Page 8 of The Caged Viking

“No,” she admitted. “You know how the halls were then. Dark, smoky, and my Viking has a lot of facial hair. He probably hasn’t trimmed his beard or mustache in a long time, let alone shaved.” She shrugged.

“Your Viking. I do not like the sound of that.”

They would have said more on the subject, but the sound of an engine could be heard from out front, probably a pickup truck by the loudness. Within minutes, her brother Torolf, a Navy SEAL, came sprinting around the house and up the back steps.

“You’re early,” her father remarked.

“I was up all night with Katla. She’s teething; so, I came on ahead of Helga and the other kids.” He sank down into another of the wicker chairs. Dressed in a U.S. Navy T-shirt and running shorts, he extended his long, bare legs out to rest his boondockers on the porch rail. “I figure I can help you with some of the first mowing around the vines.” He turned to Kirsten then and grinned. “Still an old maid, huh? And you now hitting the Big Three-Five. Uh-oh! Pretty soon you’ll be living with a herd of cats and getting all crotchety. Maybe even turn to other women, if you get my meaning.” Amusement flickered in his expressive eyes. Torolf loved to tease. All her brothers did. “No? Well, my offer’s still open, sis. I can fix you up with one of my buddies.”

“Oh, you! As if we need another SEAL in the family!” Her younger brother Hamr, a former NFL football player, was a SEAL, too. Not to mention her brother-in-law Ian, a SEAL commander. And then there was her recently ended affair with JAM. “Suffice it to say, we have enough arrogant, conceited, violent, chauvinistic, hairy apes in this family.” She slapped him on the arm with her tablet.

“Suffice it to say, la de da!” Torolf often mimicked what he called her high brow vocabulary

“Do you consider me a hairy ape?” her father asked.

“You’re the exception,” she lied and gave Torolf a dirty look.

“And what is this ‘other women’ business, Torolf? Do you mean her stepmother Angela, or her half-sisters Madrene or Dagny, or Lida, or Marie, or the various sisters-by-marriage in this family?”

“Um…uh…,” Torolf stammered.

Their father was a modern man in many ways, but back in the Dark Ages in others.

“He means that I might become a lesbian,” Kirsten explained bluntly before her brother could come up with some half-baked story to cover his ass.

“Traitor!” Torolf hissed at Kirsten.

“Torolf!” his father said at the same time. Then to Kirsten, he inquired, “You wouldn’t, would you?”

“No, Daddy, I’m not gay. Not that homosexuality is bad. In fact, in some ways I wish I leaned in that direction, but it’s not my thing!”

Her father breathed a visible sigh of relief and said, “Get your brother a coffee, sweetling.”

“Why can’t Torolf get his own coffee?”

“We have man things to discuss. Like what to do about your Viking.”

“Man things?” Kirsten gritted her teeth. “Did I happen to mention chauvinism?”

“Kirsten has a Viking?” Torolf sat up straighter. “Hoo-yah!”

* * *

Was Dr. Phil of Norse descent?...

By late that afternoon, when the rest of her family showed up, everyone…mostly her brothers…had an opinion on Kirsten’s “Viking Man.” Any one of them could have prospered with their own newspaper advice columns, or blogs on the Internet.

Most people thought that the term busybody referred to women. Hah! They didn’t know Norsemen! Seriously, a day in the life of the Magnusson clan was like a bad reality TV show.

The only one missing was Jogeir who was working on some experimental farm in Iceland. Everyone assumed that someday Jogeir, who had dirt in his blood just like their father, would come home to take over Blue Dragon after his father retired, if he ever did. Kirstin missed Jogeir, who had been lame with a club foot as a child back in the Norselands, but had had a surgery to correct the issue once in this country, and even went on to be an Olympic runner at one point. She hadn’t seen Jogeir, who had become somewhat of a hermit, in years.

At the moment, a group of her family sat around the patio, drinking vast quantities of mead (beer) as they waited for the roast boar (pork ribs) that was cooking on the barbecue. Her stepmother Angela was inside working on the sides with Marie, who was studying to be a chef at some fancy culinary arts school. They would probably be having something like Truffled Potato Salad or wine-infused asparagus with black garlic croutons. You never knew when Marie was around.

Lida, an aspiring Broadway actress, who sometimes stayed in Kirsten’s LA apartment when on the West Coast, was in the kitchen, too, but she was probably just observing, not wanting to mar the admittedly spectacular French manicure that she’d splurged on at some hoity-toity Manhattan spa. In fact, after she’d arrived in LA yesterday in order to drive up to the vineyard with Kirsten, she’d insisted on painting Kirsten’s toenails with a crimson gel enamel from a sample the spa had given her, named “Hot Blood.” Kirsten had refused to let her do her fingernails which she kept a clear gloss, or occasionally a pale pink, in keeping with her professorship role. Hot-blooded Lady/Professor was not the image she was going for when teaching “Sexual Attitudes in Viking Society” to outspoken, no-filter young people.

Among the first to give his opinion on Kirsten’s Viking was Ragnor, her oldest brother, a highly intelligent computer guru of some kind. He was married to Alison MacLean, a physician who worked with the SEALs on the naval base at Coronado. Their combined IQ was probably about five hundred. You’d think they would have intellectual suggestions.

Instead, Ragnor commented, “It’s springtime, her sap is rising, and only a Viking man has the cure.” And he was serious.