Death on Tour - Janice Hamrick [39]
He sat down on the bench beside me and passed me a glass. He glanced down at the fallen roll. “Hungry?”
I looked at it sadly. “How did you know I was down here?” I asked. This bench was not visible from the patio above.
“Saw you walk past the bar.”
Odd. I hadn’t seen him in the bar, and I’d been on the lookout for people to avoid, not that he was one of those. I took a sip of wine and thought how romantic this could be if I were someone else.
“Here, I have something for you.” He half rose and fished for something in his pocket. Sitting back down, he handed me a little gold pyramid exactly like the one I’d inquired about at the airport.
“Ooh,” I said, very pleased. Turning it in the failing light, I could see it was even tackier up close than at a distance. “It’s wonderful. Where did you get it?”
“Over on Kitchener’s Island. You would have been impressed at my skillful haggling.”
“I’m sure of that. How did it go?”
“I pointed. The seller said, ‘For you, a mere thirty pounds.’ I handed over the cash.”
I burst out laughing. “I hate to break this to you, but that was not haggling.”
He was grinning too. “I know. In fact, I’m pretty sure the guy was really disappointed. He was thinking he’d left money on the table.”
“Well, I love it. Thank you very much.”
“It’s nothing,” he answered.
We sat in silence, listening to the sound of the breeze in the acacia leaves. I sipped my wine and clutched my little pyramid like a talisman.
“I’ve always wanted to see Egypt,” he said, gesturing at the Nile. “Ever since I was a kid. I was always particularly fascinated by the mummies.”
“Well, naturally. The mummies, the grisly rituals, the dark tombs.”
He smiled. “Did you like the mummy movies?”
“Loved them. Still do, actually. And it doesn’t matter how old or cheesy they are. I think the thing I liked best about the old black and whites was that the mummy always moved so slowly. I always felt like I could have escaped from that kind of monster.”
“Exactly. Unlike the heroine, who always seemed to fall down at exactly the wrong moment.”
“Yes! Didn’t you hate that? It was infuriating. An insult to women everywhere. My brothers made a lot out of that.”
He looked a little surprised. “Your brothers?”
“Yeah, I have two. And miserable little pests they were, too. They went through a phase when they tried to tell me I couldn’t play with them because I was a girl. At the time, I blamed those stupid movies where the girl was always such a wet blanket, but I finally figured out they were just little turds.”
He laughed. “What did you do?”
“Oh, I used a combination of physical and mental violence, coupled with a total willingness to tattle at the drop of a hat. There are advantages to being the oldest.”
“So the four of you are pretty close.”
“Four? Oh, you mean Kyla. Yeah, we are. My brothers are both in California now, but I still talk to them every couple of weeks. And Kyla and I hang out all the time. Best friends, basically. Most of the time,” I added thinking about the current situation, and deciding I really didn’t want to talk about Kyla with him. “How about you? Any siblings?”
“Just one brother. In Dallas.”
He took a sip of his wine and leaned back on the bench. I decided I liked the way his shirt was unbuttoned at the base of his throat, revealing just the right amount of chest hair. Realizing I was staring, I looked away hastily.
He shifted on the bench so he could look into my eyes, and I couldn’t help but catch his eye again. Mesmerized, I continued looked back.
“So tell me about this Aladdin guy you met,” he said.
Not what I was expecting. Where was the compliment about my beauty or wit? The gentle probing about my marital status? The comparison