There's Blood on the Moon Tonight (78 page)

“That’s right,” Bud said, smiling. “In fact, Ham told my dad we wouldn’t be coming back till
Friday. Boy, will the old man be surprised to see us!”

             
              *******

Ham lay awake on his bunk. He was facing the hull, with Betty Anne spooned up naked behind him, her left arm cradled on top of his stomach. He’d made it to Wilmington on pure adrenaline, docked the boat, and then crashed in his rack before he could pass out on his feet. He wasn’t a young man anymore and by God it was showing. Soon as he’d hit the sack, though, wanting nothing more than a few winks, Betty Anne came crawling into bed with him. And for the second time in less than three hours, his wife was doing things to him that she’d never done before. She’d even drawn blood this time, biting his shoulder as he came inside her. At first, he’d been pleasantly surprised with his wife’s newfound ardor. Now he was more than a little troubled. Like her sudden lack of modesty, it wasn’t like his baby to act this way! Their sex life, while satisfying, had always been on the conservative side. Missionary position, and all that. That morning, though, Betty Anne had done things to him he hadn’t fantasized about since he was a teenage boy still having wet dreams. And something else he couldn’t put his finger on.

              She just seemed…well, different.

             
Maybe it’s just the stress of the storm and all those “Bad Vibes” I’ve been experiencing lately…

             
He took Betty’s hand in his and kissed her slender fingers. They were almost hot to the touch. Before he closed his eyes and fell asleep, he noticed she had a little scratch on her wrist that looked infected.

             
                            *******

The Creep
s
strolled the streets of Wilmington, side-by-side, killing time until they could return to the
Betty Anne
for the voyage home. Bud and Josie placed calls at the first set of payphones they came across. Bud hadn’t really expected to get through to his dad, but Josie had been disappointed when the line at her Aunt Sissy’s just rang and rang. She asked the operator if the phone lines were still up and running in Beaufort and was told that they were.

            
 
She racked the receiver, more concerned than ever.

Rusty, attempting to distract her from her worries, asked Tubby: “Your mom and dad still seasick, Opie?”

“Uh-huh. They’re so queasy that dad is thinking about renting a car and driving back down to Beaufort. Rather than going through that ordeal again.”

“It won’t be so bad going back. The seas will be smoother on the return trip.”

“That’s what Ham told my parents before he hit the sack. Dad gave me some money to buy them some Dramamine—just in case they do decide to stay on board.”

“It didn’t seem to bother you,” Bud observed. He clapped Tubby on the back, and tried out his pirate voice.
“And all this time I thought ye was a landlubber!”

“No one was more surprised than me,” Tubby said, wondering if Bud had a cold. “I thought that was kinda fun last night! In fact, Rusty, if it’s okay with you, I thought I’d ask your dad for a job when we get back home.”

Rusty stepped back in surprise. “Really? What about your job at the theater? It’s fine with me, but I thought we were going to work together.”

“You’re going to be working with my dad, not me. I’ve been doing my part in concessions because that’s the only job I could get at my age. It’s not for me, though. Besides, your dad was telling me about the kind of money I could make on a shrimpboat, and with that kind of dough I could buy a new laptop! Something I’ve always wanted.”

Rusty nodded. It relieved some of the guilt he’d been feeling over leaving his dad shorthanded. “You can make a whole lot of scratch working on a shrimpboat. Dad isn’t cheap when it comes to his help, neither. I’m not even gonna tell you the balance in my bank account. It’d make you greener than a booger! But I gotta warn you, Opie, it’s damn hard work. Hot as hell in the summer and colder than an Eskimo’s cootchie in the winter. And early?
Shiiitt.
Pop gets started as early as three a.m. some days.”

             
“He was telling me. I’ve always been a morning person, anyway, and hard work doesn’t scare me. My dad worked me like a sled dog most weekends. Besides, I’ve been meaning to lose some weight, and this should help me do it. I need to get away from all those fatty snacks in the concession stand! You know how many calories are in our buttered popcorn?
Sheesh!
”

“How’s your mom going to take the news, Ralphie? Shrimpin’ can be dangerous business.”

“Gee, Josie, I didn’t think about that! No
way
is mom gonna let me take that job!”

Rusty patted him on the back. “Don’t give up hope, Tubs. Let my dad speak to your father first, then the two of them can tackle her together.”

                          *******

After stuffing themselves at McDonald’s, they found their way down to the public beach, where Bud and Rusty stripped off their shirts, toed off their sneakers, and raced to the surf, talking trash every step of the way.

              Cramps be damned!

             
Josie opened up her behemoth beach bag and tossed four towels to Tubby. He stood there awkwardly, too embarrassed to take off his shirt and join the guys. He’d worn his Einstein sweatshirt with the cut-off sleeves, because he thought it hid his body better than a T-shirt did. He knew if he got it wet, though, it would stick to his boobs like one of those slutty chicks in a
Girls Gone Wild
video.

“Lay those out, Ralphie,” Josie instructed him. She stepped out of her shorts and peeled off the voluminous old dress shirt, unveiling the green bikini she’d put on earlier. Tubby quickly averted his eyes. “Relax, boyo. I’m not taking it
all
off, you know! This ain’t a nude beach.”

Tubby tittered self-consciously, trying to keep his eyes on Josie’s face, rather than the amazing body her bathing suit did little to hide. Somewhere behind them, in a crush of kids lazing on the sand, a wolf whistle sounded, then another and another, followed by an appreciative:
“Damn, that girrrrl’s some kinda fine! Yowsa! Check out those bodacious ta-ta’s!”

“You mean the fat kid’s or the chick’s?”

Laughter erupted and rippled all around them.

Tubby turned and glared in their direction—not for the insult directed at him, but for the disrespect shown to his friend. Josie put a hand on his arm. “Don’t let it get to you. Assholes can’t help themselves. You know that.”

“But it’s rude,” Tubby said. He was aware, though, that his own desires mirrored those of the laughing boys behind them. His hypocrisy made his throat clench, even as he stole furtive glances at Josie’s freckled cleavage.

Josie flipped off the offending rabble and took a seat on her towel. Behind them, the teenage boys roared with good-natured laughter. They didn’t mean any real harm. Separately, she doubted if any of them would’ve had the guts to whistle at a pretty girl. She found Tubby’s attitude refreshing, even if he did sneak-a-peek whenever he thought she wasn’t paying attention.
Boys! Haven’t they ever heard of a thing called peripheral vision?
She patted the towel next to hers. “Come on, tiger, keep me company.”

Tubby took a seat on the towel beside her and pulled the sweatshirt away from his gut and chest. It was nice out, and he found it hard to believe that just down the coastline a hurricane was bearing down on Moon Island.

He looked up at the sky and peered off into the distance. The black smudge on the far horizon seemed of little consequence.

Josie brushed the sand from her feet and leaned back on her elbows, checking out all the happy beachgoers. A little boy and girl were digging in the sand beside their sleeping mother, not three feet from where Tubby was lounging. The little girl looked up from her yellow beach-bucket to see Josie smiling at her. The little tow-headed cutie, her apple cheeks red from the sun, waved her plastic shovel, and Josie blew her a kiss.

A radio somewhere was playing
Scenes from an Italian Restaurant
. The sunny sounds of a day at the beach seemed to harmonize perfectly with the Piano Man.

Tubby settled down on his Budweiser towel. He could barely make out the signature logo upon which he sat. Josie sat on a towel with the famous Coppertone ad: a little blonde haired girl at the beach, a small dog behind her, playing tug-of-war with her bikini bottom. Tubby picked at the tassels on the fringe of his towel, trying to think of something clever to say. Through the corner of his eye, he saw Josie smiling at him. “What?”

“Oh, nothing. I just couldn’t help noticing how much you remind me of our Buddy boy.”

Tubby winced, as if she was making fun of him.

Josie saw the hurt in his eyes and she clucked her tongue. “What am I going to do with you, Ralphie? Don’t you know me well enough by now to know I would never lie to you…much less
hurt
you?”

“Force of habit,” he shrugged. “So what is it about me that reminds you of Big Bad Bud Brown? Is it my rippling muscles, or my steely blue eyes?”

“You have brown eyes, Ralph Tolson.”

“Hmmm. So it’s my studly physique?”

“Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“Making fun of yourself. I don’t like it. When you pick on yourself, you’re picking on one of me best friends…and it
pisses
me off.”

Despite Josie’s grim demeanor, Tubby couldn’t stop himself from smiling. Josie punched him in the arm, hard enough to leave a heckuva bruise later on. “OW!!”

“See? Don’t mess with my friends, Tolson.”

“Got it. And, um…thanks, Big Red.”

“Don’t mention it. Now, if you’re all done making me mad, I’ll tell you how you remind me of Bud.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s better. You have the same inner-something that attracted me to Bud in the first place. To be honest, I don’t understand why girls aren’t beating a path to you.”

“
Inner
something? Tubby laughed in disbelief. “You’re kidding, right?” Josie reared back her arm, her hand clenched in a fist, poised to strike him again. “Okay! Okay! I’ll take your word for it! But would you care to elaborate, Mrs. O’Hara?”

Josie shrugged and turned over, lying on her stomach. “I’d like to, Ralphie, but I don’t know how. You can’t define the indefinable, you know.”

“The
indefinable
?”

Tubby’s eyes ran the length of Josie’s body—from the back of her head, where her hair was tied off in a ponytail, down to her smooth, unblemished back, her muscles flexing just underneath the surface of her skin. His eyes caressed her every inch of the way. Down to her rounded buttocks, snugly encased in the green bottom, which, despite their modesty (by today’s standards, anyway), showcased that dual pinch of butt flesh very nicely; on down to her long legs, his gaze lingering at her feet, both of which rested on her very pretty toes. Flexed on top of the beach towel, digging into the sand underneath it.

Josie turned her head and saw his eyes undressing her. Despite her usual feelings about being ogled, she found herself enjoying his adoration. She wasn’t kidding Ralph about that indefinable “Something.” Like her Bud, Tubby had it in spades. A depth of character that neither boy was at all aware of. Josie found that level of sincerity immensely sexy in a man, whether he had the body of an Adonis, like Bud, or the complexion and physique of the Pillsbury Dough Boy, like Tubby. “Keep on losing weight, tiger, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. If George Clooney gained a hundred pounds, would he still not be the same glorious hunk of a man?”

“Most people would disagree with you, Joe.”

Josie leaned up on her elbows and worked open her beach bag. She retrieved a bottle of suntan oil and tossed it to Tubby. “Yeah, well most people don’t have my insight,” she told him, completely in earnest. “Now make yourself useful and put some of that lotion on my back and legs.” She untied the back of her bikini top, laying the ends to either side of her now squashed chest.

Tubby gawked at the sight of Josie’s right breast, bulging out from the side.
God, a woman’s body is a marvel of human flesh,
he thought in awe. Rounded in all the right places.
Soft
, in all the right places. Curves, right where they ought to be.
Well, in Josie’s case, anyway
.

He swallowed down the lump in his throat and, like Bud earlier, did math problems in his head to keep a certain body part distracted. He squirted some of the oil on his trembling hand, flinching at the obscene sound it made, like the shampoo bottle in Josie’s bathroom. He gave a quick, guilty glance down the beach, looking for his other friends. Bud and Rusty were nowhere in sight, though. Resigned to the task at hand, he timidly rubbed the lotion on Josie’s bare back. He knew there was nothing wrong with her innocent request, but the imagery running through his mind (that old prevert, Benny Hill was back to his shenanigans), told his heart he was once again betraying a sacred trust.