Top O' the Mournin' (32 page)
“One. But like I told you, it’s award-winning.” She blew another bubble. I gritted my teeth. If she did that one more time, I’d be forced to make a finger puppet of her gum and stick it in her ear. “What I really need is an agent,” Keely confessed. “That’s part of the reason I’m on this trip. Gillian Jones’s agent is here, so I signed up for an appointment with her. I’m hoping if she reads my stuff, she’ll like it well enough to represent me. Her name’s Sylvia Root. Ever heard of her? They call her ‘the barracuda.’ High-powered. Ruthless. She’s every author’s dream. The funny thing is, she looks nothing like you’d expect. I thought I saw her in line earlier.”
She ranged her eyes over the people at the front of the line. “I don’t see her now, but she’s easy to miss. Medium height. Average weight. Hair the color of dishwater. Baggy clothes. No makeup. She kinda blends into her surroundings. You’d never guess she had
cajones
the size of Jupiter. Whoops, there’s my roommate. Gotta run. She’s supposed to take a picture of me in front of some famous pope’s tomb.”
The queue to reach St. Peter moved quickly. I kissed his little bare toe first, then pondered what other part of the statue I’d be kissing if the early Romans had worn wingtips instead of sandals. “If kissing the Blarney Stone imparts the gift of gab,” I commented when Jackie and I were through the line, “what gift do you suppose kissing St. Peter’s toe imparts?”
“I don’t know, but if you start speaking in tongues, I’m outta here.” She wiggled her finger at my lips. “You left all your lipstick on Peter’s foot.”
I scrutinized her own glossy lips. “How’d you manage not to rub any of yours off?”
“You don’t think I’d actually put my mouth where everyone else has put theirs, do you?”
I narrowed my gaze at her. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought that was the
point!”
“Hey, I got the job done! I kissed my forefinger and rubbed
that
over his toe. Which reminds me.” She dug into her shoulder bag and yanked out a small plastic bottle. “You want some hand sanitizer?”
After oohing and ahhing over the magnificence of the dome and snapping some photos of the gilded candle sconces surrounding St. Peter’s tomb, we headed back toward the entrance. “Hi, Jackie,” gushed two blonde women wearing blue Landmark Destinations name tags.
“Hi there!” Jackie replied, waving her fingers enthusiastically. “See you on the bus.”
A minute later a pony-tailed man with a trim beard and green name tag nodded at Jackie. “Ms. Thum.”
“Mr. Fox.” She nodded back.
I slanted a curious look at Jackie. “How do all these people know you?”
“It’s called networking, Emily. Isn’t that what a good travel club escort is supposed to do? Smile a lot. Be friendly. I attended the seminar last night, introduced myself to all the guests, and the dividend is”—she shot me a toothy smile—“they remember me.”
“Of
course
they remember you! You were wearing a leather bustier!”
“If you lower your voice, I’ll let you borrow it sometime.” She sidled closer to me and spoke in a whisper. “That man who just acknowledged me? He’s apparently a
real
biggie in the industry. Gabriel Fox. He’s the senior editor at Hightower and is supposed to be editing both Marla and Gillian. Boy, I wouldn’t want that job. Can you imagine the egos? Anyway, they call him the ‘book doctor.’ Isn’t that cute? If there’s anything wrong with a book, he’s the guy who’s supposed to be able to fix it. But you know what I don’t get?”
I could see the red and green umbrella of our tour leader bobbing conspicuously in the air near the front entrance. “What don’t you get?”
“All these wannabe writers are all in competition with each other, right? So how come they want to help each other so much? I mean, you should have been there last night. It was a lovefest! When a guy’s in competition with you, he stabs you in the back and steamrolls you into the pavement. When a woman’s in competition with you, she becomes your best friend! It makes no sense to me.”
“Maybe you need to boost your estrogen level.” I spied everyone in my group huddled around Duncan Lazarus and his umbrella. Even the newcomers were all in attendance. The Severid twins, Britha and Barbro, who were absolutely identical except for one characteristic, which they stubbornly refused to reveal. Holver Johnson, my high school English teacher. Anfin and Inger Amenson, owners of Windsor City’s only independent bookstore. Mom, tilted at an odd angle with my bag slung over her shoulder. OH, THANK GOD! I breathed a grateful sigh of relief. When I got close enough, I was going to grab that bag off her shoulder and not let it out of my sight for the rest of the trip, no matter
how
much she insisted on helping me.
“Estrogen, smestrogen,” Jackie sniped as she tried to keep up with me. “Women act really weird sometimes. And to think of all the money I spent to become one of you. I should demand a rebate.”
I suspected Duncan must be from the Midwest because at precisely three o’clock he stabbed his umbrella in the direction of St. Peter’s Square and led the charge out of the basilica. A wave of humanity followed him out the door, but I worried about the head count. Not everyone on the tour was from Iowa. What if someone was late getting back?
Uff da.
Was that the disaster I’d been sensing all day? Not that my luggage was going to stay missing, but that someone was going to get left behind?
Why is he walking so fast?” Jackie fretted as we emerged into blinding sunshine. “Jeez, he has old people on this tour. And young people wearing extremely sexy but
very
impractical stiletto slides.”
“Why don’t you lose the shoes? Barefoot might be easier on your feet.”
“Oh, sure. With all the pigeon poop around here? I don’t think so.” She clattered down the ramp that funneled tourists into the square and stopped short when she noticed something in the service road that flanked the ramp. She motioned to me furiously. “Emily, you’ve gotta see this.”
I scurried over. “Swiss guardsman,” I said, cringing at the idea of having to wear blue-and-gold striped balloon pants with matching doublet and spats to work every day. I knew the guard formed a small army that protected the pope, but I figured if they expected to be taken seriously by an invading force, they might need to rethink their uniforms. I mean, that’s why GI Barbie wore fatigues instead of spandex, right?
Jackie snapped a picture of the pike-holding sentry standing before his little guard house. “Emily, would you take a picture of me standing beside him? Maybe Tom can hang it up in the salon to show his clients what I’m up to these days.”
I glanced back toward the entrance of the basilica. I didn’t see any
Passion and Pasta
people lagging behind, but waiting a few minutes for stragglers probably wasn’t a bad idea. I didn’t remember seeing Keely leave with the crowd. Her red hair wasn’t exactly hard to miss. Could she still be snapping gum in front of some tomb? I could be a big help to Duncan here. In fact, if I could prevent some tour guest the agony of getting left behind, I’d be a real hero, which would kind of make up for my not attending the seminar last night and introducing myself to the immediate world.
“Okay,” I said to Jackie. “Hand over your camera.”
I kept one eye on the front of the basilica and one eye on Duncan’s umbrella as Jackie scooted down the ramp and up the service road toward the guard house. She said something to the sentry, who ignored her completely, then posed close beside him and smiled up at me. “Pizza!” she yelled.
CLICK. I listened to her camera rewind itself. “You’re out of film!” I yelled.
“You gotta take one more for insurance!” She fished inside her shoulder bag and brandished another cartridge in the air at me. “You want me to throw it to you?”
I gauged the distance between the guard house and me. Unh-oh. Not a good idea. Given her recent sex change, she probably threw like a girl. “I’ll come down and get it!”
Casting a final look behind me at the basilica, I hurried down the ramp. The rest of the group was filing helter-skelter through the nearest columns and emerging onto what looked like a street beyond, where the bus would no doubt pick us up. I jogged toward the guard house, reloaded Jackie’s camera, and snapped a shot of her standing on the other side of the guardsman.
“Thanks, Emily.” She took her camera back. “You want me to get a shot of you with Mr. Personality here?”
I waved her off. There was only one man I wanted to have my picture taken with, and he was in Switzerland.
As we hotfooted it back down the road, Jackie threw on her sunglasses and looked perplexed as she glanced around her. “Where’d everybody go?”
“Through those columns.” I pointed to our right. Jackie stopped short.
“Hold up, Emily. I wanna get one last picture of the square. Have you noticed that the square really isn’t square? Why do they call it a square if it’s an oval?”
“Jack! Come
on!
Everyone’s gone. They’re probably on the bus already!”
“Just one more shot.”
I hurried toward the shadow of Bernini’s columns and passed through the relative coolness of the roofed colon-nade, ending up on what looked like a residential street. But as I paused on the sidewalk, I noticed a minor problem.
Fifty-three people had come this way, right?
I looked left at the deserted street and sidewalk. I looked right at the deserted street and sidewalk.
So if fifty-three people had come this way, WHERE WERE THEY NOW?