Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries 10 - Bed and Breakfast and Cruises Read online

  “My husband — bless his soul — worked on computers in the seventies, and he said he wouldn’t trust them to butter his toast. So I think I know what I’m talking about when I say that you can’t beat pen and paper.” Anthea looked around again. “Right. That’s it. Someone’s got to sort this out. This never used to happen. I’m going to find Geraldine!”

  Putting her arms before her, Anthea began to carve a route through the crowd of people, quickly leaving us in her wake as she went to seek out the previous head of the B&B association.

  “It sounds like Geraldine had quite a few fans.”

  “Different people like different kinds of leaders,” said Louise, diplomatically.

  “She can be a bit abrasive though, don’t you think?”

  To my surprise, Louise responded with a gentle shrug. I had expected her to firmly agree with my opinion that Geraldine was awful. Perhaps I’d been too quick to judge her the day before. After all, she had just completed a long, international journey to arrive on the ship; perhaps I hadn’t met her at her best.

  “Geraldine was actually a great mentor to me. She’s a bit… tough, but I learned a lot from her.”

  “Oh?” I asked, intrigued. Vague thoughts of a little article about learning the B&B business started to make themselves known in the back of my mind as well. Louise would be an easy person to interview, at least.

  “Actually, I learned almost everything I know from her. I used to be a regular at her B&B, you see. Every year I went with my parents, and then after I got married I went there on my honeymoon. And, well, one thing led to another, and… I bought it!”

  “You bought it? From Geraldine?”

  “Yep. She had expanded to half a dozen, and she told me she was ready to let that one go. It was the jewel in her crown, she said, but since I’d been such a loyal customer for years she’d let me have it. It’s been a brand new life for me and my husband, and Geraldine gave us tons of advice. We’re still building up, but thanks to Geraldine, we’re getting there.”

  Slowly, we shuffled forward. We were now approaching the entrance to the room with the signup sheet. A couple of people who’d got their names down already squeezed out beside us.

  “That’s fascinating! I’d love to write about it for one of the little articles we put up on the ship’s blog. Maybe we can talk about it in a bit more detail some time. Perhaps with your husband?”

  Louise nodded hesitantly. “Yes, that might work. My husband isn’t here though — he’s back running the B&B! That’s why most of us here are alone. Our partners have to mind the fort.”

  Finally, we shuffled forward again into the room with the single solitary table and the signup sheets. Sitting behind the desk was Bernice Burford, this year’s chair of the B&B association, looking red-faced and flustered.

  Next to the table was a large display with the association’s name and logo, a photo of a rustic looking country house in rolling English fields, and a website address for the app that no one seemed to want to use.

  After signing someone else up, Bernice pushed herself to her feet, leaning on the table as she did so.

  “Everyone? Can I just remind you, you don’t need to come here to sign up! You can use the app, and register online!” She jabbed her finger at the display next to her to indicate the app they should use. “It’ll save you a lot of time and effort! Please, use the app!” She pointed at the sign again, jabbing her finger emphatically.

  With the final jab of her finger, the sign, which she had not touched, proceeded to lean forward and then like a slow-motion tower collapsing began an inevitable descent.

  “Argh!” screamed the couple immediately in front of it.

  “Move!”

  “It’s going!”

  “It’s falling!”

  “It’s gone!”

  “Help her!”

  “Help him!”

  The large sign had toppled all the way over, and was now resting on top of the head of a red-faced man who had a look of apoplectic rage on his face, furious at the indignity of having the sign fall upon him, but with little room to escape. He raised his hands, pushed it off his head, and then stepped around it as he let it fall to the floor.

  From the side of the room, Geraldine appeared, hands on hips and a disappointed look on her face as she surveyed the minor devastation and shook her head in seeming disappointment.

  “A shambles!” she declared loudly. “An absolute disgrace to the B&B Association. You should be ashamed of yourself Bernice!”

  Bernice was still standing, a distraught look on her face. The crowd in front of her were now mostly standing on top of the fallen sign, which looked like it would soon be stomped to pieces.

  “It’s just a sign! And there’s too many people in here! If they used the app, then—”

  “Oh just stop it, Bernice! App, app, computer, internet! Don’t you understand anything? Those silly fads are not what B&Bing is about! When they chose you, I thought — fine, let her try the new-fangled stuff. I knew it would be a disaster. I knew it. But I thought, fine, let the association find out for themselves. And now look! The whole meeting is ruined!”

  Bernice slapped her hands down on the table. “It’s not ruined! A silly sign fell over, that’s all.”

  “It could have killed someone!”

  “No it couldn’t! It’s light as a feather! It hit that man on the head and he looks perfectly fine.” Bernice pointed at the still-angry looking man.

  “It could have had my eye out!” he declared.

  I tried to figure out how that would work, but couldn’t. They did seem to be getting rather dramatic over a toppled sign.

  “See? You nearly blinded a man and killed half a dozen others with a dangerous sign, and that’s not even the half of it! You’ve got peddlers hawking their wares to us, queues of people nearly passing out from heat exhaustion, and you obviously cheated to get elected in the first place! You should be ashamed of this disaster, Bernice!”

  “I… I… you’re wrong. And you’re… you’re… exaggerating.” Bernice had her hands up to her eyes and was rubbing them now. She opened her mouth again as if to defend herself further, but then gave up. She hurried around the table, and began pushing her way through the crowd. A moment later she squeezed past us, and hurried off out of sight.

  “You need a bit more steel than that to run the B&B association,” declared Geraldine from the front. “Okay, muggins here will just have to sort this mess out. Now, let me see…”

  On the table Bernice had left behind a clipboard, and attached to it a series of papers upon which she had been taking down names for the various sessions, apparently flicking back and forth between the different pages as each person came up to register one by one.

  Geraldine dismantled the collection of papers, and spread them out over the table until there were ten different sheets. From her bag, she produced a fistful of pens, and placed two on top of each sheet.

  “Right, come up, and quickly write your name down for each session you wish to attend! And if it’s full, it’s full, don’t write your name underneath. And don’t sign up to sessions that are happening simultaneously — you can only be in one place at once — and remember you’re limited to four sessions. Any rule breakers will have all their sessions forfeited! Got it?”

  There was murmured assent from the crowd. In moments, ten different people were writing their names down at once, instead of the single person that Bernice had been dealing with at a time. Geraldine stood just to the side of the table, staring at the B&B owners as they added their names to the various session lists, making sure no one broke the rules.

  “She’s tough, but she gets things done, doesn’t she?” said Louise with an air of wonder in her voice.

  I had to admit, she was right.

  Within ten minutes, the crowd and lines had cleared, and Geraldine was standing triumphantly behind the table, a smug, satisfied look on her face, and a stack of completed signup sheets in front of her.
/>   It didn’t seem fair that poor, nice, Bernice had failed so badly.

  But then life isn’t fair, I mused.

  Chapter 6

  After the excitement of the morning, I was curious as to what would happen next with the B&B Association. Kelly’s prediction that they could be trouble had certainly come to pass already, and we were only on the first full day of the cruise.

  After the signups had been completed, there had been a casual coffee morning and a meet and greet session. Old friends caught up with each other, and various B&B owners networked with each other and discussed the intricacies of their industry.

  I snapped a few pictures, and spent the rest of the morning uploading them and preparing my article about the various different kinds of breakfast I’d talked with Sam about that morning.

  Finally, after lunch, I decided I was ready to throw myself back into the fray. The next item on the agenda was the opening of the Vendor Exhibition Room in the conference center. The attendees would have their first chance to see the various products and services on offer, and meet some of their suppliers for the first time, or perhaps discover new ones to enhance their B&B’s facilities and offerings.

  “Hey,” said Sam, falling in beside me as I headed over. “Kelly asked me to help out down there too. Should be pretty dull, right?”

  “Hopefully. This morning was excitement enough for one cruise.” I proceeded to tell Sam about the ‘disaster’ of the information sign falling over and how Bernice and Geraldine had handled the aftermath.

  “So Geraldine’s horrible but effective, and Bernice is nice but useless?”

  “Bit harsh, Sam, but I think you might be on the mark. Let’s see how the vendor sale is going.”

  When we arrived at the conference suite the atmosphere was far less acrimonious that it had been that morning. Most of the people hovering around seemed quite cheerful. We got a brief Hi from Heidi, followed by another from Louise, who were both entering at the same time as us.

  The room that was being used for the vendor sale seemed bigger since it was full of people and the vendors’ various displays. When I’d first showed it to Geraldine it had been somewhat spartan, but now the room was filled with color, noise and light.

  “Look over there,” I said, pointing. “That guy is called Alex Martinez, and apparently his desserts are just divine. At least, that’s what Greg says.”

  “Trust you to know where the food is,” said Sam with a nudge.

  “Blame Greg not me, it was him that introduced me. Alex supplies desserts to a bunch of different B&Bs.”

  “I could be tempted to give him my professional opinion on some of them,” said Sam with a grin.

  “Invite me when you do.”

  We began to walk around the edge of the room, examining the various wares on offer. The first table was covered in bamboo sheets and pillowcases. We quickly passed that one by.

  “Look, here’s one for Cece.” Sam had a mischievous smile on her face when she said it.

  “Don’t you dare let her hear you say that!” I warned with an amused smile.

  Sam was pointing at the next table, upon which were sat four different models of vacuum cleaners, each of which was decorated with a friendly looking face and had a ‘person’ name.

  There was Yasmin, which was a small yellow vacuum cleaner with a winking eye and a bow in ‘her’ hair, Jonnie which was a stocky purple number and a serious expression on his face, Loretta, a bright pink medium-sized vacum, and finally Bertha which was a big, squat dark brown vacuum that could be used for liquids as well as solids.

  Louise was standing in front of the vacuums, admiring each of them. She seemed particularly taken with the pink one, Loretta. She spun it around on its wheels, which I noted rolled very smoothly, and held up the vacuum hose to peer down it, though I couldn’t guess what she expected to see.

  Experimentally, Louise reached out and pressed the big round power button. From the way she reached I could tell she wasn’t expecting anything to happen, but as it turned out, the vacuum was actually plugged in.

  Loretta spun to life with a roar, the vacuum hose jumping on the table like a snake. Louise was so surprised by it all that she jumped back.

  And that was the last thing I saw.

  The vacuum suddenly stopped, as did everything else. The lights flickered once, and then they were off. The room was plunged into blackness. The Conference Suite was entirely within the interior of the ship, and there were no windows to provide any outside lighting. Immediately, the attendees started to loudly complain.

  “What’s going on!?”

  “The lights are off!”

  “Turn them on! Turn them on! Turn them on!”

  “Typical.”

  “You can say what you like about her, but at least Geraldine kept the electricity running.”

  The room slowly began to refill with dim and darting light as people pulled out their smartphones and even a few pocket flashlights so that they could see what was going on. I had my own smartphone out almost instantly, and soon had the flashlight function switched on.

  “Try and stay calm, everyone,” I called out loudly.

  There were a few tuts, sighs and even disparaging remarks.

  “We are calm thank you very much, we’re British you know.”

  “This never happens at my B&B, not once in fourteen years!”

  Something needed to be done, so I began to carefully make my way back out of the room. Just as I got to the door, the lights all flickered back on.

  Of course, I thought, when I saw our savior step into view. It was Geraldine and she’d clearly found the fuse box and flicked the breaker. I vaguely recalled it being out in the lobby area.

  “Listen up. everyone! I saw what happened. Silly old Louise over here decided she needed an urgent vacuum demonstration for some reason. The resultant power surge was too much for this leaky old tin can of a ship to handle. Whoever planned this room for the vendor sale was clearly addled in the head. That’s Bernice, your association chair, if you weren’t paying attention.

  “Now, Louise? This isn’t the first time I’ve had to bail you out. Do you think you could refrain from overworking the electrical circuits for the rest of the afternoon, thank you?”

  Everyone turned to stare at Louise. It was rather unfair to blame her, I thought. Or Bernice. If anyone was at fault, it was the events management team at Swan who should have checked what the electrical requirements were going to be beforehand and accounted for it.

  Louise’s cheeks had gone bright red, and she was staring down at the floor, seeming to mumble at the criticism. With quick, shuffling footsteps she hurried across the room, brushed past me, and ran past Geraldine who was standing there with her hands on her hips, shaking her head like a disappointed but unsurprised teacher.

  “Now, who can tell me, where is Bernice, please?”

  The rest of the attendees began to confer with each other and look around the room. There was no sign of Bernice anywhere.

  “Typical!” Geraldine dropped her hands to her side. “Anyway, crisis averted. Geraldine saved you all again. Thank me later. Carry on everyone.”

  Geraldine marched back into the room like she owned it, and began to walk around, greeting people she knew and dropping pearls of wisdom wherever she went.

  “Never a dull moment around here,” said Sam.

  “Unfortunately.” I turned off the flashlight on my cellphone and took the opportunity to take a few pictures of the room.

  “Now, what else do we have here…”

  Staring at my phone, I followed Sam as we restarted our tour of the room while trying not to bump into anyone as I prepped a couple of photos to upload.

  “Oh, that’s clever,” said Sam, nodding approvingly. “Look, this software company is called Brave and Beautiful Software! B&B software!”

  “Huh, so it is.” I snapped a picture of the logo right away. The name was interesting enough I expected it to get a few shares.

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nbsp; “There’s a fine line between bravery and foolhardiness, and if you use that junk you would have crossed it like Caesar crossing the Rubicon!”

  Trying not to look annoyed, I turned to Geraldine to see if I would understand what she was babbling on about better if I looked at her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “This so-called ‘software’, it’s junk. I keep telling everyone who’ll listen, you can’t beat a pen and paper. Except pencil and paper, because then you can make corrections. I don’t know why people waste their time and money with all this electronic nonsense.”

  “Can’t it be more efficient?” I asked carefully.

  Geraldine shook her head with sharp dismissiveness. “No. It cannot. I know of at least two B&Bs who nearly lost their entire business because they used this so-called software, only to have their systems hacked! You can’t hack a book, that’s what I say.”

  “I don’t suppose you can.”

  “You can’t. I don’t know why Bernice allowed this conference to turn into a flea market. Don’t you think it lowers the tone?”

  “I’ve never seen any of the previous B&B conferences, so I really don’t think I can comment.”

  Geraldine sniffed loudly, shook her head at me, and then saw someone else she wanted to talk to more than me, which was just fine as far as I was concerned.

  “Anthea! Anthea!” called Geraldine as she marched off.

  On the other side of the table, a man with shoulder-length curly black hair was approaching us.

  “Hello there. I’m Jake Cheltenham, B&B software. Did you… umm, I don’t suppose Geraldine… umm… said something?”

  “I’m rather afraid she did,” I told him. “But don’t worry, I work here — I wasn’t in the market anyway. Addison, Social Media Manager. And this is Sam, Customer Liaison.”

  Jake smiled at us both, seemingly quite pleased that Geraldine hadn’t just soured potential customers.

  “Geraldine doesn’t seem to like technology much,” I observed.

  “No,” said Jake, a dark look flashing across his face. “She doesn’t. I set up a wonderful online registration for all the sessions, and she sabotaged it.”