“Sweetheart? You know our lovely neighbor Mrs. Shannon from Aiken, who’s staying in the condo next door?”
Faithful Rufus raised his big squarish head and gave Eliza and then me a questioning look. Seeing it was Eliza, whom he loved, and that this had nothing to do with him, Rufus put his head back down and resumed his nap. I looked up from my novel. There stood my wonderful wife behind her retro cat-eye sunglasses and under her enormous sun hat. Of course, I knew who Mrs. Shannon was. I had never seen a woman with more elective plastic surgery in my entire life. She was the one with a thirty-year-old head perched atop a sixty-something-year-old body. The stuff of nightmares. Eliza’s hands gripped her elbows across her gauzy striped caftan. The set of her jaw resembled one of those guys on Mount Rushmore. Bad body language. She was very annoyed.
“Is something wrong, sweetness?” I said, hoping to lighten my wife’s mood.
“Nice job watching the boys, Adam. Our little darlings tried to assassinate Mrs. Shannon’s miniature Yorkies with their fun new semiautomatic Super Soakers. She just had them groomed. She wants to sue us unless we pay for them to be regroomed. In cash. This minute. I didn’t go to the bank.”
I considered the situation for a moment. I had definitely flunked her mandate to watch the kids.
“Take what you need from my wallet and tell Heckle and Jeckle I want to talk to them.”
She nodded her head and called out with exasperation, “Boys!” She caught their eye and hooked a thumb in my direction.
They looked like a couple of textbook imps. I thought, Well, at least with my boys, what you see is what you get.
Inside of a minute, my five-and-a-half-year-old twins were standing at the foot of my lounge chair with their water guns resting against their shoulders, like soldiers at attention. I could tell by their disingenuous expressions that there wasn’t even a smidgen of regret between them. Max had a deadly serious face and Luke was fighting back giggles. I removed my sunglasses and stared down my nose at them with the most authoritative look I could muster. I struggled to sound provoked.
“I’ll bet you boys think you’re funny, don’t you?”
“We thought they were rats, Daddy. We really did!” Max said.
Max was the older twin, having burst into the world five minutes before his brother, Luke. Max was the wise guy of the family. Luke was the sweet one, always in cahoots with Max.
“Uh-huh,” Luke said, bobbing his head in agreement.
I looked over to old tight-as-a-drum-faced Mrs. Shannon and her little dogs, which were perched on her flabby lap as she dried them with a beach towel, fluffing their fur and cooing apologies. One of the little varmints wore a fake diamond collar and the other wore fake pearls. Are you kidding me? Both had their facial hair restrained with tiny rubber bands and wet ribbons, sad little bows that had come untied in the fray and hung down like overcooked strands of fettuccine. The dogs actually appeared to be frowning. They were ridiculous dogs, I thought, if you could even call them dogs at all. I’ve never been a fan of little yippers.
I looked back to my boys. They were right. Sort of. When drenched, her tiny terriers absolutely resembled rats in black tie.
“Did y’all apologize?”
“Yes, sir,” Max said. “We sure did. They ain’t real dogs, are they?”
“Of course they are, and you know it. And don’t say ain’t. It’s not nice to shoot animals or people with water guns. You boys know better. You should be shooting each other.” I realized how crazy that might have sounded to a passerby.
“It was by accident, Daddy,” Max said, practicing his Academy Award acceptance speech for Best Actor.
“I doubt it,” I said. “I was a boy once, you know!”
“You were?” Max said.
“I know. Hard to believe,” I said.
“We thought that mean old lady was gonna hit us, Daddy!” Luke said.
“No one’s going to hit anyone. Do you hear me? Now, behave yourselves or no Nintendo! Is that clear?”
“We don’t have Nintendo. Momma says we aren’t old enough,” Max said.
“I’m gonna be six soon,” Luke said. “That’s old enough.”
“Not if your mother doesn’t think so,” I said. “But you boys cross the line again, no TV!”
The threat of no television instantly sobered them. I was pleased with myself then, feeling I had successfully laid down the parental law.
Max saluted and then Luke did the same.
“Yes, sir!” they said.
“All right, now get out of here and let me read my book! You leave those water guns right here. They’re in time-out.”
“But it’s so hot!” Luke said.
“We’re dying!” Max said, performing a dramatic, drunken, weaving and staggering walk.
“Go jump in the pool.”
They dropped their weapons on the ground and ran back to the pool. I watched them and thought that they were really good kids, just given to mischief. I sighed and took a long drink from my can of lukewarm Coke.
I’d kill for a glass of ice, I thought.
I reminded myself that if I had been paying attention, Mrs. Shannon’s dogs would be dry. But hell! Wasn’t I entitled to some downtime too? I’d been working my construction crews almost around the clock to get the new strip mall on James Island open by the Fourth of July. The stores had all opened by June thirtieth. Four days early! I was mentally and physically exhausted and very glad my father could watch the site office for me. I’d taken over the family construction business ten years ago and quickly quintupled its size. My father was extremely proud of that, and his approval meant a lot to me.
I could hear the boys’ shrieks of laughter as they cannonballed and belly-flopped into the pool over and over again. Then the music became Marco! and Polo! as they bobbed underwater and jumped up as high as they could. They were having a wonderful time driving everyone else in the complex crazy.
I was just starting to think about lunch. I looked up to see Eliza crossing the terraced area and coming toward me again.
“Did your tummy start to growl yet?” she said.
“Kill me. I’m predictable,” I said.
“I love you being predictable. How do you feel about BLTs on toast with basil mayonnaise? The bacon is smoked with applewood.”
“If I had a diamond necklace in my pocket, I’d give it to you.”
“Really? You sweet thing!” Eliza giggled. “How many carats?”
“A thousand.”
“Then I’ll make homemade cottage fries too.” Eliza smiled and her dimples showed. “Lucky for you I packed my mandoline. And my fryer.”
Eliza was a very serious cook who brought her own knives and other accoutrements with her on vacation. Including, apparently, her mandoline, which I had recently learned was not a stringed instrument but a gizmo with a blade used to slice vegetables so thin that you could see through them.
I lifted my sunglasses and looked up at her.
“You are the finest woman who ever lived.”
“Ha ha! I love you, Adam Stanley.”
“I love you too,” I said.