"Where are you hiding the Stolees?" I asked, when Andy stopped coughing.

"Over there." Helen Teig pointed to a table somewhere behind me. "We were saving seats for them"--she leveled accusing eyes at the blonde interloper sitting beside Andy "--but it didn't work out."

Okay. I was getting the picture. No one had bothered to tell the woman that two places were being saved. That would have been rude. So they'd let one seat go but were quietly stewing about it. And not making the woman feel very welcome. Shame on them.

I made eye contact with the blonde and flashed her a smile. "Hi. I'm Emily."

"I'm Shirley Angowski. From Rhode Island. I'm part of the East Coast contingent on the tour."

East Coast contingent? We were sharing our Golden Swiss Triangle Tour with a group of Easterners? No one had said anything about that.

"What do you mean East Coast contingent?" Lucille Rassmuson asked. Lucille had a flawless ivory complexion, short permed hair that was the color of the froth on a frozen peach Margarita, and no lips. Her mother had no lips either. The condition was probably a genetic thing that had to do with her being Irish and had nothing to do with the fact that Lucille had attended Helen Teig's fiftieth birthday party and was standing near the gas grill when it exploded.

"Since there were so few of you people, the Triangle tour agents recruited twenty-five of us from the New England area to fill up the rest of the bus. You all seem to know each other. Are you from the same place?"

"Iowa," said Lucille, tucking in her lips with displeasure at the idea of sharing her bus with strangers. Bad move. Now she had no mouth.

"Iowa." Shirley Angowski looked pensive. "I know where Iowa is. It's west of Rhode Island, isn't it?"

"You bet," Dick Teig said with a wink. He smoothed back his Chiahair. "Right between East Dakota and West Dakota."

Shirley nodded. "I think I might have relatives in East Dakota."

I studied Shirley Angowski for a moment. She was probably just shy of sixty, and sported big hair, big eyeglasses, and big breasts. I envied the breasts. She looked as if she could put the Click Miracle bra people out of business.

"Are you working or retired?" Helen Teig asked Shirley in a smug tone. She was probably hoping Shirley would claim to have a degree in geography from Stanford so she could jump up and say, "Liar, liar, pants on fire." Helen wasn't a native Iowan, which explained her penchant for liking to confront people.

Shirley held up her hands and wiggled her fingers for us. Her fingernails were like stilettos and were painted a color that looked like Pepto-Bismol. "You see this color? It's called Baby Flamingo and I named it. I make up all the names for the nail and lip products at Revlon."

I used Revlon products. I glanced at my fingernails. "I'm wearing Crystal Berry. Did you make that one up?"