“Mez Harri Boobies!”  The shrill cry sliced through the confusion of sweating bodies crowding the market.  An arm shot out of nowhere, and a brown hand clamped about my wrist.  I swallowed my shriek of surprise.  Tangier was rife with hands that grab at foreigners.
           
“Mez Harri Boobies, you come queek,” the man whispered in my ear.  “Mezter Pillpot no good, yes?  You come.”
           
“It’s R-u-b-y, not Boobie.”  I repeated my name for Mr. Takamura, one of the three almost-English-speaking Japanese tourists in the small group I was directing through Spain and Morocco.  While my name was not destined to be in lights on Hollywood marquees, for the past twenty-four years it had served me well enough.  I had a sentimental attachment to it.
           
Without a reply, he released my arm.  Insinuating his slight body into the crush of street peddlers, dirty children, and veiled ladies, he moved quickly out of sight.  With a deep sigh, I followed him, devastated by the foreboding that I would be nicknamed Hairy Boobies for the rest of my career as a tour director, which might not be very long after this little incident.
           
He penetrated further into the ancient market through twisted narrow passageways filled with malodorous bodies and a myriad of colors rippling in the heat—the red, blue, amber, purple of clothing, goods for sale, food, tents.  In pursuit, I skirted white-robed Moroccans bartering for goods, men sipping Mint tea, and women painting the hands of girls with rich sienna-colored henna.  The humid air, replete with an exotic mixture of scents—ginger, curry, rare perfumes, cigarette smoke, donkey dung—stirred my senses.  The babbling of many languages and the lilting of pipes assaulted my ears.
           
“Wait!”  How in the world had they gone this far in such a short time?
           
He stopped for an instant, turned and waved.  Then he disappeared again.  Finally, Mr. Takamura stopped in a small plaza with a colorful tiled fountain in the center, a calm refuge in the midst of chaos.  In stray beams of sunlight, tiny motes of dust danced in the thick atmosphere.  The Japanese gentleman waited for me to catch up, then smiled and bowed.
           
My gaze followed his nod.  “Ohmigod!”
        
Archibald Philpot of London, the most distinguished and eldest of my tourists, knelt doubled over the lip of the fountain, hurling his guts.  Oh, boy.
           
My tourists—three American and two Swedish couples and the other two Japanese—watched with helpless concern on their faces, while a growing knot of Moroccans glared at us with mayhem in their dark eyes.
           
The disbelief and thin-lipped anger on their faces indicated they were not pleased about the desecration of what was probably their water supply.  I couldn’t blame them.  This could get dicey.  A drop on sweat dribbled into my eye.
           
Edith Johnson, a ditzy fiftyish blond trying to look thirty, was the first to see me.  She clapped her hand to her bosom and cried, “Thank goodness you’re here, Harriet.  Do something.”
           
Who, me?    
           
I dropped down beside Archie.  His complexion was gray-green, his rheumy eyes were glazed over, and by the stench, I guessed the poor man might have a case of diarrhea.  My stomach heaved.  Swallowing hard, I managed to maintain my tour director decorum.  This was definitely not in my job description.
           
I gently put my hand on the man’s forehead.  His skin was searing and he perspired profusely.  He vomited again.  I closed my eyes in resignation―well, maybe in part because I don’t really like the looks of barf―held his head and decided that tour director wasn’t such a wonderful profession anyway.
           
Mr. Takamura, rather inappropriately attired for such a sweltering day in a three-piece silk suit, sat down on the fountain’s ledge next to where I knelt.  “I do okay?” he asked, beaming.
           
I nodded.  “Thank you for bringing me.”  There was no point in asking how they had ended up here.  It was enough that they were still together.  “Please, help me get him up.”
           
One thing you could say for Mr. Takamura.  In addition to the fact that he had an unpronounceable first name that sounded like Bon Jovi, he was always ready to help regardless of how overdressed he was.  He got down beside me in the gunk and helped pull sweet old Archie out of the fountain.  Finally, Bob Feldman, one of the Americans, joined us.
           
The three of us heaved the gasping old gentleman to his feet.  His flyaway white hair stood out in clumps in all directions, and his vest was soiled.  His wire-rimmed glasses and duck-headed walking stick were gone.  Lifting his arms over our shoulders, we half-carried, half-dragged the stumbling eighty-five-year-old to a nearby café’s outdoor dining area.
           
“Put him here.”  I pulled out one of the chairs with my foot.  The men got him into it, and I placed his arms on the table so he could lay his head on them.  He looked as though he was simply taking a short nap.  Rolling my eyes upward, I sent a fervent prayer to heaven that his condition wasn’t too serious.
           
“Mr. Takamura … Bon Jovi.”  I mumbled his name to hide my weakness in Japanese pronunciation.  “Would you please buy a bottle of water inside?  Thanks.”  I handed him two fifty-Dirham coins.  He took them, bowed and rushed off to make the purchase.
           
Okay, so this is a setback.  But things had a way of turning out all right.  Always the optimist, I pasted a perky smile across my face and clapped my hands for attention.
“All right, everyone, let’s get the group together,” I shouted, my voice oozing with tour director enthusiasm.  I hadn’t been a cheerleader in college for nothing.
           
While they assembled in a loose circle around me, I tried phoning Mario again.  Still no response.  Once everyone was there, I counted twelve plus Bon Jovi still in the café and Archie draped over the table.  As I looked at each of them, a slow burn in the pit of my stomach rose as bile in my throat.
           
Damn Mario.  Damn the whole Adventure Seekers Travel Agency.  It was their fault I was here, alone and unable to speak the language.  When I accepted this gig on a moment’s notice, they promised my driver would stay with me at all times.
           
My charges stared back at me with expectation on their faces, waiting for direction.  I gave myself a little shake to force my mind back to grim reality.
           
“As you can see, Mr. Philpot – Archie – isn’t feeling well.”  I gestured toward him, still asleep or passed out on the table.  “We’ll stop here for some refreshments and give him a few minutes to rest.  Everyone go inside and make your selections.”
           
Once they all had the beverages of their choice and found places to sit outside, I slumped down beside the patient.  He hadn’t moved, so I sat there and watched his back as he took slow shallow breaths.  The poor man probably needed a doctor, but I honestly didn’t think I could find my way out of the medina without help.  With Mario unreachable, what was I going to do?
           
A hand on my arm made me jump.  My shin hit the wrought iron table leg with a hard thunk.  “Ow!” 
           
“Excuse me, Miss,” a pleasant deep voice whispered close to my ear.  “You seem to be having some difficulty.  May I help?”
           
Rubbing my injured leg, I turned.  Sitting at the next table was a bronze-complexioned man of indeterminable origin.  He wore tan slacks with razor-sharp creases down the legs and a black short-sleeved shirt open halfway to his belt.  Nestled in the curly hair of his chest lay a thick gold chain.  His impossibly long legs stretched out in front of him.
           
Although he appeared to be in his early thirties, his dark hair – in a spiky, longer-than-military cut—had just enough gray at the ears to be very sexy.  His blue eyes, brilliant and clear, locked on mine and sent me floating through space like a slow motion Alice in the rabbit’s hole.  My senses swirled in a cloud of musk-mixed-with-danger scent.  My temperature went up ten degrees, and a swarm of butterflies tap-danced in my stomach.  Wow!
           
I don’t know how long I gaped at him before things snapped back into place.
           
“Help?  Difficulty?”  I repeated, still a little dazed by his incredible good looks, but the words registered.  Oh, thank you, God.  I promise I’ll never sin again.  Actually, I had done quite a bit of bargaining with the Almighty since I’d embarked on the tour, but this promise was heavy. 
           
“Yes!  Yes, I do need help.  I’d be forever grateful if you could get me and my group out of the medina and back” – I paused and racked my brain for the name – ”back to Jamaa el Fna Square.”
           
The stranger raised one eyebrow and blinked.  “Marrakech?”
           
I blinked back, nonplussed.  “Marrakech?”  For a moment, I thought we were speaking different languages.
           
“That’s where Jamaa el Fna Square is located.”  He grinned.  My legs started to melt into the paving tiles.  Thank goodness, I was sitting down.
           
I waved my hands.  “No, no, I meant the square here…in Tangier.  Where the tour buses stop.”
           
“Hmm, yes.”  He nodded and smiled, flashing straight white teeth.  “Forever grateful, you say?” he repeated in a low, sexy voice.
           
Wow again.  He was drop-dead gorgeous.  My cheeks warmed as I rummaged around inside my brain for a witty response and came up empty.
           
He rose, ignoring my embarrassment, made a slight bow, and held out his hand.  All charm.  “William Talbot, at your service.  Call me Will.”
           
I cleared my throat so I could speak.  “Hello, Will.”  I shook his hand with a firm grip, determined not to be judged as weak.  “I’m Harriet Ruby, tour director with Adventure Seekers Travel.”
           
He eyed Archie collapsed on the table.  His nose twitched slightly.  “Won’t you join me over here?”
           
I must admit, by now Archie did smell a little ripe.  I nodded and moved to the empty chair at his table.
           
He raised his thick, dark brows.  “Tell me, how is it that a tour director needs help getting out of the medina?”
           
“This is my first solo as a tour director here in Europe.”  I lifted my shoulders in a shrug.  “To make a long story short, I was supposed to be an assistant-trainee for the season with the regular guide who does these Spain-Morocco trips.  Unfortunately, for both of us, he was in a motorcycle accident the day before we left.  So, here I am.”
           
“They turned you loose in Morocco alone?”  He sounded incredulous.
           
“Not exactly,” I replied and explained my situation.  “I have plenty of experience as a tour guide in the States, and my driver has done this trip for years.  We were doing fine until Archie Philpot got sick.  Now, I need to get my group back to the bus so I can find a doctor for him.”
           
“And you haven’t got a clue.”
           
It hadn’t taken him long to peg me, had it?  Who was this guy?  A mind reader?  My face flushed again and I hoped he hadn’t tapped into my less-than-chaste thoughts.