Chapter 21
Suddenly Hitched—What a Trip!
Dear Trixie,
I’ll be on the Emerald Queen next month, and I’m equal parts excited and overwhelmed by all the dining options!
I’ve heard the Norwegian specialties are amazing, but also that the formal dining room has some dishes that I should not miss.
As someone currently cruising, what are your absolute must-try foods?
And is it worth splurging on the specialty restaurants, or is the included dining just as good?
Foodie at Sea
Dear Foodie at Sea,
Don’t miss the gravlax with mustard-dill sauce in the main dining room—I’ve been eating it nightly. The Norwegian brown cheese at breakfast looks weird, but tastes like caramel! Trust me.
The Blue Crab specialty restaurant is worth every penny. Their king crab legs are enormous and delicious. I watched a soap star try to eat his without getting butter on his designer shirt. He failed spectacularly, but it made for great dinner theater.
Hidden gem: The “Chef’s Norwegian Table” progressive dinner. Aquavit tasting plus salmon three ways so good it left Bess and Nettie momentarily speechless. And that’s saying something.
XOXO Trixie
P.S. Avoid Victor Darkmore at the dessert buffet. He’s convinced the pastry chef is sabotaging his diet for a rival network. The man brings drama everywhere.
Day 8: At Sea
The Queen’s Theater sprawls across three decks of the Emerald Queen, a floating temple to theatrical excess with more gold leaf than Fort Knox and enough red velvet to outfit a Victorian brothel.
This afternoon, the stage has been transformed into what Boomer keeps calling an authentic confessional space, which appears to involve an ornate wingback chair, very dramatic lighting, and enough floral arrangements to suggest a celebrity funeral rather than a reality TV segment.
I spot sprays of white oleander among the botanical explosion with their innocent-looking star-shaped blooms that mask their deadly nature, and the sight sends a chill through me that has nothing to do with the theater’s aggressive air conditioning.
The theater is dimly lit, cold as an iceberg, and holds the scent of thick, cloying perfume and cologne, and more importantly, perhaps a killer.
Behind the scenes, Elodie and her staff buzz around the trophy wives like fashionable worker bees, making last-minute adjustments to hemlines and offering an impressive array of statement jewelry to make these divas sparkle and shine.
The air practically hums with competitive energy—too many egos, not enough spotlight.
Meanwhile, Ransom is busy with decidedly less glamorous work—re-examining Madison’s cabin and running additional tests after yesterday’s bombshell revelation.
Oleandrin, a toxic compound found in oleander plants, has indeed shown up in Madison’s toxicology report. The same oleander I’m now staring at in these elaborate floral displays. Coincidence? I think not.
Bess, Nettie, and I are seated a few rows from the front, putting us in the prime position to witness the chaos about to unfold.
And I’m scrolling through the photos on my phone, flicking back to the welcome party at the Golden Compass where Madison was last seen alive.
Sure enough, there they are—white oleander blooms artfully arranged among roses and greenery, looking just as innocent as they are deadly.
Geez. How on earth did Madison ingest oleander?
Did she mistake the floral arrangements for some exotic Norwegian salad?
Was she secretly part goat, with a steady diet of inedible objects?
Maybe she was one of those Insta Pictures influencers who photographed herself pretending to eat flowers for aesthetic purposes and accidentally got more than she bargained for?
At this point, anything seems possible.
“Do you think they’ll let me ask a question during the Q&A?” Nettie asks. “I’ve been practicing my Barbara Walters impression all morning.”
“I think that ship sailed when you asked Santino if his character’s resurrection from that Bulgarian prison involved necromancy,” Bess replies dryly.
They’re both seated to my left and beside them—or rather, between them—sits Marlie’s ghost, looking uncomfortable despite her incorporeal state.
“It’s like being trapped between two chatty bookends,” she complains, giving me a knowing look. “Nettie keeps passing through my left side every time she reaches for her candy stash.”
Nettie does take her candy seriously. I reach over and scoop up a handful of Swedish Fish because of it. Okay, so I take my candy seriously, too.
The theater is sparsely populated, mostly with contest winners who earned their seats by coughing up their encyclopedia-worthy knowledge of soap opera trivia.
They’re all clutching complimentary popcorn buckets emblazoned with the Trophy Wives of Daytime logos, and their expressions hover somewhere between starstruck and carnivorous. Sort of like me.
Tinsley sits several rows back, tablet in hand, furiously typing what I suspect are notes on how to sabotage Elodie rather than anything related to her cruise director duties.
Speaking of my on-ship bestie. “Is this seat taken?” Elodie appears beside me and sinks into the chair to my right because if Elodie is anything, she’s accustomed to taking what she wants.
She’s traded her usual ship uniform for a sleek black jumpsuit that makes her platinum blonde hair glow in this dim light.
“You know it’s all yours,” I say, though she’s already arranged herself comfortably. “Don’t you need to be backstage helping with the wardrobe changes?”
“My staff can handle it,” she waves dismissively. “I’ve been styling these women for far too many days. If I have to listen to Val complain about how Norwegian humidity affects her hair extensions one more time, I might push her overboard myself.”
“Ooh, hair extensions.” I bump my shoulder to hers. “Now there’s some fresh dirt.”
On stage, Boomer claps his hands for attention, and the murmurs from the crowd dwindle to nothing.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our exclusive behind-the-scenes confessional special! Today, our trophy wives will reveal their unfiltered thoughts about life, love, and the cutthroat world of daytime drama!”
The audience applauds with the enthusiasm of people who’ve been promised gossip juicy enough to require NDAs.
As much as I’m looking forward to hearing what the wives have to say, I’m certainly not looking forward to providing a confessional of my own.
And aren’t these types of things supposed to be conducted in private? I frown over at the drama-hungry producer because of it.
Boomer lifts his microphone. “First up, the incomparable Val Cruz-Henderson!”
Val saunters onto the stage in a skintight red dress that defies both gravity and maybe good taste. She arranges herself in the confessional chair like a cat claiming a sunbeam with her legs crossed at precisely the right angle calculated to make middle-aged men develop arrhythmias.
“Val, what do you think of the other wives?” Boomer wastes no time in cutting to the quick.
“The other wives?” she purrs in response. “Honey, they’re like department store knockoffs of designer originals.”
An audible gasp circles the theater.
“Beth is still playing the wide-eyed ingénue at forty-three,” Val continues, “and Harper carries that leather-bound notebook around like she’s writing the next great American novel instead of a grocery list.”
I lean toward Elodie. “She’s not wrong on either point.”
Boomer leans forward. “And what about your relationship with Santino? Thirty years is practically a millennium in Hollywood marriages.”
The woman is married to the wickedest soap villain who has ever died and come back to life.
Val’s smile turns predatory. “Let’s just say that some men, like fine wine, improve with age. Santino may be pushing seventy, but he still performs better than any battery-operated toy in my collection.” She winks, and more gasps ensue. “And I have quite the collection.”
“Wow,” I whisper to Elodie. “Sometimes less is more.”
Elodie snorts. “What she didn’t mention is that her collection has its own climate-controlled closet on the ship. She had my staff set up a special display case. And might I add, I was quite impressed.”
“Good grief.” I sink in my seat a little at the thought.
Val continues to dispense increasingly explicit details about her marriage that will definitely require heavy editing for daytime television, and the audience erupts in scandalized titters.
I shake my head. “I was not ready for any of that.”
Beth takes the stage next, her usual nervous energy channeled into picking invisible lint from her pastel dress.
“Of course I love the other wives,” she says, her smile so tight it threatens to shatter. “We’re like sisters! Sisters who occasionally want to slip arsenic into each other’s champagne, but sisters nonetheless.”
I arch a brow at the thought of slipping something into someone’s drink—like poison.
When asked about Dr. Luca Carrington Jr., her expression softens into something that might be genuine affection or might be the result of excessive Botox.
“Lance is my rock.” Her voice quivers. “My slightly forgetful, occasionally wandering rock. Did you know he once forgot our anniversary because his character was getting married to his evil stepmother that week? He sent me the prop ring from the show by accident.” She laughs, but there’s a brittleness to it.
“It’s not easy being married to Dr. Luca Carrington Jr., especially when your husband sometimes forgets he’s not actually Luca. ”
“I’d be happy to help him remember who he is,” Nettie shouts from her seat.
“Nettie!” Bess hisses. “But honestly, I wouldn’t mind being his Laurie for a day either,” she calls out just as loud. “Or a week. A month, even.”
The room breaks out in laughter and applause.