Page 27 of Proslo

I laughed, thinking that no matter how fancy the hotel bathroom was, it probably had nothing on what we had aboard ship. I didn’t tell her that, though. She’d just have to see for herself when I’d gotten her to come up for a visit. Maybe once we had our placement and the child or children had a few days to settle in. She could visit and be like a sort of grandmother to them. Unlike my own mother, who was goodness knows where. She’d remarried for the fourth time and moved away without a word.

I’d only found out about her marriage because of the scribbled note inside the crockpot she’d inexplicably mailed me, along with an old mug with Rainbow Brite on it and a resin statuette of a frog holding a four leaf clover that had the words ‘Good luck from Cloverdale’ inscribed on the base. That had been two years ago and I wondered if she was still married to that guy and if so, if she was happy and what she would think about my getting matched. It was pointless wondering about that though, so I shrugged it off.

“Let’s go see, shall we?” I asked my friend instead, and together, we went to have a look.

“See, what did I tell you? Fancy, right?”

She wasn’t kidding. This was nearly as nice as our en suite. It had a separate tub and shower and the toilet was in its own little room. There was a small dressing area with a cushioned bench just outside the bathroom door, which had space beneath it where we could put our shoes when undressing. Two small closets bracketed the bench, and a peek inside showed there were wooden hangers already there, ready to be used, all of them with the logo of the resort burned into the wood. A paper sign inside of each said we were welcome to take the hangars home with us, for a charge of ten dollars a hangar.

“Well, that’s expensive,” I said, closing the closet door.

“What is?” Proslo asked.

“Note inside the closet says we can keep the hangers but they’ll charge us ten bucks a hanger.”

“Perhaps that is part of how they make their money, in order to keep the prices fairly reasonable. We shall take them up on it.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but then closed it. It wasn’t worth arguing about and he was right. I’d looked the place up on my phone last night as soon as Xero had told us where we were going and the prices were actually reasonable for how luxurious it looked from the pictures on TripAdvisor, which, for the record, actually failed to do this place justice. Them charging stupid money for people taking stuff like hangars and towels was probably how they managed it.

Proslo’s kunnarskyn beeped and he glanced at the message that had come in. He beamed, looking at me and my friend. “He’s managed to get us reservations to the place he recommended. We need to be there at five-thirty in order to eat at six.”

“Did he say what we need to wear?”

“Smart casual,” he said.

It was time to go shopping.

18

PROSLO

An hour into our shopping trip, the front desk sent another message. This time, letting me know they had made a mistake about the time - we needed to be there a quarter to six, and clarified that the dress code was actually casual, including beach wear. The concierge noted that most guests still opted for smart casual when they went.

“So, smart casual beach wear?” Mrs. Titchmarsh asked, her eyes twinkling.

“Oh! Like a nice bikini top and a pretty sarong and sandals!” my mate replied, eyes shining as she jumped onto the idea.

“Well, no bikini in my case,” the older woman laughed. “An old lady one piece suit for me but I could wear a caftan over it.”

“Caftans…” Betty’s eyes grew dreamy.

In the end, the two women bought two caftans each, Betty three different sarongs, and they got two swimsuits apiece. I couldn’t wait to see Betty in hers, both of them a style she called fifties pin up girl style but which Mrs.Titchmarsh told me her own grandmother and her friends wore as young women in the fifties and early sixties, and they had not been pin up models. I did not, however, look forward to the other males seeing my mate in them, as I knew all eyes would be drawn to her full figured beauty. My expression must have given it away, as Mrs. Titchmarsh cackled and swatted my arm, telling me I had it bad and had nothing to worry about.

I did ask her what ‘it’ was, having a fairly good inkling. I was already head over heels for my bride. I knew being in love with her was indeed nothing to worry about, nor was I worried that she would go and fall in love with another. I’d only known her a short while, but I could already tell that she was not built that way. She was a pure soul; I could see it shining within her, resilient and strong.

Hats, sunglasses, more sunblock, water shoes, and various sandals also made their way into our shopping bags, along with shorts, some trousers both females referred to as pedal pushers, t-shirts, and a few sets of tunics with matching leggings. There were so many bags stuffed to the gills that we had to take the walkway back to our hotel to drop off our bags before going back out for lunch and even more shopping, as Mrs. Titchmarsh was adamant that the various outfits needed different ‘looks’. Betty tried to convince her that was why they had both casual and dressy sandals, but she wasn’t having it. So after lunch, we went shopping for necklaces, earrings, bracelets, anklets, and several more pairs of sunglasses as well as hair clips, headbands, and such for them to do their hair.

“Are you sure it’s not too much? I don’t want to get you in trouble because we became shopaholics,” Betty asked me while we waited for Mrs. Titchmarsh to come out of the ladies’ room.

“Not at all. Most of these are for you and I’m sure she will find occasion to wear the rest when joining us on family vacations later.”

“You’d let me invite her along to our family vacations?” she gasped.

“Is she not like family to you?’

She nodded. “Like a favorite aunt,” she confessed.

“There you are then. And I think perhaps you should tell her, so she knows. We should never let the people we care about go a single day without knowing we love them.”