Four Good

“It takes her a while to warm up to people,” I say. “I just need to feed them and I’ll be ready to go.”

“Can I help?” Jay asks. There’s a different element to the tone of his voice. He’s asking because he thinks I need help, like there’s something wrong with me.

Silently, I curse the visible signs of my disease, and wish I’d never had to tell him about it. “I got it,” I say.

After Roscoe’s been fed and food left out for Bea, we take Roscoe back to Sheila’s, and get in my car to leave.

We’re about a mile down the road when Jay asks, “Is it okay if we tell the others about your lupus?”

“Why?”

“Well, if you need to avoid the sun, I’d like everyone to know that,” he says.

“I don’t want to affect how you spend your vacation.”

Jay frowns at me. “I want to spend time with you. I don’t care what I’m doing. The others probably feel the same way.”

I focus on the road, avoiding his gaze. The Hayes brothers are action travel guides. I highly doubt they’ll want to sit under an umbrella with me for the rest of their time here, but I probably do need to take it easy. Sometimes my lupus just gives me a rash, and other times, that rash leads to more uncomfortable symptoms.

“We can tell them,” I say.

When we get to the beach house, a delivery person is there with bags of food that smell delicious. It turns out to be barbecue from one of the best places on the island, complete with all the fixin’s, as they say.

“We thought we’d give you the night off from cooking,” Corbin tells Jay as he and Jonathan unpack all of the containers and line them up on the counter.

“I couldn’t have made all this,” Jay says. “Not without an army to help.”

“It may take an army to eat it all,” I say, looking at the Hayes brothers. “Did you tell them to send everything they had in their kitchen?”

“I think we’ll put a pretty big dent in this,” Jay says. “I’m starving.”

“Yeah, I guess I’m pretty hungry, too,” I say, opening a box to find it filled with golden hushpuppies.

“Hmm, you’re both extra hungry?” Jonathan says, eyeing us with suspicion. “Would there be any particular reason for that? Maybe something you did while you were at Christine’s house that really worked up your appetites?”

Jay glances at me, and when I grin, he says, “Maaaaaybe,” making it obvious what we were up to with that one word.

“How did the call with your client go?” I ask the brothers.

“It was fine,” Brendan says, getting a stack of plates out of the cupboard, “except that the guy is trying to pack way too many things into his trip. We’re trying to get him to narrow down his wish list so we can plan the itinerary.”

“Where is he going?” I ask.

“Machu Picchu is at the top of his list, and most likely Iguazú Falls in Argentina,” Corbin says. “He also wants to go cave diving in Mexico, too, and that will probably work out because he has a month, but he has a big list of side trips that are not all going to fit.”

“A whole month?” I say, incredulous. “What does it cost for someone to hire the three of you for a full month?”

“A lot,” Jonathan says, chuckling. “We have some clients that have more money than they know what to do with.”

Brendan hands a plate to me and gestures for me to start the impromptu buffet line.

“How clever of you to start a business that involves being paid to go on vacation,” I say.

“Well, it’s not like we don’t work hard on our trips,” Corbin says, “but yeah, we thought it was a pretty good business model.”

After filling my plate with shredded pork, a piece of smoked chicken, macaroni and cheese, cole slaw, and three hushpuppies, I take a seat at the big dining table, followed closely by the four men.

Along with seafood, this fare is the island’s specialty, and I don’t often indulge because it’s so rich. I think I’ve burned enough calories over the past couple of days to warrant a big meal, though. Surely, my body needs to refuel.