Sam laughed, a little confused. “Why do you say that?”
“Because, dude. That guy is off his rocker.” Colby pointed in the general direction of the path through which Trey had disappeared back to the house.
“He’s what?” Sam slipped into the water to wade closer to Colby.
“Off his rocker. Means crazy,” Nate explained.
“I know what it means. I just didn’t hear him!” Sam scoffed.
“Sorry. There I go again, using my big boy words,” Nate muttered.
“And it’s annoying. Just because we’re not in college doesn’t mean we’re idiots.” He loved Nate to the death, but the guy needed to stop assuming they were uneducated buffoons all because they didn’t study poetry or literature or whatever the fuck Nate was studying.
“I just… You know what? I’m’a shut up now.” Nate dunked himself in the water and came up for air a moment later. “So, what makes you say we’re going to die, Colby?”
Colby perched himself on the center oasis’s edge. “A moment ago, while you guys were here talking, I decided to try and make conversation. I asked him what it was like living here all alone with Georgia, if he ever got lonely or wanted friends his age.”
“And?” Sam prodded.
“And he showed Colby his sex doll!” Alex blurted loudly enough for anyone within two miles earshot to hear.
“Bro, sshh!” Colby laughed, as they all burst into suppressed snorts of laughter. Once the giggles died down, Colby widened his eyes and stared ahead like a zombie. “And he looked at me with this serious face and said, ‘I.will.always.stay.on.this.island. This.island.is.paradise.’ Like a brainwashed person does in a movie. You guys know what I’m talking about.”
Sam laughed at Colby’s impression. “I think he’s just a little different.”
Colby gawked. “Sam… There’s no way a guy our age like him could be happy living in isolation. A few months maybe. But going on two years?”
“What are you saying?” Alex asked. “That he’s here against his will?”
“Maybe not against his will, but maybe he’s losing touch with who he is. I talked to that guy at that party. I know what he wanted from life.”
“Yesterday, you said you didn’t know who the fuck Trey was,” Nate pointed out, “and that’s why you didn’t want to come here.”
“What I said was that we barely knew him.” Colby felt seen by the omniscient gaze of Nate.
Nate scoffed. “Same thing, Colby. Now you’re saying you know him. Look, even if you did know him inside-out, a man’s allowed to change his mind. Besides, his cousin Donny did say Trey was always kind of a blank slate. He’d act like whoever he was around. You know, not having a personality of your own.”
“That’s what I’m saying, bro,” Colby said. “And now that he’s with this lady, he’s kind of acting like her. Don’t you agree? Maybe the reason he asked us to come visit is because he’s going a little crazy in isolation. If you ask me, I think he needs young people, mainlanders like us. Look how he’s dressed like an old guy.”
Nate ran his hands through his wet hair. “I agree he’s strange, but I think he’s perfectly happy. Trey’s always been an old soul. Some people are like that. I’m betting Georgia makes him feel special, and that’s all there is to it.”
“Just leave the dude alone.” Alex, with his infinite mature wisdom.
Sam nodded. He mostly agreed with Nate and Alex, but listening to Colby, he also agreed there was definitely something odd about Trey, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Maybe that was the investigator in him thinking.
Literally a second later, who should come bounding back into the lagoon area than the boy-boomer himself? He’d changed out of his other outfit and now wore dark blue slacks, a blue and green Hawaiian shirt, and a gleaming gold chunky bracelet on his wrist. With his hair slicked back and his barbershop pedostache, Trey Weiss was serving up serious old-school retro.
“Speaking of, here he comes,” Colby mumbled.
Nate waved at Trey. “What’s up? We love the lagoon. This is great!”
Trey plastered on a smile. “Wonderful to hear. Well, Georgia is ready with the lunch buffet, so now would be a good time to towel off and get dressed. Can I get you boys anything to drink? A beer, some wine, or a cocktail? The cellar is full of fun.”
Wine? A cocktail? Sam bristled.
Colby gave him a knowing look. Okay, boomer, he mouthed.
“Actually, a beer sounds great. Thanks, Trey,” Sam replied. The others asked for beers as well. He was curious to see what kind he’d produce for them. If it was the piss water kind his granddad drank, he’d switch to lemonade or water.
One by one, they scampered out of the pool, reaching for towels, and the second Sam swiped his skin with the beach towel, he felt his shoulders and face tingling with sunburn. Having the lightest skin of them all, he was usually careful to apply maximum sunscreen, but it looked like it’d all washed off in the lagoon.
They headed off to the house, passing by the mermaid statue that was actually Georgia’s nude sixteen-year-old daughter forever depicted in stone. Had his parents ever done that to him, he’d have murdered them, no question about it.
The inside of the house felt cool and refreshing to his burned skin. Sam was dying for that beer. Luckily, what Trey handed him was a Hawaiian brand in a dark, cold bottle, which tasted amazing on his parched tongue after the outside heat. Once his eyes focused to the interior lighting, he caught sight of the spread that awaited them on the kitchen island.
A sign in the center of the table read: Welcome Nate and Friends.
“Hope you’re hungry!” Georgia exclaimed proudly, fixing the positions of the green rolled-up napkins and silverware. She pressed her hot pink manicured hands together at her chest and beamed at her hard work. Even she, Sam now realized, had changed into a different outfit, a sort of shapeless shift in bright colors that reminded him of some meditation guru, especially with the turquoise stones dangling from each ear.
“Holy crap,” Colby murmured.
“I made the sign,” Trey said proudly.
Nate and friends? Okay… Sam wasn’t sure what was more odd, the fact that Trey made a sign to welcome them to lunch or that he suddenly couldn’t remember anybody’s name except for Nate’s after he’d partied with them in L.A.
All over the countertop were small, colorful plates in different intricate designs, each holding something unique and delicious-looking. Foods like Indian spice curry, fruit cakes, hummus platters, sliced watermelon, olives, pita bread chips, butternut squash soup, spinach and feta quiche, and tons of other delights, all marked with little folded notecards specifying what each dish was.
“I didn’t know what allergies you might have,” Georgia explained. “So I wrote everything down, so you wouldn’t have to ask. If you’re still not sure, I’m happy to answer your questions!”
Sam had to admit, she’d really gone out of her way. His friends’ moms back home might’ve served up hot dogs with potato chips or burgers with Cheez-Its, but this display was worthy of a celebrity’s mansion in Kauai.
“Wow, this is amazing. Thank you so much, Missus…uh…” Sam caught his friends all giving him looks like he was about to embarrass himself.
“Georgia,” she finished for him. “Didn’t I already tell you to call me that?” She perched her fist on her hip and pursed her lips before letting out a loud, melodious laugh.
“Right. Thanks, Georgia.” Sam grabbed a beautifully patterned ceramic plate. “You didn’t have to go through all this trouble just for us.”
Sam was also used to paper or plastic plates and disposable paper napkins whenever they had a party, unless it was Christmas or Easter, so for a casual non-event like this, the presentation made him feel special. Maybe that was Georgia’s specialty, he thought, and the reason why Trey seemed so happy here.
“Nonsense. We rarely get visitors. This is a tremendous pleasure for us!” She handed them each a cloth napkin roll. “A long time ago, Clint and I used to host parties all the time. We loved entertaining, but I stopped after a while. Since the flood, of course, no one comes through here anymore.”
They scarfed down the food and beer, as they all stood around the island, not knowing what to eat next because of how good it all looked. Sam wasn’t keen on stuff like the olives or hummus, but a BBQ pork mac-and-cheese was amazing, and so was the Indian curry. His stomach was happier than it’d been all trip.
“See our schedule?” Trey asked Colby, pointing to a copy paper printout taped to the side of the fridge.
“Oh, right.” Colby nodded, widening his eyes at Sam. “The schedule.”
Schedule?
Sam was curious to see what they were looking at and moved to the fridge as well. Clearly, it was about something Trey and Colby had talked about out by the lagoon. The printout displayed a series of numbers and stats so complicated, he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. There was the list of times, that much was clear—8:39 AM – Wake Up; 9:01 AM – Meditate; 9:26 AM – Read Poetry; 9:36 AM – Practice Piano. Was there a piano? Sam glanced around. He hadn’t even seen one.
Who would read poetry and then practice a musical instrument ten minutes later? Why was this even on the fridge? Maybe it was a joke. Cook for Georgia was at 10:35 AM, then at 11:00 AM, it was time to “Prepare Cellar.” What the heck did that even mean? And what were all the numbers next to each, one for every day of the week—7.5, 9, 6.5, 8.8…columns and rows of numbers.
Sam was dying to know but wasn’t about to ask. People were allowed their routines and rituals without outsiders being super nosy. Besides, the schedule ended at 7:11 PM, after which point, the paper folded backwards, hidden from view on purpose, Sam felt.
That was probably for the best. He didn’t want to know what Trey and Georgia did after the sun went down. He thought about the mussed-up sheets in the bedroom again and shuddered to himself.
“Okay, I have to ask,” Colby muttered through a bite out of a mini sandwich. “Why’s this so detailed? Your schedule makes me feel like I do nothing with my life.”
“Right?” Sam chuckled. Even though it wasn’t true. He and Colby did a lot, especially when it came to brainstorming new ideas, watching videos for inspiration, and editing. Editing took up most of the day. But they would never schedule their lives this way, down to the minute. He was surprised Trey and Georgia hadn’t included seconds.
“Everything has to be perfect,” Trey explained with total seriousness, to Sam’s surprise. He had to be kidding.
“Perfect for what?” Colby asked.
It seemed to Sam like Trey was receiving signals from Georgia who listened to him answer Colby’s question silently by the lunch buffet. Trey cracked a smile. “It’s just a game,” he explained, changing his tone. “To see how perfect we can get, how happy we can be toward one another.”
Sam wondered if he’d heard that correctly. They practiced “being happy toward one another?” Whoa.
“We rate ourselves, me and Georgia,” Trey went on. “Yesterday, I got 8.5 as my overall score. Georgia got 10.”
He wasn’t kidding. These people actually scored their daily activities to see who could be more perfect at life? Damn. Colby had been onto something out by the lagoon. There was something unsettling about Trey and Georgia, because who did that in real life? He wondered if this was a side effect of living in isolation. Eventually, you ran out of things to do.
“How did this lunch rate?” Colby asked Trey. “In your opinion.”
“A 10, of course.” Trey smiled, then glanced at Georgia standing by the island, giving her boyfriend a seductive look, batting her eyelashes. She held up her glass of wine as a toast. For a split second, Sam saw the allure despite her age. He saw the sexy woman Trey was into instead of the elegant grandmother serving them all lunch. “Everything she does is perfect,” Trey said.
Sam wanted to vomit.
No, really, he nearly chucked.
He clutched his stomach and bit down on his tongue. His vision had darkened slightly, all of a sudden, as the food and beer hit his stomach a bit too aggressively. Sam had to clench the counter to keep from falling. The kitchen swirled around him, rocking back and forth as though they were on an ocean liner—during a Category 3 storm. No one else noticed him reeling. Everyone kept chatting about the weird schedule game their hosts used for self-amusement.
His blurred vision wavered, trying to regain control.
Could it have been the beer? He’d only had four or five sips. Maybe he’d had an allergic reaction to one of the foods, even though Sam had never had food reactions before. He hadn’t read the ingredient signs before eating, but Sam didn’t think this was caused by a food allergy. More likely he’d gotten too much sun, was experiencing heat exhaustion. The lack of food and water wasn’t helping either.
He couldn’t refocus his vision and stood there, trying to regain balance. Behind Colby and Nate, a shadowy cloud appeared. It hovered in the air, as if looking down at them. But how could a dark cloud be inside a house? This was definitely a weird side effect of being out in the sun too long. Great, he was getting sick on their trip.
“Sam…” It was Colby coming over to him, holding him by the arm and peering into his eyes. “You okay, man? You’re super white. Here, have water.”
Sam took the water and chugged it back until the glass was empty. He appreciated the way Colby wasn’t making a big scene. He definitely didn’t want Georgia or Trey to think he’d gotten sick off their food. When he looked up and refocused, the black cloud in the kitchen was wavering, dissipating, and losing shape.
Definitely tunnel vision from dehydration.
“A toast…” Georgia held up her wine glass and waited as the boys clinked their beers with her drink. “To Nate and friends. May your day be full of fun, and your life be full of light and rewards.”
“Cheers…” Everyone toasted.
Sam drank the last drops of water and blinked a few times more, until the shadowy, swirling mass was gone.