Vacation to Die For (24 page)

I can barely see it through the tears veiling my eyes. I have to hold Lee’s hand so that I don’t trip. 

I guess this isn’t the best way to introduce him to parenthood. I hope his girlfriend forgives me. 

Hell, I hope she’s a better mother than me.

Even through the snickers and laughter, I hear my daughter sobbing and shouting to let her up and out of there.

Lee doesn’t knock, but enters the house and heads straight for the master bedroom.

I am close on his heels.

The teens draped over the couch in the living room quit giggling to stare at us. They are too stoned to react, and certainly too jaded to care about what’s happening to someone who is younger and more innocent.

Booze is old news to them. So is pot and sex. Mary is tonight’s entertainment.

The boy straddling my daughter can’t be more than sixteen. He’s got to be at least one hundred and ninety pounds to her one-hundred and six—in other words, a bruiser. He wears a canary yellow football jersey with royal blue letters that shout his last name, MONTROSE, in bold letters across his broad shoulders. His muscular arms have her pinned to the bed, and his thick thighs block her effort to close her legs, despite fighting him with all her might.

My punch to his nuts allows her to shove him off. She flies into my arms, babbling incoherently. I shush her and hug her close.

When I look up, I see that Lee’s wide hands are now wrapped around the boy’s neck and cutting off his windpipe from any oxygen. By the time I realize what is happening, the boy’s eyes are already fluttering, and he is gasping.

“Lee, please! No!” It takes all my might to pull him away. 

With Mary, we run out the bedroom door, and through the living room. The other four boys have sobered up in a hurry. They rub their knuckles as they weigh their allegiance to their buddy against the thought of possibly joining him in jail for attempted rape on jailbait. The cold hate lingering in Lee’s eyes must mirror my own, because the boys flinch and freeze when they look into our faces.

Smart move.

As we stumble back to my bungalow, Mary hiccups her thanks and whispers embarrassed regrets. Suddenly she looks down at her dress, and notices that the strap is broken. “Mom, I…I’m so sorry! I think that stupid creep tore your dress.”

It’s only then that I notice that Mary is wearing the short white frock I’d left on my bed.

Now that my daughter and I are almost exactly the same size, I hate my honeypot wardrobe. I’m quite a role model.

Mary can’t read my mind. She presumes I’m disappointed in her, not in myself. “You were right. They were too old for me to hang around. I thought that wearing this”—she looks down at the white dress—“would fool them into thinking I was older, but I know they could tell. Their jokes…embarrassed me. I did…things.” She ducks her head in shame.

“Mary, did you smoke pot with them?”

She cries as she nods. “And we drank, too. I didn’t realize what it would do to me. I was acting so…so crazy! They all laughed at me. It was so stupid.” Suddenly her face turns white. “Oh my God, I’m going to be sick!”

She stumbles off the path. A second later she’s bending over and heaving into a bush.

I rush to hold her head, but Chiffray beats me to it.

It takes her a few moments to get her bearings. When she finally rights herself, she takes a good look at him. “Oh!…Thank you.”

She looks over at me, with tears in her eyes. “Mom, I’d understand if you never trusted me again.”

Without thinking, I glance away. I’m so taken aback with her statement that the words fail me in describing my feelings: the relief that we got to her before the boy could hurt her; anger because she disobeyed me in the first place; and the knowledge that there are still too many lessons to be learned the hard way.

When I look back at her, her head is lowered from the weight of her shame. 

I tilt her chin up so that she can look into my eyes. I hope that she sees the love I have for her. When I can finally speak, I choke on my own words. “I have no doubt you’ll earn it back. Sadly, some choices we make have consequences we can’t anticipate, and we can’t take them back. But Mary, you’ll always have my love, and that of your father’s.”

Her relief comes out in a long, sad sigh. She hugs me tightly, like she did when she was a little girl, then stumbles up the stairs into our bungalow. 

Lee doesn’t follow me up the veranda steps. Instead he holds out his hand. 

I take it, and hold on for a while. He doesn’t seem to mind. 

Finally, he pulls away. When I try to speak, he waves away my thanks. “She’s…beautiful. And I think she’s learned her lesson.”

I nod. “Your girlfriend is one lucky lady.”

“Fiancée.” He grimaces as he says it. His deep voice is hollow, empty.

I hope the sadness melts from his eyes before he gets home to her and her little ones, because he strikes me as a keeper.

Thank goodness they’ve got a few years yet, before they have to deal with this kind of stuff.

I enter the bungalow in a trance, to which I am rudely awakened by the sound and fury of Cheever as he yells, “Those jerks scarred me for life!” 

His face is painted white, and covered with red stripes. He is naked, except for his underwear.

What. The. Hell?

Morton and Jeff also have war paint smeared on their cheeks. Headdresses, made of feathers and lanyards and covered with intricate beading, are on their heads.

At least they’re still wearing jeans.

“Whoa, whoa whoa!” I look from Cheever to Jack, who is doing his best not to laugh. “What exactly is happening?”

Jack nods over at Jeff and Morton, who are smart enough to sit still with their mouths shut. “Show her, Bing.”

For the first time since I’ve walked in, Cheever’s mouth actually snaps shut. He shakes his head adamantly. 

Jack walks over to him and jerks Cheever’s head down into a couch cushion. The poor kid’s underpants ride up high enough that I can see what looks like a woman’s breasts tattooed on his butt cheek. The words “KNOCKERS AND NOOKIE” encircle the very generous chesticles.

 Yes, I am speechless.

Noting this, Jack says, “I found the boys in the jungle just beyond the Kamp KidStuff gate. Seems they’ve done exactly as we’ve asked and kept busy. Unfortunately, their projects leave a lot to be desired—extortion, racketeering, bribery.”

“Wait…you sound like a Department of Justice agent.”

“You’re lucky I stumbled across them because I’m sure if they had shorted any of the counselors they were bribing to stay away, the Feds would have swooped down on their gang: Cheever’s Beavers.”

I bury my head in my hands for a moment. When I’m finally able to raise my head, it’s to address Jeff. “Seriously? Is that the best name you could come up with?”

Jeff shrugs. “He won at Rock Paper Scissors.”

Jack shakes his head. “Jeff, dude, he probably cheated at that, too.”

Both Jeff and Morton glare at Cheever, who shrugs. “You know what they say, ‘a sucker is born every minute.’ You two must have been separated at birth.”

“Just who was being extorted?” I ask.

Jack shrugs. “A better question is, ‘who wasn’t?’ Any kid who wanted to take a swim had to pay Morton before entering the pool. If a boy wanted to rent a surfboard or boogie board, he had to pay Jeff.”

Hearing that, I turn to my son. “That’s terrible! All of those things are free amenities at the resort. What do you have to say for yourself, Jeffrey Harrison Stone?”

Jeff looks down at his feet. “I plead the fifth.”

 “No, sorry, young sir. This isn’t a court of law. I am your judge, jury 
and
 executioner.” I shake my head. “Go on, Jack.”

“Any kid who fought the system was taken to a tribunal, in one of the jungle caves.” Jack’s tone is serious. 

I get it. They crossed over into croc territory.

“If a kid didn’t pay up, he was staked to the ground. They’d play ‘pin the sword on the pinkie toe’ with him.”

“A sword?” I grab Morton by the scruff of his neck. “Where did you get a sword?”

Try as he might, he can’t get out of my headlock. “It’s fake!” he gasps. “We bought it off the King Arthur counselor, for a fiver!”

“They’re lucky no one got hurt. Shows you what lousy aims they have.”

“We missed on purpose,” Jeff insists. “We were just trying to scare them.”

Jack raises his hand to shut him up. “As it turns out, a few of the boys figured out that Cheever is a great big pussy and started a mutiny.”

Jeff and Morton nod vigorously. “They stole all the money we’d saved,” Morton mutters indignantly.

“Serves you right,” I snap back.  

“Hey, you’re lucky I came upon you when I did,” Jack interjects. “If I remember correctly, you two were next in line for a couple of homemade ass tats.”

“We’ll get back at them,” Cheever declares. “We know where they live.”

I shove him back down on the couch. “You’re not going anywhere, you little sadist. The whole lot of you is grounded. In fact, in the morning I’m calling your mother. She’s not going to like what she hears.”

All the bravado seeps out of Cheever, like a water balloon pricked with a pin. 

When Jeff raises his hand, my nod tells him that it’s okay to speak.  “Mom, this was supposed to be our vacation, too, remember? If you tell Cheever’s mother, he’ll be grounded for life! Instead of that, what if we make nice with the other tribe? We can sign a peace pact with them.”

I think for a moment. “Sure, I can live with that.”

Cheever is all smiles again. “Hey, maybe we can smoke a peace pipe to seal the deal! I know where my dad keeps his pot.”  

 “No! And no blood pacts, either. Just sign something and live up to your word. You know, like leaders do in the real world.” 

For once, I’m glad that none of these kids know their American History, or World History, or PoliSci, for that matter. If they pull off peace and tranquility for the days we have left here, then this truly is a fantasy island.

Jack points in the direction of their bedroom. “Get to bed, all of you.”

I wait until their door closes before I burst into tears. “I’m an awful mother.”

Jack takes me in his arms. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. From what I could see in this place, you’ve got a lot of competition. They weren’t the only kids crawling out of their windows after bedtime.”

“But I checked on the boys last night! They were sound asleep in their beds!”

“Apparently not. Jeff confessed that they slipped out every night. They’ve been sneaking over to Eden Key and looking in the windows.”

“What little pervs! I hope Cheever never saw his mother with…Oh, never mind.” I fall onto the couch. “And with that crocodile wandering all over the place, too.”

“Trust me, one bite of Cheever, and the crocodile would swear off humans forever.” Jack falls down beside me.

I lay my head on his shoulder. “Mary also had a rotten night. One of those high school jocks almost went too far. I shudder to think what would have happened if we hadn’t gotten there in time.”

Jack’s face darkens when he hears this. “‘We’?  But Aunt Phyllis was here when we came home.”

“Lee Chiffray offered to go with me. Certainly I could have handled the creep crawling all over Mary without him. If you’re asking me if he went along out of anything other than concern for Mary’s safety, I can tell you no.”

“I believe you.” The edge in his voice tells me differently. “But ask yourself, Donna: Why would he? Why wasn’t he back at the Hunt Club with his girlfriend?”

“Because…”—I’m at a loss for words—“because he was concerned. He’s a decent guy, Jack.”

“Decent guys don’t sanction human safaris.”

He’s got a good point. Does Lee Chiffray know anything about the Hunt Club’s dirty secret?

From what I saw tonight, I’m willing to bet no.

Then again, I can’t tell you where my kids are at any point in time, so I guess I’m not as smart as I think I am.

When this vacation is over, I need to take a vacation.

Chapter 16

Trip Insurance

There are certain vacations in which trip insurance is not only necessary, it is mandatory. Here are two such circumstances: