Shark Beast (2 page)

"Oh, so that's what this is all about. That's your idea of hardcore?" He chuckled dismissively. "Been there, done that. When I was like in high school."

"Bet you never did it
right.
I used to do this for a living."

Hoagie, uninterested: "Really?"

"No," Luna admitted. "Thought about it though. And been thinking a lot about it, lately. But I need practice. So I can get gooooood." She rubbed her fingers together, frisky-money style. "And charge people."

"Oh, another business scheme." Hoagie rolled his eyes. "And to think I might have missed hearing about it."

"Business
opportunity,"
she corrected, with a sniff. "I can't help it if I want to better myself."

"Yeah, well, good luck with that." Back to counting money. "Hope it works better than your candle party 'opportunity,' and your jewelry 'opportunity,' and your palm-reading 'opportunity'..."

Luna arched a brow. "'Only he who does nothing makes no mistakes.'"

"And what fortune cookie did you pry that out of?" he asked with a snort.

"It's a French proverb."

"Good for the French." He turned, pointing at the front of his t-shirt. "I got me a bumper sticker philosophy too."

His shirt read (beneath a drawing of a drunken rock star balanced on some rocks surrounded by roaring waves with drowning hands sticking up):

Many attempt, but few reach...

The Island Of Rock

"I wouldn't brag about your clothes, Mr. Fashion-Unconscious," she yawned. "And--fair warning--nobody cares about your band, even if you did name it after a bunch of rocks out in the local waters, Mr. 'Island of Rock,' but let's be kind and move on." Clearing her throat, now, as she surrepticiously jiggled her massive boobs. "What's with you, anyway? I'm not asking you to invest, just let me practice."

"Where? Here? Now? In a bookstore?"

Luna rolled one of her long painted fingernails ceilingward. "Upstairs. Later. In that attic or whatever you call it." She got all slinky-voiced. "
After we close.
"

"Are you kooky? I just pulled an all-day shift. By myself, I might add. Now you want me to waste the night here too?"

"Aah ha-a-a ha ha. I knew it."

"What?"

"It's your little girlfriend, isn't it? You have to get her permission." Luna affected a mocking voice, "'Ohhh honeey, uhhh, can I go be a man and do what I want, puh-leeease--"

"Oh, drop out, you... drop-out."

"Hah, shows what you know," she snickered. "I never even went to college, dope."

"Was talking about high school," Hoagie muttered. "Besides, yes, I do have a previous engagement with Roxy--by
choice
--and it doesn't involve a ratty old attic in a ratty old used bookstore with a ratty old bootleg Ouija board. Not when there's gorgeous waves right... out... that... window." He jabbed a ska-punk finger at the big glass window with the awkward painting of a hermit crab reading a used book by "Shakespier."

"'Roxy'--now
there's
a stripper name." Luna sighed. "Whut-ever. You're the boss, supposedly," she said in that not even close to respectful way of hers. "You're missing a golden opportunity to help me with my golden opportunity."

"Yeah, I bet. How does blowing my night with you and that piece of plywood work out gold for anybody? Specifically me?"

"If it works out, I can
make
me some real money. And if I can
make
me some real money, I won't have to
work
here--emasculating you. Which, trust me, while amusing, is a full-time job."

"Wow," Hoagie said. "I'm impressed. You know what the word 'emasculate' means."

"Oh, I know lots of things, little surfer dude."

"I'm sure you do."

"I'm sure I do too."

"I'm sure you--" Hoagie sighed. "This day is never going to end. Really, it's like an Eagles reunion concert."

"Totally don't get what that means," Luna shrugged. "Anyway--we do it upstairs, in the old abandoned offices. It'll be great. If you're worried, call up D. J., have him come, too. He's always good for a laugh. Maybe he'll bring that college girl he was flirting with on the clock. Call the whole crew. I mean, hey, if you and Roxy have the kind of relationship where you're so afraid of being alone with me for ten seconds ..."

Hoagie blanched, taken aback. "I'm not afraid of
that.
I'm not, why should I be afraid of
that.
I'm totally not.
That,
I mean." Red-cheeked, he changed the subject. "Besides, Roxy and I don't have a relationship, I wish people would quit saying that."

Luna shrugged, rolled her eyes, made several unflattering faces.

Hoagie jabbed his finger at her. "And I wish people'd quit making faces too. Let's get something straight right here and now: I do what I want. How I want. When I want it. That's how it is, I don't care what anyone says. Nobody tells me what to do, I don't care what you or anybody else thinks."

"Hmmm, really?" Luna tapped the counter. "Well, what do you think about that, Ouija board?"

She took Hoagie's hand, put it on the Ouija board pointer, started moving it around. Then, she got all mystical sounding, spelling as the pointer went from letter to letter.

"L" ... "A" ... "M" ... "E"...

Hoagie yanked his hand back. "Hey, I am not lame, okay. I don't have to prove it by doing this, but just to prove I don't have to prove it, I'll do it, because, as I said, I got nothing to prove. Okay? Fine. I don't care."

"Sounds good to me." She clapped her hands, gave her hips a victory wiggle. "I'll get the rest of my stuff."

She whisked away, leaving Hoagie staring at the Ouija board.

Hoagie pondered what had just happened. All that came to him, as he stared at the board: "I'm totally not lame."

He looked up over at the window. The old "whatever" lady was staring at him for no particular reason, as she was wont to do.

"I do what I
want,
and that's how it
is
," he grumbled to her, huffily.

The old "whatever" lady slipped him a "whatever" roll of the eyes, and walked down the boardwalk.

Hoagie muttered, looking longingly out the window at the ocean waves, so tauntingly close, yet so, so far away. "I do what I want, and Roxy can just ..."

He sighed morosely.

"...she's going to kill me, is what she's going to do."

~ ~ ~

She didn't kill him when she finally showed up, banging on the glass hermit crab (she'd forgotten her keys again), but Roxy sure looked like she wanted to.

"This is what you called me over for? To play a game? A stupid
board
game?" She gave him that simmering look of hers that could alternately be very intimidating or very sexy. Sometimes both.

This time a
whole lot
of both.

Hoagie stammered a bit, trying not to lose the argument before it even started. He tried to work up some of his ska charm for his feisty-eyed little non-girlfriend. Starting with his cool-crooked smile. Didn't work.

"You
do
know what century this is, right?" she huffed.

"I said 'Ouija' on the phone, you said you knew what it was," he insisted, quickly. Shooting a look over at Luna, who was enjoying this whole scene, he added, "I totally told her what it was."

D. J., a tall slacker looking fellow of somewhere next to 30, who was assistant to the assistant manager (so the store could justify his recent 25-cent raise), laughed lazily. "You don't know what Ouija is?" he asked Roxy, with a crooked grin.

"I thought he said something else," she answered, shooting random harsh looks at everyone.

Hoagie, trying not to sound to defensive, but failing miserably, protested, "Like what? Wheaties? Come on over, we'll eat a bowl of Wheaties in the dark?" He forced a laugh, looking around at everyone. "I told her Ouija. I totally told her."

Luna kept twisting the knife, "You guys aren't wimping out, are you? 'Cause it sounds like you're wimping out."

"No, I'm here, I'm down," Hoagie said, trying to sound all tough and throwing around faux-gang signs. "I'll do it. Totally."

Luna exchanged eyerolls with Roxy and D. J.

Hoagie gave D. J. a look:
you traitor.

"Hey, I'm just standing here," D. J. said, shrugging one shoulder. "Whatever. Good research for my book."

"Your 'book.'" Roxy sniffed. "Yeah, whatever, Shakespeare."

"Don't you mean 'Shakespier,' there, little Miss Picasso? Or should I say 'Pikasso?'" D. J. snorted, gesturing at her artistic but very misspelled hermit crab handiwork.

Now Roxy was shooting glares everywhere again.

This was good enough for Luna, who clapped deliriously. "Good, then! Everybody's happy." Suddenly: very serious. "Now the thing is, we have to do this right, and to start it off, we all have to do one thing."

Roxy, never a big fan of anything instigated by Luna, asked, suspiciously, "What?"

"Glad you asked, Little R." Luna produced four weird-looking cups from the microwave. "Tea."

Grinning, she held out a platter with tea cups, giving one to everyone.

Roxy eyed D. J., "Tea?"

D. J. eyed Roxy, "Tea."

Roxy eyed the teacup. "Tea." Then, glancing up at Luna with the greatest of unenthusiasm, topped with a healthy heap of sarcasm, "So. Is it
magic
tea?

Luna ignored the tone, and explained, quite authoritatively, "Yes, it's
Te Deum
, a special blend the monks of Glousenbach Castle at the West Abbey used during their communions with the dead. It enables the aura."

Now it was D. J. giving Hoagie the evil eye.
Man, what have you and your big-boobed chicks got us into?

"Sounds ... tasty," D. J. muttered, staring into his cup.

Roxy announced, stubbornly, "I don't want my aura enabled. I like it the way it is."

Luna ignored all their reactions, and
clink-clink-clinked
her cup against the other three. Standing there in front of the darkened window, with the waves of the ocean sparkling here and there behind her like fallen stars, she grinned.

"Well, boys and girls, here's to an interesting night."

And just then, a face appeared in the window behind her, and something POUND- POUND- POUNDed the glass. Everyone jumped, spilling tea on themselves. Roxy, who shrieked annoyingly at pretty much anything, really let one loose.

"
AiiieeeeeeeEEEE
--!"

They all turned. It was the old "whatever" lady, staring at them for no particular reason.

She stared at them; they stared at her.

Then: the old "whatever" lady slipped them all a "whatever" roll of the eyes, and walked down the boardwalk.

D. J. shook his head, wiping tea off the front of his Surfin' Safari t-shirt. "Man. I shoulda just went to the beach."

And then, slowly, with many assorted sighs, the four young folks headed toward the dusty, crusty, shadow-drunken OFF-LIMITS EMPLOYEES ONLY part of the store, lost bleakly somewhere in the back, in the splintery yuck--with at least two of those folks wondering with extreme grouchy sullenness what endless flavors of fun must be going out there on the beach--right this very minute--without them.

~ ~ THREE ~ ~
Out On The Beach:
The Surfer and The Hooters Waitress

The surfer--an 18-year-old weed-toker by the nickname "Jo-Jo"--flipped and, hitting his board on the way down, crashed beneath the late night waves.

Niiiiice.

As usual, Jo-Jo was feeling no pain. Wasn't his first wipeout, no reason to believe it would be his last.

Sooo niiiiiice.

Ah, no doubt--this was the life. Midnight boogie-surfing. While high. (As if there were any other way.) Sure, he was dragging a bit from his all-nighter last night, with the Hooters waitress. But, hey, if you had to be draggin' over something--there sure were worse things. Let's face it--Jo-Jo liked a lot of things, but he liked Hooters waitresses, a
lot.
He liked that sassy-subservient faux-Southern chipmunk voice schtick--something about that was
so hot, dude.
And the way they actually sat at your table to take your order--and that thing, with the crayon, where she wrote her name--

(Hi, dude, sir, my name is Cherry, and boy she wasn't kidding)

--that's how he got her to go out, he wrote it down, in crayon, and she played it up all shy and stuff, but he could tell she liked him. And stuff. Whatever. Girls usually liked him. Girls with names like "Cherry," anyway.

He just loved the way she sat next to him, taking his order, in that helium voice, like she'd just sucked the air out of a dozen balloons (could imagine her doing it, too--talk about
niiiiice
)--and, of course, that uniform. All orange and white and shiny. Man, you could see everything a dude needed to see when you're scoping out the goods. And she had the goods. Nice bottom, wow, no kidding--those satiny shorts hid no secrets, dude--and those legs, a little plump, sorta on the short side, but that's the way he liked them--compact and appetizing.
Like their chicken wings,
he thought, with a grin, even under the waves. Oh, and her top, can't forget about that, all plump and bouncing in all the right directions. Even there, floating carefree under the midnight waters, after his wipeout, letting the currents give him a sweet shakeup, he couldn't help thinking about that top.

Dude, I just love me some Hooters waitresses.

So, she played hard-to-get, or a Cherry-girl's version of it, but he knew it was in the bag. No offense, but hey--
I'm a great looking dude.
Facts are facts. And he was, he didn't even have to suck in his stomach or conveniently "make a muscle" reaching for the bar-b-q sauce, any of those Old Dude tricks, sitting around, sneaking stares, wishing for yesterdays. Naww, he was young, he was tall, strapping, had a totally ripped body in every direction, curly blond hair--like springs of sunlight, and why not, he spent many a sunny day beachbumming, weightlifting, sungrabbing, and, of course, just chilling out getting high. Organically handsome--it was living that sweet good life that obviously went to his hair. Then, of course, there were his blue eyes. The color of the ocean at dawn--
'nuff said...