Lies and Weddings(17)
“Hei! It’s the doctors Tong and Tong! So good of you both to come all this way!” he said in his peculiar Nordic-meets-SoCal accent, his ice-blond hair flopping over his eyes as he bowed formally before shaking Thomas’s hand and giving Eden a kiss on the cheek. “Your presence here is so very heart opening for me.”
“I’m so happy we could be here, Maxxie,” Eden said, beaming.
“Eden—hiyah! Please address Prince Maximillian as ‘Your Serene Highness’!” Arabella scolded.
Maxxie rolled his eyes. “Lady Arabella, Eden has been calling me Maxxie for eons.”
“Has she?” Arabella looked surprised. “I thought you scarcely knew her.”
“How can you say such a thing, Countess? I have known Eden since my very first visit to Greshamsbury Hall three years ago, and the girls and I even went camping in the Outer Hebrides last year. When someone has seen you empty your bowels into a hole you have just dug in the sand with your bare hands, I don’t think they have to call you ‘Serene Highness’ anymore.”
“Speaking of the girls, where’s Augie and Bea?” Eden asked, deftly changing the subject.
“Ah, they will be right back. There was a little issue with Augie’s mascara and Bea went to help her fix it.”
“This walkway is marvelous. I can’t believe we’re standing so close to the lava and not getting singed!” Eden remarked.
“Can you believe this was all built just two hours ago? My brah Rufus deserves all the credit for this genius idea,” Max said, rubbing Rufus’s shoulders affectionately.
Rufus gave a bashful grin. “I thought, why not turn bad luck into good? It’s not every day that an eruption occurs at a wedding site, so let’s have everyone enjoy the experience!”
“Spectacular idea,” Thomas complimented him.
“Yes, I wonder what the spectacular bill is going to be,” Francis muttered under his breath to Thomas.
Just then, a phalanx of guests arrived, each one of them blonder than the next. Max grabbed Eden’s hand eagerly. “Here comes my family. Eden, you must meet my father. He’s also a big Ozark fan and I’m sure he will want to talk to you about it.”
Eden dutifully went to meet Prince Julius and was in the midst of debating whether Wendy Byrde could possibly have borderline personality disorder when Arabella swooped in to monopolize his royal attention. She waded through the crowd, recognizing almost no one except for someone she thought looked like a famous supermodel. Based on the caliber of jewelry and incredible fashion parade before her, Eden was rather glad that she had chosen to “go glam,” as Bea had advised, wearing a cream off-the-shoulder taffeta faille dress with green roses by Emilia Wickstead and borrowing a pair of pearl drop earrings from Bea.
Augusta and Bea finally returned to the receiving line, but before Eden could properly greet the girls, Max gleefully announced, “Okay, we are all here now. Everyone, we have a very special treat. My guru Gopal Das—the man I credit with saving my life by introducing me to the wonders of psilocybin—has agreed to honor us with a welcome blessing!”
“What? Who?” Arabella turned around, recoiling at the sight of the man with a bushy red beard braided down the middle. Who was this ridiculous pirate creature in a sapphire-blue turban and matching Nehru jacket over silk patchwork pants that looked suspiciously like pajama bottoms?
Gopal Das took command of the mic and began to speak in a deep, booming voice:
“Beautiful souls, I bid you aloha! Now, I realize there are many honored guests and great dignitaries among us tonight—counts and countesses, princes and princesses, Miss Kate Moss, kings and queens. But here on this island, we are all mere mortals who must all bow down before the real queen—Pele, the one true goddess. It is said that Pele resides at the summit of Kilauea and exerts her power over everything on these islands. We are all standing on the vagina of our planet, as it births fresh new land right before our very eyes in the form of this beautiful molten lava flowing below us. This island is literally growing in size every day, like a teenager in puberty watching her titties swell…”
Arabella craned her neck trying to make eye contact with Jackie the wedding planner but could find her nowhere. Who was this long-winded fool? She took out her phone and began texting frantically:
AG: WHO IS THIS MADMAN? MAKE HIM STOP NOW.
JZ: Sorry, can’t.
AG: TURN OFF HIS MIC!!!!
JZ: He never turned it on.
Gopal Das continued: “Everything here is fresh and fecund. The flora and the fauna, the guavas and the macadamias, the lizards and the mongeese.[*2] Now, I invite you to join me in a moment’s meditation. Close your eyes and take a deep, slow breath. Breathe innnnn-nnnnn-…and out, allowing the oxygen to flow through you all the way to the tips of your toes. Do you smell that? What you smell is the freshest air on earth, the freshest air on this virgin land. Let us give thanks to Pele and to the people of Hawaii for allowing us to be here today in this special place. Now, a warning to you all. The sea here must be respected. It is fierce, it is fickle, it can change within moments. Before you step into the ocean, open your eyes and look around you. If you don’t see anybody swimming or surfing or frolicking in the water, there is a reason. I’ve seen Olympic swimmers get sucked out to sea and then battered against the rocks by giant waves until their bodies shattered like lightbulbs. There are no lifeguards on most beaches—Pamela Anderson is not going to come running out in a red bikini and rescue you if you get caught in a riptide.”