Page 45 of Dreams and Reptiles

“Yeah, Mom. Thanks for the reminder.” More people giving me shit about my age was not helping.

“You’re welcome. Have fun dancing the night away.”

“Love you, Mom. Good night.”

I parked the truck next to Berto’s Honda Ridgeline and turned the engine off. The music was indeed on, and I could hear it through my windows. It was already six-thirty, and I hadn’t showered yet. And I needed to press my shirt.

I found Berto in the barn.

“Oh, good. Here, let me do this. You go get ready.”

“Thank you. I hate being late.”

He patted me on the shoulder. “My girlfriend hates it when I’m late, but she’s learned that animals don’t care about time.”

“Let’s hope Francis agrees.”

I took the quickest shower ever, cut myself shaving, then looked down and thought about what Roger said… and sighed. “Let’s hope he doesn’t mind the pelt.” I applied extra deodorant, some aloe vera for the cuts, wished I had time to give my hair a buzz, or at least tame my eyebrows, but it was already seven. I threw on my nicest black denim, a black, white, and tan bowling-style shirt with a white tank undershirt, and my black leather Adidas. It was going to have to be good enough.

I grabbed Francis’s tool bag with his gift inside and took off for his place.

I was pleased to see at least twenty to thirty people congregating around the back patio, including Derek, Roger, and Arnie. There was a bar set up, with a guy I recognized from Foggy Basin Brewery pouring some of their best brews and soft drinks. Francis had told me this first party would be a host bar and that, in the future, there would be a “donations appreciated” sign. He planned to keep the retreat nonprofit as long as he was able, keeping costs down to make the space and classes affordable for his guests. I hadn’t wanted to pry about his financial situation at all, but I hoped he was in the position to do all this.

“Showoffs,” I said to my colleagues. They were wearing nice dress shirts and slacks with loafers. Derek stood between them with a shy perma-smile on his face, wearing light khakis and a dressy black polo shirt that looked very Patagonia Silicon Valley.

“Eh, I guess you cleaned up okay,” Roger said, as he pulled me in for a hug. Arnie gave me the hand-slap-bro hug, and then I held out my hand to Derek, who shook it enthusiastically.

“Francis will be so glad to see you. He, um, has an issue.”

My chest tightened, and I turned for the house. “Where is he?”

“Come on, I’ll show you.” Derek took me by the arm and led me away from his admirers, who looked lost as we crossed the patio together.

“Please don’t say anything,” Derek whispered to me, as he went in the slider.

“Don’t worry. Rog filled me in. I won’t say a word.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Derek’s mother Judy said. “I thought you promised no snakes,” she hissed at us when we entered the kitchen.

“I… snakes?”

“One of your snakes is in the laundry room,” Anne said with a fake smile plastered on her mouth. She spoke through gritted teeth, as though she didn’t want the whole party to know there was a monster in the house. “Francis is trying to keep it contained. I don’t want to lose my only son, Kendall.”

What the… a snake in the house? Shit. I hoped it wasn’t a rattlesnake.

“Was it making any noise? The snake?”

The women shook their heads.

“Beats me. I saw it and screamed,” Anne said. “I told Francis that homeownership comes with challenges, but I don’t want him to die in his new house.”

“I promise, Ms. Lau, I don’t keep snakes. Derek, can you please put this in Francis’s office for me?”

Derek took the bag from me, and I made my way down the hall past the kitchen toward the back, where I knew there was a mudroom and washing machines.

“Francis?” I tapped on the door. “It’s me.”

He pulled the pocket door open two inches. “Thank God. Please tell me you can get this thing out of here. It must have come up through the second drain. There’s no grate on it.” The door opened the rest of the way, he grabbed the front of my shirt and dragged me inside. He was standing on a five-gallon bucket and had a broom in his hands.