Page 46 of Nomad

After her morning bathroom routine, she had a look through the clothes that were delivered for Cann. She found what she was looking for and did a two-second victory dance.

Six minutes later she was shoving Cann’s shoulder.

“Come on. Get up. We’ve got things to do.” He rumbled in an atavistic way that brought to mind the image of waking a grizzly from hibernation. “Wakey. Wakey.”

He opened his eyes and blinked three times before saying, in a voice that was rough and deep from sleep, “What are you wearin’?”

Bud looked down at her body like she forgot. “It’s a swimsuit.”

“Jesus.”

“Look!” She held up swim trunks. “Put these on. We’re goin’ swimmin’.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Fifteen minutes later they were at the bottom of the grand staircase. Cann was wearing a long sleeve tee over his swim trunks that came to the knee. Bud was wearing her night shirt. That had been a whole other conversation.

“Why are you wearin’ your pajama top to go swimmin’?”

“This shirt is very versatile. Last night it was a sleep shirt. This morning it’s a bathing suit cover up.”

He laughed. “I don’t think so. For somethin’ to be a ‘cover up’ it has to cover somethin’ up and that thing isn’t hidin’ anythin’.”

She threw her head back so that, when she looked up at him, it was like looking down her nose. “You’re missing the point, caveman. The purpose isn’t to be a burqa. It’s supposed to be a suggestion of feminine mystique.”

He laughed harder. “Feminine mystique?”

The man whose uniform distinguished him from other household staff; he wore a vest over a white shirt with dark pants and the look screamed for a name tag, approached them.

“Buenos dias. Desayuno?”

In Spanish Cann told him that they’d like to go for a swim. The man said that the mistress of the house would be out most of the day. He asked if they’d like to have breakfast in the solarium by the pool. Cann said that would be nice if it wasn’t too much trouble. He told the man what he’d like and gave instructions to bring the lady fruit, bottled water, and steak grilled well done.

The man, who apparently ran the household, motioned to a boy dressed in white shirt, dark pants, no vest and asked him to show the guests to the solarium.

After walking around two sides of the house, they arrived at the solarium. After stepping inside Cann and Bud both stopped to stare.

The room was mostly glass looking out onto gardens. Inside, tropical plants thrived in dirt beds with specialized irrigation systems.

The interior wall featured a huge cage, forty feet long, six feet wide and sixteen feet high. The floor was made of pea gravel with a large drain in the center. Four fifteen-foot trees with large dark green, waxy leaves were planted in a row.

Inside the cage were a dozen brightly colored parakeets. Their chirps echoed throughout the room, infusing the space with life and cheer so that it was almost impossible not to smile.

The pool was large, perhaps a third of Olympic size, and clear as bathtub water. In short, the room was breathtaking.

“Jesus,” said Cann.

Bud grinned at him, pulled off her ‘cover up’, letting it fall where it landed, and ran for the pool like a little kid. Cann waited until she surfaced. She popped up from the water like a cork.

“Whoa,” she yelled. “It’s amazing! Stop standing there like an old man. Come in.”

He walked over to the white cast iron table. It was surrounded by six chairs with cushions covered in red with thin gold stripes. After pulling the tee over his head and draping it over the back of a chair, he turned and aimed a cannonball close enough to where Bud was treading water to create a wave.

When he came up above water, Bud was laughing. They swam and splashed for a while, both forgetting their troubles as if they’d been washed away by luxurious pool water.

Cann noticed the door opening. One of the staff held it while the butler wheeled a cart in.

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