Top O' the Mournin'

by Maddy Hunter

  My neck started itching again as I rushed into the lobby. I scratched the patch with annoyance. I hadn’t cut the tag off my sweater yet, so the irritation would probably persist all day. Great. A liveried doorman held the door for me as I ran out onto the sidewalk, my pullman rattling behind me on squeaky wheels. Two tour buses were parked curbside. I figured ours was the one with Ashley pacing alongside, staring at her watch.

  “I’m here!” I yelled.

  She spun around and glared at me. Today, she was wearing an emerald green blazer, a white three-buttoned vest that exposed cleavage halfway to her naval, a black spandex skirt the size of a postage stamp, and square-toed black slides. I rolled my eyes. How professional. If she leaned over too far, it would take her the rest of the day to get those silicone wonders of hers under containment again.

  “How good of you to join us,” she said, her voice dripping sarcasm. “Michael!” She motioned for the bus driver. “There’s one last piece of luggage here for y’all to load.”

  Michael was a florid-faced man in his late thirties with a pitted complexion and muscles like those of the Incredible Hulk. His thighs were so huge, they swished against each other when he walked, knocking him left and right. Every step seemed a struggle for balance. The only thing saving him from complete inertia was the fact that he was bow-legged. And not just a little. You could have driven a Dodge Durango through this guy’s legs without having to retract the mirrors.

  “Get on the bus and find your seat,” Ashley said to me. “We’re already behind schedule.”

  Michael jammed the handle of my suitcase back into the housing, hefted all fifty-two pounds one-handed, and tossed it into the luggage bay. He locked the compartment, then lumbered back onto the bus without looking up or saying a word. Chatty fellow. I guess he hadn’t taken time to kiss the Blarney Stone yet.

  I scooted up the stairs close behind him, my nostrils suddenly assaulted by a stench more pungent than a blast of the anhydrous ammonia my father used to fertilize his fields. “My God.” I crooked my finger beneath my nose. “What is that?”

  “Michael,” Ashley said in an acid whisper behind me. “He smells.”

  Whoa! Too bad the bus wasn’t equipped with oxygen masks. I hoped Etienne was saving me a seat at the back of the bus. But he wasn’t. He was settled into the first window seat with the much coveted “unobstructed view,” which was way too close to Michael. I looked at Etienne. I looked at Michael. I wondered how long I could hold my breath. Maybe I’d turn blue and have to be resuscitated. Hmm. One could hope. I flashed Etienne my most engaging smile and slid into the seat beside him.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Ashley stood in the aisle beside me, hands braced on her hips, eyes slatted, voice pinched. She appeared to be talking to me.

  “I found an open seat,” I said. “I’m sitting down.”

  “Not there, you’re not. Assigned seating, Emily.” She pointed to a square of paper on the window that read: OVERLOCK/MICELI.

  Not assigned seating. I hated assigned seating. “We had open seating in Switzerland, except for the day we visited Titisee-Neustadt.”

  “Open seating never works. The same people always try to hog the front seats. And the first aisle seat is always reserved for the tour guide. You should know that, Emily. It’s my seat, and you’re in it.”

  “Allow me to trade places with the person Emily is supposed to sit with,” Etienne offered. “I’ll be happy to give up my unobstructed view to sit beside Ms. Andrew.” His voice dipped to a sultry whisper. “There’s something very important I’ve been meaning to ask her.”

  I shot him a look. He wanted to ask me something? Oh, my God. He looked so serious. Was he thinking about popping the question? But…but…we hadn’t discussed the M word yet. We hadn’t even professed our love for each other! I was ready for sex, but was I ready for marriage again? Oh, my God. Things were moving way too quickly here.

  “The bus is full!” Ashley sniped. “There will be no random movement. Everyone stays where I’ve seated them. Besides, sugar, if I break the rules for you, I’ll have to break them for everyone else, and we can’t have that, can we?”

  Ashley Overlock was really starting to piss me off. But I refused to lose my temper, or make a scene, or be made to look like a whiner in front of the group. I had a position of responsibility. It was my duty to remain cool and unflappable. And with a little concentration, I knew I could force myself to do that. After all, I had a degree in theater. I’d been professionally trained to fake the hell out of people.

  “Will you please find your seat so we can leave?” Ashley persisted.

  I stood up, skewering Ashley with a pinched-lip, narrow-eyed glare that said, “One wrong move with my man and I’ll rip your lungs out through your nostrils.” I’d developed this particular expression as a survival technique while baby-sitting my five nephews. When they saw “the look,” they ran screaming for their rooms. I didn’t elicit a scream out of Ashley, but she did leap back a full step in the aisle to allow me a wide berth as I passed. I obviously hadn’t perfected the adult version yet.

  The bus suddenly hummed to life like a huge June bug. The engine roared. The floor vibrated. The air stank of diesel fumes. I navigated my way down the center aisle to the sound of Ashley’s voice floating out to us over the loudspeaker.

  “Top o’ the mornin’, y’all, and welcome to the Golden Irish Vacations tour of the Emerald Isle. I’m Ashley Overlock, your tour guide, and this is our driver, Michael Malooley, who’ll be with us for the duration of the trip.”

  To the left and right I noted the Iowa contingent and the common attire and accessories for the day. For the men, plaid shirts, blue jeans, and baseball caps advertising Pioneer seed corn and John Deere tractors. For the women, elastic-waisted polyester pants, light nylon jackets, and umbrellas.

  “Golden Irish Vacations is known for its unique tour packages,” Ashley continued, “and that means y’all will be treated to a taste of Ireland that few other tourists experience.”

  I patted Nana on the shoulder on my way by and nodded at Tilly. Beyond them, I noted the attire of the New Yorkers. The men in skintight shirts opened halfway down their chests. Slicked-back hair. Lots of gold chains circling their throats. Expensive sunglasses. The women with tastefully loud blouses. Pouffy platinum, blond, and ink black hair. Bangles dangling from their ears, throats, and wrists. Lots of red nail polish.

  “Our destination this morning will be an area near the Inishowen Peninsula in the north of the republic, a drive of about three and a half hours. We’ll have lunch at Ballybantry Castle, which will be our overnight accommodation for the next few days. And just between you and me, y’all are gonna love this castle. It was built in the sixteen hundreds, and even though it’s undergone extensive renovation in recent years, it still retains its original charm. It has a little something for everyone. A moat. A dungeon. Towers. Turrets.”

  Ghosts, if you believed in that sort of thing. The pneumatic brakes hissed. The engine revved. We nosed into morning traffic by jumping the curb and swerving blindly across three lanes of cars. Horns blared. Tires screeched. I lunged for the back of the nearest seat and dug my fingers into the upholstery. Uff da! I should stop worrying about the castle being haunted. If this was a sample of Michael Malooley’s driving skill, he’d have us wrapped around a light pole before we ever reached the place.

  “Jeezuz H. Kee-reist!” protested a man from the back of the bus. “Where’d this guy get his driver’s license? In a box of Cracker Jacks?”

  “This is Michael’s first official tour of duty,” Ashley announced in a honeyed tone, “so I know y’all will make it a good experience for him by being real understanding until he works out all the kinks.”

  Two seats ahead, Jackie caught my eye and gave me a hesitant wave. She was sitting next to a man who was apparently sound asleep, slumped against the window, his head buried within the depths of a hooded sweatshirt. Must be the new bridegroom. Jackie must have e
xhausted him. “Rough night?” I teased as I zigzagged my way past her.

  Her thickly mascaraed eyes welled with tears that sent her searching for a tissue. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Uh-oh. Was there trouble in Paradise already? Had the wedding night not gone well? Holy smoke. What if Jackie hadn’t told her husband about her sex change? What if she’d only told him last night? Ooh, boy. I was glad I wasn’t in her shoes today. Actually, considering the size of her feet, I was glad not to be in her shoes any day.

  I looked far ahead to find the last empty seat on the bus, surrounded by a sea of faces I didn’t recognize, and one that I did. I winced. Okay. This clinched it. There was no God.

  “Where’s my money?” Bernice Zwerg demanded as I sat down beside her.

  “What money?”

  “You were supposed to get money out of the ATM for me. Small bills.”

  I scrunched my eyes and whacked myself on the forehead. “That’s right.”

  “I hope you got a lot because I used up almost all my cash on supper last night.”

  I sighed tiredly. “Here’s the scoop. I fell asleep early last night and didn’t wake up until”—I checked my watch—“eleven minutes ago. The upshot is, I’m sorry, but I never got to the ATM.”

  “Oh, boy, you’re some escort. What am I supposed to do now?”

  This was probably a good time to remind myself that I was being paid a lot of money to deal patiently with people like Bernice.

  “There are other ATMs in Ireland, Bernice. We’ll probably find one in the town near the castle. I’ll get your money there.”

  “What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”

  “I told you. The bank can wire you money. Or you could apply for a credit card. Some companies even take applications over the phone these days.” I flashed her a half-smile. I was in control again, the ultraprofessional, lobbing her objections back at her like balls in a tennis volley.

  “What’s wrong with your neck?” she asked.

  “My neck? Nothing. Why?”

  “It’s all red.”

  “I’ve been scratching.”

  “There’s lumps all over it.”

  Lumps? Lumps weren’t good. I tore open the flap of my shoulder bag and rummaged around for a mirror.

  “There’s no toilet on this bus,” whined a woman behind me in a nasally, hard-voweled New York accent. “The brochure promised us a toilet. What are we supposed to do if we have to go in the middle of nowhere?”

  “Look around, Gladys,” said her male companion. “The whole country’s the middle of nowhere.”

  “I’m serious, Ira!”

  “You’re always serious. When aren’t you serious? I’m happy, you’re serious. Tell me somethin’ I don’t know.”

  I peered at my neck in the mirror of my compact. Ehh! Bernice was right. My neck was cross-hatched with welts the length of my baby finger. Oh, my God. Nana had mentioned seeing a case like this on Rescue 911. At any moment my throat was going to swell shut from anaphylactic shock. Then I’d die. Ehh!

  “You ever been allergic to anything before?” Bernice piped up.

  “No,” I said in a panic. “I’m in perfect health. I’ve never even had a cavity!”

  “Well, you’re allergic to something now.”

  “Look, Ernie,” squawked the woman in front of me, jabbing her finger at the window. “That dump truck has a whole load of tailpipes in the back. And look how rusty they are. They were probably made in Japan.”

  “It’s not tailpipes,” said her husband. “It’s probably peat. They use that crap for fuel over here.”

  “No way. How you gonna pump that stuff into your gas tank?”

  “It’s not for cars, Ethel. Jeez, you’re such a genius. Fuel to heat the house. They use it in their stoves. Their fireplaces.”

  “How come they don’t use electricity? They have electricity over here, don’t they?” Silence, then in an emphatic snarl: “Ireland was your idea, Ernie. If I can’t use my curling iron for the next ten days, you’re gonna hear about it!”

  Bernice squinted more closely at my neck. “I’m beginning to remember that my husband’s neck had a notion to swell up like that sometimes.”

  Not encouraging. Bernice’s husband had been dead for half a century. “Is that how he died?”

  “You bet.”

  Oh, great. My throat constricted. My heart beat double-time. This was it. I was a goner.

  “He was on his way to see the doc for a tetanus shot, and just before he left the house, his neck swelled up like yours. He was dead before he ever got there. Doc said it was hives brought on by the stress of thinking about that shot. Harold was awful needle phobic.”

  “Hives? He died from hives?”

  Bernice nodded wistfully. “By the time he reached town, they’d spread all over. When he bent down to scratch his ankle, he missed a Stop sign and got broadsided by an ice truck. Back in those days, they used to deliver right to your door. They tell me he died before he ever knew what hit him.”

  My heart stopped racing. I discovered I could still breathe. “So your husband didn’t actually die from hives. He died in a car accident.”

  “If he hadn’t had the hives, he wouldn’t have bent down to scratch. If he hadn’t scratched, he wouldn’t have been broadsided. He died from hives.”

  And I was still a virgin. Just ask my mother.

  Over the loudspeaker, Ashley continued to enlighten us about our surroundings. “On your left you’ll note some of the lovely stone buildings that form the campus of Trinity College, which is the oldest university in Ireland, founded by Elizabeth the First and dating back to 1592. The college is home to what is described as the most beautiful book in the world, the Book of Kells, which is a manuscript of the four Gospels in Latin, scripted and illuminated by Columban monks during the eighth century.”

  I angled my mirror toward the light for a better look at my throat. “So you think this looks like hives?” I said to Bernice.

  “It’s hives, all right. But I don’t know why you’d get hives. What’s someone with your cushy job got to be stressed out about?”

  I dabbed pressed powder onto my neck to camouflage the redness, then, while I was at it, dug out the rest of my makeup. I could take the time to freshen up now that I wasn’t going to die immediately. Ahead of me, Ethel jabbed a finger at the window once again.

  “Look at this traffic! We’ve moved a car length in five minutes. I told you we should have gone to Venice.”

  Ernie snorted dismissively. “This traffic is nothin’. The Van Wyck at rush hour. Now that’s traffic.”

  “How come everyone’s driving on the wrong side of the street?” Ethel pounded on the window to a car below. “You’re going the wrong way! Hey, there’s no steering wheel in that car.” She gave a quick look up and down the lanes of traffic. “There’s no steering wheel in any of those cars!”

  “My wife the rocket scientist. The steering wheel’s on the passenger side, Ethel. Car manufacturers had to install the steering wheels on the wrong side of the car to make it easier for everybody to drive on the wrong side of the road. Get it?”

  I contemplated explaining the difference between opposite and wrong to Ernie and Ethel, but I wasn’t sure either one of them would “get it.”

  From behind me, Gladys began complaining in her singsong, sandpaper voice. “I smell something, Ira. Do you smell something?”

  “Diesel.”

  “It’s not diesel. It’s worse than diesel. It smells like a sewer. I think it’s coming from the front of the bus. Ethel!” she yelled past my ear. “Do you smell something?”

  Ethel propped herself up to look over the back of her seat. Ehh! Ethel’s hair was an intense burgundy rose, a shade popularized by liquid antiseptics such as Mercurochrome, and Olympic ice-skating coaches from former Eastern Bloc countries. She wore rouge that was too red and eyeliner that was too black, but at least her rhinestone-studded glasses concealed the fact that her eye
shadow was iridescent blue, a no-no even in former Eastern Bloc nations. “I can smell it,” she blurted to Gladys. “Phew! The toilet must be backed up. It must be the toilet. You think it’s the toilet?”

  “It’s not the toilet. There’s no toilet on this bus.”

  “No toilet? The brochure promised us a toilet. What are we supposed to do if we have to go in the middle of nowhere?”

  “I repeat,” Gladys’s husband griped behind me. “Look around you. The whole country’s the middle of nowhere.”

  I looked at Bernice. Bernice looked at me. It was kind of creepy when a conversation with Bernice started to look good.

  “That’s it,” said Bernice. “I’m disconnecting.” She popped her hearing aid out of her ear with a superior smile. “That’s one of the benefits of old age. You go deaf.”