The new stars were gone.
The next day
"Mother! He's bald!" Suzy exclaimed the moment Dr. Harrison Seabold was out of hearing range. With a grimace of distaste, she added, "Your first date in, like, forever, and you had to pick a baldy?"
"Susan Marie McBride! Shhh!" Maggie cautioned her daughter and darted a quick glance at her boss's departing back to make sure he hadn't overheard. They'd just entered Orcaland, the marine park that was part of the huge amusement complex on Galveston Bay known as Marine Kingdom. Harry had gone off to buy snow cones for the four of them.
"Besides, he's not my date," she added.
"It's not polite to say bald anymore," Beth corrected with an air of one-upmanship. "He's follically challenged."
Suzy and Beth were dressed identically today— something they usually avoided with a passion— in jeans shorts and white T-shirts proclaiming Twins Rule. And they were both in a snit... something to do with a star and a father-hunt and their mother not cooperating.
Even if she hadn't overheard their conversation the night before, Maggie would be able to tell that the girls were up to something. They were so transparent.
She narrowed her eyes at them. If they were seriously starting that husband/daddy business again, she was going to wring their cute little necks. Really.
Besides, she'd already decided as she lay sleepless last night to have the biggest, best Christmas ever for the gifts this year. At home. Case closed. No need for a daddy, after all. Snow and a fireplace were out of her realm, but if they really, really wanted a live tree, who said she couldn't handle that herself? I am woman. Hear me chop evergreen.
Suzy made a nose-wrinkling face at Beth. Beth lifted her pert nose in the air with a superior sniff and twitched back at her.
"You think all men should look like Ricky Martin," Beth continued. "How many posters of him do you have on the wall on your side of our bedroom? Huh? Huh?"
"Not as many as you have of Keiko the killer whale," Suzy countered. "Besides, you like Ricky Martin, too."
"Not as much as you."
"I just think it's stupid for us to go to the marine park again. I'd rather go on a roller coaster. We've already seen all there is to see at Orcaland." The last of her comments was directed at her sister with some hinted meaning.
Presumably, there were better father prospects in an amusement park than a marine park.
Beth was very sensitive about her feelings for Keiko... for all killer whales in captivity, actually. Her precocious daughter even operated her own Web site for youths interested in the plight of the whales. Normally, with such criticism from her sister, she would launch into her pat adolescent lecture on the tragedy of the orcas. Instead, today she took a deep breath and explained, "What Suzy was trying to say, Mom, when she made that comment about Dr. Seabold being bald, is that we were sort of surprised that you would pick a bald man for a dad... I mean date."
"Don't start—"
"Okay, I admit the Shop 'n' Save guy was a bit young for you," Beth went on, "but isn't this going overboard in the other direction? I know you're always saying that it's what's inside that counts, and that brains are more important than brawn, but still—"
"He's not my date," Maggie interjected—again.
"Brains? Well, duh!" Suzy countered, ignoring her mother. "How many brains could a guy have when he parts his hair at the ear? He'd better hope the wind doesn't blow. And he certainly shouldn't go on any roller coasters." She threw in that last with a huge sigh as if it would be the greatest tragedy in the worlda dad who couldn't go on roller coasters. Horrors!
The twins contemplated Harry's admittedly hopeless comb-over hairstyle and grinned at each other. Instead of hiding his shiny pate, he was calling attention to it. You'd think a man with all his credentials in the psychiatric field would know better. Men! And they say women are vain!
The girls were really very close to each other, but their tempers had been riled today by the unseasonably hot temperatures for early October, and frustration over their matchmaking failures. And truthfully, they had been to this particular marine park at least a dozen times this year alone.
"Did you see those shorts he's wearing?" Apparently Suzy was still fixated on Harry as a daddy prospect. "They're plaid." She said plaid as if it were something revolting like homework. Beth enjoyed school; Suzy put up with it.
"Hey, who named you the fashion police? I'm no fashion plate, either," Maggie interjected, pointing to her knee-length denim skirt and cropped, short-sleeved Liz Claiborne sweater of faded blue.
But the girls weren't paying attention to her. Instead Suzy was continuing with her tirade against Harry's shorts. "Even worse, they're madras plaid. Talk about being lost in the sixties. Well, I'm not having a father who wears plaid, and that's final. Not to mention white socks and sandals. Gross!"
"You think everything is yucky if it doesn't come from The Gap."
"You think everything is yucky if it doesn't smell like a stinkin' fish."
"Whales are not fish. They're mammals."
"Fish, mammal, whatever... they stink."
"Oooooh!" Beth growled.
"Oooooh!" Suzy growled.
"Why don't you take a chill pill?"
"Why don't you try and make me?"
Whatever spirit of comradeship the two had been sharing fell apart then. Another moment and they would be rolling on the ground like a pair of puppies. Time for a mother intervention.
"That's enough! Both of you!" Maggie chided. Dropping down to a bench, she gathered them to either side of her. "Behave yourselves. Harry is a very nice man. I invited him to come with us today because he's worried about the clinic and whether it will close down under the new owners. He needs a distraction, not two smart-mouthed girls making fun of his appearance."
"Mom, we won't have to move if the clinic closes, will we?" Beth asked anxiously. Leave it to one of her daughters to hone in on the least pertinent point in her tirade. Obviously she was worried about a possible separation between herself and Gonzo, the star orca at the marine park, not the possible loss of her mother's job. Maybe this obsession with killer whales had gone too far. But that was a question she'd have to address later.
"I wouldn't mind moving to Houston. They have an awesome roller coaster at Rodeoland. It's not as good as the Vomit, though."
The Vomit? Maggie mouthed, then recalled that was the nickname for the Comet, the roller coaster at the amusement park affiliated with Marine Kingdom. Suzy adored roller coasters; Beth could take them or leave them; Maggie avoided them as much as possible. But that was incidental now. She pulled her attention to the present. "We are not moving, regardless of what happens with the clinic," she assured them. "But back to what I was telling you. I've taught you girls better than to make mean remarks about people's appearances. Remember how you felt when Joey Pisano called you Metal Mouth the first day you came to school with braces? And the Tin Grin Twins?"
Both girls nodded, and their faces flushed with shame that they'd been guilty of the same transgression.
"Listen, my sweeties, never judge a man—or woman by what you see. You'll be wrong every time, I guarantee."
"But Mom..." they said simultaneously.
"And one last thing. I heard you girls last night. Forget about miracles. The only miracles in this life are the ones we create ourselves."
Suzy and Beth hung their heads—with remorse or disappointment, she couldn't tell. And, despite all her logical words, Maggie felt a twinge of regret that she'd come down so hard on them.
"Hey, toots," she teased Beth, tugging on her braids. "Don't we have a date with some orcas?"
The smile Beth plastered on her lips was clearly forced.
"And how about you, my little salsa princess? Maybe we could fit in one roller coaster ride before we go home today."
Suzy, too, forced a smile.
Maggie could see that the subject wasn't closed... not by a long shot. Obviously
having a father was
far more important to them than whales or scary rides.
Sometimes Maggie wished dreams really could come true.
They were sitting on the bleachers at the inner curve of the oceanarium that comprised the marine park. The oceanarium was a huge, fiveacre inlet leading out to Galveston Bay. The orcas were prevented from escaping captivity by a net wall at the mouth of the inlet that stretched from the bottom of the water to ten feet above the surface. Because this particular sea pen was located outside the killer whale's normal habitat, there were special cooling tubes running along the bottom, and salt was added to the water.
They were watching Gonzo go through his paces, along with two baby killer whales, Mork and Mindy. The babies, which were the size of pickup trucks, performed only rudimentary tricks, like backflips and leaps into the air for food, but Gonzo was a real pro... and a ham, to boot. He sailed through hoops.
He lobtailed the crowd, splashing large amounts of water on them with his flukes, better known as flippers. He plopped himself up onto a platform. He squealed and chirped and generally appeared to be having a good time. He might be one of the top predators of the seas, but here at Orcaland he was a pussycat letting the trainers ride on his back or put their heads inside his mouth where three dozen deadly teeth shone whitely in the bright sunlight. Maggie could see why Beth had developed such a strong affection for Gonzo—and all killer whales, for that matter.
Just then she heard Beth gasp.
"What? What?" she asked, quickly morphing into mother mode.
Beth was still gasping for breath and pointing out to sea, beyond the oceanarium. Holy cow! There was an enormous killer whale swimming just beyond the nets... circling and circling, blowing mists of spume, diving and coming up in geyser splashes of water.
It was not usual for free whales to approach the oceanarium because they did not roam the warmer, salty waters off of Texas, but this one must have been drawn by the other whales in captivity and the prospect of food. Or was this magnificent animal in distress?
As it began spyhopping—leaping out of the water almost in a perpendicular position— Gonzo did the same thing. They were mirroring each other's actions.
Their loud chirps and whistles and squeals echoed across the inlet like eerie aquatic bullhorns. It appeared as if they were communicating frantically with each other.
That wasn't the most remarkable thing, though.
There was a man riding atop the killer whale. And he appeared to be holding on to the whale's dorsal fin for dear life.
But wait. Was he steering the mammal as if its fin were the rudder of a boat?
Could this be a new addition to the marine park, staged as a grand entrance?
Wow!
Or—Oh, my God!—was it a wild killer whale on the rampage?
The fine hairs stood out all over Maggie's body, and her intuition kicked in big-time. She knew— she just knew—that man was in real trouble.
"Slow down!" Jorund yelled to Thora.
Hold on, was the whale's only response as she blew enough spume out of her blowhole to drown a small village, and shot through the ocean like a rock from a catapult.
With the wind created by the beast's excessive speed, most of the substance landed on her reluctant passenger. Jorund tossed his hair back off his face and spit several times with distaste. Whale spume tasted as revolting as rancid lutefisk.
Jorund was so angry he could scarcely think or breathe.
And, yes, he had to admit it: he was so bloody frightened he might just wet his braies. If he were wearing braies, that was. And if he weren't already wet.
Apparently he had not drowned, after all. But in some ways he wished he had.
"I'm going to slice you up into the world's biggest pile of whale blubber once we stop," he yelled at Thora. "I'm going to make enough whale soup to feed a nation. I'm going to make hatchets out of your teeth. I'm going to make a necklace to hold your ugly pig eyes. I'm going—"
Jorund never finished his sentence, because Thora performed another one of her quick dips in the ocean, which required her passenger to hold his breath.
When he came up again, Jorund continued his harangue: "And furthermore, the next time you decide to break your fast on shark, would you mind eating with your mouth closed? Your breath is enough to curdle milk."
Be quiet, Viking. We're almost there, Thora said with her usual chirps and squeals.
Jorund still couldn't believe he could understand whale talk. But that was neither here nor there. "Almost where?" he asked. Just then he noticed the huge net rising up high above the waves ahead.
She wouldn't, Jorund thought.
Thora increased her speed till the air whistled in Jorund's ears and his hair whipped back.
She would.
Before Jorund could blink, or say a silent prayer to the gods, Thora dipped down into the ocean and came back up in a truly impressive leap into the air. At the peak of her high jump, just before bending her massive body over into an arc for its return to the water, Thora shook herself, causing Jorund to lose his grasp on her top fin. With a scream of terror, Jorund flew through the air, over the net fence, and into the water beyond.
It's up to you now, Viking.
"What?" Jorund gurgled, still underwater.
Your fate.
Aaarrgh! Riddles again... whale riddles!
When he finally swam to the surface, his sword banging against his thigh, Jorund turned. Thora was nowhere to be seen.
Then, twisting toward the shore that was visible in the distance, Jornnd saw a most amazing sight. There were people—many of them—and several whales, and melodic music in the air that sounded like Oompapa, Oompapa, Oompapa... and strange objects of many vivid colors twirling about in circles and on huge metal loops in the air.
Jorund began to swim toward the shore, even as he sighed deeply. There was only one explanation: he must have died, after all. Although he felt at peace, a sadness swept over him that he had not completed his father's work. Ah, well!
What must be, must be.
This must be Asgard... Viking heaven.
With a rueful chuckle, he expressed a silent wish that his personal Valkyries would be buxom. After what he'd been through these past months, and having been wedlocked to a flat-chested woman, he deserved a well-endowed goddess. Mayhap his brother Rolf would be waiting on the shore to welcome him. Yea, if his brother had indeed passed to the other side before him, Rolf would ensure that there were big-breasted wenches aplenty to warm his bed furs.
Jorund had been swimming steadily shoreward, arm over arm, with his face in the water. He looked up now, jerked his head back, then looked again.
"Oh, holy Thor!"
The man and the three captive orcas were swimming underwater now, blurrily visible in the blue water, heading straight for the bleacher area. When they were about thirty feet away, man and beasts dipped deep into the water, then came spy hopping up into four spectacular perpendicular leaps.
It was one thing to see a two-ton animal skyrocket from the water like one of God's blessed creatures. It was quite another thing to see a huge male, all sinewy muscles encased in a flawlessly proportioned body, perform the same remarkable feat, whipping a swath of long blond hair back off his face at the pinnacle of his surge.
It was especially remarkable because the man was naked. Naked! He wore nothing but a—Oh, good Lord!—was that a sheathed sword attached to a belt at his narrow waist and secured with a leather thong to his thigh? No wonder sirens could be heard in the distance; soon police would be swarming in like killer bees. No wonder there were screams of "Stand back! Stand back!" from a single security officer, who was having trouble getting through the crowd of three hundred or so spectators. The amphitheater further thwarted their progress, with no place for the spectators to exit, except where police would have to come in.
Bare seconds passed before the man came down from his leap and landed on his feet, standing in shoulder-high water. Then he began to walk up the sloping bott
om toward them, the water revealing his nude body inch by glorious inch.
With the lazy indifference of a man comfortable with his body, he reached up with both hands and finger-combed his long hair—surely a champagne blond when it was dry—off his face. Although his jaw was covered with several days' growth of whiskers, it didn't detract from his appeal at all. Despite his relaxed attitude, his eyes were wary.
Is this part of the act? If so, I'm impressed, Maggie thought, fanning her suddenly hot face with an Orcaland program.
"He's a trespasser!" one man in the crowd accused. "Put him in the slammer." The guy's stout body sported a T-shirt proclaiming, If Swimming Is So Good for Your Weight, How Do You Explain Whales?
"Ha!" the blond god exclaimed. He stood in water up to his waist now, at least fifteen feet away. "The first person who tries to slam me will be missing an essential body part. Besides, there is no such thing as trespassing in Valhalla." The man's voice carried over the crowd in a strange foreign accent.
"This ain't Vail, fella," a cowboy-clad, gray haired man commented in a heavy Southern drawl. "This heah's Texas. You're 'bout two thousand miles off course. Ha, ha, ha!"
"Tax-us? Many lands require scutage, but ne'er have I heard of a country that asks to be taxed."
The hunk just shook his head in confusion.
"Threatening an endangered species... the jerk!" another man called out. To Maggie's amazement, it was an outraged Harry, sitting beside her.
"I have not threatened anyone... yet," the stranger asserted. "And, in truth, I never 'jerked' anyone that I recall."
"Indecent exposure... arrest the man for public nudity," a middle-aged lady demanded as she peeked through the fingers that covered her eyes. Her T-shirt said, All Men Are Idiots, and I Married the King. Her bored husband sitting next to her wore a T-shirt that said, perhaps appropriately, Sometimes I Wake Up Grumpy; Other Times I Just Let Her Sleep. Maggie couldn't tell for sure if the "grumpy" lady was pleased or disappointed that the blond god stood in place momentarily, and was still covered to the waist by the murky water.
"Now I know that I have arrived in the strangest land of all. Since when has nudity become a crime?"