Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms - Charles Austen [82]
“Come on,” Waboombas said, glancing at the shrubs along the shore. “You must have hit your head harder than you think.”
“Hopefully I knocked some sense into it,” I said.
She stared at me for quite while, then shook her head, hefted me and began the journey up the long staircase, cradling me like a baby.
I continued to smile into the bushes all the way to the top.
The sign I’d never read said:
WELCOME TO GREEN VALLEY
NIKKID BOTTOMS—1 mile
NOTTYNGON—4 miles
There was an arrow pointing off toward the coast.
“Nottyngon,” Morgan said. “Isn’t that where Robin Hood lived?”
No one saw the need to correct him.
Someone—‘wild animals’ probably—had used fluorescent paint
to turn the first ‘I’ of ‘NIKKID’ into an ‘E’ so that the sign now read— in a very juvenile attempt at humor in reference to the nude beach below no doubt—‘NEKKID BOTTOMS’, a joke no one over the age of seven could possibly find amusing.
“HA!” Ms. Waboombas said, laughing and setting me down. “Someone changed the sign! Nekkid Bottoms! Get it? Like ‘Na-ked Bottoms’.” She shoved me hard, as if we were both in on the single greatest joke ever, and then collapsed in a spasm of laughter, which lasted a good several minutes. She eventually finished, wiping tears, stifling aftershocks of giggles, and breathing heavily. The rest of us simply ignored her as we returned to the Duesenberg.
“Are you in a condition to drive?” the pastor asked.
I just smiled weakly, climbed behind the wheel as the others settled themselves, and quietly drove off.
We trundled along—steaming and spewing, sputtering and clunking, in the direction indicated by the defaced road sign—down what had become a one-lane dirt path toward the coast, and— hopefully—the repair shop.
As I drove the winding road, shifting about painfully, joints aching, wounds throbbing, I still couldn’t stop thinking of Ms. Nuckeby. Damn those cruel hounds. If I hadn’t ruined things last night, this most recent meeting had certainly driven several nails into some kind of coffin—probably mine. The worst part was: I was having a difficult time reconciling her behavior with that of a golddigger. She seemed genuinely distressed by Mindie. She had last night in the closet as well. And if all she was interested in was money, why not stay and fight it out? I had told her I was here specifically to see her. That should give her strength of mind to stick it through and do battle if all she wanted was cash and comfort.
Instead, she had reacted as if she were jealous of all things. As if she might actually be somewhat interested in me. Or entirely interested in me. Was that possible? Was the gold-digger idea a nonstarter, so to speak? And besides, how much gold would she need to dig if she never spent any on clothes? Isn’t that the primary reason women become gold-diggers in the first place? House, cash, clothes. What kind of woman was Ms. Nuckeby anyway?
Convinced I had likely ruined any and all hopes of ever finding out, I decided it was best to just stop agonizing about things. I turned my attention to the scenery and attempted to get lost, somewhat meditatively, in its beauty. I’d never spent much time—if any—in the country, and I was surprised to find that it was—as so many who have spent actual time in it have often said—potentially quite relaxing. Trees rose up majestically on all sides, songbirds did their thing, and the air was crisp, and fresh smelling—like newly cleaned floors. The area was lovely, no question. Were I a normal person, I might have actually enjoyed it.
But instead—as my fiancée and imminent wife sulked beside me, and Ms. Nuckeby’s anger at me continued to haunt—painful emotions roiling around inside me like the chest-burster from Alien—I began to absently wonder if wild bears, or other untamed animals, really did live in these woods. If so, would they be dangerous to us? Was it possible they could, at any moment, come leaping from the dense undergrowth, tear me limb from limb, and eat me viciously right here, alive,