“Not so far as Alice is concerned,” Elliott said, perusing some of the charts I’d printed out. “Looks to me likethings are in pretty good shape and that you could easily take six weeks off for the race.”
“Race?” I snatched the papers from his fingers and put them into a file folder. “What race?”
“Some around-the-world thing that Roger d’Espry is doing. You remember him?”
“No.”
“That’s right—you were gone when the film crew was here watching Gunner and Lorina dig up Roman remains. Well, it’s the man who has a production company that specializes in reality TV reenactments of a sort. They did one with a Victorian setting, and now they want to do a New York to Paris race that follows the route of a 1908 race.”
“Hrmph,” I said. “Not interested.”
“You would get to race in an authentic period car,” Elliott said in a persuasive tone.
That made me sit up. There’s nothing I love so much as antique cars. “What kind of authentic period car?”
“Er...” Elliott pulled a folded scrap of paper from his pocket. “Nineteen twelve De Dion-Bouton.”
“What?” I took the paper from him and whistled. “It has an Antoinette aircraft engine. This is amazing. The car should be in a museum.”
“I gather that d’Espry made arrangements to have cars restored that were in bad shape, so it’s not in original form.”
“Still, parts of it are real.” I pursed my lips and thought. “What’s this race entail?”
He told me. In fact, he dragged me back to his office, where, after working our way through the obstacle course of baby toys, he pulled up an e-mail and let me read all about it.
I decided that it might be fun and, after making sure that Alice (who volunteered as my replacement while Iwas gone) was up to speed on monitoring the tourist activities and bookings, found myself packing for a monthlong race.
Rupert had also been roped into joining the team, although his reasons for doing so were less than sterling.
“Birds will dig it,” he said, shoving my elbow off the shared armrest between our seats on the plane flying us to New York City. “Plus it gets me away from Alice. She keeps throwing women at me.”
“I wasn’t aware you had any problem finding women,” I said, giving him a brotherly once-over. He had combed the wild mop of hair that usually stuck out at all angles and put on something other than the knee-length shorts and T-shirt that were his habitual costume.
“I don’t, but this is a free trip around the world. I’ll be able to take tons of pictures, and I’ve got my tablet with me, so I can draw as I go.”
“I’m surprised you got the time away from your job.”
He shrugged and pushed his seat back, much to the annoyance of the person behind him. “I left it. They wanted me to design the most obnoxious dreck you’ve ever seen. It’s time I go out on my own anyway. Freelance design is where it’s at.”
I spent a good hour trying to make him see that dumping his job to gallivant around on a reality show for a month wasn’t, perhaps, the best career choice, but Rupert had always been one to go his own way.
He said as much when we arrived at our hotel, dumping his bag in the room next to mine and not even bothering to unpack before he appeared in my doorway. “Right. That’s me sorted. I’m off to see the ladies of New York.”
“I thought perhaps we could see some of the sights—”
He grinned. “Oh, I’m going to. But the last thing I need is a misery guts hanging around my neck like an albatross.”
“I am not a misery guts,” I said, annoyed.
“You are when it comes to meeting women. Hell, you don’t even like them touching you.”
“I don’t likeanyonetouching me,” I pointed out. “I don’t understand why people do not respect one’s personal space.”
“And that is exactly why you are the worst wingman in the world,” Rupert said, dashing in to ruffle my hair and give me a huge bear hug. “Have fun, brother.”
“Dammit, Ru!” I yelled after his fleeing figure, trying to restore order to my hair and my shirt, which he’d deliberately rumpled.
“I can’t help it if I don’t like to be touched,” I told my reflection. “People touch too much anyway. They’re always patting an arm or hugging or touching a shoulder—there’s no reason to be so exuberant. Moderacy, that’s what’s needed in this world—moderacy in shows of affection, and in the invasion of another person’s space.”
