South Seas Shenanigans

by Abby L. Vandiver

  “Harley Grace,” Miss Vivee said and stretched her arms out in a greeting. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

  “Hello,” Harley Grace said hesitantly. In all probability she didn’t remember who Miss Vivee was. “You wanted to see me?”

  “First, I wanted . . . Well, we wanted to say we were sorry about the camp being overran by that mean Inspector Walota. Shutting down the camp like that.”

  Harley Grace smiled. “Thank you, but it’s okay. The group was going to take an overnight biking trip up into the mountains anyway. We weren’t going to be there, so in a way, it was perfect timing.”

  “Do you remember us?” Miss Vivee asked. “We were up at the camp the other day with Sassy Gruger.”

  Harley Grace looked at each one of our faces. “Uhm,” she furrowed her brow. “Y-Yeah.” She blinked a few times. “I think I do.” She scrunched her nose and shook her head as if she had a bad taste in her mouth. “That was such a bad day.”

  “Yes. I did notice you were upset,” Miss Vivee said.

  “We’re sorry for your loss,” Mac said.

  “Well, I don’t guess it was so much of my loss, although I really liked Cam, but I hadn’t known him long.”

  Hadn’t she told Sassy he was like a brother to her?

  “So, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Miss Vivee said. “I heard you were his trainer and I wanted to hire you.”

  “Hire me?” I could tell she wanted to laugh, but held it back. “Hire me to do what?”

  “Train me,” she said, not even flinching at the absurdity of her lie.

  “To. Do. What, exactly?” Harley Grace said slowly. She looked out the side of her eye at the five-foot nothing, ninety-something grandma.

  “Train for a bike competition I want to enter.”

  Harley Grace threw her head back and laughed. I even had to chuckle, but when she saw that Mac or Miss Vivee weren’t laughing she stopped, a series of several hiccups followed as she tried to stop giggling.

  “Are you serious?” she asked.

  “You’re not one of those arrogant people, are you?” Miss Vivee stuck out her tongue and scrunched up her nose like she had a bad taste in her mouth. “The ones who think older people can’t do things. Because I am very fit.”

  Miss Vivee, I wanted to say, you are not “older” you are “Old” with a capital “O.”

  “The training would just be for me,” Miss Vivee continued, rattling on lost in her web of deceit. “My husband has a bad hip he got from a skydiving accident.”

  Try a “you ran him over with your car” incident.

  Harley Grace paused like she was trying to figure out how to get out of not only the training, but the obvious elderly discrimination Miss Vivee had accused her of.

  “Uhm. No. I’m not.” She stuck her hands down in her pockets of her skirt. “I’m not one of those people. And. I wasn’t Cam’s trainer, either,” she said.

  Good girl, I thought, deflect those inane questions from the crazy lady.

  Harley Grace looked much younger than she had in the tent under the artificial light. Her blonde, straight hair sported dark highlights, and her skin was smooth. She had a turned up nose, big eyes, and an easy smile. She also looked like she could have trained Miss Vivee, or anyone. Her frame was fit. Her belly top fit snugly over her breast, and hugged around her toned abdomen. But her muscles weren’t hard, they were cut with curves. She wore a sarong, and I hoped she had gotten it from the village because I wanted one just like it.

  “I thought you were his trainer,” Miss Vivee said, she made a pouty face as if she was sorely disappointed.

  “No. I just own the camp.”

  “Oh, is that your camp?” Mac asked.

  “Yep. A gathering place for bikers. I don’t make much money, but it’s a dream come true.”

  “Are you thinking of expanding?” Miss Vivee said. “I’m planning on inviting some of my biker friends to the Island next year. They would love being at the camp.”

  “Would they now?” Harley Grace said, amusement in her eyes.

  “So what do you do exactly?” Mac asked.

  “I do massages, pass out nutrition pamphlets, do a little exercise instruction and physical therapy when it’s needed. Help the biker’s however I can.”

  “Is that what you did for Campbell Gruger?” Miss Vivee asked.

  “Yep.” She nodded and licked her lips. “And, uhm, I helped him prepare for his century ride.”

  “What’s that?” Miss Vivee asked.

  “A 100-mile ride,” Harley Grace said.

  “Really?” Miss Vivee said. “How impressive. I once walked a hundred miles-”

  I thought it might be time for me step in.

  “That’s a long ride in the heat and humidity of the Pacific Islands,” I said interrupting Miss Vivee’s tall-tale.

  “Yep. That’s true. It’s about seven to eight hours long. Maybe longer. It depends on the person’s ability.”

  “How did you help with that?” Miss Vivee said. “You rode with him?”

  “Oh no,” she said and smiled. “I helped him set up support stations. He could carry only so many bottles on his person, so we had to put water and protein mix at certain spots along his route, which I helped him map out, so he could stay replenished.”

  “Yeah, I know you’d have to stay hydrated for something like that.” I said, my eyes big, I let out a little chuckle to give her the illusion I was interested and not trying to find out if she was a murderess. “You can get dehydrated so easily.”

  I was turning into Miss Vivee.

  “Not under my watch,” Harley Grace said and chuckled right along with me. “We get out front of that, drinking water at prescribed intervals before the ride, and then during the ride, and then after. If you wait until you’re thirsty to drink water, you’re already dehydrated.”

  I could see Miss Vivee curling up her lip out the corner of my eye.

  “I say,” Miss Vivee said obviously disgusted with Harley Grace’s endorsement of drinking a lot of water. “So fill up before you’re even thirsty?”

  “Yep,” Harley Grace said smiling. “You have to stay hydrated.”

  “That’s like taking headache medicine before you get a headache,” Miss Vivee said.

  Harley Grace’s smile faded.

  “Are you a biker?” I asked quickly moving in again.

  Harley Grace slowly pulled her eyes away from Miss Vivee and looked at me. “Well. I used to do it professionally. Now I do it because it makes me happy.”

  “Who would want to come all the way to Fiji to go and camp out?” Miss Vivee asked.

  “You’d be surprised,” she said.

  “So you weren’t his trainer?” Miss Vivee cocked her head and looked up at Harley Grace as if she didn’t believe her.

  I was thinking, Haven’t we already gone over this?

  “Because from what I’ve heard, he couldn’t have done as well as he did on his own. Being able to go 100 miles.”

  Harley Grace cocked her head to match Miss Vivee’s. “Not sure what that means, exactly. But I do think he had a trainer at home at least that’s what I’ve been told. Because he had to have prepared for that ride before he got here. You know Sassy, right? Maybe she could tell you who it is.”

  “That century ride would be very hard on your back, if you weren’t trained properly, wouldn’t it?” Mac asked. “If you did help him with that, that’s pretty impressive.”

  That made Harley Grace smile again.

  Miss Vivee could learn a thing or two from me and Mac about interrogation techniques.

  “Cam was into building his core,” she said. “And I did help him with that.” She laughed. “That’s all he would talk about – he’d say ‘Make me work harder, Harley. A weak core is going to frustrate all the hard work my legs do and I’ll never made that century mark,’ he told me that over and over. It was like it had become his mantra.” She blew out a breath. “He obsessed over it.”
r />   “His core?” Miss Vivee asked.

  Harley Grace spread her hands across her abdomen and moved them back and forth, and then reached around to her back. “Abs and lower back,” she said. “Even though a cyclist’s legs provide the power to move the bike, and like Cam said you can have all the leg strength in the world, the core muscles are the vital foundation because all the movement stems from there and allows you to use your power more efficiently. Plus, a solid core helps produce a smoother pedal stroke.”

  I watched her explain and could understand what she meant. “It would make him sleeker,” I offered.

  “Exactly,” she said and smiled. “Aerodynamically sleek.”

  “He was really into it,” Harley Grace said. “Much more than what I do here.”

  “Here at your camp?”

  “Yeah. We don’t do anything that hardcore, that’s for sure,” she said. She tilted her head back and let out an infectious chuckle.

  Well, it made me chuckle. Not Miss Vivee.

  “I mean we take tours of the island,” Harley Grace said. “Ride farther up the mountain, camp out, stuff like that. That’s why I was so surprised when all the things came for Cam. The camp isn’t meant to be that serious, but he definitely was.”

  “What came in for him?”

  The bikes and stuff – you’d think he was training for the Tour de France.”

  “I heard Sassy say he had more than one bike?”

  “Yeah, which is unusual. People just come here for the fun of it. They either rent a bike here, or some may bring one and their gear, and after that it’s fun, rolling hills and white sand.”

  “Well he was training for something, wasn’t he?” Mac asked.

  “I guess,” Harley Grace said. “Or maybe he just wanted to do the century ride.” She hunched her shoulders. “I don’t know. Maybe. I mean, with how he was training, you’d think he had to be. But I don’t know what. He didn’t mention it and I didn’t ask. People really don’t come to my camp to train. Like I said, it’s a biking community for bikers that come to Fiji. Beautiful scenery, terrific terrain, and a vacation atmosphere.”

  “But you weren’t training him for whatever competition he was entering?” Miss Vivee raised a suspicious eyebrow.

  How many times was she going to ask that same question?

  “No. Not me. But, like I said, I think he had a trainer back home. Uhm . . . Not sure, but I think he mentioned it to me. That’s where all that other stuff came from.”

  “From his trainer?”

  “Well, I guess I shouldn’t say that, because I don’t know for sure. The boxes came from Amazon, but I assumed his trainer had arranged for their delivery. I mean I never asked him. And now that Sassy’s going to make sure that all his stuff gets back home, I guess it doesn’t matter.

  “You said bikes and other stuff. What kind of other stuff,” Miss Vivee said. “I promised Sassy we’d have enough help for her?”

  “Oh that won’t be necessary. The bikers up at the camp would be happy to help. It was just the few cases of protein powder, a new Fitbit, which I think he had on when, you know-”

  “He died,” Miss Vivee said.

  “Right,” Harley Grace said and gave a weak smile. “Then there were those jugs of water, rolling foam, exercise ball mats. I mean I keep exercise equipment for some of the bikers to use when they’re at the camp, but he had all his own equipment That’s kind of why I thought he had a trainer and because he’d get reminders on his Fitbit all the time.”

  “You can set your own reminders, though,” I said. Thinking perhaps she didn’t know how they worked.

  “Yeah,” she nodded. “I know. But I heard him mumble a couple of times, ‘I got it . . . I know . . . You don’t have to keep reminding me.’ So I figured someone was sending him reminders.”

  “Some people just talk to themselves,” I said, thinking how much I do that

  She laughed. “I’m guilty of that myself. “Anyway, the protein powder was a big hit when other bikers saw it on the shelf. They asked me if I was selling it.” She shook her head. “Might just be a good idea,” she said.

  “Why did you keep it for him?” Mac asked. “Why didn’t he take it back to his room?”

  She made a face like she was thinking. “I don’t think he had a room.” She shook her head. “Most people bring a sleeping bag. They stay in, or around the camp. Although I don’t remember seeing him with one, and I’m almost positive one didn’t come in with his shipment.” She waved her hand in front of her face. “But I don’t sleep up in the mountains anyway, so I couldn’t swear to anything. I lock up, and I come down to the village.” She pointed. “Just over that ridge.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Why were you so concerned whether she was his trainer or not?” I asked Miss Vivee. “You must’ve asked that question fifty times.” We’d stepped into the store and were looking at a rack of sarongs.

  “I did not,” she said. “I was just wondering because the entire time we’ve been here, I’ve never seen her ride a bike.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” I asked. “Because every single time you asked, she said that she wasn’t one.”

  “She was lying.”

  I shook my head. There was no pleasing that woman.

  “And who told you to ask questions?” Miss Vivee asked as she picked up a pretty blue sarong and handed it to Mac. I don’t even think she looked at the size.

  “I was trying to help,” I said.

  “Help her lie,” Miss Vivee said.

  “Miss Vivee, you think everyone is lying when you ask your myriad of questions. How do you plan on finding out what happened, if you don’t believe anything anyone tells you?”

  “I have my ways.” She opened up her pocketbook and fished out her Amerian Express Blue card. “Plus, Elenoa said that if Harley Grace knew he didn’t really want her as his trainer that that would be her reason to kill him. She would’ve known that he was leading her on.”

  “So that was the way you were going to get a confession? Repetition?” I said and pulled a couple of hangers across the metal pole.

  “What did you say?” Miss Vivee said.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “And another reason I think she was lying was because Sassy said that she would pay Harley Grace whatever her husband owed her. Don’t you remember that? What did he owe her for if it wasn’t for training?”

  “I dunno,” I said.

  “And,” she said. “If she were his trainer, he would have listened to her about drinking water.”

  “You think he would have kept drinking it, even enough to kill himself, just because she told him to?”

  “Everyone listens to their trainer,” Miss Vivee said. “It’s the whole reason for having one.”

  That was true.

  “How long are you going to take to find something to wear?” Miss Vivee asked and looked at me.

  “We’ve only been in here two minutes.”

  “So, I’m guessing it’ll take you longer than that?”

  I blew out a breath.

  “How about this one,” I said. It was a pretty fuchsia and white one.

  “If you like it,” she said and raised her eyebrows like she didn’t.

  I put it back on the rack and picked up the next one. “Let’s go,” I said and headed to the counter without asking her opinion.

  ┌┐└┘┌┐└┘┌┐└┘┌┐└┘┌┐└┘

  We sat cross-legged in a circle around a large bowl attended to by men in skirts and armbands made from a dried grass. A long, low bench was available for those that couldn’t make it to the ground. I thought perhaps Miss Vivee and Mac would opt for it, they didn’t. Always surprising me, the sat beside me.

  We were at the Kava Ceremony.

  I had been so excited about coming to it. I couldn’t wait to go, even if it meant going without Bay.

  Drinking kava today, was common place. Fijians enjoyed it all times of the day both pu
blically and privately, but it was also a part of a culture going back more than a thousand years. I called it living history, it was the kind of thing I dug up and studied.

  Miss Vivee and I were dressed in our matching-print sarongs, mine in orange, hers in a ceil blue that we’d bought in the village. Mac had on a beige linen shirt. We had tried to wait for Bay, I’d bought him a light blue linen shirt just in case he got back, but we just couldn’t wait any longer. It had rained most of the afternoon after our shopping excursion, but cleared up right when it was time to leave.

  “Don’t worry, Logan,” Miss Vivee said and took my hand. If he makes it back in time, I’m sure he’ll just come right over.”

  But he didn’t make it before we got started.

  “Kava or yaqona, cannot reproduce sexually,” our host sat in the middle of the circle and spoke. “The female flowers are especially rare and they cannot produce fruit even when hand-pollinated. The cultivation of the Kava plant is entirely by propagation from stem cuttings.”

  There were “oohs” and “ahhhs” around the circle, everyone smiling.

  “In Fiji,” he continued, “we value family, community and village. We work together to look out for one another. These cultures have a great respect for the plant and place a high importance on it and drink it when we have important social, political, or religious functions.

  “The kava drink is made from the pulverized root of the plant. Traditionally, the drink is prepared by either chewing, grinding or pounding. Tonight, we have pounded it with a pestle in our mixing bowl and now will add a little water.”

  The men added the water and took bowls made out of a half of coconut to dip it up in.

  “Kava is a natural and relaxing drink,” our host said. “Native Fijians are among the happiest people in the world. And some people believe that drinking Kava is the reason. So, follow my lead and enjoy!”

  One of the men that had made the drink, handed our host a bowl, but before he took it, he said. “I will clap once to show my respect. Make sure you do the same.”

  He clapped and took the bowl. “Bula,” he then said the one word greeting. “Now drink all of it in one swig.” And he did. “Then those around you will say . . .”