Page 20 of I Do, I Do, I Do
Maybe she’d give herself the pleasure of shooting Juliette, too, right after she shot Jean Jacques, Zoe decided. Then she’d shoot Clara, just for good measure. Of course, if the other wives were dead, maybe she wouldn’t shoot Jean Jacques after all. Maybe they could…
What was she thinking? Giving her head a disgusted shake, she set her bag on the plank floor. Inside were her toiletries, a couple of nightgowns, a change of clothing, a warm coat, and heavy underwear because the temperatures would dip as they neared the coast of Alaska.
Juliette said it first. Naturally. “There’s no place to lay out our things.”
“We can shove our luggage under the cot and bunks,” Clara noted briskly. Bending, she removed a hammer from a side pocket on her bag. “I’ll put up some nails to hang our hats and capes.”
Zoe’s mouth dropped. “You packed a hammer and nails for the voyage?” Grudgingly, Zoe conceded she was impressed. There were depths to Clara that she hadn’t suspected.
“Be careful you don’t drive a hole in the side of the boat and sink it!” Alarm widened Juliette’s eyes. “I can’t swim.”
“If a single nail hole will sink this ship, then we’re done for anyway,” Clara said around the nails in her mouth. In minutes, she had completed the job. “It’s an inside wall,” she assured Juliette, inspecting the row of nails. “Now get off that bed. I need one of the slats. If we take one slat from each of the bunks, I don’t think the beds will collapse.”
Immediately Zoe grasped the plan. “Extra shelves.”
Nodding, Clara laid the edge of a slat against the lip of the wainscoting. A few hammer whacks and they each had a shelf.
“Are we going to get in trouble for this?” Juliette asked. “I’m grateful for the innovations, but—” She broke off speaking and placed a hand against her stomach. “Are we moving?”
“Not yet.” With a sinking heart, Zoe studied her face. “Why? Are you feeling ill?”
“I’m not sure,” Juliette said slowly.
Clara leaned against the wall and covered her face with one big hand. “I don’t even want to think about sharing this tiny cell with someone who’s seasick.”
Far above them, the ship’s whistle blasted and the ship rocked and lurched, and the floor slid beneath their feet.
Juliette gasped and gripped the edges of the bunk bed. “I’ve never been on a boat before.”
It turned out none of them had.
“Don’t you dare get seasick,” Zoe hissed. The room was so tiny and cramped that the smell of the tobacco juice on their skirts overwhelmed every breath. Body heat generated by the three of them had already raised a damp sheen across her forehead. And the greasy smell wafting from the lamp made her feel queasy inside. “I swear, Juliette, if you throw up one time, I’m going to toss you overboard!”
“I’ll help you,” Clara promised firmly.
An odd rocking, sliding motion told Zoe theAnnasettwas drifting out of her slip. Never in her life had she felt such a strange loss of bearing and gravity. The cape she’d hung on one of Clara’s nails swung slightly back and forth. The oil in the lamp base gently sloshed from side to side. As the contents of her stomach were undoubtedly doing.
Cold sweat popped out on her forehead. A nasty taste scalded the back of her throat. Panic flared in her eyes when she heard another blast of the whistle. They were under way.
Something heaved in her stomach. “Oh, God!” Dropping to her knees on the floor, she frantically yanked their bags from under the bunks in a desperate search for the chamber pot.
She found it in the nick of time and gave up her breakfast while Juliette and Clara watched in horror.
There was time for humiliation to crush her before the next wave of nausea sent her back to the chamberpot.
As they did whenever they could escape the cubicle, Juliette and Clara strolled round and round the decks of the shockingly crowded steamship. Oily black smoke blew into their faces when the wind shifted, and when it wasn’t actually raining, a good possibility existed that flying sea spray would mist them with tiny annoying droplets. Another irritation was enduring the unending scrutiny of bored men with nothing to do but inflame tempers by staring at fellow passengers.
Juliette paused by the rail rather than approach the crowd of men gathered around a fistfight at the far end of the deck. As usual, the onlookers appeared more interested in wagering on the outcome than in breaking up the brawl. Frowning in disapproval, she tried to imagine Jean Jacques involved in such brutish behavior. He was far too refined.
“You have that Jean Jacques look,” Clara commented, shaking her head.
“I wish you’d stop calling it that. Of course I think about my husband, don’t you?”
“I try not to.”
They gazed down at the water, still choppy from this morning’s rain. The sea was never the same, although Juliette had expected it would be. Instead, the color and movement constantly changed. Sometimes the water was green and glassy. Other times, saucy blue waves spit foam at the sky. On three occasions she had watched dolphins arching through the sea like big gray needles stitching an invisible thread.
“It’s your turn to check on Zoe.”
