I consciously closed my mouth.
Odette displayed no discomfort. She showed every indication of fulfilling a mundane social task she’d fulfilled thousands of times, always with grace.
Humor lighted her eyes as she added, “We’re also bridge partners. Leah and I. Not Wardham and I.” The lines at the corners of her eyes deepened. “And certainly not Wardham and Leah.”
Wardham chuckled. “I’m a terrible bridge player,” he confided to me.
“You wouldn’t be if you paid attention,” Leah said. But most of her attention was on me. Her eyes narrowed and her forehead wrinkled in the trying-to-remember-if-you’re-somebody expression I’d met far frequently in the past few years than in the heady beginning of Abandon All’s fame.
I returned the look with an innocuous smile.
“Do I know you?” she demanded.
I stifled the smart-ass remarks about having no idea who she might know or think she knew and settled for a firm but pleasant, “No.”
“You look familiar.”
Odette’s lips parted. I flicked a look at her. Her lips closed.
“I have that kind of face,” I said cheerfully. “For some reason I always remind people of someone else. Seems to happen particularly frequently on cruises. You’re not the first one. In fact, you’d bring up the rear of a very long line.”
I said that with good humor and lightly.
Still, her frown deepened into a scowl.
Uh-huh. This woman did not cotton to the idea of not being original or coming in behind many others.
“Hello,” I said brightly, concentrating my smile on Wardham, which he returned.
Leah gave a brief nod.
“Wardham, we’ll sit down the row until my preferred spot opens.”
Maya made a muffled sound. Ralph reached over and covered both her hands with one of his.
Maya seemed to shrink further as Leah pointed with her cane down the row.
“Spread my towel here, Wardham. Don’t forget the clips. And you sit there.” Her arrangement would have Leah looking toward Maya any time she addressed Wardham. And she wasn’t done. “Take that chair, Odette.”
That would put Odette on the Maya-Ralph side of Wardham. If Leah talked with Wardham or Odette, all her comments would arrow right at Maya.
Ralph, too, of course.
I zeroed in on the effect on Maya, almost forgetting Ralph, because she was more reactive.
“I’ll sit here and talk with Sheila awhile.” Odette gracefully dropped into the deck chair on the side closer to the door. Making me turn my back on whatever happened between those two couples.
An accident? Or deliberate?
“Have you and your friend acquainted yourself with the ship?” she asked me.
“Yes. My friend’s, uh, off exploring on her own.”
Under Aunt Kit’s tutelage, I’d learned to carry on one conversation while eavesdropping on another. A vital skill for using people-watching to build characters, she said.
The others were also talking. Leah’s voice was the only one that came through clearly enough to catch more than snatches and tone.
“…making herself ridiculous with her bleating and crying…”
Maya made a sound that I suspected Leah would call bleating.
Leah continued, “…self-centered, childish, who…”
Ralph rumbled in, so I guessed that description was directed at Maya.
Odette was saying with seeming delight, “I am familiar with this ship already. We sailed on the Diversion two and three years ago and would have last year except—” She hesitated an instant. “—something came up.”
Leah said, “…after seeing what Bruce put up with year after year…”
“Do you and your, uh, friends always cruise together?”
“…think he’d have better sense, but…”
“Always.” Odette’s voice dropped. “Until last year—”
She broke off as a cloud covered the sun.
I turned from Odette and saw it wasn’t a cloud. It was Petronella. Okay, kind of a cloud.
I was impressed and grateful she’d moved silently as a cloud and avoided clanging the door.
I introduced them. Petronella barely appeared to hear Odette’s “Have you enjoyed exploring the ship?”
“I’m sorry, Sheila, they say the internet won’t be turned on for at least a few more hours.”
“All right.” It was better than all right, but I didn’t want to celebrate, I wanted her to stop talking to let me hear Leah and the others.
“I know your assistant wanted you connected to the internet right away so she could contact you.”
That was a large part of why it was all right with me if the internet stayed out for the duration.
“How nice of you to look out for Sheila like this,” Odette said.
“It’s the least I can do.” Petronella launched into another gratitude monologue.
I hated those anyhow, but particularly since as long as she talked, I missed what was going on down the row of deck chairs.
Until a chair scraping on the deck quieted Petronella and gave me an excuse to turn.
Maya shouted, “I can’t take anymore.”
She scrambled ungracefully out of her chair, trying to gather her belongings into the wide mouth of a bag that kept closing on her. Her visor flipped onto Ralph’s knee. He calmly handed it to her, talking low enough that the words weren’t decipherable, though the tone was don’t let her get to you.
Clearly, too late. Possibly by years.
“Oh, dear,” Odette murmured with a sigh. “We haven’t even left port yet.”