Missing Susan

Similar responses to menu prices in Edinburgh had caused Cameron to remark that after only eight weeks in residence, she was out-Scottishing the Scots. Elizabeth replied that it was culture shock, and began muttering threats about CARE packages whenever she went out shopping.

“Anyway,” she said, turning her back on the metaphorical golden arches, “the last thing I want to eat in Britain is American food. I’ll go back to the cafeteria and have tea and scones.”

The return trek to the upstairs restaurant took longer than it should have, because the hallway led past Elizabeth’s main weakness: a row of gift shops. Her cousin Geoffrey liked to remark that had Elizabeth been aboard the Titanic, she would have checked the gift shop for a Going Out of Business Sale before proceeding to the lifeboat. She glanced at an enticing window display of Beefeater teddy bears and scenic linen towels. It wouldn’t hurt to browse for a little while, she thought. It’s not as if I’m short of time.

Once inside she went straight to the postcard rack, assuring herself that she was only looking, because it would be stupid to buy postcards in the airport on the first day of a three-week tour. Well, maybe just a couple, to give herself a head start on correspondence. There didn’t seem to be much point in attempting to correspond with Cameron, who would be at sea for five more weeks, annoying the seals of the north Atlantic. “Perhaps you could toss a note in a Guinness bottle into the sea at Land’s End,” he’d suggested, when she brought up the subject of writing. To which she replied that there’d be enough Guinness bottles aboard the research vessel without her contributing to the supply.

With Cameron incommunicado, the list of correspondents dwindled to her parents, her brother Bill, her insufferable cousin Geoffrey, and her new in-laws. She was searching the postcard rack for cards suitably impertinent for Bill and Geoffrey, when a tall young woman beside her picked up a postcard portrait of Princess Diana and said, “Back in the States we have a mystery writer who looks just like her!”

Elizabeth was unable to think of a reply to this gambit, and she wasn’t entirely sure that this total stranger was addressing her. (There is nothing worse than replying to a stranger’s pleasantry, only to discover that the intended recipient of the remark is the person standing directly behind you.)

She smiled vaguely to indicate polite disinterest, then went back to studying the postcards.

“You’re American, aren’t you?” the woman persisted.

Elizabeth, suspecting insult, longed to reply in the negative, but such an accusation is difficult to deny with a Virginia accent. She took a long look at her interrogator. The woman was the personification of Cheerleader: shoulder-length blonde hair, trim figure, and a perky beauty-pageant smile. Just the sort of person that Elizabeth wished the Japanese would hunt, instead of whales. She summoned up a chilling smile. “I’m from Virginia. How did you guess?”

The woman shrugged. “You just look American, I guess. Anyway, you’re wearing a fairystone necklace, and you can only get them in Virginia. They’re a natural crystal formation, right? Only found in the mountains. I know because I traveled the Blue Ridge Parkway with my parents when I was twelve.”

“Good detective work,” said Elizabeth grudgingly, fingering her staurolite necklace. She made a mental note to give fairystones to every British woman she knew next Christmas. (Take that, Sherlock!)

“I guess some of it rubbed off,” came the complacent reply. “I read a lot of murder mysteries.”

Elizabeth stared at her and at last the penny dropped. (Or, at the current exchange rate, two cents did.) “Are you, by any chance, with the murder mystery tour that’s meeting here this afternoon?”

“That’s right!” said the woman, beaming. “My name is Susan Cohen. Are you on it, too?”

Elizabeth nodded slowly. “Elizabeth MacPherson,” she said, withholding her title in a rare gesture of modesty. “Where are you from?”

“Minneapolis,” said Susan eagerly. “Have you ever been there? It’s in the Midwest, but it isn’t at all provincial like the coastal people think it is. It’s the most gorgeous city in the world.”

Elizabeth managed to refrain from asking why Susan had bothered to leave this Shangri-la for a mere excursion to England. “I’m from Virginia originally,” she said, “but I just got married in July, so now I live in Edinburgh. For a while, at least. We’re still negotiating careers.”

Susan looked around. “But your husband didn’t come on the tour?”

“No,” said Elizabeth. “He had better fish to fry.” She explained about the oceangoing expedition, and the six- week separation that she decided to fill with a package tour. She looked appraisingly at the youthful Susan. “So I’m not man-hunting or anything on this trip. In fact I was sure that everyone else on this tour was going to be much older than I.”

“I expect they will be,” said Susan Cohen complacently. “After all, we can’t all be heiresses.”

We all are so far, thought Elizabeth, mindful of the receipt of her great-aunt Augusta’s money which came to her upon her marriage. She didn’t think it was a topic you ought to broach with strangers in an airport, though. “I was just going to get some tea,” she said.

“Great!” said Susan, cheerfully abandoning the postcards. “The airline breakfast was lousy. The French toast tasted like they made it with Play-Doh. I’m going to write a letter of complaint to the airline.”

They started off together down the hall, dodging baggage-laden passengers. “It sounds like a very interesting tour, doesn’t it?” said Elizabeth.

“The perfect combination,” Susan agreed. “I just love England, and I love mysteries. My uncle Aaron says that my house will probably collapse under the weight of all the books I have. See, I used to read all the time. I mean all the time. I was an only child, you know, and I didn’t have a lot of friends.” She laughed. “I guess I was kind of an ugly duckling.”

Whereas now you are a nonstop parrot, thought Elizabeth. But, she had to admit, a pretty one. Aloud she said, “You seem to have made a satisfactory transition to swandom.”

“I know. Isn’t it amazing? After Grandpa Benjie died and left me a fortune, one of the girls down at the library where I worked-her name was Claire, and she was the children’s librarian-anyway, Claire said, ‘If I were you, I’d take some of that money and become gorgeous.’ And I thought to myself, ‘Well, why not?’ Because in Minnesota, even though it’s cold for a lot of the year, we have gyms and health clubs, so there’s really no excuse not to exercise.” She looked appraisingly at Elizabeth. “I suppose you haven’t found any gyms yet in Edinburgh? Anyhow, I’d never bothered before, because I went to an all-girls’ college, and I was so shy and all, that there really didn’t seem to be any point in it. But about a year ago, after Grandpa Benjie left me his money, I could afford to quit my library job…”

By this time they had found the cafeteria, selected their tea and scones, and paid for them, found a table and settled in for elevenses, during the course of which Susan had recited her biography without pausing for breath. Three weeks, Elizabeth kept thinking. Three weeks. “Look at this passport picture,” said Susan triumphantly. “It stops them cold in customs.”

Dutifully, Elizabeth accepted the blue passport booklet, and turned to look at Susan’s photograph. “This is you?” she blurted out. Sure enough, the identification page said Susan Cohen, 420 North Fifth Street, Minneapolis, but the face that looked back from the passport was a round-faced woman with short mouse-brown hair and thick horn-rimmed glasses balanced on a Roman nose. Her protruding front teeth made her look like an intellectual beaver. Elizabeth could see why the photo gave the immigration people pause. The Susan Cohen who sat across the table from her wolfing down a scone bore little resemblance to the dumpling girl in the passport. “That’s quite a change,” she murmured, handing it back.

“I know. Isn’t money wonderful? I went to a dear old plastic surgeon in Long Beach. My doctor recommended him. He’s a friend of the family. I’ve always called him Uncle Bob, and he told me to go to this friend of his up the coast. Anyhow, I went to see him for a consultation. He took this computer thingamabob and scanned in a picture of me, and then he adjusted the machine to show me various changes that we could make. Noses, jawline, everything! Do you like this nose? It’s Katharine Hepburn’s. After that, I had my teeth fixed, and I went to one of those fat farms, and got a wardrobe consultant, and now I’m perfect.”

“How amusing for you,” said Elizabeth, who had heard that the Queen said that to people who were being completely obnoxious.

The sarcasm was lost on her table partner. “I suppose so,” said Susan. “If you can afford it, you ought to give it a try. I think they all did a nice job on me, but I’m not sure what to do next. It’s not like I want to be an actress or anything. And I don’t need a job. I mean, sometimes I say to myself: what’s the point? But you know what? People are nicer to you if you’re pretty. Isn’t that weird? It seems so unfair, doesn’t it?”

Elizabeth managed to get a nod in edgewise.

“Actually, I haven’t exactly turned into a party girl. I guess I was too old to learn to like it. What’s the point of