The Beautiful People

47. Mrs. Parsons

     Things had settled down after Jim was taken away by the sheriff. I thought the most surprising part was when Angie and Rachel decided to share a tent rather than sleep alone. There are just some people who can't stand being alone at night, and it looked like these two young ladies were a few of them.  David was already settling into bed for the night when I returned to the camper and I could tell by his demeanor that he wasn't impressed with how badly things were going all weekend. Nothing was going as he had planned, and it was up to me to try to sooth his badly bruised ego.

     "To be fair, David," I called out for him as I was changing for bed, "This is the worst employee retreat weekend we've ever had."

     "It's not?" David replied without looking at her. "I don't remember any endangered animals having a few caps popped into their ass."

     "True," I said, trying not to argue. "But I think the bee sting was a lot more dire. She barely made it out of that alive."

     "True," My husband replied, "If the other camp hadn't gave us their epi-pen, it could have turned out a lot worse for us."

     "Then there's the canoe incident," I reminded him, "We nearly lost someone that day too. The only reason no one was hurt this time out was because one of the spouses was packing heat."

     "True," David said, as his tone was softening up. "And it was self defense, so I don't think the lawyers will have any trouble taking care of it."

     "Don't fret about it, hun." I continued, "I bet Bill is taking good care of Jim, and I'm confident whatever cot he's sleeping in is a lot softer than anything out there in those tents too."

     "Probably right about that," David said as he finally rolled over. "I'm sorry, dear. This weekend has been a total clusterfuck. What do you think we should do?"

     "Well, before something else goes wrong, we should leave camp at first light," I suggested, "And we shouldn't hike back without Jim either, so call us a car and we'll drive back to the house. After you drop us off, you should head to the station and check up on Jim." 

     "Alright," David conceded, "We'll drive up back to the house in the morning. Angie will probably be happy to see Josh again. I hope he's doing alright on his own too."

     "He's a writer, David." I reminded him, "Odds are he's probably enjoying the solitude and is writing another bestseller as we speak."

     "Good point," David said, with a small chuckle. "The rich just keep getting richer."

     "What was that?" I asked him.

     "I'll tell you tomorrow," David said, rolling back over. "Let's get some sleep."

     Without saying anything else, I laid down beside my husband and we both quickly nodded off to sleep and the morning came to us a lot faster than we wanted it to. When I woke up, David was already gone as it usually was between us. I enjoyed sleeping in, but my husband had always been an early riser. As I was getting dressed, I could smell the coffee that was brewing and I was looking forward to having a mug. As I departed the trailer, almost everyone was already awake and packing things up to go. I would have preferred to have someone else take care of it for us, but they appeared to be doing it to pass the time waiting for me to wake up.

     "What time is it?" I asked.

     "Almost seven-thirty," Angie answered, passing me a cup of coffee.

     "Thank you," I said before taking a sip. "When are we being picked up?"

     "The van is already on its way," David answered, "We were just about to wake you up. We were waiting on the coffee to use as a shield."

     "Smart move," I said, taking another sip, which was just perfect. "I'm glad the van's on its way, I want to get away from this camp as quickly as possible and get back to the cabin."

     I stood there and watched everyone else pack up the tents and clear the space away until the fan finally rolled up to pick us up. After all the events of the previous night, there as no way I wanted to hike back to the cabin. I was just eager to get back to the house and let David go to the station to take care of Jim. It took the van only fifteen minutes to drive us back to the cabin, but when we arrived I noticed something different. There was an extra car that wasn't there the previous day.

     "Whose car is that David?" I asked him.

     "I have no idea," David replied, "Maybe it's one of the lawyers to help Jim."

     "Seems fair," I said, as the van pulled up and came to a stop.

     I ignored the car as I just wanted to get back into the house, and while I was hoping it was a lawyer, what was waiting inside was the last thing I expected to see. There was a blond haired woman standing in the middle of the living room, wearing only a dress shirt that thankfully went down to her knees and covered everything up. When the woman noticed everyone arriving, her eyes went wide and she seemed startled.

     "Oh shit," She softly said, as if we had caught her doing something.

     It was at this point where Joshua came strolling out of the kitchen, wearing only a bath towel around his waist and was drying his hair with another smaller towel.

     "Meg, you've got to try this shower..." Josh said but then stopped when he realized the room was full of people. "Oh, hey! Welcome back!"