by Maddy Hunter
“This is so flattering. How can I say no?” Jackie wrapped her arms around Portia in a bubbly bear hug and lifted her off the floor.
Kick-ass upper-body strength is one of the perks of being a six-foot transsexual. That, and a sliding vocal range that allows you to sing both soprano and bass in your church choir.
Portia jangled like a human wind chime as Jackie set her back on her feet. “Sorry,” Jackie enthused as she plumped Portia’s kaftan and straightened the necklaces dripping from her throat. “I must tell you, I love your hair. My husband is a master cutter and hair colorist, and he’d absolutely adore what you’ve done. I bet I even know the color. That combination of corn-silk and platinum—society blond, right?”
Portia blinked her astonishment. “How could you possibly know that?”
“Writer’s block. It’s a long story.” She seized Portia’s arm and escorted her out the door, chased by guests who looked determined not to be excluded from the newly formed “in” crowd.
“Jimbob and me still hosey the chairs across from you!” shouted the woman with the iridescent makeup.
“That’s Joleen Barnum,” said the lady across the table from me. She pushed back her chair and winced as she stood up. “Durned stiff joints. She and Jimbob are the Hamlets’ most recent residents. Poor things are having a hard time fitting in, but they won’t have to worry about it much longer.”
“Nosiree, they sure won’t,” said the man sitting beside her.
“I’m Lauretta Klick.” She poked her finger at her name tag. “And this here’s my husband, Curtis.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” he said, offering me a polite nod.
The Klicks were seventy-something, munchkin-short, and wore outfits that made them look like a set of salt and pepper shakers with bad haircuts.
“I guess we’ll be seeing a lot of each other in the next two weeks,” I said cheerily.
“Probably not as much as you think,” Curtis allowed, exchanging a meaningful look with Lauretta.
I hated meaningful looks. They really made me feel out of the loop. I regarded Lauretta’s name tag more closely. “You’re from Florida, too? Everyone except my group lives in Florida. Do you all know each other?”
“We certainly do,” said Lauretta. “We’re one big, happy family. Isn’t that right, Curtis?”
“That’s gospel, Lauretta.”
She took her husband’s hand and hobbled toward the door. “We have the Hamlets travel agency to thank for making all the arrangements.”
“They’re full service now,” said Curtis. “We wrote out a check and they took care of everything else. The Hamlets really know how to treat their residents. Nothing but first-class service.”
“What are the Hamlets, exactly?” I asked as we exited into the main dining room.
The Klicks stopped short. “You’ve never heard of the Hamlets?” they asked in astonished unison.
Lauretta puffed up like a fresh-baked popover. “It’s only the most desirable gated community for retirees in the whole country—the biggest, the friendliest, the best laid out.”
“They advertise on the golf network all the time,” insisted Curtis. “How could you miss it?”
Lauretta patted his hand. “Curtis, honey, could be they don’t get that channel in Iowa.”
“Actually, Iowans are notorious for retiring to the Arizona desert,” I said. “They’ll take sand over salt water any day.”
Curtis gaped. “How could anyone not want to live near the ocean?”
“It’s a regional thing,” I explained. “Iowans live longer when they aren’t asked to guess if the tide is coming in or going out.”
“That’s a cryin’ shame,” said Lauretta, “because everyone wants to live in the Hamlets. Portia says the waiting list is so long, it could circle the globe twice. Just goes to show you that people know quality when they see it. Once you clear security and pass through the gate, you never have to set foot outside the community again.”
“That’s gospel,” Curtis agreed. “We have our own medical clinics, shops, banks, churches—”
“—funeral homes,” said Lauretta. “Two brand-new ones with flower stands suspended from the ceiling and viewing rooms in the round. Feels like you’ve stepped inside the starship Enterprise.”
“We publish a newspaper that’s better than the New York Times, and it’s delivered to your mailbox for pennies on the dollar,” continued Curtis. “We’ve got our own internal governing body, twelve executive golf courses, daily sports activities and competitions—”
“—dancing competitions, track and field events, competitive eating, pickle ball, golf cart races,” Lauretta recited breathlessly. “Plus we have lots of special-interest groups: bridge club, gin rummy club, Scrabble club, Boggle club. You name it, we’ve got it. I bet you can’t guess what residents call our community.”
Only one term came to mind. “Summer camp?”
“Wrong!” hooted Curtis. “They call it utopia, because it’s the closest thing to being in heaven.”
“Don’t let him fool you,” Lauretta confided. “It is heaven. If I’d known retirement was going to be so much fun, I’d have skipped all those decades after high school graduation and gone directly to old age.”
I smiled at their enthusiasm. “Your first day in Finland, and it sounds as if you’re anxious to head home already.”
The Klicks exchanged another meaningful look. “Oh, we won’t be going back,” Lauretta said matter-of-factly.
“Are you extending your tour?” I asked. “My group thought about the post-tour trip to St. Petersburg, but they were worried about their prescriptions running out before they got home. They probably don’t have a Pills Etcetera in Russia.”
“What Lauretta means to say is that we won’t be going back at all,” said Curtis. “No one will.”
I regarded them in confusion. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t want to alarm you, dear,” said Lauretta, “but in a few short days, we’ll all be dead.”
CHAPTER 2
“What?”
“See there, Lauretta? You’ve gone and scared the girl.” Curtis gave me a sympathetic look. “She’s a tad more melodramatic than she used to be. Comes from all those years of watching Dan Rather on the evening news. What she means to say is, in a few days, life as we know it will be very different.”
“Amen,” said Lauretta.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” Curtis soothed.
“We’ll probably hear a violent clap of thunder and see a brilliant light in the sky.”
“Earthquakes, tidal waves. Maybe a few flash fires,” Lauretta added. “It should be over fairly quickly.”
I glanced nervously between them. Uff-da. Were they saying what I thought they were saying? “Are you telling me we’re about to experience a catastrophic climatic event?”
“The signs are all there,” said Curtis.
“All a body’s gotta do is read them,” Lauretta agreed. “It’s gonna be cataclysmic. Too bad about your wedding, dear, but think how much you’ll save on postage by not having to mail out all those invitations.”
“There she goes again,” said Curtis.
“Who are you guys?” I demanded. “Meteorologists?”
“Heck, no,” Curtis said, laughing. “We’re Protestants.”
Annika clapped her hands, motioning us to take our seats. “Come, come. The salad is already served.”
She directed the Klicks to chairs at the end of Jackie and Portia’s table and me to an empty spot opposite two septuagenarians who’d introduced themselves as April and June Peabody. I smiled at the platinum-haired sisters with their bronze complexions and expensive silk shells—not because a prediction of global disaster made me happy but because section thirteen of my escort’s manual states that the truly professional tour escort will never allow personal crises to interfere with her duties as an ambassador of goodwill and cheer.
I ignored the swill of acid in my stomach as I sat down.
Who’d written this stupid escort’s manual anyway?
“Can you believe it’s eight o’clock at night?” I asked, noting the sunshine that still washed the upper stories of the stone buildings across the street. “Back home it’d be getting pretty dusky by now, but look how light it is outside. Isn’t that amazing?”
“Why do you suppose that is?” asked June.
“Daylight savings time,” said April. “It’s a big deal over here.”
Hmm. Just because they were unaware that the sun didn’t dip below the horizon in various parts of Scandinavia at this time of year didn’t mean they weren’t up to speed with current events. “By any chance, have either of you heard any obscure reports on the cable news networks about bad weather that might be headed our way?”
“We don’t get cable,” said June.
“Waste of Daddy’s money,” said April. “He’d turn over in his grave if he thought we were squandering his fortune to watch reruns of Family Feud on the Game Show Network.” She removed her watch with the diamond wristband and set it beside her salad plate.
“He’d approve of the lovely home we bought in the Hamlets,” June conceded, “but Daddy always did like real estate. At the time he died, he owned homes in each of the forty-eight contiguous states.” She realigned her silverware with Martha Stewart precision. “He never forgave himself for flubbing up the Alaska and Hawaii deals. He so wanted to own fifty.”
“Forty-eight houses? He sure put the average snowbird to shame. Did you actually live in all of them?”
“They weren’t private homes,” April explained as she poured dressing over her salad. “They were family-run businesses. June just likes to impress people.”
“They were homes,” argued June, grabbing her fork.
“What kind of business did your father run?”
“He was in the service industry,” said June.
“He was an undertaker,” said April. “He owned a slew of mortuaries.”
“Funeral homes,” June corrected emphatically. “Daddy never called them ‘mortuaries.’ He said that was way too impersonal. ‘Mortuary’ doesn’t evoke the warm fuzzy feeling that ‘home’ or ‘parlor’ evoke. Daddy knew all the right angles about how to market a service that everyone was going to need but would rather ignore.”
April shook her head and looked heavenward. “Are you ready?” she sniped, glancing at June.
“Ready,” said June, at which point they hunched over their plates, forks in hand, eyes riveted on their salad greens.
April pressed a pin on her watch. “Go!” she yelled.
Salad dressing flew as they shoveled endive and romaine into their mouths like crazed rabbits. What the?—Russian dressing dripped down April’s chin. Chicory disappeared inside June’s mouth like a twig through a wood chipper. They forked down cherry tomatoes and green peppers, and when April’s plate was empty, she hit another pin on her watch.
“Oi whun,” she said around a mouthful of iceberg lettuce.
I looked at June for a translation.
“She said, she won. But I would have smoked her if my cherry tomato had been smaller.”
I smiled stiffly as I regarded the salad dressing splattered across their dry-clean-only silk shells. “Let me guess. Competitive eating group?”
April swallowed triumphantly. “What gave it away?”
“Do you get the Weather Channel in Switzerland?” I asked Etienne two hours later.
“Not on my television, bella. I can only pick up local stations. Why? Are you having bad weather in Helsinki?”
“The weather’s beautiful right now. Eighty-five and sunny, and that’s pretty good considering it’s ten o’clock at night.” I pulled back the curtain of my hotel room window to peek at the still bright sky. “I was wondering about a few days from now. Have you heard news reports about severe thunderstorms headed our way?”
“I’m afraid our Lucerne stations aren’t overly concerned about rain showers in Finland.”
“How about a catastrophic meteor strike that could end life as we know it? Any rumors about that?” The phone line seemed to go dead. “Etienne?”
I heard a long-suffering sigh. “Who are the other people on your tour, Emily? Astronomers?”
“Protestants, but they really sound as if they know what they’re talking about.”
The door rattled open and Jackie exploded into the room, flinging herself onto the bed with an anguished groan. “Why me?” she whined into her pillow. “I’m not a bad person. I like animals and small children. Why is this happening to me? It’s not fair. I haven’t even seen my name on the bestseller list yet.” She dissolved into the kind of loud, slobbery tears that can ruin even the most reliable waterproof mascara.
Uh-oh. Had one of the guests said something mean to her at dinner? “Etienne, can I call you back tomorrow? I have a situation here.”
“So I hear. My best to your ex-husband. Tell her I preordered her book online and it arrived yesterday, so I’m anxious to dive in. Love you.”
I rang off and joined Jackie on the bed, where I massaged her back sympathetically. “Hey, kiddo, what’s wrong?” The only other time I’d seen Jack cry this hard was at a Metropolitan Museum exhibition of millinery worn by Queen Elizabeth II during her reign. It was such an assault to his fashion sense that he needed counseling afterward to help him deal with debilitating nightmares. “You want to talk about it?”
“Noooo,” she blubbered. “What’s to talk about? The world’s about to end and I’m in freaking Finland with no idea if my book even made it onto BookScan!”
“Ah-ha. You’ve been talking to the Klicks.”
“I haven’t said boo to the Klicks. They did all the talking.” She rolled onto her side, eye shadow and blush smeared across her face like fingerpaints. “Shouldn’t someone have told us the end is here? Would it have been so difficult for the major networks to run a segment on 20/20 or 60 Minutes? Those reporters love disaster stories. But nooo. The biggest disaster of all time, and what’s the media talking about? Some Washington politician boinking a coed half his age. Like that’s news.”
“Etienne says he hasn’t heard any warnings about catastrophic weather.”
Confusion filled her eyes. “Weather? Hel-looo? I’m not talking about weather; I’m talking about Judgment Day. The Second Coming. Apocalypse now. The Rapture. It’s here, Emily. We’re all going to die!” She threw her arms around me, burying her head in my lap and sobbing. “This is the worst day of my life! I’ll never see my book go back to press for a second printing. I’ll never be nominated for a book award. I’ll never be asked to write the screen adaption for the miniseries. It’s so unfair! Why me? Why now?”
I patted her head, as if she were a favorite puppy. “C’mon, Jack, people have been making predictions about the end of the world since time began. Did you stop to think the Klicks might be wrong?”
“People who are this happy about an upcoming event are never wrong. They even bought an expensive video camera with all sorts of special features to record the highlights.”
“They’re planning to film the end of the world?”
“Why do you think they’re in Scandinavia? They want to take advantage of the twenty-four-hour sunlight so they won’t have to use their infrared function. The instruction manual is in Chinese, so they don’t have a clue how to use it.” This prompted a fresh onslaught of tears. “I’m so miserable, Emily. I just want to die. And the thing is, I won’t have long to wait!”
When Jackie was distraught, there was only one way to snap her out of it. “Your hair looks so great,” I enthused as I twirled a section around my finger. “Killer shine. What’s that from? Salon product or hormones?”
“Can the flattery,” she wailed. “It won’t work this time.”
Uh-oh. This was like trying to revive a heart attack victim without defibrillator paddles. The situation was more serious than I thought, which meant I needed to initiate Plan B.
“Listen, Jack, I went to Mas
s last Sunday, and no one said a thing about the end of the world. Now, I ask you: if Father Todd thought Judgment Day was going to arrive before the new fall TV lineup, don’t you think he might have mentioned it in his homily? Or at least posted a few lines in the weekly bulletin?”
“How should I know? I’m not Catholic; I’m a lapsed Episcopalian.” She clutched my arm. “Oh, God, Emily, do you know what that means?”
“You don’t have access to a Sunday bulletin?”
“It means when you and Mrs. S. are being beamed up to the penthouse on the top floor, I’ll be on the express elevator to sub-level ten with all the rest of the lapsed folk. Take a good look at my hair, because in a few days, it’ll all be singed off!” She let out a tearful howl that could have won her the lead role in a bad werewolf flick.
So much for Plan B.
I grabbed a tissue off the nightstand and forced it into her hand. “Jack, if you keep crying like this, your eyes are going to swell shut and you won’t be able to apply eye liner tomorrow.”
Her head popped up with jack-in-the-box quickness. “Really?”
“Really.”
“What about mascara?”
“You can forget that, too.”
“But I have a new color called Sugar Plum that I want to try out. It’s full of all these cute little silver sparkles.” Sighing dramatically, she blew her nose into the tissue and unwrapped herself from around me. “Could I have another tissue, please?”
I handed her the whole packet. After more nose blowing, she sat up. “Are you telling me the truth about you Catholics not having any recent insider information about…you know…the end?”
I raised my hand as if I were in a witness box. “I’m telling you the truth.”
“So you think the Klicks could be wrong?” she asked hopefully.
“I think predictions like that are based on individual interpretation, and interpretations can vary. So if you were to ask me, I’d say there’s a huge possibility that their timing is off.”