September 1999
Great.
Just great.
An hour late and counting.
First the chef croaks. Now Dodee's plane is late. And when they get to the hotel, the parking lot will be full, he'll have to find a garage a million blocks away, which will charge him a fortune, and he'll get lost walking back in the cold.
Just absolutely great.
A piercing whine jerked James P. Dandy's attention from the Arrivals monitor to the big window opening onto the tarmac. A jetliner rolled by, casting a glint of winter sun off its aluminum body, followed by a small baggage truck trailing white exhaust in the frigid air.
Welcome to BWI, Baltimore-Washington International Airport.
Jim glanced around the deserted waiting area, gate D24, making sure no one was watching, then picked up a section of the Baltimore Sun abandoned on one of the seats.
A blazing banner at the top announced, Inside: Fewer Patrons Visit Baltimore County's Fantasy of Lights, but Jim's eyes focused the headline halfway down the page.
Calvin Goodknight Succumbs to Poisonous Mushrooms.
Just absolutely great.
He pulled out his reading glasses, slipped them over his ears.
Calvin Goodknight, owner and head chef of "The Good Knight's
Table," a regular on Baltimore's popular television show, "A Dash of
Thyme," and a member of the technical board of directors of the
Chef's Culinary College of Baltimore, died yesterday after ingesting
poisonous mushrooms while lunching with friends aboard his
houseboat, Chivalry. The chef had collected the golden
chanterelle mushrooms from the wild on a trip to Washington state.
While guests aboard the houseboat experienced queasy stomachs,
only Mr. Goodknight, who had the lion's portion, became violently
ill and was pronounced dead shortly after arrival at the University of
Maryland Hospital.
Jim tossed the paper back on the seat.
So who was going to run the Elderhostel program?
He pocketed his reading glasses and checked the Arrivals again to see twenty minutes had been added to her flight.
An hour and twenty minutes late and counting.
So what the hell was Calvin Goodknight doing eating poisonous mushrooms? The guy was a chef, for God's sake. And Jim was suppose to eat some of his food? He didn't think so.
Yeah, well, he knew so now that the guy was dead.
Everything was falling apart. He wouldn't be able to park in the garage. And the program chef was dead. And the knife--what about the knife?
The Elderhostel letter said he was suppose to bring a chef's knife. Hell, he didn't own a chef's knife. He had his carving knife, eight inches and razor sharp, but would it do the job?
He shouldn't have come. Stayed home, is what he should have done. Build a fire in the fireplace and let the winter float by. Instead he'd be locked up in some institutional kitchen with God-knows-who teaching the course and everyone laughing at his eight-inch carving knife.
Jim expelled a deep breath through puffed out cheeks.
Dodee Swisher.
Yeah buddy.
That was the problem.
It wasn't the plane being late, or Calvin Goodknight dying, or the knife.
It was Dodee Swisher.
He had met her on an Elderhostel in New Jersey, studying bonsai, one of a thousand different learning adventures offered throughout the world for those over fifty-five. Dodee, there with her aunt, didn't look near that old, and might not have been since spouses and companions can be younger.
They had practically been roommates then.
Would be now.
How was that going to work?
Back then Jim had been worried if his plumbing was fully functional, and together they had found out it was. Which was really great. But how was it working now, nine months later?
That was the problem.
No, the problem was, did he really like her?
Well, that was dumb. He did like her. Spoke to her a couple of times a week on the phone.
But suppose he forgot how she looked?
He straightened his new jacket, something L.L. Bean called weathered leather, bought to replace the one that he had ruined rolling around in the New Jersey surf as he battled a killer.
See, that was another thing. They had been murder suspects then, until they had solved the case. It had bound them together. If there had been a trial instead of a confession, they would have renewed that as witnesses. Now nine months had gone by.
Reality can blur into fantasy in nine months.
He had begun to think of Dodee, maybe because she taught aerobics, as a Demi Moore, except, of course, her hair was like ripened wheat, eyes blue as cornflowers, and she was about to become a grandmother. But lately he had been getting her mixed up with his image of Penny. A natural mixup with all Penny's pictures around. Thirty-five years of marriage occupied a lot of memory that had hardly dimmed in the three years since her death.
What if Dodee forgot how he looked?
He tucked a teal-colored, brushed-twill shirt into his stone washed jeans, the thirty-three inch waist a testament to working out five hours a week.
Suppose they liked each other over the phone, but couldn't stand each other in the flesh?
He took another deep breath and let it out.
Now that was the problem.
Get off on the wrong tack and it could be a loo-oong week.
Jim watched another airliner whine by the big window, felt a tap on his shoulder, and spun around.
And there she stood.
Dodee Swisher.
At five-foot-two, wearing flat shoes, she was a good ten-inches shorter than him, wheaten hair in short, loose curls, blue eyes crinkled around the edges by a shy smile.
"Hi."
She wore a pair of blue slacks, a white oxford shirt and a gold vest, and a red parka, open, with black leather patches on the shoulders, unbalanced from hefting a carry-on bag in one
hand, a pocketbook and flat sketchbook case in the other.
"How, how,"--he had to suck spit into his suddenly dry mouth to get the words out--"how did you get here?"
"I found another plane that came in sooner."
"Great. I mean, that's really great, I mean, it's great to see you." He threw out his hands. "Welcome to Maryland."
"Thank you." She gave him the shy smile again.
And he realized he had to do something: hug her, kiss her--on the cheek, the lips? What? Something?
But now.
He bent and put his arms around her, and she turned her face up to him, blue eyes inches away, a moment of hesitation as the sweet smell of her herbal perfume drew him in, and then he kissed her, on the mouth, innocent, warm, and felt her soft lips welcome him back.
And the glacier of apprehension chilling his mind started to melt away like an ice cream cone on a hot summer day.
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The novel‘s pub date is Sepetmber, 1999. There are no Reviews at this time.
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