Nana charged toward me at the head of the pack, elbows thrust outward in blocking mode, fist manacled around her iPhone, outpacing her nearest competitor by a whole half-step.
“Mine are better,” urged Bernice as she muscled past Nana’s right elbow to shove her camara in my face. “That Saint-Sauveur woman got some great closeups of me. I dare any of you to look at this picture and tell me my camera isn’t making love to my face.”
“I hope the camera was wearing protection,” howled Dick Stolee in a fit of laughter. “You wouldn’t want any surprises nine months down the road.”
George scratched his head. “I thought the gestation period for women in Bernice’s age bracket was longer than that.”
“You’re thinking of elephants,” said Tilly.
“In case you didn’t know this already, Bernice,” Margi warned in her official capacity as a Windsor City nurse practitioner, “bearing children can have serious health risks for women our age. Varicose veins. Hypertension. Diabetes mellitus. Death.”
“Hey, I’m suffering from the veins, the hypertension, and type 2 diabetes already,” crowed Dick Stolee, “and I’m not dead yet.”
“You will be if you keep ogling those three blondes who’re traveling with us,” cautioned his wife.
“I’m sorry, Bernice,” I said as I squinted at her camera, “but can you move your hand? Your fingers are hiding the screen.”
“Lemme see.” Dick Teig snatched the device from her hand and took a peek at the onscreen image. The wisecrack he’d cued up suddenly withered and died on his lips. “Holy mackerel. This photo is amazing. Who is it?”
“It’s me, you moron,” sniped Bernice.
“Is not.”
“Is so.”
“You don’t look anything like this.”
“I look exactly like that.”
“Do not.”
“Do so!”
Everyone paused, breathless with anticipation. Heads turned. Eyes shifted.
Five seconds …
Ten seconds …
“Shouldn’t we be votin’ by now?” Nana piped up.
“See?” balked Dick Stolee. “What’d I tell you. The whole system’s broken.”
“Where is Osmond anyway?” asked Tilly.
Heads swiveled. Feet shuffled.
“There he is,” said George, pointing toward a secluded spot in the canopied area where Osmond sat slouched in a patio chair, head bent, eyes downcast, looking as if he’d just learned that, in an effort to stimulate the economy, all three C-Span channels were being replaced by Home Shopping Networks.
“Gee,” whispered Lucille. “What’s wrong with him? He seemed okay at supper.”
“He’s probably brooding over our home visit,” said Bernice. “He reconnected with some woman he met in the war, and it’s probably just hit him that neither one of them will live long enough to ever see each other again. So, poof! There he sits. The face of tragedy.”
“Osmond fought in a war?” quipped Dick Stolee.
“Which one?” snickered Dick Teig. “Revolutionary or Civil?”