Chapter 7 #2
Grief doesn’t take shore days off. It boards right along with you and stands a little too close in the elevator. If clutching cinnamon buns and quoting fictional warriors is how they hold themselves together, then I hope the buns keep coming.
We file into the first café, and I’m immediately confronted by cinnamon buns the size of dinner plates, lacquered with glaze and heavy enough to double as blunt instruments.
Given the circumstances of the last year of my life, I notice these things now.
I plan on eating one anyway. Respectfully.
A tall woman I don’t recognize claps her hands for attention. She’s wearing a silver Viking brooch the size of a baseball, so I privately dub her Madam Brooch and vow to learn her real name before this cruise is over.
“Ladies,” she calls out. “In Astrid’s honor, we will continue our traditions. The Hagabullen Seduction Challenge proceeds as planned.”
The phrasing sits wrong on my ears. She might as well be reading a will at a bake sale.
“What’s the Hagabullen Seduction Challenge?” I whisper to Marina.
“No idea, but I’m intrigued,” she whispers back.
Bess leans in. “I’m terrified.”
“Intrigued and terrified,” Nettie says, already eyeing the pastries. “That’s exactly how all my best romances started. And two of my marriages.”
“Now that I believe,” I tell her.
Madam Brooch explains the rules with the gravity of a funeral. Each participant must hold a cinnamon bun, recite a favorite line from a Viking romance novel, and then take a bite out of your bun the way you’d take a bite out of your book boyfriend’s bun!”
The entire lot of them cheer and laugh.
Nettie leans my way. “I’ve got a few lines that would make a Viking blush, and I didn’t get a single one of them from a book.”
“Save them for the finals,” Bess advises. “Pace yourself. We have three cafés to get through, and Sweden has laws.”
“I make no promises,” Nettie says.
“She never does,” I confirm. “It’s the secret to her perfect record.”
It starts playful enough. Ridiculous, even.
Women giggle over bodice-ripper quotes and make dramatic declarations about fictional men with abs and battle axes.
I’m reaching for my coffee—sent straight from java heaven—when I spot Poppy Lindgren watching Madam Brooch, and it’s not the look you give someone whose turn comes before yours.
It’s the look you give someone right before you ruin their day.
Noted.
Then Poppy volunteers. She steps forward in pink cashmere and pale blue jeans, effortlessly elegant, not a strand of that honey-blonde bob daring to misbehave despite the harbor breeze.
She cradles a cinnamon bun the way you’d hold a newborn and recites in a warm, clear voice, “A true king rules with devotion, not fear.”
A few women sigh appreciatively. Someone murmurs agreement. Poppy smiles, takes a delicate bite of her bun, and returns to her seat looking pleased with herself.
“That was lovely,” Marina says beside me.
“Very poetic,” I agree, though most of my attention belongs to my own cinnamon bun, which deserves a frame and is about to get a fork instead. Or more to the point, my teeth.
Ransom’s buns spring to mind, and I do my level best to banish the thought. The banishment fails. I’m only human, and I married a man who does criminal things to a pair of suit pants.
We claim a small table near the back where we can observe without being too obviously nosy.
The buns are obscene in the best possible way.
Sticky, sweet, layered with cinnamon and cardamom, and big enough that finishing one should count as cardio.
I intend to finish mine anyway. I’ve never been afraid of a workout I can eat.
Nettie goes after hers with a grudge. “Oh wow. This is better than most of my relationships.”
“That’s a very low bar,” Bess points out, daintily pulling apart her pastry.
“I have standards,” Nettie protests through a mouthful of cinnamon. “They’re just flexible.”
“Flexible how?” Marina asks, and I admire her bravery.
“For instance, I require that a man have a pulse,” Nettie announces. “See? Standards.”
“The bar is underground,” I observe.
“But not quite six feet under,” Marina adds with a laugh.
“Give it until dinner,” Bess says, dabbing her mouth with a napkin. “Her requirements loosen after dark.”
I knew Marina would fit right in. And for the record, Nettie’s pulse requirement is currently under review. She spent last night’s dinner swooning over a dead Viking, and I don’t think she’s connected those dots just yet. I’m certainly not going to be the one to hand her a pencil.
The challenge continues around us. One of the velvet-clad women recites something about storm-tossed seas and a warrior’s embrace that makes half the room swoon. Another quotes a passage involving a shirtless Viking hottie and a very busy waterfall, and the applause turns downright enthusiastic.
Nettie leans over to the nearest book club member, a chipper woman in her fifties wearing a “My Other Boyfriend Is a Viking” T-shirt. “Where do I sign up for this club? Because I’m ready to commit.”
“Do you read Viking romance?” the woman asks.
“No, but I can try,” Nettie says seriously. “I’m very motivated by shirtless men.”
“She is,” Bess confirms. “It’s her most consistent hobby. Sixty years and counting.”
“It’s healthy!” Nettie insists. “Appreciation of the male form is perfectly natural.”
“So is restraint,” Bess says dryly.
“Never heard of her,” Nettie counters.
I can attest to that. Restraint and Nettie have never once been in the same room. I doubt they’d recognize each other on the street.
The book club women laugh, and I watch Nettie soak up their approval the way these buns soak up butter.
She’s in her element. New friends, attractive fictional men, and a table full of pastries.
This is Nettie’s ideal morning, and honestly, the woman might have life figured out better than the rest of us.
We leave the first café and wander deeper into Haga, past boutiques selling hand-knit sweaters and shops displaying amber jewelry, little pieces of trapped sunshine glowing behind glass. The Velvet Vikings spread out along the cobblestones, snapping photos and beaming over every quaint detail.
My phone buzzes with a text from Ransom.
Ransom: Behave.
I type back.
Trixie: Define behave.
Three dots appear, then vanish, then appear again. The man is choosing his words the way he vets new crew members. Slowly, thoroughly, and assuming the worst.
Finally.
Ransom: Stay with the group.
Trixie: I am with the group. We’re taking a tour of the local pastry shops. It’s perfectly innocent.
And technically, at this exact moment, it’s even true. I make a mental note of the timestamp in case I need it later.
Nettie stops at a window display featuring a carved wooden Viking statue. “Now that’s what I’m talking about. Look at those muscles.”
“Those muscles were whittled, Nettie,” Bess says. “You’re ogling a coat rack.”
“And?”
“Two days ago it was cardboard, and today it’s lumber,” Bess says. “At this rate you’ll be engaged to a park bench by Helsinki.”
“I’ve officiated stranger weddings,” I offer. “And at least this one will never cheat. Unless somebody builds a bookshelf.”
“Thank you, Trixie.” Nettie nods as though I’ve testified on her behalf. “Real men are overrated anyway. This one can’t interrupt me, can’t leave whiskers in the sink, and he’s already dressed for battle. I’m keeping him.”
A cluster of book club members dissolves into giggles over the exchange. One of them, a tall woman with gray streaks in her dark hair, high-fives Nettie. “I like you. You get it.”
“I really do,” Nettie says solemnly.
Somewhere back on the Emerald Queen, an actual Viking with actual muscles is floating around dead, and Nettie is out here romancing lumber. I’d point out the irony, but she’d only ask me for an introduction. Again.
The second café is smaller and cozier, with candles glowing on every table even though it’s barely ten in the morning. The Swedes commit to coziness with the same devotion I bring to a buffet, fully and without apology. We gather around bistro tables with our coffee cups raised.
“To fierce women and fictional men!” someone toasts.
Everyone drinks, and the warmth in this room is the real thing. These women genuinely care about each other. Their grief may run quieter than Astrid ever did, but it’s here all the same, tucked in between the coffee cups and the velvet.