Chapter Forty Three
Having money in the bank makes for some fun vacations. We had talked about it for a couple months, made plans six weeks ago to take a vacation together, six of us. Norrah picked up the bill for a large RV rental. Norrah may have had a lot of money, but that didn’t mean we weren’t frugal with how we spent it. The RV was discounted due to the season (it was mid-October), as was our campsite in Yosemite Valley. We had a special campsite in the periphery of the grounds, one with as much privacy as you could hope for. The nearest campers would be a hundred feet away.
Norrah, my brother Caleb, and I embarked on our voyage early that morning, picked up Brittney Hayes down the hill, and the four of us happy-campers (pardon the pun) drove up highway 99 to Fresno. It was afternoon when we picked up the final two of our sextet: Deborah and Aaron. There were smiles all around.
Things had returned to normal following the resignation of Doug’s investigation. We hadn’t heard a word from Doug since that phone call. Over the months we had visited with Aaron and Deborah a few times, and they had visited us twice. They were a young couple in love, and spoke of a future together. I thought a wedding proposal would come soon enough.
Caleb and Brittney were doing wonderful, as well. Their sights didn’t extend as far as a family together, but they enjoyed one another’s company both emotionally and especially physically. Needless to say, she was a virgin no longer. On the drive up to Fresno I got my brother alone in the back of the RV and had a beer with him sitting on the side of the bed. I asked where he was with Brittney, if he might settle down with this one. He didn’t need to answer, his expression said it all. He was smitten with her. I wondered if Caleb would freak out if he knew that one of our sextet (Aaron) had watched his girlfriend get penetrated at the party of the missing twenty-three. As far as I knew, my brother knew nothing of it. Not that it mattered, that was in the past. Brittney was awesome, and if I were my brother I would have no problem dating her knowing what I know. People make mistakes, live and learn.
It was a two hour drive from Aaron’s apartment to Yosemite Valley. Norrah drove the whole way. She insisted. She claimed to love driving big things and you bet I had something ambiguous to say about that, an innuendo of sorts. It was late-afternoon when we arrived, early-evening by the time we had our two tents set up. One tent was for the young’uns, one for the pastor and his lovely girlfriend, and the RV was to be where I got up to no-good with my girlfriend for four consecutive nights.
It was our first evening in Yosemite. Vacations are at their prime on the first day; it seems unfathomable that they will come to an end. It’s hard to correctly picture a scenario, such as the one we were enjoying, ahead of time. You never know how magical a trip will be, you can only guess at it. Usually they’re better than you could have hoped for. You’ll sit there on your folding chair before a fire, fielding kisses from a loosened-up girl who loves you with all her heart, and take pause to put yourself on the outside looking in, a better way to appreciate things. I was a lucky guy. These were the memories I’d take with me forever, and some distant year I’d come to remember this trip as being the time of my life. I knew it like I knew that Norrah would accept my marriage proposal tonight. I had a diamond ring in my pocket. I originally decided to propose in the RV without an audience. But sometimes improvisations should be made, and this was one such time.
Over a fire we roasted Chedderwurst on skewers and they were scrumptious. We drank Corona and lime with them. Caleb was sitting in a weird kind of chair, it had no legs, and was atop a rolled-out sleeping bag. Brittney was between his legs, her back to his chest, his hands around her stomach, their cheeks touching. He’d occasionally kiss her, and she’d smile when he did. To our right was Aaron, his folding chair butted up to Deborah’s. Her hand, palm up, was being explored by Aaron. He was reading her lines, telling her future. He didn’t believe it to be real, nor did she, but he had learned how to read palms as a young man before he converted to Christendom (Christianity?) and occasionally read people’s palms as a novelty. He was having fun with Deborah. He said she was going to have nine kids, three sets of triplets, and live to be a hundred and seven. She was giggling at everything he said. I liked the way her large breasts jiggled when she laughed—don’t tell Norrah I said that.
The moment was right, I sensed it. I asked Norrah to go inside the RV and fetch some marshmallows, graham crackers, and Hershey bars. She dutifully scampered off. I capitalized on the moment, took the ring out of my pocket and paced around before the fire nervously. Aaron asked if something was up. I said no. My brother knows me better and suspected what was coming and whispered into his girlfriend’s ear. Her eyes widened, smile so wide that the fire-light reflected off both rows of teeth.
Deborah touched at Aaron’s thigh, and it crept up just enough to intimate to him that she was feeling a little amorous. He arched his brow at her hand, then her eyes. She winked at him. He smiled back, leaned in to kiss her. I wondered if they were having sex. Do pastors tend to wait till marriage for that? I suppose Aaron and I were close enough that I could ask him, and maybe I would sometime soon. But judging by how they were kissing now, and his reciprocation of an inner-thigh-touching hand, they were no strangers to one another’s flesh. Good for him. He deserved a good woman, and Deborah was a great one.
When Norrah was almost to our cozy little camp an owl hooted nearby. It was on a low branch of a sequoia on our campsite. She said, “Ooo, did you hear the owl?”
I dropped down to one knee and held up the ring. It glimmered from the fire. She was still walking toward me, her gaze at the invisible owl. Then she looked at me, at what I was doing. She stopped pie-eyed in her tracks a couple feet from me, her mouth having dropped open like an unlatched glove-box. At my side Deborah gasped. Brittney uttered, “Aww,” in a high tone.
Norrah covered her mouth with both hands, eyes already leaking.
“I love you, Norrah. I love you like I never thought I could love anyone. I was going to wait till later tonight when we were alone in the RV, but I couldn’t wait one moment longer, couldn’t stand not having you for a fiancé any longer. Will you marry me and spend the rest of your life as Mrs. Jay Davis?”
She nodded, hands still covering her mouth. “If you’ll sign a pre-nup,” she said. “I’m worth a lot of money.”
Everyone laughed, including me. I got to my feet and took her in my arms. Each passionate kiss of hers was an acceptance of my proposal. She said she was kidding about the pre-nup, as if I didn’t know.
Aaron stood from of his chair, opened the nearby ice chest and took out a bottle of Corona, used an opener to pop the top and proposed a toast.
“Don’t do it,” Norrah said to Aaron. “Not for us.”
“I drink only on special occasions, and if this isn’t special…” He cleared his throat. “Here’s to a long happy marriage between two of the finest people I know. Two of the finest people on earth,” he amended. My brother and Brittney took up their Coronas. I handed my fiancé her beer and together we raised them. “May your marriage be as happy as I know it will be, and may you two die by each other’s side at the ripe-old age of a hundred and seven, with three sets of triplets each as cute as their mother and as wise as their father. And mother. Cheers.”
We all swigged our beers.
It was around ten o’clock, all kinds of wildlife chirping and croaking and screeching. Norrah and Deborah excused themselves to pee in the RV. Aaron left his chair and sat in Norrah’s, beside me.
“Congratulations, buddy,” he said. “I’m so happy for you two.”
“Thanks, man.”
Caleb and Brittney were making out. It was getting pretty steamy over there.
“Having a good time?” I asked Aaron.
“The best.”
“Good.”
“I forgot to tell you earlier,” he said. “Guess who I finally met with yesterday?”
“I don’t know.”
“Brooke. Tinkerbelle.”
r /> “Oh yeah? First time in what…”
“Over six years.”
“Cool. How was it?”
“Great. We had lunch at the Olive Garden. She looks like a woman now, almost as tall as me! It’s so weird going from seeing her at eight to now. In my mind I still saw Tinkerbelle, even when we spoke over the phone. Now it’s Brooke, the young woman. She has a good head on her shoulders. She wants to be an archaeologist some day.”
“Right on.”
“Remember what I said about being bothered about… me supposedly liking her in a physical way?”
“Yeah.”
“I knew it wasn’t true, but that was confirmed yesterday. She is very pretty, but I wasn’t at all attracted to her. Part of me was worried that Paul had been right, that even though I wasn’t yet attracted to her, that maybe I would be when she matured. Meeting with her yesterday laid all that to rest permanently. I should never have let that weasel get into my psyche like that.”
“That’s the truth. I’m glad for you, mijo.”
“Gracias.” He sipped his long-neck.
“You know,” I said forebodingly, “October 30th isn’t far off.”
“Do you think I don’t worry about that every day? It’s a worry in vain, though. She has a boyfriend. I didn’t say anything to her about the party and Paul, there is no need to. She wouldn’t go to a party, she’s a good Christian girl. And is pretty taken by this boy Aiden she’s seeing. Everything turned out all right, huh?”
“I am engaged to a beautiful woman. So yeah, everything turned out just fine, methinks.”