13 Little Blue Envelopes(55)
The room got darker. Ginny couldn’t tell if the lights were actually dropping or if this was just because the heavy blond bangs of the wig were shading her eyes. Her braids stuck out of the front, like mutant hair tentacles. She quickly tried to shove them under the lump in the back.
“How about some ‘Dancing Queen’?” the host screamed,
this time, in English. “How about some ‘Mamma Mia’?”
The crowd liked that idea, and no group in the crowd liked it more than the Australian-Japanese contingency that had sent Ginny here in the first place. Monitors along the edge of the stage came to life. Pictures of mountain scenes and strolling couples rolled by.
And then she heard the first chord. That was when it all hit her.
They were going to make her sing.
Ginny did not sing. She especially did not sing after spending five days with the Knapps. She did not sing, ever. She did not get on stages.
Ito went first, grabbing clumsily at the microphone. Though he was smiling, Ginny sensed a genuine competitiveness—he 248
wanted this. The crowd urged him on, banging on the floor and clapping. Ginny kept trying to retreat into the background, but the host kept moving her forward. This was the last place she wanted to be. She was not doing this. She was not.
And yet, here she was, on a stage in Copenhagen under six pounds of synthetic blond hair. She was doing it even as her brain tried to convince her otherwise. In fact, she was in front of the microphone now, and hundreds of expectant faces were looking up at her. And then she heard the noise.
She was singing.
The really astonishing thing was, as she heard her own voice echoing around the huge bar, it almost sounded right. It was a little agonized, maybe. She kept going until she ran out of breath, closing her eyes, letting it all go in one continuous shot until her voice broke.
“Now, we will vote for the winner!”
This man screamed everything. Maybe screaming was a
Danish thing.
He took Ito’s arm and held it up, then nodded to the crowd to make their feelings known. There was a good amount of
cheering. Then he reached over and pulled Ginny’s arm up.
She was hailed like a queen when she returned to the table, Ito bowing at her the entire way. The Japanese men were obviously traveling on some kind of unlimited expense account, and they made it clear that they were paying for everyone in the group. They immediately flooded the table with various sandwiches. The beer was nonstop. Ginny made it through about a fourth of her cup. Carrie got down two entire mugs. Emmett, Bennett, and Nigel all managed to drink three each. Why they 249
didn’t die immediately was unclear to Ginny. In fact, they seemed totally fine.
By two in the morning, their new benefactors were showing the first signs of an impending collective coma. A credit card was produced, and within minutes, they were all shuffling out onto the street. After some goodbyes and thank-yous and a lot of bowing, Ginny and the Australians started heading toward the metro but were stopped by one of the Japanese men.
“No, no,” he slurred, shaking his head heavily. “Tax-i. Tax-i.”
He reached into his suit pocket and produced a fistful of carefully folded euros. He pressed these into Ginny’s hand.
Ginny tried to give them back, but the man showed a fierce determination. It was like a reverse mugging, and Ginny felt that it was best to just comply. The other men waved for taxis, and soon a little row of cars was lined up. Ginny and the Australians were ushered into an oversized blue Volvo. Nigel got into the front, and Emmett, Bennett, Ginny, and Carrie sandwiched into the broad leather backseat.
“I know where we live,” Emmett said, leaning against the
door with a thoughtful look on his face. “I just don’t know how to get there.”
Nigel said something to the driver in halting, Australian-sounding Danish that he read from a book. The driver turned around and replied, “Circle drive? What are you talking about? Do you need me to drive around? Is that what you are trying to say?”
Carrie put her head on Ginny’s shoulder and nodded off to sleep.
Bennett decided to navigate from his vantage point, squashed in the middle of the backseat, barely able to see out of any window.
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Whenever he managed to catch a glimpse of anything he thought he recognized, he would tell the driver to turn. Unfortunately, Bennett seemed to recognize everything. The pharmacy. The bar.
The little shop with the flowers in the window. The big church.
The blue sign. The driver put up with this for about half an hour and then finally pulled over and said, “Tell me where you are staying.”
“Hippo’s Beach,” Bennett said.
“Hippo’s? I know this place. Of course I know this place.
You should have told me.”
He pulled back on the road and turned in the opposite
direction, driving quickly.
“It’s starting to look familiar now,” Bennett said, yawning wildly.
They were there in less than five minutes. The ride came to four hundred kroner. Ginny wasn’t sure how much money she had in her hand. Whatever it was, it had been given to them for taxi fare, and this driver had put up with a lot.
“Here,” she said, handing it all over. “It’s all for you.”
She saw him count it out as Carrie made her sleepy way out of the car. He turned and gave her a wide smile. She got the feeling that she had just given him his best tip of the year.