Page 5 of Love Overboard
“If we can get Althea here.” Emily grabbed the walkie-talkie and raised it to her mouth. “Althea Jones, report to headquarters ASAP. Right now!”
Twenty long minutes later, Althea’s voice sang out in the corridor. Emily opened the door and waited with pursed lips as the substantial girth of the sassy seventy-two-year-old New Orleans native entered the cabin.
“Gonna lay down my burrrrr-dens,” Althea crooned.
“Your chronic tardiness is a burden,” Emily said.
“I take it you won today.” Gerry slipped off her reading glasses and closed her book.
“Two hundred smackers.” Althea waved the crisp twenties like a fan. “I cinched the deal with two fat ladies.”
“I hope you didn’t call them obese to their face,” Daisy said.
“It’s not a ‘them.’ It’s bingo slang. Number eighty-eight. We call that ‘two fat ladies.’ I’m hardly qualified to fuss about weight.”
Daisy changed her spot to the chair in front of the desk, and Althea settled on the loveseat. She folded her winnings and stuck them in the tight pocket stretched across one of her wide, beignet-loving hips.
“Can we please get started?” Emily struggled to keep her tone even.
“Emily, baby.” Althea took out a compact and powdered her nose. Her bronzed Creole skin contained fewer wrinkles than a woman half her age. “What’s the commotion? You sound like someone set your Spanx on fire.”
“I already burned that elastic torture device years ago.”
“Ladies.” Daisy withdrew a handkerchief from her purse and touched it to both nostrils. “Can we please refrain from public discussions ofunderwear?” She whispered the last word and shook her refined head, her chin-length hair swinging in disapproval.
Gerry readjusted her lanky frame in the narrow sitting area. “It would have been better if you used the termknickers, Althea.”
Emily poured herself a glass of water, trying to calm her impatience. They were just warming up, and there was no way to focus the girls until they finished clowning around.
Althea laughed and slapped her knee. “Since you were a librarian all those years, I bet you memorized a ton of words we could use.”
“Yes, indeed.” Gerry nodded as she pushed an errant bobby pin into the salt-and-pepper bun on the top of her head. “Lingerie, drawers, unmentionables, skivvies.”
With each new synonym, Althea chortled, and Daisy reared back as if she might faint. Gerry paused between undergarments to take a breath.
Emily clunked the glass down and interrupted the laundry list. “We don’t have time for your ribbing, Gerry. There’s a breakthrough in the Lacey case.”
The unmentionables chatter came to an abrupt halt.
“Do tell.” Daisy sat straighter. “Are things finally rolling with her and Ricardo?”
“Forget him.” Emily paced in the cramped space between their legs with her hands clasped behind her. “We need to recalibrate our sights to Jonathan King, the new cruise director.”
“What happened to the old one?” Gerry dropped her book on the side table.
“Irrelevant. Let’s find out everything we can about Jon. All I gathered is his name and that he worked with Lacey a few years ago. This will mean a whole new round of research—his background, likes and dislikes, temperament, spiritual status, the works.”
Daisy’s nose scrunched at the whiff of more paperwork. “We agreed to match Lacey with Ricardo, the pastry chef. Can’t we stick with him? Why is the cruise director a better choice?”
Emily walked to a long piece of paper stretched from one end of the cabin wall to the other and then motioned to the index of every male crew member on the MSBuckingham. The other three stared at the chart with the pluses or minuses next to each name.
“Lacey is our most unwilling client to date. She’s sharp as a tack and evades every attempt to match her. We spent an entire Caribbean cruise choosing a man to set her up with.”
“Yes, so why rock the boat now?” Gerry asked.
“I still say that surgeon from N’Orlins was a good option.” Althea moved to the empty chair closest to the list and squinted. No matter how nearsighted she got, she refused to wear glasses.
“She’s not allowed to date passengers.” Gerry returned her spectacles to their skinny perch. “How many times must I remind you?”
