Marcia Talley: Dark Passage

Georgina bristled. ‘I have four children, remember.’

As if I could forget. When Georgina’s family came down from Baltimore for a visit – a short thirty-five-mile drive – it was like a military operation, requiring a movement order – ten typewritten pages, with appendices. Before I could think up a snarky reply, Ruth leaned across my lap and said, ‘I think there’s enough guilt to go around. I haven’t been the best of aunts myself, but now that I have a full-time shop assistant at Mother Earth, there’s no reason I can’t pop up to Baltimore to visit with you and the kids more often, Georgina.’

I’d been about to elaborate on the amount of time I spend helping to care for my grandchildren – Chloe, Jake, and Tim – while my daughter Emily and her husband Dante are busy managing Paradiso, their luxury health spa, but I wisely kept my mouth shut. ‘I think we should do something special,’ I said after a moment. ‘Just sisters. Just us girls.’

Georgina’s sea green eyes sparkled with interest. ‘Like what?’

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. The idea just popped into my head.’

‘Sisterly bonding,’ Ruth mused. ‘We could use a bit of that.’

Georgina squinted at a wall sconce, looking thoughtful. ‘I know! We could go for a mani-pedi!’

Ruth, our superannuated flower child who had never, to my knowledge, even set foot inside a beauty parlor, let alone dipped her toes into a pedi-spa, grunted.

‘With tea afterwards, and little sandwiches, or…’ Georgina bounced in her seat, looking directly at me. ‘If we asked nicely, do you think Scott would spring for a weekend getaway package at Spa Paradiso?’

Although scenically (and expensively!) situated at the far end of Bay Ridge Drive on a bank overlooking the Chesapeake Bay, Spa Paradiso was only three short miles from my home on Prince George Street. ‘I mean away away,’ I said.

‘The Inn at Perry Cabin?’ Ruth suggested, naming a popular luxury hotel in St Michael’s on Maryland’s eastern shore.

I shook my head. ‘Further away than that.’

‘The Mirbeau Inn and Spa in upstate New York? How about the Golden Door in Colorado?’ Ruth’s encyclopedic knowledge of luxury spas didn’t astonish me, since she had copies of Feng Shui World , Aromatherapy Today and Tathaastu scattered all over her coffee table at home. ‘Ten Thousand Waves in Santa Fe?’ she continued.

Before she could whip out her iPhone and sign us up for some exotic hideaway in the Maldives where rooms start at $1400 per night, I raised a hand. ‘Just so you know, I draw the line at treatments for the extremely rich and insane, like being massaged by snakes or elephants. Or soaking in hot tubs full of red wine.’

Georgina giggled. ‘You’re making that up!’

‘Am not. There’s a spa in Alexandria where teeny, tiny carp nibble dead skin off your toes.’

‘Clearly, I lead a sheltered life,’ Georgina whispered.

Several of Aunt Evelyn’s friends wandered over to extend their condolences, so we squeezed hands, smiled and nodded as the orchestral strains of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ drifted out of the in-ceiling speaker directly over our heads. By the time our aunt’s friends had moved on, the orchestra had segued into a piano and cello duet of ‘Red Sails in the Sunset.’

As if prompted by the tune, Ruth said, ‘How ’bout this? We could take a cruise. Didn’t you and Paul have a fabulous time crossing the Atlantic on the Queen Mary Two ?’

‘It was divine,’ I agreed with a grin. ‘So classy. I should have packed my furs and brought along a pair of Irish wolfhounds with diamond-studded collars. And a man servant to walk them, of course.’

‘Must have been nice,’ Georgina pouted. She leaned across my lap in order to catch Ruth’s eye. ‘Scott and I aren’t made of money, you know. And the twins are starting college in the fall.’

Ruth flapped a hand. ‘After that mess with the Costa Concordia , not to mention the economy, which is tanking big-time in case you hadn’t noticed, cruise lines are practically giving cruises away.’ She patted my knee. ‘Besides, we wouldn’t be staying in the presidential suite, or whatever, like Hannah and Paul did.’

‘ Queen Suite, you moron,’ I teased, batting her hand away. ‘Paul and I had a plain vanilla stateroom with a balcony on the Queen Mary . Period. Nothing fancy.’

Ruth rolled her eyes. ‘So you say, but I saw the pictures.’ She began rooting around in her handbag. When she thought none of the mourners was looking, she pulled her iPhone out and swiped it on. ‘Last week, one of my customers thought I looked frazzled and needed a break. We got talking about the Caribbean, so she forwarded an email about cheap cruises.’ She tapped a few keys, then used her index finger to scroll quickly through the entries. ‘Ah, here it is. Cruise for cheap dot com.’ She squinted at the tiny screen, used her thumb and index finger to enlarge the image. ‘Where do you want to go?’

I shrugged. ‘Who cares? If we’re going to be bonding, the destination hardly matters. It’s the voyage that counts.’

‘My vote goes to any place that takes U.S. dollars and they speak our language,’ Georgina said.

‘Quite a few cruise liners are home-ported in Baltimore these days.’ Ruth leaned forward, addressing Georgina. ‘The cruises listed here are incredibly cheap. Can you afford six hundred dollars?’

Georgina raised an eyebrow. ‘Probably, but I’ll have to discuss it with Scott first.’

‘We’ll all have to do that,’ Ruth said. ‘Husbands!’

‘What about husbands?’ While we had been plotting our getaway, Daddy had crept up on us.

Ruth blushed and dropped her iPhone back into the cavernous depths of her quilted handbag. ‘Nothing!’

‘Good. I’m relieved. I thought you were going to give me another pep talk about Neelie.’

Cornelia – nicknamed Neelie – was my widowed father’s longtime companion. The Alexander girls – my sisters and I – thoroughly approved of Cornelia Gibbs and couldn’t imagine why our father hadn’t popped the question. It had been more than a decade since our mother died, but we knew from experience that there was little to be gained by pushing the man. There’s not much you can tell a retired navy captain. They’re accustomed to being in charge.

As if to prove my point, Daddy tapped his watch. ‘Visiting hours are over, duty’s done, and I’m starving. How about you?’

I glanced around the parlor, surprised to find it empty except for the four of us and the funeral home director, standing discreetly near the heavy oak door, hands folded, looking somber. And poor Aunt Evelyn, of course, whose last meal before her fatal heart attack had been a chicken cordon bleu served up on a white plate with gold trim in the Riverview’s posh dining room, accompanied by a glass of fairly decent Chardonnay. In the shuffling off this mortal coil department, I figured that was a fine way to go.

There would be no funeral service for our aunt. She was to be cremated, as per her request, and eventually – when Arlington National Cemetery slotted it into their way-too-busy calendar – she would be buried there with her husband, Captain Frederick T. Alexander, U.S. Army, in Section 35.

‘I feel almost guilty about going out for moule frites while she’s…’ I nodded toward the coffin. ‘… well, you know.’ I stood up and kissed my father on a cheek – warm, slightly damp and rough with stubble. ‘You look exhausted.’

‘I am.’ He scrubbed a hand over his steel-gray curls as if trying to wake himself up, starting by stimulating his scalp. ‘I’m glad we booked into a hotel tonight, rather than trying to drive back.’ He linked one arm through mine and the other through Georgina’s, then cocked his head in Ruth’s direction. ‘C’mon, Ruth. There’s a bouillabaisse at the Parc with my name on it.’