Amanda noticed Cordy sitting at the counter with an empty seat beside her, so went over to join her. “So,” Cordy said as she sat down, “how are you and your little cat getting along today?”

“Beffy seemed happy with her cat food,” Amanda reported. “But I really need my coffee. How are you doing?”

“Oh, I’m getting along,” Cordy smiled. “Pa has got some engine work to do on that boat I’ve been working on, so I guess I’ll be helping him. Engine work is as messy as anything else, but I guess I’ve gotten used to it. This shouldn’t be too bad.”

They talked about boat repairs while Roseanna brought coffee and took their orders. “Let me give you a piece of advice,” Cordy told her. “Don’t wrap yourself up in that boat all the time or you’ll get so sick of it you won’t believe it. Take some time off now and then, do something else, or just do nothing.”

“That’s one thing Beffy has been teaching me,” Amanda smiled. “She really made yesterday go a lot quicker.”

While Amanda and Cordy ate their breakfasts and mostly talked about boats, Amanda was thinking about Beffy. She wasn’t real happy about the little cat playing with tiny things like rusted screws, so decided to take a swing by the supermarket up the road to get some cat toys for her little friend. There were a couple other things she needed from a hardware store, so she was a while getting back to the boat and getting to work. When she opened the hatch, she found Beffy curled up and sleeping in her nest in the pile of rags; even Amanda’s getting set to go to work on the boat didn’t seem to bother her much.

Deck fittings seemed to be the problem of the day. The winches near the cockpit seemed to be fairly new and in good shape – she, Ron, and the guys had found that out when they’d used them to roll the Rag Doll a little sideways to work on what they could reach of the crud on the hull. It was clear that the winches needed a good disassembly, cleaning, and lubing, but once she had them loose that was a job that could wait for a rainy day.

The deck fittings seemed to be another story. Most of them were going to have to come off to be able to work on the soft decks. Some of them seemed pretty useless to her, and most of them were so much junk, anyway. She could see that many would have to be replaced and good ones were not cheap. That was a problem that would have to be solved, and maybe even not this winter. In any case, the old ones were going to have to come up.

The problem was that they were all through-bolted in the deck, with a backing plate underneath. There were only a few where Amanda could reach only the tops or the bottoms. This was one of any number of problems where it would be nice to have an extra set of hands. Maybe Cordy could help her with that sometime, or maybe Ron or his friends could help. The alternative was to just take an electric drill and drill out the bolt heads, but that was going to be really time-consuming; maybe, she thought, she ought to save that alternative for when something was too rusted up to unscrew normally.

It all had to be done, and there was nothing much she could do but get started at it. The first half-dozen or so weren’t too bad since she could reach them, but she soon ran out of places where that would work. She was trying to make up her mind about putting off doing more until she had help or starting in with the drill when she heard a familiar voice. “So how’s the project going today?”

She looked up and saw Zack standing on the dock, one of Ron’s friends who had helped her on Sunday. “Just one thing after another,” she replied. “I didn’t expect to see you here today.”

“I had a day off,” he told her. “I’m on harbor patrol. That’s seven days a week, not five like Ron and Shades get to have. That means my days off switch around a lot. I did some odds and ends I needed to do, and when I ran out of them I decided to come over and see what you were up to.”

“Well, I’m glad you thought of me,” she replied. “I was just getting to a point where I could really use an extra set of hands.”

“Might as well,” he grinned. “It’s not like I have anything better to do today. What do you have to do?”

Amanda spent a couple of minutes explaining the problem. “I don’t know whether it’s better to be inside or outside,” she told him, “But I guess that means we could switch off.”

Just about that time Beffy hopped out of the hatch and into Amanda’s lap. “Well, what’s this?” Zack smiled. “It looks like you’ve found a friend.”

“I have,” Amanda smiled, and told Zack the story about saving Beffy from the alligator. “She’s really being a good little kitty, so I’m real glad I did it.”

“Hey, Beffy,” Zack smiled, and reached out to scratch her between the ears. “You do look like a cute little cat.” Beffy responded with a loud purr. Zack glanced at Amanda and asked, “Do you mind? I’ve always liked cats, and it’s been a while since I’ve had one around.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet that’s something you don’t find in the Coast Guard,” she replied, picking the kitten up and handing her to Zack, who took her in the crook of his arm and began to pet her gently. The purring they heard increased, if anything. It was obvious that Zack knew what he was doing around a kitten.

“It sounds like she likes you,” Amanda grinned.

“Oh, yes,” Zack replied softly. “You really are a cute little cat, aren’t you? I had a little tiger that looked a lot like you a long time ago. Yeah, you are really a cute little thing.”

As Amanda watched Zack pet Beffy, she thought back to how little she knew of the guy. After all, he’d been around several hours on Sunday, but there had been a lot going on and he had been the quiet one. It was obvious that nothing important was going to get done for the next few minutes – as if playing with Beffy wasn’t important, that is – so she decided to see if she could find out a little more about the guy. “So,” she said, “I take it you’re liking the Coast Guard.”

“It’s all right,” he told her. “I haven’t made up my mind whether I’m going to stay in, or what. I may do it if I can’t find anything else to do I like better. I’ve still got a year and a half to think about it.”

“What made you join the Coast Guard, anyway?”

“You’re going to laugh at me,” he smiled as he continued to play with Beffy. “I know from Ron that you two grew up in a real small town, right? You know how a lot of kids are counting the days until they can get as far away from there as they can?”

“Yeah, I had classmates like that, and when you get down to it Ron was like that, too. But if you know Ron at all you know about our family business, and I decided years ago I want to stay with it if I can.”

“Ron told me that,” he nodded. “Well, I’m from in the country near Clinton City, Kansas, which is pretty well out in the middle of nowhere and not real big to begin with. I didn’t really have any major plans about what I wanted to do, but a few miles out of town there’s a marker for the geographic center of the contiguous United States. Well, one day I got to thinking about it and realized that meant that any seacoast is going to be pretty far away. I figured the Coast Guard wasn’t very likely to send me anywhere near there, and somewhere around Houston might be as close as they could get. So here I am.”

“Actually, when you stop and think about it, your thinking is logical as far as it goes,” she grinned. “Without looking at a map, there’s some Coast Guard stations on Lake Michigan that might be a little closer, but it sounds like a pretty good reason to me.”

“I’ve learned since that I don’t want to examine it too closely or my logic falls apart. But it worked for me at the time, and there are worse places to be and worse things to be doing.”

“I take it you’re not real anxious to head back to Clinton City.”

“Not in the slightest. Oh, I might be willing to drive through there sometime in ten or twenty years just to see how things have changed, but that’s about all. I don’t have anything to go back there for. My mom is dead, and my dad moved on not long afterward. I’m not even real sure where he is, now. I’ve got a sister in Denver, but I don’t hear from her very often.”

“That’s a little sad,” she said. “I mean, Ron and I come from a very close family who’s always worked together a lot. Having him down here means that it’s sort of like we’re missing a wheel.”

“It’d be nice to have something like that, but that’s not how it is for me and I’ve come to accept it. I guess maybe sometimes I’m just as glad. I get from Ron that you’re planning on staying with the family business.”

“More or less, assuming zebra mussels or Asian carp or some damn thing doesn’t screw up the fishing on the lakes,” she said. “It could happen, at least if you listen to all the scare stories going around. If that happens, I don’t know what I’m going to do. If I have to give up the fishing, there’s still the Channel Stop to run since there will be boaters whether there’s game fishing or not. I guess I’ll just have to see what happens on that. Until then, I want to spend at least a few winters where it’s warm.”

“I can understand that,” he smiled, handing Beffy back to her. “It’s darn sure a lot warmer here than it is in Kansas. I suppose we’d better get to work.”

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