by Maddy Hunter
“Can you believe this crowd?” asked Cal Jolly as he came up behind me. “I’ve given up trying to take pictures. Rob said the gift shop sells great postcards, so I’m doing that instead. I’m through trying to outmaneuver the iPad people. As far as I’m concerned, they’ve won the war.”
“How long ago did you see Rob?”
“About ten minutes. He was headed for the house.” Cal glanced toward the far end of the garden—at a two-story house that was as long as a boutique hotel. It was a charming froth of pale pink stucco, with dozens of green shutters and a blanket of vines and roses scaling the exterior wall. For forty-three years, it had been inhabited by Claude Monet. “They’ve done some work on the interior that he hasn’t seen yet, so he wanted to have a look.”
“Thanks much.” As I made to leave, he wrapped his hand around my arm, stopping me momentarily.
“I want to thank you for listening to my dad last night, Emily, and not judging him. We’re obviously going to have a mess to deal with when we get back home, and I have no idea how it’ll all turn out, but at least I know what’s happening now, and can try to put things to right. Dad’s not a bad sort. He’s just guilty of making some of the poorest choices a man can ever make, and he’ll probably have to pay dearly for it.” He shook his head. “I guess no matter how much you think you know a person, they can still end up surprising you.”
I wondered if one day soon Victor would be making the same statement about Virginia?
I zigzagged through the crowd and took my place at the back of the queue to tour the house. Several of the second-story windows were thrown open, and since there were no bug screens, visitors were poking their heads and cameras through the openings, shooting the panoramic photos they couldn’t shoot at ground level.
I kept my eyes on the open windows as I shuffled toward the entrance, and when I arrived at the stairs fronting the main door, I was rewarded with the sight I’d been looking for.
Rob.
“Rob!” I shouted, waving my arm in a wild arc over my head.
He stuck his head out the window and glanced in my direction, looking straight at me without apparent recognition, because in the next instant he drew his head back into the room and disappeared.
Well, duh? What was wrong with this guy? Did he have face blindness?
I ascended the stairs close on the heels of the person in front of me and, once inside the door, smiled at the docent who was directing visitors into a room on the left.
“Could I scoot up the stairs before I see the downstairs? There’s someone up there I need to speak to. It’s really important.”
“Madame,” he replied, waving me into the downstairs room.
“No, no, you don’t understand. I need to go up.” I pointed my forefinger toward the ceiling. “Up.”
He shot me a fierce look. “Down,” he said as he escorted me personally to the first room on the tour.
Nuts!
Blue smacked me in the face when I crossed the threshold. I’d entered a small sitting room where the walls were painted robin’s-egg blue, the trim was painted peacock blue, and furniture boasted every color blue from cornflower to periwinkle. A blue pendulum clock stood in one corner on dainty carved feet, looking suspiciously like the clock that had sung and danced in the animated version of Beauty and the Beast.
I hurried through an adjoining pantry to enter a long studio where light spilled through broad open windows onto the soft wool of Oriental carpets. This was a painter’s room, filled with warmth and brightness and an ambience that might inspire every brushstroke. A chaise lounge sat behind a roped barrier. A bust of the famous painter perched near it. And filling every available space on every available wall were watercolors both large and small, square and rectangular, painted with a brush once held by Claude Monet.
But Rob wasn’t in Monet’s studio. He was upstairs.
I rushed back to the pantry and charged up a steep, winding staircase to the second floor. Stepping into the first room on my right, I saw that it was a bedroom modestly appointed with a lemon yellow bedstead with matching wardrobe and night stand, but what it didn’t have was Rob. A docent stood by a door on the opposite side of the bed, funneling visitors into the next room, so I headed in that direction, pausing for just a moment to stick my head out the open window that overlooked the garden—which is when I saw the commotion on the path below me.
A crowd had gathered around something or someone lying on the ground. Voices rose in distress. Hands flew into the air, summoning help. “Move back!” a woman yelled in a sharp voice. “Give her room.”
“Is she conscious?” someone cried.
“Call an ambulance!”
“I don’t think she’s breathing.”
A big guy with a beard and tattooed arms swept his iPad through the air in an effort to clear people away from the immediate area. As they dispersed, I caught a glimpse of the person who was lying face-up on the ground, her body still as death as a river of blood streamed from her nose.
The bottom suddenly fell out of my stomach.
“Oh, my God. Margi!”
nineteen
“S’cuse me,” I shouted as I rocketed past visitors who were ambling through a bathroom that adjoined the yellow bedroom. “Sorry!” I apologized as I scrambled around a half-dozen people wandering through a smaller bedroom. I hit the main staircase at a run, clattered down the stairs, blew by the docent who was directing me to a room that glowed yellow with blinding phosphorescent light, and charged out the front door. I descended the stairs two at a time and ran toward the circle of tourists who were videotaping the event with their phones and camcorders as it played out.
“Lemme through,” I cried as I bulldozed straight through them.
“You know her?” asked the man with the iPad and beard.
I fell to my knees beside her and clutched her hand. “She’s my friend.” Her eyes were half open and glassy with shock. “Margi? You’re going to be all right. Has anyone called an ambulance?”
“Oui,” said an older man who was capturing us on tape.
She had to be all right. Krystal hadn’t been lucky enough to survive her overdose, but Victor was okay. If Margi could be treated in time, she’d be okay, too. I knew she’d be okay. But why her? What grievous thing had Margi Swanson done that would drive someone to kill her?
“Stay with me,” I begged her as I hauled a packet of tissues out of my shoulder bag.
“Emily?” she asked in a weak voice.
“I’m here, Margi. Right beside you.” I began dabbing blood from her face.
“My pocketbook,” she rasped.
“It’s right here.” Lying beside the iPhone that had apparently slipped from her hand and cracked in a dozen places. “Do you want something out of it?”
She nodded almost imperceptibly. “Hand … sanitizer.”
“If this is your friend, you must know her name and address, hunh?” asked the bearded man.
I glanced up at him. “Why do you want her address?”
“So I’ll know where to send the bill for my iPad.” He held the device up, allowing me to see the fracture that splintered the center, and the crack that radiated out from corner to corner. He stabbed his finger at Margi. “She broke it, and I want it replaced. Walked right into it face-first while she was texting. BAM! If she doesn’t start watching where she’s going, the next time she runs into something, I guarantee she’ll end up with more than a bloody nose.”
“She walked into you?” Laughter burst from my throat like bubbles from uncorked champagne. “Her nose is bleeding because … she slammed her face into your iPad? Oh, my God!” I grabbed both of Margi’s hands and squeezed, giggling like a Valley girl. “That’s the most wonderful news I’ve ever heard!”
The man raised his voice in disgust. “What kind of sick person says something like that to a
friend? What kind of friend are you anyway?”
I regarded Margi sternly. “Promise me that this ends your love affair with texting while you walk.”
“Might as well.” She grappled for the packet of tissues. “The trunk sale’s over.”
_____
I never got to speak to Rob.
By the time the paramedics had finished checking out Margi, it was time to meet up with the rest of the group in front of the museum. Her nose had stopped bleeding on its own, and she didn’t display any signs of being concussed, but the medics had nonetheless cautioned us to keep an eye on her in case she started showing any unusual behavior.
I wondered if packing cervical collars for a European holiday counted as unusual behavior.
The gang was very solicitous of her on the bus ride back to the boat. George offered to give up his cervical collar if she wanted to catch a quick nap on the way back. Dick Teig lent her his iPhone so she could text a quick message to me, thanking me for my help. And Alice treated the blood on her linen top with several different fragrances of hand sanitizer that not only eliminated the stains, but filled the bus with the mouth-watering scents of hot apple pie, chocolate fudge brownie, and Christmas cookie.
By the time we returned to Vernon, we were so ravenously hungry, we decided not to wait for the lunch buffet to open, but ventured into town instead to search out a bakery, where we indulged in chocolate croissants, éclairs, macaroons, Napoleons, madeleines, fruit tarts, and an assortment of cream-filled confections. We slogged back to the boat, overstuffed but infinitely happy, and just in time for the gang to resume their scheduled activities.
“Bridge tour in ten minutes,” announced Nana as we crossed the gangway. “Galley tour after that. Watercolor lessons in the lounge in an hour. Today we’re s’posed to tackle them still-life paintin’s.”
“I love still-life painters,” remarked Tilly. “Cezanne, Jean-Simeon Chardin, Giorgio Morandi. They transformed the ordinary into the extraordinary. I consider myself quite fortunate to have a Cezanne print hanging over my mantel.”
“Pfffft,” scoffed Dick Teig. “I’ve got a plasma screen TV hanging over mine.”
While the twelve of them piled through the automatic door to access the exterior stairs to the top deck, I stopped at the reception desk to talk to the purser.
“Would you happen to know where Rob is?”
“I’m afraid I don’t, Mrs. Miceli, but there are one or two places he might be.” She lifted her hand to direct me aft. “On the top deck, in the sectioned-off area at the stern. That’s where we gather when we’re on break. Or the dining room. Perhaps he’s finishing lunch? Or, since this is Vernon, he might have walked into town for pastries. There are several brilliant bakeries just off the main street.”
I checked the dining room first, finding it deserted save for a few stragglers at a couple of tables, none of whom were Rob. I ran into Ivandro on the way out.
“You know who Rob is, don’t you?”
“Oui, madame.”
“Did you see him at lunch today?”
“He was not in my section, but that does not mean he wasn’t in someone else’s. Although since this is Vernon, he may have escaped into town for pastry. I’m being told the bakeries here are tres magnifique.”
I stopped by my cabin to drop off my shoulder bag before hitting the top deck to check out which crew members were taking a break in the Staff Only section.
No Rob.
The bridge tour had just concluded, so I waited while guests filed back down to the main deck for the galley tour. I didn’t want to tour the galley, and I wasn’t about to head back into Vernon to track down Rob, so I decided on the next best option.
I’d treat myself to a well-deserved drink in the lounge.
“Any luck finding him, Mrs. Miceli?” the purser asked when I passed the reception desk.
“He’s MIA.”
“I’m sorry I can’t give you his mobile number, but he’s expressly forbidden us to give it out. Too many non-emergency calls in the middle of the night, apparently.”
I shrugged. “If you’d put a note in his mailbox, telling him I’d like to speak to him about something fairly urgent, I’d really appreciate it.”
“I’ll do that right away. And where will you be?”
“In the lounge. For however long it takes.” I stepped in closer to the desk. “Tell him I’m wearing black capris and a pink and black striped top. Does he do better with clothing than he does with names and faces?”
She bowed her head and shielded her mouth with her hand. “He’s a disaster, isn’t he? He can’t remember a name for more than half a minute, and on two occasions he’s returned from optional tours transporting complete strangers. I have it on good authority that this is his last cruise.”
I couldn’t say I was surprised. “How did he get the job in the first place?”
“He and Patrice are members of the same cycling team, so Rob was offered the job on Patrice’s recommendation. Patrice has vouched for many employees over the years, all who have worked out quite brilliantly. Rob is his first major failure. Absolutely ruined his perfect record. But I imagine it was bound to happen sooner or later. It was just a matter of time.”
With a majority of guests touring the galley or taking an afternoon stroll around Vernon, the lounge was pretty much deserted. A woman I’d never seen before was distributing art supplies around the room—paper, brushes, water jars, paints, pencils. She’d already set up a table in the center of the lounge arranged with a ceramic bowl stacked high with summer fruit, an empty wine bottle plugged with a wax-dripping candle, and a long loaf of hard-crusted French bread. The trick for the instructees would be to paint the objects rather than eat them. Patrice was bartending once again, but his only customer was Irv Orr, who greeted me as I entered the room by raising his cocktail in a mock toast and motioning me toward him.
“Have a sheat,” he slurred cordially. “Lemme buy you a drink. Patreesh!” He shot his hand into the air. “Another round. One for me, and one for my friend Emily.” He drained his glass as I sat down in the chair beside him, and though he was obviously hammered, I had to give him credit for one thing.
Even drunk, he remembered my name.
He might have a great future as a tour director if he ever sobered up.
“What are we drinking?” From where I sat, I had a wide-angle view of the gangway, so there was no way I could miss Rob when he crossed it.
“Cu-ba … li-bre,” Irv said with exaggerated slowness. “Inshpired by the country to our shouse. Cola, rum, and a hefty shquirt of lime. At a whopping fifteen pershent dishcount. We can drink all day at these prishes!”
“Did you travel to Giverny with us today?”
“Nope. Sheen one flower, sheen ’em all. I shtayed here instead, entertaining my buddy Patreesh. ISHN’T THAT RIGHT, PATREESH?”
Patrice waved from the bar. “Oui, monsieur.”
“I’ve eshhtablished a new movement. I’m calling it, Occupy the Lounge. And all you gotta do to join is keep ordering the daily from the bar.”
“Have you had anything to eat today, Irv?”
“Shure!” He began ticking items off on his fingers. “Nuts. Cherries. And I shucked on a few limes.”
“You’ve been drinking on an empty stomach?”
He nodded. “Besht way to enjoy alcohol. All by itshelf. Did you know you can order the daily speshial shtarting at nine o’clock in the morning? And the reashon you have to wait sho long is because that’s when the bartender goes on duty.”
Patrice arrived with our drinks—tall highball glasses filled with ice cubes and cola, and garnished with lime and cherries. Irv fluttered his forefinger at the order pad. “Put ’em both on my tab. And keep ’em comin’.”
“Would it be possible to order some food for him from the kitchen?”
“The kitchen is closed for the galley tour, madame, but perhaps when the tour is over they might prepare something for him? Cheese? Fruit? Bread?”
“What do you say to that, Irv?”
He stuck his tongue out in distaste. “Nope. I’m not shpoiling a perfectly good highball by contaminating it with any of the major food groups. Beshides, I don’t trust the food. You don’t want me to end up like Victor, do you?”
“Have you had an update on his condition?” My stomach turned a slow somersault as I braced myself for news I was afraid to hear.
Irv swung his head back and forth in a lazy arc. “My shources have been abshent today, sho my reporting has been cut off. Shorry. But I’m pretty shure old Victor is shtill the shame international man of myshtery that he was yesterday. But now, Patreesh here. Patreesh is an open book, aren’t you, Patreesh?”
“If you say so, monsieur.”
I shifted my gaze away from Patrice as Woody entered the lounge all by himself, looking as if he were carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. He didn’t acknowledge me as he passed by, but kept his head down and gaze lowered, as if he were wishing he could disappear. He flopped down in a chair close to the bar, propped his elbow on the armrest, and braced his head in his hand, his body language signaling that if any guest dared disturb him, it would be at their own risk.
Patrice hesitated, eyeing him with some trepidation, before flashing a resigned look. He tipped his head and sighed. “Pardonne.”
I guess no matter how miserable a guest looked, there was always an outside chance that an outrageously expensive highball would make him feel better.
Irv watched Patrice cross the floor. “He walks pretty good for shomeone’s who’s been pieced back together again, doeshn’t he?”
“I didn’t know he’d fallen apart.” Despite his despondency, Woody seemed to treat Patrice with great civility as he placed a drink order.
“Yup. He waz in a bicycle crash awhile back. Fractured his leg and broke his hip in so many shpots, they had to replace it.”