Opposite of Frozen

by Jan O'Hara

  Buck heaved a sigh as his shoulders slumped. “I’ve been over that bus twice, Mr. P.”

  “Make it a third time.” If that didn’t do it, Oliver would have to involve the authorities, which would mean yet another delay.

  * * *

  ✽

  When Oliver dialed Sylvie’s contact number, he got an earful of French-accented English that would have been delightful, at normal volume.

  “What kind of business are you people running?” she said. “You do not answer your phone. You ignore your texts—”

  “We’ve been having a rough day but you’re right,” Oliver interrupted. She was winding up for a good rant and he needed to cut it short. “I apologize. Profusely. And I really need your help.” He explained about the reasons for the delay. “Can you hop in the car tonight, meet us in Harmony? I’d consider that beyond the call of duty and compensate accordingly.”

  Oliver thought he’d been persuasive, but she responded with a dismissive laugh.

  “Non,” she stated definitively. “I will not be coming to you tonight. Nor will I be helping you tomorrow.”

  It was the laugh that did him in. While they talked, Oliver had been hearing background noises at her end that spoke of an appealing domesticity: a baby’s babbling inquiries and a masculine response, quiet jazz and the clinking sounds of a home-cooked meal. Probably something like a stew thick with vegetables, and a salad served in individual wooden bowls. Compared to what was both behind Oliver and ahead of him, especially if Sylvie wouldn’t come to his aid, well, the frustration of the day simply boiled over.

  “That’s a rather cavalier attitude,” he said.

  “I would not say so.”

  “My brother put a lot of trust in you for his fledgling business. A lot of faith. He said you had a baby but you’d be a professional. Guess he was mistaken.”

  She said nothing. The silence dragged on.

  Oliver got a queasy feeling in his stomach. He closed his eyes and washed his hand over his face. “I just put my foot in it, didn’t I?”

  “Up to your bloody thigh.” Her voice was dry as the Sonoma Desert.

  “How about we try this again, and I’ll begin by listening—”

  “As the kids would say, how about we don’t.”

  Oliver winced.

  “The reason I will not be coming to you, Oliver, is the reason nobody will be coming to you from west of the Rockies. You would know this if you answered your phone, or turned on the news, or bothered to stay apprised of road conditions. Any amateur would know to do this much.”

  He held the receiver away from his ear while she raged. When he was certain she was finished, Oliver said, “Was there a storm?”

  “Avalanches. On the Trans-Canada. Followed by many, many accidents. So if I were you—and I am glad I am not, because you are not a nice person—I would go to hotel management. Immédiatement. Beg for rooms. You will not be going anywhere for a few days, at least.”

  A heavy silence hung over the phone while she presumably fumed, and Oliver contemplated the domino of consequences that would follow another delay: the prepaid accommodations they wouldn’t make, the restaurant bookings he’d have to cancel, that there would be no bus driver relief for Buck tomorrow, or tour guide assistance for Oliver. He had fifty-one people expecting him to come through for them, and he didn’t even have a place for them to sleep tonight.

  Nor could he possibly bother Shawn with any of this.

  “I don’t suppose you know if my brother has trip cancellation insurance,” Oliver tried.

  “I tell you what. Let me check with my bébé,” Sylvie said. Then she hung up.

  Chapter 5

  From the age of eighteen, Oliver had played pro baseball before crowds of ten thousand or more. He’d taken part in numerous civic ceremonies—cutting ribbons on school grounds, planting shovels in future baseball diamonds, leading running groups for the local Y. Last month, before he’d had any clue Shawn was ill, much less required hospitalization, Oliver tried a brief stint playing a sports god on TV. The experiment had required him to memorize a script, go shirtless, and become a sex object all over again.

  He thought he’d made relative peace with being a public figure. At 7:30, as the puzzled seniors were redirected from the tour bus into the Diamond 1 ballroom, he couldn’t recall ever being more nervous.

  That was on account of him needing to do the best sales job of his life, he told himself, and not Page’s accusing glare. She sat with Mavis and Avis at a table three rows from the front, her parka fully zipped, her arms wrapped around herself.

  She hadn’t been pleased when Oliver turned up in Mrs. Arbuckle’s room with the hotel’s head of security. Together they’d reviewed the surveillance footage of the tour bus’s arrival and proved definitively that Buck had been the first to reach Page. There had been no half-bald, wing-tip-wearing man anywhere near the bus at the time of disembarking, or during the aftermath, for that matter.

  Yet Oliver hadn’t been able to shake the feeling Page was telling the truth—at least the truth as she understood it. Her conviction was absolute.

  Could someone have gained access to the hold when they’d been sitting on the shoulder of the highway? Buck said no, but then Page’s status as a stowaway proved they hadn’t always maintained control of the bus.

  A hypothermic hallucination remained the most logical explanation. But Page, the stubborn woman, wouldn’t give that theory any credence. She refused to sign the waiver and refused to go to the authorities for help with money and identification, meaning she was nearly penniless, possibly homeless, yet fixated on finding the sports-coat wearer.

  Which was why Oliver had let her in the ballroom to inspect his seniors.

  How long before she noticed he’d corralled only forty-eight of his fifty-one passengers? Or that Shawn’s records were in such bad shape, Oliver couldn’t be certain who was missing?

  Not that any of these problems were solvable right now. Oliver had to focus on what was.

  He turned his back to the seniors and took a few centering breaths, inhaling the scents of banquet room chicken, cheesecake, and all-purpose cleaner.

  When he was ready, he faced the group and prepared to project his voice. “Thank you for coming here at short notice. It’s been a day of many firsts. Let me begin by—”

  “Eh?” Dour-faced Mrs. Horton sat at the nearest table, cupping her hands behind her ears. “These eardrums are ninety-five years old, young man. You need to enunciate.”

  Oliver hesitated. Was she putting him on? He’d been speaking so loudly he’d practically parted Mrs. Patel’s hair. He hadn’t spent enough time with Mrs. Horton to know whether she was truly that cantankerous, or whether she was being ironic and playing to type. A few times he thought he’d detected the hint of a smile during her interactions, suggesting she knew how she came across and was enjoying herself at others’ expense.

  Meanwhile, Avis had put her hand up to shield her mouth, Page was openly smirking, and Mavis’s eyes were dancing.

  But several of the other seniors were nodding agreement. Best to assume Mrs. Horton was playing it straight.

  A podium was set off to one side of the room, near the window. Oliver smiled and aimed to project maximum confidence. “One moment,” he said to the room.

  “Eh?”

  “One moment,” he yelled, holding up a single finger.

  After a few minutes of dial fiddling and ear-splitting feedback, he gathered the shreds of his dignity and prepared to try again. It helped to feel the smooth wood of the podium under his fingertips—echoes of other successful presentations. He shot the room a smile an entertainment reporter had called “dazzling,” took a deep breath, and began.

  “As I was saying, thank you for c—”

  “Eh?”

  Though he’d been half-expecting another interruption, Oliver couldn’t prevent his shoulders from slumping as a ripple of laughter traveled through the room. Now what? He couldn’t turn the volum
e any louder without disturbing the rest of the hotel.

  Oliver didn’t know American Sign Language. He very much doubted Mrs. Horton knew American Sign Language. Short of pantomiming everything he was about to propose, or transcribing it for later, how would Oliver explain what had happened, much less gain her consent to the new plan?

  How would you pantomime an avalanche?

  Mavis came to the rescue. “Agatha, are you wearing your hearing aids? She sometimes forgets to put them in,” she said to Oliver.

  “What did she say?” Mrs. Horton had come to her feet and squinted suspiciously at the back of the room. She was so tiny, she had to rise on her toes to see over her tablemates. And she seemed to have no mobility in her neck, as the slightest change in direction of her eyes required her whole body to alter orientation.

  Oliver leaned on the podium while one of Mrs. Horton’s tablemates repeated the question at high volume.

  “Am I wearing my hearing aids? Course I’m wearing my hearing aids.” Nonetheless she put her hands to her ears again, and her fingers danced over their flesh until an uncertain expression gave way to triumph. She turned to Oliver. “I always put them on first thing in the morning, same as my glasses,” she said, as if she were trying to convince herself rather than him. “First I use the privy, then I wash my face, and then I—”

  “Yes, yes. Are your batteries fresh?” Page called out.

  “Eh?” Mrs. Horton swiveled again.

  “Are your batteries f—” With an audible exhalation, Page hopped to her feet and strode to the front. As a murmur rose around her, she executed a smooth twirl, mid-stride, and effected a curtsy. “That’s right, people. I’m your stowaway and I’ve made a full recovery. Thank you for your concern.”

  “Eh?” said Mrs. Horton.

  As far as Oliver was concerned, Page was a wild card. She seemed to get along with Avis and Mavis, who already treated her as if she were an adopted daughter. Nor did Mavis seem concerned about Page helping Mrs. Horton. But Page had been downright hostile towards Oliver. In case she displaced some of that attitude onto one of his seniors, Oliver joined them.

  Mrs. Horton stood stoically as Page removed the delicate hearing aids. Between the two of them, they located Mrs. Horton’s spare batteries in the side pocket of her purse, opened the tiny mechanisms, and reinserted them.

  Page left with a sidelong glance at Oliver that said, See?

  “How’s that, Agatha? Can you hear me now?” Oliver said sotto voce behind Mrs. Horton, baiting her on purpose.

  “Impudence!” She whirled around to give him a satisfying glare. “I didn’t give you permission to address me by my first name.”

  Figuring he’d already lost whatever stateliness he possessed, Oliver seized her hand, bowed low, and kissed it. “Forgive me, Mrs. Horton.”

  Her expression softened marginally.

  Oliver strode back to the podium to begin again. This time, he paused after his introductory statement. He waited for someone to say they needed the restroom, to be informed the sound was too loud, to have to speak over a contagion of coughing. But this time they allowed him to apologize without interruption and explain about the road closures.

  Now for the sales-job part: guiding them to the decision that would keep his brother’s company afloat.

  Oliver took a deep breath and dove in.

  “Choice number one: we head south via Montana and Idaho.” Oliver let the discontented murmuring begin and then interrupted. “But that’s not what you paid for, am I right? You wanted Vancouver and the full coastal experience, which is why I can’t recommend this option.”

  “Laying it on a little thick, isn’t he?” one mustached guy said to his buddy, who quirked his eyebrows.

  “Option number two,” Oliver said. “We wait here until the roads are passable. Then we put in extra-long days to catch up to our original itinerary.” As the grumbling began, Oliver said, “Same issue.”

  A man in his mid-sixties raised his hand. He wore a Western shirt and had a ruddy complexion which had been deepening as Oliver talked. “What kind of an amateur hour is this? I should have known to stay away from a new travel company, but your brother’s a real talker.”

  “A regular con artist,” said the woman beside him, nodding.

  “Nobody has control over the weather gods, Mrs. Brown,” Oliver said smoothly, grateful he knew one of their names. “But at Shastavista Travel, we take your holiday seriously so you don’t have to.” The platitude left his mouth without thinking, and he cringed inwardly at the cheese.

  “So I’ve pulled in a few favors,” Oliver said, not telling them that meant about a hundred. “We have one last choice.” He held up three fingers to keep them on the same page. “We camp here for a week. You can wander the town, enjoy the bakery, the theater. Restaurants. Then next Sunday we start fresh. We’ll travel the same route, stay in the same hotels, get you to the same cruise. The trip will be identical to the one you were promised, except it’ll happen a week later.”

  “I’m not camping,” said a woman with short iron-gray hair.

  “It was metaphoric,” Oliver said. Obviously. He bared his teeth in what he hoped was an encouraging smile. “We’ll sleep here, at the Thurston.”

  A man with thick glasses sat back with a disgruntled expression, arms folded over his big belly. “I’m not paying for that.”

  Oliver waved a hand, hoping to convey magnanimity. “On the Shastavista house.”

  Finally, sounds of approval buzzed and swelled throughout the room, and Oliver could feel some of his tension melting.

  He heard a few more objections then, but he’d come prepared. For the seniors with conflicting medical appointments, there would be vouchers to redeem at a future date, assuming his brother’s business was still operational. For the people meeting friends on the cruise, they’d return to Edmonton tomorrow with Buck. Then they’d be flown to LA in time to keep their original departure.

  Oliver held up a hand and waited for quiet.

  “I need a decision in short order, so here’s the plan. In the next hour, consult your calendars and call your families. If you don’t have a cell phone, the hotel staff is here to ensure you’re connected.”

  Gill was at the back of the room. At a nod from Oliver, he and three other uniformed people came forward to offer assistance.

  Now for the bit on which it all hung.

  “In the meantime, I need to speak with a few of you,” Oliver said. “Mavis, Avis, Jonathan, can I see you privately in the next room?”

  Chapter 6

  From where she stood in the anteroom, Page read the disapproval in Oliver’s eyes. He’d been hung up in the doorway by eager questioners and hadn’t been able to prevent her from joining his special group, which was half the reason she’d done it. It was a cheap bit of fun in an otherwise disastrous day.

  The other half was the need to stay busy, to prevent being overtaken by panic.

  What was she going to do?

  When you moved locations every few months, you accepted the money challenges which came with a nomadic lifestyle. But Page had never come so close to being tapped-out. Forty dollars wouldn’t extend far in the winter. And for some reason, which possibly had to do with nearly freezing to death, the thought of hitching to Vancouver held no appeal.

  She had been counting on Oliver to help locate her backpack. But now that he felt he’d discredited her story, and proved she hadn’t been robbed on his turf, he seemed to have abandoned any sense of responsibility to her.

  As for going to the police, which he’d tossed out as a final challenge, she hadn’t survived the luggage hold to be strangled in red tape.

  Page’s last faint hope was that the three missing oldsters would show up in the ballroom, and despite the twins’ skepticism, one of them would be her man.

  Until then, she’d enjoy Oliver’s dismay while satisfying her curiosity.

  Jonathan, who wore the air of a retired oil executive, stood a little apart, talking
on a cell phone, so Page leaned toward the twins and adopted a conspiratorial tone. “Oliver mentioned a brother. Isn’t Shastavista his company?”

  “Lord, no,” Mavis said.

  Avis laughed. “Does Oliver seem like the tour guide type to you?”

  “Not really,” Page said. Actually, this explained a puzzling contradiction. She knew Oliver was anal retentive and pathologically protective, yet he didn’t know his clients’ names. He covered by using ma’am and sir, but it obviously pained him.

  “Shawn is charming,” Avis said. “He’s a bit older than Oliver. Handsome in his own way.”

  “Oliver doesn’t even live here,” Mavis said. “I believe he’s from Arizona.”

  Which explained the tan and the subtle accent.

  “Word is he came up four days ago, when his brother took sick,” Avis said. “He only decided to come with us last night.”

  So for family members, he could be a loyal and generous anal retentive. “What does he do for work?” Page asked.

  Mavis shrugged. “I don’t think he said.”

  “Paul has a tablet computer,” Avis said. “We should Mr. Google him.”

  “Oh, no. If Oliver wants his privacy, we should respect that,” Mavis said, as the man in question extracted himself from his interrogators.

  Oliver closed the door, cutting off the din of chatter in the ballroom, and as Jonathan put his phone away, the five of them formed a loose circle.

  “It’s been a long day so I’ll cut to the chase,” Oliver said. “I’m hoping one of you will agree to become my assistant. You’d be paid the per diem salary of the former tour guide—” He named a not insignificant figure “—and I’d comp you the entire trip. Any takers?” He looked at everyone in the room, pointedly ignoring Page.

  Mavis and Avis were already shaking their heads.

  “Don’t say no right off the bat,” Oliver said. “You could split the duties.”

  “No,” Mavis said, albeit with a kind smile. “Sorry to be blunt, but this holiday has been a long time coming.” Mavis wrapped an arm around Page’s shoulder and squeezed. “I was happy to be of service with this one, but I’m done being a nurse now.”