The Love Sucks Club(48)
“There’s the ocean,” Sam counters.
“You’re a pig,” she says.
“Never said I wasn’t.”
She strides off to the bathroom. Roxanne looks around the table. “I think it will be good for her to join us. I think it will be good for us, too.”
Sam shakes her head. “I can’t see any way in which letting Debbie Downer into our club could be beneficial.”
“Maybe we’ll all learn something,” Roxanne says.
“Come on, Sam,” I say. “It might not suck as bad as we think.”
“Fine, I give,” Sam says. “But I’m collecting dues from her.”
Chapter Thirteen
My head is aching so much, I might as well have a hangover. Dragging my butt out of bed takes an act of supreme will. I debate a quick walk up the hill and decide against it. Sam and I are doing the island tourist thing today and that should be enough exercise for anyone.
Frank sits in the bathroom with me as I shower and follows me through the house chirping and meowing as I get dressed. When I’m dry and clothed, I scoop him up and hold him upside down, cradled in my arms like a newborn baby. Kissing his big face, I coo, “Aw, isn’t hims precious? Isn’t hims the sweetest widdle thing?” He glares at me for about thirty seconds of this torture before sinking his teeth into my arm. I give him one more kiss on the nose and set him on the counter for some wet food. Susannah hates that I feed Frank on the counter. She swears that I’ll get cat food or hair or germs or something mixed into human food and we’ll all die. All I know is that Frank and I are equals in so far as we can be and though he may have to suffer the indignity of pooping into a box, I do my very best to treat him as a friend and a valued companion.
At any rate, this is mine and Frank’s house and we make the rules so if Susannah doesn’t like sharing counter space with Frank, she can go eat at her own place.
I can hear Sam’s truck pulling up outside, so I open the door and usher her in. Her tourist for the day outfit consists of white board shorts with gigantic blue flowers and an orange and yellow color themed Hawaiian shirt. She refills her travel mug from my coffee pot while I gather a couple of bottles of water and some snacks.
“I have to say that I am mightily disappointed in your wardrobe choice for our big day,” Sam says.
Looking down at myself, I shrug my shoulders. “What? I look great.” I’m wearing my standard baggy cargo shorts and a tank top, but in concession to the tourist day, I’ve added a bright teal, red, and purple hibiscus covered Hawaiian shirt.
Sam shakes her head. “You could have at least added a visor or something.”
“I think my shirt is gorgeously clashy enough to stand alone.”
“Whatever.” She leans down to kiss Frank on the top of his head. Frank responds by flattening his ears and looking grumpy. “He’s mad because I didn’t bring him any beef jerky.”
We take the beachfront road all the way to the other side of the island. It would be a lot faster to take an inland road, but if we’re going to be tourists, we have to do it right. It’s important to remind ourselves of why we live in the Caribbean and sometimes, just taking a drive along the shore is enough. The water is gorgeous today. The blues are all clear and bright and it looks as if we could go out forever and still see down to the bottom. Whenever you talk to a sea captain or a dive instructor here, they will inevitably tell a tale of a tourist who came to visit and asked for a vial or a bottle so they could take some of the blue water home with them. It’s an old wives tale, which doesn’t stop just about everyone I know from telling it to tourists and locals alike as if it had truly happened to them.
Our first stop is the pier at East Beach. Sam and I live on the working class side of the island. Most of the people there have jobs and many are struggling to get by. There is quite a bit of poverty, but it is also rich in local culture. The east side of the island has all of the multi-million dollar homes and the huge, fancy resorts. This is where you can find the specialty food shops, the expensive jewelry stores, the trinket shops and the boutique clothing stores. We don’t tend to spend a lot of time over here, but it is nice to drive over every once in a while, mainly because this side of the island hosts the cruise ships. There is no better place for people watching than in a crowd of cruise ship passengers. Parking the truck, we slip into the crowd of cruise shippers and move with the flow of people. Sam points out a man wearing a black mesh see-through shirt. “1980s gay dance club fashion,” she whispers.
There are enough men wearing black dress socks with shorts and sandals that I stop pointing them out. We wander into a souvenir shop and Sam picks up a t-shirt that has two giant roosters with surfboards. The caption says, “Cocks on vacation.”