July Heat

11: TGIS!

(June 30-July 1, 2017)

The elder Mystery Twins and their wives had dinner outside of the Valley on Friday evening. They drove a little farther than they normally would have because it was an occasion, and they patronized a fancy French restaurant overlooking the Columbia River.

Stan consulted Sheila on what to order: vichyssoise, coq au vin, a salad, and Tête De Bélier Rosé to accompany, with crepes as a dessert. She ordered the same, and Stan said, "What the heck, it's pricey, but let's get the bottle of wine."

Lorena, whose French was flawless (so was Ford's, but his was the sixteenth-century variety), ordered for the two of them—she had a lobster bisque, cognac shrimp in a beurre blanc sauce with couscous, a salad, and a Sauvignon blanc, with a strawberry-and-cream Millefeuille to follow. Ford, who was driving, stuck to mineral water for his beverage and ordered beef consommé, beef bourguignon, a salad, and instead of dessert, coffee.

"This is really fancy!" Sheila said. "I don't think we've eaten like this since we went to Monte Carlo."

"Are you two going to open up about this great big secret?" Lorena asked Ford.

"Let's get through the soup course before speaking of it," Ford said. The waiter had just brought it to the table.

Once they had tasted the soups—all were good—the waiter went away and Ford said, "All right, this is something Stanley brought up—well, almost exactly a year ago. It's an investment—I'm going in with him, but Stanley is providing about seventy-five per cent of the funds."

"'Cause for a change I got more dough to invest than my brainy brother," Stan said. "Tell ya what, Poindexter, let's show the gals the photos."

And so they did, and Lorena and Sheila looked at them and approved and Stanley and Stanford explained what they were up to.

"That's a relief!" Lorena said. "I was afraid it was something shady!"

"My Stan wouldn't do that," Sheila told her with a laugh. "Well—not very shady!"

"It's all legal and it's all above-board, and we're gonna keep it quiet until the right time comes along. So you ladies have to keep a secret," Stan said.

"Well, I think it's terrific, you two going in together on something like this!" Sheila said. She raised her glass. "Cheers!"

However, secret or not, the two wives and their husbands felt perfectly free to talk among themselves. As the wine flowed and the good food went down, they made plans for the future—plans that didn't involve just the four of them, but would bring in other Gravity Falls folks as well. After they paid the check—Stan grabbed it, but Ford insisted on leaving the tip—they went out into the fresh air.

"I'm a little bit tipsy!" Sheila said.

"I'm driving," Ford reassured her. "And I've had only water and the minuscule amount of wine in my meal."

"If he can say 'minis—minuscule," Lorena said, "He's good to drive."

"You gals have no head for alcohol," Stan told them. "Me, I could drive just as well now as I could sober." Which very likely was true.

However, on the way back, he and Sheila went to sleep in the back seat, leaning on each other. When, past one in the morning, Ford stopped in front of their house and woke them, they smiled in a kind of unfocused way, said their good-nights, and went in.

"Look at the time," Sheila said as they undressed for bed. "We're lucky tomorrow's Saturday."

"It's a lot hotter here than it was up at the river," Stan said. "Ya notice? It's like seventy-eight here, and it was just seventy up there."

"Maybe it'll be cooler next week. What are you doing?"

"Setting the alarm for seven-thirty. I gotta go help in the Shack."

"Oh, Stanley!" Sheila said. "After this late night?"

"I can take it, doll," Stan said in a mock-Bogart voice. Then, more seriously, he added, "Soos is really gonna need all the help he can get. The Shack is bustin' out at the seams. Him and me have to have a conference about maybe expanding somehow." He sighed as he slipped into bed beside Sheila and clicked off the bedside lamp. "Man, if I coulda done the business that Soos does these days, I might've brought Ford back ten years earlier."

"And then the two of us might never have met," Sheila said. She tugged the sheet up. "Will this be too warm over us?"

"Mm—might be. Unless we shed some excess clothes."

Which was easily said and easily done, and they ended the night very pleasantly.

The early morning heat, coupled with Toby Determined's six o'clock weather forecast for Saturday—"Whoo, Gravity Falls, it's shaping up to be another scorcher! Expect plenty of sunshine, a high of a hundred and five, and random spontaneous wildfires!"—persuaded Dipper and Wendy to skip their run. "I can't believe it's eighty already," Dipper said at a few minutes past six that morning.

"Yeah, I think Soos should crank the air way, way down and get a head start. Not that it'll really help very much," Wendy said.

Mabel had taken Tripper out. She dragged back in. "This whole town's gonna die of heat stroke!" she said with a groan. "Is this a record heat wave or what?"

"I think it might be," Wendy told her. "We've been lucky these past three or four summers—pretty mild, all told, just a few really hot days, usually at the end of July or early August. This weather pattern's really kicking our butts."

"I say we kick back," Mabel muttered. "I've found magic spells—"

"Those never work out!" Dipper said.

"Well, no, not anywhere else, but this is Gravity Falls, Brobro!"

"Mabes," Wendy said, "I know you mean well, but seriously, don't fool with junk like that. Remember all the times when your plans didn't work out the way you wanted?"

"But they worked out!" Mabel said. "The love potion thing set up Tambry and Robbie, didn't it?"

"Yeah, and nearly broke up my posse, and then later Tambry and Robbie kinda had to get married 'cause her folks caught them. Not that it didn't work out eventually, but man, it caused all kinds of headaches."

Dipper added, "And then you kidnapped Sev'ral Timez—"

"Liberated," Mabel said. "The term is liberated. And they're doing a lot better now with Tad Strange managing their career than they did with that awful Bratzman guy."

"The time you lost Little Soos in that crazy storybook dimension you and Teek talked about," Wendy said.

"Yeah, but that was really kind of fun, and the king knew from the start that he'd lose and send us back. It was more like a game!"

"Not to hear Teek tell it," Dipper said.

"Anyway," Mabel said, still grumpy, "you can't talk. You went to chase a dumb ghost and wound up getting us stuck in that alternate universe where Gravity Falls was just a cartoon show on TV!"

"I've learned better," Dipper said.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Wendy said, becoming the referee. "Hold on, you guys. Mabel—you're gonna do this anyhow, aren't you?"

"I'm sick of this heat!" she said. "Anyway, Dipper says he doesn't even believe in magic, so there shouldn't be any risk involved."

"I didn't exactly say that," Dipper muttered. "It's only that magic means the violation of natural laws, which shouldn't happen. What I'm saying—and I think Great-Uncle Ford agrees—is that what we call magic is just some other reality's messing with our universe's natural laws."

"So it might work?" Mabel asked.

"Nobody knows, Sis! Look, let's say it worked but it started to rain and just never stopped. Gravity Falls Valley might become a lake! Everything would be drowned!"

"Yeah, but I'd specify I only want a few days of rain," Mabel argued.

"It's too risky. You just don't know what might happen."

Wendy made a time-out gesture, palm flat against upraised fingers. "Tell you guys what. Mabel, let Dip confer with Dr. Pines on this one. You get some expert help, too. Don't start it without taking some advice."

"Aw," Mabel said, "Grunkle Ford will just agree with Dipdop. They're nerds of a feather. Wait, I know—I can go ask a real witch for advice!"

"A real witch?" Dipper said. "You know any—oh, wait, you don't mean the Hand Witch?"

Mabel had an excited grin plastered on her face. "Sure! She's a professional witch! And she has a booth in the Crawl Space—I can drop in and talk it over with her tomorrow. If I do, will you listen to what she has to say?"

"I don't know if she can help," Dipper said. "I mean, one of her spells gave her all those extra hands—" to Wendy he added, "her body's mostly made up of hands. Anyway, she never could get herself completely back to normal, so what if she gives you bad advice?"

"Any advice is good advice!" Mabel said. "You go see your science guy and I'll go see my magic gal. I promise I won't do anything until we know what they both have to say."

"Fair enough," Wendy said.

Dipper shook his head. "I don't think so." He sighed. "But I guess that's the best we'll do."

Just before opening time, Grunkle Stan walked in, already in full Mr. Mystery attire. "Ta-da! I'm back, knuckleheads. Glad you didn't burn the place down while I was out of town."

"Mr. Pines! I mean Stan!" Soos yelled, "It's good to have you back! Uh, are you planning to help out today?"

Stan struck a pose, legs spread, shoulders back, eight-ball cane tilted. "What do I look like I'm gonna do, play pinochle?"

"Don't do it!" Mabel said to Soos behind her hand. "He's a card shark!"

Melody, who looked worried, said, "I was hoping you could be here. Do you think we should stop the Mystery Trail runs until the weather gets cooler? It's a strain on Soos."

"Yeah, be a strain on anybody," Stan said. "Let's make a rotation so that nobody's on tram duty for more than an hour before coming inside to get outa the heat. Soos can go nine to ten, Wendy ten to eleven, I'll take eleven to twelve. Then Soos can go again, twelve to one, and I'll take one to two, Wendy two to three, Dipper can do three to four, and I'll finish up four to five. That sound OK?"

"We better stay hydrated," Wendy said. "But, yeah, I'll go for that. Soos can do the Museum tours—cooler in there. But let's do something so even those of us inside can take a little break now and then. This working straight through's killing us."

"Sheila's sleeping in," Stan said. "But I'll give her a call. I know she'll come up for three or four hours around noon, so maybe we can all get turns at twenty minutes for a quick lunch."

"That would be great, Mr. Pines, dawg. I mean Stan, dawg," Soos said.

"Then that's what we'll do," Stan said. "Hey, have you lost a little weight?"

"Twenty pounds since May," Melody said. "He's working too hard."

"Yeah, Soos, you and me gotta make some plans after the Fourth of July craziness is over. You throwin' the usual lawn party?"

"Yes, sir. We're open until noon on the Fourth, and then the picnic and games and junk out on the lawn. Unless it's like over a hundred degrees that day."

"Yeah, if it is, let's have some alternate ready. There's nothin' big downtown on the Fourth, just the fireworks at the lake that evening, and most everything will be closed. I can probably line up the Teen Center as an alternate site. Air conditioning's not the best, but it'll be cooler than the hot sun—what the-?"

All the lights had dimmed.

"Brownout," Wendy said. "They warned on the news that they'd be reducing electricity if all the air conditioners in town revved up at once. If it gets worse, they could go to a rolling blackout."

"You mean cut off the power?" Mabel asked.

"Yeah, for like an hour at a time. See, they'd do parts of the grid—cut it off downtown for an hour, then out this way, then to the east, and so on. It'd be uncomfortable for everybody, but for only one hour out of the day. Better than a total blackout, when everybody's miserable."

Soos said, "We got the emergency generator. I can start that up and hook it to the HVAC to at least keep the AC going."

"Do it," Stan said. "Let's see—Teek here yet?"

"He'll be here in a few minutes," Mabel said.

"OK, for today, he doesn't use the grill. Cold sandwiches only, chips, sodas, like that. The grill just heats things up, and people will understand. Um—free water. Push the re-usable water bottles, kids, and warn the tourists to fill them up and keep their kids and themselves hydrated. Mabel! Go design and print out signs warnin' people takin' the Mystery Tour to use sunblock and drink lotsa water."

"Say it's because the Mystery Shack cares about their good health," Wendy said.

Stan beamed. "Yeah, good point. Put that in—sell more sunblock and water bottles that way! OK, we can do this—what was that?"

The background hum of the AC system stopped—but then a half-minute later, it started again. Soos came in. "Generator's going. We need to, like, check the fuel supply once every four hours."

Stan looked at the clock. "So—half-past noon. OK, knuckleheads, heat or no heat, let's show these marks a great time!"

He said it with such energy and enthusiasm that Dipper overlooked the insults. After all, this might not be a supernatural challenge, but a challenge it was, and he—well, he was a Pines!