The Summer Seekers

One more cocktail would ensure she woke with a headache, so Martha shook her head. She had a feeling she would have enough reasons for headaches on this trip without adding an excess of alcohol to the mix.

“Sparkling water, please.”

Kathleen beamed at the waiter and gestured to her glass. “That man is very dishy. You probably don’t even know what that word means, do you? Your generation would say cute, or so my granddaughters tell me.”

“Cute works.”

“Fifty years ago I would have invited him back to my room. He has wonderful eyes and a cheeky smile.” Kathleen looked at Martha thoughtfully. “Maybe you—”

“No. Thank you. I’m not interested.” Adventure, yes. Road trip, yes. Cocktails, definitely. Men? No way. What did it say about her life that an eighty-year-old was trying to fix her up with someone?

Kathleen leaned in. “You’re gay?”

“No, not gay. A bit off relationships right now.” She thought about Steven and thinking about Steven made her wish she’d ordered another cocktail instead of water. “I should take a photo of you to send to Liza. I promised her I would. Should you put the drink down? Will she be concerned?”

“She would probably be more concerned if I wasn’t drinking.” Kathleen posed against the skyline as Martha took photos on her phone.

As she put her phone away she noticed that she had two missed calls from Steven. Some of the magic oozed out of the moment. Even this far from home, he could still ruin her evening.

She was tempted to send a photo of herself sipping cocktails together with a message, Can’t talk now, I’m busy.

Kathleen was watching her. “Everything all right?”

“Fine.” She zipped up her bag and tried to forget about it. “Tell me more about you, Kathleen. Did you always travel a lot?”

“Yes. And this place is as exciting as I remembered. Doesn’t it raise your pulse looking at it?”

“Your pulse is raised?” Martha sat up straighter. “Any pains in your chest or anything?” She should have done a first aid course before coming on this trip.

Kathleen seemed untroubled. “At my age there are always aches and pains. It’s best not to dwell on them.”

Martha had a few pains of her own, mostly around her heart. Her feelings and her confidence were bruised and battered. She was all for trying not to dwell on it.

“Did you come here as a tourist?” She realized that the only thing she knew about her employer was that she lived in a nice house in the middle of nowhere, seemed to have enough money to pay for expensive hotels and was determined to live out the rest of her years in a manner unbecoming for her age.

“I was working.” Kathleen put her fork down. “I presented a travel show. Decades before you were born, of course. I traveled the world. I was a household name for a while.”

“What was the show called?”

“The Summer Seekers. You’re far too young to remember it, but your mother might.”

Martha had no intention of communicating with her mother. She was enjoying the break, and she had no doubt that the feeling was mutual. “You were a journalist?”

“I started working at a television company when I finished college. I did a number of jobs, but then it turned out I was rather good at presenting. I worked on a few different shows, including one for children. And then came The Summer Seekers. Have you ever done a job in your life that felt absolutely right?”

“No.” Martha saw no reason not to be honest. “I suppose you could say I’m still—finding my way. Trial and error, you know?” There had been more errors than she cared to remember.

“Well, The Summer Seekers was right for me. Right from the beginning, I loved it. What I tried to do in my reports was to give people a taste of the place. I wanted people to make up their minds if they wanted to visit, and armchair travelers—and there were plenty of those—to feel as if they’d visited even though they hadn’t left the comfort of their own homes. Once we arrived in a place it was up to me to decide what to highlight. I’d look at the culture, the food, but I’d always cover a few places that were off the beaten track. If I was lucky I’d find a local willing to join me for a day and take me to all their favorite haunts. That insider perspective gave viewers a feel for the real place.”

Martha was fascinated. “Are any of your old shows on the internet?”

“I have no idea. I don’t use the internet. I do have them on DVD, but they’re at home.”

“If you don’t use the internet, how did you book the flight tickets, the hotels and the car?”

Kathleen paused. “If I tell you, you need to promise not to tell Liza. She would disapprove.”

It seemed funny to Martha that Kathleen was keeping secrets from her own daughter. Maybe she wasn’t the only one who found Liza a little scary.