“And is that a… reverend?” Harriet asked.
Somehow they had ended up in a special banquet car.
“Oh, good,” Theo said. “We’ve managed to crash a wedding.”
“That better be the only thing that crashes today,” Harriet said.
Theodore gripped tightly to the handle above the window as the car swung. His face went white, the port-wine stain flushing even more crimson on his face.
“Not a fan of heights?” Grace asked, arching a brow with no small amount of pleasure.
“We had never been so well acquainted as we are right now.” His jaw flexed, handsome as ever. “It’s not giving the best first impression.”
“You and heights have that in common, then,” she said.
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “There was a reason the inventor of this wheel died bankrupt and alone.”
“You doing okay there, Theo?” Oliver asked above the din.
“Oh yes,” Theodore said bitingly. “Having the time of my life, which I’m fairly certain is going to end at any moment.”
Oliver threw back his head and laughed. Then he kissed Harriet.
In the corner, someone was playing the wedding march on the piano, and the reverend was addressing the bride and groom. Grace moved past Theo so she could see out the window. She never imagined she could view the fair from the air like this. The Ivory City, spread out beneath them in an endless maze of glowing palaces and canals, statuary and fountains, the people in their finest beginning to looklike miniatures. Her stomach dipped a little, but she was determined not to show any nerves. She tried to memorize what it all looked like, as though she might paint it later. Maybe that’s what she would do in Kansas City. Take up painting.
Meanwhile, Theodore was practically wheezing, bent over.
“Is he all right?” a woman next to him asked.
“Oh, he’s always like this,” Grace said cheerily.
But for an instant, she thought of Walt. He’d always been afraid of heights, too.
With a pulse of compassion, she sidled closer to Theodore. “You know, Mr. Parker, if you die today, at least it was doing something important. Riding a fair amusement while wearing expensive shoes.”
“Ha.” He laughed weakly, but opened his eyes. His white-knuckled grip on the side of the car tightened.
They were stuck on a moving car suspended hundreds of feet in the air together, amid the intense overtures of Harriet and Oliver, and an actual wedding ceremony.
Grace sighed.
“What helps me when I’m nervous,” she said quietly, “is I sing a nursery rhyme for each letter of my name. So, yours would be ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,’ and then, ‘Here Comes an Old Soldier.’”
He squinted up at her. “Does that really work?”
She ignored him, prodding: “Here comes an old soldier from Botany Bay. Have you got anything to give him to-day?”
Theo sighed, gripping the edge. “I’ll give him a hat.”
“A hat. Right. Not terribly original, but I suppose given the circumstances, it’ll do,” Grace said. She turned to Oliver, who had just come up for air.
“What about you, Oliver?”
The woman beside them was now clutching her hat and giving him and Harriet a look of offended disgust.
Oliver grinned, his face blotchy. “I’ll give him a hat and this million-dollar view.” He winked at the woman, who huffed and moved toward another part of the car.
“Harriet?” Grace prodded.
