Meanwhile, Sherwood stood at the front desk, deep in conversation with the Sea Shell Hotel’s general manager. Both heads leaned over some papers that lay between them on the counter, and Sherwood’s glossy black head slowly shook from side to side. Gregory’s nodded up and down. Sherwood turned, papers in hand, and with a mischievous grin walked to where Freddy stood.
“Rooming list change for you. It was called in this morning,” Sherwood announced with feigned nonchalance and handed him the revised copy. Apparently some of their group had experienced a busy morning. Or rather, a busy night. She wondered if the clerk had been asked to carry their luggage again.
“Who moved?” Freddy eyed the list. Sherwood’s smile widened.
“Mrs. Storrey moved in with Smith, and Gus moved in with Maggie. They pulled a room swap.” She burst out laughing, unable to contain it any longer.
“No!” It was an exclamation of pure disbelief.
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Wow. We’ve got a group of swinging seniors.” Freddy smiled, wishing he’d seen some action last night, too. He’d fantasized last night about sharing a room with Sherwood. He’d slept fitfully, only dozing in brief increments, awakening after each one with thoughts of Sherwood exploding his head. Only a thin wall separated them and he tried to imagine what she wore to bed as she changed on the other side of it…
The elevator doors swished open, interrupting his daydream. Mrs. Storrey, escorted by Smith, breezed through. She wore tight-fitting brown stirrup pants, a white woven silk sweater, and taupe leather flats. Smith wore a stupid grin.
Glancing around, Mrs. Storrey whispered something in Smith’s ear that prompted a laugh. They made a handsome couple. The Great Wingers tuned into this newest development like automated satellite dishes following a signal.
“Well! Would you look at that?” Mabel exclaimed to Gretta. All eyes were on Mrs. Storrey and Smith as they walked to the rear lobby windows that overlooked the ocean. Oblivious to the attention, the couple snuggled together as they took in the view.
“Myrtle Beach boasts two hundred and sixty-five days of sunshine every year. And, we get the damned rain,” Smith said. All ears were straining to hear his words and the lobby suddenly quieted.
“I think that rain can be quite... romantic. Don’t you, Darling?” Mrs. Storrey purred. Smith blinked at her, remembering his ecstasy of just hours ago. He could only nod in agreement. His heart began racing at the mere thought of her wearing nothing except his starched button down Oxford. He filled his lungs with a deep breath to calm his pulse.
Burt considered the momentary lapse in conversation an opportune moment, removed his loafers, and clumsily climbed atop an ottoman. His feet, covered with black socks disappeared into it. He cleared his throat, and rubbing a weathered hand over a stubby chin, addressed the group.
“May I have your attention please? Everyone?”
The sea of white heads turned to look at Burt while simultaneously attempting to follow the conversation between Smith and Mrs. Storrey. Burt stood trying to catch his balance with both arms out to his sides, circling. The overstuffed ottoman was not ideal for standing. It could have been downright dangerous when you factored in the age of its occupant.
“What is it, Burt?” Gretta asked. “And get off of that thing before you fall off.”
“Does anyone have a double-sided razor blade? I haven’t had a decent shave since we got here. And the convenience stores around here don’t carry them. I’d be perfectly happy to pay for it!”
Smith had a whole dispenser full of razor blades in his ditty bag and started to offer Burt some help, but Mrs. Storrey grabbed his arm and mouthed, no. She was recalling the time when Burt had planted a black rubber snake on her doorstep, and she’d stood in the cold for twenty minutes waiting for maintenance to show up and kill it.
“To heck with him,” she whispered, thinking of how Brad, the Great Wings maintenance supervisor had laughed so hard until he had to sit down on her doorstep, in a puddle of water.
Burt was famous for his pranks around Great Wings—pranks that always seemed much more brilliant and humorous to him than to their recipients. Smith smiled at Sylvia, and looking around the room, saw the same unspoken sentiments on several faces. The muscles in his face felt tight. He was not used to smiling so much and wondered if his gums were going to dry out.
After several seconds of near silence during which Burt still struggled to catch his balance on the ottoman he said,
“Okay, then. We’ll just have Freddy swing by a twenty-four hour grocery store after the show tonight.” He gingerly stepped down, managing to look halfway coordinated.
“Wait a minute, Burt,” Ethyl Froogin spoke up. “You can’t just have the whole bus stop every time you need a little something. It has to be agreed upon by the whole group and cleared with Freddy and Sherwood. That’s the protocol when you’re on a motorcoach tour.”
The Great Wings seniors, usually not quick to side with Ethyl, all shook their heads in agreement.
“She’s right, Burt,” someone said. “Besides, we’ve already made a stop for incidentals. You should’ve bought your razor blade then.”
“I forgot. C’mon, you guys. I won’t be but just a minute. My face is starting to itch.” Burt had his loafers back on, but his arms were still out with the palms up in a gesture of asking forgiveness. Until he lowered one of them to scratch a stubby cheek.
Sherwood, amused, offered a solution. “Burt, why don’t you just walk across the street to the Scotchman and buy one there?”
“All they have is those plastic things. I can’t use one of those tin-foil-throw-away things. This face has never seen anything but a real razor.” He scanned the lobby, pleading with his eyes. No one responded. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he grumbled, scratching his chin. “Just because I like a practical joke now and then…”
“Hey, since Burt has gotten everyone’s attention, does anyone have some Ex-Lax?” Gretta yelled. “Mabel’s constipated.”
“Why don’t you just get over the loud speaker and announce it to the entire hotel?” Mabel looked angry. And constipated. “Besides, Ex-Lax didn’t work. All it did was give me gas,” she pouted.
“Drink two glasses of cranberry juice followed by six ounces of hot water,” Ethyl, always the experienced traveler, offered helpfully.
“Sure. And then jump up and down twenty times,” Smith said dryly. Mrs. Storrey elbowed him in a rib. Smith didn’t mind a bit. She could elbow him anytime.
“He hasn’t completely lost his sense of dry humor since falling in love overnight,” Sherwood whispered to Freddy. Laughing, he slipped out to retrieve their bus and pull it around to the curb.
“I’m allergic to cranberry juice,” Mabel said shaking her red frizzed hair. Although unmanageable due to a bad perm, the cut was stylishly short in the back and long on top. Her wrinkled forehead creased even deeper with embarrassment when she realized that not only the Great Wings group, but also the hotel staff behind the front desk, was listening to her digestive dilemma being openly discussed. “It gives me hives,” she explained.
“Ah, that wouldn’t have worked anyway,” somebody said. “What you need is some good old-fashioned prunes. Of course, they’re always best followed by a cold Coke.”
“I already tried prunes—Burt’s winnings from the poker game.” Mabel’s face, turning crimson, was rapidly approaching the color of her hair.
“Well, if you can’t drink cranberry juice,” Ethyl persisted, “then the next best thing for traveler’s constipation is raw vegetables and vinegar.”
Mabel and Gretta contemplated the merits of vinegar, Burt scratched his face, and Smith and Mrs. Storrey returned their attention to the ocean below.
“The bus is here!” Sherwood called. Relieved, Mabel turned and walked stiffly toward the front doors.
“See there? Raw vegetables is what you need. With lots of vinegar. Problem solved,” Grett
a said to Mabel’s retreating back. She was big on group participation. Forty-six heads were better than one, she figured.
The night clerk had just arrived to work an unscheduled morning shift. I really need some sleep, he mused, mesmerized as he observed the seniors collect their belongings and slowly amble out to the bus, a slow-moving but loud and brightly colored parade. At some point, his hand had stopped in mid-tuck.
“Criminy,” he said.
***
Outside, Sherwood huddled with Freddy beneath a giant golf umbrella. Their arms touched lightly as they greeted each boarding passenger and helped some up the steps. For an instant, Freddy imagined that they were husband and wife. They were a team, working a tour group together. Partners during the day and lovers during the night. Smiling, he nodded absently at each senior, wondering if Sherwood had planned a large extravagant wedding with the professor, or a small, cozy one. He’d be happy to give her any kind of wedding that she wanted. And, he would never, ever, dump her. The professor had to have been insane. Focus, Freddy told his brain. It may not seem like it, but you’re at work.
***
A refreshing wind blew across the waking day, as if Mother Nature were placing a light kiss on the tourists. The rain had slowed to a drizzle and the updated weather forecast called for a partly sunny day. The group’s mood was lightening at the same rate as the Myrtle Beach sky. The forecast looked good.
“Good morning!” Sherwood and Freddy said in unison as Smith followed Mrs. Storrey up the few steps and into the idling motorcoach.
“Why is that you get in a car but get on a bus?” Smith responded.
“Because a motorcoach is a group method of transportation,” Ethyl replied from the front seat, always the traveling expert. “You get on a train or on a plane, too,” she continued.
“Well, what about a motorcycle?” Burt, scratching his chin, said from somewhere near the middle of the bus. “You get on one of those, and they don’t transport a group!”
“Yeah, and you get in a hot air balloon or a blimp. They can carry a group,” Gretta added.
There was mild laughter. Ethyl sputtered an inaudible response, adjusted the strap on her traveler’s fanny pack, and proceeded to disassemble her rain gear.
Once they were loaded, Sherwood walked the aisle to do a head count. She came up with forty-one, not including herself or Freddy. Starting from the rear of the bus, she counted again, coming up with the same number. She knew that Nell and Jack were not going since they were ‘sleeping in’. And, Maggie had called to say that she and Gus were going ‘exploring’. Freddy would return to the Sea Shell after their shopping trip to pick the four of them up for the Georgetown tour.
But Sherwood was still coming up one passenger short.
“Okay,” she spoke loudly, “who’s missing? Besides Nell, Jack, Gus, and Maggie? I’m coming up one short.”
“Gus and Maggie?” Burt asked.
“Yes. They’re going sightseeing this morning,” Sherwood answered.
“Together?” about seven voices asked in unison.
“Yes, I believe so,” she told them, unable to hold her smile.
“Good gosh!” Burt exclaimed. “First, Smith and Mrs. Storrey are all cozied up and now Maggie and Gus are exploring together? What the hell is this? The ‘Love Boat’? Or, should I say, the love bus? Where’s Captain Stubing?”
Excited murmurs spread through the coach like a rolling wave. Smith just grinned while Mrs. Storrey’s warm lips brushed his cheek in a kiss.
“Um, folks, we really do need to figure out who is not on the bus,” Sherwood reminded them. “That way I can call their room, see if they’ve overslept or something.”
Her passengers quieted and began looking around at each other. A few stood up to get a better view of the others on the bus. Sherwood would have imagined that the seniors would have sat in the same seat every time they got on the bus, like a family at the dinner table. Or a group of students in a classroom. But, aside from Ethyl who always perched herself in the front seat behind Freddy, the Great Wings group never sat in the same seat. That would have been too easy. As if reading her thoughts, Ethyl spoke up.
“Well, if everyone had a seat-mate like you’re supposed to do on a trip like this, then we’d know right away who was not here,” she proclaimed.
“Check the bus toilet. Mabel’s probably in there trying to solve her problem,” Smith said.
“Oh, shut up, Smith,” Mabel said from the rear of the coach, “I’m right here.”
Rolling her eyes at their banter, Sherwood took the microphone and asked again, “So nobody has figured out who is missing?”
There were a few ‘no’s’ and several shaking heads. Ethyl shrugged her shoulders with a smug ‘I-told-you-so’ look.
“Okay, then. I’m just going to run down the rooming list. Please answer when you hear your name.” She quickly scanned the list, calling out those passengers that she did not yet recognize by face. Midway down the list, she called, “Willie?”
There was no response. Willie was one of three residents on her rooming list that was in a single room. Everyone else was paired up in two’s because the tour package price was cheaper that way.
“Willie Candler?” She repeated. Still no response. The bus had become quiet. Nobody spoke for several seconds.
“Who the hell is Willie Candler?” Burt asked.
“Maybe he’s replaced Merl Stubing as the ship’s captain,” someone answered. There were a few laughs. Sherwood caught Freddy’s eyes in the rear view mirror; he was smiling at her and she reveled again at how handsome her former study buddy had become. He had become a Chippendale overnight. He’d lost the ugly glasses, gotten a great new haircut, and gained a uniform. She smiled back and continued to quiz the group.
“Willie?” Gretta said to Mabel, “Have you ever heard of a Willie?” Mabel just shrugged her shoulders.
“I don’t know any Willie,” Burt said after his initial question remained unanswered. “Maybe I’d know him if I saw him.”
Sherwood used her mobile phone to call the front desk and asked to be connected to Willie Candler’s room. There was no answer. But Sherwood knew that being late to one activity could throw off the group’s itinerary for the entire day. They would just have to leave the man behind. He was probably walking on the beach.
“Susan wouldn’t have lost a passenger, don’t you know,” Gretta stated, pushing up bifocals with one hand and fiddling with the touch screen on her iPhone with the other.
“Oh, cut her some slack Gretta,” Smith said coming to Sherwood’s defense. Sherwood looked up in surprise. One of them was sticking up for her?
“Good grief, Smith,” Burt said. “You’ve gone soft since you’ve fallen in lust.”
“Actually, you’ve gone pretty damn hard since you’ve fallen in lust, Smith,” Mrs. Storrey whispered seductively in his ear. He blushed. She kissed his jaw, sending her neighbors’ imaginations into overdrive. Gretta remained quiet, already absorbed in a podcast.
“Hey, Burt,” a man called. “Is this one of your practical jokes? Like the time you sent our names in for the state penitentiary’s Pen Pal Program?”
Burt managed to look insulted. “Of course not.” He was always the first one to be blamed for everything. He had to suppress a smile, thinking of the state penitentiary prank. It was of his better practical jokes at Great Wings. His neighbors had all received letters and pictures from convicts for months.
“Okay, listen up everyone,” Sherwood said into the bus microphone. “Willie isn’t answering his room phone. I’m going to do a super quick look in the lobby and the pool area, and then we’ll go ahead and get on the road. I’ll be right back.”
Perplexed, Sherwood hurried off the bus. A missing passenger that absolutely no one knew? How could he have been so invisible? They’d traveled nearly a thousand miles together so far. For that matter, how could she claim to be a group leader when she wasn’t sure who Willie was, either? She stood impatien
tly at the counter in the lobby while the clerk called room 314. She wanted to make sure she hadn’t been connected to the wrong room earlier.
“No answer,” he explained, tucking in his shirt.
“Are you sure that 314 is one of our rooms?”
“Of course,” the desk clerk said. “I carried the guy’s luggage up from the bus. I remember because he only had one small bag—an actual suitcase with wheels. And he tipped me five dollars, you know? Criminy, your group had a lot of luggage.”
“Uh, what did he, um, look like?”
“What did he look like? An elderly man, about like any of the rest of them in your group. I mean, you know. Average height. Average weight, a little heavy around the middle. Thin gray hair, bald on top. Pretty sure he wears glasses.”
Sherwood scanned the lobby and the outside area around the pool. There were some people milling about, but nobody she recognized. Ignoring the warning bells that rang distantly in her head, she told herself that it wasn’t that big of a deal. Willie had probably gone fishing or something. She would worry about it later.
***
As Freddy navigated the coach smoothly onto Ocean Boulevard, Sherwood turned on the microphone and wished everyone a good morning. She explained to her group of Virginians that she would try to locate Willie when they returned to the hotel. She handed out discount coupons and maps of Broadway at the Beach so the seniors could plan out their shopping adventure. They should enjoy the shopping adventure, Sherwood figured, since they had a big choice of things to do. Plus, there were lots of benches for anyone who wanted to sit and people-watch. She’d discovered in a few short days that her group was not happy if there weren’t benches or chairs whenever they went somewhere that required walking and standing. And, she’d been reminded of how Susan would have done it more times than she cared to count. Susan, apparently, had been big on the availability of public seating.
Mulling over both her missing resident and the upcoming Georgetown tour later that day, Sherwood grew apprehensive. She was worried about Willie. And, she didn’t know a thing about Georgetown, other than it was the second oldest city in the state; certainly not enough to do a knowledgeable tour. She’d have to read off of her fact sheet, and guide Freddy from the chamber of commerce map if his navigation system didn’t suffice. Oh well, she thought. At least I can take credit for the benches at Broadway at the Beach.
Mayhem in Myrtle Beach Page 9