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Yeah, I’ll just bet you will, Bad Religion, I silently fumed.
Awkwardly I clip-clopped away in my three-inch power heels that I never wore, steaming at being effectively shooed away by some snarky twelve-year-old with body piercings, dog collar and a bad Mohawk haircut. I hoped his parents were satisfied with their well-spent sixty-grand tuition for their son who now worked a meaningful, minimum-wage job requiring him to remain housed in their basement for the next two decades with his unemployed, activist girlfriend who looked down her own pierced nose at them.
At least meandering around the museum was sure to calm me. A true history geek, I loved the past, dreaded the future, and I wasn’t too keen on my present situation. I was a single woman pushing way too close to thirty, with no prospects for anything resembling love and family. A century ago, I would be considered a raging spinster(a fate akin to leprosy and the Black Plague), and it was doubtful that my pathetic relationship status was going to change much in the near future.
Oh, well.Life sucks, and then you die.
Another wise platitude from some bitter dead man.
Teeth still on edge from the aggravating assistant, I meandered from exhibit to exhibit, reading the educational placards, gazing at the displays, and mentally correcting the more obvious mistakes. From what I learned, the logging and farming communities around Seattle began to blossom in the mid to late 1800’s, thanks in big part to the Great Northern Railway connecting Washington State’s cities and small towns. That meant the “ancient” artifacts displayed in this museum mostly consisted of a century’s worth of great-grandma’s attic antiques.
It was all interesting enough though, and I was enjoying myself immensely. So it all would have been fine had something else not bugged me as I wandered around. I had the strangest feeling that I was being watched. Even followed.
I tried to ignore the paranoid feeling, but it wouldn’t go away. At times I would sense a strange presence behind me, then would quickly whip my head around to see...no one. Or at best an out-of-towner giving me a twitchy smile before nervously scooting away, believing me to be some stalking whack-job.
Never one to ignore the primal instinct of fight-or-flight though, I finally decided that discretion was the better part of valor and gave up the wait for Hilarity, turning to head for the main exit.
That’s when things really got weird.
Let me explain. Every time I walked towards the lobby, some flustered mother or distracted janitor or old fart with his hunched, pebble-stepping mate would block my path and somehow herd me back into the museum proper. The numerous apologetic dances with museum guests happened so many times, in fact, that it would have been comical, if it hadn’t freaked me the hell out.
After the eighth blockade, I furiously determined to bulldoze past the next defensive linebacker halting my escape.
What I wasn’t prepared for was the gang of howling seven-year-old fieldtrip ruffians running hell-for-leather towards the wild animal exhibit directly behind me.
I loved kids(in very tiny portions—preferably across a football field sized room), but the raw panic I experienced seeing the red-eyed, snotnosed mob of renegade Munchkins stampeding towards me nearly brought on a full-fledged panic attack.
Quickly I turned and fled through the open archway of the Native American sector.
Safe now within the peaceful sanctuary of the indigenous past, the dimmer lighting and quiet, haunting tribal music with soft deerskin drums and airy wood flutes playing in the background began to center me again.
These new exhibits were much more interesting than the previous ones, I was delighted to see. There were numerous glass cases of artwork, blankets, dress, colorfully beaded jewelry, handmade weapons and tools. In a few corners, there were intricately carved and painted totems and boats set in front of backdrops of painted trees and mountains in natural reds, browns, tans and greens.
In one recreation, three mannequin females dressed in traditional clothing were posed next to a thatched hut, loom and fake campfire with roasting salmon. They were all cheerfully working together in happy harmony, while their half-naked children frolicked in the nearby creek. I wondered if this was an accurate portrayal of the ancient Snoqualmie women, or if like the rest of us today, they had really just sat around knocking back the fermented blackberry juice while bitching about their overly critical mothers, lazy husbands and whiny, annoying kids.
“Keep up the good work, ladies,” I told them, then moved onto the next wall where a series of old sepia photographs hung.
Each photo consisted of the local native tribes, some with an entire group, a few of individuals, all with a date and brief description printed on a card below.
One picture drew me to examine it closer. It stood out from the rest because unlike the other posed stick figured portraits, this one looked to be a candid shot of a super gorgeous man of Caucasian persuasion with longish black hair and dressed in buckskin who fiercely looked like he wanted to knock someone’s block off. Very rugged and frontier primitive. Although seeing that the date was a hundred years ago, it was probably modern dress for him.
It was the take-no-prisoners look in his clear, piercing eyes that really captured me though—slightly slanted at the corners and cat-like, sexy as hell. Strange, but I swear those predatory cat eyes followed me every direction I turned.
More than that, my own blue-green peepers were solidly fixed on him. Every delicious inch.
Tall and solidly built frame, torso, biceps and thighs. As major overkill, his face was ridiculously beautiful with only his squared chin and stubbled jawline reminding any foe that he was all man, and they would do well to remember it and not turn their back on him in a fight.
Holy guacamole.
I couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like if the man was actually standing right here, right now. Particularly with me. Because my own secret fantasy was that some sizzling, strapping mountain man like him would sweep me off my feet, declare his undying love, then whisk us away to some exotic location and make hot, passionate love to me until the sun came up—three days later.
Oh, baby.
“That’s Michael Bryant. Women always drool over him. I’m one of them.”
I spun around and grinned wide to see Hilarity DeVine behind me with her copper-red palm tree ponytail, oversized eyeglasses and rumpled eclectic-wear.
“Hilly!”
