Fleur De Lies (7 page)

“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 com
petition 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 phenom
enon: 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 trans
sexual 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,” en
thused
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.”

“You want to take my camera with you?” asked Bernice. “I’ll start the slide show, and Osmond can look at the pictures in between pretending he’s listening to you.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” a heavily accented bass voice announced over the loud speaker, “please join us in the lounge for this evening’s entertainment of live jazzy music with Elodie and Jean-Charles. Tonight’s specialty cocktail is a Rob Roy at a 15 percent discount. The festivities begin in ten minutes.”

“Hot damn!” cheered Dick Teig as he pumped his fist. “We’re outta
here.”

“Marion?” Margi sidled up to her. “Out of curiosity, how
did
the Norwegian break his leg while he was raking leaves?”

Nana smiled. “He fell outta the tree.”

I crossed the deck to where Osmond sat and pulled up a chair beside him. “You’ve had quite a day,” I said in a gentle tone.

He nodded glumly. “She’s the only woman I’ve ever loved, Emily.”

“Would you like to tell me a little about her? I’ve got all night.”

He nodded again, his gaze riveted on the deck. “The night she found
me, I noticed she was wearing a wedding band, so I thought she was married. But she wasn’t. She was a widow. Barely a bride, and then a widow. The Germans had hauled her husband off to prison a month after her wedding, and she never saw him again. But it wasn’t until the spring of ’44 that the Germans bothered to tell her he’d died in captivity. When I showed up in her barn, her emotions were still pretty raw, so maybe I made a difference in her life when she needed it. I hope so.”