Killer Cruise Read online

I could resist the lure of the buffet no longer. Surely Anton wasn’t still roaming around looking for me. I threw on my raincoat, rolling up my pajama bottoms so they wouldn’t show, and set out in search of empty calories.

  The buffet was surprisingly busy. Apparently I wasn’t the only late-night snacker on board. I scanned the room on Anton Alert, but much to my relief he wasn’t there.

  Five minutes later I was trotting back to my cabin with a brownie for me and roast turkey for Prozac. I’d just approached my cabin door when I caught a glimpse of Cookie slipping into Graham’s cabin, a bright chartreuse sweater over her nightgown.

  First Tom and Meg. Now Cookie and Graham. Love was all around me. I couldn’t help but feel disappointed by the way Robbie had cut the evening short. True, the spell had been broken, but if he were really interested in me, would he have called it a night so quickly? I didn’t think so.

  Oh, well. I refused to let it get me down. We Austens are made of sterner stuff. Throughout the generations our motto has always been: When the going gets tough, the tough get chocolate. With nuts, if possible.

  It worked for me.

  YOU’VE GOT MAIL

  To: Jaineausten

  From: Shoptillyoudrop

  Subject: Off to Universal Studios!

  Good morning, honey! It’s a beautiful day here in sunny Los Angeles, and Daddy and I are off to the Universal Studios tour. I hear they take you on the street from Desperate Housewives. I just love that show. All the housewives are so cute. Especially Felicity Parker Longoria!

  Oops. Daddy’s yelling for me to hurry. Must dash.

  Lots of love from,

  Mom

  To: Jaineausten

  From: Shoptillyoudrop

  Subject: Desperate Housewife

  We’re back from Universal. What a fiasco! I never got to see any of the desperate housewives. Or street they live on.

  Would you believe Daddy tried to smoke his pipe on the tram?? The tour guide, a lovely young girl named Kimberly, told him as nice as you please that there was no smoking allowed. Which he should have realized since there was a big No Smoking sign at the front of the tram. But did Daddy cooperate? Of course not. He kept saying that the No Smoking sign didn’t apply to pipes, especially one that was once owned by Basil Rathbone.

  Kimberly tried to reason with him, but would he listen? Nooo! So before you could say, Elementary, my dear Watson, we were kicked off the tram! Right in front of the Jaws exhibit. Honestly, I felt like tossing your dad to the shark.

  All the passengers sat there and gawked as two guards hauled us off in a security cart. Some Japanese people even took our picture! I think they thought we were part of the show. The guards dropped us off at the main entrance and warned us to never come back to Universal Studios or any of its affiliates for as long as we live.

  I swear, I thought I’d die! If Daddy thinks I’m going sightseeing with him ever again, he’s sadly mistaken.

  Love from the original desperate housewife,

  Mom

  PS. One piece of good news. Before we got kicked off the tour, I got to talking with a darling young man visiting from Uzbekistan. I gave Vladimir your e-mail address. True, he’s not exactly “geographically desirable,” but who knows? He just might relocate to the United States one day.

  To: Jaineausten

  From: DaddyO

  Subject: Such a Fuss!

  I don’t suppose you know any of the honchos at Universal, do you, sweetheart? I intend to write them a very stern letter of complaint.

  Our prissy snip of a tour guide went crazy all because I happened to light my pipe on her stupid tram. Such a fuss. You’d think I’d taken out a loaded gun.

  But you’ll be proud to know your old daddy stood up for his rights and kept on smoking. I wasn’t about to let some little girl barely out of diapers tell Hank Austen what to do. And besides, everyone knows “No Smoking” applies to cigarettes, not pipes.

  Once she saw that I wasn’t going to weaken under her tyranny, the little despot had the nerve to kick us off the tram—right in front of the shark from Jaws. Which I didn’t mind a bit since I got to see the shark up close. Then two security guys showed up and gave us a ride back to the main entrance.

  Your mother’s making a big stink, but if you ask me, it all worked out for the best. Riding with the security guys, we got to see parts of Universal Studios that tourists never see! (How many people can say they rode past the War of the Worlds Porta Potties?)

  Now I’m off to the hardware store to pick up paint for that scuff mark on your wall.

  Love & kisses,

  Daddy

  To: Jaineausten

  From: Shoptillyoudrop

  Subject: Picasso’s Eye

  Dear Jaine—

  Your father has gone to the hardware store to buy paint. He saw a tiny mark on your living room wall—so small you practically need a microscope to see it—and now he wants to paint over it. He insists one of the policemen did it with his nightstick, but if you ask me, Daddy probably did it himself bringing in the luggage.

  I told him he’d never be able to match the color of your wall. But he insists he can. He says he has Picasso’s eye for color. Ha! This from a man who can’t tell his black socks from his blue.

  Love from,

  Mom

  Chapter 8

  I foolishly checked my e-mails the next morning on my way back from the breakfast buffet. And now my scrambled eggs were curdling in my tummy at the thought of Daddy running amok at Universal Studios. I’d be lucky if they ever let me in again.

  Things didn’t get much better when I ran into Samoa down in the Dungeon Deck.

  “Hey, Samoa,” I called out as he wheeled his supply cart along the corridor.

  “Good morning, Ms. Austen. How are you today?”

  “Fine. Great. Only I’d be a lot better if I had a pillow to sleep on. Didn’t you get my note?”

  “Yes, Samoa get note.”

  He smiled broadly, exposing several gold fillings.

  “So?” I said. “There’s a pillow missing from my cabin.”

  “Pillow not missing. Samoa has it.”

  “What are you doing with it?”

  “Samoa likes sleeping with two pillows,” he said, gracing me with another gold-laced grin. “Much more comfy.”

  Well, of all the colossal gall!

  “I happen to like sleeping with one pillow,” I pointed out, “and I don’t have it.”

  “You have pillow in cabin. Old and lumpy. But you have one.”

  “Actually, my cat’s using that one. So you need to bring me another,” I said, shooting him the sternest look in my repertoire.

  “Ah, yes. Your cat. We don’t want anyone finding out about kitty in cabin and locking her in dark, cold cage, do we?”

  Damn. He was playing the blackmail card again.

  “No,” I replied glumly.

  “So Samoa keeps pillow,” he grinned, “and everybody’s happy!”

  I knew where I wanted to shove that pillow right then.

  “How you coming along with my book?”

  “It’s coming, Samoa. It’s coming.”

  Grinding my teeth in frustration, I stomped back to my cabin, where I found Prozac snoring on the dratted pillow, having polished off a plate of baked ham I’d brought her earlier for breakfast.

  I was so darn steamed with Samoa, I couldn’t bring myself to work on his god-awful manuscript. Instead, I grabbed a tube of sun block and spent the next hour up on the pool deck doing crossword puzzles.

  Heaven. Absolute heaven.

  But like all good things it came to an end. At 9:45 I filled in a five-letter word for “devious devil” (no, it wasn’t “Samoa”) and put down my pencil.

  It was time for my class.

  When I showed up at my restaurant classroom, I was dismayed to see that my star pupils, Nancy and David, had gone AWOL. Drat. My anniversary couple were the only ones who’d expressed an actual interest in writing. How was I
going to make it through the hour without them?

  If only Rita, the irritating Mary Higgins Clark fanatic, had been the one to take a powder. But, no. There she was at the front table, scowling at me. Max the snorer was there too, as was Kenny, the teen slacker, his iPod still glued to his ear.

  Even Amanda the knitter had returned. I must admit I was surprised to see her.

  I thought I’d made it clear to her that I wasn’t Professor Heinmann.

  “You realize I won’t be talking about the North Pole?” I asked her.

  “That’s all right, dear,” she said, needles clacking.

  “And you still want to take the class?”

  “You have so few students,” she tsked, her eyes round with pity. “I thought I’d stay and keep you company.”

  “Mary Higgins Clark had three hundred people show up at her lecture,” Rita happily informed us.

  “So,” I said, putting a firm stop to the Mary Higgins Clark chatter, “who wants to read their essay?”

  Rita’s hand shot up.

  I nodded at her grudgingly.

  “Okay, Rita. Let’s hear it.”

  But she did not begin reading. Instead she clamped her arms across her chest and said, with no small degree of belligerence, “I looked you up on Google.”

  “Oh?”

  “And you had only one entry. About the Golden Plunger Award you won from the Los Angeles Plumbers Association.”

  “Your point being?”

  “I don’t see how the cruise line can hire a lecturer who shows up only once on Google. Mary Higgins Clark has seventeen pages on Google. That’s more than Albert Einstein,” she confided to the others.

  “So, Rita, do you have anything to read?” I asked, barely resisting the impulse to strangle her.

  “Nope.” She shrugged. “I never got around to writing anything.”

  “Well, who does have something to read?”

  I scanned the room and saw that Kenny, my teen slacker, was clutching a piece of paper. I blinked back my surprise. Had he actually put pen to paper?

  “Kenny, how about you?”

  “Okay, sure.”

  He brushed back a hunk of hair from his eyes and began reading.

  “The Scarlet Letter is this really stupid story about a lady who has to wear the letter A on her chest—I don’t get it. All she did was sleep with a married man. I mean, half the kids in my class have moms who’ve done that—”

  “Um, Kenny, you were supposed to write about a first in your life. Not a book report.”

  “Yeah, well. This is a first. First time I ever wrote a book report.”

  Hating to squash what little initiative this kid seemed to possess, I let him read the whole thing. Which turned out to be little more than a paragraph, lamenting the shortcomings of both Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ms. Tippit, his English teacher.

  “Very interesting perspective,” I commented lamely when he was through.

  Now that the ice had been broken, Max’s hand shot up.

  “I’ll read mine.”

  After a phlegm-filled clearing of his throat, he proceeded to read us a rather graphic account of his first colonoscopy, wherein he met his second wife. You may or may not be interested to learn that while the colonoscopy worked out just fine, the marriage did not.

  “Very colorful,” I said when he was finished. “Lots of vivid descriptions—maybe a little too vivid of your bowel movements—and watch out for redundant expressions like ‘fatso porker’ when describing your ex-wife.

  “Anyone else have anything to say about Max’s story?”

  I looked around, hoping that a lively discussion would ensue, but was met with a wall of silence.

  Oh, dear. There were no more stories to read. No more comments to make. The class was over ten minutes after it had begun. What the heck was I supposed to do for the next fifty minutes?

  And then a miracle happened. Just as I was ready to start lecturing on The Scarlet Letter, David and Nancy came rushing into the room in matching mauve jogging suits. Never in my life was I so happy to see two people. (Aside from Ben & Jerry, of course.)

  “Sorry we’re late,” David said. “We were busy checking the decorations for the chapel.”

  “Tonight’s the night we’re renewing our wedding vows,” Nancy chimed in, flushed with pleasure.

  “That’s wonderful!” I said. “And don’t worry about being late. You’re just in time to read us your essays.”

  “I hope they’re okay,” Nancy said.

  “I’m sure they’ll be fine.” I smiled confidently. Whatever they wrote would seem like gold compared to Max’s colonoscopy saga.

  “I’ll go first,” David said, “if that’s okay with you, honey.”

  “Of course, dear,” Nancy replied.

  He took out some papers from his jacket pocket, shook them out with a flourish, and began reading.

  “‘Our First Date.’ By David Shaw. I’ll never forget my first date with my wife. It was a warm summer night, and I borrowed my dad’s Impala to take Nancy to a drive-in movie. We saw the eight o’clock show of Rebel Without a Cause—”

  Nancy, who’d been smiling up at him lovingly, held up her hand.

  “Wait a minute, honey. It wasn’t Rebel Without a Cause. It was East of Eden.”

  “It was? That’s funny. I could’ve sworn it was Rebel Without a Cause. My mistake, sweetie.”

  He smiled at her and started reading again.

  “After the movie, we went to Mel’s Malt Shop, where we had burgers and fries.”

  “No, honey,” Nancy interrupted. “We had cherry pie à la mode.”

  A twinge of irritation began to show on David’s face.

  “Burgers, pie à la mode. What’s the difference? It was a snack, right?”

  He picked up his paper and began reading again.

  “Afterward, we drove out to—”

  But we weren’t about to learn where they went afterward.

  “How could you forget we had cherry pie à la mode?” Nancy pouted. “Why else do you think I order it every year on our anniversary?”

  “I don’t know. I thought you just liked it. Honey, let’s not nitpick. All I know is that I fell head over heels in love with you the minute I rang your doorbell and saw you standing there in your pink angora sweater and matching poodle skirt.”

  He turned to the class and beamed.

  “She was the prettiest girl in Fairfield High.”

  “Wait a minute!” Nancy said, eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t wearing a pink angora sweater and poodle skirt. I didn’t even own a poodle skirt. The only one in school who had a pink poodle skirt was Peggy Ann Martin. You fell head over heels in love with Peggy Ann!”

  David scratched his head, puzzled. “I could’ve sworn it was you.”

  Uh-oh. I didn’t like where this train was heading.

  “You see, class,” I butted in, “that’s why details are so very important in your writing. In fact, maybe this would be a good time to go over those writing tips I gave you last session.”

  But my star pupils were not about to be distracted.

  “I can’t believe I broke up with Jeffrey Muntner to go out with you,” Nancy snapped.

  “You were dating Jeffrey Muntner?” David’s eyes grew wide with disbelief. “You never told me that.”

  “Of course I did.”

  “No wonder you were so chummy with him at the reunion! I suppose you regret not sticking with him now that he’s a big time used car dealer.”

  “Well, if I’d known you were head over heels in love with Peggy Ann Martin, maybe I would have.”

  “Maybe you should have. Maybe you should call him right now.”

  “Maybe I will!”

  At this juncture, Amanda, who’d put down her knitting to watch the drama, commented to Max, “Such an interesting play! And such talented actors!”

  “Maybe we should just call off renewing our vows.” By now David was shouting. “I always thought it was a pretty silly
idea anyway. Once was enough.”

  “Now you’re telling me you didn’t even like our wedding.”

  “Not with your Uncle Ed getting drunk and falling face-first into the punch bowl, no, I didn’t!”

  “How about we go over those writing tips?” I said, trying desperately to stop the train wreck.

  But, alas, it could not be stopped.

  “And for your information,” David shouted, his face as mauve as his jogging suit, “I hate cherry pie à la mode!”

  “I want a divorce!” Nancy wailed.

  “Fine by me!”

  Omigod, their forty-year marriage was falling apart right before my eyes. All because of a writing assignment I’d given them. The next thing I knew they were storming out of the class.

  What the hell was I supposed to do now?

  “So, Rita,” I said, “why don’t you tell us some more about Mary Higgins Clark?”

  Somehow the class limped to a close.

  You’ll be pleased to know that I did not race over to the Tiki Lounge to calm my shattered nerves with a frosty margarita. No, I did the sensible thing and ordered a Bloody Mary out on the pool deck. So much healthier—the tomato juice, you know.

  I sipped it while stretched out on a deck chair, waiting for my nerve endings to stop doing the cha-cha.

  The warm sun felt good on my body, and after a while the rhythmic lap of the waves lulled me to a near naplike state. Yes, I was definitely mellowing out.

  That is, until I looked up and saw Anton striding toward me in a T-shirt and cutoffs, his nose stud glinting in the sun.

  Good lord. The man was wearing black socks with sandals. If Lance could see him, he’d go into cardiac arrest.

  Thanks to the vodka sloshing around in my veins, I didn’t have the energy to run for cover. Instead, I took a healthy slug of my Bloody Mary, hoping it would numb me to the slimy passes to come.

  But much to my relief, Anton did not come on to me.