More Bitter Than Death: An Emma Fielding Mystery - By Dana Cameron Page 0,10
contract company he’d founded kept him digging all summer, and in the lab all winter.
“Of course I was in my underwear,” I said. “That’s what makes the story embarrassing. What about it, Chris?” I was only asking to keep Jay on tenterhooks; it was just so funny to watch, and plus, it kept him off his game. He and I played hard in our competitions over the years.
“I’m folding.” Chris threw down his cards in disgust. “I might as well still be at home, snowed in with Nell and the herd. Here,” he said, handing some bills to Jay, “make these last awhile this time, Jay-Bird.”
“I’m sure that Nell would love to hear that,” I said. “Looks like lots of folks got hit by the storm on the way in last night; I noticed the crowd seemed pretty thin. What about it, Brad?”
Bradford DuBois, occasionally known to his intimates as “Brad the Boy,” stood up, which didn’t take long. He was short, thin, brown hair curled as tight as his uptight attitude. He was one of the most phenomenally lucky archaeologists I ever met, which counts almost as much as being good, which he also was. “I’m out. Anyone want a beer? I brought low-carb.”
“Thank God!” Carla said. “Now we can get down to the serious partying.” She snorted in disgust, whether at her cards or the notion of Brad’s fake beer, no one could tell.
“I’m sorry, but can you please tell me the point of lowcarb beer?” Lissa, known only to her parents as Elizabeth Bell Vance, wiped the last of the crumbs from her place at the table onto her empty plate. “Isn’t that water? Bring me a Bass. And a glass, would you? Thanks.” Lissa was a poster child for the perfectly turned-out blond sorority sister, never a hair out of place, even when she chases bulldozers across battlefield sites in her hard hat.
“Don’t tell me you’re going all carnivorous and carbophobic on us?” Chris asked. “Weren’t you a vegetarian this time last year?”
“Now we’re totally vegan,” Brad said. “Still am. And occasionally, we go uncooked, just for good measure. I’m just watching my weight. Some of us could stand to.” He glanced meaningfully at Chris’s straining shirt buttons.
“And by doing so, with one stroke, you’ve eliminated two of man’s finest achievements: the invention of fire-on-demand and animal domestication.” Chris remained happily unconcerned with his diet and his thickening waistline. “Bring me a beer, boy!” he called in his best imitation of Hagar the Horrible. “Make it two! Real ones, none of your pallid Schweinwasser!”
The rest of us put in our orders and Brad was kept busy for a few minutes ferrying beers to us. Carla, of course, changed her mind three times about brands, and he actually obliged her twice, then finally told her to go to hell when she complained about the label coming off the last bottle.
“And may I say thank you again for rescuing me, Em?” Lissa said. “I swear, Bea Carter’s just like a big, obnoxious octopus, and once she gets you trapped, she sucks the life out of you.”
“Kinda mixing your metaphors there, aren’t ya, Lissa?” Carla said.
“You know what I mean. And Brad, thank you so much for finally, finally shaving that darn porn-star mustache of yours. You look ten years younger.”
Brad bowed, on his way back with the beers. “Francine likes me clean shaven too.”
“Anyway, who’s got dirt?” Lissa asked, after she opened her bottle and carefully poured it into a glass. As if we hadn’t heard that hoary old line a thousand times.
“No, you’re not going to do this to me!” Jay said. “Let’s play the damned game!”
Scott was right there with him: “I’m out, too, but Emma, tell me what happened! There was underwear, you left off with underwear!”
“Okay, okay,” I said. Carla and I exchanged raised eyebrows: something was up with Jay’s hand. “So I was in there cleaning the bathroom—”
“You clean the bathroom in your underwear?” Scott said.
“Naturally; how do you do it?”
“I don’t clean the bathroom,” he announced stiffly.
“Figures,” Lissa said. “Makes his poor wife Cathy do it.”
“But I’m sure she doesn’t take off…” he started, confused. Was it possible? Had he missed it? You could practically see the questions running through his mind.
“You don’t want to drag your shirt over a wet tub or toilet,” I explained, “and you just end up splashing yourself anyway, and since you’re probably going to just shower after you get done with the housework—”