Note: I took a little liberty here with naming chapters after songs

Note: I took a little liberty here with naming chapters after songs. “Terrapins” refers to the Maryland Terrapins from the University of Maryland. The title was changed from “Redneck Yacht Club” by Craig Morgan.)

CHAPTER 8: Terrapins Yacht Club

“Wait, you were in their house??” Marc asked incredulously, already thinking about Becca.
“Yeah, it just kinda happened.”
“Dude, so she breaks up with her boyfriend AND she invites you to her room?”
Behrooz shrugged. “Nothing much. She just lent me one of her CDs. But she did want us to go go-kart riding with them tomorrow, I mean, if you’re not doing anything.”
“Hell, yeah. You’re really beating us this summer.”

Behrooz nodded as he poured himself some orange juice from the fridge. “Remember how you used to tell me about not screwing around anymore when you have the right girl. I think this is it, dude.”
Marc thought for a while and finally nodded. “I kinda agree. I think we should both go for it.”
“We? Oh, you and Becca.”
“Sheesh, man, you haven’t noticed that yet, or you’re just too busy staring at cute blonde Casey?”
They both shared a hearty laugh.

The next week and a half passed by rather quickly, and the bond that had formed between Behrooz and Casey only deepened. Neither of them could describe it, but they were drawn to one another. They had a huge thrill racing go-karts on the beach, going to another happy hour, and hitting up a club in Kitty Hawk where both of them danced awkwardly after drinking a bit too much, but all of their friends knew the two shared a certain chemistry with one another. Behrooz remembered asking Michelle, the girl from Wisconsin, for advice as they got paired together in a canoe going into Albemarle Sound to capture sea turtles and place trackers on them.

Michelle told him that when she and Lucas got together, it all just happened naturally. “You know, Robbie, regardless of what guys seem to think, a lot of girls don’t really care about guys trying to act all special, trying to impress us. Lucas certainly didn’t do that,” she said as she rubbed a turtle’s nose while Behrooz placed the tracker on it. Behrooz had to rub the nose as well, since at the University of Maryland it was one of those campus traditions that brought you good luck on exams. On campus, it was actually a turtle statue in front of the main library, but this was the real thing. After all, Maryland’s mascot was the Terrapins (Terps for short), an endangered species native to the state’s coastal regions.

She continued, “You just have to be yourself, act natural. To be honest, Lucas was kinda awkward on our first date, and the first time I met him, but I didn’t mind. Its not so much the image you try to create for yourself as what’s really in your heart. That’s the part that shows through from the very beginning. I can tell Casey’s a really smart girl, and she should know that.”

Behrooz finally found the courage to ask Casey after that week had passed. It took place on the wildlife refuge, where Behrooz and Marc had invited her, Allison, Elyse, and Danielle to visit for one day. After the research was done, they took a powerboat out into the sound and went water skiing and tubing. Michelle, who drove the boat, purposely had Behrooz and Casey pair up on the tubing run, where the two hung on to a large mass of rubber dragged behind the boat. While Casey had always been a beach person, she was actually not so accustomed to water sports, and this time Behrooz was the one trying to assuage her nervousness about the safety. Mr. and Mrs. Shiraz actually had several friends who went with them yearly to a place called Deep Creek Lake in Western Maryland where they rented a lakeside house with a private dock for a couple days and spent all day on a wide assortment of recreational watercraft.

Michelle started them off slow but then at Marc’s urging sped up quickly and made wide turns, purposely thrown Casey and Behrooz off balance so hey skimmed over the water tumbling and splashing, though it was all safe due to their life vests and to Michelle’s careful judgment of the distance between their boat and other vessels in the area. Michelle and Marc shared a playful look as they saw Behrooz take Casey’s hand and help her back up the tube.

The only person whose smiles weren’t completely genuine was Danielle. Now her anger at Behrooz was starting to surface, and it was not so much rage at the past as jealousy at seeing how he was dealing with the weight of what happened in California. He couldn’t imagine Behrooz could be here having the time of his life as if nothing had ever happened. But wasn’t that what she was supposed to be doing too? Wasn’t that what agents like Curtis and Ellie had told her? The part that bothered her most was his obvious interest in Casey. She knew Casey wasn’t in any danger by associating with Behrooz, but for some reason she still felt uneasy. She was glad Behrooz was helping Casey get over her heartbreak so quickly, but also felt he was taking advantage of Casey’s situation to get with her. Well, I’m going to talk to Case soon enough, Danielle told herself.

Yet she felt better as it was her turn on the tube, which she shared with Michelle while Behrooz operated the controls of the boat. This summer had just been such a roller coaster ride of emotions, especially after running into Behrooz again. Her only comfort was that she had become an expert in keeping secrets, and knew how to keep it all inside, though she wasn’t sure how long this all could last.

Behrooz finally asked Casey on their first date after he cut the motor to the boat and just let it float in the middle of the waterway. In a way, he picked this moment could he knew it would be hard for Casey to say no, since she was in such a great mood and they had just had so much fun together. He had begun by saying how the Sea Ranch gave him some coupons for a seafood restaurant on the Nags Head fishing pier, not wanting to call this an official date yet and trying to be more chill.

“So is it a date?” she asked directly.
“No, like I said it’s just a chill thing, you know, before we both gotta get busy tomorrow with research and work.”
“You can be honest,” Casey said. “What time?”

They agreed on 7:30, where Behrooz had already reserved a table for two. While the busboys were cleaning it up, they browsed the bait shop next to the restaurant and Behrooz examined some of the fishing rods, though he had brought their own. They got a table outdoors overlooking the pier and got a perfect view of the purplish-orange evening sky as the lights began to come on the lengthy coast of Nags Head and Kill Devil Hills. It was a very comfortable evening, with the temperature at just 72 degrees.

“You know, I haven’t done this is a long time, so…”
“Nah, don’t worry about it,” replied Casey, “You’re doing just fine.”
The waiter came over and lit the candles set in the middle of the table and they ordered some breadsticks and shrimp poppers as appetizers.
“You’ve got good taste, Robbie,” she said. “This is actually one of my favorite places in town.”
Behrooz’s spirits lifted further. In the back of his mind, he thought about Danielle and how she would be dealing with all this, but pushed those thoughts out of his mind. “So you said you’re here every summer? Wow?”

“Well, this is my second summer working here, but our family had the cottage since I was eight and we spent at least a week here every summer plus the weekends sometimes, so yeah I guess it’s really a part of me. This time my mom was glad she got to rent this place to my friends instead of random people. They got a pretty good deal too.”

Behrooz nodded. “I wish I was that lucky, but I’d say the research program’s a pretty good deal, with the school paying for us.”
She asked him about what the work entailed in the wildlife refuge and he described the exciting boat excursions to isolated islands in the sound, tracking dolphins in the open ocean, running exhibits at the North Carolina Aquarium’s Roanoke Island location in Manteo, and also the less exiting lectures and seminars held in the aquarium and the lab reports he had to write. Besides Maryland, there were students from Wisconsin, Texas, Utah, Nebraska, and Connecticut so Behrooz’s group was the one who already knew the most about being on the water.

He listened intently as she told him about her growing up, including some funny and embarrassing tales she remember from back in the day, while he looked at the sea breeze flicker through her blonde hair illuminated by the beautiful sunset. After all that Behrooz had gone through, every moment like this was a gift. They began eating their delicious Caesar salads as the pina colladas they ordered came too. She smiled at him again as she took a sip, enjoying the sweet taste. Behrooz loved to see her so happy again, the way he had first met her as she sat on that lifeguard stand soaking up the sun.

Casey was a product of ultimate suburbia. She grew up in a four bedroom house with a two car garage set in a self-contained neighborhood, had an older brother who was now attending grad school in New England, a cat named Jake back home, and had spent a lot of time hanging out at the mall with her “bestest friends” throughout high school. Her dad worked as a software developer for a major IT company while her mom was a middle school history teacher. She admitted her life was not the most exciting one but she had no complaints.

Behrooz gave her the version of Robbie Shiraz’s childhood the FBI and CTU had made him memorize, which actually incorporated part of his real self. He told her he was born in Turkey to Iranian parents who had fled their country after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, during which extremists toppled the Iranian monarchy, took hostages at the U.S. Embassy, and instilled oppressive Islamic law on the nation. She was curious about life in Istanbul and felt it was exotic since her only trips outside the U.S. had been to Canada, the Caribbean, and Europe. He told her what he really remembered from Turkey, shopping in the open air markets, buying shish kebabs from roadside vendors, the chaotic traffic of Istanbul, seeing men in turbans and women in veils everywhere, and hearing the call to prayer from the city’s countless mosques, since he lived in a traditional area rather than the version of Turkey seen by foreign visitors. He told her that his parents decided to come to the U.S. because Turkey offered limited opportunities and his father jumped at a job offer from a major hotel corporation headquarter in Maryland.

He told her adjusting to life in the U.S. during his high school years was not easy, but he had since learned to speak English with an American accent and enjoyed the hobbies that other American youths did. Before they knew it, the waiter came back with their entrees, a sautéed swordfish platter with corn and baked potato for Casey and a much greasier platter with fried shrimp, flounder, and scallops for Behrooz. He saw her staring at his obviously less healthy food and said, “I’ve been eating healthy all week, I think I deserve a feast.”

She nodded and smiled. “At least you’re better than Kyle.”
“Don’t worry. One of my friends is a dietetics major and he’s always lecturing me about food. But I do watch it most of the time, plus I work out at the gym every day at school, and hear our days have a lot of physical stuff.” She seemed satisfied with that answer. “Just looking out for you, you know.”

After they finished the entrees, they ate their desserts at the far end of the pier, which they shared with a handful of fishermen. He looked to the north and saw the neon lights of the Sea Ranch Condominium lit up next to the signature sunshine logo of the Days Inn though he couldn’t quite see that stand where all this had started. He really had to do some reflection as he and Casey fixed some bait to their fishing lines and let them drop with small splashes in the water dozens of feet below them on the gently swaying pier. All this had started with a single hello to a complete stranger, and here they were together.

There was some tugging on the line and Behrooz quickly brought it back, and there was a small shark bobbling around on the wooden pier, several other fisherman looking at them. This catch was a bit too small and he told her so, though they were going to release the fish anyway since unlike some of the other anglers here, they were just doing this for fun.

“So much for a shark-free beach, eh?” Behrooz said in a mock accusing tone.
“Yeah, we’re like 300 feet out vs. 20?” she shot back playfully.

He handed her the shark and she grabbed it, careful not to get her hand anywhere near its mouth, and she tossed it over the railing of the pier watching it splash into the water and swim away. Several minutes later, in near silence with the sun only slightly above the western horizon past the hotels and cottages on the shore, Behrooz and Casey’s hands gently met, then their eyes for a brief couple seconds, before he kissed her gently on the cheek and he did the same. Then with her typically sweetness, she helped Behrooz roll his line back in and they went back toward their car hand-in-hand.