Fleur De Lies Page 7

  “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m planning to do.”

  “I absolutely forbid it.”

  “It’s going to happen, my pet, so I advise you to spare me the histrionics. Excellence should be rewarded, and I happen to be in a position where I can reward it as much as I like.”

  “Not with my money, you can’t.”

  He fixed her with the same look dragons sport before they incinerate fairytale villages. “Whose money?”

  Her bravado cracked beneath his gaze, causing her to shrink like a genie being sucked back into her bottle. Lips compressed in an angry slash, chest heaving, she jutted her chin in the air and snapped her head away from him.

  “Now, what was I saying?” He grinned, looking immensely proud of himself. “Ah, yes. Does twenty-five thousand dollars sound like a fair amount, ladies?”

  Shrieks. Squeals. Hands clapping.

  “This is absurd,” sniped Virginia. Rising to her feet, she crumpled her napkin into a ball and threw it on the table. “I’m leaving.” As Patrice scrambled to pull her chair out, she delivered her parting shot to her husband’s face. “I hope it fills you with great pleasure to know you ruin everything you touch, Victor.”

  “Shall I have a tray delivered to your cabin, madame?” Patrice called after her.

  “No! I’ve lost my appetite.”

  “Pay no attention to Virginia,” Victor soothed in an amused tone. “I don’t.”

  “Can you get back to the part about the money?” urged Krystal. “Are you givin’ out twenty-five thousand dollars apiece?”

  Victor shook his head. “I plan to make out only one check.”

  “Aww.” Bobbi shot him a hangdog look. “You’re gonna make us share?”

  “Not at all. The check will go to only one of you.”

  “Which one?” coaxed Dawna.

  “I want to be fair, so I’m not going to rely on partiality or guesswork. The four of you have the highest sales of our entire workforce, but only one of you is at the top of the sales ladder. I’ll be presenting the check to that individual.”

  “C’mon, Victor,” Krystal whined in a singsong voice. “Which one of us is it?”

  “Frankly, my dears, I don’t know. I’ll need to make a call to the home office to find out the specific figures, and then I’ll be able to make my presentation.”

  “You’re gonna make us wait?” pouted Dawna.

  “Waiting a few days for the results will help the four of you build anticipation. You can start a buzz. It should be quite exciting.”

  Or utterly disastrous. The three blondes and Jackie locked in competition for a generous cash prize? Oh, sure. Like that was going to happen without sticks, stones, and at least one major hair-pulling event.

  Patrice waved his order pad. “I have no wish to rush you, but if I fail to place your orders soon, the kitchen may run out of your chosen entrée. So”— he loomed over Victor’s chair—“may I take your order, monsieur?”

  “Twenty-five-thousand dollars,” mused Krystal in a dreamy voice. “Y’all know what I could do with twenty-five grand? I could remodel my guest bathroom into an automatic weapons room!”

  “Or you could buy yourself a pair of jeans that aren’t made of snakeskin,” cracked Dawna with a honeyed smile on her face. The notion of impending personal wealth had obviously emboldened Dawna into replacing the “All for one and one for all” routine with the ever more popular “Every man for himself.”

  Krystal’s beautiful face shifted slightly out of kilter. “In case you hadn’t noticed, hon, I rock my jeans.”

  Dawna shrugged. “If you say so.”

  “Snakeskin jeans are my signature.”

  “They wouldn’t be if you could see what you look like from the back.”

  Krystal’s eyes and mouth rounded like bubbles about to burst. “Well, idn’t that rich. The person paradin’ around in alligator boots is criticizin’ my snakeskin jeans.”

  Dawna sneered prettily. “In my corner of Texas, alligator boots are a bigger status symbol than three-tier, window-mounted gun racks.”

  “Sure they are,” retaliated Krystal. “If you’re six years old.”

  “Will the two of you hush up before someone mistakes you for Yankees?” chided Bobbi.

  “Blow it out your ear,” Krystal sniped at her.

  “Yeah,” Dawna agreed. “Stop actin’ like you’re runnin’ the show, because you’re not. I am so sick of you givin’ orders like you’re God or something.”

  Bobbi gasped in shock. “If you think I’m going to sit here calmly while you take the name of the Lord in vain, Miss Dawna, you have another thing comin’ to you.”

  “You don’t like it?” asked Dawna. “Leave.”

  “You’re both bein’ so snotty,” accused Krystal. “Don’t you think they’re bein’ snotty, Victor?”

  Wow. They were shedding their façades faster than a retriever sheds water. I could think of only two words to describe the phenomenon: Game on!

  “And you, monsieur?” Patrice momentarily bypassed the warring blondes to take Woody’s order. “What is your pleasure this evening?”

  “Hell, I can’t read this damn menu. It’s all gibberish. Just give me a burger and fries, and throw in some extra ketchup.”

  six

  We were just finishing dessert when we arrived at Caudebec-en-

  Caux, our first port of call. Not that any of my dinner companions noticed. Jackie had withdrawn into hurt silence for most of the meal, the girls were officially in “moods,” Woody was filling the void with nonstop tales of his war exploits in Italy, and Victor was slouched in his chair, chin on his chest, sound asleep. Wanting to view the new town from someplace other than the confines of the dining room, I decided this was the perfect time to part company with the group.

  “Well, this has been fun,” I lied as I placed my folded napkin on the table and stood up. “We’ll have to do it again sometime.”

  Victor snorted explosively and gasped awake, his eyes ranging around the table as if trying to figure out who we were and why he was with us.

  “Can I escort you back to your room?” I asked him, goaded by a niggling sense of duty. With Virginia gone, someone had to help him out.

  “Why … thank you,” he rasped. “That’s very kind of you to offer.”

  “Say, Vic.” Woody shot him a curious look. “Where’d you see action in the war anyway? European or Pacific theater?”

  Victor’s eyes grew suddenly wary. “That should be of no concern to you.”

  “Why the hell not? You had to fight someplace. Guys our age all had to fight someplace.”

  Victor ignored him as he struggled to his feet.

  “You did fight. Didn’t you?”

  I shoved Victor’s chair out of the way and grabbed his arm. “I’ll say this one last time,” he repeated. “My war experience is none of your affair, so don’t ask me again.”

  “So what kept you out?” Woody persisted. “Flat feet? Bad hearing?”

  “Do you guys need another arm?” asked Jackie, crawling out of her lethargy long enough to see that I might need a little help.

  I shot her a grateful look that prompted her to pop out of her chair and circle her hand around Victor’s forearm in a grip that nearly lifted him off his feet. Waving away my help, she struck out down the aisle and fought to keep him on course as he veered to left and right like the proverbial grocery cart with the wobbly wheels. “What’s your cabin number?” I asked when we finally exited the dining room.

  “It’s right here.” He nodded toward a door. “First one on the left. Although I don’t imagine it’s going to be too pleasant inside. Virginia will no doubt want to extract a pound of my flesh for embarrassing her. Unfortunately, we’re often condemned to live our lives in the personal hells we unknowingly create for ourselves.” He looked
down at the plastic sheath hanging from the lanyard around his neck. “My key is tucked behind my name tag, Emily. Would you be good enough to dig it out?”

  I removed his keycard, inserted it into the proper slot, and opened his cabin door. “Can we help you inside?” I asked as I returned his key to its sheath.

  “You dare brave the lion’s den?” He laughed. “Thank you for the offer, but I believe I can manage from here. Until tomorrow, ladies.”

  Using the door handle for support, he shuffled into his cabin and closed the door behind him.

  “Sooo … do you want to stop by my cabin to discuss what happened at dinner?” I asked Jackie as we continued down the corridor.

  She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t ever want to talk about it.”

  “Okay.”

  She sniffed pathetically as she proceeded to talk about it. “The girls don’t like me, Emily. I bet they got a big charge out of giving me the wrong phone numbers. They were in cahoots with each other the whole time, weren’t they? They didn’t want me bugging them in Arromanches, and they don’t want me bugging them anyplace else.”

  “Really, Jack, it’s their loss.”

  “They lied about who came up with the makeover idea, and they tried to make me look like a slacker in front of Victor.”

  We stopped in front of her cabin door. “Do you know what a guy would do if something like this happened to him?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing! You know why? Because guys don’t do stuff like this to each other! If a dude doesn’t like you, he might let the air out of your tires or beat you to a pulp, but he’d never do anything really mean.”

  In a bizarre way, this actually made sense. Jackie could never claim to be a philosophical genius, but her sudden pronouncement struck me as being both powerful and insightful. “Are you implying that … the physical bruises that men inflict on each other heal a lot faster than the psychological ones inflicted by women on other women?”

  She stared into space for a long, contemplative moment before shaking her head. “Nah.” Reaching into her shoulder bag, she removed her keycard. “Anyway, I apologize for abandoning you, but I’m going to lock myself in my cabin, crawl under the covers, curl up in a fetal ball”—she flashed a grim smile that reached all the way to her eyes—“and plan my revenge.”

  Unh-oh. This wasn’t good. “C’mon, Jack. Let it go. Getting even with them is beneath you.”

  “What? And let all the synthetic hormones I’ve knocked back all these years go to waste? Au contraire. I’m one of you now, Emily, and by God, I’m going to act like it.”

  Yup. This is exactly what the tour was missing—a six-foot transsexual skulking around the boat like Sylvester Stallone in an old Rambo movie. Oh, God. I hoped she’d have a change of heart, but even more importantly, I hoped she hadn’t packed any wigs.

  I walked to the end of the corridor, which opened up into an area like a hotel lobby. After waving to the perky female purser who manned the information desk, I exited the automatic sliding glass doors to starboard and climbed the metal stairs to the sundeck.

  For those guests who preferred to experience the sundeck minus UV rays, small groupings of patio tables and chairs were arranged beneath a canopy around midship, kind of like a circus tent without the sides. For guests who preferred their sun with all the trimmings, a double row of chaise lounge chairs sat back to back in the center of the deck, lined up in military order. Pockets of guests were scattered near the rails, drinks in hand, talking, laughing, and gazing toward the town of Caudebec, whose main street paralleled the quay where we were moored.

  As I crossed the deck to the port rail, I was surprised by how modern Caudebec looked with its three-story hotels, wrought-iron balconies, flower-filled window boxes, and profusion of satellite dishes. No half-timber houses and cramped alleyways here, just a steady stream of compact cars cruising the waterfront like lowriders cruising Hollywood and Vine.

  “I got pictures, dear. You wanna see?”

  Nana charged toward me at the head of the pack, elbows thrust outward in blocking mode, fist manacled around her iPhone, outpacing her nearest competitor by a whole half-step.

  “Mine are better,” urged Bernice as she muscled past Nana’s right elbow to shove her camara in my face. “That Saint-Sauveur woman got some great closeups of me. I dare any of you to look at this picture and tell me my camera isn’t making love to my face.”

  “I hope the camera was wearing protection,” howled Dick Stolee in a fit of laughter. “You wouldn’t want any surprises nine months down the road.”

  George scratched his head. “I thought the gestation period for women in Bernice’s age bracket was longer than that.”

  “You’re thinking of elephants,” said Tilly.

  “In case you didn’t know this already, Bernice,” Margi warned in her official capacity as a Windsor City nurse practitioner, “bearing children can have serious health risks for women our age. Varicose veins. Hypertension. Diabetes mellitus. Death.”

  “Hey, I’m suffering from the veins, the hypertension, and type 2 diabetes already,” crowed Dick Stolee, “and I’m not dead yet.”

  “You will be if you keep ogling those three blondes who’re traveling with us,” cautioned his wife.

  “I’m sorry, Bernice,” I said as I squinted at her camera, “but can you move your hand? Your fingers are hiding the screen.”

  “Lemme see.” Dick Teig snatched the device from her hand and took a peek at the onscreen image. The wisecrack he’d cued up suddenly withered and died on his lips. “Holy mackerel. This photo is amazing. Who is it?”

  “It’s me, you moron,” sniped Bernice.

  “Is not.”

  “Is so.”

  “You don’t look anything like this.”

  “I look exactly like that.”

  “Do not.”

  “Do so!”

  Everyone paused, breathless with anticipation. Heads turned. Eyes shifted.

  Five seconds …

  Ten seconds …

  “Shouldn’t we be votin’ by now?” Nana piped up.

  “See?” balked Dick Stolee. “What’d I tell you. The whole system’s broken.”

  “Where is Osmond anyway?” asked Tilly.

  Heads swiveled. Feet shuffled.

  “There he is,” said George, pointing toward a secluded spot in the canopied area where Osmond sat slouched in a patio chair, head bent, eyes downcast, looking as if he’d just learned that, in an effort to stimulate the economy, all three C-Span channels were being replaced by Home Shopping Networks.

  “Gee,” whispered Lucille. “What’s wrong with him? He seemed okay at supper.”

  “He’s probably brooding over our home visit,” said Bernice. “He reconnected with some woman he met in the war, and it’s probably just hit him that neither one of them will live long enough to ever see each other again. So, poof! There he sits. The face of tragedy.”

  “Osmond fought in a war?” quipped Dick Stolee.

  “Which one?” snickered Dick Teig. “Revolutionary or Civil?”

  Helen swatted her husband’s arm with the back of her hand. “That’s not funny.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “No. It’s not.”

  Ten seconds …

  Fifteen seconds …

  “Shouldn’t we take a vote?” asked Alice.

  “We can’t,” George lamented in a low voice. “It’s not official unless Osmond calls for a show of hands and does the tallying.”

  Eleven sets of eyes fired unblinking stares across the deck at him.

  “He’s ruining everything,” whispered Grace. “It’s so unfair. What are we going to do?”

  “Should we switch political parties?” asked Margi.

  George pondered the suggestion. �
�It’d be pretty easy. All we’d have to do is reject health care reform and buy a few guns.”

  Noses wrinkling. Heads shaking.

  They stared at Osmond more intently.

  “Unh-oh,” Nana whispered after a few moments. “Poor fella’s worse off than he’s puttin’ on. He’s not answerin’ his phone.”

  Gasps. Shock. More gasps.

  “I wish my hearing were as acute as yours,” Tilly marveled. “I’m embarrassed to admit this, Marion, but I can’t hear his phone ringing.”

  “That’s on account of it’s not. I just sent him a text.”

  “Saying what?” I asked.

  “Sayin’ ‘How did the Norwegian break his leg while he was rakin’ leaves?’ Them Norske jokes always get a rise outta him.”

  “Marion’s on the right track,” said George. “We gotta do something to cheer him up.”

  “I could transfer a million dollars into his bank account,” enthused Nana. “When I done that for the Senior Center, a whole bunch of folks got real giddy.”

  “Oh, sure,” whined Bernice. “Make yourself look good with a grand gesture that sticks Osmond with a mountain of tax headaches. How generous is that?”

  “Hey, Marion, if you make the transfer to my account, I’ll be happy to burden myself with the tax implications,” razzed Dick Teig.

  “Brown-nose.” Bernice plucked her camera out of his hand. “You morons don’t know anything about men and their libidos.” She jabbed a button several times until she arrived at the desired image. “I, on the other hand, know exactly what’ll get Osmond’s blood flowing again.” She smiled seductively at the screen. “One hundred and forty-seven glamour shots of Bernice Zwerg—up close, personal, and untouched by Photoshop.”

  Boos. Hissing.

  “Okay, people, I’ll take it from here,” I announced as the hissing continued. “I have an idea, so just back off until I see if it works.”

  “Whatcha gonna do, dear?” asked Nana.

  I knew what I wasn’t going to do. I wasn’t going to show him one hundred and forty-seven glamour shots of Bernice Zwerg. “I’m going to talk to him.”