Top O' the Mournin' (3 page)

“I guess you’ll just have to exercise a little restraint until your money arrives, Bernice.”

“I got grandkids. Restraint won’t cut it.”

Grandkids. I understood grandkids. I wasn’t Ebenezer Scrooge. “Okay. I’ll give you the guy with the blue head and you can give me back the other three.”

She plucked the fifty from my hand and shoved the bill with the balloon-headed man at me. “That should be enough to cover your dinner. My grandkids will be real beholden to you, Emily.”

I noted the denomination of the bill. A twenty. “Wait a minute, Bernice…”

She was in full retreat toward the door. “I saw one of those automatic bank machines right around the corner from here. I hear you can get all the money you want from those things for just a minimal fee. And they’re open all the time. I’ll probably need another small loan tomorrow morning. Before the bus leaves would be nice. And I’d prefer small bills. Thanks, Emily.”

I stared openmouthed at the door. That woman! I was going to strangle her! How come she couldn’t be thoughtful, and polite, and unassuming like the other ladies in the group? How come she always tried to take unfair advantage of every situation? Nana always said there was
one
in every crowd, and Bernice was certainly the
one
in ours. UNNNH!

I returned to the bathroom sputtering to myself. I’d have to find an ATM so
I
could eat lunch tomorrow. Could I handle a financial crisis or what? I’m surprised Alan Greenspan wasn’t knocking down my door in search of fiscal advice.

I continued the search for my mousse.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
I stuck my head out of the bathroom and glared at the door. Too soon to be Alan Greenspan. Had to be Bernice. She’d probably come back for my 401K.

I stormed across the room and flung open the door. “WHAT?”

He was leaning against the doorjamb, all whipcord muscle and elegance, dressed in a black silk turtleneck and black pleated Italian pants. His hair was gloss black. His eyes were smoke blue and sultry. He gave me a lazy look up and down, then broke into a slow smile as he eyed my waist. My mouth dropped open in surprise as he hooked his forefinger through my belt loop and drew me against him. “Hello, darling,” he whispered in his French/German/Italian accent. “I’ve missed you.”

“Etienne? Oh, my God. Etienne! What are you doing here? You said you were working on a big case. You said you couldn’t get away. You said—”

“I lied.” He covered my lips with his mouth. In one lightning move he spun me around, kicked the door shut, and pressed me against the wall. His tongue entwined with mine. He wedged his knee between my thighs, parted my robe, and braced his hands on my bare hips. This is what I loved about Etienne. He really knew how to get my attention.

“I want to make love to you, Emily. Now.”

I’d been thinking about taking in the brilliant high tea in the Lord Mayor’s Lounge at half-three, but I liked this offer better.

“Okay.” I don’t believe in being coy or playing hard to get. When I fall in love with a man, I like to show it.

I yanked his turtleneck out of his pants, glided my palms up his naked spine, and sucked his tongue halfway down my throat.

Tap tap tap.
The door. Again.

I hadn’t had sex since my annulment. I wasn’t hearing anything. I dropped my hands to his waist and fumbled with his belt.

“Are you going to get that?” Etienne rasped.

“Get what?” I unhooked his belt and probed for the metal pull tab of his zipper.

“The door. Someone’s knocking.”

“I don’t hear a thing.” No pull tab. He had a button fly.
Unnnh!
I grabbed his fly front with both hands and wrenched it apart.
Ping! Ping! Ping!
Buttons flew in every direction.

Etienne stopped breathing. “Emily, darling, these are new trousers.”

“Not to worry. I have my sewing kit with me.” And, it just so happened, I’d brought Velcro.

Tap tap tap.

Etienne looked at the door. He looked at me. His police inspector’s expression reshaped his features. So much for the romantic mood. “It could be important,” he said.

Getting laid was important too. Especially after the drought I’d had. WHY were the Swiss so practical? “If it’s Bernice Zwerg, I’m not answering it.”

We shuffled toward the door in tandem. Etienne squinted through the peephole. “It’s an elderly gentleman.”

“What does he look like?”

“Short and bald.”

“That’s no help.” I was with a group of seniors. They were all short and bald. “Can you be more specific?”

“Very short. Very bald.”

Okay. If I could get rid of whoever it was, Etienne and I could recapture the mood and get down to some serious sex. Could I think on my feet, or what?

I slithered out of Etienne’s embrace, motioned him to an alcove of the room where he would be out of sight, and readjusted my bathrobe. I cracked the door an inch and peeked out. George Farkas, dressed in a tartan plaid shirt and chinos, bobbed his head in my direction and peeked in.

George had lost his leg to a Nazi land mine in ’44, his hair to a tropical infection in ’55, and his wife to another man in ’66. He never replaced the hair or the wife, but he bought a dandy new prosthetic leg a few years ago that set him back twenty thousand dollars. Probably a bargain considering how much a new wife might cost him in Medicare A and B payments alone.

I opened the door wider. “George? What can I do for you?”

“I’m sorry to bother you, Emily, but I got a problem.”

Uh-oh. The last time he had a problem, I’d had to fish his artificial leg out of Lake Lucerne while on the upper deck of a tour boat. George might have saved Europe’s butt by rescuing it from Nazi oppression in ’44, but I’d saved George’s butt by preventing his prosthesis from becoming fish bait in ’99.

“What kind of problem?” I prayed it had nothing to do with male sexual dysfunction.

“I left my traveling alarm clock at home. Do you have one you could lend me? There’s a clock radio in my room, but I can’t figure out how to set the alarm. Don’t want to screw up and be late for the bus tomorrow.”

Iowans are never late. Ever. It’s part of their genetic code. If medical science could isolate the gene and reproduce it in drug form, we could probably eliminate tardiness altogether. “You wait right there, George. I think I might be able to help you.”

I raced across the floor, gave a thumbs-up to Etienne, and riffled through my suitcase. Aha! I raced back to George and handed him the clock. “I packed an extra. I just installed a new battery in this one and it has big numbers so you don’t have to squint to see the time.”

“Don’t need to squint since my cataract surgery. I can probably see better than you. It’s because of the lens implants.” He pointed to a spot near my feet. “There’s buttons all over your carpet, Emily. You should pick ’em up before you slip.”

“I’ll do that. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you, George.” Am I good or what? Even in the throes of pre-orgasmic distress, I can be helpful and courteous. I placed my hand on the door to close it.

“Wait a minute!” I heard Jackie call from down the hall. “I need an opinion.”

Uh-oh. I’d forgotten about Jack. My breath caught somewhere in my chest as I considered this unexpected dynamic. Jack was on the tour. Etienne was on the tour. At some point in time, I’d probably have to introduce the man I love to the woman who
used
to be the man I loved. Oh, this was nice. Maybe leaping out the window from four stories up
would
be enough to kill me. Or at least keep me in a vegetative state until the tour was over.

“I want you to give me an honest opinion,” she said as she held two garments in the air. “Which do you think for my wedding night? The sheer black babydoll with the pink satin trim and matching georgette thong, or the white chiffon with the flocked velvet vine pattern and the slit up to my navel? You’re a man,” she said to George, reading his name tag. “Which one do you like, George?”

The fact that Jackie was having this conversation dressed in a leopard skin bra, string panty, and nothing else might have had some bearing on George’s inability to respond immediately. It’s hard for an old guy to be articulate when he’s collapsed against the wall and hyperventilating.

“Is he going to be all right?” Jackie asked. “Look how red his face is. Should he be breathing into a paper bag? I wish I could help out, but I don’t have any paper products with me. All I have is plastic, and I’m pretty sure plastic would suffocate him. Maybe we should try giving him an aspirin.”

“Maybe you should try roaming the hall in something other than your skivvies.” What was wrong with her? Well, other than the fact that she’d lost all spatial intelligence and no longer sported body hair. I stepped into the hall and slapped George on the back. He pounded his chest, then waved his hand toward Jackie. “The black babydoll,” he gasped out, the words barely audible. “I like that see-through stuff.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. For a wedding night I prefer the white chiffon. It seems a little more…you know…sacrificial.”

“The black,” George countered. “And if you don’t mind my saying so, young lady, your husband is one lucky man. How come all the good ones are already taken?”

“Why you sweet man,” Jackie gushed. “I might have to march over there and give you a great big kiss right on top of your little bald head.”

Not a good idea. He’d gone tachycardic just looking at her. I suspected body contact might kill him.

“Emily, honey!” called Ashley Overlock from the far end of the corridor. “Stay right there! I have things to give you.”

Aargh!
What was
with
these people and all the interruptions? I might have pulled out all my hair if it hadn’t been wrapped in a towel. My heart started to pound. Prickly warmth crawled up my neck. I watched Ashley approach in her supermodel mode, blond hair spilling over her shoulders, all confidence and efficiency. “What kinds of things?” I asked as she joined us.

“Maps. Time schedules. A more detailed itinerary of the trip. Guests like to know where they’re all going and what time they have to leave. If you’d hand these out to the Iowa people, you’d save me a whole bunch of time.” She emptied the stack of folders into my arms. “I’ve written names and room numbers on each folder. No hurry about delivering them. After you dry your hair will be fine.”

Etienne and I had engaged in brief sessions of cybersex over the past few months, but I figured the real thing would take a lot longer, so I needed to buy some time. “I usually let my hair air-dry.”

“So you can deliver them while your hair is drying, sugar. That’s even better.”

Jackie waved her two wedding night selections in the air again. “I’m taking a survey,” she said to Ashley. “Which one would you wear on the first night of your honeymoon?”

Ashley gave her one of those narrow looks women give each other when they discover the competition has thinner thighs, better makeup, and deeper cleavage. “You’re on the tour, aren’t you?”

“I certainly am. Jackie Thum. I introduced myself to you at the airport.”

“Sugar, where do you think you are? Hollywood and Vine? Y’all can’t run around the Shelbourne in your underwear. It’s not that kind of place. You want to get us all kicked out? For God’s sake, throw some clothes on and keep them on. And to answer your question, I wouldn’t be caught dead in either one of those getups. They have to be the poorest example of taste and style I ever did see.”

Jackie’s face froze with the unkindness. I guess she had to learn sometime. Women fall into two categories. The first category say mean things to your face and smile about it behind your back. The second category say mean things behind your back but smile to your face. Ashley, apparently, fell into category number one.

“You don’t like them?” Jackie’s voice was small, her enthusiasm crushed.

George cleared his throat. “I like the black one.”

Ashley pinned him to the wall with her eyes. “No one cares about your opinion.”

“Excuse me, but
I
care about his opinion,” Jackie spoke up. “If George has something to say, I’m all ears.”

Uh-oh. I could see it coming. Ashley’s gaze fluttered to the carpet. She went in for the kill. “Looks to me as if you’re all feet. What size are those things anyway? Jumbo?”

I guess this was the downside of sex changes. A surgeon might be able to get rid of your dick, but he can’t do squat about your feet.

Jackie curled her toes at the criticism, looking as if she wished she’d worn slippers. Her shoulders slumped. Her eyes welled with tears. Poor thing. She hadn’t been female long enough to gain any expertise at being snide and snotty.

George plucked a clean handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to Jackie. “Got something in your eye? Why don’t I walk you back to your room and have a look. I’m pretty good at making things better.”

The dear man. I’d kiss his little bald head myself if I could be sure it wouldn’t give him a coronary. Ashley arched an eyebrow at me when they’d gone.

“You mark my words, that woman is going to be trouble. Prancing around half naked. Titillating the old men. Flaunting what no woman should be flaunting in public. Back home in Georgia, we have a word for women like that.”