Denise, the fifth woman on the tour, and my least favorite of all the members, curled a scornful lip at my answer. “Bah. We don’t go there for three days. Not that I won’t be glad to get out of this country. I’ve just been in the most appalling bookshop there on the square. Ugh. Nothing there printed in the last hundred years. And the spiders! Who’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 phrasebook—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’s cold.” Denise released the waitress and used my napkin to mop at the sweat that made her face sparkle in the bright afternoon sunshine. “Sorry I just sat down without asking you, but we big girls have to stick together. You weren’t waiting for anyone, were you?”

Sharp, washed-out hazel eyes peered at me from beneath overplucked eyebrows, a gloating glint indicating that an answer in the affirmative would surprise her greatly. I adopted a polite smile and shook my head, my teeth grinding at both her gloating expression and the big-girl comment.

“Didn’t think so,” she answered with sour pleasure. “Women like us never get the guys. It’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’t. Honestly, why on earth did I spend two grand on a single’s tour of romantic Europe if the only men on the trip are old, perverted, or gay, and I have to spend every friggin’ night listening to Magda get her jollies. Oh, Raymond! Harder! Harder, my stallion of love!” she all but yelled in an obscene parody of Magda’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’t understand us, and even if they could, I’m not saying anything that isn’t true. Have you ever seen such a motley collection of men as the ones on this tour? Audrey sure has some sort of a scam, and we’re the suckers who fell for it. Romantic Europe, my ass.”