together again before any of the King’s men ever thought to yell, “Compost heap!” What kind of watch had he bought, besides “on sale” and “dirt cheap”?
“Do you have the instructions handy?” I asked as the seats in front of us began to empty.
“Yup, but I can’t read them.”
The inability to read the small print on manufacturers’ labels was a growing problem among seniors battling cataracts, glaucoma, and macular degeneration. Happily, I’d racked up a perfect score on my last vision test, so small print was my specialty. “My eyes are a little younger, Dick. Do you want me to take a look?”
He held the instruction sheet out to me. “Can you read Chinese?”
“My phone has an app for that!” enthused Margi. “Chinese checkers, Chinese calendar, Chinese—”
“Truth is,” Nana piped up, “fifteen minutes is cuttin’ it way too close for us, dear. We’d be so pressed for time, we’d be leavin’ by the front door and climbin’ right back on by the rear. We’d look like we was doin’ one a them Chinese fire drills.”
Margi let out a sullen breath. “I don’t have an app for that.”
I knew better than to hassle them when they were fretting over time issues. An Iowan is so genetically hardwired to be punctual that being “on time” to him means being jawdroppingly early, kind of like an early-warning smoke detector that goes off a week before the fire starts. In a recent survey asking what Iowans feared most, 99 percent of respondents said “being late.” The remaining 1 percent indicated in order of priority: having my watch stolen, breaking my watch, my alarm clock not going off, dead battery in my watch, and “Dude, none of your f-ing business.” Iowa was obviously being overrun by a flood of transplants from North Jersey.
“So what are all of you planning to do while the rest of us are oohing and ahhing over the windmill?” I squeezed past Nana into the center aisle.
“We’re going to update our status on our Facebook pages,” announced George. “If we don’t update on a regular basis, people start thinking we’re dead.”
“If you don’t start participating in the tour,
“I thought we
“Show of hands,” insisted Osmond as he rose to his feet, pen and tally sheet at the ready. “How many people are having fun?”
Heaving an exasperated sigh, I hurried down the now empty aisle, appalled that my guys had adapted to the “information age” so well that they’d become mobile-phone junkies. They were as addicted to texting and social networking as Hollywood was to Botox and breast implants. This was terrible. I needed to call Etienne. How could we plan the photo exchange we’d talked about if none of our travelers looked up from their cellphones long enough to take any?
I rushed down the stepwell to find Dietger standing by the door with his hand extended to assist me. “
Dietger was a rough-shaven Belgian with a gruff manner, wild brown hair that needed cutting, and a physique as compact as a brick port-a-potty. He smoked too much, wore horn-rimmed glasses that gave him the appearance of a sixties government employee, and looked as if he might take his morning coffee black, with a beer chaser. I’d yet to see him smile, but he had dour down to a science.
He plucked his cigarette from his mouth and waved it toward the rear of the bus. “And the others?” he snapped. “Are they coming?”
“They’re too afraid you’ll leave without them, so they’re taking preemptive measures by staying on the bus and inventing new ways to antagonize each other.”
He took a drag on his cigarette and leered at me through a haze of smoke. “You want to go to bed with me?”
I stared at him numbly. My newly updated
Opting for the old standby, I flashed my ring finger at him. “Wouldn’t you know? I’m married.”
He flashed his ring finger back at me. “So am I married. Four times. So what?”
Hmm. How could I explain monogamy to a serial adulterer in terms he wouldn’t find insulting? I mean, I had to interact with this guy for the next eight days, so I had to be careful not to generate any bad blood. If he turned out to be the vengeful type, he could break more bones with his bus than I could with my shoulder bag.
I offered him a perky smile. “Sooo … I don’t think so, but thanks so much for asking.” Scooting around the bus, I darted across the highway and onto the narrow sidewalk, falling in line behind the other guests who were making the short trek to the windmill.
Abutting the pedestrian walk was a low concrete barrier that was supposed to prevent people from falling into the canal on the opposite side, but if this was the Dutch idea of a barrier, I imagined that swimming might soon overtake skating as Holland’s favorite national sport. The windmill, a spectacular hexagonal structure with four open-grid sails that resembled giant propeller blades, was perched at the foot of the canal, surrounded by open field. The lower third of the building was sided with clapboards painted a dazzling emerald green. The upper two- thirds was overlaid with thatching so meticulously trimmed, it looked as if the building were wearing a mohair sweater.
As I scrambled to keep up, a man wearing a
Uh-oh. This wasn’t good.
Our bucolic ambience was suddenly ripped apart by the shrill blast of a whistle. “Get out of the street!” Charlotte screamed, charging into the street, arms flailing. She punished him with another earsplitting blast. “I told you to stay on the sidewalk! Are you deaf ?”
If he wasn’t before, he sure was now.
She steamrolled toward him, her expression promising a calamitous confrontation. “I said move! Do you have a death wish?”
Making no attempt to move, the man snapped a picture of the windmill before locking his sights on Charlotte, skewering her with a look so surly, it stopped her dead in her tracks.
She swayed on her heels like an off-balance Weeble wobbling back to vertical, then screwed her face into an indignant contortion that promised instant reprisal. Eyes throwing daggers at him, she stuck her whistle back in her mouth and blew with the explosive power borne of a pair of lungs bursting with hot air.
The whistle shot out of her mouth and skidded onto the street like a skipped rock, bouncing crazily over the pavement until it came to rest at the man’s feet.
Wow. Charlotte might not look like a guy, but she could sure spit like one.
The man snatched it off the ground, hefted it in his palm, and with a self-satisfied glint in his eye, hurled it unceremoniously into the canal.
“My whistle!” Charlotte cried. “You’re going to replace that, mister!”
He strode past her, leaving her red-faced and fuming as he stepped onto the sidewalk in front of me.
“You—I swear you people are going to be the death of me!” she ranted. “If you refuse to obey the rules, there
She would have continued had a motorcycle not roared down the street at just that moment, seemingly hot to lay rubber down the length of her spine. With a terrified shriek she leaped out of the way, making a megaphone of her hands to yell after him: “Maniac! You should have your license revoked! You’re a threat to all mankind! I hope you get arrested for noise pollution!”
“Cussed nuisance,” grumbled the guy in the Bar Harbor jacket, giving no indication which nuisance he found more irritating, the motorcyclist or Charlotte.
“My group is starting a movement to protest unfair treatment,” I joked as I came up behind him. “They’re actively recruiting membership if you’d like to apply.”
He stared at me as though trying to figure out who I was and why I was talking to him.
“I’m Emily.” I extended my hand in greeting. “I’m the official escort for the group at the back of the bus.”
