“Uh ... yeah, I suppose,” she admitted.
“And then I would have already been halfway home by now and your checker here would not have a long line stretching behind me, all of them witness to the spectacle that just played out.”
Darlene took a deep breath. “I apologize,” she said. “I misjudged you.”
Elsa nodded. “Apology accepted,” she said. “And now, I’ll be on my way. I have a lot of work to do.”
They ended up having pizza after all, only it was homemade pizza, prepared and baked fresh by Elsa herself. She served it with a green salad with homemade Italian vinaigrette and a bottle of sixty-dollar chianti. To Jake and Laura’s surprise, Elsa actually sat at the table with them to eat dinner and even drank a glass of wine.
“It’s nice of you to join us,” Jake told her sincerely.
“Thank you,” Elsa said. “You’ve all been working side by side with me today, getting your hands dirty and everything. I figure you’ve earned the right to have me sit at your table.”
After dinner, while Elsa cleaned the kitchen and did the dishes, Jake, Laura, and Celia went back to work, opening boxes and putting things away. They drank cold beer that Elsa had purchased while they did this and, after three bottles apiece, their will to carry on was effectively sapped. By that point, sunset was approaching and Jake suggested they go out to the edge of the cliff and watch it.
“You three go,” Elsa told them. “I still need to locate the linen and make up the beds.”
“Are you sure?” Jake asked her. “It’s our first sunset in the new home. And there’s no marine layer offshore. It should be a good one.”
“I am sure,” Elsa assured him. “I have no doubt that there will be other sunsets during my tenure here.”
“Okay,” Jake said slowly. “Are you ... uh ... all right, Elsa?”
“I am fine,” she said.
“Really? Because you’ve seemed a little ... out of sorts ever since you came back from the grocery store.”
“It’s just been a long day,” she said. “Now shoo. Go watch your sunset. I’ll get the beds made so you’ll all have someplace to go when it’s time to retire.”
Jake let it go. He and the two ladies all grabbed another bottle of beer and then went out through the sliding glass door from the entertainment room. The landscaping out here was still a work in progress. All the vegetation between the front of the deck and the edge of the cliff had been removed, leaving bare dirt where drought resistant plants and other landscaping that did not require irrigation would soon be placed. Out on the cliff edge itself, a redwood deck had been built and a 220-volt underground power line had been run to it. A twelve-person hot tub was on order for that deck but would not be installed for at least another week. Currently there was not even furniture on the deck, just the bare timbers.
The three of them did not mind. They sat down on the edge, their legs dangling off over the small strip of land between the deck and the drop-off of the cliff, Jake in the middle, Celia on his left, Laura on his right. Below them, the Pacific Ocean swells crashed endlessly into the base of the cliff. Out above the horizon, the orange ball of the sun was sinking slowly toward the waves. Above them, seabirds cruised back and forth, seagulls and pelicans both. The smell was of salt air and the onshore breeze felt heavenly against their skin.
“This is amazing,” Celia said, a smile on her face. “I can see why you like this land so much.”
“Isn’t it peaceful?” Laura said. “Nobody around but us and the birds. The sound of the ocean crashing, the feel of the sea breeze. I’m going to come out here every night when I can. I still can’t believe I’m really going to live here.”
“I have been dreaming about this moment for years,” Jake said, putting his arm around Laura and pulling her against him. “And now it’s finally here.” He kissed his wife on the nose. “I’m going to remember this moment forever.”
“Me too,” she said, snuggling into him.
They watched the sun sink into the sea. Once it was gone, they stayed out there, talking and laughing until the twilight was nearly gone and the stars started to come out. Finally, they made their way back into the house. There was no television to watch since the satellite installer would not be out until the following week so they listened to the local rock music station on the radio and talked Elsa into joining them so they could play a game of hearts while they drank another bottle of wine. Elsa beat them quite soundly, successfully shooting the moon twice in two attempts to do so.
Finally, everyone drifted off to bed as they all had to get up early in the morning. Jake and Laura officially broke in their new home by enjoying a session of marital fucking while they listened to the crashing of the surf outside their open window.
“Now it’s really our home,” Laura told him as they lay cuddled naked against each other after.
“Yep,” Jake agreed. “The final step in the close of escrow has been done.”
The alarm clock in their bedroom sounded off at 7:00 AM, thirty minutes earlier than it had been set for in the Nottingham house, forty-five minutes earlier than in the Granada Hills home. Jake rolled naked out of the bed and walked over to shut the device off. Behind him, Laura was sitting up, yawning and rubbing her eyes.
“How’d you sleep?” Jake asked her.
“Like a baby,” she told him. “The sound of the waves just lulled me right to sleep.”
“Yeah, me too,” Jake said. “It’s a little chilly in here now though.”
“It is,” she agreed, looking down at herself. “Look, my nipples are hard.”
He looked and saw that they were indeed standing up quite proudly. “Nothing wrong with that,” he said with a smile. He closed the window, shutting out the cool morning air and the sound of the surf. “Now, let’s see if we can work this thing and get to rehearsal on time.”
“Right,” she said, putting her feet on the floor. “Let’s do this.”
Their goal was to be in the rehearsal studio in Santa Clarita by 9:00 AM, their normal starting time. In order to accomplish this, they needed to be wheels-up from Oceano Airport by 8:00 AM. They had a well-established morning routine by this point, but now they were going to utilize it in an unfamiliar setting. They would have to see how it went.
Their master bathroom was quite large, with a massive marble jacuzzi tub, an enclosed glass shower stall big enough to hold an orgy in if one chose to do so, and a large counter with his and her sinks, each of which had separate medicine cabinets and storage doors. The actual toilet was enclosed in a separate room (Jake called it the throne room) with a closing and locking door.
Laura turned on the shower so it could warm up and then walked into the throne room and sat down. She had long since lost her bashfulness about having Jake see her peeing, so she did not close the door while she performed this morning necessity. When she finished up and flushed the toilet, she stepped back out into the main bathroom and checked the temperature of the shower water. She adjusted it a bit and then stepped inside, closing the glass door behind her. Jake, meanwhile, went into the throne room and closed and locked the door behind him. His routine was to move his bowels first thing in the morning and neither he nor Laura really wanted to see the other in action for this particular bodily function. He made sure the ventilation fan was doing its job and took care of his business. After finishing up, he left the throne room, leaving the door closed and the fan running, washed his hands, and then shaved and brushed his teeth. By the time he was done with this, Laura had finished showering. She stepped out to dry off, leaving the water running.
“How’s the shower?” he asked her.
“I like it,” she said. “A little touchy adjusting the temperature, but the water pressure is good, better than what we had in the Nottingham house.”