Death on Tour - Janice Hamrick [101]
In the airport waiting lounge, Yvonne drew me aside.
“Well?” she asked, her faded eyes bright with interest.
“We were right about Mohammad at least,” I said, and then gave her a brief account of last night’s events.
She gave a little whistle. “Fiona and Flora? Really? They had their act down, that’s for sure. I never thought twice about them,” she added with chagrin.
“Me either. But apparently they weren’t good enough to fool Anni. She actually had asked Mohammad to keep his eye on them. Which suited him wonderfully, since that’s why he showed up in the first place.”
I glanced past her to the rest of the group, so familiar by now. DJ and Nimmi were together at a little shop, haggling again for something.
“What in the world is he going to do with all that stuff?” I asked rhetorically.
“Oh, I finally just asked him that. He works in a children’s hospital, and he likes handing out little toys to the kids. He thinks this stuff will be great for the older ones. And plus, he just likes haggling. He says it’s more fun than gambling. And cheaper.”
I laughed.
She nodded to where Ben, Lydia, and Jane were sitting. Jane was wearing a hat and dark glasses again. “I wish I knew their story. But the sooner they get on a plane to Australia, the better. That girl is going to have a nervous breakdown.”
I agreed, and apparently they thought the same thing because they left us at the Cairo airport. Their connecting flight through Vienna was leaving almost immediately, and they were going to skip the afternoon activities scheduled for the rest of us. With a feeling of frustration, I watched them wave good-bye and head to the next terminal. I wished them well, but like Yvonne, I wanted to know what was going on with them.
Kyla and I had to leave for the airport at three in the morning, so we said good-bye to Anni that night. I handed her an envelope containing the suggested tip amount, my twenty-five-dollar bet, plus every Egyptian pound I had left. It wasn’t as much as she deserved, although I was pretty sure that Kyla’s envelope contained the bonus I couldn’t afford. I also handed her a sheet of paper torn from my purse notepad.
“This is my e-mail and other information. Would you let me know how Alan is doing?”
“Of course,” she said, her dark luminous eyes full of understanding.
Cairo to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Chicago, Chicago to Austin. Almost twenty-four hours later, I was back in Texas and due back in the classroom in less than twelve hours. Exhausted and let down, I crawled into bed and prepared to resume my normal life.
* * *
As she promised, Anni e-mailed me two days later to let me know that Alan had been released from the hospital. Her note was friendly, but brief. I’m not sure what I expected. “He has a fever and is calling for you,” would have been nice. I doubted I would ever see him again. I had no way to contact him and wasn’t sure what I’d say anyway. Sorry for hitting you with a rock just seemed so inadequate.
Life quickly returned to the old routine. A couple of weeks later, Kyla and I went to Eeyore’s Birthday Party, an annual festival that draws all the magnificent weirdness for which Austin is famous. You just never know what you’re going to see there—new age hippies smoking half-concealed joints, a transvestite in neon blue hot pants sporting a mountain-man beard, a couple of anorexic-looking women in fairy costumes.
We also ran into my ex, Mike, and his fiancée. I looked at the two of them, taking in the pressed clothes, the flash of diamonds at the wrist and neck, the manicured nails. And that was just him.
I grinned and said hello, then moved on, already looking forward to the catty things I would be