by Maddy Hunter
My stomach sank to my knees. Now what?
“If you don’t git in the queue, you’ll niveh git served,” Henry cautioned on his way by. “Don’t be fooled by the ramshackle looks of the place. The Rockpool has the bist seafood on the entire island—whiting, yabbies, crays. My favorite is the crays.”
“Crayfish?”
“Caught locally.”
“Shelled or unshelled?”
“Unshilled. That’s the only way to eat a crustacean.”
Not to a Midwesterner. We didn’t even like our peanuts in shells because of the time we wasted fighting to get them out. “Um, my group could have a problem with the crayfish.”
“Allergies?”
“Patience.”
“You’d bist warn thim then. Whin the café caters to tour groups, they cast the orders in stone.”
I found most of them gathered around a picnic table, shooting pictures of each other beside a seabird who’d landed on the barbecue grill. “Are you sure it’s a rare species?” asked Helen Teig as she focused her camera on Dick.
“Helen, will you take the picture already?”
“I don’t want to waste any more film if it’s not a sure thing! Emily, what kind of bird is that?”
I eyed the majestic bird with the white breast and gray wings. “Seagull.”
“You hear that, Dick? It’s a seagull. Seagulls aren’t rare!”
“They are in Iowa,” said Margi.
“Can I see a show of hands? How many of you have ordered your food already?” Everyone’s hand went up.
“Our bus arrived three minutes ahead of yours, so we beat everyone else out to be first in line,” crowed Lucille.
Oh, yeah, big surprise there. “So what did you order?”
“CRAYFISH!” they yelled in synchrony.
“It’s caught locally,” said Dick Stolee.
“And the person who took our order said it’s the best thing on the menu,” added Alice. She clutched a slip of paper as she checked her watch. “They should call our numbers any minute now.”
“They serve it with feta cheese and island-grown olives,” said Osmond.
“Does anyone want my feta cheese?” asked Margi. “Feta doesn’t sound like something I’m going to like.”
“Show of hands again,” I said. “How many of you have had crayfish before?”
No hands went up.
Uh-oh.
“What a dump,” Bernice whined as she waltzed over to us on Etienne’s arm. “They call this beach spectacular? Maybe to another rock. All I have to say is, the crayfish better be good.”
She’d ordered the crayfish. I hung my head. There was no God. There was no God.
“This isn’t the good beach, luv,” Henry announced as he passed out packets of disposable hand wipes. “The swim beach is on the other side of those rocks.” He nodded toward a headland of boulders to our east. “The tide’s low, so it’ll still be accissible if you don’t spind too much time eating.”
I saw the uncertainty in people’s faces as they exchanged looks with each other. Talking tides to Iowans was like talking snowshoes to Pygmies.
“Forget that tide business,” groused Bernice. “We don’t have tides in Iowa. You know why?”
“I know, I know.” Margi shot her hand into the air.
“Because tides are stupid!”
Margi looked confused. “I thought it was because we don’t have a coastline.”
“What’s so special about the beach?” asked Etienne as he seated Bernice at the table.
“It’s a little piece of paradise,” said Henry. “A criscent beach at the foot of limestone cliffs. Sand like sugar. And there’s a rock-inclosed pool that proticts the kiddies from the rips and occasional shark. It’s a favorite with the locals, especially whin the surf in the southern beaches gits too wild.”
“Does it have toilet facilities?” asked Osmond.
“There’s nothing but sand and water, and you’re asked to leave nothing behind but footprints.”
I could feel their excitement start to build. Dick Stolee surveyed the mountain of boulders with a critical eye. “How in tarnation do we get over there? Drive?”
“Tunnel. Goes clear through to the other side. It used to go only halfway, but after World War II a couple of farmers decided to finish the job, so they dynamited their way through.”
The Dicks let out high-spirited whoops, obviously tantalized by the idea of exploding rocks. “We need to see that,” Dick Teig enthused. “Which way to the tunnel?”
“You’re not going through any tunnel,” Helen piped up. “What if it collapses? You’d die under all that rubble, and you can just imagine the talk at the local hospital when they see that hole in your boxers. I will not be subjected to that kind of embarrassment.”
“You’re not going either,” Grace Stolee carped at her husband. “It sounds far too dangerous.”
“The hell it does!” Dick Teig thundered. “I’ve got news for you, girls. We didn’t come all the way to Australia to be dictated to by a couple of OVERbearing, OVERprotective, OVERwrought fraidy cats!”
I held my breath, hoping he’d know enough to stop before he hit overweight and over-the-hill. That could get really ugly.
“Yah!” chimed Dick Stolee.
“You’re not our mothers, so quit acting like them!”
“Yah!” said Dick Stolee
“Dick and me are gonna explore that tunnel, Helen, and if I hear one more word from you, so help me, I’ll—”
Helen fisted her hands on her hips and glared at him. “You’ll what?”
Osmond raised his hand. “Would it be all right if I go with you?”
“Me, too,” said Margi. “I’ve never been in a rock tunnel before, but I rode across a covered bridge once.”
“NUMBEH FIFTEEN,” a voice announced over a loudspeaker. “PICK UP YOUR ORDEH. NUMBEH FIFTEEN.”
Alice dashed to the café while the Dicks and their wives continued their verbal tug-of-war. Is this what happened to marriages that lasted for decades? Did they become little more than power struggles between people who were starting to look alike?
“I’m going!” huffed Dick Teig.
“Go ahead!” Helen yelled. “But don’t bother coming back!”
“Don’t start, Helen!”
“Or else what?”
Oh, God. I let fly a whistle that produced group winces and instant silence from everyone except Osmond, who slapped his hands over his double hearing aids. “Let me know when she’s done,” he complained. “I can’t handle the feedback.”
“Okay, guys,” I said in a no-nonsense voice, “we’re getting nowhere fast. Let Henry finish telling you about the tunnel before you grab your Indiana Jones hats.” Grudging nods. Twitching. Pursed lips.
“It’s not the easiest path to navigate,” Henry continued. “The ground’s uneven with some unexpictedly steep dips, and there’s a couple of places where the space narrows to liss than a meter across. If you’re claustrophobic, I wouldn’t try it, but if you’re careful, and watch your footing, and start out before the tide changes, everything should be apples.”
“That clinches it,” said Dick Teig. “I’m going.”
“You are not!” Helen shouted.
“NUMBEHS SIXTEEN AND SIVENTEEN, YOUR ORDEHS ARE RIDDY. NUMBEHS SIXTEEN AND SIVENTEEN. PLEASE PICK UP YOUR ORDEHS.”
“This discussion isn’t over, Helen,” said Dick as he stormed toward the café.
“Yah,” said Dick Stolee, wagging his finger at Grace as he followed behind Dick. “What he said.”
Henry turned away from the group and said to me in an undertone, “There could be a serious problem with the two hifty blokes, Imily.”
“Don’t pay any attention to them. They’re always having disagreements with their wives. It’s part of their schtick.”
“I mean with the tunnel. I can’t quite remimber how narrow the passage gits, if you catch my drift. You might want to chick it out before they git into
something they can’t git out of.”
Oh, this was nice. Get the Dicks all hypered into a frenzy, then pull the rug out from beneath them. “Where’s the entrance?”
He gestured toward the far end of the rockribbed headland. “It’s about thirty-five meters thataway. There’s a couple of markers that’ll git you close, then you just have to keep your eyes peeled.”
Alice returned with a platter of salad greens, chunks of white cheese, olives, lemon wedges, fancy pineapple slices, and a spiny crustacean that looked like a cross between a Maine lobster and Arnold Schwarzeneger’s Predator. “Euwww.” Bernice pulled a face. “If you’re planning to eat that thing, I don’t wanna watch.”
Lucille regarded it, aghast. “Please tell me that’s not the crayfish special.”
“Why is it in a shell?” asked Helen. “Aren’t crayfish like catfish? Catfish don’t have shells.”
“It has eyes,” Grace whispered in disgust. “There’s no way I’m eating eyeballs for lunch.”
“If that’s crayfish, I’m changing my order.” Bernice stood up.
“I don’t understand,” Helen muttered in confusion. “Whitefish don’t have shells. Bluefish don’t have shells.”
I motioned Bernice to sit back down. “You can’t change your order. It’s too difficult to make substitutions when they’re serving large tour groups.”
Alice rapped a knuckle on the creature’s shell. “Are we supposed to eat the whole thing? I’m not sure my dental insurance will cover emergency crowns overseas.”
“The crayfish in Sardinia is exquisite,” said Etienne as he lifted Alice’s crayfish off its platter. “I imagine this is just as good. You attack it like so.” He snapped it backward at a joint between body and tail, exposing a succulent hunk of white meat. “You then take your wooden pick and gently pry the meat out of the tail, into your drawn butter, and into your mouth. Don’t think of it as an annoyance, ladies. Think of it as an adventure.”
It was a funny thing about women. When a black-haired, blue-eyed European with one percent body fat and a dreamy accent said something, they tended to listen.
“Will you help me when my food arrives?” asked Lucille.
“Me, too?” asked Margi.
“It would be my pleasure.” He executed a little aristocratic bow that left them with goofy smiles, fluttery eyes, and a breathless craving for Kangaroo Island shellfish. I shook my head, feeling a sudden deficiency in my people skills.
Maybe I needed to work on my accent.
“Talk about lowdown tricks,” Dick Teig sputtered as he dropped his tray on the table. “Look what they’re expecting us to eat. The creature from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. You can do what you want, Helen, but I’m not eating anything with antennae growing out its nose.”
“Sit down, Dick,” Helen urged sweetly, “and shut up. It looks delicious. Absolutely delicious.”
“Okay then,” I said, as the tension eased, “while Etienne gives you a hand with the crayfish, I’m going to check out the tunnel. If it doesn’t look too treacherous, maybe we can all hike through to the beach.”
Cheers. Whoops. One dissenting snort. “I’m not going,” Bernice sniped, “and there’s nothing you can do to make me.”
Wasn’t it neat how we sometimes lucked out in life without even trying?
I crossed the picnic area and navigated the shoreline’s rocky flanks with extreme caution, stepping over shallow tide pools, slipping on green algae, and crunching the occasional seashell beneath my sandals. Spying a simple marker with an arrow emblazoned on it, I scanned the headland for an entryway and spotted a vertical break in the boulders.
The passage twisted and turned like a maze tunneling to the center of the earth. There was an eerie prehistoric feel to the landscape, as if raptors still scavenged for food around every corner, and woolly mammoths came here to die. I followed the trail around the jagged rocks, scraping my shoulder bag at every turn and wishing I’d left it behind. I had so much stuff crammed inside, it had ballooned to the size of a whole other person. But I was encouraged by the accessibility of the trail, until I reached a spot where I had to turn sideways to squeeze between opposing rock walls.
Uh-oh. I sucked in my tummy and wiggled through. If either of the Dicks tried this, he’d become a human wedge until a rescue team freed him. Henry had sure called that right. But the poor Dicks were going to be so disappointed, they’d probably be impossible for the rest of the day, unless—
My mood brightening with a sudden thought, I quickened my pace to reach the end of the tunnel. Unless Henry’s little piece of paradise turned out to be nothing to write home about.
It was glorious. A deserted, horseshoe-shaped cove, hugged by craggy cliffs and washed by sparkling turquoise water that glazed the sand with froth. A break-water of low rocks formed a protective pool around half the beach, while beyond the barrier, the ocean swelled with booming rollers that didn’t look at all user-friendly.
Wow. This place was amazing. A few palm trees, some forbidden fruit, and it really would be paradise. But I couldn’t tell that to the Dicks. I needed to play it down so they wouldn’t think they were missing anything.
In other words, I needed to lie.
I kicked off my sandals to walk barefoot on the beach, hopping on tiptoes when I realized the sand wasn’t just sugary. It was hot! “Ouch. Ouch.” I ran toward the water and sank my toes into the cool tidal sand, tottering off-balance when the ground oozed from beneath my feet on an ebbing wave.
“Turn around and do something sassy!” a voice called from behind me.
Guy Madelyn sat on the beach in the shade of a boulder that may have broken off from the cliff a million years ago. He brandished his camera in the air. “The light doesn’t get more perfect than this, Emily. You want to give it another shot?”
“No! This is the worst hair day of my life!” Well, other than the day in Italy when it caught fire.
“Your hair looks fine. Hold that pose.” He checked his display screen. “Hey, I think we finally hit pay dirt.” He stood up and crossed the beach to me. “What do you think of this?”
My complexion glowed in the light. My hair looked casually windblown. My smile held mystery. My eyes sparkled with a “come hither” look. Good God, I looked sensational. “Wow.”
“Nice, huh? See? I told you all you had to do was relax.”
“Do you have a price list for your wedding photo packages?”
“On my website. Search Guy Madelyn, and that should get you there. Does this mean you’ve narrowed your field of eligible suitors to one?”
Did it? Had my heart made the decision without informing my brain? Did I know subconsciously? Had I always known?
Yeah, I think I had.
I smiled at the revelation. “I know the one.”
“Great. We do honeymoon packages, too. Have you discussed your wedding trip yet? Islands are the big thing. How about a destination wedding? You and a handful of friends and family could fly to Tahiti, or Bora Bora, or Moorea, and the most critical detail you’d have to worry about is making plans early enough to insure that everyone who doesn’t have a passport has plenty of time to apply for one.”
“Speaking of passports, I still have yours.” I swung my bag off my shoulder and poked through the jumbled contents, yanking out Nana’s bloomers and my plastic bag of wet clothing. “Somewhere. I need to get rid of some of this stuff. I think I’ve reached critical mass.”
“Would you like me to hold those for you?”
“That would be great. And while I have you here, would you sign the group card for Heath? I think your signature is the only one that’s missing, other than Jake’s. He had issues with the sympathy thing.” I dug out a pen. “Do you have enough hands?”
“No problem. I juggle more equipment than this when I’m on a job.” He shoved the clothing under his arm, then went down on one knee to sign the card. I grabbed a handful of passports, flipping them open one by one. Osmond Chelsvig. Margi Swan
son.
“If your passport was pink, I could find it in a second.”
“Sorry. Same old navy blue as the States.”
Alice Tjarks. Lucille Rassmuson. Lucille was wearing her brooch with her late husband’s face on it. Wow, his cigar had come out really well. Dick Teig. Guy Madelyn. “Found it!” I angled the page away from the sun’s glare to regard his photo once again. “For a good-looking guy, you really do take a horrendous picture. This doesn’t look anything like you.” I eyed the dates on the right. “You were a St. Patrick’s Day baby! Oh, my God, you’re not going to believe this, but you and Nora Acres were born on the very same day: March 17, 1943. Small world, huh?”
“Anytime you get a group together, two or three people will always share the same birthday. It’s a statistically proven fact.”
The next line gave me pause. “You were born in England?”
“Yeah, my dad worked as a newspaper correspondent for a few years during the war. High risk, low pay. He and my mom didn’t stay long after I was born.”
“That’s such a coincidence.” I looked at him as if for the first time and frowned in disbelief. “Did you know Nora was born in England?”
“Really? I thought she was Australian through and through.” He stood up and handed me the card. “Trade you.”
I handed over his passport. “She was orphaned in England and transported to Australia for adoption. I guess that happened to a lot of children after the war.” I searched his face, unable to reconcile what I was thinking. “She lived a pretty hard life in the Outback. Maybe if she’d lived in Canada, she’d have had something to show for her fifty-seven years other than wrinkles. I can’t believe you’re fifty-seven. You look at least a decade or two younger.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He shook out Nana’s bloomers. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you struck me as more of a Victoria’s Secret kind of gal.”
I snatched the undies from him and glanced around the deserted beach. “I bet you wouldn’t be so cheeky if there were children around. Where are the kiddies, anyway? I thought this place was supposed to be their favorite haunt.”
“I expect they’re in school. Australian school-children don’t take long summer breaks. That’s an American peculiarity.”