Page 1 (1/2)
"Experience the roht sky with a descendant of the Vikings of yore; that&039;s what the brochure said"
Eyes a startling shade of unadulterated grey considered hts have been trying to figure out why hts I don&039;t suppose you are free tonight for a little stargazing?"
The grey eyes didn&039;t blink, just continued to watch me cautiously, as if their owner expected lass table at which we sat, and start dancing the cancan "Stargazing?"
"Yes, it lish is reood But I assume your lack of enthusiashed "I kind of thought so It&039;s par for the course, you know Well, par for my course A couple of ladies on the tour have done well for theression The first tere strangers, but the third one, Magda, was a decidedly plu black eyes and a wicked sense of huda called as her partner, Rayuely Germanic music, complete with accordion It was thetheir Independence Day with much abandon, even the tourists Small booths of crafts and food vendors lined the square, filling the air with an intriguing ed fro (a Mediterranean gyro stand) At the far end of the square a stage had been set up, and various bands ranging from country (who knew Iceland had country athered that the e
"Not this time, no," I called back
"You should!" she yelled, her deep, throaty voice carrying surprisingly well over the noise of the ht about pointing out the obvious, that thus far in the trip, no blond, blue-eyed descendant of Vikings had asked , but a sda
My tablee and belched, politely excusing hi beggars couldn&039;t be choosers "Would it be forward of me if I asked you if you would care to dance?"
He looked thoughtful for a ood"
I was a bit surprised at his easy acquiescence, but determined to enjoy h the crowds perched at caf¨¦ tables to the part of the square where the dancing was taking place
"Do you two-step?" I asked lanced down at my shoes "Two feet"
"Yes It&039;s a dance I assume you don&039;t know it?"
"No" He shook his head "I like dance"
With careful deliberation, he put his faded-sandal-clad feet directly on top ofshoes, and looked up with expectation
"It&039;s a good thing you&039;re as s as I auely dancelike ed "How old are you, exactly?"
The boy scrunched up his face for a moment as he sorted out the proper word "Four"
"Really? Then your English is even ht I couldn&039;t say squat in another language when I was your age, and here you are dancing with ht, I&039;, but you see, and as I at Patty&039;s Lonely Heart&039;s Club Tour who has yet to hook up with either a fellow tour mate or a handsome local, you&039;re pretty o What&039;s your naain for aname I&039;m Pia Thomason I&039;m from Seattle Do you knohere that is?"
He shook his head
"Let&039;s see, what&039;s Seattle known for Microsoft? Have you ever heard of Microsoft? Starbucks? Google?"
He shook his head again
"Geirfinnur!" Aat my feet as he spoke in Icelandic My dance partner reluctantly stepped offme a chastened look
"Are you Geirfinnur&039;s dad?" I asked, as the subject of his ire&039;s eyes started to fill with contrite tears
"You are English?" I could see the sirey eyes "I am very sorry that he is behaved so poor with you"
"He wasn&039;t behaving badly at all," I said quickly, ruffling the boy&039;s hair He rewarded rin "In fact, just the opposite He wandered past while I was sitting and watching everyone, and kindly kept lish so well, I&039; he is"
"My wife is fro his son a fond look "You say thank you to the English lady"
"Alish I&039;m from Seattle"
Geirfinnur&039;s father adopted the same look of concentration his son had worn as he obviously tried to pinpoint Seattle
"It&039;s in the Pacific Northwest Upper left-hand corner of the country We have Boeing and A "Nintendo!"
"Yes, we have that, too," I answered, s, "Nintendo, Nintendo! Super Mario Brothers!"
"You are here as a tourist? I am Jens Jakobsson That is Geirfinnur"
"Yes, I&039;ue hand, suddenly shy about the fact that I was on a singles&039; tour "It&039;s a three-week tour of Europe"
"That is most excellent You enjoy Island?" He pronounced the word "Iceland" with its native inflection
"Very much Dalkafjordhur is a lovely little town We&039;ve been here two days and have three more to explore Reykjav¨ªk and the area before we"You are so kind to Geirfinnur, ill show you around tonight, show you places tourists don&039;t norood place to see fireworks You would like that?"
"I would love it," I said, sincerely pleased at the thought ofsome local folk My happiness was short-lived as I pulled up a e of the tour itinerary "Only drat I think our tour is going out into the countryside tonight, to see some ruins"
"Ruins are very pretty here," Jens said "But not as pretty as fireworks, I think"
"Fireworks!" Geirfinnur parroted, suddenly rushinghis arood!"
"Geir, do not annoy the lady She has a tour to go with What ruins are you going to visit?"
"It&039;s some sort of protected forest with a ruin contained within I&039;m afraid I don&039;t remember the name, but evidently it has some tie-in to a cult that was supposed to be very prominent around midsummer, and since that&039;s just a couple of days away - "
"Ilargi!" Jens gasped, his expression suddenly horror filled as he snatched his son froi?"
"Me? No, I&039;m Irish Mostly There&039;s some German on my i, are you froious," I said slowly, confused by his reaction "I&039; a colish is exceptional This Ilargi place that we&039;re going to visit tonight isn&039;t an abbey or a religious house, it&039;s a stretch of untouched forest, which I gather is rare It&039;s supposed to have so, but I&039;m afraid I kind of skian," Jens said, picking up his squirood Stay away froi"
Before I could ask him just what the dickens thathand the last thing I saw before they were sed up by the dancing crowd
"Well, how do you like that?" I asked no one in particular I was answered by a brutal jab to the back, re me that there were better places for conte Icelanders than the middle of a dance floor
I madeit as I watched the people swari forest that it triggered such a strong reaction in Jens? Did Audrey know about it? I wondered
Before I could mull over what I wanted to do next, a dark-haired woman plopped down in the chair that had previously been occupied by Geirfinnur She shot a glare over her shoulder toward a very handso two children wearing blue and white horns past us "Hey, Pia You look like I feel Did you hear? The trip to the forest is off for tonight And a good thing, too I could do without being eaten alive by od knohat other kinds of insects there are around here I don&039;t suppose you&039;ve seen Audrey? She disappeared right after she told me about the cancellation, and I didn&039;t have time to have a ith her about the serious lack of ing out my disposable cason the accommodations in Amsterdam"
Denise, the fourth woman on the tour, and my least favorite of all the members, curled a scornful lip at o there for three days Not that I won&039;t be glad to get out of this country I&039;ve just been in the h They didn&039;t have anything printed in the last hundred years And the spiders! Who&039;d have thought that Iceland would have such big spiders? Positively tarantulas! Here, you! Diet Coke Coca-Cola You understand?" Denise grabbed a passing waitress and shook her arm "Pia, you have a phrase book - how do you say that I want a Diet Coke?"
The waitress gave her a long-suffering look "I speak English We do not have Coke I will bring you a Pepsi"
"Whatever, just so it&039;s cold" Denise released the waitress and used my napkin to ht afternoon sunshine "Sorry I just sat doithout asking you, but we big girls have to stick together You weren&039;t waiting for anyone, were you?"
Sharp, washed-out hazel eyes peered at lint indicating that an answer in the affirreatly I adopted a polite s at both her expression and the big-girl corips with the fact that I hatboned," but I didn&039;t need to be reminded of it every few minutes, as Denise ont to do
"Didn&039;t think so," she answered with sour pleasure "Wouys It&039;s always the ones who put out who end up having all the fun That Magda Did you hear her last night? She was at it all night long I asked Audrey to change my room, but she says the hotel is full and they can&039;t Honestly, why on earth did I spend two grand on a singles&039; tour of romantic Europe if the only ay, and I have to spend every friggin&039; night listening to Magda get her jollies "Oh, Raymond! Harder! Harder, my stallion of love!&039;" she all but yelled in an obscene parody of Magda&039;s Spanish-inflected voice
"Shhh," I cautioned, frowning at the startled looks we received from people seated around us "Others can hear you"
"So what?" She shrugged "They can&039;t understand us, and even if they could, I&039; that isn&039;t true Has Ray, but I wouldn&039;t have anything to do with hilance toward the dancers
I had no doubts at all - Magda and I shared a bathrooh it - that Ray it off rather well, but it was al to do with Denise She was pretty enough, with dark brown hair that was carefully coiffed, a heart-shaped face, and an overall i out of one bag, but her personality did much to ruin the first i look "I didn&039;t mean to rub it in that Raymond wants intoda&039;s histrionics Have you ever seen such a motley collection of men as the ones on this tour? We&039;re expected to hit it off with Ray the lounge lizard, Gary, who has to be right off the set of Queer as Folk; Ben, who is clearly sixty if he&039;s a day; or Alphonse, the Mafia pervert And we paid money for this? Audrey sure has some sort of a scam, and we&039;re the suckers who fell for it Romantic Europe, ativity and overall nastiness for three days now, and was sorely teht, but I reether, and it wouldn&039;t actually kill ed in a fantasy wherein she was left behind on a remote fjord
"Have you datedher claws for another attack
I s the edge of the fjord "I live outside of Seattle in a small town in the in with, so it&039;s kind of hard to o on this tour, to open s for everything with a penis, unlike some people I could da "I think we&039;ve been had, though The men on the tour are useless, and as for these Icelanders they s, like Audrey says, but I don&039;t see any of thereen card&039; to theoing to happen"