Page 83 of Bridesmaid for Hire
“Wow,” I say.
“Exactly. So can you put your branch down and actually experience this? I feel like you’re going to regret it if you don’t.”
I glance down at her. “You act like you care about me or something.”
“I care about my sanity, and the last thing I want to hear when we get back to the bungalow is that you were so consumed by the thought of snakes that you forgot to enjoy the land around you.”
“I wouldn’t complain.”
“Please,” she whispers. “You overthink everything, all the time. You would have summarized this day as a wash and blamed the snakes for taking an experience away from you. Stolen by their slippery no-limbed bodies.”
I chuckle becauseslippery, no-limbed bodyis the phrase I probably would have used. Am I rubbing off on her? Lord knows she’s been rubbing off on me…
We spend the next few minutes taking pictures in front of the waterfalls, Maggie and I going last with my branch. She poses as if we’re acouple, her hand on my chest, me standing with the branch in my hand, but we smile and everyone tells us how cute we are—and when I say everyone, I mean Haisley.
When we’re ready, Liko leads us across the bridge the rest of the way and when we reach another dirt path, I lower my branch to the trail and start sweeping back and forth, using those janglers…
But Maggie has other ideas because she stops me with her hand on my arm. When I glance at her, she says, “Set the branch down.”
“This branch is the reason we’ve been safe this entire time.”
“You’re delusional and I refuse to hear you sweep that thing the entire way. Now set it down.”
“You realize you’re my pretend girlfriend,” I whisper, “not mother.”
She pats my cheek in a lovingly way. “And you’re about to be a publicly single man if you don’t set the branch down.”
“You act as if that’s a threat to me.”
Her eyes narrow and before I can tell what’s happening, she snatches my snake wand away and chucks it into the depths of the forest.
“You wench,” I hiss.
Proud of herself, she slips her arm through mine and says, “Now enjoy the hike. You won’t experience anything like this ever again.”
“Yes, I will,” I say. “I’ll experience it on our hike back from the palapa.”
“God, you’re annoying.”
“Lucky for you, I’m not as annoying as you,” I say as Liko stops us in front of a huge tree whose dozens of trunks stretch to the ground and make it look like it was created by Hollywood rather than nature.
“This is one of our ancient banyan trees. These thick-looking trunks are actually aerial prop roots…”
Maggie pulls me closer to get a better, up-close look, but I hold her back. “What are you doing?”
“I want to look at the roots.”
“Right here is a great place to look at them.” I stand firmly on the trail.
She tugs my arm, bringing me closer to the edge of the path.
“Stop that,” I hiss at her.
“I want to see better.”
“Then take a look for yourself—don’t drag me with you.”
“But I need something to steady myself on,” she complains, tugging me again.
