by Maddy Hunter
Osmond shot his hand into the air. “Croatia?”
“Come on, ladies,” Dasher goaded. “This was only our first try. There’s eleven more sites to explore. Where’s your fighting spirit? So we messed up the first one. If we stick together, I guarantee we’ll find all the rest. We can do this! If you want to quit after just one round, I can’t stop you. But if we hang tight, one of us can look forward to a free vacation in our future! Are you with me?”
Eye rolling. Sighs.
Not surprisingly, Cameron had listed his occupation as “motivational speaker.”
“What’s our team slogan?” he prodded, cupping his hand around his ear.
“Yes, we can,” came the grumbled reply from his teammates.
“I can’t heeeear you.”
“Yes, we can,” they recited with slightly more gusto.
“Once more with feeling!”
“Yes, we can,” they chanted as they tapped into his enthusiasm. “Yes, we can!” Lucille, Dolly, and Isobel high-fived each other. “YES, WE CAN!”
“Yes, we can,” chimed Osmond, pumping his spindly arms as he boogied to the beat. Dick Teig whacked him on the shoulder.
“Cool it. You’re not on their team.”
Cameron Dasher banded his arm around Bernice and gave her a squeeze. “And from now on, Bernice promises to respect all our opinions and not hijack the whole show. Right, Bernice?”
“Good luck with that,” wisecracked Dick Stolee.
Bernice glanced from Cameron’s hand to his face, melting against him with a breathless sigh. “Whatever you say,” she gushed, fluttering her lashes like a silver-screen movie goddess.
Whoa! This guy was good. I wonder if he’d ever consider freelancing as an assistant escort on tours saddled with especially nasty guests?
Bernice’s teammates fell suddenly silent, their mantra dying on their lips as they narrowed their eyes and hardened their jaws. Unh-oh. It had been awkward enough that every woman on the tour had wanted to be on Cameron’s team, but if they started throwing daggers at each other every time he paid attention to one of them, there was going to be trouble.
“It’s decided then?” Cameron asked good-naturedly. “We’re still a team?”
“Of course we’re still a team,” Dolly assured as she looped her arm through his, smiling possessively. “And just to set the record straight, it wasn’t my idea to change teams in the first place.” Honey oozed from her voice. “It was Isobel’s.”
“Me?” Age might have ruined Isobel’s complexion and turned her hair gray, but her hearing still rocked. “What the hell have you been smoking? You’re the one who—”
Cameron raised his hands in Biblical fashion as if to calm the waters. “Laaadies, laaadies, it doesn’t matter who said what first. All that’ll matter in the end is how many checkmarks we have in the ‘Find’ column, so let’s put this episode behind us and start with a clean slate tomorrow. Fair enough?”
Bernice and Dolly took wary measure of each other as they lingered at Cameron’s sides, looking like two spurs of an about-to-be-snapped wishbone. “Fine,” they crooned in unison.
Lucille heaved a sigh and nodded grudgingly. “Okay.”
Isobel’s mouth strained at the corners as if she were trying to force her lips into a smile, but all she managed was a sneer. “Whatever,” she spat, her eyes narrowing to hostile slits.
Yup. There was going to be trouble.
As a troupe of Shakespearean players paraded past us, reciting extraneous lines of prose to any tourist willing to listen, Nana grabbed my arm and dragged me aside, concern etched across her face.
“I know what you’re going to say,” I offered preemptively. “You’re afraid that glaring jealousy issues on Team Five might lead to trouble, and I have to admit, that makes me a little nervous, too, but here’s the thing.” I raised a determined finger. “It’s going to be different this time because Etienne is with us. Guests will not be creeping around, trying to knock each other off, with a former Swiss police inspector watching their every move. So, even if the ladies of Team Five get into it with each other, I don’t expect it’ll escalate beyond snotty name calling or an occasional cat fight.” I flashed a confident smile. “I think we’re good!”
“Whatever you say, dear.”
My smile morphed into a wince. I hung my head. “I’m in denial, aren’t I? Those women hate each other already and the tour has just begun.”
“I don’t wanna be no alarmist, Emily, but we got bigger problems than them four women.”
“We do?”
“You bet. Team Five come up with a snappy slogan for themselves. The rest of us don’t got one.”
I stared at her, non-plussed. “That’s a problem?”
“You bet it is. They’re makin’ the rest of us look bad, so we’re gonna have to think of one, too.”
“Is that going to be difficult?”
“Emily, dear, we got one Catholic, two Lutherans, one birther, and a vegetarian on our team. How are we s’posed to compromise? That don’t give us no common ground to work with.”
Ew. She had a point. I just hoped their diversity didn’t set them up to get sucked into knockdown-dragouts over issues of a more ideological nature—like, if Catholic priests should be allowed to marry, or, which Gilligan’s Island character was hotter, Ginger or Mary Ann? That could get really ugly.
I gave her a hug. “Chin up. You’ll think of something.”
“I just did. I’m gonna let Tilly figure it out.”
Nana had three chins, blue hair, and stood four-foot-ten in her bare feet. She’d won millions in the Minnesota lottery a few years back, but the experience had changed neither her outlook nor her practical spending habits. She was the treasurer of the Legion of Mary at church, a card-carrying computer geek, and an enthusiastic subscriber to every TV channel offered by her cable provider. She had only an eighth-grade education, but given her addiction to the Discovery and Smithsonian networks, she was the smartest person I knew.
“Uh-oh,” Nana fretted in a sudden panic. “I don’t mean to ditch you, dear, but I’m outta here.” Like a video playing at warp speed, she raced behind me in her size five sneakers and ducked into a shop displaying a selection of tartans and kilts on headless mannequins.
I stared after her. What in the world? And then it hit me.
I turned slowly.
She was barreling toward me with her laptop slung over her shoulder in its trusty carrying case and her fannypack riding her opposite hip like an oversized jellyroll. Her little moon face was flushed from exertion, and her salt and pepper hair was disastrously windblown, but her girlish excitement made it quite apparent that she wouldn’t have missed this for the world. The tour guests knew her as “the timekeeper.”
Nana knew her as Margaret.
I knew her as Mom.
two
“I haven’t had this much fun since I alphabetized the IRS forms in the new public library.”
Mom was addicted to alphabetical order like a shopaholic is addicted to outlet malls. Nana blames the disorder on a dormant gene that apparently sprang to life when Mom started volunteering at the library after she retired. Her Facebook page lists her favorite pastime as, “Alphabetizing grocery cans in the kitchen pantry.” In fact, she gets so giddy during Fareway’s annual canned food sale that Dad has to accompany her down the soup aisle to protect her from herself. The one time she sneaked out without him, she bought so many pallets of condensed soup that she had to store them in the machine shed and break out the forklift to stack them in order—an event the family refers to as, “The Highlight of Her Life.”
“One down, eleven to go, and if I do say so myself, the first leg went off without a hitch”—she patted her laptop case as if it were a cherished pet—“if you don’t count Team Five’s objections.”
“What were they o
bjecting to?”
“Having too little time. Having no luck finding the cache. Having someone on their team named Bernice Zwerg. But I think my pep talk helped.” She flashed a self-satisfied smile. “I mentioned that Bernice was probably too modest to say, but she was the reigning champ of the two-yard dash at the Senior Center and probably had the fastest feet on the tour, so that gave them a huge advantage over the other teams.”
“And they believed you?”
“Bernice did. I thought one out of five was pretty good.” She switched gears to organizational mode. “I’ve developed a spreadsheet to keep track of all the contest statistics, Emily, so you’ll know at a glance where all the teams stand. Would you like to see it?” She fingered the zipper on her laptop case with an eagerness that bordered on lust.
“How about I wait until you enter more data?” I hedged. “That’s when things should get really intense, right?”
“They’re intense right now! Three teams are neck and neck in the time department, and if you don’t think that’s exciting, I’ll show you the line graph. It’s enough to take your breath away.”
I crooked my mouth, giving her a narrow look. “I’m not sure the scorekeeping thing needs to be so complicated, Mom. Can’t you just jot down who finds the cache and who doesn’t on a piece of notepaper and call it a day?”
She regarded me as if I had zucchini growing out of my ears. “I don’t see how that’s possible, Em. I’m planning a series of line graphs to illustrate comparisons, and I’m thinking about either bar graphs or pie charts for extraneous statistics. Do you have a preference? I could do both. It’d be no trouble at all. Or I could do a flow chart. They’re not as popular as they used to be, but—”
I held up my hand to cut her off. “Whatever works for you, Mom. I—”
“Or I could do a bubble chart. I’d have to buy another software program and spend some time installing it, but I’m sure I can find a computer store somewhere in Edinburgh.”
A tic began tap dancing beneath my eye. “Okay, here’s the thing. I just don’t want you to devote so much time to your contest duties that you miss out on the sights.”
“That’s not going to happen.” She paused, reconsidering. “But if it does, your father is videotaping everything, so I’ll get to see what I missed when I get home.” She threw her arms around me, giving me an exuberant hug. “I’m so happy you appointed me official scorekeeper, Em. Who knew I’d enjoy it so much?”
Nana had begged me to find an activity to occupy Mom’s time for the duration of the trip. As she had so artfully phrased it, “If Margaret don’t have nuthin’ to do except gawk at stuff, she’ll be on me like ice on an igloo, and I’m not forkin’ out the big bucks just so’s your mother can have an old person to babysit.” So I’d told Mom that if I could impose upon her good nature and ask her to accept the burden of monitoring the contest challenges, she’d free me up to spend some needed time with Etienne, for which both he and I would be eternally grateful.
Mom thinks Etienne is the perfect son-in-law. He speaks with a sexy French/German/Italian accent that’s a real hit back home, and unlike my first husband, who had a penchant for borrowing my lingerie, the only time Etienne is motivated to touch my underwear is when I’m actually in it. So, in theory, Mom took the job as a favor to Etienne, but in reality, she wanted the job because there’s nothing she’d rather do than be burdened.
The digital tone on Mom’s wristwatch beeped. “Have you seen your grandmother?” She frowned as she ranged a look around us.
“She went shopping.” Alarm suddenly fluttered in my stomach. “Why? What’s up?”
“I haven’t told her yet, but I’m putting her on a regimen of calcium and vitamin D to strengthen her bones. Chewables. In two fruity flavors. She doesn’t want to admit it, Emily, but she’s shrinking, so I figured since we were going to be traveling together anyway, the least I could do is schedule her supplements to make sure she takes them.” She rotated in a slow circle, her eyes darting left and right. “I wish she wouldn’t disappear like this. You might think I’m way off base, but I sometimes get the impression she’s trying to avoid me.”
“Nana?” I lied. “Nooo.”
“Well, if you see her, tell her I’m looking for her.”
“You got it.”
Her face brightened. “There’s Grace, Helen, and Alice. And look, they’re carrying shopping sacks. Would you excuse me, Emily? Maybe they’ve seen your grandmother. Yoohoo!”
“We board the bus in two hours,” I called after her. “Leave yourself enough time to get back to the hotel.”
She waved her hand in acknowledgment as she made a beeline for the girls.
She wouldn’t be late. Tardiness was a physical impossibility
for native Iowans. No one can explain when the condition first appeared, or how it spread to the general population, but it affects so many people, the State Water Control Board is testing the drinking supply. If their suspicions pan out, the governor is hoping to plug his state budget deficit by bottling the stuff and selling it to a country where nothing ever runs on time, like Italy or France. If their suspicions are wrong, the governor has vowed to increase government coffers by auctioning off every antique clock in the state’s ninety-nine county courthouses. As he’s fond of saying, “Why is the State providing Iowans with universal time coverage when the private sector can provide the same service at lower cost? I mean, what are wristwatches for anyway?”
“Psssst.”
I glanced over my shoulder to find Nana poking her head out the door of the tartan shop.
“Is she gone?”
I shot her a withering look as I dug out my antacid tablets.
It was going to be a long trip.
_____
During its forty-three years sailing the high seas, the Royal Yacht Britannia made 968 official voyages, traveled over a million nautical miles, and called at six hundred ports. Once spotted in such exotic locales as Sydney, Samoa, and Hong Kong, it was decommissioned in 1997 and can now be spotted in Edinburgh harbor—attached to a multi-level shopping center.
Armed with individual audio handsets, the group was oohing and aahing its way through five decks that once boasted a complement of two hundred Royal Yachtsmen and forty-five household staff, whose sole purpose was to serve Queen and country. With the bridge and all its incomprehensible gizmos behind me, I was climbing up and down companionways to tour the more interesting parts of the ship’s interior—from the State Dining room, with its table properly set for an intimate party of ninety-six, to the drawing room, with its grand piano, electric fireplace, and plush floral sofas.
According to the recorded voice on my handset, the drawing room could accommodate nearly two hundred people, but there were only a dozen of us standing behind the roped-off area at the moment. Most of the male guests had hurried off to slather over the Rolls Royce housed in the garage on another deck, and the Dicks had professed an urge to inspect the engine room, so Etienne had headed below decks with them, because leaving Dick Stolee in a room filled with pressure gauges and gears was like leaving a chocoholic in a room filled with Cadbury Easter eggs.
“Would you take a picture of us, Emily?” Helen Teig, dressed in a plus-size sweatshirt with plaid Scottie dogs frolicking across her chest, handed me her Smartphone before scurrying back to pose with Grace Stolee, who was wearing the same sweatshirt, only in medium.
“New sweatshirts?” I asked as I focused and clicked.
“It’s our team uniform,” boasted Grace.
“But they were kinda cheap, so we’re worried about pilling.” Helen examined her sleeve for fresh examples.
“Do you want to hear our team slogan?” asked Grace as I returned her phone.
I blinked my surprise. “That was fast. Word’s already on the street about the slogans, eh?”
“Dick texted us,” said Helen, “
and it’s a good thing, because all the good slogans are going fast, so we needed time to think.” She sidled a glance at Grace. “Ready?”
“Do it or lose it!” they chimed in unison.
I smiled stiffly. Slogans? Uniforms? What would be next? World licensing rights? “Catchy,” I said.
“Combining two popular slogans into a fresh new saying isn’t considered plagiarism, is it?” questioned Grace.
“Mmm … if it is plagiarism, you’ll be out of the country before the authorities can track you down, so I think you’re safe,” I assured her.
“Will you be awarding a prize for the best slogan?” tittered Helen.
“Hadn’t planned on it.”
“Best uniform?” asked Grace.
“Nope.”
Helen corkscrewed her mouth into a half twist, her thickly crayoned eyebrows rocketing into disapproving slants. “Oh. That’s disappointing.”
Grace sucked in her breath as she eyed her wristwatch. “C’mon, Helen. If we don’t put a move on, we’ll get stuck having to browse through the gift shop with the men hanging onto us. And you know what that means.”
Helen rolled her eyes. “‘Why do you need that?’” she mimicked in her husband’s voice. “‘Where are you going to put it? Don’t we have enough junk already?’”
Grace’s expression turned devious. “What do you say we just skip the other decks and head directly for the gift shop?”
Helen’s face lit up.
“If the Dicks ask,” Grace called over her shoulder as they charged across the floor, “you haven’t seen us.”
“But—”
They were out the exit before I could add another word.
But it’s the Britannia, I said to myself as I turned back toward the rope partition. Weren’t they impressed by the powerful people who might have sipped cocktails here? Ambassadors might have lounged on the flowery country sofas. Prime ministers might have relaxed in the wingback chairs. Heads of state might have tripped over the Persian rugs. I mean, there was real history in these rooms.
