“I suppose I shouldn’t have said that.” Odette didn’t sound the least repentant.
She stretched in her chair, then wiggled side to side to settle more comfortably. I shifted, too, easing my prepared-to-flight-or-fight-or-save-someone-from-being-thrown-overboard muscles. Petronella remained stock still, blank.
“You don’t seem too bloodied,” I said to Odette.
She chuckled. “No, I’m not.” She drew in a long, slow breath through her nose. “You might notice in this game of musical matrimony that I am the odd person out. The music ended and I had no chair. Or should I say no conjugal bed.”
Petronella made a sound like a puppy left to sleep alone for the first time.
Odette reached across me to pat her arm. “No, no, dear. Do not think I need or deserve your sympathy.”
“But you’re alone,” Petronella whined.
“When I want to be.” That glint was back in her eyes. “But you should also consider that the others still run around those chairs like demented things while I eat and drink what I want, sleep when and with whomever I want, and answer to no one, having a most relaxing cruise. You could say that I’m in the privileged position of being invulnerable to Leah’s arrows.”
“You still partner her in bridge, even after, uh…” My brain scrambled for a tactful way to say it.
“She stole my man?” She gave that a dramatic flourish that had Petronella’s eyes widening until Odette chuckled. “Ah, well no sense breaking up a successful partnership over a man, particularly a man who has aged as Wardham has. He should be the one named Ralph, don’t you think? Yes, I see you do.” She gusted a sigh. “Though that partnership might be broken up now. The bridge partnership, I mean. That would be a shame. A real shame.”
“Speaking of broken up… Ralph used to be married to Leah?”
Odette nodded, a grin at the corners of her mouth, but her eyes serious.
“And what was that about a husband of Maya’s, uh, dying?”
All signs of humor disappeared. “Yes. Bruce. Her first husband. A genuinely good man.”
Are you trying to kill this husband, too, Maya?
She sighed. “As a matter of fact, he died on this same cruise four years ago. Perhaps naturally, Maya turned to Ralph — who had been dumped by Leah days before on the same cruise — for support in the immediate aftermath. By the end of the cruise, they were a couple. As Leah and Wardham were.”
“Wow. That’s, uh, amazing.” The flicker of her grin encouraged me. “About this game of musical matrimony…?”
“Yes?” Her eyes glinted with amusement. “Do you want to know the rules? Or want to know how to get in on the game? Though, you have an unfair advantage at your age and with your bank account. Even worse, you should have a partner to start, Sheila. Not fair to contribute nothing to the pot and only take.”
I laughed along with her. “No playing for me, thank you. I wondered, though, how it started. If you’d all been cruising together for years—”
She nodded that they had been.
“—what changed?”
She lifted one shoulder. “By the time you see dominoes falling, it’s too late to know what toppled the first one. We got on in Barcelona as three couples — Leah and Ralph, Maya and Bruce, Wardham and me. We disembarked in Tampa as two new couples — Leah and Wardham, Maya and Ralph — one dead man and me. Poor Bruce.”
“How did he die?”
“Heart. He’d had issues for quite a while. Years. He’d lost weight and seemed to be doing much better… Poor Bruce,” she said again. “It was a shock, but not a surprise if you know what I mean.”
“Was there an investigation?”
“Investigation?” She sounded slightly amused, but even more uninterested. “No. Why would there be?”
I didn’t answer that directly. “What was he like? Bruce— What was his last name?”
“Froster. An r after the f. Like one who frosts a cake. He truly was sweet — no pun intended.”
“What did he do?”
“Oh, he was retired, like the rest of us. He’d been vice president of a local bank. It was eaten up by a large one, as many have been. At home, my little bank was swallowed up and the customer service went right into the sewer. You would not believe— But you don’t want to hear about rude cashiers and ruder managers.” She smiled and I wondered again what Wardham had been thinking, trading this charming woman for a harridan. “As for Bruce, he made out quite well. He refused their first buyout offer, then with old customers continuously bypassing the new regime to deal with Bruce, the higher ups increased the offer three-fold. Then he said yes. He loved to tell that story. Golden parachute, he called it. More like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But poor Bruce only had about ten years to enjoy it. He should have had much longer.”
Based on the personalities, I guessed Leah dumped Ralph for Wardham. But what if Maya’s inheritance after Bruce’s death lured Ralph from Leah’s side?
Maya inherited it all. Nothing divided as there would be in a divorce.
That was Aunt Kit’s training talking.
“Even if you didn’t notice the first domino then, you must have an idea now—”
“Leah went after Wardham, if that’s what you’re asking. He had no idea what hit him. I could almost feel sorry for him. Almost,” she repeated in a soft tone without forgiveness in it. A frown tucked between her brows. “What I go back and forth on is whether Ralph jumped free as soon as he felt the leash loosening or if Leah sensed he was pulling away and pre-empted it by grabbing Wardham.”
Another possibility involving the timing hit me. “Did the shuffling of couples start before or after Bruce died?”
She looked up quickly, sucked in a breath, then let it out slowly. “Oh, you are a sharp one. Do you know, I never once considered that. As much as I’ve contemplated what happened in those two weeks, it never occurred to me.” She regarded me with a mixture of respect and wariness.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Nonsense. You were wondering if Maya and/or Ralph got Bruce out of their way. I’d say no. I suppose you must have that kind of mind in order to write such an amazing book at such a young age.”
I sidestepped discussion of “my” literary legacy, along with what kind of mind I have. Had I always? Or had I learned to look for the suspicious possibilities from Aunt Kit?
“How did you become friends?”
She laughed lightly. “Do you mean what sort of masochist becomes friends with someone like Leah? She wasn’t like this when we all moved into the same neighborhood around the same time. Sharp, yes, but not like this.” She tipped her head. “I suppose it’s like the question of frogs in hot water and why don’t they jump out before it boils them — because it happens so gradually they don’t notice how hot it’s become. And when they do, it’s too late.”
“Leah doesn’t talk to you the way she does to the others. Most times.”
“She used to, but she wasn’t as sharp as she is now.” A shadow crossed Odette’s face. It was gone immediately. She gave a small chuckle. “When our children were young, I remember talking to my son, who was being bullied by a much larger boy. None of our parental recommendations or wisdom provided him any benefit. But one day he came in from school and looked immeasurably happier. My first thought was that bully had moved or been disciplined, but, no. Eric said — I will never forget this — that he’d learn to be the grass instead of the trampoline.”
She chuckled more, presumably at my confusion.
“I felt exactly the same way,” she said. “Eric kindly explained, saying he had watched that bully in their gym class, bouncing on the trampoline, doing tricks. When the bully tried to replicate those rudimentary tricks during recess outside, he was spectacularly unsuccessful, ending up stretched out on the grass, bellowing. Eric — truly a brilliant child — said he realized he’d been being the trampoline, giving the bully more power to bounce higher in order to do his tricks. From that moment on, he’d be the lawn, standing firm and taking away the bully’s energy, rather than feeding it.”
“You’re the lawn? Maya’s the trampoline?”
“I believe my philosopher son would say so. From our earliest acquaintance, I have endeavored to never give Leah any bounce that would let her fly higher, to do greater tricks. What many people don’t recognize is that when she is merely walking along on the grass, she can be quite a pleasant companion.”
I’d take her word for that. Out here in the Atlantic Ocean, not a lot of grass to test that theory on.
Her profound sigh, drew me back from contemplation of the ungrasslike ocean.
“I feel rather guilty about all this.”
“You? Why on earth would you feel guilty? Sounds like you were the wronged party.”
“Oh, that,” she dismissed losing a husband. “I meant the atmosphere now. We cruised together the next two years after the, ah, matrimonial rearrangement. Or should I call it matrimonial musical chairs or matrimony-go-round. Yes—” She grimaced self-deprecatingly. “—it was a trifle masochistic the first year, with the injury that recent. But it also exposed the wound to healing salt water. I am confident I healed faster because of it. The difficulty was that as I healed, Leah … became restless.”
Uh-huh. I’d bet she’d selected that last phrase after mentally deleting began looking for a fresh victim to torment.
“You can’t feel guilty because you didn’t remain a victim.”
“Oh, no. You’re right. I wouldn’t — I don’t feel guilty about that at all. But, you see, Ralph and Maya canceled cruising last year. Ralph, wisely, gave no reason, but I can only imagine it was because… Well, you’ve seen. And without them…” She sighed. “I can bear with equanimity being a fifth wheel, but a third? No. I canceled as well. Leah and Wardham cruised alone — or as a couple, I should say.
“I found to my surprise that I quite missed cruising with our group. I persuaded Ralph and Maya to come this year, convinced in my own mind that after this elapse of time, we would all have adjusted and shifted, rather than, ah, returning to old patterns.”
For a split second, I thought she’d said old partners.
My mistake. Or had I, possibly, tapped into something in her mind?
“The old pattern is for her to pick on Maya?”
She bowed her head in acknowledgement. “And for Maya to respond as she does. Group dynamics are interesting, don’t you think?”
Whether my interest was the result of people-watching training under Aunt Kit or a natural bent, I did.
“Leah doesn’t pick on you because you’re stronger,” I said bluntly.
Odette tipped her head now, considering. “She lashes out at me over bridge, so no, I don’t believe it’s completely because she consciously or unconsciously views me as stronger than Maya. I would say it’s because she believes she’s beaten me. She took Wardham, she’s won. While Maya has Ralph.”
“But Leah dumped him for Wardham.”
“Yes, she did.”
I perked up at a slight hesitation. “You don’t believe that? You think Ralph initiated the break?”
“Oh, no. I’m not saying that. Not at all. Leah went after Wardham. Leah dumped Ralph. It happened quickly, but that much is crystal clear. Though…”
Another hesitation to jump on. “Though, what?”
“It didn’t occur to me until now, with you asking these questions, but… Ralph didn’t resist when she dumped him. Which some might say showed his good sense.” Her momentary grin evaporated. “That was certain to bother Leah. She’d have expected him to be devastated. Under no circumstances could she be happy to see him recover immediately with the bereaved Maya.”
As if I heard Aunt Kit’s voice in my ear, I slowly said, “She’s more focused on the women than the men, even her husband?”
“Mmm. You might be on to something there,” Odette said admiringly, though I had a feeling I was following rather than leading this conversation. “She is very competitive. Very. Try playing bridge against her — or with her — if you want to experience that. So, yes, it could be… Not that I’m stronger, but that she considers she’s beaten me, while Maya has not been defeated. Maya is still a player because she is with Ralph.”
She sat up abruptly, patted her hands lightly on her thighs, and said, “This has all been most interesting — I can see why you are such a fine writer with your insight into people — but I must be on my way.” She flashed me a smile. “Mustn’t be late for bridge with Leah or she might become testy.”
She departed with a cheerful wave.
Testy.
Uh-huh.