Read Online The Chocolate Pirate Plot by JoAnna Carl - Free Book Online

eighteenth-century play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. She is famous, according to Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations , for saying things such as, “As headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile.” Like her, I use the wrong word, usually one that sounds like the correct word, though I don’t think I’ve ever mixed up “allegory” and “alligator.” In fact, I can usually remember that they have crocodiles on the Nile, and alligators in the Everglades.
    But I frequently get my “tang tongled,” the way I did when I told Brenda I considered her my babysitter.
    Once I asked my economics professor to remember his own undergrad days and grade my final exam with “apathy.” I meant “empathy,” of course. Luckily, he thought my mistake was funny. Or I guess it was lucky. He told the story all over the department, but he gave me an A.
    I admit that my mistakes can be funny—to other people—and they usually happen only when I’m nervous. So I try to correct them and go on as if I hadn’t said something really stupid.
    But I try not to make them insulting.
    The episode Max was talking about had happened during the time when he was hounding me to identify the pirates who had boarded our boat.
    He had come into the shop yet one more time, and he and I were sitting in my office. He was again quizzing me about each of the pirates.
    â€œOne of the guys was tall,” I said. “The other wasn’t. The girl had a sexy figure. Really, Max! I don’t know what else to tell you. They were covered with wigs and makeup. None of them had a wooden leg or one blue eye and one brown or anything else obvious.”
    It was at this point that the door to the shop opened, and someone came in. Both the counter girls had gone to the back, so I stood up and leaned out the door of my office, looking toward the workroom to make sure one of them was coming up to wait on the new customer, but I kept talking to Max, and I didn’t really look at the customer.
    â€œWhy are you so fixated on this?” I said.
    â€œBecause of The Pirates of Penzance .”
    â€œSurely you’ve got an actor ready to play the Pygmy King,” I said.
    Okay. I meant the Pirate King, one of the biggest and most colorful roles in The Pirates of Penzance. I’d twisted my tongue, as usual.
    That wouldn’t have been bad.
    But as I said it, I turned away from Max and found myself—well, I can’t say face-to-face; it would have to be chest-to-face—with the man who’d just come in the door.
    He was barely five feet tall.
    Of course, since I’m just a shade less than six feet tall, I was towering over him.
    He looked at me, deadpan, with his head tipped slightly back. I stared at him. I could feel my face growing hot. And I began to stammer.
    â€œThe Pirate King!” I said. “I mean the Pirate King! I’m sure you have an actor for that role. After all, the short must go on.”
    I didn’t try to correct that one. I simply slunk back to my chair and collapsed.
    Max had snickered. I remember that. Then he spoke to the man who had come in, and I realized the short guy had come in to see Max. Max may have introduced us. I don’t remember. The blood was pounding in my ears, and the office was spinning.
    The man spoke to Max, making a rather odd comment. “I’ve got the ice bucket set up,” he said.
    The comment seemed to annoy Max, who said, “I thought we were taking the cooler.”
    The short man frowned, shrugged, and left.
    I remembered the episode, but it was my embarrassment that stuck in my mind, not the man who had come into the shop. Now I tried to remember him.
    He was blond, as Jill had said. He was probably less than an inch over five feet tall, but he was well proportioned. Well, sort of. Actually, his shoulders were too broad, so his physique was somewhat odd. But broad shoulders are not something men