The Chocolate Pirate Plot (20 page)

J
oe has this fabulous smile.

When Byron Wendt told him he could have a ride on the new yacht, that smile broke out like the sun coming out after a Lake Michigan thunderstorm. It just spread all over the place and chased every dark cloud away.

Even when he frowns, Joe is definitely the best-looking guy in west Michigan, but when he cuts loose with that smile—well, I practically have to sit on my hands to keep from grabbing him. Sometimes, naturally, I don't bother to sit on my hands, but I didn't want to shock Byron Wendt by jumping on my husband right in front of him.

So I gulped and spoke to Byron. “How come you're the one who gets to hand out the invites?”

“Another part of my errand-boy duties,” Byron said. “Is this an acceptance?”

Joe yelled his answer in true Michigan style. “You betcha!”

Byron told us to be at the front gate of Oxford Boats at seven p.m., and we assured him we would be.

Joe was still smiling. “How'd we get on the list?”

“Mr. Oxford invited a few of the local boat people.” Byron grinned almost as broadly as Joe. “I even got to invite a couple on my own. So I picked Tracy and Brenda.”

“Oh, gee!” I said. “They'll think they died and went to heaven. But why'd you pick them?”

“They've been nice to me.”

Byron pedaled off then, and I tossed out the lunch debris. “Joe,” I said, “just why do you want to go on this boat ride?”

“Boat ride? That's a pretty mundane term for an excursion on one of the most technically advanced and beautifully designed new yachts constructed anywhere in the world this year. This yacht is Arab-oil-magnate stuff.”

“I know. And I guess that's why I want to go along. I'd just like a look at the way the other half lives. But you're a real boat person. You look at it more professionally. Would you like to own a yacht like that?”

“If I did, I would have stuck with the Chicago firm. I could have bought a yacht and moored it at a marina there, then lived on it. Used it like an apartment.” Joe laughed. “Of course, the problem with that would have been that I would have had to work so hard to support my yacht that I'd never have had time to take it out on the water.”

“That kind of a yacht is pretty different from the boats you own and work on here.”

“I love my wooden boats best, Lee. But maybe it's like an architect who specializes in affordable housing going to visit a cathedral. It's interesting to look at it even if he's never going to build one.”

“The wooden boats aren't exactly affordable. They cost the earth.”

“True.” Joe came around the table and took me in his arms. “Don't worry. I'm not going to start lusting after a yacht. I'm happy with the Shepherd.” He nuzzled my ear. “As long as you go out in it with me.”

I drove back to the office feeling content once again. I love it when Joe looks happy. When we first began to see each other, he didn't look happy very often. Life had given him some hard knocks, and he had to be tough to deal with them. In those days, he usually tended to look deadpan, which was the expression he used to hide angry or frustrated feelings.

Now he frequently looked happy, and I was conceited enough to think I was part of the reason.

My life was also a lot happier with Joe in it. Yes, I was a contented woman. I put aside all thoughts of pirates and drownings and strange people who waited in ambush at Joe's dock. I had a job I loved; I had a man I loved; I lived in a town I loved. I had friends; my bills were paid; I had clothes on my back, food on the table, gas in my van. If I'd been walking, I'd have skipped.

I even thought happily of how excited Brenda and Tracy must be to have an invitation to go out on the fancy new yacht—one that might even belong to Marco! Marco! Marco!

I was laughing as I drove down our alley and parked in my reserved space. I did give that little skip—probably looking like a giraffe stumbling—as I opened the back door of TenHuis Chocolade and went into our break room.

As soon as I was inside, I heard Brenda. She was yelling. “You're just jealous!”

Brenda and Will were facing each other in the middle of the break room, nose to nose—or they would have been nose to nose if Will hadn't been so much taller than Brenda. His blond head was ducked toward her dark one. She had thrown her own head back and was meeting his stare angrily. Both of them had their fists on their hips. Their body language told it all; a serious fight was going on.

Brenda's voice was loud. “And you have no reason to be jealous!”

“Oh, no? I've spent the whole summer listening to you rave about that movie star!” Will's sneering tone turned “movie star” into an insult.

“Marco? He won't be there! It's just a boat!”

Will's answer was sarcastic. “Oh, but you'll get to see all the places he will be. The gym where he'll work out. The kitchen where the hired help will give him a snack. The main salon where the big-screen TV will play his movies! The bedroom—”

“Don't get insulting!”

“Come on, Brenda! You don't need to go on that yacht!”

“You'd go! You'd go in a minute!”

“I wouldn't go without you!”

That stopped the discussion. Mainly because it was an obvious lie. Everybody in Warner Pier was dying to get a look at the new yacht, and I couldn't think of anybody who wouldn't leave his or her grandmother's deathbed to take a ride on it, regardless of whether his or her lover or boyfriend or girlfriend or life partner could go along.

I'd been standing in the doorway, gaping, but now I realized that all the hairnet ladies who made our chocolates were also focused on the dramatic scene being played out in the break room. People were peeking around the doorway. They were craning their necks. Everyone wanted to see what was going on. I decided it was time for me to act like a boss.

“Brenda.” I used my sternest voice. “Please go back to work. Will, this is not a suitable time or place for this discussion. Please leave.”

Apparently neither of them had been aware that I'd come in. They turned toward me in surprise. Will looked defiant, and I was afraid Brenda was going to cry.

But she didn't cry. She said, “I'll go as soon as I wash my face.”

She held her chin high and walked out of the break room with more dignity than I had known she possessed. I heard the door to the restroom open and close.

Will hadn't moved. He was glaring after her. I spoke again, quietly this time. “I think you'd better go now, Will.”

“I'm sorry I yelled, Lee.”

“We'll survive. And, Will, if I were handing out invitations for the yacht outing, I'd give you one. But I didn't make up the guest list, and neither did Brenda.”

“She got invited by that stupid little pipsqueak Byron Wendt!”

I realized that Brenda had been right. Will was jealous, but not of Marco Spear. He was jealous of Byron Wimp—I mean, Wendt. Which was completely ridiculous. I almost laughed.

“Will,” I said, “goodness is sometimes rewarded.”

“What do you mean?”

“Byron told Joe and me he gave Tracy and Brenda invitations because they were nice to him. I'm sure lots of girls aren't. He's not exactly anybody's dream man.”

“Maybe not.” Will gave a deep sigh. “Girls are sure funny.”

“So are guys. Anyway, it's just an evening. Joe and I will keep an eye on Tracy and Brenda.”

“Are you two going?”

“Oh, yes. Mr. Oxford sent us an invitation, and Joe wouldn't miss it.”

“Well.” Another deep sigh. “Please tell Brenda I apologize.”

Will left by the back door.

Bless his heart. It is hard to be young. I had a miserable time being twenty.

I started for my office, but Aunt Nettie stopped me as I went through the workshop. “Lee, could you do an errand before you go back to work? We need Frangelico.”

“Sure. I'll go right now.”

I did a 180-degree turn and went back out the alley door. This wasn't a bad idea, I thought. If I was gone for a few minutes, Brenda could get her emotional act together without feeling that she had to answer to me in any way.

Frangelico is a hazelnut-flavored liqueur. Aunt Nettie uses it to make her fabulous Frangelico truffles (“a milk chocolate ball with hazelnut filling and sprinkled with tiny bits of nougat”). Those little round chocolates are among my favorites. They're right up there with Amaretto truffles (“a white chocolate ball filled with milk chocolate flavored with almond liqueur”) or Jamaican rum truffles (“the ultimate dark chocolate truffle—dark rum–flavored filling coated with dark chocolate”). Hmm. Funny how my favorites are flavored with various alcoholic beverages. Drinking alcohol is okay, but it's more fun to eat it. Anyway, after the filling's been cooked, there's very little alcoholic content in Aunt Nettie's bonbons and truffles. They're not like the liqueur-filled chocolates some chocolatiers produce.

As I went out the door, I grabbed a chocolate from the discard bin—it looked like Dutch caramel, but I discovered the inside was raspberry cream, which explained why it was in the discard bin. I headed for the Superette, Warner Pier's one supermarket. It has a liquor department.

I rushed into the store, found my way to the liquor aisle, and plucked my bottle of Frangelico from the liqueur section. It was as I was leaving that I made a big step toward solving the mystery of the pirates of Warner Pier. Of course, I didn't realize it at the time.

To get from the liquor section to the checkout, I had to go past the books and magazines. And as I did, my eye fell on a copy of that biographical publication on Marco Spear, the one that my niece, Marcia Herrera, had shown me. I smiled, because Marcia is a delightful young lady, and her devotion to a movie star was so typical of being thirteen.

Then I wondered whether it was the same magazine. If it was a different one, Marcia might like a copy. I put my bottle of Frangelico down on top of a stack of
Martha Stewart Living
magazines and picked up the Marco mag. It was called, of course,
Marco!

I leafed through it. There was a layout of photos on Marco at a series of movie premieres. Next came Marco at a rehearsal session, learning new sword-fighting routines, followed by a series of pictures of Marco with various minor actresses. Huh. I couldn't remember whether these were the same pictures Marcia had shown me. I headed for the back of the magazine. I remembered that Marcia's magazine had finished up with a layout of childhood pictures of Marco.

This one did, too, but some of the pictures weren't familiar. The magazine had school pictures of the athletic young actor—those awful mug shots that tortured us all in our grade school, middle school, and high school days. I was sure those weren't in Marcia's magazine.

And among them I found a picture of Marco at seventeen—just as plain as the rest of us, with squinty eyes and braces on his teeth.

I caught on. And I began to laugh. And I knew I couldn't tell a soul.

Except maybe Hogan. But I thought about it and decided he already knew.

I bought the magazine. If Marcia didn't want it, I did.

I headed back to the office, still chuckling. I wanted to get at least a little work done and still leave early. I didn't want to be late for my yacht trip.

When I went in the back door, I again heard Brenda. But this time she wasn't in the break room, and she wasn't yelling angrily. She was in the retail shop, and both she and Tracy were squealing.

They weren't acting like professional salespeople. I sped to the front.

“Tracy! Brenda! Settle down! You sound like a couple of piglets!”

“Lee! Lee! Look! Look!”

They were literally jumping up and down. They pulled me to the front window and pointed.

Traffic in front of the shop was busy, so busy that it had completely stopped. And there, right in front of TenHuis Chocolade, was an enormous limousine.

Tracy quit yelling. In fact, she almost whispered.

“He's really here,” she said. “It's got to be Marco.”