Chapter 8
CHAPTER 8
F amily Group Chat:
Abbey: OMG MOM!! Dad said you found another dead body?!
Parker: Uh, correction. Dad said you CAUSED another dead body. He said you threatened the woman, too. Mom, say it ain’t so.
Trixie: It ain’t so. Although I may have threatened and found her. I promise I had nothing else to do with it.
Emerson: Another dead body? On a cruise ship? Dad, is this for real?
Ransom: Sorry to say it’s true.
Stanton: Told you kids, your mother’s a magnet for trouble. If I wasn’t so used to it, I’d be concerned. Just know that if I’m ever toes up in the morgue, you know who to point a finger at.
Trixie: Don’t start, Stanton. I was trying to mend fences with Merritt—not bury her.
Ransom: She was, I have two witnesses who can vouch for her. Trixie wanted to talk, not kill. Things escalated long before she stepped into that room.
Trixie: That’s right! Someone else was already in the room with Merritt when I walked in. I’m not naming names, but someone has some serious explaining to do.
Neelie: You think?! I’m the one that was in the room with a dead body and I CAN’T STOP SHAKING. I NEED SOMEONE TO brING ME SOME TEA OR SOMETHING.
Abbey: Dad, can you get her something hot to drink? I think she’s on the verge of a meltdown.
Stanton: She knows how to use room service. And I could use something stronger myself. I’m headed to the bar.
Parker: Mom, you’re like an episode of Dateline waiting to happen.
Emerson: I mean, she’s kind of legendary. But also, yikes.
Trixie: Not helping, guys. I really didn’t do anything. It’s just my luck.
Neelie: Your luck? What about my luck?
Trixie: True. You’re the number one suspect and you’re engaged to Stanton.
Abbey: Mother. Also, I’m just glad no one’s pointing fingers at you, Mom—at least officially. Right?
Ransom: Not officially. We’re going to need statements. Just keep cool, everyone.
Stanton: Keep cool? Easy for you to say. You don’t have Neelie wailing like a banshee next to you.
Neelie: I HEARD THAT.
Parker: This wedding cruise is going to be one for the books.
Abbey: Mom, just please try to stay out of trouble until the wedding, okay? No more dead bodies.
Trixie: I’ll do my best. But you know me—trouble always seems to find a way.
Emerson: I’m gonna need popcorn for this. It’s only day one.
Stanton: I’m going to need whiskey.
Ransom: Let’s just get through dinner without more bodies, okay? One crisis at a time.
Trixie: Agreed. And maybe someone make sure Neelie gets that tea. Or a sedative.
Second seating dinner?
Honestly, Bess, Nettie, and I always do first seating dinner, which leaves plenty of time to catch a show, hit the casino, and maybe watch a comedy act before bed—or more to the point, before we pass out. But, of course, thanks to my ridiculous ex, we missed our usual dining accommodations.
Leave it to Stanton to botch things up from the get-go. I completely blame him for poor Merritt’s death.
Poor Merritt.
Now there are two words I never thought I’d say one after another.
I can’t believe she’s gone. Sure, a part of me wanted her off the ship, but not in a body bag.
The formal dining room is just as lavish as ever, all decked out with brass accents, peach velour chairs, and pristine white linens that glisten beneath the gargantuan chandeliers overhead. In the middle of the room, there’s an ice sculpture of a dolphin surrounded by delicate-looking crabs and all the glassy flora and fauna the ocean could hope for. They switch it up every night and it’s one of my favorite parts of the formal dining experience, outside of the food, of course.
The sound of clinking glasses and laughter drifts through the room, low enough to feel almost intimate, and just above that classical music plays softly—Beethoven, “Moonlight Sonata”. I’ll admit, it sounds grim, but considering the circumstances, it fits the mood.
Bess, Nettie, and I are sharing a table with Stanton, of all people. It turns out, he showed up wanting in on the dining action, and this is the only spare table left to accommodate the castoffs from first seating.
Ransom has been doing paperwork for the last few hours, but he said he’d tried to join us, and heaven knows where Neelie is. Probably throwing herself overboard before they throw her in the pokey. She wouldn’t fare well in prison anyway.
A waiter approaches with menus in one hand and a basket of freshly baked bread in the other. And what a basket it is—warm, soft rolls, herb-dusted focaccia, and crusty French baguette slices. It’s basically a carb-laden wonderland, and after the evening we’ve had, I’m diving right in.
We put in our orders, then I tear into a piece of focaccia, and as soon as the fragrant rosemary hits my senses, I stuff it into my mouth before Stanton has a chance to open his.
He’s sitting across from me, all suited up, with a smug look on his face that says he thinks he’s charming. To my left, Bess and Nettie exchange glances while growling amongst themselves and I can tell they’re slowly working themselves up into a frenzy—a frenzy that spells trouble for Stanton.
“So”—Bess starts as she skewers Stanton with a lethal look—“how in the world did you let a catch like Trixie slip through your fingers?” She bats her lashes at him, and I nearly choke on my focaccia.
“Oh, he didn’t just let her slip away,” Nettie balks while swilling her champagne (yes, bubbly, which feels oddly celebratory, but Nettie insisted, so we just went with it). “He practically tossed her overboard, and all for what? A midlife crisis with a spray tan?”
“More like a dozen midlife crises with a spray tan,” I correct. I still have an image of a half dozen naked women running around in our bedroom on the day I caught him with his hand (and selective other body parts) in the spray-tanned cookie car.
Stanton makes a face at Bess and Nettie. “You two don’t know the whole story.”
The waiter arrives with our appetizers and quickly doles them out. I get a tower of heirloom tomatoes with creamy burrata, drizzled with aged balsamic and garnished with fresh basil.
Bess and Nettie have opted for the lobster bisque, while Stanton chose the shrimp cocktail. I should have opted for the bisque myself. I find my first choice is usually not the right one—especially where men are concerned.
“We know enough,” Bess retorts with a sly smile playing on her lips. She dips her spoon into her lobster bisque—creamy, rich, and smelling like heaven itself—before continuing. “Like how you couldn’t keep it in your pants for twenty-five years of marriage.”
Stanton sniffs because everyone here knows he can’t contest that.
Nettie nods along and her hair bobs over her head like a gray crown of defiance. “And let’s not forget how you thought swapping your family for a Botox Barbie would be an upgrade. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.”
I shake my head. “Try Baby Barbie. I don’t think Neelie Holiday is old enough to have any real wrinkles. Wait—Neelie Holiday…why does that name sound so familiar?” A thought comes to me and I inhale sharply. “Oh my word!” I toss a dinner roll at Stanton and peg him on the forehead. “Neelie’s mother is Ruthie Holiday! She’s the one with all those adorable little girls, Hattie, Winnie, and Neelie.” I practically spit the words at him. I think Ruthie has a boy, too, but that’s beside the point. “She hired me to paint their bedrooms when the girls were young.”
That’s what I used to do way back when as an outlet for my creative abilities. I much prefer teaching a class on a cruise ship.
“Who cares?” Stanton says, lifting his wine my way as if he were toasting me. “Just goes to show, she comes from a fine lineage. The Holidays are good people. Her dad owns a fleet of lobster boats. And you didn’t expect me to age up, did you?”
Wonderful.
I turn to Bess and Nettie. “I painted a mural full of unicorns and rainbows. It was a pastel fantasyland.”
Nettie huffs, “One of them is still living in fantasyland if she thinks shacking up with this oaf is where it’s at.”
“It’s where the money is at,” Bess mutters.
She’s not wrong.
“Talk about feeling ancient,” I groan, doing my best to try not to scream, focusing instead on my appetizer—and now that creamy burrata looks like a creamy heaven.
“Who cares about how young the girl is?” Bess says. “The point is, Stanton, you lost a real treasure when you lost Trixie.”
“And he knows it,” Nettie says. “Face it, Stan, you’ve been living in Regret City ever since and you can’t stand the fact that Trixie has had every man on this ship chomping at the bit to be with her.”
“That’s true,” Bess says. “For a time, the captain and Ransom almost came to blows over her. They still do on occasion despite the engagement ring. You could have kept her forever had you not tossed it all away to placate your ego and your libido. And now you’ll have to suffer with your regrets until the day you die.”
Stanton looks a little green around the gills.
I can’t resist adding, “They do have a point, Stanton. You made your choices. Now you get to live with them.”
“Sorry I’m late,” a deep voice interrupts and we look up to see one of the best choices I have ever made.
Let the party begin.