“No way.”
“It’s not so bad. Once you get used to being naked you get to like it. It’s real liberating. And there’s parts of you feeling the ocean breeze that never felt the ocean breeze before. I might come back here on my own someday except I’m not sure it’s worth twenty dollars. I might come back if they have a discount day.”
“Someone will take my picture with their cellphone, and I’ll be on YouTube.”
“They don’t let you take a cellphone out there. Anyways if you want this loser you’re gonna have to get your clothes off.”
I squinched my eyes shut and grunted. “Great. Fine. No big deal.” I kicked my shoes off, ripped my T-shirt over my head, and shoved my jeans down to my ankles. I took the rest of my clothes off and rammed them into a locker along with our purses. I turned the key in the lock and slipped the rubber bracelet with the key onto my wrist. Lula and I each had cuffs.
“Maybe you should take your pepper spray,” Lula said. “Just in case.”
“The towels aren’t that big. I can’t carry everything. It’s not like I have pockets.”
“You could hide it in your you-know-what,” Lula said. “It’s just a little canister.”
“Are you serious?”
“Just thinkin’,” Lula said.
“Well, stop thinking. I have enough problems without you thinking.”
“Boy, you get cranky when you take your clothes off. I’m not sure I want to go out there with you and have you ruin my good experience.”
“We’re working,” I said. “We’re not here to have a good experience.”
I took a deep breath and stepped out of the locker room onto the beach. It was a beautiful blue-sky day and the surf was up. The beach was dotted with people sitting in beach chairs and stretched out on blankets.
“We must be at least thirty years younger than everyone out here,” I said to Lula.
“Yeah,” she said, “it’s like someone sprinkled the beach with a bunch of raisins and a couple prunes. I never saw so much shriveled skin. This group makes Grandma Mazur look like a teenager.”
The sand was hot under my bare feet and the sun felt warm on my skin. “You’re right,” I said to Lula. “It does sort of feel good to be out in the fresh air.”
“Yeah, I love the shore. I wouldn’t mind having a house here someday. I could look at the ocean all day long and listen to the waves.”
I shielded my eyes from the sun and looked down the beach. “Where’s the bar?”
“It’s over at the far end, under that thatched roof. You have to fight your way through the crowd to get to it. Old people like to booze it up.”
“Is Beasley naked?” I asked her.
“Sure he’s naked. Everyone’s naked here.”
We walked closer and I eyed the bar and the people milling around it. “We need a plan. Do you want to be the distractor or the cuffer?”
“I gotta be the distractor,” Lula said. “He already knows what I’m up to and he’ll be on guard if I try to sneak behind him. I figure I’ll walk right up to him and he’ll keep his eye on me. It’s hard to miss all my big brownness.”
Lula set off, plowing through the sand, and I circled around, hugging the perimeter. I was inside the bar area and directly behind Beasley when Lula elbowed her way up to the bar and got his full attention. I opened a bracelet and click it was on him. I went for the second wrist, he yelped, and threw a drink in my face. I blinked and swiped at my eyes. I felt him shove me aside and by the time I recovered he was outside the bar and running.
I sprinted after him, both of us having a hard time in the deep sand. He was distracted by the metal bracelet attached to his wrist, I took a flying leap, and snagged him by the ankle. We both went down face-first. I was holding tight to his foot, and I heard Lula yell “INCOMING!” I let go and scooted away just in time to see Lula hurtle over me, casting a massive shadow, and land on Beasley. “WOOF!” Beasley exclaimed on an explosion of air. And then he was completely still with Lula on top of him.
Lula climbed off, I cuffed him, and we rolled him over. His eyes were open, but I wasn’t sure he was breathing.
“Sometimes it takes them a while to get air after I pounce,” Lula said. She looked down at Beasley. “Are you okay?”
“Unh,” Beasely said.
“He’s okay, folks,” Lula said to the crowd that had gathered. “You could go back to your sunnin’ and drinkin’. Bar’s open. Self-serve.”
Beasley wasn’t looking like he was going to get up anytime soon, so Lula and I each took a foot and dragged him to the locker room.