are adaptable and if something strikes you as weird just try not to be weird about it, okay?”
I spread his shirt across his shoulders. “I’m even going to be barefoot.” I wigged my toes on the thick off-white wool carpeting.
“Your feet could use a pedicure, but I hope you’ll go barefoot too. It’ll be comfortable, because we’re going to eat, curl up, walk on the beach, go to bed. It’s going to be bright. It’s going to be loud. It’ll suck, but we’re going to take it easy and if you really need to come back here to lie down we can do that too.” I slid his glasses up on his nose adding to my list: dentist, pedicure.
“One more thing. No leering at women in their scanty clothes, you have to pretend not to notice. Other men are used to it, so try and vastly get used to it, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Good. Cause you’re too hot to be weird about it all. Let me show you my porch.” I led him out the sliding door to the small porch. It looked out over the dunes, the boardwalk, and the ocean. “Beautiful, huh?”
“Aye, these lands are familiar, tis much the same as when I lived here. I am surprised tae find m’self here again. These are all Og Maggy’s lands?”
“Well, this is probably weird, but his land is from there to there. It seems small compared to the miles of land around Balloch, but here this piece of land is very expensive, he has enough to be considered rich.”
“And he is a king.”
“Yeah in the future he has a whole kingdom. It’s huge. Here he has a mansion and a sliver of land near the beach, but somehow he likes this more.”
“He told me twas the people.”
“That’s nice.”
As we headed downstairs, Fraoch looked all around or alternately stared straight ahead. At the main floor we sat down in two of the bar chairs at the kitchen island. Zach asked, “Whisky? Or beer? Wait, one of each, plus a Coke.”
He turned around and put three drinks in front of Fraoch: One, a shot of whisky, two, a frosty can of Budweiser, three, a plastic bottle of Coke. He popped open the top of the can of beer. “Drink up Highlander.”
“Och! So many.”
Beaty and Quentin entered. I caught Fraoch glance at her bare legs and quickly away. He held my hand. She said, “Master Fraoch, I canna believe ye’re here. I am so excited. I canna wait tae show ye the new world. We will hae fun. Did ye try the Coke yet? Careful, it may make ye sick tae drink it, but tis worth it, tis so good.” She unscrewed the top of the Coke and pushed it toward him.
He sipped a bit, grimaced, and shook his head, sour face and all. “Och, ye like this?”
“I do, tis so good.”
He tried it again, grimaced again.
I said, “Maybe you just don’t like that flavor, we can try the lime ones too.”
Zach slid another beer in front of him a darker one.
I asked, “Now what? It smells like shrimp and grits?”
“Dinner will be ready in ten minutes. I’m not telling you, it’s something special for Fraoch.”
Emma said, “What should I do with the research? I’m setting the kids here with mac and cheese.” The table had two laptops, a stack of books, and some notebooks around it.
Quentin said, “We can put it on the desk, but I would like to bring it out later tonight, maybe Fraoch has some thoughts.”
“Fraoch will probably need sleep before research, remember how exhausting this is. Have you found any record of them — anything yet?”
Zach said, “I’m still scouring ancestry.com, their records, the time period.”
Quentin said, “Also looking through letters, battle reports, we need to go through the birth and death records.”
Zach said, “I keep running up against blocks. We need to go to the churches, see the actual pages, I think.” He added, “I can’t wait to show you what we found though, but first, follow me outside, first course, oyster shucking.”
On the deck Zach had set up a long table with a plastic table cloth and we all sat down with a big platter of oysters in front of us. James opened the sliding door, “Hey! I wondered where everyone was. Thought maybe Ben and Archie were the only ones here, cooking mac and cheese for themselves. Fraoch! Glad to see you in the real world, man! How’s Scotland?”