Illusion of Luck 37

It was nearly 7:00 PM. Greg and Cynthia had spent the entire day at Disney-MGM Studios.

“You still want to do room service for dinner?” He opened the door to their room.

“Yeah. That sounds fine. But I’m not very hungry right now.”

“I understand.” He smiled slyly. “We’ll play around for a while. That’ll work up an appetite.”

“Actually, I don’t want to play around right now.”

Was she kidding? It was only the second day, he thought. She can’t be bored with sex already.

Cynthia put her arms around him, pulled him close and looked deep into his eyes. “I don’t want to play around. I want to get serious.”

“Okay…I’ll try to do better. Just tell me what you want, Baby.”

“No, Silly. You’re doing just fine. Perfect, in fact.”

“Then, I don’t get what you’re talking about.”

“I want to have your baby.”

Greg gulped. “Well, I want to have your baby too—I mean, I want to have a baby with you too.”

She smiled. “No protection tonight.”

“No argument here.” Greg was ready. More than ready. “But I thought you wanted to wait a while to have kids.”

“I thought so too. But then I realized today that there’s no reason to wait.”

“Really? When did that happen—during the Beauty and the Beast show? Were you thinking that even though I’m a beast we can still live happily ever after and our children will turn out okay? Or, did you figure it out when we were free falling in the Tower of Terror? Maybe you realized life is short, so better have the kids now—before we get in a freak elevator accident.”

She stuck out her tongue and then smiled. “I don’t know. I guess I was being cautious because my first marriage failed, and I wanted to be sure. But you’re no Troy. I was so glad I didn’t have kids with him. But, now I’m ready. No doubts. I want Greg Tenorly to be the father of my children.”

“Children?”

“Two kids—like we talked about.”

“Yeah. A boy and a girl would be great.”

“Or maybe three or four.”

“Whoa. Three or four? I don’t remember talking about that.”

“Well, that’s just a contingency—you know, in case we don’t get a boy and a girl with the first two.”

“So, do you have any kind of limit in mind, Mama Tenorly?”

“Limit?”

“Yeah. Suppose we have four boys and you still want a girl. What’s the cutoff number? Six? Eight?”

“It wouldn’t take that many tries…surely.”

Greg looked as if he had just watched a monster truck demolish his prized 1965 Bonneville. His libido had suddenly been rendered undriveable. How would they support that many kids? How old would they be when the last one finished col­lege?

“It’s okay, Sweetie,” she said. “We don’t have to think that far into the future.”

His head was nodding along numbly in agreement.

“We definitely want to have at least one child, right?”

“Yeah.” He seemed to be coming back to the present.

“So, let’s just think about that one child when we make love tonight.”

“Okay.” The juices were beginning to flow again. “I can do that.” He began to smile.

“Great. So, why don’t you go ahead and take your shower? I’m dying of thirst. I’m gonna go fill up our ice bucket. You want a soft drink?”

“No, thanks. Ice water sounds great.”

Cynthia walked out with the ice bucket.

Greg went into the bathroom. He turned on the shower and began to undress, thinking about the prospect of several little redheaded girls running around the house. They would be so cute.

“Daddy, could we please go to Dairy Queen tonight?”

How would he ever be able to resist them? He’d say ‘Yes’ to everything. But that would be okay, because Cynthia would say ‘No’ when necessary.

“Daddy, will you buy me a car?”

“Dad, I want to go to Harvard.”

Ouch. But they would be so sweet—just like their mommy.

And what about boys? He could roll around on the floor with them, play football in the yard, and practice throwing a baseball. Gee—they would want cars and college too. But it would be nice to have at least one of each. A sweet little girl with long, shiny red hair and a cute, but tough, little boy with…

Greg frowned at his balding head in the mirror. Well, maybe the boy would have his mother’s hair.

**********

Cynthia pushed the button, and ice cubes began to rumble out of the machine into her bucket.

“How did you do on the Tower of Terror?”

It was the young hippie-looking man with a ponytail from earlier in the day. He was putting money in the Coke machine.

“Oh. We did fine. In fact, it was my favorite ride of the day.”

An older gentleman walked up behind Cynthia with his ice bucket and stepped up to the machine when she was finished.

“So, you didn’t get queasy at all?”

“Nope.” Enough small talk with this guy. She had a horny husband waiting for her. “Well, nice to see you again.” She walked away.

Halfway back to the room Cynthia heard the young man calling to her, so she stopped and turned around.

“I think you dropped this.” He held out a twenty-dollar bill. “I found it on the floor by the ice machine.”

What was that odd scent—his cologne? It seemed familiar to her. “No, it can’t be mine. I didn’t have any money with me. But thanks.” She started to turn.

He grabbed her arm and whispered into her ear. “I’ve got a gun in my pocket, so do exactly as I say, Cynthia.”

She jumped back a bit.

“Easy.”

Pipe tobacco. Larry’s pipe tobacco—that’s what she was smelling. He looked so different without the beard.

“I don’t want to kill you, but I will if I have to. Because if I can’t have you, nobody can.”

Their door was twenty feet away. Why hadn’t she walked faster or just ignored the pony-tailed man? There were proba­bly a dozen or so people in the lobby below. They would hear her cries for help. But would she be dead by the time anyone could get to her?

**********

Greg finished drying off, and looked through the new sleepwear Cynthia had bought for him. He picked out a pair of red silk boxers with an industrial-looking label across the front that said ‘Warning: Highly Flammable.’

As he walked out of the bathroom, he heard someone knocking on the door.

“I hope you remember the password,” he said in a loud sing­song voice. Holding in his stomach and flexing his muscles, he would model his new boxers for her.

But when he flung the door open, he was shocked to see Sandy and Rebecca. And Chaucey Reed and some guy—maybe her friend from the other night. “What are y’all doing here?” He stepped back, grabbed his robe, and put it on.

Sandy laughed. “It’s a funny story, Man.”

“Well, come in for minute.” As happy as he was to see his old buddy, he had more pressing matters—like pressing him­self up against his wife, thank you very much. But he would not be rude—as long as they left soon.

Rebecca said, “So, are y’all having a good time?”

“Oh, sure. We spent the day at Disney-MGM, and rode all the rides and saw most of the shows.”

“Which park are y’all going to tomorrow?” said Sandy.

“EPCOT, I think.”

“Rebecca and I might be there too.”

“Really?” Greg was beginning to think he had missed a lot of what went on between his friend and Rebecca while they were looking for Cynthia.

“Yeah. And we could meet up with y’all for lunch and a couple of rides. If it’s okay with you.”

“Sure.”

Rebecca jumped in. “But we don’t want to impose.”

“No, no,” said Greg. “That would be fine.”

Sandy noticed the red light flashing on the hotel room phone.

Greg saw the concern in his eyes. “What?”

“Have you listened to any of your messages?”

“No. We just got back to the room about fifteen minutes ago.”

“So, then you don’t know about Larry?”

“What? Did the police catch him?”

“No.” Sandy had assumed, and was hoping, that Cynthia was in the bathroom. “Greg, where is Cynthia?”

“She went to get some ice. Wonder what’s taking her so long?”

Sandy’s face went from concerned to panicked. “Greg, we think Larry might be here in Orlando.”

Greg ran out the door and down the hallway. The four visi­tors followed him. When he got to the ice machine, he began to freak out.

“Check every hallway, every floor! I’m going to the park­ing lot! We cannot let him get away!”