Alpine for You (9 page)

We unburdened her of her load, setting the parcels carefully on my bed. "I suppose you want me to help you to your room with your packages," I said coolly.

"I'm not taking them to my room. They're staying here."

I nodded as if I was following her logic. "Why are they staying here?"

"Because I don't have room for them in my suitcase."

"You're one up on me. I don't even
have
a suitcase."

"But you'll have access to Andy's coffin. Won't you?"

"What?"

"Here's the bottom line, Emily. Coffin's are pretty big, and Andy wasn't. There'll be a lot of empty space in that casket of his on the flight back to Windsor City, so I want you to cushion my clocks in there with him. Like bubblewrap. I figure the extra bulk will keep him nice and cozy so's his body won't be flopping all over the place if we run into turbulence. Louise will probably thank me. She wouldn't want him to get all banged up for the viewing."

The pain between my eyes grew worse. I regarded the mound of bags on my bed. I regarded Bernice. I forced myself to remain calm. "ARE YOU NUTS?"

She gave me a blank look, then tapped her right ear. "You need to speak up, Emily. I can't hear you."

Like I was going to fall for that again. "I have no authority to transport cuckoo clocks in Andy's coffin, Bernice. You probably need to have them shipped home."

She smiled that vacuous smile of hers. "I knew I could count on you, Emily."

"Bernice. Look at me." I enunciated very slowly. "I. CAN'T. HELP. YOU."

"Pack 'em real nice now." She headed for the door. "I paid a small fortune for those cuckoos, so I don't want anything happening to them. We shouldn't have any problem clearing Customs in Chicago. I bet they don't open coffins. And when we get home, as soon's you hear which funeral parlor Andy's going to be waked at, you let me know and I'll rush right down to pick 'em up. You're a natural at this escort business, Emily. Much better than Andy would have been."

The door closed. Nana shook her head. "She's tryin' to butter you up, dear. She actually paid you a compliment. I don't believe anyone on the planet has ever received a compliment from her before."

I stared at the packages on my bed again. "How can she afford to buy cuckoo clocks? I thought she was one step away from the poorhouse. How can she even afford to be
on
this trip?"

"When she heard who all was signed up to go, she didn't wanna miss out, so she pestered her son until he finally gave her the trip as a birthday present. He forked over a bunch a spendin' money, too. But he can afford it. He owns some big company in Ames."

"Who was she so fired up to be traveling with?"

"Me, for one. I don't wanna sound snooty, dear, but I think Bernice is a little jealous 'bout my lottery winnin's, so she needs to prove she can go anywhere I can go."

"She used to have money, didn't she? When she was modeling? What happened to it?"

Nana shrugged. "Don't know. But she's lucky to have a son generous enough to finance her holidays."

I couldn't help but wonder if the motivating factor was generosity or temporary relief from Bernice's nagging. I pressed my thumb to the bridge of my nose. "I need drugs. Ibuprofen. Acetaminophen. Aspirin. Anything."

"I never get headaches, so I didn't bring nothin' like that with me. I got Gas-X and Polident though. Will that help?"

The phone rang. I picked up the receiver. "Hello?"

"This is the front desk. Is this Ms. Andrew?"

"Yes, it is." I heard bottles clink together as Nana dumped the contents of her travel bag onto the bed.

"About your luggage..."

"Did you find it?" From behind me the sounds of rummaging, rattling, rustling.

"It appears your luggage may have been seriously misplaced, Madame."

"WHAT?"

"Well, I'll be," Nana chirped. "Did you know Dick Stolee has sleep apnea? Says here he has to wear some kinda mask at night. I wonder what he did before he got the mask? Do you s'pose poor Grace had to stay awake all night and smack him when he stopped breathin'?"

I motioned for Nana to quiet down so I could hear the desk clerk.

"In the history of our hotel, we have never had to deal with this kind of incompetence. This is a most unusual circumstance, Madame."

"A couple people have acid reflux," Nana mumbled. "Your grampa had that, too, but back then we called it heartburn. And would you lookit the people walkin' around with underactive thyroids? George Farkas. Bernice. Grace Stolee. Jane Hanson. Me."

"So what am I supposed to do until you find my suitcase? I have no clean clothes. No toothbrush." The enormity of the situation suddenly hit me. "No mascara!"

"We will do our utmost to remedy the problem, Madame. Until that time, I ask you to please bear with us."

I hung up the phone. "My suitcase has been seriously misplaced."

"Someone stole it?"

"Misplaced it. There's no crime in Switzerland."

"Here's somebody with gout," Nana marveled. "Is that still around? I thought they got rid a gout about the time they got rid a Limbo."

"You shouldn't be reading those forms, Nana. They're confidential."

"If somebody gets sick when you're not here, Emily, someone's gonna have to read them. Would you rather it be me or Bernice?"

She had a point.

"I'm sorry about your suitcase, dear, but don't let it spoil your trip. I'll be happy to share my things with you. What's mine is yours."

I winced at the green-and-red-plaid polyester pants with the elastic waist lying in her suitcase. That's what I was afraid of.

Nana was out the door before I was out of the shower the next morning. When I walked into the dining room for breakfast, I saw that even though it was still early, Nana's table was full and the Iowa contingent was here in full force. I noted only one table of Rhode Islanders. I guess Easterners had mastered the art of sleeping in better than Midwesterners.

"Is this seat taken?" I asked as I wandered to the same table I'd occupied the night before.

"Emily!" Shirley Angowski flashed me a welcoming smile. "Sit down. Join us. We were just discussing our trip to Mount Pilatus today."

The Rassmusons and Teigs nodded to me over their coffee cups. Jane Hanson waved before returning her attention to her bowl of cornflakes. I stared at Helen Teig. She obviously hadn't had enough light to apply her makeup this morning because her eyebrows were fern green. One of the hazards of keeping your eye shadow stick and eyebrow pencil in the same cosmetic bag.

"Is that Alfred Dunner?" asked Helen.

I looked over my shoulder. "Where?"

"No. Are you
wearing
Alfred Dunner? I have a top just like the one you have on, and it's an Alfred Dunner."

There were two of these tops floating around? Bad news for the sighted world.

"Sleeves are kinda short," said Dick Teig. "Are they supposed to stop at your elbows?"

Of course the sleeves were short. The top belonged to Nana. She was four-foot-ten. She had arms like a dwarf. "The hotel misplaced my suitcase, so I'm having to borrow. Nana was kind enough to lend me this Alfred Dunner creation this morning. It's her favorite." It was a polyester pullover in pale pink with teddy bears dressed in tutus dancing all over the front and back. WE LOVE OUR GRAMMA was embroidered in bold metallic floss across the front. My brother's kids had given it to her, which explained why it was her favorite. And since it
was
her favorite, how could I refuse to wear it when she'd offered it to me? I contemplated skipping Mount Pilatus this morning to run into town to buy something without teddy bears. Something sleek, black, and sexy. But I couldn't shirk my escort responsibilities, so I'd have to wait until later. I glanced past the velvet draperies to the darkness beyond. Maybe the sun would even be up by then.

"You're looking awful pale this morning," Lucille Rassmuson said to me. "Have you had a blood count taken lately? You look anemic. Or it could be leukemia. People your age get leukemia all the time."

Now there was a pleasant thought. The good news was, the day could only get better from here. I flashed a smile at Lucille. "I'm sporting the anemic look this morning because all my makeup is in my suitcase, which, let me repeat, has been misplaced."

"We'll be running a special on makeup around Christmas," Jane Hanson volunteered helpfully. "We're going to call it 'Jingle Bells Days.' Buy one product, get a second product half price. And we'll also be giving away midget lipsticks. Midgets make nice stocking stuffers."

"If I looked as bad as you do without makeup, I'd see a plastic surgeon," Lucille said to me. "They do a procedure now where they tattoo pink pigment onto your cheeks to give you a permanent rosy glow. They've been known to screw up though. One woman ended up with two red rectangles on her face. And she couldn't even tone them down with foundation. Disfigured her permanently."

Yup. I was going to rush right out and do that.

"I always pack extra makeup," said Shirley. "Why don't I pick out some things that'll match your color palette and give them to you after breakfast. I owe you that much after what you did for me the other morning."

"What did she do for you?" Helen asked.

"Emily was so sweet. After I found Andy's body, all I could do was stand there screaming hysterically in the hallway. So she calmed me down and took me to her room. And there it was only four o'clock in the morning."

Dick Rassmuson squinted across the table at Shirley. "How'd you happen to find Andy's body at four in the morning?"

"He invited me to his room. And it's a good thing, too, because he might have been rotting there a long time if I hadn't come by when I did."

A knowing look made its way around the table. "You gotta give the little guy credit." Dick Teig laughed. "He knew how to lure a woman into the sack." He toasted the chair Andy had occupied that first night at dinner, then set his coffee cup down. "Did you bring my pills, Helen?"

Helen reached into her Triangle Tour bag and placed a small plastic container on the table. It was blue and divided into compartments that were labeled with the first letter of each day of the week.

"Is that the seven-day pill caddy?" asked Lucille. "Those weekly models are so obsolete." She reached down beside her and pulled out a larger plastic container with even more compartments. "This is the deluxe model. It holds two weeks' worth of medications and the lids are easy opening, in case you're suffering from arthritis. They also give you the first
three
letters for each weekday, in case you have predementia and can't remember if the
T
stands for Tuesday or Thursday or the
S
for Saturday or Sunday. Unfortunately, it doesn't help much if you're dyslexic."

Helen lifted her green eyebrows and smiled smugly. She reached into her bag again and held up a container that was larger yet. "This is the super deluxe model. It holds a
month's
supply of medications, has easy opening lids, spells out the
entire
day on each compartment, glows in the dark, and has a timing device that buzzes an alarm to remind you to take your next dosage."

I liked the idea of the thing buzzing an alarm, although if you were carrying a cell phone, I could see where you might not know whether to answer your phone or swallow a pill and could accidentally overdose.

"It also comes in five decorator colors," Helen added. "This particular color is called--"

"Melon!" cried Shirley, as excited as a game show contestant vying for a million dollars. "It's melon. I know it's melon because I have one just like it at home. I bought a new one for the trip, though." She rummaged in her bag and whipped out a container that was the size of a jelly roll pan. "This holds a month's worth of medications, too. It has the easy opening lids, an alarm, the day printed out, glows in the dark,
plus
it has two clocks--one for local time and one for the country you're visiting--a programmable calendar, a pager, and it plays a tune from a different Broadway musical every time you open one of the compartments. It's the ultra deluxe jumbo model."

I could tell from the sour looks on their faces that neither Helen nor Lucille appreciated the fact that Shirley's was bigger. So much for the myth that size doesn't matter.

"How come you don't eat with the people you're traveling with?" Helen asked Shirley in a frosty tone.

"I know all those people. When I travel, I like to meet new people. Half the fun of traveling isn't what you see, but who you meet."

"The rest of your group must think you're a pretty odd duck," said Dick Rassmuson. "I don't see none of them trying to follow your example. They all stick together like staves on a picket fence."

"That's because they're from New England. New Englanders never mingle."

"So what's your excuse?" he asked.

"I was born in Canada. Canadians are very friendly."

"Coffee!" yelled Dick Teig, brandishing his cup in the air. "More coffee! I need something to wash these pills down."

As if on cue, everyone flipped open the lids of their daily pill reminders. From Shirley's jumbo model came the strains of "Hickory Dickory Dock, The Mouse Ran up the Clock."

"What Broadway musical is that from?" I asked.

"This one might be off-Broadway."

While the waiter poured another round of coffee for everyone, I saw the perfect opportunity do some investigative work. I knew Helen would never open up to me about her niece in front of everyone, but this seemed a good time to gauge people's reaction to the most recent Andy Simon news. "Wally told me yesterday that Louise won't be flying over here to accompany Andy's body back to Windsor City because she's on an Alaskan cruise with another man."

"Old news," said Dick Teig. "Bernice told us last night."

Bernice? How had Bernice found out?

Dick Rassmuson held up a small, round, blue pill in a show-and-tell gesture. "Esidrex," he said. "Take it for my heart condition."

No appetite suppressants for him.

Helen looked at Dick's pill, then held up a yellow one of her own. "Vasotec. Two-point-five milligrams. For my hypertension."