“Don’t set up there, Tiffany! The kids will fall over the cliff!”
“But think of the pictures! Gorgeous views!”
“We’ll go in back. There’s picnic tables there, too!”
Without asking me or Thor, they decide on the spot where Thor was trimming trees for their event. There’s a lot of hair extensions going on, in addition to the yoga pants. So far, I’ve counted four Tiffanys and three Brittanys and the rest of the yoga pant, and hair extension women have gender neutral names like Devyn, Jordyn, Terri, and Bud. They’re buzzing around like bees with bags of tulle and rolls of crepe paper and a pile of Congratulations! banners.
“Hello, I’m Beryl,” I say, putting my hand out as a Brittany walks by. Before I can shake her hand, I’m pulled roughly from the collar of my shirt, and I fall backward into Thor’s hands. He turns me around and grips my shoulders, leaning down so that our faces are nearly touching.
“What did you do?” he demands.
“Nothing. How dare you?” I say, swatting Thor’s hands off of me. Bud approaches and hands me the flyer I made today at Kinkos and a check for three-hundred-dollars. “Thank you!” I exclaim, giving her an impetuous kiss on her flawless cheek, which is coated with a half-inch thick layer of natural minerals foundation that I would kill to own. I wave the check at Thor in triumph. Three hundred dollars. Wow. I think about all the things I can buy with it. I wonder how much a Fiat costs. Or new flip-flops.
“What is that? What is this? What’s happening?” Thor demands, like the world has tipped on its axis, and he can’t hold on.
“Don’t worry. I’ll give you your share. How about ten percent?” I fold the check and put it under my bra strap, just like I’m a star in a movie from the 1930s. Bud follows the other women, who are carrying folding chairs to the now infamous bed warmer area. “It’s a good thing you trimmed those trees, right?” I say to Thor and head in their direction.
He runs after me. “What’s going on? What did you do? What’s the check about? What are they doing?”
“I’m making this place make money now. If we can’t use the house, we’ll use the grounds. This is the first event.”
“What event?”
“I don’t know,” I say, truthfully. “Maybe something about yoga with folding chairs.”
“Beryl, this wasn’t our agreement.”
I keep walking, trying to ignore him as much as possible. “I didn’t agree to anything. I inherited half of this dump, and we need to make it profitable so that you can buy me out. This is step one.”
I sound so professional and smart that I impress myself. Take that, world. Beryl Meyer is a smart businesswoman. We reach up to the group of yoga pants, and I offer to help set up whatever it is that they’re setting up.
One of the Tiffanys hands me a folding chair. “It’s the Summer Island Happy Elementary School Kindergarten graduation ceremony and celebration,” she explains. “The school was flooded this morning when Janice Lessing’s sensory deprivation tank sprang a leak in the auditorium. Luckily, Brittany K. saw your flyer in the window at the Click-Clack Tappers store.”
“Your flyer?” Thor asks.
“A kindergarten graduation,” I say, tapping him on the shoulder. “That’s great for word-of-mouth. We’ll get the wholesome, family vote.”
Thor shakes his head. “We’re not running for city council, Beryl.”
“It’s still good. Three hundred dollars will come in handy, don’t you think? And it’s only the start.”
Thor opens his mouth but nothing comes out. Perhaps my logic is wearing off on him, I think at first, but then I see what he’s staring at. “Who’s that?” I ask, following his gaze. He’s staring at a woman with enough cleavage to hide the entire Led Zeppelin collection on vinyl. Even in her yoga pants and spandex shirt, she’s breathtakingly beautiful. Their eyes meet, and a small smile stretches over her perfect face with her perfectly lined lips. I’m not wearing a stitch of makeup, and my boobs could fit into her bra five times. Okay…six times.
“Thor, so good to see you,” she says, covering the distance between them with her hand outstretched. Thor stares at it for a second, as if he’s expecting to find a snake attached or some kind of weapon. Finally, he shakes her hand. She steps forward, pulling his hand in close to her flat stomach, letting his hand graze the underside of her enormous shelf of ta-tas.
“Hello, Jordyn,” he says. “How are you?”
“I didn’t know you were back from saving the world,” she purrs. “I thought I would get a call when you got back.”
She smiles wide, and her teeth are blindingly white, like they’re painted with neon Elmer’s glue. Thor is smiling, too, but only with one side of his mouth, as if he can’t decide on a facial expression.
“I’ve been busy getting the High Tide up and running. Eleanor left it to me,” he tells her, taking back his hand. His gaze slides toward me for an instant and then back at Jordyn. I decide not to correct him about his inheritance. For some reason, I want Jordyn to think that Thor got the whole enchilada.
She runs a French manicured nail up Thor’s torso, and I notice that she’s wearing a mammoth-sized wedding set on her ring finger. One giant-sized diamond with a bunch of smaller ones. Her rings would probably pay for the inn’s renovation. Thor doesn’t look at it. Instead, he’s looking right at me, and I can read so much in his face…sorrow, fatigue, and an apology.
“Well, then,” I exclaim, clapping my hands together. “Let’s get the show on the road.” I lift Jordyn’s hand off of Thor’s body and wrap her claw around the back of my folding chair. “Here you go. I think Brittany K. wants you.” I stand between her and Thor and shoo her off.
Hey, I was in prison for two years. I can handle one egomaniac stay-at-home mom.
“Fine,” Thor says, once Jordyn’s gone.
“Fine?”
“We can do the events. It might speed things along. You didn’t have a terrible idea.” He says the last sentence like the words are glued to the roof of his mouth and he’s having a lot of trouble getting them out.
“I didn’t have a terrible idea?” I ask and throw my arms around his neck. I give him a wet kiss on his cheek with a loud smacking noise. Thor repays me with a wide smile. “I have some other ideas about the formal dining room. How about…”
“One not terrible idea at a time, Beryl,” he says, interrupting me with a finger on my lips. “First, let’s get the kindergarteners graduated.”
The yoga pants ladies set up the folding chairs and a small stage in record time. I help decorate, while Thor is used for heavy lifting. “Not bad,” Thor says, as we wait for the graduation to begin. We’re standing in the back behind the chairs, watching the High Tide’s first special event. The yoga pants are gone, and in their place are sheath dresses and four inch heels. The women have come back with their children and their husbands. There are about thirty people in all.
The venue is beautiful, decorated with crepe and tulle, banners and streamers. The chairs sit between the trees, which stand tall and lean just enough to give the guests shade. Thor did a good job thinning out the trees. Still, I’m filled with ideas on how to make the area look nicer. The picnic tables should be painted, but I also think it would be great to plant some pretty flowers around the trees, and a playhouse and jungle gym for the kids would be awesome.
The mothers are giving their children a last-minute touchup, making sure all the buttons are buttoned, the dresses smoothed out, and every hair in place. Then, the kindergarten teacher puts on a Simon and Garfunkel medley, and everyone sits down. The teacher makes a speech about how much the children have matured and all of their different accomplishments in gluing, scissoring, and building blocks. There’s something else about reading and writing, but I’m partial to arts and crafts so I’m focused mainly on that part of the speech. Finally, the kids march solemnly across the makeshift stage to retrieve their kindergarten diploma.
It’s a very touching moment, but I’m surprised when Thor slips his hand into mine and gives it a gentle squeeze. Keeping vigilant about my vow against men and relationships is hard, but I must remain strong, no matter how seductive it is to play house with a man who could grace the cover of any good romance novel.
But holding hands doesn’t exactly mean we’re in a relationship. What could it hurt for me just to enjoy this moment? We worked together to put on a successful event at our inn, and that deserves some bonding celebration. So, I keep my hand in Thor’s and step a little closer to him, feeling the warmth waft from his perfect body and smelling the yummy deep musk that he has from an honest day’s work.
As the children walk across the stage, the parents jump out of their seats with their phones and tablets in their hands, ready to record every second of their children’s milestone. Snap, snap, snap go the iPhones as they take pictures. Most of the children get their diploma before there’s a disruption among the audience.
“Get out of my way, moron. I missed the picture of my daughter getting her diploma!” A large man next to one of the Tiffanys shouts at another large man next to another Tiffany. The other large man gets in front of the first large man, chest bumping him.
“Who are you calling moron? You’re the moron who doesn’t know how to use your God damned phone!”
“Language!” the kindergarten teacher calls out from the stage in a Mary Poppins singsong voice.
“Fuck you with your language!” the Tiffany with the second large man shouts back.
The first large man grabs the second large man’s phone and throws it onto the pile of dead branches away from the ceremony. The second Tiffany grabs the first large man’s phone and throws it, knocking it into another large man’s head.
Now, it’s a free-for-all.
There’s all kinds of large men and all kinds of not large women attacking each other. A band of Tiffanys start ripping out a group of Devyns’ hair extensions.
It’s bedlam. It’s a Kid Rock concert. My mouth is open, and my eyes won’t blink, no matter how much I tell them to. I guess I’m having a physical reaction to the shock and horror of watching upper middle-class parents bitch-slap the shit out of each other. It’s just a matter of time before someone gets killed. At the very least, there’s going to be a lot of bald women by the end of today. I’m sure that this is no big deal to Thor, since he’s a veteran, but when I turn to look at him, his mouth and his eyes are doing the same thing that mine are. His face is wide open, as if it’s trying to take in the scene but is having a hard time.
A tablet goes whizzing by my head and crashes into a tree. Three men are on the ground rolling around and knocking over the folding chairs, like a bizarre game of bowling. “I take back what I said about this not being a terrible idea,” Thor says to me, finally. “This is sooooo terrible.”
My future flashes before my eyes, and it’s filled with doom and gloom. I’m no expert on event planning, but I’m reasonably sure that a riot during my first event won’t promote good word-of-mouth for my fledgling business. I have to do something quick. Somehow, I need to do damage control without getting maimed in the process. I drop Thor’s hand and walk into the fray. “Can’t we all be friends?” I say, waving my hands above my head, like I’m directing a symphony. They ignore me and keep fighting. “I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family,” I begin to sing. This provokes a response but not the one I hope for.
Two Brittanys run for me, like they’re the Patriots defensive line, and I’ve got the ball. One of my attackers is only wearing one high heel shoe and her mini dress is ripped up the front, baring a double pair of Spanxs. The other has obvious hair trauma with one half of her hair extensions pulled out, and her other half still perfectly in place. It’s a lot like a scene out of the Walking Dead, but they move a lot faster, and they’re much angrier.
“Now, now, we’ve just gotten a little overexcited, but with a little cleanup, I think we can make this graduation a big success,” I say, forcing a smile, as the two Brittanys get closer to pummeling me. Just as they’re about to reach me with their toned arms outstretched, I shut my eyes tight and brace for impact, throwing my arms around my midsection to protect my soft bits. This is so much worse than a prison riot. There’s nothing tougher than a stay-at-home mom armed with a Neiman Marcus card.
I’d say a prayer, but I don’t know one about kindergarten graduations gone wrong. So, I focus on my short life and what will probably be a long drawn out death. But either I’m wrong about my death, or my pseudo-prayers are granted, because Thor’s large arm comes out of nowhere, circles my waist, and pulls me away into safety. He half carries me and half drags me away from the crowd, placing me gently behind a faraway tree.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I pat my body and check for damage. “You saved me? They didn’t kill me?”
“It looks like all of your pieces are still there,” he says. “If you’re okay, I’d better put an end to this.”
I look behind the tree at the chaos. The kindergarten teacher has got the children behind the stage, giving them juice boxes and Oreos. Luckily, she worked quickly and removed them from witnessing the melee as soon as it began. As the children happily eat Oreos, the parents are duking it out and dirt is literally flying up from the ground in a cloud, like it’s a Bugs Bunny cartoon. There’s no way anyone can put an end to it until these so-called adults put an end to it themselves.
“Sure. I’m fine. Knock yourself out,” I say.
Thor takes a deep breath and shakes his head. “Crazy ass people,” he mutters under his breath. Slowly, he walks toward three large men who are rolling around on the ground, punching each other. Whereas the men are big in a too-much-pizza kind of way, Thor is big in a holy-wow kind of way. He towers over them, at least a head taller and more muscle mass than of all them put together. Thor taps one on the back and pulls him out of the group, like he’s pulling weeds.
“You’re going to stop now,” he roars, and miracle of miracles, the man seems to calm down. One of other men, however, jumps up and takes a swing at Thor. Thor stops his fist in midair, wrapping it in his hand. He shakes his head slowly, as if the large man is a child, who has been caught coloring with his crayons on the wall behind the curtains.
“You’re going to stop, or you’re going to wish you had stopped,” Thor says, calmly. I shudder, and my skin sprouts goosebumps. His voice cuts right through me, like an attack of pheromones that jumpstart my uterus. But it has a different effect on the crazy parents. It seems to calm them or terrify them. Either way, the fighting dies down, as everyone turns their focus to the scene of Thor facing off with the large man. I can almost hear the large man’s brain ticking away as he tries to choose between common sense and an overactive pituitary gland. The gland wins. With his other hand he takes a swing at Thor, putting his whole body into it.
Thor deftly ducks the punch, and as the man loses his balance, Thor continues to hold his fist, pulling him close and when he’s in range, punches him in the face with a loud crack. A loud groan fills the air, as the spectators shudder in unison, in horror at the blow, which hits the target with a terrible force. I’m sure Thor has broken the large man’s nose, if not cracked his skull wide open. But it has the effect of subduing the man. His hands fly to his bloody nose, and one of the Tiffanys flies to his side.
“I’m going to sue your ass, Thor!” the man shouts from behind his hands, his voice muffled like he has a terrible cold.
“Good luck with that, Richard,” Thor says. Does everyone know everyone on this island? “You forced me to punch you. Damn it. I didn’t want to do that.”
“Really? You did a pretty good impression of wanting to do it,” the man says, pinching his bloody nose.
“You’re lucky I didn’t break your arm,” Thor says, kicking the dirt.
“Yeah, I feel lucky.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I know,” the man says.
“I wanted to break your arm,” Thor says, looking down.
“I do feel lucky. Really. No hard feelings, Thor,” he says, putting his hand out. Thor shakes it hard.
“No more bad behavior. There’s kids here.”
“No more bad behavior,” the man agrees. “Let’s get this show on the road,” he announces through his pinched nose. With real blood drawn, the adults seem to realize what they’ve done, like Bruce Banner waking up after a particularly bad stint as the Hulk. Women search for lost shoes and hair, and men tuck their shirts into their pants. At least a half dozen phones have made it into Thor’s pile of dead branches, and a couple of men work to fish them out.
“I’m sure they’re insured,” I say with a big smile planted on my face, as they fish them out, their phones’ screens cracked beyond repair. Thor might not be worried about a lawsuit, but I’m sweating bullets. I can’t pay for a bunch of broken phones or a broken nose.
But there isn’t another word about the lawsuit. The parents quickly right the chairs, and when the coast is clear, the wise kindergarten teacher brings out the kids again, who seem oblivious that their parents have acted less mature then five-year olds. Thor and I open the house to let people wash up and recover from the graduation.
Inside, the house erupts in blaring noise as the toilet flushes over and over and the faucet is turned on and off by the throngs of guests. I grab hold of Thor and pull him into a corner.
“What are we going to do?” I ask, clutching fistfuls of his shirt in desperation.
“We?”
“We have to have a plan. They’ll close the inn. They’ll bring in the feds. Social services will be on our asses.”
“What?” he asks. “No National Guard?”
I gasp. “Oh my God, you think they’ll bring in the National Guard?”
He looks over my shoulder, and I feel an icy wind at my back. I drop my hands and turn around. Beautiful Jordyn approaches. She still has all of her hair, and her shoes are intact. She looks like a weather woman on a national network. Self-consciously, I smooth my hair.
“Lovely day,” she says. I look behind me to see who she’s talking to.
I point at my chest. “Me?”
“Yes, Beryl. You did a good job.”
I’m wondering if she’s using “good” in the normal way, or if it has some different meaning for glamorous big-boobed ladies. I almost ask her, but she’s moved on.
“Thor, impressive as ever.” She smiles, and all her teeth are perfect. Not too much gums, either. “It was nice seeing you. Maybe we’ll see each other soon?”
“How’s Ted?” he asks.
“Boring as ever,” she says, shrugging. A woman calls out from another side of the house, and Thor runs away, probably to see if someone has fallen through the floor, again. “So you two look close,” Jordyn comments when Thor leaves.
“Purely professional,” I say. She smiles and arches a perfectly plucked eyebrow.
“Is Ted your husband?”
“Yes. He’s around here someplace. Has Thor cooked for you, yet?”
“Three times a day. I think he was a cook in the navy,” I say.
She laughs and touches my arm. “Is that what he told you? Thor wasn’t a cook in the navy. He was a commando commander. Some kind of super secret SEAL team. He can hold his breath for a full seven minutes. Listen, get him to make you his boeuf bourguignon. He only makes it for the ones he loves.”
“Oh, but he doesn’t love me,” I say, startled. She smiles again, turns on her heel slowly and walks out of my life. I wonder if Thor ever made Jordyn his boeuf bourguignon and how she knows that he can hold his breath for seven minutes.
Thor comes back soaking wet, and he grabs a kitchen towel and dabs his wet face. “A pipe burst and knocked Ted in the face. Two broken noses in one day. It might be a record.”
I chew on a nail. “This is bad,” I say.
“Don’t worry about it.”
I’m worried about it. I’m really worried. All of my big plans have crashed and burned with my first event. “I’m not worried about it, but this is bad.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“Trust me, Michael Jackson came by and said this is bad.”
The house clears out, and the graduation party cleans up the mess and begins its golf cart parade away from the High Tide Inn. The large man with the broken nose and his wife are among the last stragglers.
“Here you go,” the man tells me, handing me a check.
“I was already paid,” I tell him.
“For your troubles. You provided a beautiful venue, and we’ll be sure to spread the word.”
It’s a check for another three hundred dollars. I’m rich. I can afford non-generic toilet paper. I almost cry. Well, to be perfectly honest, a few tears do roll down my cheek. Thor wipes them off with his thumb and cups my cheek with his hand, gently tipping my head back to look into my eyes.
“Your terrible idea wasn’t so terrible in the end.” His voice is low and deep, and like a foghorn announces fog, his voice announces sex. Lots and lots of hot, sweaty sex.
Sex.
I remind myself about my vow. Sex with Thor would definitely break it. But is Thor a bum? Am I still a bum magnet? It’s possible that he had an affair with Jordyn, who’s a married woman, but perhaps he was involved with her before she was married. I need to ask him about that. Maybe he was never involved with her at all. Oh, who am I kidding? Of course he was involved with her. How could he not? She’s a sex-horn, too. A big-boobed sex-horn.
I remind myself that Jordyn isn’t here, but I am. I’m with Thor, and Thor’s looking at me, his eyes growing darker by the second. Maybe he’s not a bum. Maybe he’s safe. What could a little sex with Thor hurt, anyway? It probably would do me a world of good. Lots of good. Surely a roll in the hay wouldn’t truly break my vow.
Oh, I’m a weak, weak woman.
“What’s for dinner?” Jean asks, walking into the kitchen and thankfully breaking the moment. “Oh. Did I interrupt something? Are you going to get naked again? I don’t care about the naked thing, but I expect dinner on the table at six o’clock.”
“I was just going to get started,” Thor says, slamming a pan onto the stove. I take a deep breath and will the throbbing in my lower half to stop. No use. Even though I’ve been saved by a hungry, old lady, I can’t count on her to vagina-block me every time. At some point, the throbbing will take over, and Thor’s going to catch me. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure I want him to catch me.