She watched with (madly blinking) wariness while I finished dressing and exited the room. As I was leaving, the other woman came in, and I heard Lydia saying, “It’s amazing a hat will fit on that guy’s fat head. You wouldn’t believe what he said...”
I hurried down the hall, not wanting to hear any more.“I just wish this hellish day would come to an end,” I growled to myself as I approached the elevators.Naturally, the door opened while I was speaking, and Paulie emerged, carrying a pair of shoes.
“You having that sort of a day, too?” she asked, strolling past me. “Look at it this way: at least you didn’t have someone find you physically repellent.”
She turned the corner and was gone before I could apologize.
There’s going to be a lot of this journal that I can’t publish.
Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe I should have stayed home, where it was safe.
Dammit, I don’t find her physically repellent! Far from it.
Right. That’s enough of that sort of talk. Time for a cold shower, then bed. Things will be better in the morning.
God, I hope they’re better in the morning.
Paulina Rostakova’s Adventures
JULY 20
1:44 p.m.
Dorcet Hotel, New York City, parking garage
“I think we all agree that I’m the head suffragette.” Louise tossed her head and gave Melody and me a look that dared us to dispute that statement. “And Melody is the studious one who knows all the stuff, like navigation and all that.”
“I’m so delighted being the stuff-knowing one,” Melody said dryly, her face deadpan.
I bit back a giggle, knowing from my time with her that anything remotely humorous completely missed Louise. She had to be the single most self-centered person I’d ever met, and I grew up in California!
“Which makes me the rogue suffragette,” I said, trying to spin a wrench around my fingers, but ending up flinging it at Louise’s foot. She shrieked and leaped back, giving me a mean look in return. “Sorry.”
“I should hope so!”
I fetched the wrench back and held tight to it while Louise made a note on her phone. “You’re the handy one,” she finally told me, giving me a less-than-happy face. “I hope you pay attention at the mechanic class.”
“From what I understand, Graham the mechanic will be traveling with Roger’s entourage. I only have to know how to do a couple of things, like tighten lug nuts or those pointy things in the engine.”
“Spark plugs,” Melody said, sighing under her breath.
“Right, those. Don’t worry—I’ll be the queen of suffragette mechanics.”
“If you could do it without damaging my Jimmy Choos, that would be awesome,” Louise said in a sicklysweet voice, then did another hair flip and plastered a smile on her face when she saw the camera crew heading our way.
Two other teams were in the garage, each going through the rule book and getting acquainted with the cars. I was a bit surprised to see the film crews following Roger around. “Why are they filming this? We’re not in costume, and we are just learning about the cars,” I said.
“It’s all prep work,” Melody explained with a nod toward Roger, who was at the car next to ours. “Behind-the-scenes stuff to be used on the director’s commentary version of the DVD.”
“We’re going to be on a DVD?” I asked, surprised. I thought it was just a British reality show, although Louise had said earlier that she’d heard there was a chance a U.S. network was going to pick up the show.
“Most likely.” Melody consulted the printed handbook that we’d all been given. “I’m looking forward to crossing the country. I’ve never been here, but Tessa talks a lot about it. Is this I-80 road that we spend some time on interesting?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been on it, but from the map I looked at this morning, it seems to go relatively straight across the country, so I imagine there will be some pretty scenes.” I looked askance at the car next to us. “I just don’t know how they expect us to get across the countryin two weeks in this giant white behemoth. I know it’s not a complete antique, but its body parts are. Can a car that old make the trip?”
Melody patted the car’s long hood. “I think it has character.”
I gave the car a thorough examination. It looked a lot like the car from the famous movie: gleaming cream-colored metal with leather straps holding the hood down, great sweeping sideboards that you could stand on if you wanted, two rows of red leather seats, with one of the narrow old-timey tires strapped to the back. On the front hood, a sign painter was carefully writingTHOMAS FLYERin fancy black script, outlined in gold. “At least the seats look comfy.”
