“Well… uh…”
“No arguing.” Randolph scooped up Lulu who growled as he dropped her in the buggy. He waved with his elbow as he wrangled the dog. “See you tomorrow. Lulu, stay in your seat, you barbarian, or I’ll zip up the lid.” The multicolored ribbons woven in the stroller’s wheel spokes matched the geometrical design across the lid, and the silver rhinestones across the handle added that extra bit of bling. The contents of the stroller fought its captivity. Randolph’s phony scolding grew faint as they rolled away.
“What was I thinking?” Peg yanked on the leash to get her dog away from the most interesting and fascinating of all fence posts.
Gotta get out of this. I’ll say I have a horrible rash… that covers my entire body… not just the underboob rash, which is real and will NOT go away. No. You need to do something besides sit in the house. Plus, this might help relieve your stress. Really? How is seeing my own fat and cellulite flop around going to help relieve stress? Will give new meaning to cow pose.
Battling herself back into the house, she unleashed the dog and walked straight to her laptop. Seconds later, she jumped when Trudy’s face popped up on the screen.
“Oh. You scared me. But it is good to see your face.” Peg’s own face looked anxious and red.
“What is the matter? Last I heard you were going to Mass. Then I got those crazy text messages. Are you okay?”
“No. I’m not.” In one long and unpunctuated breath, Peg filled Trudy in on the events of the morning and afternoon.
“Whoa. Whoa. I think you’re hyperventilating.” Trudy held up her hand to the screen. “First of all, that grotto-slash-hurricane business is nonsense. I’m looking up hurricanes now. Google says that hurricanes start as storms off the sub-Saharan desert. They have nothing to do with a 90-year-old pile of rocks.”
“But–”
“Second of all. You are going to the yoga class with, what’s his name again? Randolph? I mean normally I’d run a criminal background check on the guy, but he’s got a chihuahua for God’s sake. He’s probably not a serial killer. A chihuahua means that he’s okay. Plus, he sounds nice and he sounds like he could be a friend. So, tomorrow morning, get your ass out of the pity party and into your yoga pants.”
“Okay. You’re right. I’m not sure they still fit. I think they’re from 1990.”
“Of course I’m right. And, yoga pants are stretchy. They’ll fit. When did you say your loser husband gets back?”
“Trudy,” Peg reprimanded.
“Sorry. When does Clark get home?”
“On Friday.” Peg’s face lit up.
“Such an–”
“I miss him.” Peg fanned away the tears with hands.
Trudy rolled her eyes behind her glasses. “I don’t miss him, but I do miss you. Call me tomorrow night. We can video chat with the dogs. Tucker is sleeping now.”
“Okay. Bye.”
“Go to yoga.”
“I will. Bye.”
Follow up email from Trudy
Just in case:
How to escape from the trunk of a car:
Pull trunk release. (“If” car has one.)
Some cars have ways to get out through the back seat. (Make sure that kidnapper is NOT in the back seat with you.)
Push out brake lights so you can wiggle fingers through the hole. (Wiggle vigorously.)
What does the guy look like and what are your final wishes?
And so it turned out that Sunday was not a day of rest after all.
All Keyed Up
Email to Trudy
I think I’ll be fine, but in response to your request, Randolph will most likely be wearing a yoga outfit. He has superb dimples.
Oh and I wouldn’t pet his Chihuahua Lulu. She bites.
In the case of my untimely demise, please drive down here as fast as possible to get Nipper. You know he can’t handle flying. And most importantly, I want to be buried in Alaska (sorry, high maintenance). I’d like my skin to feel cold, dry air for its last time on earth.
Peg sat on the floor facing her dog. “I think I have everything covered. You have lots of food and water.” She pressed her nose against his as she spoke. “You’ll be fine and I’ll be very Zen when I return.”
She found her dusty yoga mat in a box with the Christmas ornaments. The yoga pants saw their first daylight in a quarter of a century.
AH OOGA. AH OOGA. AH OOGA. AH OOGA.
What the…?
Peg opened the front door and saw Randolph driving a converted golf cart with a Flintstone-esque retro-fit.
“Hiya, Peg.” Randolph smiled. He squeezed the rubber ball attached to the horn on the dashboard. The giant tusks mounted to the front of the vehicle magnified the sound. AH OOGA.
Peg smiled back. She bounced down the steps with her yoga mat and her purse, and stepped into the open-air vehicle.
Randolph turned off the golf-cart radio as she got in. “Oh, big news. Did you hear about the grotto? It’s toast. They just talked about it on the radio.”
Peg blanched.
“Not sure I believe all of that – but lots of people do.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Anyway, que sera sera.”
Peg sat stock straight, her face frozen in panic behind her sunglasses.
The grotto… on the news–
“Helloo, earth to Peg.” Randolph AH OOGA’d the horn. “I asked you if you like my wheels?”
“Wheels? Oh. Yes, very… um… Neanderthal.” Cold sweat dripped down her neck.. “Ah – Thank you for picking me up. I’ve been looking forward to this,” she lied.
“You’re not going to need that mat, honey,” Randolph said over the sounds of the traffic.
“Oh. Okay. They use their own?” Peg questioned.
“You’re cracking me up right now.” His dimples showed off their magnificence. He pushed down the gas pedal and after a long pause the wheels began to move at a snail’s pace. “It’s electric. I’m a conservationist.”
Peg nodded. “That’s good, but why don’t I need–?”
Randolph waved her off. “Look at this diamond,” he said, pointing to the stud in his ear. “No blood diamonds for me. I’m a pacifist too.” The earring caught the sunlight and tiny specks of color disco-danced around him. “But I gotta have my bling.” He giggled.
Peg laughed and began to relax.
Randolph took his local celebrity status in his stride. The “whoo whoos” and “yabba dabba doos” from passersby were returned with a poised royal wave and a stately grin. Peg was getting used to seeing people and pets on scooters in Key West. The bigger dogs rode on the footrest in-between the human’s legs. The smaller dogs sat alongside on the seat. No one wore helmets except, sometimes, the dogs. A man (and his dog) stopped his (their) scooter next to the caveman mobile and chatted amiably with Randolph. When the light turned green, the dog decided to make a leap for the stuffed bones dangling decoratively from the rearview mirror of the golf cart. Peg tensed up, thinking that the dog was going to land in her lap, but without missing a beat, the scooter-man nabbed the dog in midair, returned the dog to his seat and motored away.
Randolph was unperturbed by the commotion. “Doesn’t the ocean look beautiful today? Who wouldn’t want to live on this two-by-four-mile island? Its history is so romantic – pirates then wreckers. Those reefs are a ship’s nightmare. They stretch from Miami all the way down the Gulf.” He arm-swept toward the water. “Lots-o-people made lots-o-money off those shipwrecks.” Randolph looked at Peg while he was talking.
“Uh huh… uhhh. Watch out!” Peg pointed to the oncoming traffic.
Randolph swerved the Flintstones mobile back into its lane and continued his history lesson. “A lot of mansions are decorated with stuff from the ships. You should go see some of them – marble floors, grand pianos, you name it. There was talk that lanterns were put on the reef in the wrong place to cause wrecks. Thank goodness – because the island got some fabulous artifacts.” He pretended a sinister laugh. “Just kiddi
ng. But not really.”
At the stoplight, he braked inches from the car in front of them. Peg closed her eyes under her sunglasses. Randolph continued his history lesson. “Roosevelt built a road down here because the railroad went buh bye in 1938. You know. Hurricane.”
Peg cringed.
“Then we got the ’60s and ’70s with the hippies and the shrimpers living side by side, then the navy base closed and finally the ’80s and ’90s when the gays came into town and renovated the ramshackle houses. Peace on the island at last.” He turned his head to the right. “You got all that?”
Peg nodded her agreement, while looking straight ahead at the road, wishing that Randolph would do the same. A pickup truck with the windows blackened out drove dangerously close to the back of the golf cart, revved its engines, then blew past them in a giant puff of exhaust.
“Hey, watch out, asshole.” Randolph coughed through the smoke and thrust out his middle finger.
So much for pacifism.
“How fast does your… ummm… car… uh… cart… uh vehicle go?” Peg noticed that there was quite a traffic jam behind them.
“Oh, she can do 35 if I open her up. And, BTW her name is Betty.”
“Betty. Okay.” Peg patted the dashboard. She scooted to her left as, one by one, bicycles passed them – whooshing inches from her right ear. “You should be a tour guide. How long have you lived in Key West?”
“I’m a Fresh Water Conch – that means I’ve lived in Key West over seven years. If you’re born and raised here, you’re a plain old Conch. I don’t like to give classifications to people, but no one asked my opinion.” Randolph pursed his lips.
Turning right off of Route 1, Betty snuggled into a shaded parking spot, preventing future third-degree buttock burns. Peg reached once more for her yoga mat. “You sure that I won’t need this?”
Randolph shook his head. “Positive.”
Peg tossed the mat back onto the seat and walked alongside Randolph. “So where is this place? Kind of looks like a marina to me.”
“It’s up here. And it’s a marina too.”
“Hmm, so where is the studio?” Peg asked as they approached a group of people standing around getting instructions of some sort.
“Studio? What do you mean?”
“Like… where we do the yoga?”
“Oh, honey. This is paddleboard yoga.”
Peg stopped in her tracks. “What is paddleboard yoga?” she hissed. “I can’t do paddleboard yoga!”
“Didn’t you read the flyer? It clearly said PBY. You do have your bathing suit on, right?”
Peg peered down at her yoga pants. “No.”
Randolph eyed her body. “Well, you can go with your spandex on. Lots of people wear yoga clothes to protect from the sun.” Unfazed by her freaked-out-ness, he lifted her purse off of her shoulder. “I’ll lock this up,” he said and pushed her forward. The instructor handed her a seven-foot-long paddle.
“I didn’t know what PBY meant. I thought it was like a breathing thing or meditation. Not doing yoga on a surfboard in the ocean. I’m not a great swimmer.”
He shook his head. “You’re not swimming, doll. It’s a paddleboard, not a surfboard. It’s stable. You’ll be fine. Take off your shoes.” Randolph hustled her to the line of class members waiting for their boards and tossed her sandals in the lobster trap that served as a shoe repository. The life jackets were bungeed to the board to be used in an emergency, most of them dry and crusty from lack of use. Randolph wrenched one from a board and plunked it over her head. Fastening the straps around her body, he nudged her toward the edge of the dock.
Like soldiers in a drum line, ten tanned, fit students walked onto their boards. All of them wore bikinis, including the men. One by one they turned then knelt at attention to face the instructor, paddles held across their laps like samurai swords.
“I can’t do this.” Peg looked for an escape route but Randolph’s tall body blocked her view.
“Yes, you can.” Randolph guided her toward the board, the front of which was securely docked – only the tail end touched the water.
“No, I can’t.”
But it was too late – no way out – no escape. Peg tentatively stepped onto the board, dropped immediately to her knees and crawled to the middle. As she turned to kneel, her life jacket pushed up past her face and around her ears forming a moldy, smelly back brace. Yanking down the bottom of the jacket in order to gain some mobility and breathing room, she sat up on her knees. Randolph was next to her sitting cross-legged on his board with his eyes shut.
Okay, so maybe we just stay docked. I might be able to do it if I take off the life jacket… and I might not die without a life jacket since we are technically still on land. Deep breath in –
No sooner had she expanded her lungs than she felt the board move.
“Sit back on your haunches, miss. I’ll push your board off the dock.” The instructor had a pink and green tattoo of an elephant/human rippling across her muscular back.
“Wait, where are we going? I thought that we could stay here.” Peg was thrown backward on her heels as the board moved into the water – the life preserver returned to strangle status. The board wobbled unevenly as she sat up, fending off strangulation.
My life preserver is killing me.
“Grab your paddle, Peg, and do this–” Randolph was in the water and demonstrated how to paddle while kneeling. “As soon as you get the hang of it, you can stand up.” He popped up to standing on his board. He gracefully glided over to her.
The instructor’s bossy/calm voice lilted over the water. “Paddle yourselves out and meet the class by the mangroves outside of the marina. I’ll hand out the anchors there.”
“No way. All the way out there? I’ll never make it.” Peg glanced past the boats in the marina. It was a solid 100 yards to the mangroves.
“If you want, you can stay low on the board and paddle until you get used to it.” Randolph swirled around her in circles.
“I’m going to fall off.” Peg saw the fish darting beneath her in the clear water.
“If you fall off you get back on. That’s the worst that can happen.”
No, the worst thing that can happen is that I drown and Clark has to live out his adventure by himself… wait… that’s kinda happening already… maybe I’m dead… and I’m in –
Jolted back into the real world, Peg saw a six-foot shadow swimming under her board, then another one, then another one. She froze in fear. “Oh my God. What are those? Tell me those are not sharks.” She got on her hands and knees, eyes fixated on the monster shadows lurking below.
“Those are tarpon, Peg, not sharks. They hang out by the marina looking for leftover fish parts. They won’t bite yellow-bellied humans, so you’re safe.” Randolph’s dimples deepened in a smile as he paddled in line with the other boarders heading for the mangroves. He turned to check on Peg’s progress.
White-knuckled, on her hands and knees, with her life jacket covering half of her head, she remained paralyzed. She drifted toward the idling fishing boats, loaded with tourists and ready to start out.
“Peg. Sit up and paddle, or the boats will run you over.” Randolph broke from the ranks and stroked toward her.
Jolted out of her daze by the threat of engine decapitation, she sat back to kneeling. She spread her thighs out to increase balance and paddled. Surprising herself, she moved forward and in the right direction.
“You go, girl. Keep going.” Randolph pumped his arm. “Whoo, whoo.” He steered behind her and they made their way to the mangroves.
The green leaves and vines jutted out of the water in mini shrubbery islands. Sweat stung Peg’s eyes as they paddled up to the other people who were standing on their boards and chatting sociably. They greeted Randolph with a friendly “hello” and introduced themselves to Peg.
The zero-body-fat instructor floated next to them and circled the group as she spoke. “I’m Kalinda and I’ll be guiding you through toda
y. We’ll head out into the mangroves and anchor in a beautiful cove for our practice. I invite you to follow me in body and mind.” When she turned, the eye of the elephant head tattoo stared from her sculpted scapula. Her board levitated above the water, the paddle barely making a ripple. The ten other class members all had similar rippleless exits.
“What? We have to paddle more?”
“Why don’t you try to stand up? Honestly, it’s easier,” Randolph begged with paddle in armpit and hands in prayer.
Sensing Randolph’s frustration, not wanting to be left alone in the mangroves only to be found drifting off Cuba in a reverse commuting way, Peg placed her feet in a sumo squat. Slowly, using all of her quad strength – holding her paddle in tightrope-wire-walker fashion – she rose. “I’m up.”
“Don’t overthink it. Let’s go.”
Once up, gravity assisted her life jacket in taking its appropriate spot on her body. Rivers of pooled sweat trickled down her yoga pants. She paddled one side and then the other. The warm Caribbean breeze pushed her from behind as her toes curled in a pre-cramp effort to keep her upright. The strong current carried the board.
I’m doing it. It’s okay… like a lazy river ride. Boy, if only Trudy could see me now.
“Look around you. It’s a beautiful day. Relax.” Randolph leaned against his paddle, letting the flow of the water guide the board.
Peg glanced up for a brief moment but not wanting to jinx the good karma, returned to focusing on her balance. Perhaps using too much focus, she failed to notice that the group was already meditating, cross-legged on their boards with their anchors in the water. With a little less focus, she might have noticed she was coming in to meet the group at a fairly good clip, and her board had found a strong current.
Ramming speed.
When she did look up, it was too late. “Watch out,” she shrieked in an un-yoga-like manner as she careened into the circle, taking out two of the better meditators. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I couldn’t stop.”
Island Life Sentence Page 7
