“You got me a vacation?” I gape at my friends.
I knew they’d cover this brunch, which is why I chose a modestly priced place, but a trip to Florida? Seriously?
“You see that?” Jolene says with her signature grin, one that makes her look like the love child of the Joker and the demon clown from It… but gorgeous. If she were a dog, she’d be an Australian Shepherd, which is a majestic creature that, to my dismay, rarely requires a haircut. “She almost did a spit take there,” she continues.
As always, Dorothy shakes her head disapprovingly at Jolene’s antics. Her spirit dog would be a sad-eyed Basset Hound—another breed that, unfortunately, goes haircut-less.
These two do not consider themselves friends with each other, only with me, which makes it all the more mind-boggling that they would team up to do anything, especially something as logistically advanced as planning me a last-minute vacay.
Dorothy turns her attention to me. “You need it,” she states firmly.
“Brooklyn needs it bad,” Jolene says. “So bad, in fact, that I finally found something I agree on with Grandma here.”
Yep. Dorothy is a cat person while Jolene is a dog person, so they get along about as well as their pets would. Then again, some cats get along well with dogs, so bad analogy.
Dorothy narrows her eyes. “I’m the youngest at this table.”
Strictly speaking, that is true. We met when we were freshmen at Brooklyn College—insert jokes about my name here. Having graduated high school a year early, Dorothy was sixteen, and I was seventeen to Jolene’s eighteen. Of course, unlike me, my friends graduated and got nice-paying jobs that allow them to make grand gestures such as this trip.
“You’re only biologically younger,” Jolene says.
“How else can you be younger?” Dorothy demands.
“In spirit,” Jolene says. “Yours is that of a seventy-year-old virgin with a dried-up—”
“Hush,” I grit out in the tone I usually reserve for calming my first-grader son and his buddies. “I can’t accept this.”
“Told you,” Jolene says to Dorothy and takes a dainty sip from her mimosa glass. To me, she says, “It’s all nonrefundable, and neither of us can use it.”
My jaw ticks. “I can’t go. I have a job—”
“I spoke to one of the other groomers,” Dorothy says. “Neveah, I think her name was. She said she’d cover for you.”
“Neveah?” I sigh. “My clients will be pissed. That woman makes every dog look like a poodle.”
“I can ask someone else.” Dorothy’s voice turns steely. “But you’re going, and that’s final.”
“What about Reagan?” I demand. “Which one of you is going to babysit?”
That is not to say I’d let them babysit. If he stays with Jolene, he’ll end up with a girlfriend that he’ll get pregnant in short order. And I’m not saying that Reagan himself was a byproduct of her influence on me… but it was she who dragged me to the bar where I met the sperm donor who knocked me up. Not that things would be better if he were to stay with Dorothy. He might end up with the opposite fate—though I’m not sure what that is. Joining the clergy? Wearing sandals with socks?
Jolene shudders. “We’re not saints. Well, I’m not. We’ve got him covered, though. There’s a sleepaway camp near your Airbnb—also all paid for and nonrefundable.”
“A camp?” I look at Dorothy.
“Reputable,” Dorothy says. “Zero fatalities so far.”
“Zero fatalities. Great.”
“You know how social he is,” Jolene chimes in. “He’ll have a blast, and you know it.”
The truth of her statement just makes me feel guilty about not being able to afford him a trip to a summer camp myself.
My shoulders stoop. “Why would you do this?”
“Because you just turned twenty-five,” Jolene says. “That’s a round number.”
“Round numbers have a zero at the end,” Dorothy counters.
“Twenty-five is rounder than twenty-four or twenty-six,” Jolene replies smugly.
“That’s not the ‘why’ I meant,” I say. “Why cover a vacation and not, say, a month of my rent?” The latter would probably help me more in the grand scheme of things—not that I’d take their money.
“You desperately need vitamin D,” Jolene says, waggling her perfectly groomed blond eyebrows.
I nearly choke on my mimosa. In Jolene parlance, the D stands for “dick,” which is why I expect Dorothy to cringe, but she nods instead.
“Is that why you pushed for Florida?” she asks Jolene. Turning to me, she adds, “You are looking pale. Has your doctor said you’re deficient?” The unstated “If so, why didn’t you tell me immediately?” is loud and clear.
The evil smile on Jolene’s face is out of control. “I’m sure Brooklyn’s doctor would say she needs that D. Bad.”
Dorothy’s already-worried expression grows even more concerned. “Vitamin D is critical for your bones.”
“Yeah,” Jolene says to me meaningfully. “When was the last time you even thought about… a bone?”
Dorothy squints at the toilet-white skin of my face. “If the deficiency is bad, maybe you should consider some supplements?”
Is Jolene about to make a dildo joke?
“Yeah, take that D orally,” Jolene says. “Great idea.”
Dorothy frowns. “Orally? As opposed to what, skin patches? I don’t think those work.”
Jolene grins wider. “I, personally, prefer to take the D as a vaginal suppository, but on occasion, taking it rectally can—”
“How do you always manage to steer every conversation toward genitals?” Dorothy demands from Jolene. Turning to me, she adds, “Mushrooms have vitamin D. Salmon too, and—”
“It’s just too much.” I push the tickets away. “I gave the two of you papier-mâché figurines for your birthdays.”
“I love my Wonder Woman,” Dorothy says.
I sigh. “It’s actually the Statue of Liberty.”
“And I love Mr. Big Cock,” Jolene says.
I purse my lips. “I told you many times… it’s the Leaning Tower of Pisa.”
“Point is, you deserve a break,” Dorothy says. “And you forget how you helped me with my grandmother when she was sick.”
“And me when Mr. Goobers was having that issue with his penis.”
“All I did was help him retract his lipstick,” I say with an eyeroll. “Hair getting stuck there is a common problem for fluffy dogs. And your grandmother, Dorothy, is the sweetest lady I’ve ever known. It was my pleasure to help her.”
Jolene waggles her eyebrows again. “Was it a pleasure to help Mr. Goobers?”
“Eww, stop it,” Dorothy says, wrinkling her nose. “I thought bestiality was where even you drew the line, but I guess I was mistaken.”
“Seriously, though,” I say. “I cannot accept this.”
“Then I guess both the camp and the Airbnb will go to waste,” Jolene says, sighing dramatically. “And the next time you offer to give Mr. Goobers a free haircut, I’ll have no choice but to refuse. And I’ll get a vet to help with his penis too.”
Grr. She’s got me there. Not with the Mr. Goobers haircuts and penis bits, obviously. It’s the nonrefundable status of their extremely expensive gift that makes it pretty much impossible to refuse.
“I need to talk to my son,” I say, grasping at straws. “If he refuses to go—”
“Reagan? You’re kidding me, right? He’ll be jumping higher than Mr. Goobers for treats,” Jolene says. “But do whatever you need to feel comfortable. Because you’re going on this vacation, and you’re getting that D deficiency fixed.”
“Summer camp!?” Reagan shouts before I can tell him any details, such as that there will be no cannibals there. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” He starts running around the house like one of my four-legged clients when they get the zoomies.
Jolene was right. He’s clearly over the moon. So much so my chest squeezes unpleasantly. I’ll need to figure out how to give him more experiences like this.
But also… would it hurt my son to at least pretend he’ll miss the person who was in labor trying to give birth to him for thirty-five torturous hours?
On the flight to Jacksonville, Reagan plays his video game while I do my best not to snap at him or any other innocent bystanders. Thanks to my shit luck, the Red Wedding arrived mere hours ago, giving me the kind of cramps that, if you gave them to a prisoner of war, would go against the Geneva Conventions.
Thanks, body. Was a relaxing plane ride too much to ask for?
I glare at my wrist where my birthday gift from last year resides. It’s an Octothorpe Glorp, a fitness tracker that’s supposed to warn me when Aunt Flo is coming to town. Often, I imagine the gizmo talking back to me in a voice that’s a mix of Richard Simmons and Gollum:
My dear Precious, if I could, I’d keep every tampon you’ve ever used in a shrine and glue to them the smiles I cut out of my favorite pictures of you. Alas, when it comes to the feature you mention, I merely track your cycles, not predict them.
I suffer the rest of the flight as stoically as I can. Once we land, I rent a car and drive Reagan straight to the camp—a beachy and chill establishment that plays Jimmy Buffett on a loop.
“Okay, bye,” Reagan says without a second of hesitation before running off to check the place out.
I wait to make sure he doesn’t run back and tell me he doesn’t like what he sees. Nope. He probably thinks I’ve already left, or has forgotten that I exist altogether.
“He’ll have access to a phone,” the nearest Boy-Scout-looking counselor says to me reassuringly. “And we have your number on file. Once he’s settled in, he’ll give you a call. Go.”
With a sigh, I head back to the car and start driving.
My mood was already crummy, but now it’s worse than that of a stressed-out, sleep-deprived, and tick-riddled hippopotamus. The green and idyllic nature around me only makes me feel shitty about where I actually live, as do the much nicer roads and cleaner streets. But then I almost run over an-honest-to-goodness live alligator and feel a little better about the comparison between my namesake in NYC and Palm Islet, Florida, the illustrious little town where my vacation is to be. Same goes when a deer tries to commit suicide by car a few minutes later, and when the woman in the car in front of me stops to rescue a turtle—getting peed on in the process.
Got to love Florida.
My Airbnb turns out to be located in a gated community, and the female security guard at the entrance is as thorough as a TSA officer. When all my papers seem to be in order, she wrinkles her nose and mutters something about the HOA usually prohibiting Airbnb rentals in the community, and that mine is a rare exception to the rule. She further informs me that the HOA usually charges an overnight guest fee, but that the owner of my Airbnb is exempt from “all the rules.”
Oh, the humanity. How do the poor members of the HOA sleep at night? As I drive away, it takes effort not to ask if the HOA in this case stands for Hilariously Overbearing Authority.
Driving through the community, I notice that the houses are charming mixes of Spanish, Mediterranean, and Caribbean styles, and that they all have impeccable lawns—must be the same HOA ruling with an iron fist. But when I pull into the cul-de-sac where my Airbnb is located, the monotone pattern is broken. Houses number four and five on Gatorview Drive are twins, and both have sharp corners, are covered in mirrored surfaces and tons of chrome, and remind me of something you might see in a modern art museum.
Since one of these is mine, I assume both belong to the same HOA rules-exempt owner.
My mood lifts minutely as I spot the lake adjacent to both houses, with untouched nature on the opposite bank. The view from my Airbnb must be spectacular, though slightly less so than from the neighboring house.
I check my fitness tracker for the time.
Dearest Precious ought to consider taking more steps, to tighten those succulent thighs for my stalking—I mean viewing—pleasure.
Crap. I’m too early for check in, and it’s getting pretty hot. According to Evan, who’s been sending me taciturn texts on behalf of this Airbnb, the code for the garage lock can only be used after eleven-thirty, but I may die of heatstroke by then.
Also, I kind of want the vacation to start, along with the associated relaxation.
Why don’t I test said code now?
Walking up to the garage, I type in the code and the door opens. Score! Between this and the lack of a car in the driveway or in the garage, I’m pretty sure I can get inside the house.
After parking in the garage, I open the door to the house proper—which, according to Evan, is the entrance I’ll use to come and go.
The door leads right into an ultra-modern kitchen the size of my whole apartment, and there, on the granite island, stands a spread of yummy tapas.
Now this is a fancy welcome. I spot a tiny piece of grilled salmon, a giant bean, a side of rice, an assortment of pickles, a ton of tiny vegetable plates, and something that looks and smells just like miso soup.
Japanese tapas?
Shrugging, I taste the salmon as I take in the lake view through a floor-to-ceiling window.
I’m jealous of Floridians yet again. In New York, you’d have to be a billionaire to have anything close to this house with this kind of view.
The fish is divine, so I sample each of the veggies, which are also amazing. Even the bean is tasty, and the miso soup is the best of its kind, sweet and savory in equal measure.
Suddenly, I hear rustling on the other side of the island.
What the hell?
The island is blocking my view, so I gingerly step over to where the sound is coming from—a sink that I couldn’t see earlier.
I gasp.
A man is getting to his feet. Based on the tools scattered on the floor, I assume he must be a plumber here to fix said sink.
Now I’ll admit, until today, if I were forced to picture a plumber in my head, he (is that sexist?) would look like Super Mario with a cartoonish mustache, coveralls, and as much sex appeal as a blobfish.
This plumber, however, has to be the hottest man I’ve ever seen.
His eyes are the clear blue of a Siberian Husky, his hair is the sun-bleached shade of a Golden Retriever’s coat, and his sharp angular facial features are godlike with no dog analogs. Sadly, his ears are covered by headphones, but I bet they are sexy too. Oh, and his bare chest boasts an army of glistening muscles that include a six pack. Also, his nipples are hard.
Correction, it’s my nipples that are hard.
Spotting me, he frowns, but he makes even grumpy look good. Then his gaze falls on what remains of the tapas, and his eyes beam icicles at me.
“Who are you?” he demands in a low growl that somehow manages to be sexy. “And why did you eat my fucking breakfast?”