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Authors: Maddy Hunter
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months rent? At least I could walk past the shower in the hotel now without breaking out in a cold sweat. Besides, the clerk hadn't believed I could spring for one of her watches, so I needed to prove that I could sink into debt just as well as the next guy. Boy, did I show her!
We snaked our way down a cobblestoned alley whose storefront windows sported the latest fall fashions on mannequins who looked more anorexic than the salesclerk in Bucherer. I had a sneaking suspicion Lane Bryant didn't do much business in Lucerne. We stopped in an open courtyard and vied for position around a woman I couldn't see for the sea of umbrellas in front of me. "Good morning!" she called out to us. "My name is Sonya." She spoke with a heavy accent that sounded kind of Russian to me. Or maybe Swedish. Somewhere close by I heard a high-pitched humming like a smoke alarm going off.
"What's that noise?" I whispered to Nana.
"Bernice's hearin' aid. Her battery must be gettin' low. Always sounds like her head's gonna blow up when that happens."
"Is anyone having trouble hearing me?" Sonya shouted.
Not now, but I would if Bernice's head decided to explode. Time to move to a better spot. I circled around the back of the crowd and stopped in front of a stone fountain that stood in the middle of the square.
"We're standing on the site of..." SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT! The rain pelting the cobblestones drowned out her voice. I cupped my ear to hear better.
"...built in 1178..." SPISHHHHHHHHHH! The fountain behind me geysered into life like an open hydrant, spewing cataracts of water in eight different directions. I hurried closer to the crowd.
"...it's the oldest..." WORRRRRRRRRSH! A man with a garden hose started power blasting the cobblestones beside me. WORRRRRRRRRSH! I leaped out of the way to avoid the spray. Good time to be washing down the pavement. I guess he figured a driving rain wouldn't do the job well enough for him. WORRRRRRRRRSH! This was nice. Not only couldn't I see our local guide, I couldn't hear her anymore either.
"Can you hear anything?" Jane Hanson appeared beside me, hunched beneath her umbrella and shivering in the cold.
"What I've gotten so far is that this place is old."
"If Andy were here, he'd know." Jane was dressed for the weather in a fatigue green belted raincoat that looked as if she'd picked it up at the Salvation Army Thrift Shop, a plastic rain bonnet, white bucks on her feet, and a camera bag over her shoulder. All she was missing was a sign around her neck that said, TOURIST. She raised her voice to be heard above the background noise. "Andy came into the drugstore last week and told me he'd done a lot of reading about the area. The Rassmusons and Teigs teased him about his cushy job, but he was very serious about his escort duties. I can't believe he's gone. He was one of our best customers. We issued him a Preferred Customer card only last year. The platinum version."
She looked genuinely sad as she continued. "I hope they don't discover that drugs played any part in his death. It's every druggist's nightmare, you know. Thinking that the prescriptions they fill might be used to cause someone's death. Poor Andy. He was always so nice to me when he'd come in to pick up a prescription. He even gave me a free ticket to that Christmas play the two of you were in. I gave him a little bouquet of flowers backstage after the play was over. He was so appreciative. He said no one had ever given him flowers before."
The crowd started to break up and move down another alleyway in groups of two and three abreast. Jane and I followed at the back.
"That was thoughtful of you to give him flowers," I said. The only thing I'd received during the production was a ticket for parking too long in a loading zone.
"Just my way of saying thank you. He surprised me though. Uff da. He was so stiff and unemotional onstage. Not a very good actor, was he?"
Maybe not onstage, but in real life, Andy was a great actor. How else could he
We snaked our way down a cobblestoned alley whose storefront windows sported the latest fall fashions on mannequins who looked more anorexic than the salesclerk in Bucherer. I had a sneaking suspicion Lane Bryant didn't do much business in Lucerne. We stopped in an open courtyard and vied for position around a woman I couldn't see for the sea of umbrellas in front of me. "Good morning!" she called out to us. "My name is Sonya." She spoke with a heavy accent that sounded kind of Russian to me. Or maybe Swedish. Somewhere close by I heard a high-pitched humming like a smoke alarm going off.
"What's that noise?" I whispered to Nana.
"Bernice's hearin' aid. Her battery must be gettin' low. Always sounds like her head's gonna blow up when that happens."
"Is anyone having trouble hearing me?" Sonya shouted.
Not now, but I would if Bernice's head decided to explode. Time to move to a better spot. I circled around the back of the crowd and stopped in front of a stone fountain that stood in the middle of the square.
"We're standing on the site of..." SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT! The rain pelting the cobblestones drowned out her voice. I cupped my ear to hear better.
"...built in 1178..." SPISHHHHHHHHHH! The fountain behind me geysered into life like an open hydrant, spewing cataracts of water in eight different directions. I hurried closer to the crowd.
"...it's the oldest..." WORRRRRRRRRSH! A man with a garden hose started power blasting the cobblestones beside me. WORRRRRRRRRSH! I leaped out of the way to avoid the spray. Good time to be washing down the pavement. I guess he figured a driving rain wouldn't do the job well enough for him. WORRRRRRRRRSH! This was nice. Not only couldn't I see our local guide, I couldn't hear her anymore either.
"Can you hear anything?" Jane Hanson appeared beside me, hunched beneath her umbrella and shivering in the cold.
"What I've gotten so far is that this place is old."
"If Andy were here, he'd know." Jane was dressed for the weather in a fatigue green belted raincoat that looked as if she'd picked it up at the Salvation Army Thrift Shop, a plastic rain bonnet, white bucks on her feet, and a camera bag over her shoulder. All she was missing was a sign around her neck that said, TOURIST. She raised her voice to be heard above the background noise. "Andy came into the drugstore last week and told me he'd done a lot of reading about the area. The Rassmusons and Teigs teased him about his cushy job, but he was very serious about his escort duties. I can't believe he's gone. He was one of our best customers. We issued him a Preferred Customer card only last year. The platinum version."
She looked genuinely sad as she continued. "I hope they don't discover that drugs played any part in his death. It's every druggist's nightmare, you know. Thinking that the prescriptions they fill might be used to cause someone's death. Poor Andy. He was always so nice to me when he'd come in to pick up a prescription. He even gave me a free ticket to that Christmas play the two of you were in. I gave him a little bouquet of flowers backstage after the play was over. He was so appreciative. He said no one had ever given him flowers before."
The crowd started to break up and move down another alleyway in groups of two and three abreast. Jane and I followed at the back.
"That was thoughtful of you to give him flowers," I said. The only thing I'd received during the production was a ticket for parking too long in a loading zone.
"Just my way of saying thank you. He surprised me though. Uff da. He was so stiff and unemotional onstage. Not a very good actor, was he?"
Maybe not onstage, but in real life, Andy was a great actor. How else could he
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