Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms - Charles Austen [86]
“Not me. I’m hungry,” said Ms. Waboombas, apparently this time actually meaning ‘for food’.
She strutted away from us toward the door wearing nothing but high heels, ragingly comfortable in her own skin. I looked at the others—who, thankfully, all rapidly shook their heads ‘no’—and I hurried to follow her lead.
The stripper and I arrived at the door together, and with some aplomb, she threw open the entrance and framed herself
conspicuously in its opening. She put one hand on her hip, leaned the other against the doorjamb and slowly looked around. Or, rather, slowly waited for everyone else to look around and see her.
No one did more than casually glance. They all went about their naked business. Ms. Waboombas became a bit agitated, strode forward, and—coughing loudly—did a slow pirouette near the cheesecake display.
No one even turned her way. It surprised us both.
Becoming annoyed, Waboombas cleared her throat, threw out her chest, and suddenly, out of nowhere, a brass band began to play. Now all eyes turned our way.
Still standing in the doorway, I turned to look back at the street and saw a local marching band of some kind, complete with nude, fuzzy hatted drum major and clothes-less baton twirlers, parading down the street and playing to…uh…beat the band. I supposed they were rehearsing for some nude-centric festival event later in the weekend, though it was possible they did this all the time just for fun.
I mean, again, who knew the rules?
The overall effect on Mindie, Morgan, and the pastor would have been the same if a sniper had opened fire on them: they all scampered about like cockroaches escaping Raid. Skittering here and there, desperately trying to find cover, they eventually gave up and ran over to where Ms. Waboombas and I stood in the open door of the restaurant. Frantic, they pushed past the stately stripper and I, into the diner, holding their ears as if—somehow—just hearing the music would seduce them, Pied Piper-like, into racing off a cliff so they’d fall to their deaths atop a pile of naked people.
Ms. Waboombas and I followed them up to the hostess station, and I moved to the front as everyone else stood to one side trembling—paralyzed with fear. A carved wooden sign nailed to the podium read: ‘No Shirt, No Pants, or No Service.’ I waited patiently for a moment, then noticed a bell on the hostess station podium and dinged it gently.
A pretty young girl (naked) talking to a cook (naked) near the counter began backing our way (naked) as she finished her conversation. He laughed at something she said that I couldn’t hear, most likely a joke about a minister, a stripper, a comic book fan, and a clothing executive lost in a nudist colony. As the hostess backed toward me, I managed to drag my eyes, as though wrestling with alligators, away from her shapely rear-end, and somehow note that she wore a cute little choker-bowtie, wrist cuffs, and an apron. Aaaand—that was pretty much it.
“How many?” she asked, turning to smile at me brightly.
Both our smiles fell like snow off a roof in springtime as we each realized whom the other was.
I was myself, and she was my Ms. Nuckeby.
“Mister Wopplesdown!” Ms. Nuckeby said.
“Ms. Nuckeby!” said I.
I could feel Mindie’s body temperature rise to dangerous levels behind me.
“You know this woman?” she asked.
My mouth flapped uselessly.
Ms. Nuckeby glanced over at the others. She wore the sort of expression you’d find on someone staring at an oncoming train while trapped inside a gasoline tanker and tied atop high explosives, as someone carelessly attempts to light a cigar with a blowtorch.
“You don’t remember me?” Ms. Nuckeby asked Mindie, clearly stunned.
“I do not associate with nudists!” Mindie sneered, dismissively. “Why would I remember you?”
Ms. Nuckeby’s fear was bussed away, then quickly replaced by a heaping helping of anger, and a side order of disdain.
“No reason,” she said and turned to me. “Lovely woman,” she said, not meaning it. “Your fianc