Page 75 of The Perils of Paulie
“I’d be able to enjoy those shivers if I knew exactly where the Essex car was.” Dixon brooded. “Perhaps we should have a quick nap and then drive through the rest of the night. We lost so much time at the border...”
“We promised Roger we wouldn’t drive stupid like that. And besides, what would Tabby and Sam say? Tabby’stext said they are down for the night because both of them are exhausted and they just want to sleep.”
Dixon frowned. “Don’t you care that the Essex team is ahead of us by hours?”
“Not really, no. You know why? Because we still have several days left in this race, and I know for a fact that shit happens. They’ll blow a tire or crack another radiator hose, and we’ll catch up, and then we’ll be ahead for a while. That’s the way it’s been the whole race.”
“Yes, but that was before they so obviously cheated by having us detained.”
“What did Roger say when you told him about that?” I asked, not having been privy to that conversation.
Dixon looked disgusted. “He told me it must have been a mistake or a joke or something. The man is delusional if he thinks that team isn’t behind all of the problems of the show.”
“You’ve done a one-eighty about that,” I commented.
“Being detained and searched will do that to you,” he said grimly, and I let the subject drop, feeling it was better to keep Dixon in a happy mood.
A half hour later, we arrived at the site where the Russian Orthodox Church ran a memorial to Czar Nicholas and his family. There were rows of tour buses, and although it was late in the day, streams of tourists poured through the wooden gates that were bordered on either side by kiosks loaded with souvenirs.
“OK, this is kind of...”
“Tacky?” Dixon suggested.
“I was going to say materialistic, considering the church treats the Romanovs as saints, but decided I wouldn’t dis a religion as a whole. Although I have to say, I wouldn’t mind a couple of postcards. Oooh. Is that a Czar Nicholas book bag?”
Dixon took my arm and steered me away from thekiosk. “We only have half an hour before they close, so if you want to see the sight, we’d better get moving.”
“All right, but if you don’t get an authentic Czar Nicholas icon for your birthday, don’t blame me.” We passed a large bust of the czar and headed out into the birch and pine forest on a dirt path, swatting away moths and mosquitoes and stumbling over bits of roots. Once we’d seen the mine where the Bolsheviks had dumped the bodies, we had time to move on to view a simple cross embedded into the ground.
“Well?” Dixon asked a short while later, when we were headed back to our B&B. “Was that worth the time we could have been having a bath together?”
“I think so,” I said, my mood somber after the experience. “For one, the tub isn’t big enough for both of us. I know, because I checked. And for another, these were my people, or at least my father’s people. My mom is Irish. And the whole revolution thing had an impact on my dad’s family. One side left Russia right after the uprising and came to America. The other side—the one my dad belongs to—stayed put, until there was no one but my dad left alive. He emigrated as soon as he could leave the country and came to America so he could stay with his cousins. Wow, I really got into a lot more family history than you wanted to know, huh?”
“On the contrary,” he said with a smile. “I like to know things about you.”
I looked at him, aware of an emotion that seemed to run high between us, but just then I caught a flash of white in the darkness. Along the side of the road, a man in a Stormtrooper costume pushed a big baby carriage, from which a dog’s head poked out.
“You don’t see that every day,” I commented.
“See what?”
“A Stormtrooper pushing a dog in a stroller.”
He blinked. “Where was that?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I trailed my fingers across his thigh. “So, about this bath that we won’t both fit into. Perhaps there’s a way it can work. Say, if I sit on you...”
August 2
From: Julia
You haven’t texted me in forever. How’s lover boy? How’s the race? Where are you? What time is it? I hope I’m not waking you.
August 2
To: Julia
He’s in the bathtub with the B&B owner. Race is hairy. Yekaterinburg, Russia. It’s almost midnight, but am awake.
