Fleur De Lies (2 page)

“Shysters,” groused Bernice. “I’m not paying to use their dang potty.”

“So what are you going to do?” asked George. “The toilet on the bus is out of order.”

“I’ll just cross my legs until we get back to the ship.”

All color drained from Margi’s face as she appeared to realize how
she might be affected by her seatmate’s threat. “Would someone
not
wearing white linen pants like to change seats with me on the bus ride back? I’ll reward you with a free bottle of hand sanitizer.” Ever since winning the grand prize in our church raffle, Margi had been wearing linen and bamboo rather than polyester and nylon, proving that a five thousand dollar gift certificate to Farm and Fleet can turn even a fashion-challenged Norwegian into a stylish clotheshorse.

While Margi lobbied to exchange her seat for one in a potentially less hazardous location, I untied the ribbon straps from around my ankles, stashed my sandals in my shoulder bag, and headed for the tidal flats, determined to investigate a gargantuan platform that was marooned on the sand like an alien spacecraft.

It was the size and shape of a tennis court and reminded me of an
above-ground pool that had collapsed and tilted. Strands of slick green
seaweed hung like dreadlocks from its concrete shell; rust bled red along
its steel reinforcing bars; algae devoured large chunks of the outer skeleton and looked to be spreading like a flesh-eating virus. Holes punctured the structure’s skin like open wounds, some no bigger than a basketball, others the size of a two-car garage. A warning was painted across the concrete in large white letters:
Access
Interdict
, followed by a word I had no trouble understanding:
Danger
. I had no idea what the thing was, but it was obviously really old, and probably linked to the slew of other odd structures that were strewn both across the beach and in a semi-circular formation farther out to sea.

I shot a picture of the leviathan with the iPhone Nana had given to me for my birthday, then with my feet slapping wetly on the rippled sand, circled around the platform to view it from the side that faced the Channel.

“I don’t care what it is or why it’s here,” drawled a honey blonde in a strapless sundress and alligator cowboy boots. “It’s just plain nasty.”

“I’m with ya, hon,” agreed a Swedish blonde in white leggings, halter top, and a wide-brimmed Western hat that was woven from straw. “If this thing washed ashore on Padre Island, we wouldn’t put it on a postcard. We’d blow it up.”

“With what? Dynamite?” The third person in the group, a platinum blonde in a sleeveless cowl neck and half boots, flipped her silky locks behind her shoulders and cocked a hip that was intimately outlined beneath skinny snakeskin jeans. “I wouldn’t need dynamite. I bet I could break that thing up into a million pieces with my AK-47.” Making a muzzle of her index finger, she sprayed a flurry of bullets into the platform with her invisible weapon, blasting it into a million imaginary chunks.

The booted blonde in the strapless dress gave her wrist a sassy flop. “AK-47s are so common. Shoot, everyone has one.” She arched her eyebrows and smiled coyly. “Did I tell you about my new sub-compact semi-automatic? It’s a Kahr P380.” She paused for effect. “And it’s
pink
!” She screamed the word, tossing her head back and doubling her fists in a shameless display of ecstasy.

“
Ewww
!” cried the blonde who’d advocated blowing up Padre
Island.

“Get
out
!” cried the blonde who’d riddled the platform with invisible bullets.

“Did y’all hear about that blue state that has a referendum to outlaw the sale of all forms of ammunition?” asked Alligator Boots. “If it passes, folks’ll still be able to stockpile as many weapons as they want, but they won’t be able to fire them. Idn’t that just criminal?”

“Is that constitutional?” asked Snakeskin Jeans, wrinkling her nose in an adorable gesture.

“Heck, no.” Western Hat puffed out her bottom lip in thought. “There’s an amendment protecting ammo, isn’t there?”

“Tenth!” threw out Alligator Boots, her expression growing serious. “That’s the one that comes after the Ninth, right?”

Western Hat coiled a strand of her long, glorious hair around her finger. “I thought the Tenth was the one that abolished alcohol.”

Snakeskin Jeans gasped. “The government abolished alcohol? No kiddin’? Even during Happy Hour?”

I suspected the trio would have to do some serious cramming to qualify for an appearance on
Jeopardy
, but they possessed a quality that was far more marketable than instant game show celebrity.

They were jaw-droppingly beautiful.

Their hair was so blonde that it looked like liquid sunshine shot through with skeins of spun gold. It cascaded around their shoulders in the kind of long, sexy waves that invited a man’s touch and roused a woman’s envy. They looked to be related by either birth or
sorority affiliation, flaunting toned muscles, even tans, and com
plexions so flawless their faces looked airbrushed. Their cheeks were tinted the perfect shade of pink; their eyelids dusted with shadow that created depth and allure; their full, collagen-injected lips so highly glossed that looking at them in direct sunlight might cause blindness. I’d noticed them aboard ship, so I knew they were part of our tour group, but this was the first time I’d seen them without a wall of men forming an impenetrable circle around them.

“Group photo, group photo!” Western Hat waved her camera above
her head, then, spotting me, brandished it in my direction. “Honey, would you mind doin’ the honors?”

Flattered to be acknowledged by the fetching threesome, I flashed
a smile that I hoped was every bit as blinding as their lip gloss. “You bet.”

Western Hat sashayed toward me in her bare feet, walking with the kind of hip swivel that could eject both joints from their sockets. I met her halfway, so dazzled by her looks, I couldn’t help staring.

She handed me her camera.

“Thanks.” I fought off a twinge of jealousy that my gene pool hadn’t included Rapunzel’s hair, spray-on leggings, and a cowboy hat worthy of a Vegas pole dancer. “Nice hat,” I said in a burst of chattiness.

“Idn’t it though?” She trailed her fingers around the brim. “I have a whole closetful back home. And they’re crushable, so I packed a slew of ’em for the trip.” She glanced at my name tag, her exquisitely plump lips curving into a smile. “Well, butter my buns and call me a biscuit.”

I didn’t normally wear a name tag, but I’d grudgingly hung one
around my neck this morning to give guests a chance to see that I was
one of them.

“You’re on our tour?” she tittered. “Shame on me for not noticin’ you sooner, sugah.”

“No problem.” If I had to fend off a crush of admirers every time I poked my head out my cabin door, I might not notice anyone else with mammary glands on the tour either.

“Hey, y’all, this is Emily. She’s on the tour with us.”

Waving. Half-hearted smiles. Quick mirror checks to remove errant particles of food from their teeth before the big photographic event.

“I’m Bobbi,” said the blonde, “and you’re a real doll to do this.”

Her guest ID indicated her full name was Bobbi Benedict, from
Corpus Christi, Texas. I couldn’t guess her age, but unlike movie stars
whose fading youth can be masked through the miracle of soft focus
camera lenses, Bobbi Benedict was even more gorgeous up close than
she was far away. As she sashayed back to join her friends for a group shot, I studied the settings on her camera and wondered how my hubby would react if I flew home as a blonde.

“Bobbi!” cried a voice from across the beach. “Dawna! Krystal! Wait up! I want to be in the picture, too!”

The woman running toward us was dressed in a skintight mini-dress that inched higher up her thighs as she raced across the tidal flats, splattering wet sand with the abandon of a child jumping into a mud puddle. Her legs pumped like pistons. Her mane of long hair whipped straight out behind her as she gained speed. Her oversized metallic handbag banged against her hip with every footfall, calling into question her choice of fashion accessories today. She was six feet tall, shaped like an hourglass, boasted the kind of beauty that most
women could acquire only through heredity or expensive plastic
surgery, and. unlike her girlfriends, was unabashedly brunette.

Her name tag identified her as Jackie Thum, and years ago, when she’d been a Broadway actor named Jack Potter, I’d been married to her.

two

“I stopped at the
souvenir shop to buy a booklet,” she choked out as she sprinted toward the platform to join the blondes.

“
Ewww
, you’re spraying gunk,” yelped Bobbi, ducking behind her companions to avoid the mud splatter.

“Cut it out!” snapped Alligator Boots as she swiped a glob of wet sand from her designer footwear.

“Sorry.” Jackie shrunk visibly beneath the unforgiving glares of the toothsome threesome. She dropped her shoulders and hung her head with proper contrition before bouncing back in a burst of excitement. “So, where do you want me?”

Snakeskin Jeans flashed a squinty look that said, “Anywhere but here,” but to Jackie’s face, she said, “You know something? I don’t think the light’s quite right anymore. So let’s just skip the photo for now and try for a better shot later.”

I focused Bobbi’s camera and captured all four of them within frame. “The light looks great to me,” I called out.

Bobbi hustled out of frame as if her feet were on fire. “I’m all in for waitin’ on the picture takin’. We can find a better backdrop than a piece of rusty old junk.”

“It’s not a piece of junk,” Jackie enthused as she whipped a booklet out of her shoulder bag. “It’s part of the artificial harbor that the British—”

“How about we saunter through some shops to see what kind of cosmetics our competitors are peddling?” Alligator Boots proposed, sending her two companions into fits of glee.

“
Ewww
!” cried Bobbi. “You think we have time?”

Snakeskin Jeans clapped her hands with excitement. “Yes! I don’t know why we’re lookin’ at all this sand anyway. It’s borin’.”

Jackie waved her booklet with the zeal of a cheerleader waving her pompoms. “But it’s one of the D-Day beach—”

“We’ve only got an hour,” interrupted Bobbi, “so we better get our tushes in gear.”

“We can skip the shop where I bought my booklet,” Jackie offered helpfully. “It’s the one directly across from the museum. They had
no
beauty products whatsoever. It was really disappointing.”

“Jackie, sugah.” Bobbi smiled sweetly. “Since you’ve already hit some of the shops, would you do me a Texas-sized favor and take some pictures of the beach so I can show the folks back home? Emily will give you my camera.” She nodded toward me before bobbing her head back and forth with abbreviated introductions. “Emily, Jackie. Jackie, Emily. And lemme tell ya, I’m happy to entrust it to another Mona Michelle rep, ’cause I know you’ll take good care of it. You wouldn’t believe what I paid for the thing.”

“Of
course
, I’ll take care of it.” Jackie splayed her hand over her chest as if pledging an oath. “I’m honored that you asked me. This is
such
an historic beach. It’s where—”

“Come
on
,” Snakeskin Jeans urged, prodding her companions with a meaningful look.

“The three of you scoot,” Jackie insisted, as if she were playing mother hen to her baby chicks. “I’ll take some pictures, and then I’ll catch up with you.”

“You’re just an ever-lovin’ doll,” Bobbi called over her shoulder as she and her friends scurried away like cockroaches escaping the glare of an overhead light. “We’ll flag you down when we see you!”

Oh, sure. Like that was going to happen.

“I won’t be long!” Jackie waved to their retreating backs before exhaling an immensely satisfied sigh. She stashed her booklet in the outside pocket of her bag, then turned to me, aflutter with anticipation. “Aren’t they the best? I mean, I’ve only known them for half a day, but we’ve already bonded like this.” She twined her middle finger around the knuckle of her highly lacquered forefinger. “The four of us are going to be best friends forever!” Clasping her hands, she steepled them against her heart like a music idol about to burst into song. “It’s so awesome being part of a clique, Emily. Overnight, I’ve become one of the beautiful people—the ones who get immediate seating in restaurants, wolf whistles from construction workers, upgrades to the exit rows on airplanes. It makes me feel
so
much better than everyone else.” She paused, her eyes suddenly narrowing with a hint of self-awareness. “Do I sound like a snob?”

“Yup.”

She arched her exquisitely waxed brows and smiled. “You’re such a kidder.” Readjusting her minidress over her hips, she struck a wistful pose, as if recalling her life before facial hair remover creams and PMS. “You know, Emily, guys are so clueless about this whole bondi
ng thing. I mean, I’m not knocking the really deep discussions I used
to have with my buds about football and beer, but it’s so much easier to bond when you’re talking about really intimate things, like eyebrow threading and breast implants. Not to toot my own horn, but if you noticed the way the girls were fawning all over me, you might have to agree that I’m taking to this bonding thing like a diva to the red carpet.”

Unwilling to break the news that her clique had just ditched her like the butt-end of a stale cigar, I forced a smile. Her gender reassignment surgery might have allowed her to become female, but she was way behind the developmental curve when it came to recognizing cold shoulders. “Yup,” I agreed. “You’re a natural.”

“Really? You’re not just saying that because you always avoid conflict and we used to sleep together?”

I crooked my mouth and held out Bobbi’s camera. “You’re going to need this if you plan on taking any pictures.”

“BE CAREFUL!” She sucked in her breath and rushed over to me.
“Bobbi might not like me anymore if you drop her high-end, state-of-the-art camera.”

“It’s a single-use disposable.”

“What?” She lifted it from my grasp as if it were a live grenade and cradled it in her palm, assessing the shiny buttons on the plastic casing. Puzzled, she turned it over in her hand. “Okay, but … it looks like a really expensive disposable.”

Jackie might be lagging behind her female counterparts on the cold shoulder graph, but she was off the chart when it came to de
nial. “Bobbi probably didn’t want to fuss with any complicated
equipment,” I said in a charitable attempt to explain away the woman’s subterfuge.

“Well, if simplicity is what she wanted, she bought the right camera, because this model only has one button.”

As Jackie got off a shot of the chalky cliffs to our west, I ranged a long look toward the seawall, eying the three blondes as they climbed the stairs to the promenade that fronted the beach. “So your new best friends are the women you wrote to me about, hunh? The reps with the highest company sales?”

“They’ve been the top income grabbers for years, so imagine their surprise when yours truly joined their ranks by outselling the gal who used to set the gold standard for the northern region. I executed quite a coup for an inconsequential upstart.”

Which might explain why the ladies were “fawning” over her so much.

In her torturous quest to find the perfect job, Jackie had quit her gig as a life coach to try her hand at something for which she was uniquely qualified: beauty consultant for the country’s largest inde
pendent cosmetic manufacturer, Mona Michelle. As a Mona Michelle
representative, she was responsible for convincing scores of average Janes that their pathetic lives could turn on a dime and explode with excitement simply by using the right foundation to match their skin tone. She threw makeup parties. She demonstrated the proper technique for applying eyeliner without poking your eye out with the liner brush. She explained the need to buy really expensive skin care products that only her company could supply. She handed out free sample-size lipsticks whose labeling attested that no animals had been harmed in the testing of this product.

And she rocked at it.

After only one year on the job, she was being rewarded for her stellar sales record with an all-expenses-paid holiday to France, which included a chance to rub shoulders with her company’s esteemed president, and an opportunity to pal around with the three other regional winners. Apparently, when her sales topped the million dollar mark, she’d be awarded the company’s highest honor—a pink Porsche with a Swarovski crystal-encrusted steering wheel, but according to her last email update, she hadn’t quite reached that pinnacle yet.

“So if you’re the regional winner from the north, what parts of the country are the other three women from, because they all sound like they’re from the same place to me.”

“You’re
so
good with accents, Emily. They
are
from the same place.
Texas!”

I cocked my head, flashing her a squinty look. “How is it geograph
ically possible that three winners from different regions of the country are from a single state?”

“Because more cosmetics are sold in Texas than in the other forty-
nine states combined, so our national map is basically an oversized map of the Lone Star State. Why do you think women in Texas look so great all the time? Two words: Mona Michelle.”

Swinging around to face the Channel, she snapped several photos of a series of boxcar-shaped structures situated about a half-mile off shore. They formed an incomplete semi-circle around the beach, like a passenger train missing some of its cars, and were so massively big, I suspected if they were covered in artificial turf, the NFL could play Sunday football on them. Angling around forty-five degrees, she took aim at another seaweed-sprouting curiosity that lay on the tidal flats like the carcass of a prehistoric sea serpent.

Click
.

“
Fini
,” she said as she dropped the camera into her bag. “Bobbi might have a bird if I use up all her film.”

“Do you have any idea what all these structures are?” I asked, wishing I’d done more research before leaving Windsor City.

“You don’t know?” She gave her hands a little pattycake clap.
“
Ewww
! I’m
so
glad you asked.”

Whipping her booklet out of the side pocket, she flipped open the cover and held it at shoulder level while the interconnected pages accordioned downward like paper dolls. “Grab the end there, would you, Em?”

I caught the tail end of the booklet before it landed in a tidal pool,
then stepped away from her, stretching the pages between us. I scanned
it from left to right. “A panoramic photograph?”

“Of the very beach we’re standing on, only it was taken in 1945, three months after D-Day.”

I looked from the photo, to the beach, back to the photo, comparing the “here and now” to the “then and there.” “Wow, this place was really humming back then.”

“Well, duh? This is where the British built their artificial harbor so ships could deliver supplies to the troops, so of course it was humming.”

The photograph depicted a moment, frozen in time, when ingenious engineers had cross-hatched the beach with floats, pontoons, and roadways, and created a working harbor farther out to sea with piers, loading docks, floating cranes, and mooring facilities that serviced ships that were anchored outside the staging area.

Jackie trailed a finger along the photo. “Once a ship’s bow doors opened up, a fleet of jeeps and trucks whisked the cargo over the floating roadways to the beach, and from there, everything headed inland. Fuel. Ammo. Tanks. Guess how long it took to empty the cargo hold of a landing ship?”

I shrugged. “Twenty-four hours?”

“Eighteen minutes. Can you believe it? I can’t even blow-dry my hair in eighteen minutes.”

“How do you know so much about World War II naval logistics?” I regarded her one-eyed. “Military History Channel?”

She arched an eyebrow and tapped a finger against her earlobe. “Grampa Potter. Did you ever meet Grampa Potter?”

I mined my memory for an image of Jack’s grandfather. “
Uhh
…
cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth? Cute lisp? Smelled like mothballs?”

Jackie frowned. “That was Gramma Potter. Grampa didn’t have a lisp. Anyway, he was a navy Seabee who actually helped build this harbor.”

“No kidding?”

“Yup. You should have heard the stories he told about how his unit blew up old merchant ships to form the breakwater out there. You wouldn’t believe the great sound effects he came up with, Em. Even with the cigar in his mouth. And you see those boxcar-shaped things? They’re made of concrete and were towed across the Channel from England to be the primary building blocks for the entire operation. Would you believe they weighed as much as six thousand tons apiece?” She regarded the photograph. “Gramps never could figure out how a six-thousand-ton concrete box could float while a four-ounce bar of Lifebuoy soap couldn’t.”

She chuckled. “Poor Gramps. The relatives used to get so tired of listening to him repeat the same stories that they’d sneak out of the room one by one. But I hung in there with him. Gramma, too. She’d just yank out her hearing aid, light up a stogie, and smile at him through a haze of cheap cigar smoke.”

“That was really sweet of you, Jack.” Even as a child, his kinder, gentler feminine side had come to the fore.

“I couldn’t leave. What if he remembered some gory details that involved shooting, stabbing, or blasting something sky high? No way was I gonna miss that.”

I rolled my eyes. “Why are guys so obsessed with loud noises and gore?”

She exhaled a long breath. “I dunno. But I have it narrowed down to either testosterone or political affiliation.” She peeked at her watch. “Are you ready to head back? I don’t want to lose track of the girls. They’re so helpless without me.” She executed a shimmy that rippled all the way down her body. “I’m their guiding force.”

After collapsing the photograph back to its original booklet size, we struck out across the sand, aiming toward the stairs that fronted the carousel. “Which home visit are you scheduled for?” Jackie asked as she dug a sheaf of papers out of her shoulder bag.

“I’m in group one.”

“Shoot.” She made a face at the information on her itinerary. “I’m in group three.”