one percent body fat? Huh!"
"Are you going to mention the thong?" Tilly asked.
I rolled my eyes and plunged on. "After nine long months of phone calls, separation anxiety, and cybersex, after an agonizing month dealing with his short-term memory loss, do you know what he finally remembers to ask me?"
Nana raised her hand. "I know, but I don't wanna spoil it for no one else."
"HE INVITES ME TO THE MICELI FAMILY REUNION NEXT MAY! Next May! It might as well be the next millennium. And why does he invite me to his family's reunion?" I gave Nana a take-it-away gesture.
She sucked on her dentures and offered a little shrug. "You're goin' a little fast for me, dear. I'm still back at the part where you done the cybersex."
I threw my hands into the air. "Because I have to meet his grandmother! It's mandatory. Before you can entertain even a fleeting thought about marrying into the Miceli family, you need to pass muster with Nonna Annunziata. And her appointment book is filled until next May because the family has grown so large. Just my luck -- Micelis are serial breeders."
Tilly thwacked her walking stick on the leg of the cot. "Old world culture, Emily. These Swiss/ German/Italians aren't the kind of people who frequent Las Vegas wedding chapels."
"I don't think they do weddings, period."
"They love weddings," Tilly corrected. "But they're also known to have engagements that last forever. Italian men don't believe in rushing into anything when they have the rest of their lives to plan the details."
"Well, I have no intention of being engaged for the rest of my life! I'm thirty years old. I have better things to do than wait for Etienne Miceli to parade me past all the relatives for their 'old world' approval. If he can't decide on his own that I'm the woman he wants to grow old with, then...then..."
I heaved an anguished sigh, feeling like a Mylar balloon with a helium deficiency. "What is it with me? All the men in the world, and I have to fall in love with an old-world European."
"You're thirty?" Bailey asked, awestruck. "I never would have guessed you were that old."
Oh, yeah. That made me feel a whole lot better.
Bailey tightened her hand around her tissue, her emotions unraveling. "This...this is the worst day of my life. You might have lost your boyfriend," she sobbed, "but I lost the man who's the head of my graduate committee. He was supposed to sign off on my dissertation! How am I supposed to finish my Ph.D. without him? I'm in debt up to my eyeteeth to pay for my education, and I could be left with nothing! No degree, no title. No nothing!"
She stuck her hand out for another tissue. Tilly obliged.
"Was Professor Smoker in good health?" I asked gently, trying to redirect the conversation. "I mean, did he suffer from vertigo, or motion sickness, or some other kind of condition that might have caused him to lose his balance and fall over a five-foot-high rail?"
Bailey removed the tissue from her face and stared at me wide-eyed. "Fall? He didn't fall. He was pushed!"
Chapter 3
"WHAT?"
Fresh tears scalded Bailey's cheeks. "It was horrible. I saw the professor struggling with someone near the aft rail. I screamed at them to stop. I yelled for help, but" -- her voice cracked -- "no one heard me! The deck was deserted! Two thousand passengers on this ship, and not one of them was within earshot to help me!"
I stared at her, too numbed to say anything but, "He was pushed?"
"He was murdered!" Her tone grew screechy as she battled a rising sob. "The...the two of them disappeared behind the bulkhead when I was running toward them. I thought I could reach him in time to help, but...I wasn't fast enough." She sucked in her breath, then let it out again in a rush of words. "By the time I reached the stern, Professor Smoker was in the water and the man who pushed him was gone!"
"Fella musta run around the other side a the deck," Nana speculated. "Did you run after 'im?"
"No! I had to help Professor Smoker. I...I ripped a life ring from its box and tossed it over the side, but" -- her face grew crimped and red as she wailed out -- "but his head had already disappeared! I couldn't see him anymore!"
She buried her face in her hands, shoulders shaking, chest heaving. I wrapped my arms around her and patted