Neanderthal Marries Human: A Smarter Romance (Knitting in the City) (37 page)

The red couches were soft. The orange shag carpet was softer. The bearskin rug in front of the fireplace was even softer.

We spread out, looked around, and found eight bedrooms. Each had its own bathroom, and each bathtub was worthy of tubinn time (tub + Quinn).

“
At some point I’m getting naked on this rug,” Sandra said, rolling around on the bearskin. “I might even try to take it home with me in my suitcase.”

I sat in one of the large chairs
, and Fiona handed me a bottle of water. “Keep hydrated,” she said, smiling.

“
It won’t fit in your suitcase.” Ashley’s voice carried from where she was standing behind the bar, going through all the alcohol choices. “This place is off the chain. They have a bottle of Royal Salute up here.”

“
Holy crap!” Marie walked over. “That’s like a thousand dollars.”

Elizabeth walked in, flopped into the chair across from mine.
“What is Royal Salute?”

“
It’s thirty-eight-year-old scotch,” Ashley responded, then whistled. “I’m not touching it. I don’t even have a thousand dollars in my savings account.”

“
How many ounces is it?” I asked.

“
It says seven hundred milliliters.”

I did the math in my head
, converting milliliters to ounces and dividing the bottle cost by number of shots. “That’s sixty dollars a shot.”

“
Well, hell. I can afford that.” Ashley grinned.

Elizabeth winked at me
, and I smiled even though I was starting to feel a little unsettled. Maybe it was because the lemon drops were wearing off.

I glanced down at the huge antique ruby ring on my finger and, in my brain,
I took a long look around me and thought about the last few hours—the room, the limo ride, the first class tickets—and realized that this was my life now.

I was marrying Quinn
, but I was also marrying his bank account.

The thought didn
’t fill me with excitement. It filled me with dread.

***

We caught a
show that night. Then we gambled and drank and danced in the club on the top of the casino. Then we passed out. No one objected to sleeping late the next morning.

I crawled out of my room around 12:30
p.m. and was the third person up. Fiona and Ashley were also awake, and they’d already been to breakfast, the pool, shopping, and returned. Neither of them were typically big drinkers so it made sense that they didn’t have much of a hangover.

I didn
’t have a hangover either, but sleeping in felt good. We’d gotten back to the hotel room after 3:00 a.m. and, without sleep, I was like a malfunctioning Internet search engine. You could ask me a question about moon phases, and I’d come back with information about how to make homemade marshmallows.

Everyone else joined the
land of the living over the next half hour, at which point I was informed that we all had an afternoon and evening of bliss planned at the hotel spa. Again, the entire spa had been reserved. I felt a lot spoiled and a little irritated that I was the only one who seemed to be experiencing dissonance with the level of luxury.

I
’d never been to a spa before. I’d never had a massage or a facial, and I’d certainly never been waxed anywhere. Sometimes I’d painted my own nails or given myself a pedicure. I usually thought of grooming as standard maintenance, like cleaning out and vacuuming your car. I supposed a day at the spa was like getting a tune-up or an oil change.

Regardless
, this experience felt extreme and a little like being a piece of meat prepared for dinner. I was stripped, plucked, cleaned, tenderized, seasoned, boiled, and dressed.

W
hen we arrived, we were told to take off everything but our underwear. The attendant gave us plush terry cloth bathrobes and slippers, lovely against the skin. Everyone was on a different schedule. I started with a ninety-minute massage. Next, I had a soak in a mud bath, a mineral bath, a body scrub, then eyebrow waxing and a facial.

I was disoriented and dizzy, a mixture of relaxed and overwhelmed, when I was shown into a large room and told to sit in
a very official looking chair with a tub at my feet. I was glad to see that all the other girls were already there getting pedicures and wearing similarly dazed expressions.

Except Sandra.

She was beaming and talking animatedly. I caught the tail end of the conversation, “…article where they placed jewels around it. Jewels! Can you imagine? It’s called vagazzled
.
”

“
That’s crazy.” Ashley was knitting while her feet were being pampered. “And stupid. Who would want jewels glued to their skin around their vagina?”

“
Maybe some women have ugly vaginas,” Sandra shrugged, sipped her water.

We
’d all been drinking water since over consuming the night before.

“
To a heterosexual man, there is no such thing as an ugly vagina,” Elizabeth interjected. “Although I personally find them very strange looking.”

“
Okay, show of hands, who here gets their junk waxed?” Sandra asked and raised her hand.

I glanced around, saw that Kat
, Marie, and Elizabeth had also raised their hands.

Sandra squinted at Fiona.
“Really? Greg doesn’t complain? He doesn’t want you to skin the peach?”

“
Skin the peach?” Fiona lifted an eyebrow at the phrase.

“
Yeah, skin the peach, peal the kiwi, groom the cat, mow the lawn, trim the topiary, clip the hedge, scale the tuna?” Sandra’s recitation of waxing euphemisms impressed us all.

“
I prefer to say shearing the sheep,” Ashley said.

“
That’s because you’re from Tennessee and like farming references.” Sandra, I knew, was purposefully trying to heckle Ashley. Ashley, of course, knew it too. She ignored the attempted heckle.

“
No, it’s because it’s a knitting reference. Get it? Shearing the sheep? Carding the wool?”

“
Oh! That’s a good one.” Elizabeth smiled and lifted her water bottle like she was toasting Ashley.

“
What about defuzzing the sweater?” Kat added, looking thoughtful. “You know, when sweaters get those balls of fuzz.”

“
Wouldn’t that be de-pilling the sweater?” Sandra asked.

Elizabeth shook her head.
“Doesn’t have the same ring to it. I like defuzzing the sweater better.”

“
I feel like Zamboni has a place in this conversation….” I said, trying to think of a good waxing euphemism including a Zamboni. “But I just can’t think of how it could be used.”

“
De-icing the rink?” Marie offered.

Everyone shook their head then stared thoughtfully at nothing.

Then Kat broke the short silence and said, “Another way to say vagazzled is lighting the landing strip.”

“
That’s good!” Sandra nodded enthusiastically, “I’m going to use that. Maybe figure out how to add the word cockpit to it.”

“
What was your original point?” Fiona lifted her eyes to Sandra.

“
Oh, I was saying, doesn’t Greg complain about your hairy-kari?”

Fiona shrugged.
“When would I have the time or opportunity to worry about harvesting the wheat and leaving decorative crop circles? I have two kids. I’m lucky if I shave my legs.”

“
Harvesting the wheat!” Marie gave Fiona a long distance high five then added, “Genius!”

“
What about you, Janie?” Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at me. I didn’t know if she did this to see me better, try to be intimidating, or because she was still drunk from the night before.

“
What about me?”

“
Are you going to start vacuuming the carpet now that you’re getting married?”

I frowned, twisted my lips to the side, and considered the question.

I had no idea.

I hadn
’t thought about it. Aside from my lust for sexy shoes, I was exceptionally low maintenance. I shaved, but had never considered waxing.

“
Maybe. I’ll try anything once.” I shrugged at last.

“
Anything?” Sandra’s smile paired with her eye squint made me nervous.

“
Almost anything,” I amended.

Then she asked,
“What about a sperm facial?”

“
Sandra!” Fiona looked and sounded shocked.

“
Is that what the kids are calling it?” Marie said, smirking.

Fiona wasn
’t done. “Really, is that necessary?”

“
No, really, it’s a real thing! I promise!” Sandra held her hands up, her eyes wide.

Then one of the lovely ladies giving us our pedicures spoke up
. “It’s true. It’s a real thing. Heather Locklear gets them. We have them here. We use whale sperm.”

The room was silent for a very, very long moment as we all wore mirrored expressions, except Sandra. She looked vindicated.

“Whale sperm?” Kat sounded horrified. “Whale…
sperm
?”

“
But how….” I tried to imagine the logistics of whale sperm extraction. “How do they get the sperm out of the whale?”

“
Wetsuits?” Marie offered between giggles. She glanced and Ashley and they both burst out laughing.

“
This is disgusting.” Fiona shook her head, but the effect of her indignation was ruined by her poorly hidden laughter. “I can’t…I can’t even….”

“
Have you lost your ability to can?” Sandra asked Fiona.

“
Actually, it makes sense.” Elizabeth, like me, wasn’t laughing. She was glancing at the ceiling, and I could tell she was thinking critically about sperm facials. “Spermine, which is a component of semen, is high in anti-oxidants. It makes sense that it can be used to smooth out wrinkles. It’s high in proteins, too.”

Ashley made a gagging sound then said,
“Cockroaches are also full of protein, but you don’t seem me mashing them up and putting them on my face.”

“
But the type of protein matters,” Elizabeth said, defending her position.

“
See, this is why Elizabeth and Janie are BFFs.” Sandra winked at me. “Janie wants to know the mechanics of the process, and Elizabeth is critically thinking about the medicinal benefits.”

“
Can we please talk about something else?” Fiona shivered, her face a grimace. “Someone, quick, change the subject.”

Sandra shrugged.
“I’ve also heard of a spa treatment where they use fish to eat the dead skin off your feet.”

“
Oh my God! Stop with the spa treatments!” Ashley glared at her knitting like it was offensive, her hand movements jerky. “No more. No more discussion of weird spa treatments allowed. You’re harshing my mellow with talk of whale sperm in the face and skin-eating fish.”

The room plunged into silence except for the sound of splashing water
and knitting needles clicking. I glanced at Elizabeth, and we shared a small smile. Then I looked at Sandra and knew, I just
knew
she had one more weird spa-related treatment to share. I wondered if she’d made a point to look them up before we left.

Just when I thought she was going to let it go, Sandra blurted,
“Then I guess I won’t bring up the nun urine.”

“
Sandra!”

*Quinn*

We were in
the desert shooting machine guns when I got the first text.

I glanced at the screen of my phone. When I read the message
, I secured my weapon, placed it back on the stand, and walked out of the shooting range.