Maggie sniffed and tried not to grin. “Of course. Let’s go.”
“Wait, I have a bon-voyage gift for you.” Karyl presented a flat gold box tied with confetti-colored strings. “Quick! Open it, and say, ‘Thank you, Karyl,’ so we can go.”
“I can’t believe you did this! Thank you so much!”
“Mags? You haven’t opened it yet.” Karyl had a knowing grin.
“Oh.” It took a moment for Maggie’s shaky fingers to remove the million or so strings and shove the top off the box. “Oh! Karyl! I can’t believe you bought this!”
“Why not?” Karyl grinned. “I got sick of watching you drool all over the window every time we went by the shop. Believe me, my motivation was strictly selfish. Do you know how embarrassing it is to watch you covet something for so long?”
Maggie held up the scarf, admiring the way the sunlight shone through the gossamer, off-white silk that sparkled from the tiny gold and silver threads. She wrapped it around her shoulders and struck a pose. “How do I look?”
“Fabulous, dahling!” Karyl accepted her grateful hug. She handed her a bulging purple bag. “I also brought a few items left over from my Boudoir Buddy party. You can check them out once you get out to sea. Now, get this stuff packed so we can vamoose!”
The BumbleBee was a disappointment, as cruise ships go. Docked between liners of monstrous proportions, it looked like the love child of the larger vessels.
Maggie glanced at the ticket information clutched in her hand. Yes, her ship was, indeed, the BumbleBee. She supposed she should have known a cruise line with a name like Cruises R Us wouldn’t have the largest of cruise ships. She took heart in the fact that her ship was equipped with all the amenities—not that she would know the difference.
A couple walked up the gangplank, arm in arm. Maggie glared at them. Didn’t they know it was a singles cruise? How stupid could they be, taking a singles cruise together?
She grimaced and shook her head, then followed them. A smallish man stood at the top, directing the passengers to check in.
She dismissed him with a casual once-over. It should be a requirement, on a singles cruise, to employ only attractive people. It only made sense, businesswise. Maybe, after the cruise, she would contact the corporate office and offer her services. Heaven knew the fledgling cruise line needed better PR.
The toothy clerk at the check-in desk seemed excited about Maggie being assigned to the Tarzan and Jane’s Lair stateroom.
Maggie frowned, negotiating the stairs while trying not to knock a fellow passenger to his or her death with her suitcase. According to the clerk, unlike most cruise ships, all the BumbleBee’s rooms were on the upper floors.
Maggie thought of the name of her room and said a little prayer for it not to mean her singles cruise was a blind-dating type of cruise. She inserted her card key and pushed open the scuffed, once-white door.
“Oh, my.” She looked at what appeared to be a tiny jungle, composed entirely of dust-encrusted, plastic foliage. A flip of what she thought was the light switch activated the pièce de résistance—jungle sounds. Very loud jungle sounds. So loud, in fact, she doubted she’d be able to converse on her cell phone. Or sleep. And where was the dang light?
She dragged in her suitcase and shut the door, throwing the bolt home. Always a good idea for women traveling alone. Patting the wall, she made cautious progress. Light became secondary. Now that her initial shock had subsided, she noticed light streaming in from a small skylight in the middle of the room as well as spilling from an open doorway on the far wall. She could see fine. But the jungle noise reverberating in her head had to stop.
Surely there had to be a volume control somewhere. Not finding one, she flipped off the switch. The control broke off in her hand.
The cacophony blared on.
A step into the room brought a definite burn to her nose. She sneezed. Her ankles itched where the dusty plants brushed against them. Everywhere, plastic plants surrounded her, their leaves furry with who knew how many years of accumulated dust. She sneezed again. Her eyes began to tear. And Karyl had made fun of her for bringing her fresh-air machine. Without it, her dust allergies would run rampant.
Finally she found the bed. At least, she thought it was the bed, since it had what appeared to be camouflage-printed sheets and pillowcases. The bed itself eerily resembled a giant coconut shell. A very tall coconut shell. She’d have to take a running start and leap into it. Maybe she could have them bring up a stool.
She giggled. The room was so hokey, it was laughable.
The gurgle of water, now rising above the call of the wild, drew her attention as she finished unpacking.
“Must be the in-suite spa they mentioned on their Web site.” She smoothed her hand over her new, beautiful scarf, carefully folded it and laid it in the top drawer of the chest of drawers disguised as a steamer trunk. She swatted at a particularly aggressive swath of mosquito netting and walked toward the sound.
There it was. Pitiful. Touted as a grotto for two, she had to ask, two what? She doubted she could fit in there without folding her knees to her chest. A glance at the trickling “waterfall” told her where she’d be showering. A peek behind the surrounding plastic leaves revealed a tiny sink and toilet.
She flipped open her cell and punched a button.
“Karyl, you are not going to believe this.”
3
Maggie sniffed and wiped her nose with the tissue stuck in the belt of her once-white slacks and tried to rinse the grime from the washcloth. Sweat trickled between her breasts, making her wish she had never invested in the new instant-cleavage-enhancer model. A lot of good it did her.
Hunched over the miniscule sink, she rubbed at the dust-streaked terry held under a flow of water one step above trickle status. When it became obvious that most of the dust was embedded for eternity, she twisted the little pointed knobs to turn off the water and made her way back into the living quarters to resume her cleaning, careful to avoid poking her eye out on the colorful beak of a stuffed bird next to the “grotto.”
An hour later, she stretched and rubbed the small of her back while she looked around at her progress. All one and a half plastic bushes of backbreaking progress.
“This won’t do.”
She walked to the wooden box housing the phone and called the concierge.
Ten long minutes later, a timid knock sounded. She fought her way through the vinyl, slid back the bolt and opened the door.
The small man from the deck stood all but quivering in the hall, his clipboard clutched to his scrawny chest.
“Ms. Hamilton?” he called above the jungle sounds, “I’m Otto, the purser. Front desk said you had a complaint?”
“Yes, Otto, I certainly do!” she shouted back and motioned him inside. “Come in.”
Just when she wondered if she’d have to resort to dragging him bodily into her suite, he stepped across the threshold.
She waved her hand in the direction of her personal jungle. “I’m afraid this just won’t do. I feel like I need a machete to even find my bed! Plus, I’m very allergic to dust.” She pointed at one particularly fuzzy example, in case he failed to notice. “And the noise is, well, you can hear for yourself. I need to change rooms.”
The poor man seemed to cower. “I—I’m afraid that’s just not possible, M—Ms. Hamilton. All the other books are roomed.” He