The Cast of Castaway Cove - The Lewis Family

Heath and Alex Lewis' relatives met on the Silver Bird. Heath's grandfather Elroy Lionel Lewis was part of a dozen group of slaves that had escaped the cruelty of their slavers. Included in that group were the relatives of Jarrad Colston. They were on the ocean for several months in a small dingy, starving and sick but thankful to be free. When the hurricane hit, their small boat was caught on the edge of the storm. It couldn't take the battering and capsized. Lewis and Colston were thought to be the only survivors as they both managed to find most of the hull of their dingy. Both men took turns of resting on the wooden make-shift raft and hung on to eachother at other times to keep the bitter cold at bay, preventing hypothermia, which would surely have set in if they hadn't shared their warmth. The Silver Bird found them floating a few weeks later nearly dead and nursed them back to health. Captain Burrow made them part of the crew and they ended up settling in Castaway Cove.





Fortunately there were other stragglers found in the sea on their way to Castaway Cove and as if fate had stepped in, they were mainly women. Amongst them were the relatives of Alex Colston and Kaneisha Lewis. Their great grandmothers and a few other families were found. The Lewis' and Colston families stayed close all their lives and had several children each. This is where Alex and Heath met as did Kaneisha and Jarrad Colston. They all grew up together and as they got older the friendship blossomed into love. The fact that their relatives spent so much time together they got to know eachother well. The history of their grandparent's survival added to the respect and love they felt for eachother.





When they decided to marry, they had been given the homes of their relatives, so had very little money worries. From the inheritance, Heath and Alex re-decorated and updated a lot of the furniture and once that was done, decided they needed to both get jobs to maintain their family homes for future generations just as their parents and their parents parents did before them.





Recently several new buildings had been built in Castaway Cove. Included were several upgrades of some very necessary community lots such as the fire station, a beauty salon, a consignment centre, and a dump finally had to be included, much to the disapproval of the residents of Castaway Cove. At least the disposal of the junk was a clean and pollution-free re-cycling process. The population had increased three-fold and all these new complexes needed to be upgraded or built to cater for the growing population. Not only had more families of the original Castaway Cove residents multipied, but the Cove was fast becoming a popular place to live for outsiders as well.  Both Alex and Heath were determined to do well in their chosen profession. Once they had searched the internet and the papers and visited several places, day and night, they decided to get into the latest positions that opened up once the new buildings were completed.





From their great grandparents, they had inherited strong and competitive personalities. They were determined to get to the highest level in what ever profession they chose. Heath decided to become a firefighter, which would quench his thirst to help those that were less fortunate than himself.





Alex, on the other hand, had a burning passion to make anyone who had the slightest doubt about their self-esteem or worth,  feel better about themselves, so she became a stylist that created new looks for people and designed fashion to suit each individual.





To begin with Alex struggled. The drawings were fine and the ideas were great, but there were a lot of self-important people out there that no matter what Alex came up with were dissatisfied with what she created for them.





The first job Heath got he was so nervous he forgot to even take the fire-engine with him to the fire. Fortunately it was only around the corner and is was a small house fire and the kit which he carried on his back, was enough to dowse the flames.





As time progressed, he began to get used to things. Scarlet O'Hara was the next call out he had and although he remembered the fire engine this time, it was small enough to be contained again by his back kit.





The only thing that really was ruined was one dining room chair. Scarlet was over the moon that he dowsed the fire and although Heath apologised several times, she was not concerned, she said she had spares and was well insured, so could refurbish one chair easily.

Orders were placed for Alex at the new fashion and tattoo salon. The first time she arrived there she took a step back. The other stylists were...strange to say the least. The tatoo artist not only had tatoo's all over his body he wore a top hat which looked like something out of Alice in Wonderland's Mad Hatters' Tea Party and the hat was also covered in tatoo drawings. The other stylist was Flash Tully. He had a normal job in business for awhile and did well. He soon became bored of it, however and felt totally suffocated in business suits and office desks. So he re-styled his hair into its original mohawk state and got out of the business to become a stylist. The younger trend-setting customers seemed to relate to him well and he was much happier.





As creative as Alex was, the first few makeovers were a complete flop. She tried to stay safe and offer similar clothing to what they were wearing, but  somewhat updated. She soon discovered that this was not what customers wanted, they wanted something completely different. As was the case with Glenda Elrod and she made her disappointment clear.





The next few customers were no different. Mind you one was Alice McGill who refused to come to the salon so Alex had to make a house call. Alice was always complaining about something and she was as grumpy as ever. She went to the extent of storming off into her bedroom and putting her military uniform on, then proceeded to throw the clothes she had brought over for her to try, on the ground in front of her. The other was Pablo Sanchez. Pablo was a bit paranoid about his aging face and hair, because his body was in very good shape and he kept it that way. So he wanted a complete makeover changing his hair style and colour, as well as his athletic gear. He was not happy either, because Alex suggested he try a Gi, a martial artists uniform, which according to him covered up his fine body far too much and because he didn't like that he was unhappy with the whole makeover.





This continued for months, and Alex was becoming despondent and began doubting her choice of profession. Particularly when Heath was rising up the ranks of a firefighter very quickly. He would never compare his job to hers and was always supportive and continued to encourage Alex all the way.





As time went on, Alex had to open her mind even further and take a few more risks. After a lot of researching from dawn to dusk, she began to grasp the trends and fads of what customers wanted. Mixing and matching formal with casual, realising that some people liked to use their athletic clothing as a fashion statement for everyday use. Her whole outlook changed and so did her ideas.





Instead of doing makeovers that reflected the individual's personalities she reluctantly began designing and making trendy gear and doing popular in-vogue makeovers with most of her customers. She was not happy with the situation, she felt for some customers the 'trendy' look just did not suit them, but Alex had to change her thinking and soon after began to be more successful.








On Heath and Alex's days off, they both still worked on skilling up even further. Alex continued to research fashion design, Heath worked on his fitness and maintaining a skill level, which would be more demanding on him physically.





It was just as well they did, because the fires Heath was dealing with now, were bigger and more dangerous, protective masks and gear were called for. His back pack kit just wasn't enough to contain the fierceness of the fires he came across.





As for Alex calls were coming fast and frequently and she had become independent of the salon and was going around on demand to anyone that wanted a makeover done and having to carry all her own gear to and from work. Several months down the track she was getting repeat work from older customers and word of mouth had spread that she was the person to contact.





Not only did Heath need to be on call almost 24-7 now, he also needed to maintain the fire engine and the alarms back at the station. Soon he became the Fire Chief and was running the whole station and did this in only in a few years. Starting a family became important to him now and Alex and he sat down together to discuss the situation. Alex agreed, she was in her early thirties and felt it was about time to begin a family too. She was not right to the top of her profession as yet but she couldn't wait until that happened as she was concerned with her age.

Since Heath had become Fire Chief, he was able to purchase another fire engine, which he was allowed to take home. There were more junior offices in the Fire Department who had to take over maintaining the fire engines and the alarms. Heath wanted to be home if Alex became pregnant and so he was granted the status to respond to emergencies from home where an alarm was directly hooked into the station on the outside of his home. So he was able to relax at home between jobs and still be there for Alex.





They had more time together and...of course more time to try for a baby. This part pleased Heath even more. 





Heath spent a couple of months showing the junior fire personnel how to maintain the fire engine and alarms, taught them how they were to respond in an emergency, how important it was to become familiar with the other fire-fighters pointing out how comradery in this profession was very important and trained up another senior person in leading the way.





He had the new recruits shadow him on a couple of jobs, one of which was another call out by Violet O'Hara, who apparently was not a very competent cook and was becoming a regular client.





After Heath had fulfilled his duties at the fire station, although he was called out almost every day, he was enjoying his time with Alex. One night when Heath was still fast asleep and after another love-filled night, she had the strangest feeling inside her.





She was sure they had been successful with getting pregnant and let out a shrill shriek of excitement. Heath didn't even stir, being a very heavy sleeper and she giggled to herself and couldn't wait to do a home pregnancy test to be sure.





When she did the home test, it showed positive, so she mentioned it over one breakfast. Heath was so stunned he couldn't say anything much, but later became very excited and picked up Alex swinging her around.



A few weeks later it was suspected that she was pregnant. Heath was watching Alex draughting another design she was working on. Halfway through she had to stop and run to the bathroom to throw up in the basin.




After a visit to the doctor it was confirmed that she was indeed pregnant and close to six weeks gone. She thought to herself...
Perhaps I'll be a better mother than a stylist...




to be continued...