Chapter 37

Yi woke up to what she thought was bright and early, but a quick inventory of the rooms showed she was the last one up. The twins’ bedroom door was wide open, and the beds were empty. Since no one was battering her door down requesting breakfast, she went to the bathing area of her suite and experimented with the shower. Then, refreshed from one of the most interesting showers she had ever taken (alone), she dressed and wandered downstairs and found no one in the parlor or kitchen.

However, she heard music coming from the basement, so she headed down there to find the twins rocking out with Wonka to an old music video on one of the largest TVs she had ever seen. The girls were strutting back and forth to ZZ Top’s “Legs” with their nighties hiked up to show their tiny legs as they pranced and awkwardly danced in time with the hard driving rhythms. They didn’t seem to notice Yi as she searched for a remote control to turn down the noise on the gigantic screen TV, and when she turned down the volume, the twins suddenly realized she was there. They crossed their arms and pouted, “Hey!”

“It too loud! You damage your ears!” Too late, Yi realized she was parroting exactly what her mother had told her in her youth. She even said it with her mom’s Korean accent.

“Momma and poppa don’t mind if we play music loud,” insisted Sandy.

“Yeah, and they won’t let us in the steamy shower either!” pouted Madeline.

“It’s mommy and daddy time!” they both sneered.

“Mommy and daddy time is very important,” said Yi, “if you let them have their mommy and daddy time, they will be less grouchy.”

“We’re hungry,” Sandy continued to pout. “That makes me grouchy.”

“Come on, you two, let’s go upstairs and have some French toast. I’ll try to make it look like a frog.” Yi started back up the stairs, but she noticed too late that she was leading no one. The twins whipped off their nighties and ran giggling through a door Yi hadn’t noticed near the rear of the media room. She dashed back down and into the room the twins had ducked into. There she found a pair of treadmills, a pair of exercise bikes, and a bunch of free weights. This was obviously the gym that had been mentioned in the past. Beyond the exercise equipment was a doorway covered by a curtain that was still swinging from the passing of a small child.

Yi ducked through the curtain and found herself in a shower room changing area, a long narrow room with a wooden bench and clothes hooks on the left wall, the back wall had shelves with towels and various soaps and shampoos, and on the other wall were windows and a glass door looking into a spacious steam room/shower. Andi and Paul were in the dressing area. They were just finishing pulling on their clothes.

“Uh, sorry. Didn’t mean to barge in,” apologized Yi. “I was looking for the twins.”

Paul smiled and gestured to the shower room. “You just missed them; they’re dancing in the rain.”

Sure enough, looking through the windows, Yi could see the girls, still in their panties, dancing in a gentle rain shower of the fanciest shower she had ever seen. She opened the glass door and looked in; the water was coming down from the nearly solid-looking ceiling. She saw the panels on the wall that would allow water to spray horizontally if desired, and there were panels on the floor that would spray up if desired. The two-station shower also had wooden benches along the wall beneath the glass windows.

The twins noticed Yi looking at them and started calling “Come on in!” then Madeline ran over to a control panel and pushed a button. “It’s steamy too!”

Andi pushed past Yi and forcefully said, “What did we tell you? No Steam!”

“But mom!”

“No, you’re too little! It can really and truly cook you. Remember the lobsters Yi cooked for us on the boat? Just like that. You can only steam if Poppa or I set it up for you. Now ... OUT!”

Defeated, the twins slowly marched out of the shower room, where Paul and Andi waited with towels to dry them off. As he dried off Madeline, Paul looked up to Yi and said, “might as well enjoy the steam. It’s going to run for another 10 minutes.”

“I think I’ll do that,” she answered, and as soon as Paul left the changing room, she stripped and entered the steam shower.

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