“My name’s Burt. What’s yours?”
Gracie wore a broad brimmed hat and tinted sunglasses. She looked like a mysterious baroness who did not welcome small talk.
“Madonna.”
“Madonna?” Burt ricocheted his disbelief into Gracie’s ear. “You mean, ‘Like a Virgin’, Madonna?”
“Yeah, exactly like that.”
“Well, I’ll be darned. I’ve never met a ‘Madonna’ before. I mean, I know the singer and all, but I’ve never actually met a real ‘Madonna.’ ”
“Well, I fill in for her on some of her songs. We have the same name, so no one can really tell the difference.”
“Right. Good one,” Burt nudged Gracie like they were fast friends. “You’re funny, you know that? I heard you tell the tour guide you’re from Chicago. I like Chicago.”
“That’s nice.”
“Ya know? The skyline with the Sears Tower and stuff?”
“Yeah, I know. It’s actually called the Willis Tower now.”
“I’m from Detroit. We don’t have skylines like that in Detroit.”
Gracie nodded and let the conversation fall to silence. Teddy waited for her to make an excuse about having to move out of the sun or needing to use the bathroom, but instead, she watched Freddie unwrap the final rope from the pier, signaling to the ship’s driver, Pico, to start up the engine.
The boat motored away from the dock and Freddie jumped into the boat with the grace of Fred Astaire. As the boat propelled forward, Gracie grasped the straps of a life jacket lying on a nearby seat. Her eyes cast out across the cerulean abyss between the boat and the shrinking safety of land.
“So, ever been to Hawaii before?” Burt was determined to make Gracie his day-trip companion.
“No.”
The European couple sat in a far corner of the boat with their French bourgeoisie detachment. And Thelma and Louise amused themselves with their digital camera by fabricating ridiculous centerfold poises with Freddie and reviewing each snapshot with gleeful delight. Gracie was at Burt’s mercy.
“You’re not here alone, are you? A pretty girl like you?” Burt nudged Gracie’s arm. She forced a smile.
“No, I’m here on my honeymoon.” Gracie looked down and remembered that she had forgotten to put on her wedding ring, the killer weapon-of-mass-destruction disguised as a five-carat diamond engagement ring.
“Yeah. I figured you probably were taken. Not me. I’m here alone. Looking for love in all the right places, or so I’m told.” Burt laughed and rolls of belly protruded out from below his cotton tank top. Clearly, Burt thought he was a riot.
“Heard Hawaii was the ‘Miami of the middle-aged’, so I came to check out the scene, if you know what I mean.”
The boat cut through the ocean’s frothy waves and Gracie peered down at the drowning waters rushing past her, considering which was worse, hurling herself into the open sea or enduring Burt’s touchy feely nudges. He was like an inappropriate uncle who didn’t know when to quit.
Teddy called over to Blue Hair who was chatting it up with the other keepers.
“I hope you’re listening to this,” Teddy called to her. “Your assignment is rhyming.”
Blue Hair pretended not to hear him. Gracie cast her eyes far across the ocean to the faint shadows of parasailing parachutes racing across the horizon in the distance.
Burt noted her gaze. “So what’s the matter, your husband left you alone to go parasailing?” His perceptive guess caught Gracie off-guard, and it was the only time that she betrayed annoyance. “No, why?”
“Oh, sorry. Don’t take that the wrong way. I just thought maybe you were watching them parasailing ’cause maybe you know someone out there. But forget it. Don’t mind me.”
Burt pulled out a candy bar from the pocket of his tropical shorts. “Hey, you know parasailing’s one of the most dangerous sports there is?” slurred Burt, his mouth stuffed with gooey globs of chocolate and nugget. “I know ’cause I do insurance for a living. Real dangerous. That’s why I’m here chasing the butterflies. Nobody ever made a claim against their life insurance policy while chasing butterflies, you know what I mean?”
“Would you excuse me? I’m feeling a little sea sick.”
Gracie had reached her threshold of charity socializing. She moved up to the steering deck, and took a seat next to Pico, the cruiser’s skipper. Pico was a native islander, not more than twenty-years old, whose golden skin and friendly eyes reflected the brilliance of the blazing sun. Pico chatted it up with Gracie and pointed out their island destination in the immediate distance. He shifted the boat to a lower gear and skillfully steered her bow along the docking pier. He told Gracie how he preferred driving a boat during the summer for extra college cash rather than picking coffee beans on his father’s thirty acre plantation. Teddy watched as Burt took a keen interest in Gracie’s newfound friendship with Pico. If he didn’t do something fast, Burt was going to waddle after Gracie the whole afternoon with his butterfly net and wide-load of lonely desperation. There was only one way to protect her from Burt. Sabotage.
Pico shut off the boat’s engine and coaxed her starboard to the pier with the drift of the current. Freddie jumped out of the cruiser and fastened her docking lines to the pier’s metal cleats. The tourists all stood on the deck in anticipation and surveyed their destination—a wildlife preserve of barren sand dunes, eclipsed by swatches of rippling wild grass. Pico shuttled down from the boat’s helm to help Freddie pass out the necessary butterfly nets. Thelma and Louise were first to disembark the boat. They towed themselves up to the boarding steps and onto the dock with the guiding hands of Pico and Freddie. With their uncontrollable wild boar squeals, the two women immediately disrupted the solace of the island. They lumbered up to the apex of the first sand dune. Their chirping banter and shuffling steps through the grassy knoll startled hundreds of Albino butterflies. The insects scuttled into the air and swirled around in the circumfluent breeze like white confetti at a beach wedding. Everyone gazed at the butterflies with delight.
The French couple was next to disembark from the cruiser. They immediately chased after the centrifuge of white butterflies vortexing through the air. The breeze carried away both the French couple and butterflies down the coastline. It was Gracie’s turn. She left her hat on the boat and held Freddie’s hand as she pranced off the stern and onto the peach fuzz beach. Her auburn hair whipped forward, then backwards in the wind. The sunlight revealed the goldenrod freckles on her checks, and her freewheeling smile reflected a happiness that Teddy hadn’t seen in years. Suddenly, Teddy wondered if every man in the lower dimensions thought she was as beautiful as he did.
Gracie shuttled up the sand dunes. She stopped when she saw Thelma and Louise haphazardly swatting their nets into a patch of dwarf sunflowers like two children trying to annihilate anything that lived there. Gracie retraced her steps and headed towards a secluded prairie knoll. She aimed to spend the day by herself. Teddy glanced back at Burt, who was stuck on the boat, watching Freddie rifle through the storage bin, trying to find a butterfly net without a massive hole in its center. For one brief minute, Burt’s expression of sulking dejection—a tragic comedic clown, lifting up one broken net after net from a circus barrel—made Teddy feel guilty about intentionally puncturing holes in each one. But Gracie’s elated smile made it all worth it.
Gracie and Teddy spent the next two hours alone and totally immersed in capturing butterflies. Teddy tracked down a group, their butterfly wings perfectly camouflaged amongst the bursts of neon yellow and fuchsia pansies. He rustled a solitary butterfly out of his slumber, then send it fluttering into the air like a pink bubble gum wrapper. Gracie immediately chased after it, scooping it into her net and swiftly securing the delicate butterfly into a tiny tear-drop pocket of its mesh. Some of them frantically beat their wings, as if to attempt an escape from the precarious destiny that claimed them. The bigger darker butterflies usually hushed themselves into silence. With iridescent peacock
wings, patterned with glassy green and blue eyes peering up at Gracie, they seemed to plead for mercy with gentle pulsing blinks, as if they knew she only wanted to admire their beauty before airlifting them again into the swooshing unfettered breeze. Gracie’s hair snapped back with the sudden gushing gale, and dozens of blue-foiled butterflies magically soared up from their haven of ground vegetation. She gazed up at them with a broad smile, then closed her eyes and coveted the warmth of the sun on her cheeks. Standing atop a sand dune, perched above the rest of the coastline, Gracie peered out across the open water. She was the center of an impressionist painting, delicate strokes of pastel brilliance amongst ethereal light. The blue sky mirrored the ocean waves, frothy white ripples were reflected as repeating cirrus clouds. Everything about that day was gorgeous.
Gracie pulled off her summer dress, revealing her tomato red bikini. She kicked off her sandals and shuffled her toes through the blushing coral sand. The Pacific wind feathered her hair and salted her skin, and she looked like a native island girl scintillating with beauty and innocence in the naked glow of the savage sunlight. If there was ever a moment that Teddy wished to be mortal, this was it.
Freddie blew a whistle from the dock, signaling all the guests to return to the boat. The metallic twee-eeeeeeet of the whistle drove deep into Teddy’s being and dampened his spirit. His afternoon with Gracie had come to its bittersweet end. He watched her chase after one last butterfly—a honey-glazed beauty with transparent wings, long delicate antennas, and an erratic and spontaneous flight pattern. Gracie swiped her net, twice missing the object of her affection. Without warning, the amber butterfly settled itself right onto Gracie’s shoulder. Gracie flinched at first, a natural reaction to the tickling sensation of an insect’s legs on her skin. But the butterfly danced into the air and repositioned herself back on the peak of Gracie’s neckline. She froze and attempted to gently lift the butterfly into her palm for a better look. The butterfly complied and nestled itself in Gracie’s hand. For a brief moment, the spatial world was a place filled only with infinite and wondrous surprises.
Freddie’s metallic whistle shrilled again. Both Teddy and Gracie looked in the direction of its source and felt threatened by the urgency of its call. Gracie spread her palms wide and coaxed the butterfly into the air, but it preferred the safety of Gracie’s hand to the uncertainty of the wild. It wanted to prolong the moment of their unity forever, and Teddy understood the heartbreak it felt when the wind finally swept it away and out of sight.
Gracie and Teddy were the last ones to arrive back to the boat. Blue Hair was as sour as usual and Burt’s pitiful expression of exclusion made it all the worse. He had relegated himself to the bow of the boat where he could avoid everyone’s gleeful recounting of their magical afternoon, including each type of butterfly they had caught in their nets. In the end, Burt never found a functioning net—just twenty damaged ones with more holes than a bachelor’s sock drawer. And Blue Hair was bent on making Teddy feel the repercussions.
“I’m reporting you to the Dimension Council,” Blue Hair snapped.
“Wouldn’t be the first time, lady.”
“You think this is all a game, don’t you?”
“Don’t pull your high-and-mighty routine on me, okay? I just know it’s my job to protect my assignment from your assignment.”
“Protect her? From what? He’s not a serial killer.”
“How do I know that? He is from Detroit.”
“You’re unconscionable,” Blue Hair said with disgust. “He’s just a sad lonely man that needed some companionship today. So what’s it to you if they spent the day together? She was alone, too, after all. But no… you had to go meddling where you don’t belong and ruin the whole day for Burt, just so your precious girlfriend doesn’t have to be bothered with being bored and annoyed.”
“She’s not my girlfriend—”
“Fiddlesticks,” Blue Hair countered with a huff. “I see what’s going on between the two of you. I see the way you look at her. Shame on you. And you can be sure that the Council will hear about this.”
Blue Hair turned back to her Grannie Patrol of Keepers who nodded in agreement.
“Besides,” she scowled back at Teddy with one final shot, “I don’t see anything special about her anyhow.”
“Yeah, nothing except that she’s a gorgeous vivacious woman and you’re an eight hundred-year-old bitter hag.”
The Grannie Patrol gasped in horror, and the Grand Master Grannie herself glared back at Teddy with cold silent scorn.
“You’ll regret those words, Mr. Mulligan.”
“I. Can’t. Wait.”
Teddy scowled in silence as Blue Hair and the other keepers twittered amongst themselves with self-righteous reprimands. Teddy certainly didn’t mean to ruin Burt’s whole day trip. He just wanted to ensure that Gracie wouldn’t have to deal with the annoyance, and Burt was clearly annoying. Not even ol’ Blue Hair could dispute that. Regardless, the whole boat ride back to the main island, Teddy sulked with moody cycles of guilt. Things Teddy knew were wrong, like Luke screwing other women, he couldn’t make right. And things he thought were right—like protecting Gracie from an obnoxious pestering insurance salesman—were wrong.
As the cruiser docked in the marina, the inevitability of Gracie’s Destiny encroached upon them. Teddy and Gracie’s time together had ended. Gracie was returning to another man.
The van ride back to the hotel was a solemn affair. Everyone’s thoughts consumed them as they reflected on the beauty and solace of the afternoon. The French couple’s whispering provided the melodic background noise. Thelma and Louise kept their bubbling laughter to a minimum. Even Burt’s former clown frown looked more contemplative than pathetic. Gracie, too, stared out of the window in meditative thought—the same way she used to insulate herself from the other kids while riding the school bus. She was reflecting on the day, but she was also thinking about Luke. She was wondering about his day of adventurous parasailing, and for a fleeting moment she wished she had the courage to learn how to swim and take more risks; then, maybe she wouldn’t regret spending the day alone. Teddy quickly stopped reading Gracie’s thought because it hurt to know that she didn’t realize he was with her.
The van drove up to the circular hotel carport. Freddie quickly jumped out from the driver’s seat and personally assisted each of his guests out of the van’s double doors.
“Ladies first,” Burt insisted with his unpolished sense of propriety. It was the first time he had spoken to Gracie since they left the island. Gracie jumped out of the van and passed two twenty dollar bills to Freddie.
“Oh, no, miss,” Freddie refused. “I couldn’t. It’s too much.”
“Please, I insist.” Gracie forced the money into Freddie’s palm. “I had such a great time, and you guys were the best. Besides, it’s not all for you,” she reminded him with a wink. “You have to share some of it with Pico, too.”
Gracie knew from working her whole life in bars that tips were always shared—one way or another—and she would have given Freddie more if she had it.
“Yeah, I know,” Freddie smiled wide in appreciation. “You take care now, Mrs. Ellington,” Freddie said. “Make sure that new husband of yours takes you to that expensive restaurant I was telling you about. It’s your honeymoon, after all.”
“What expensive restaurant?”
Gracie and Freddie turned towards the familiar voice. Luke balanced confidently on the edge of the valet curb. Blonde, handsome, and half-naked, except for his beach shorts and a small white towel that slung over one shoulder, Luke could have been mistaken for a Swedish Olympic swimmer or a world-champion Californian surfer. Gracie bolted towards him. Luke lifted up his bride and swirled her in the air, like he thought he had lost her forever. Everyone gazed at the couple—Freddie, Burt, the French couple, Blue Hair, the other keepers—each admiring the couple’s young love. Everyone except Teddy.
Teddy couldn’t stop glaring at Luke Ellington. Luke
and Gracie were still exchanging affectionate kisses and tender glances as Luke brushed away the beach sand that clung in his wife’s hair. Gracie quickly recounted with excitement all the details of her butterfly adventure—the breathtaking boat ride, the Elysian topical island, and every species of butterfly she had seen. She tried to inquire about Luke’s parasailing adventure, but every time she posed questions to Luke, like how high he sailed above the ocean, or how fast he traveled through the air, or if it was scary coming down into the water, Luke acted like he was less interested in talking about his own afternoon than hearing about hers. He towed her into the hotel lobby and into the elevators.
“It sounds like you were a regular butterfly magnet,” Luke said, snaking his arm around her waist.
“I don’t know about a magnet, but I definitely felt a sincere connection with them. Do you know what I mean?”
“You attract me and I’m not a butterfly.” Luke lifted Gracie up into his arms, whisking her out of the elevator and down the hallway.
“Well, thank you for making the reservation for me. It was perfect.”
Luke lowered Gracie in front of the door of their penthouse suite. “What reservation?” He unlocked it and flicked on the lights.
“The reservation with the concierge? The one you made right after breakfast this morning.”
“I didn’t make a reservation for you with the concierge.”
Gracie rolled her eyes. “I know you’re my handsome secret admirer, Luke. And it was wonderfully sweet.” Gracie approached Luke with a rewarding kiss.
Love, Greater Than Infinity (Book 1: New Adult Romance) Page 9