Page 49 of The Last Viking

Oh, yeah! I wonder why Rolf doesn’t share these personal reminiscences with me? Hah! Maybe because I never believe anything he says. Maybe because I ignore him most of the time. Or try to. “I’m glad you now recognize the importance of natural beauty. I notice you still have the nostril earring, though.”

“Hey, let’s not take this inner beauty stuff too far. Besides, Rolf said that if you can wear jewelry on your nose, he supposed my nostril ring wasn’t so bad.”

“Huh?” Geez, did I really say “huh?” Again? I’m regressing here, big time.

“Rolf thinks those silver-rimmed spectacles you wear perched on your nose are a kind of nose ornament. Like my earring.” Thea’s eyes danced merrily as she related that information.

They both laughed companionably then.

“Have you had lunch yet?” Meredith looked at her watch. It was only twelve-thirty, and she hadn’t accomplished anything at her office. She might as well stay home today. Work on some lesson plans. Shampoo her hair. Ogle Rolf.

“No thanks, Aunt Mer. Rolf is making all of us a Viking feast outside on an open fire.”

Meredith immediately stiffened. Oh, Lord! “Not…oh, please don’t tell me it’s going to be fresh-killed rabbit.”

Thea smirked. “Rabbit? Geez, Aunt Mer, where do you get these ideas? No, he sent Mike and some of the college girls to the supermarket. They couldn’t find a caldron or spit anywhere, though, not even in WalMart. They finally bought some cast-iron contraptions from an antiques store. Mike bought some old furs for Rolf there, too. They are, like, totally awesome.”

“Furs?” Meredith said weakly. What next?

Meredith didn’t have to wait long to find out.

Sniffing the air, Meredith realized that Thea had been telling the truth. The scent of food cooking on a wood fire wafted through the air. She wondered idly if there was an ordinance against that sort of thing in this neighborhood. Maybe not.

“By the way, Aunt Mer, I hope you don’t mind. Mike put an extension cable on the TV so that we could watch Home Improvement tapes outdoors. He’ll bring the TV set back in later.”

Meredith shook her head at the irony. Primitive cooking on an open fire and television.

“Rolf is totally buggin’ over that program, you know. In fact, Aunt Mer, he’s, like, adopted Tim ‘The Toolman’ Taylor as his hero. Isn’t that so cool?”

Yeah! Real cool! Another thing my parents are going to love.

“Is it true that Grandfather and Grandmother Foster never had a television set when you and Mom and Uncle Jared were growing up?” Meredith noted that Thea had taken to calling her mother “Mom” again, and not Jillie. Another change for the better.

“It’s true, hon. ‘Junk food of the masses,’ our parents called TV. To this day, they don’t have a television.”

“Yuck! They are such brainiacs.”

That about says it all, Meredith agreed.

“Wait till they get a gander at Home Improvement,” Thea remarked with a mischievous grin.

Meredith grimaced. “The show that epitomizes male chauvinism and stupidity, that glorifies working with the hands, rather than the brain. Oh, Lord!”

“Like, I can’t wait,” Thea said enthusiastically.

“I can,” Meredith said and put a hand to her forehead. It seemed she had a nonstop headache these days. “Do we have any Extra-strength Tylenol left, Thea?”

“Nah, you emptied the bottle last night. You know, when Rolf walked out of the shower in his, whadjacallit, loincloth.” Thea grinned again.

Even though Rolf refused to stay in the house, or eat with them, he couldn’t quite give up his showers. He insisted on paying Meredith for the use of her bathroom—a ridiculous ten dollars a shot. She suspected that he was in and out of the house repeatedly during the day when she was at the office.

“Yo, Dr. Foster. You and I have got to have a heart-to-heart,” Mike asserted, coming from around the side of the house.

Meredith’s jaw dropped practically to her chest.

Mike was wearing a long-sleeved, collarless, deerskin tunic that hung down to mid-thigh and was belted at the waist with a three-inch tool belt. His bare legs led down not to a pair of flat-soled boots, like Rolf’s, but instead to hiking boots with no socks. The image was ludicrous considering Mike’s close-cropped blond hair.

“What in the name of God are you doing?” Meredith asked, barely stifling a giggle.