--
Quote of the day:
"Cheese is the devil's plaything."
-House
--
Roger was hesitant to let Mimi and Angel take the keys to the van. First of all, it wasn't his van and if it got wrecked, he'd be responsible. Secondly, he wasn't sure if Angel or Mimi had a driver's license. But, preferring to relax instead of arguing, he handed over the small key ring.
Mimi and Angel excitedly ran off into the hotel. They had to change out of their swimsuits before going off to the mall.
--
Meanwhile, Joanne and Maureen were having a less pleasant time.
"I saw the way you were looking at her!" Joanne accusingly said.
"She was naked!" Maureen insisted. "How could I not look at her??"
"People are allowed to be naked in steam rooms, Maureen. The polite and normal thing to do is look somewhere else!"
"Well, you shouldn't have said anything to her, then," Maureen argued. "You insulted her and she left. What if she kills herself?"
"I had to do something!" Joanne yelled. "You looked like you were going to pounce on her like a lion on a wildebeest!"
"Oh, stop overreacting, Pook!" Maureen said. She went to cuddle her steaming girlfriend.
Joanne wasn't going to have it, though. "No, Maureen! I'm not overreacting. I am reacting at just the right level." She grabbed her towel off the bench. "I need to be alone," she said, as she left, slamming the door behind her.
"Oh, come on, don't be like that!" Maureen exclaimed, going after her. She tried opening the door, but it was locked shut from the outside. Maureen looked out the small window but didn't see Joanne anywhere. "P-Pookie?" she said. "Anyone? Oh, no….."
--
Angel and Mimi arrived in the small motel room to find Mark bundled up in bed like he was hibernating. Exchanging a look with Angel, Mimi stuck her head under the covers to find Mark's face. "Mark?" she said, softly. He didn't budge. He was asleep. Mimi talked to him anyway. "Mark, me and Angel are about to change, so don't peek, okay? Okay."
Angel and Mimi went about changing out of their swimsuits. Angel changed into some of Collins' clothes, feeling ridiculous and awkward. Mimi changed into a simple pair of jeans and a breezy top. Angel started to grab his purse, but thought better of it and just snagged the wallet, stuffing it in his/Collins' back pocket.
"Ready to go?" Mimi wondered.
"Yep, bye Mark!" Angel called, as they started for the door.
"Bye you two," came the reply.
That was enough to cause two heads to turn around very quickly. Mark's sunburned head was lying back on the pillow, now covered up only to his neck.
"Mark….did you see me naked?" Mimi wondered.
"More importantly, did you see me naked??" Angel cried, clutching protectively at his shirt collar.
"Angel, please," Mimi said.
"Um, I-I didn't see anything naked," Mark said quickly.
Mimi raised an eyebrow and then left with Angel. Once they were gone, Mark let out a pleased shudder, which assuredly could be chalked up to delirium from his sunburn.
--
Roger and Collins, slowly becoming prunes, were still lounging in the pool. Collins noticed that Roger kept distractedly looking over at the hotel's office. "Waiting on a hot date?" Collins finally wondered.
"No," Roger replied, quickly. "I'm just waiting for someone to come and tell us that Mimi and Angel ran into a flagpole or shanghaied a dozen wigs or something."
Collins rolled his eyes. "Take it easy. You know they'll be careful."
--
"No, Angel. You can't get the mohawk."
"Awww….well, how about—"
"No. Not the afro either."
Mimi and Angel had found a party store, which kept a section of Halloween costumes year-round. There were a lot of different and original wigs. In fact, there were too many. Angel couldn't decide which one he wanted.
He kept flitting around to every wig that caught his eye, saying "Ooh, this one is so cute! But look at this one! I like it, it's really cool! This one would make me look like Rapunzel, do you think Collins would like that?"
Mimi shrugged. "I don't know, Angel," she said. Mimi was thinking of the wigs in terms of which ones she didn't want to be seen with on the beach. The rainbow afro was definitely out (not that Angel really liked that one.) But, he had liked the rastafarian, and Mimi had gently refused.
"Oh, what about a Pocahontas wig?" Angel wondered, holding up a black, braided wig with a feather in it.
"Sure," Mimi said.
"Or this one?" he held up a silver tinsel wig.
"Maybe at Christmas," Mimi replied.
"Look at this one!" Angel held up a long, curly brown wig. "This one's sexy, isn't it?"
"I don't know about long hair," Mimi said, skeptically. "That's why the blond one got chewed up. Why don't you try to find one like that black Chinese wig you always wear?"
"First, it's not Chinese. It's called a bob," Angel said, gently. "And second, haven't you ever heard of variety?" Suddenly he gasped, clutching at his chest.
Mimi shook her head, startled. "What?? What is it?"
Angel took a wig from the rack and said, "This is the one! Let's go now."
--
Maureen's hair was soaked through and clung to his shoulders and face. She could feel every pore on her body screaming from the heat. She stayed vigilant at the window, though she wanted to sit down and pass out. Every now and then she would yell for help, but no one came. She wondered if anyone could even hear her. Oh, if only the thermostat weren't on the outside like the lock! What was this, some kind of medieval torture chamber that the hotel never bothered to fix?
Maureen glanced over her shoulder at the empty room. Why couldn't she have gotten locked in with Joanne? Or that naked girl? She looked around, the steam rising around like fog making it hard to see far away. That's when she noticed the air vent in the ceiling and decided to go for it.
--
By the time Angel and Mimi got back, Roger and Collins were back in the room with Mark, asleep again, watching TV. Angel, having changed back into drag in the van, was practically beaming when she waltzed into the room, pirouetted, and allowed everyone to marvel at her new wig. "What do you think?" she wondered, making a cute pouty face. All those awake in the room nodded their approval.
Collins came forward to give her a kiss. "I like it," he said, fingering a strand of her hair between his fingers. "It's sexy."
"See, I told you," Angel said to Mimi, giving a Cheshire cat grin. She had picked a multi-length wig that was short in back and shoulder-length toward the front, perfect for the hot tub. It was a very dark color, at first seeming jet black, but in certain lights it was revealed to be a deep purple.
Joanne at this moment popped in, looking tired and frustrated. "Is Maureen here?" she asked right off. Seeing the others shake their heads, she settled into a chair and sulked. "She's probably mad at me….."
"Did you have a fight?" Mimi asked, knowing it was a stupid question.
"Yeah….she was gawking at….oh, never mind, I don't want to talk about it," Joanne grumbled.
Maureen burst through the door, drenched, with a few cuts on her arms and legs, and barely able to keep her towel from falling off. "SHE WAS NAKED, YOU BITCH, I COULDN'T HELP IT!" she screamed. Immediately after this, she trudged forward and collapsed at the foot of Mark's bed.
Joanne went to her side. "Maureen, what happened??"
Maureen turned around to glare at her. "Oh, like you don't know?" she hissed. "You locked me in the fucking steam room!"
"What? No I didn't!" Joanne protested.
"I had to crawl through an air vent and I ended up in someone's hotel room and it was scary! Old people shouldn't have sex!" By this point she was wailing and trembling from the terror of the plight she had just escaped. Joanne held her as she cried.
Maureen's sobbing subsiding while she said, "I just wanna get in the pool and get cooled off," she announced.
"Come on, honey, we'll go with you," Mimi said as she and Joanne helped Maureen to her feet. Mimi stopped in the bathroom first to quickly change back into her bikini.
Roger shrugged at Collins and Angel. "Guess I'm going with Mimi," he said.
"I'm too waterlogged," Collins said. "Want to go hunt for crabs with a flashlight?"
"On the beach?" Angel wondered.
"Yeah, on the beach," Collins replied, wondering why that was even a question.
"Sure, I'll go!" Angel exclaimed. "Let's wake Markie and see if he'll go. Oh, Markie….."
--
Mark had been awakened and thought it might feel good to get out from under the itchy blankets and into the cool moonlight, so he went along with Angel and Collins to the beach to hunt for crabs. Collins had thought ahead to bring a flashlight on the trip and Angel had brought a sand pail. This would be useful in case they found a crab that was so cute it had to become a pet.
The three walked down onto the deserted beach, the gentle sound of the ocean very melodic and natural. Collins shined the flashlight in front so they could stay away from the sandspur patches and tall grass.
"OH MY GOD THERE'S ONE!!" Angel shrieked, spotting a little white crab scurrying across the sand.
"Where?" Mark cried, not seeing the tiny creature as it came closer to him.
"It's right there!" Angel exclaimed, delighted. "It likes you, Mark!"
"What?? Is it near me?" Mark demanded, still not seeing it.
"Well, don't be scared of it," Angel insisted. "It's just a—"
"OW!!" Mark screamed as it pinched his toe.
"—crab…."
"Let's go say hi to Al in first aid," Collins said, sighing.
--
After getting cooled off in the chilly pool water, Maureen had calmed considerably. She and Joanne even agreed to disagree over the naked lady from the steam room.
Roger sat with Mimi in his lap in a wicker chair on the deck. "How was wig shopping?" he asked her.
"You don't wanna know," Mimi replied, shaking her head. "Come on, you wanna get in the water?" She stood up and pulled at his hand.
"Nah," he said. "I'm okay just relaxing here. You go ahead."
"Okay," Mimi said cheerfully. She didn't realize that the string on one side of her bikini bottoms was hung up in the rivets of the chair until she was five feet away from it and suddenly very cold. "Oh my god, nobody look!!" she screamed, trying with all her power to cover herself.
Roger's brain told him to look away. He shouldn't gawk at Mimi's nakedity if she didn't want him to. But his eyes wouldn't listen. He couldn't tear his gaze away. And, of course when Mimi yelled "Nobody look!" Maureen and Joanne had turned around too.
Mimi was panicking. She didn't know whether to just jump in the pool, or grab for her bathing suit or grab a towel or just run! Trying to collect her wits, she took a deep breath and ordered her friends, "I want everyone to close their eyes so I can make myself decent."
"Hey, everyone! Markie got pinched by a crab and we—" Angel's cheery voice halted there. She, Mark and Collins froze, wondering why Mimi was half-naked.
"I repeat!" Mimi yelled. She wasn't going to just stand there with everyone ogling at her. "I want everyone to CLOSE THEIR EYES so I can make myself DECENT!!!"
The group looked away long enough for her to grab the rest of her swimsuit and put it back on. "My life is falling apart very, very slowly," Mimi seethed, heading back off to the motel room. No one followed her. They were all too shocked.
--
NoV: Hmm….fun. I don't know, um, does anyone else go looking for beach crabs at night with a flashlight? My family always used to do that. I don't know….
Next time (!): Mimi has a parasailing accident, Angel has a seadoo accident, Roger falls, Joanne gets attacked, and Mark makes out with a merman!