G'Day to Die: A Passport to Peril Mystery - By Maddy Hunter Page 0,11
to the dark-haired man. The light-haired man is also in love with you. Every woman wants to be beautiful, but for the ones who are, it must sometimes feel like a curse.”
Ooo, I liked this guy!
“Which one will you choose?”
I sighed my frustration. “Here’s the thing, Conrad: last November I conducted a test that was supposed to resolve all my doubts about which man was the one for me, and it failed miserably.”
“Both gentlemen flunked?”
“They both passed! It proved they’re both kind, generous, wonderful people, so I’m back to dithering again. And I hate to dither, but this decision is going to affect the rest of my life, so I have to be sure.”
Conrad appeared fascinated. “I’ve never conducted a scientific test that involved human participation. What was the most difficult problem you faced?”
“Eating all the maraschino cherries they both piled onto my ice cream sundae. I get a stomachache just thinking about it.”
As the background music changed to a rollicking rendition of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” I saw my group straggle into the lounge as if their energy gauges were all registering “Empty.” They checked their watches in one collective motion, then literally sagged against each other, sucking in air. Nana gave me a limp-wristed wave before finding a chair and falling into it.
“Conrad, how would you like to meet my grandmother?” Grabbing his arm, I waltzed him across the floor, stopping in front of Nana’s chair. “Please tell me you haven’t made the rounds of all the nearby convenience stores to clean them out of household pesticide.”
She peered at me as if I’d just caught her switching my mother’s soup cans out of alphabetical order.
“Nana! If those spray cans explode, they can become biological weapons!”
She snapped her fingers to get the group’s attention. “Did anyone buy Raid?”
“Shoot,” said Dick Teig. “How come I didn’t think of that?”
“Make a list,” yelled Osmond.
“Sorry, dear. None of us thought a that. It’s a real good idea though.”
I eyed her suspiciously. “So what have all of you been doing that’s gotten you so tuckered out?”
“We done a little shoppin’.” She cupped her hand over her mouth. “And you know how tirin’ it is when the fellas are along and you gotta put up with their poutin’, whinin’, and grouchies. Your grampa only got grouchy one time when I took ’im shoppin’, then it never happened again.”
“What did you do? Drug him?”
“Nope. I left him home. Worked real good. Who’s this you got with you, dear?”
I presented Conrad front and center. “Nana, everyone, this is Conrad Carver, who will be married fifty happy years tomorrow. How about that?”
Conrad looked a little embarrassed when spontaneous applause erupted. Sketching a little bow, he held up his hand for quiet. “To be completely truthful, not all the years were happy, but we made it through the bad ones, so here we are.”
“He looks like someone,” Grace Stolee claimed. “Who does he look like?”
“He sounds like Count Dracula,” said Bernice. “Where are you from? Transylvania?”
He gave Bernice a hard look. “Poland.”
“Then how come your name isn’t a foot long and end in ‘ski’?”
He lifted his chin proudly. “I was orphaned in Hitler’s war and adopted by an American GI, so my name doesn’t end in ‘ski’; it ends in ‘ver’. Carver.”
“But your name ended in ‘ski’ before, right?”
He fired a look at Bernice that, in the movie version, would have detonated her hearing aid and caused her head to explode. “Listen closely, please. My name is Carver.”
“Wilcome, Australian Advinture travelers!” Henry leaped onto a low table that gave him a great overview of the room. “There’s punch for you here, and the kitchen is sinding up a few nibbles for you to snack on.”
We were suddenly invaded by a small army of waiters pushing food trolleys laden with oversized trays. “This is what we call ‘bush gourmet’,” Henry said expansively, “so gird your taste buds.” One of the waiters handed him a small menu that he quickly perused. “You’re in for a treat, mates. Chef Viggo has prepared smoked emu, crocodile macadamia brochettes with bush tomato chutney, bunya nuts, lemon-aspen lemoncurd, prawns fried in coconut with curried mayonnaise, handmade agnolotti filled with yabbie mousseline, baby wattle seed blini topped with cress, and baby Barramundi fish wrapped in paperbark tree sleeves and served with Kakadu plum sauce.”
A ground swell of “Mmmms” traveled around the room, fading when it reached my group, who were staring at each other in gastronomic horror. “What kind of sauce did he say?”