Murder, Curlers, and Cruises

by Arlene McFarlane

  Mr. Jaworski grinned from ear to saggy ear. “Didn’t I tell you she was a real joker?”

  “Don’t cramp my style, Uncs.” Lucy gave him a shove. “You’re only on this cruise because…” She caught herself and swept a sheepish look around the table. “Uh, because…”

  Everyone leaned in, waiting for the reason.

  She patted her uncle’s hand. “Because you’re such a kind and, uh, generous uncle.”

  If there was one thing I knew about Mr. Jaworski, generosity wasn’t it. Lucy clearly knew it, too. He slunk back to his table, muttering “brat” under his breath.

  Nobody uttered a word after he left, and it was just as well. The sea air had made everyone ravenous, and when our meals came, we all got down to the business of eating, talking only about the contest.

  After everyone devoured apple crumble for dessert, Lucy and Sabrina went off to secure their models. Molly and Polly went to re-soak their bathing suits. And Max and I wandered over to my parents’ table. I asked my mother to be my model for the contest, and when she agreed, I gave Max a triumphant look.

  “Come on, lovey,” he said. “You can’t hold a grudge forever.”

  “Watch me.” I squinted at him.

  He wove his arm through mine and led me out of the dining room. “Let’s go for a stroll,” he said. “You’ll feel better.”

  I let him steer me down a row of boutiques, but all the contest talk at dinner had me more anxious about the competition. Max was right. My mother did resemble Sophia Loren, especially when she was dolled up. But what if I didn’t win the contest? How would I earn enough money to donate to the children’s wing?

  We sauntered past a men’s shop, and Max stuck his nose inside. Across the hall was a piano lounge, and the sound of a Ray Charles bluesy jazz song filtered out of the bar. I yawned, putting my concerns aside, then scanned the darkened lounge from the doorway. The only distinct thing I could see, apart from the pianist, was a wiry little fellow with a long white beard. His arm splayed across the bar, supporting his head to keep himself from falling off his chair. My gaze swept to the back of the lounge. Hold on a minute! What was this? Sitting under a soft floodlight in the corner of the bar was Jock de Marco, talking to the captain in what looked like a private conversation.

  My mind replayed the discussion at the dinner table and Sabrina’s revelation about spotting Jock in the captain’s quarters. What had he been doing there? Like I’d ask. He’d be smug, concluding I was romantically interested. And I’d shave my head with a blunt razor before I’d admit that. I was merely inquisitive, like everyone else.

  It wasn’t as if the captain of a cruise ship spent his time hanging out with passengers. He wasn’t on vacation. He had a job to do. Then again, Jock wasn’t your typical passenger. Jock had a presence that was hard to ignore. Still, this was peculiar. Seeing him with the captain again now only confirmed there was something going on. I could feel it as sure as I could feel my heart leaping inside.

  “Who are you looking for?” Max asked over my shoulder.

  I yelped and clapped my chest. “Nothing! I mean, nobody!”

  He did the Max stance, leaning to one side, finger pointed in my face. “You know your nose twitches when you lie?”

  “Does not.” I smacked his hand away. “I’m going to bed. It’s been a long day.” I glanced one last time into the lounge, then poked Max’s chest with my finger. “And if you say his name one more time, I’m going to pluck out your eyelashes one by one!”

  I stomped away, leaving Max with his mouth hanging. Okay, so neither of us mentioned Jock’s name. Max could read me like a book. He could tell I was attracted to Jock. But there was also a part of me that was curious about him. Why I was being sucked in, yet again, to his enigmatic ways, I didn’t know.

  CHAPTER THREE

  When I got to the breakfast buffet the next morning, Max and my mother were sitting on either side of Tantig like bookends, looking at pictures. My father was at the end of the table, head down in his bowl of fresh fruit. He glanced up occasionally, eyeing the food stations as if breakfast might disappear if he didn’t eat fast enough. Of course, this was hardly possible. The buffet looked vast enough to feed China. I filled my plate with eggs, pancakes, a strip of bacon, and fruit, and sat across from the Three Musketeers.

  “Who-hk is that?” Tantig asked suspiciously, staring at a photo in my mother’s hand.

  “It’s our wedding picture,” my mother said. “The nicest shot I have of Bruce and me.”

  “Was I there?” Tantig squinted at the photo.

  “Of course. That’s you in the background.”

  I slathered syrup on my pancakes. “Why are you looking at your wedding picture?”

  My mother lowered the photo. “Max said we need pictures of Tantig and me for the contest. Hard copies only, and this is all I could scrounge up. Bruce”—she poked my father’s right arm—“give me your wallet.”

  My father leaned over his food protectively while he dug into his pants pocket. Head still focused on his bowl, he handed my mother his wallet.

  She rifled through the worn black leather, searching every compartment. “Where’s that picture you kept of us from the Firemen’s Christmas Dance?”

  “I don’t know,” my father said. “It’s so old it probably disintegrated.”

  My mother flipped his wallet shut and gave him a steely-eyed stare. The look was lost on my father. He didn’t try to be insulting. He just didn’t think before he spoke. He slurped the juice out of the bottom of his bowl, and I wondered if I should’ve taken my breakfast back to my room.

  “Let’s take a few shots right now.” Max angled sideways, clicked pictures of my mother and Tantig with his cell phone, then looked back at me. “I’ll upload them to the ship’s computer and print them off before the contest. Aaah!” he screeched, dropping his phone on his bagel.

  I looked around. “What’s the matter?”

  Max swallowed and pointed over my shoulder.

  Phyllis barreled into the room, suddenly back to life in a flowing black-and-white checked dress, obviously one of her creations from the sewing course she’d taken a few months ago. She was hauling a little man with rumpled white hair and a long wispy beard. The man resembled a garden gnome without the red hat and suspenders and looked vaguely familiar. Phyllis spotted us and made a beeline for the table. The tiny man staggered to keep up.

  “You were supposed to wake me this morning!” she said to me. She yanked out a chair for her friend. “Here.” She pointed. “Sit.”

  The wiry man nearly missed the chair, a lifetime aura of alcohol surrounding him.

  Everyone lifted their eyebrows, waiting for an introduction, when we heard Kashi in the background, making an entrance. “It is I, Kashi!” he said in his thick Indian accent.

  My father rolled his eyes at yet another oddball in the room and got up for the buffet table. I had a feeling he’d about had his limit of socializing.

  The little man leaned his elbows on the table and gave a toothy smile, reeking of one hundred and ten percent proof. “Howth it goin’?”

  All at once, it came to me. He was the drunk in the piano lounge last night and by the pool yesterday during happy hour. He had a four-inch-long gauze bandage on his left forearm that I hadn’t noticed before, probably because both times I’d seen him he was using his arm to prop himself up. But he didn’t look in pain. Of course, with the amount of booze in his system, a pile of garden gnomes could topple on him, and he likely wouldn’t feel any pain.

  “Who’s your friend?” Max asked Phyllis, gaping at the black-and-white squares on her dress. “And why do I have a sudden urge to play checkers?”

  Phyllis thwacked her matching purse on the table. “I can’t make out his name.” Her mouth went tight. “I call him Clive. Since I’d been sick in our cabin, I couldn’t ask anyone to be my model. Now, all the good ones have been taken, so Clive’s going to be mine.” She snatched the bacon off my plate and wolfed it down.
“Not the best choice for a makeover, but maybe the judges will be impressed with what I do with him.”

  Max bit off a sigh. “The judges would be more impressed if you gave up hairdressing.”

  I peeked over at my father at the buffet table. “Did you ask my dad? Maybe you can give him a new look.” Doubtful, but I was trying to be encouraging.

  “I don’t think so. One time, your father came into the shop for a trim when you were out doing errands, and I told him I could cut his hair. He said, ‘Not on your life.’ Waiter!” Phyllis waved her arm in the air, her chequered sleeve fluttering like the final flag in a car race. “Coffee! And lots of it!”

  “Phyllis,” I said, “it’s a buffet. You’re supposed to get your own coffee.”

  She ignored me and continued waving to the waiter.

  “You can’t be in the contest,” Max said in a hopeful tone. “You’re seasick. Remember?”

  “I’m over that.” She lowered her arm. “The secret is echinacea and lots of water. My throat isn’t dry anymore, and my vision’s…almost perfect. Anyway, if I can stand without feeling nauseous, I’m good. Between my diet and all that hurling, I even lost ten pounds.”

  “They say the first ten pounds is water,” Max declared, after the waiter brought coffee.

  “I don’t care what they say,” Phyllis said. “I’m fit as a fiddle, and there’s nothing that’s going to stop me from winning that money.” She exhaled down at Clive, who was sneaking rum from a tiny bottle into his coffee.

  “Give me that!” Phyllis thundered at him.

  He recoiled under her arm. “Yeow! Is she alwath like thith?”

  “No,” Max said. “She’s being especially nice today.”

  “Good,” Clive breathed out. “I left my wife at home so I could have peathe and quiet.”

  Max raised his eyes to me, and I knew what he was thinking. If Clive wanted peace and quiet, he’d have been better off at home.

  * * *

  The day at sea flew by with me pacing the deck, anxiously planning how I was going to fix my mother’s hair and makeup so she’d wow the judges and make me a contest winner. I flopped down on a deck chair by the pool, recalling a new hair technique I’d learned a few weeks ago, when Max leaped out of the pool.

  “It’s three o’clock!” he cried. “Contest starts in an hour.” Like suddenly he was worried how he was going to fix Tantig’s hair. Served him right if he didn’t have a plan. Stealing Tantig from under me.

  He grabbed a towel, gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, and hurried down the deck. “Meet you there,” he called over his shoulder.

  I grinned inside, unable to stay mad at Max for long. I finished putting the required steps together in my mind for my mother’s do, then abandoned my chair and made for my cabin. I passed Phyllis in the hallway heading in the opposite direction. “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “To collect Clive,” she said. “The little sneak got away on me.”

  I left her to her hunt and changed into my new white dress with a keyhole neckline. Professional yet fashionable! And since I wasn’t coloring my mother’s hair, it was the perfect choice.

  * * *

  Five minutes to four, two hundred stylists anchored themselves by their stations in the auditorium that now resembled a huge salon. Contestants were set up back to back in long rows, the aisle between their backs six feet wide. The room was equipped with enough beauty supplies to make over half of Hollywood.

  The magnitude of the contest had me more nervous. How was I going to win that money for the children’s wing, competing against so many? I decided not to focus on the numbers. I was as good as anyone else. I inspected the roomful of models. Obviously, some stylists had their work cut out for them. Like Lucy, working back to back with Max—who was stationed beside me. Lucy’s model was a woman of about sixty, who looked like her heart had stopped beating at forty. If Lucy could turn her into a goddess, she deserved to win.

  I smiled down at my mother, sitting in my chair, waiting to be dolled up. She wouldn’t nearly be the challenge Lucy’s model would be, but it was still going to be tough rising above and beyond the usual beautifying. I rubbed my hands together in anticipation. I’d just pretend I was in the salon, performing my magic.

  Everyone was impatient to begin, puffing like a stampede of bulls at the starting gate. Speaking of bulls, where was my nemesis, Candace? I searched the floor again and spotted her in the reflection of my station’s mirror. She was two rows behind our row of Phyllis, Max, and me—in line respectively. She caught me looking at her in the mirror and screwed up her nose in hostility. Fine by me. I wasn’t going to be intimidated by Candace. I was here to win.

  People were beginning to count down the seconds to four o’clock. Phyllis looked at Max, who glared across our row at Lucy, who stared up at Kashi, who was across from me.

  Kashi’s eyes glazed over to the next row at Molly and Polly, stationed between Candace’s row and ours. The beach babes were working by Sabrina and other sane-looking people. Jock was nowhere in sight. Not that I cared. My mind was fixed on the children’s hospital.

  The whistle blew, Lucy climbed on top of her step stool, and everyone got down to the business of cutting, coloring, and making up their models, the clatter a decibel under earthquake proportions. Nobody knew who the judges were, but it didn’t matter. Five thousand bucks was five thousand bucks. The pope could judge for all we cared. Everything was running smoothly, and then Phyllis’s model began hiccupping. Loudly.

  “Stop that!” Phyllis smacked Clive with her comb. “And stop drinking from my spray bottle.” She wrenched the bottle from Clive and brought it to her nose. “Hey, what’s in this?”

  “Shhh,” Clive said, blurry-eyed, leaning heavily over his chair. “Ith our little secret. Hic. Now, when am I going to turn into Antonio Banderas?”

  Phyllis yanked him upright as if he had no bones. “You’re four-eleven, chalky white, and built like a flamingo. Where do you see Antonio in your future?”

  Max angled toward Clive while setting Tantig’s hair. “Hey, cruise buddy, Phyllis said earlier she couldn’t make out your name. Is it really Clive?”

  “Not even clothe.” Clive tipped to the side of his chair again.

  “Will you shut up!” Lucy shouted over her shoulder. “Some of us have five grand to win.”

  Clive gave an ethereal smile, then slid off his chair and went face first to the floor.

  “You promised to be good.” Phyllis jerked him to his feet. “Now sit down.”

  Clive steadied himself, leering at Phyllis through bloodshot eyes. “I don’t hafta listen to you. I can go home and hear thith every day.” He staggered to leave, bumped into Phyllis’s station, and tipped a jar of gel onto the floor. Gel splattered everywhere. Clive slipped in the goop, slid across the aisle into Lucy, and knocked her off her stool.

  Lucy landed ass-backward onto Clive. “You idiot!” She rolled off him and clouted him with her hairbrush. Then she turned her wrath on Phyllis. “What kind of lamebrain are you, picking a drunk as your model?”

  I didn’t like Lucy calling Phyllis names. It was one thing for Max to call Phyllis names. They worked together every day and took pleasure in antagonizing each other. But I didn’t like Lucy being mean to Phyllis. And I didn’t approve of her abusing poor Clive.

  She dropped her brush, and I bent to retrieve it. I noticed Molly in the next row, pointing at Lucy while whispering in Sabrina’s ear. Sabrina looked at the clock and said something back.

  I didn’t think much about that, mostly because Clive snatched the brush from me and hurled it in the air, whacking Candace in the head two rows over. She yelped, looked past her mirror at me, nostrils flared, and pitched a full bottle of tint at me. I sidestepped to miss the bottle but wasn’t quick enough. It hit me square on the chest, splashing red dye on my white dress. My new white dress. The dress I wasn’t going to get dirty because I wasn’t dyeing my mother’s hair.

  I pressed my lips toget
her in fury. If anyone else had tossed the tint, I wouldn’t have overreacted. But this was Candace we were talking about, someone who’d pushed my buttons since beauty school. Well, not today.

  I reached behind me, grabbed my powder, and, despite my mother’s protests at getting even, I whipped it at Candace. Maybe it was the first thing I seized, and maybe I was acting on impulse again, but Candace was not getting away with ruining my dress. Before she could retaliate, someone pummeled her with a bottle of shampoo. Suddenly, the room went wild. Rollers flew over mirrors, scissors sliced the air, tint bottles squirted like sprinklers, and there was massive screaming and hair-pulling.

  “Valentine!” my mother shrieked. “Do something!”

  I had the same thought, but first I forced her to duck to miss an airborne razor. Then I slipped on the gel and landed hard on a blow dryer.

  “Someone’s going to get killed,” Tantig said in an even tone, head steady, eyes half-shut. The only one in the room unmoved by the chaos.

  I crawled to my feet, rubbing my backside, struggling to stay calm.

  “Nobody is going to get killed!” Kashi exclaimed. “Kashi is here to save the day!”

  He tied a white towel to a broom handle and waved it in the air. “Please, may I have your attention, you crazy people.”

  Everyone quieted for a second, backing away from Kashi, most likely because he was getting ripe in his two-day-old outfit.

  “Maybe all this beautifying is not doing it for you anymore. What you need is a hobby. Like me!” Kashi bowed. “As you can see, I make these spectacular ‘Get Out of Town’ brooches.” He held one high. “Right now, you are thinking, Kashi, you are not only a handsome devil, but you are also very talented.”

  Within seconds, his white towel was on fire.

  The whooping and hollering escalated.

  Phyllis stood on a chair, waving her curling iron in the air. Someone else squirted water on Kashi’s flag.

  “Hold on!” Phyllis yelled. “Just hold on a minute!”