Good Lord, how much information had the woman pried out of him when they were in line at Starbucks?
“Well, it was nice talking to you,” Mona said. “Have a wonderful trip.”
“We will,” Daddy said. As Mona walked away he said to Athena, “Isn’t it interesting how many friendly people you meet at the airport?”
“Most of the people I’ve ever met have been stressed and cranky,” she replied.
“They probably weren’t in vacation mode. Travel is different when you’re doing it because you want to and not because you have to. There’s something about travel that loosens people up.”
How many loosened-up women were they going to meet before this trip was over?
“I’m sure we’re going to make lots of new friends on this cruise,” Daddy said. He sounded terrifyingly hopeful.
Athena smiled back and sighed inwardly. This was going to be a challenge.
* * *
“This is going to be fun,” Sierra said to Sophie as they towed their carry-ons toward Gate 20 at SeaTac airport.
It was about the twentieth time she’d said it since Sierra committed to going with her. Which one of them was she trying to convince?
“Beautiful sights, happy people.”
Who had better not be traveling if they were sick.
“Elegant dinners.”
Dinner on board a ship. Sophie hoped she wouldn’t get seasick. She always got sick in the back seat of a car. She patted her little red backpack purse for reassurance. If somebody rocked the boat she was good. She had Dramamine.
But even Dramamine couldn’t guard you against food poisoning. “I hope I don’t sick,” she muttered.
“On the kind of five-star meals they’re going to serve us? Don’t worry. Anyway, if you do I’m sure they’ll have a doctor on board.”
“They don’t. I checked. But the cruise line at least has a doctor waiting at each of their ports of call.” And since those happened on a daily basis, Sophie figured she’d be okay.
Sierra gave her a teasing grin. “I’m sure you’ll manage to meet one of them. Maybe he’ll even be single. A doctor would be the perfect husband for you.”
Yes, he would. If only.
3
“Of course, Jane Austen perfectly captured the everyday life of her class and time,” Harriet said to Trevor. “I wrote a paper on it for my Women Writers of the Nineteenth Century class. But I prefer the Brontës. All that sexual repression unleashed, spilling out in such passion on the page,” she rhapsodized. “Not that Fifty Shades of Grey is lacking in passion, you know. But I like subtlety. Don’t you?”
“Oh, yeah.”
And little Harriet the nerd girl was as subtle as a charging rhino. Smart kid but not smart enough to know she was charging the wrong guy. Trevor was no cradle robber.
Even if they’d been closer in age he wouldn’t have been interested. Harriet was Wikipedia on two legs and she never shut up. A little of that went a long way and they’d passed long way an hour ago.
How on earth had he wound up assigned the seat next to her? Oh, yeah. It would have been Misty’s. Now it was his, and Harriet and propinquity were gunning for him.
“Of course,” she continued, “sometimes you have to come right out and say, ‘Ich bin heiss.’”
I am hot. And not in the sense of Open a window, please. More like, Give it to me now. One of the German phrases he did know. She was probably hoping he’d either catch on and ask, “Are you?” Or, even worse, ask her to translate. That would take them no place he wanted to go.
“Think I’ll stretch my legs,” he said, and about trampled Kurt, who was on his left, enjoying an aisle seat, in his haste to escape. He knew he should have booked himself a seat in business class instead of taking that ticket his brother had offered.
He walked to the middle of the plane and stood around by the bank of lavatories for a while, pretending to wait for one. He got in a conversation with an old lady who was going to Germany to visit her sister. He talked football with a Seattle Seahawks fan. He walked up and down the aisle a few times. If he was gone long enough Harriet would turn to good old C-average Hugh and start spouting facts at him. Harriet couldn’t abide a conversational void. She’d have to fill it.
Yep. He came back to their row of seats to find her talking at Hugh. But she had built-in radar. She turned her