“You came to town at just the right time,” he said, exhaling a spiral of smoke that drifted upward and hung in a golden ray of late afternoon sunlight which slanted in through a window. “You’ll be here for the Gasparilla Pirate Festival.”
“Dad’s on the committee,” Nina said excitedly. “He’s going to be a pirate. And Louise and I are going to be señoritas.”
Vicki smiled mischievously. “I’m afraid you don’t look like a pirate to me, Mr. Curtin.”
“You just wait until you see me in a big, black beard, a patch over one eye, and a bandanna tied around my head. Maybe you’ll change your mind.”
“Dad looks simply ferocious.” Louise grinned. “Why, he even frightens me!”
The four were talking and laughing gaily when the housekeeper came in to announce dinner. Mrs. Tucker was a large, comfortable-looking woman, with gray hair rolled into a knot on top of her head and wearing a crisply starched white dress. They followed her into the dining room and seated themselves at the table.
“I’m sorry Mother isn’t here to meet you, Vicki,” Louise said, as the housekeeper served the steaming dishes of food, “but she got a wire the other day saying that Grandma was ill, and she flew out to Oregon to see her.”
“Vicki will meet her when she returns,” Mr. Curtin said. “For I trust, young lady,” he said to Vicki, “that you will consider this your home whenever you are in Tampa.”
The pleasant conversation continued as they leisurely ate the delicious dinner. Inevitably it returned to the coming festival.
“One of the stewardesses was talking about it before we left New York,” Vicki said. “She said it was a sort of Mardi Gras, but that’s about all I know.”