by Angie Abdou
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That—the oilfield—is also Ian’s attempt to keep everyone in the family
happy, to give them all what they think they want. Vero cannot imagine
this thin, bearded man, who strums his guitar while he sings his voice-
mail greeting, stuck in a trailer in Fort McMurray, a long day’s drive
from the rest of his family.
Shane rolls ten joints that first night and then stores his bouquet of
weed in the safe, its skunky scent spreading to their passports. Everyone
will know we’ve been to Jamaica, they laugh.
Stoned, they swim across the boat canal, away from the nudists, to
their own deserted sandbar. Boaters shake fists at them, “You will die!
Stupid tourists!” But Shane and Vero laugh and laugh. They laugh until
it hurts, a muscle ache deep in their abdomens, a scratchy dryness at the
back of their throats. Here they could surely die only a cartoon death.
They would be cut in two in one scene, and then race off the page in a
cloud of smoke in the next. Shane points at a glass-bottomed boat filled
with sunburned tourists. “Watch this, Vee,” he giggles, diving down,
swimming under the boat, close to the glass. He comes up gasping for
air. “I rolled over and gave them a view of the North American wild eel.
They should charge double for that trip.”
When Vero and Shane reach the sandbar, they lie in the warm water,
waves lapping at their torsos. We should’ve gotten dressed, Vero thinks, but
the words don’t make it off her tongue, we’re not at Hedonism anymore.
“Hedonism is a state of mind,” she says, pushing Shane’s legs apart and
rolling between them, leaning back into his chest. She feels him spring-
ing to life at her lower back. The sun beats down so hot that water dries
between incoming waves, leaving white lines of salt along her stomach.
“Oh, Shane. Let’s stay here.”
He breathes into the hollow between her neck and her shoulder. Her
skin rises to his breath. Goose bumps. From Shane. Her husband of a
decade. She couldn’t have imagined it. She told LiLi they wanted to
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spend some time alone on a beach. The way LiLi smiled made Vero
blush. “Like a honeymoon? In the movies?” she asked, and Vero nodded,
unable to meet her eyes. Maybe something like that.
“Let’s pretend we’re honeymooners.” She rolls into Shane. How
often do parents kiss? It’s like kissing a stranger. “I love salt.” Her
tongue traces the salty lines down his chest. Waves undulate back and
forth over her hips.
“What if someone comes?”
“They won’t.” She rests her teeth on his hip bone, wants to take a bite.
“You taste salty but smell like pineapple,” she says into his skin.
“I never knew you could be this much fun.” He runs his hands
through her sandy hair.
“In a new world with different rules, we change too.” She pushes into
him with each incoming wave. “Here, I am nobody’s mother.”
The more sex Vero has, the more she wants. The extent and intensity
of this need comes as a tremendous relief. She feared that part of her
was dead. Here at Hedonism, sex parks itself right at the front of her
brain. She’s surprised by how much she likes it there.
“Monogamy,” Cheryl said to her just after the birth of Jamal, “is a
myth, one with whole industries founded on it.”
“Well, it’s one I’ve bought into, Mom.” Vero stirred her pepper-
mint tea, letting the spoon clink loudly against the terracotta, enjoying
Cheryl’s flinch on the word “Mom.”
“You’re barely forty, and you’re never going to have sex with anyone
new? Never again?”
“I realize this is your idea of an appropriate conversation, Cheryl, but
it’s not anyone else’s.” Vero walked away from the table and dumped
her steaming tea down the drain. “And no, for your information, I’m
not.” She said it with all the confidence she could muster, but the words
killed whatever libido she had left. Nobody. New. Ever.
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“That sure puts you one giant step closer to death, doesn’t it?”
But here, here at Hedonism, anything might happen. It turns out
that’s all Vero needs: the possibility of anything happening. Vero is wor-
ried, though, about what Shane might think he needs.
“Tell me if you see any girl you like. Anyone who’s cute.” Shane
wants to know who turns her on.
“You,” Vero says, taking the joint from his fingers. “You turn me on.”
She loves how much she really means it.
They play a game of guessing the non-Hedonism identities of the
other tourists. A couple around the same age as them keeps trying
to make eye contact, positioning themselves strategically at dinner,
choosing nearby chairs at the beach. The man is lean and sharp at the
corners in a way that suggests meanness. An over-developed muscle
always moves at his jaw. Deep lines spread out from the corners of his
eyes, but they’re not smile lines. His woman—is she a wife? Shane and
Vero will never know—has heavy-lidded eyes and long, curly blonde
hair that brushes her thin shoulders. At night, he wears a black leather
mask, she a studded collar with a leash.
“A vet,” Shane guesses. “He obviously loves animals.”
“Nope. A banker.” Vero can see past the fantasy, knows this man
would be more comfortable in a suit. “And she’s an elementary school
teacher. Kindergarten.”
“Uh-huh,” Shane moves his head against her lap. They’re in a bar, but
here at Hedonism, he can lie down in public, can put his cheek against
his wife’s thighs. Nobody cares. The pierced couple is having sex on the
bench next to them. She straddles his hips, legs locked behind his back,
like a baby orangutan latched tight around its mother. Shane pulls
Vero’s head close down to his and whispers that the couple sounds
like they’re riding bicycles, their grunts and groans matching Vero’s at
the top of Cardiac Hill. “We should start riding together again when
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we get home,” he says, imitating the breathless groans close to her ear.
Tongue-pierced guy is getting close to the top of the hill now. Vero
sneaks sidelong glances. His woman’s mouth stretches wide open, but
he forces his flat palm against it, keeping her quiet.
Vero strokes Shane’s hair. The few days of sun have turned the tips
golden.
Shane and Vero agree that they’re not into the veterinarian theme,
and they steer clear of the banker’s probing looks, his throbbing jaw,
his dog leash. Shane says he wants someone more relaxed, a couple not
trying so hard. For this one week, Vero will play by Shane’s rules, the
rules of this weird place. They’re here now.
Would a couple not trying hard even be here? Vero wonders, but she
doesn’t say it alou
d.
◊◊◊
On day three, Shane panics. The week’s nearly half over, and they hav-
en’t done anything really wild yet. “We have to put ourselves in the
play,” he says. “In the centre of the action. We’ve spent enough time on
the sidelines sussing it out.”
After sharing a joint in the room, he takes her to happy hour at the
swim-up bar, spitting distance from the wild hot tub. A woman with
big blonde hair splays herself across a round table in the shallow end.
The table’s tiled surface supports her torso while her bare legs dangle
into the water. Her neck rests against the table’s edge, her head tilting
back into the pool. Her lips part in a believable imitation of ecstasy.
She’s a meal of sex: one man at her breasts—all mouth, hand, tongue—
while another man goes down. His energy and focus impress Vero.
She’s stoned and swallows hard to stop the water-rush of giggle forcing
its way up from deep inside her.
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What’s that sex a metaphor for? She giggles, but says nothing aloud.
This place works better without words.
Naked tourists gather, plastic cups in hand, watching. There’s quite
a crowd. The poolside loungers are full. Sunbathers lie on their sides
on the cement deck at the edge of the pool. Others sit on stools at the
swim-up bar (sometimes two or three to a stool). Some chat, some
make out, some just watch quietly and drink their drinks. The woman
on the table is ageless in the way of the truly wealthy, her face as plas-
tic and smooth as Barbie’s, her breasts as full and round as coconuts.
Unaffected by the laws of gravity, her nipples point straight to the sky.
She tugs at her own hair with one hand, while the other hand goes back
and forth between the two men’s heads, pushing, grabbing, clawing .
Vero has to admit that she does not find the woman’s performance
a turn-off.
“I can’t believe she hasn’t come yet,” she hears herself say to Shane.
They stand shoulder to shoulder sipping from their plastic cups. “I
couldn’t last fifteen seconds with the way those two are going at it.”
Shane nods, his features lit with admiration. She worries he might let
out a hearty cheer: Keep up the good work, boys! Atta way!
The arch in the woman’s back gets higher and higher. A small child
could now slither through the space between her and the table. Jamal
would fit.
When Shane brings the third round of rum and cokes, the wom-
an’s cries finally escalate, pulling attention back to her. Finished, she
peels herself off the table, slides into the water, with a shy smile at her
audience. Vero half expects her to bow, but then the crowd turns away,
facing the bar. The show is over.
◊◊◊
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“You’re shocked by that? Really? That’s so Monday.”
Vero and Shane sit waist deep in the bar pool, Vero sipping on her
breakfast Dirty Monkey. It’s delicious. The cold sweet cream coats her
throat and then her stomach; she feels it moving through her. The
rum softens her hangover, dimming the lights just enough to make
everything look better. Vero wonders how she has lived without Dirty
Monkeys. Every breakfast should be like this one. Shane tips his head
toward the action in the far corner of the pool. A pregnant woman
squirms in the lap of a redheaded woman’s husband. Her beach-ball
belly rises and falls below the water line. The woman wears nothing
but a straw hat. Her ample breasts overflow the man’s hands. Vero
tries to be generous and ignore her stretch marks. The man’s torso
hides underwater. His eyes squeeze tighter with each thrust.
On the next stool over, the pregnant woman’s husband has the red-
headed woman in his lap, his face as blank as if he’s watching late-
night TV, his eyes focused on nothing.
“That’s what people come here for,” Vero says, resting her hand
across the back of Shane’s warm neck. It’s turned a toasty brown.
“Don’t be a prude.”
“But pregnant,” he whispers, keeping his face turned away from the
busy couples.
“We don’t judge. We’re hedonists. Remember?” Vero slurps the
bottom of her glass clean. Finished, she chews on her straw. This
morning she needs another. She tries to imagine what LiLi would
make of this place. She pictures LiLi crossing herself, her fingers
lingering at the pendant hanging at her collarbone. A gift from her
Hong Kong employer, she said. Inappropriate, Vero thinks, so intimate.
“Enjoying the breakfast show?” she asks the bartender. He doesn’t
look up, just keeps swiping his dirty dishrag in figure eights across the
bar’s surface. The skin hangs loose under his eyes.
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“I don’t even notice anymore. I just do my job.” He folds the cloth,
picks up a machete, and chops the crown of leaves off a pineapple,
narrowly missing his own fingers.
“You look tired,” she says, wondering if he’s the same guy who was
bartending last night. “How long do you work?”
“Long,” he answers. This man can wield a knife. Within moments,
he’s split the whole pineapple into small neat squares. He scrapes
them into the blender with the flat edge of his machete.
The longer she looks, the surer she is that he’s the same bartender
from last night, but something stops her from asking. Her memories
fracture and fragment, but she knows Shane took it upon himself, late
at night, to introduce Jamaica to a shooter of his own invention, the
Teenage Slut, from back in the sweet suite. She’s almost certain she
remembers him leaping out of the pool and behind the bar, donning
a Hedonism bib (wearing nothing but), and making a round of Sluts
for everyone.
“Shane,” she tried to stop him, “a Teenage Slut is funny when you’re
twenty-two. Maybe. Not so funny when you’re old enough to be the
father of one.”
Last night’s bartender had the same gold cap on his front tooth,
the same hooped earring through the top of his left ear, but he wasn’t
as surly as this guy. Maybe he’s not a morning person. The pregnant
lady has found her way back to her own husband’s lap. That should
make Shane happy, but he doesn’t look happy this morning. His eyes
focus only on the bottom of his glass. Even with all of this, Vero real-
izes, he is bored. Drinking is the only thing for it.
Sometime after the third round of Teenage Sluts, Imena sidled
up next to Vero. She wore a leather swimsuit thong. “Imena means
dream,” the giantess said to Vero, her voice low and husky, her breath
smelling like drugstore lipstick. “I am a dream.”
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Vero doesn’t remember Imena coming or going. Just that. Her
giant red lips moving: I am a dream.
Vero stre
tches her neck to see the bartender’s nametag. Mike.
“Mike: that’s not a very exotic name,” she says.
“It’s my name,” he says. Vero hears the drunken slosh of her state-
ment only when it’s reflected back to her in his response.
“Who do you think pregnant lady is at home?” Vero rests her bare
hip on Shane’s underwater barstool, skin pressing into skin. But he
quickly shakes his head once. He doesn’t want to play their game. She
waits for him to meet her eyes. When he doesn’t, she goes back to her
own stool.
Vero doesn’t tell Shane about her own private game, the one where
she imagines real Sprucedale people here: Vince and Adele with the
dog collar and leash; Heather Schoeman in the cheerleader costume
with flab squeezed tightly through her arm holes; LiLi in the role of
Imena. I am a dream.
It’s taken less than a week for her own people to fade, their solid
lines smudging in the rum-sodden, THC-addled reality of Hedonism.
Vero stretches her arm out over the bar, wiggles her empty cup. “Hey,
Mike the Jamaican bartender, can I have another? Please.”
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THREE
A nanny should respect family rules, keep matters in the home
confidential, and communicate any concerns about the children.
Open communication is the key to a strong relationship. Engage
the nanny in daily discussions about the children’s schedule and
behaviour. It’s also a good idea to schedule regular meetings with
your nanny. If you have concerns about your nanny’s work, be
direct, but don’t air conflicts in front of the children. Above all, treat
your nanny fairly. A family that treats a nanny with respect will
benefit ten times over in her treatment of their children and
themselves. She’ll bend over backwards for you.
— Sprucedale Nanny Agency Manual
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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ligaya breathes more deeply while Vero and Shane are gone.
She pretends that the house belongs to her. But not the boys; they
cannot be hers, though that too is tempting. For them, she reminds
herself, she is only a caregiver. A temporary caregiver. Eliot and Jamal,
