Page 33 of The Perils of Paulie
“That was the English team’s choice. Our team is going for the win. Don’t you dare leave this car! Paulie! Dammit! Melody, stop her!”
“Sorry. I’m with Paulie on this,” Melody said, following me. She had the presence of mind to snag the big flat metal key that was used to trigger the ignition mechanism.
“You guys need some help?” I asked, approaching the car ahead of us. The three Italians, dressed in sporty white Edwardian motoring suits, each embroidered with their names, turned, their goggles glinting in the afternoon sun.
“The radiator, she is not happy,” the one named Luca said, flashing me a brief smile.
“It’s not the radiator—it’s the gas. We are out,” said Carlo.
“We have some extra gas—” I started to say.
“No! We do not!” Louise stomped over to us. She punched me painfully on the arm. “You are not giving away our gas. What if we need it? Then we’d be stuck and would lose the race, and all because you want to play hide the Italian salami with Rico here.”
“The name is Carlo—” he started to protest.
“You are seriously offensive—do you know that?” I told Louise. “I just hope the cameras didn’t get any of that, because you’ll be hearing from the Italian-American community if it did.”
“It is not petrol,” the third member, Francesco, said. They all spoke English very well, but had thick Italian accents that, had I not preferred a nice crisp English accent, might have melted my knees. “We have petrol.”
“I thought we all had extra emergency petrol?” Melody asked, glancing at their car.
“We have, yes,” Francesco said. “It is something with the engine.”
“Oh. Well, I’m not going to be much help with that,” I said.
“It’s all right,” he said, giving his car a rueful look.
“I wish there was something we could do to help you. I have a cell phone if you need to call Roger—”
“Speak of the devil,” Melody said, looking behind us. “There’re the Germans, and Roger is right behind them.”
Indeed, at that moment the German ladies drove by with a blast of their horn and friendly waves. Behind them drove the sedan bearing Roger and an assistant. Their car pulled up in front of the Italians, and Roger emerged with Graham the mechanic.
“Oh, good. The cavalry has arrived, gentlemen.”
Immediately they went to consult with Roger and Graham, and with nothing more to do, we returned to our car. Louise said nothing more about the incident, but I felt her glaring daggers into the back of my head as we drove along.
Driving the Thomas Flyer was kind of a mixed bag: it was a fun old car, and people honked and waved and gave us thumbs-up signs, but the actual act of steering, not to mention shifting into other gears, was a huge strain on the shoulders and arms. We agreed to limit our driving time to just two hours before switching to eliminate fatigue.
“All right, but if the cameraman is with us, then I drive,” Louise said, punching viciously at her phone. “After all, I am supposed to be the driver.”
“I’ll be happy to let you have my shift if you’re so anxious to be seen driving,” I said sweetly, pulling into the parking lot of the hotel we were to stay at that night. At the far end of the lot, a station had been set up for the racers to check in. I glanced at Melody as we rolled over to the waiting crew. “How bad is it?”
She consulted her watch and a clipboard holding the race information. “Well, we’re twenty minutes late. That’s two infractions. But given that we had a blowout, I don’t think that’s too bad.”
“Two infractions?” Louise’s voice went up a whole octave as I pulled up. “Two effing infractions? This is bullshit! Where’s my dad? I am not going to stay with a team that can’t be bothered to try to adhere to the rules. Two infractions on the first effing day!”
“Team Sufferin’ Suffragettes,” the crew member said, checking us in. “I’m afraid that you are twenty minutes past your allotted time.”
“I know. We had a tire issue.”
“And then she—” Louise scrambled out of the car and pointed dramatically at me. “She made us lose time by stopping to help another team. I shouldn’t be punished for that! I wanted to keep going, but she made us stop. I want those infractions taken off of my name. I refuse to be a victim!”
Melody rolled her eyes and made a note of our score on the car’s logbook.
“I’m afraid the scoring is based on teams, not individuals,” the poor crew person tried to explain, but Louise was in full drama mode and stormed around insisting that someone get ahold of her father, who would straighten everything out.
“If you would pull over to the section of the parking lot that is secured,” another crew person told me, pointing to the far end where a couple of RVs had been set up.I remembered vaguely hearing that the crew people would be watching the cars for us while we were in the U.S., but it would be up to us to keep the cars safe when we were abroad.
