Whirlwind 01 - Finish Line - Pt. 03

Ariana closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead in weariness. Her cuts, stinging painfully but relatively minor, had been quickly attended to. Nathan's were much more extensive and he had lost a lot more blood, though not a dangerous amount. As soon as she had been able to get the doctor to tell her that Nathan was alright, she had gotten her pack, her airplane tickets, and caught the first taxi to the airport, wanting to avoid, at all costs, a confrontation with Nathan. He would want to know why she had slapped him, and she had no explanation she cared to give.

She had passed through security and was making her way down the huge international concourse when a mighty shout had echoed down the long hall, making everyone pause and look toward the security lines. The shout was 'Ariana!' and the voice was unmistakably Nathan's. She had spun around, her heart in her throat and acutely conscious of being the center of attention while not being safely on stage. Fifty yards behind her, just on the other side of the thick Plexiglas security barrier were Nathan and Tom, and Mike and Theresa with their shouldered video recorders, and a small crowd of suspicious security personnel. Nathan shouted, in excruciating but recognizable Gaelic, the first two lines of the Irish Blessing for Travelers - 'May the road rise to meet you, and may the wind be always at your back.' Then he waved. She had swallowed hard. The look on his face wasn't angry or sad, just honestly friendly. She had managed a little wave with her right hand and a vague gesture with her left hand at a nearby 'Departures' screen, and then turned and chased the crowd, hoping to disappear back into the anonymity of the throng on the way to her gate.

She shook herself. Nathan and Tom and a crew had raced, probably wildly, across, the city to the airport and rushed right up to a security barrier - just to say goodbye. That was Nathan, alright. She remembered her agent, "Oh, Nathan met me at the airport ta say 'goodbye,' since I had to catch that last minute flight. Yes, yes, that's okay. Tell them tis a deal." and she had cut the connection before having to deal with any more questions.

[The retired American basketball star and his fan were the last team to arrive but this was a non-elimination leg]

CHAPTER 12 [Tenth Leg (Israel to Norway -- Five teams remaining]

The Meet and Greet was going particularly well, she thought. There weren't too many in the line, and everyone so far had only wanted an autograph, or a photograph, or to present them with some trinket. Marie sat beside her, busily signing an extra photograph. The security guard just behind them was alert but quite relaxed. The next pair of admirers bustled up as the handler gave them a nod. They were two women, both well-dressed; one in her thirties with shoulder-length, black hair, and the other in her forties with long honey-blonde hair, though both were currently grinning like teenagers.

The younger one spoke first. "May I ask you a personal question?"

Oh, oh, potential trouble, but keep smiling and use a neutral response. "You kin ask; I don promise ta answer, tho."

The woman blushed. "What is Nathan Moore really like? I mean he is just so great on television, but that's just television."

For a moment Ariana stared. Fans paid up to five hundred dollars for a few minutes of time at a Meet and Greet; this was the first time anyone had asked her about Nathan first thing. They would usually gush about the Fantastic Race and then ask a question about Nathan. Thoughts spinning and flashing like fireflies caught in a whirlwind, she groped for a response, but all inspiration had evaporated, and she finally looked the woman in the eye and made the only answer she could think of. "If the UN ever holds a nicest person on the planet contest, you'll know the vote's been rigged if Nathan doesn't get at least first runner-up," Her chest had a sudden, heavy ache.

"Was he a good teammate?"

The ache grew worse, and she didn't want to put a name to it. Her response was as hard as it was automatic; "Ta be askin for a better teammate would be tryin God's patience."

The other woman, a little older, who had been listening quietly broke in. "Are the two of you together at all? You and Nathan? If you aren't, I'd like his phone number."

She felt her face freeze, and wondered if the woman were serious.

She heard Marie laugh, prodding her into remembering the first rule of public relations for celebrities - unless the fan was downright crude or dangerous, just laugh to give yourself time to think. She forced a laugh and remembered she was an actress and tried to rise above the consternation. She stopped when she noted that the woman wasn't laughing. "Well, Nathan is a dear, dear friend. He's the president of my fan forum. But we aren't - involved - or anything like tha." The woman continued to look at her, and she scrambled for higher moral ground. "I don know if I should be givin Nathan's number out ta a stranger, so I'll hae to say..."

She heard Marie clear her throat and leapt immediately to the certainty that Marie was going to suggest the woman just join the Ariana Collins Fan Forum on-line and she could send messages right to Nathan any time, just like any other member. Without any conscious thought, her foot darted sideways to rap Marie smartly on the ankle. Marie swallowed her words, and rapped her back, which Ariana ignored.

The woman ignored the byplay or didn't pick up on it. She bent down on the table, writing briefly on a small piece of paper. She handed it and a small photo to Ariana, who reached to take it automatically. "I understand. If you could just send that along, I would appreciate it."

"I'll see what I kin do," Ariana replied, sounding cool, even to herself. After a few more minutes of small talk, the pair moved away and were replaced by a man pushing a small girl in a wheelchair across the stage. The girl looked wasted and drawn, but she was smiling angelically, as if all of her dreams had come true. Ariana rallied to smile back just as happily, pushing the previous encounter firmly to the back of her mind.

At the end of the Meet and Greet, as they were making their weary way back to the bus, Marie nudged her elbow. "Ya could hae just told her ta join the fan forum. Isna Nathan's contact information there?"

"Me fan forum is no an on-line datin site," said Ariana, a little more coldly than she might have wished. She walked just a trifle faster, wanting the sanctuary of the bus.

"What did she gae ya?"

Without thinking Ariana passed her the tokens she hadn't bother to look at.

"Maureen McNamara," Marie read, matching her pace. "Wi an address and phone number in California. And a picture...."

Ariana was suddenly aware that Marie was no longer beside her. She glanced over her shoulder, stopped, and then walked back. Marie passed her the small picture with a bemused look and no comment. Ariana looked at it. The photograph was unmistakably that of the woman. In a thong bikini. With no tan lines. And she obviously took exceptional care of herself, or had her pick of plastic surgeons. Ariana felt her cheeks go flush.

"You'll hae ta tell me wha Nathan says when he sees tha," Marie commented, drily.

Ariana's cheeks were near blistering hot, and she hid the picture in her palm. "Nathan will be no interested in the likes o her." she turned and headed even faster toward the waiting bus.

Marie hurried to catch her up. "Most men wouldna mind gettin a picture like tha."

"Nathan isna like tha."

"Really?"

"I know him."

"An how well might tha be, then?"

Ariana mounted the bus steps and was turning to glare at Marie, when she was hugged, hard, by Cassie from behind. "We're sorry! We just couldna wait! We watched while ya war busy. We kin play it agin. Team Number One! Ya set the new record! Ten o ten times! Oh, we are so proud o ya!"

Ariana found herself in her favorite chair with a cup of her favorite tea and was quietly watching as Linnae, Lavender and Cassie provided a running commentary on what was coming next on the show to Marie. It had been the most tiring; no, brutal, set of tasks, and then had come... the after. She had not noticed anything of the next two hours, and shook herself, startled, out of her deep introspection by Marie's touch on her shoulder. "How did ya ever make it through tha obstacle course in less than a minute?" Marie asked, staring at her. She shrugged, hating to have to let go of the marvelous memory, "I just thought o it as Madam Telema's dance class, and didn't want anyone ta think I couldna do it." As Marie shook her head and turned away, Ariana had a cold curdling in her stomach knowing she had just been less than totally honest to her friend - she had made it through because Nathan had been cheering her on and she hadn't wanted to disappoint him.

Spectacular was the only word for the sunset, looking like two sky-size octopi, one brilliant crimson, the other deep indigo, wrestling in very slow motion. She was enjoying it from the vantage point of the airport's observation deck, which turned out to be a rock garden of great tranquility just meters from the hurrying masses and less than a hundred meters from various large and small jets. There were three hours until their boarding call, and she wanted to rest. Someone moved quietly behind her and sat beside her on the wall. She did not have to look to know it was Nathan, somehow she had felt it was him from his first faint, gravel-crunching footstep on the winding path. She glanced around, their videographer shadows were evidently in the rest room after overindulging in some Norwegian specialty cuisine.

Ariana wondered if Nathan was going to spoil the scene by chatting, but he settled for companionable silence. As the sun settled behind the deep darkness of the horizon and the indigo octopus slowly overwhelmed its crimson challenger and pulled the night sky over them like a black velvet comforter speckled with sequins, she felt a profound contentment. Part of her appreciated his fine sense of discretion for knowing when to listen, when to talk, and when to just BE. In her experience, men usually got such basic communication judgements utterly wrong.

When the sun was no longer even a faint shine on the horizon, and not even the pickiest lawyer could have called it anything other than night, Nathan said, "You enjoy performing."

She smiled under the concealing cloak of the night. "The only thing more thrillin is the applause after. I feel...," she groped for a word and finally settled for, "... appreciated."

"You are."

If he could but sing with his warm, intimate baritone, she would sing a duet with him. "Tis not always been that way," she observed quietly, before she even knew she was going to say it.

She felt his body shift to some state of tension, and knew him well enough that the man and the gentleman were now struggling mightily. He suddenly and desperately wanted to know what had evoked such bitterness in her tone, but felt he couldn't ask. She knew the curiosity wasn't nosiness or the desire to run off and sell some juicy celebrity tidbit to a tabloid; it was an honest and deep concern which was his ultimate distillation of respect and affection.

After looking over both shoulders and ensuring as best she might that no Race videographers were putting in overtime around them, she replied, "Well, me mum insisted I be sent off to an all-girl Catholic boardin school. For her twas a prestige thing; but twas a nightmare for me. I made the mistake o singing well; too well. I caught the ear o the choir director, who wanted me in the order and in her choir. Sister Rose. She pummeled me near night an day that I ha a God-given gift an it would be a mortal sin to no give it back. I was quite insistent that I didna want ta be a nun. That bit o defiance got me treated like the daughter o Satan himsel by all the nuns. I was punished for the slightest thing, or nothing at all, wit the clear message it would stop if I twould but repent the error of me ways an become a postulant." Sitting here with Nathan, she was mildly surprised she could relive the misery with such detachment. "I still hae the scars on me backside from the strap, an sometimes me knuckles ached so much from the rulers that I could no finish me homework, which would lead to more hidings the next day. What priests did ta boys was unspeakable; what some nuns did ta me and other girls is still unsaid." She took a deep breath of the cool air, a grace which eased the pain. "I woke one morning ta find the nuns had come in in the night and taken all me clothes and left only a postulant's robe. So I came to breakfast in me underwear. That earned me a beatin in front o the entire school. I was an evil, wicked child alright. My parents would no take me home, an I think many o my letters ne'er saw the post. Then me Aunt Theresa died an me da came ta tell me and take me ta the funeral. He arrived just in time to see Sister Rose slap me fer sayin God was no callin me ta be a nun. Her ring left a gash on me cheek." She fingered the ghost of the scar in the anonymity of the night. "He had me ot o there an home in a trice. I owe him me life, an I ne'er loved him more. O course mum put up a terrible row, and tossed him outa the bedroom. He had ta sleep in the guest room for a week. He might still be sleepin there ha no mum walked in on me gettin dressed and seen the scars on me back. She turned a bit pale and stared at me. I just looked at her in the mirror, and she hurried oot. We ha ne'er spoken o it since; but da got to sleep in his own bed agin." When on stage in a role, her grammar and diction rivalled that of an Oxford don; when her barriers were slipping, she regressed to the deep brogue of her childhood, defiant and unashamed. "So I think I am safe on stage. The center o attention - but at a distance. An I NEVER wear backless dresses. Never." She took a deep breath.

With the softness of a falling leaf, he laid his hand lightly upon hers.

In a long ago classroom science experiment, she had put a stalk of celery into a glass with red food dye in the water, and the dye had slowly crept up the stalk like a blush. The warmth and strength and sympathy and encouragement which had flowed up her arm and across her chest was exactly that, settling in her heart like a blessing not needful of words. For a wild moment she had wanted to unburden her entire soul; to not be the scandal-ridden star but a woman seeking, not absolution or condemnation, but simple acceptance from her best friend. The thought suddenly, thoroughly terrified her, and Nathan, sensitive as ever to her moods, gently withdrew his hand. They sat, side by side, under the stars for a long while, just savoring being together, and then Nathan had stood up, offered her a hand up, and then led her down the path into the terminal.

As she looked at his back, she was surprised to find that she was actually dreading the inevitable finish to the race, and then marveling that she had probably just spent the most intimate evening of her life, even more so than her wedding night.

As she made her way to her bunk, she knew two things for certain - there would be another e-mail from Nathan, and she would go to sleep trying to recapture the memory of companionship under a starry sky.

[Italian race car driver and fan are the last team to arrive and are eliminated]

CHAPTER 13 [Eleventh Leg (Norway to Austria) -- Four teams remaining]

Ariana decided it was like the postal carrier back home in the little village outside Dublin. Lonnie Hennesy had been the postal carrier for years, a soft-spoken, cheerful man who had walked with a limp and sported a dramatic scar on his right cheek. No one thought much about him, one way or the other, until the local paper had run a story on him. He had been in the Irish Naval Service and in his time had been awarded no less than five National Lifesaving Medals for saving nearly thirty lives on crippled ships in heavy weather as a crew member of a search and rescue helicopter. He had been honorably discharged due to injuries received in the performance of his last rescue. The day before the article, he had just been good old Lonnie, not more than part of the background of everyday life, to whom people would say 'good morning' and might spare a moment to remark on the weather with. After the article, people would tip their cap to him, step to the side of the walk to let him by, and call him, Mr, Hennesy rather than Lonnie. If anything, the recognition had embarrassed him, as if he preferred being Lonnie and not being made a fuss over. Well, accept for one thing.

Elizabeth O'Leary, the librarian, who had turned down, politely but firmly, any number of Mr. Hennessey's dinner date requests before the article, had invited herself over to dinner the evening after the article. They had been married a few months later. After that he had seemed - happy with a streak of sadness - that was the only way she had been able to describe it when she had asked her father about it. She never asked her mother questions of that kind, for dread of the long rambling, disjointed lectures which inevitably followed -- liberally seasoned with many dire warnings that had nothing to do with the original question. Her father had looked at her and thought about it and finally said, "There is a part o him which woulda preferred Elizabeth to marry Lonnie, rather than the hero." Now she really understood what he had been saying. Before the Race, she had just been Ariana, along with Marie, one of the two remaining founders of the Madri-Gals, and one of the 'Talent', and always one of the more popular singers, but she had never been aloof or pretentious, she would have a drink with everyone after a performance, and stand a round when it was her turn, and no one thought twice of talking to her or letting her help out. Now it was - different. Now she was globetrotting Ariana who had been Team Number One ten of ten times on an internationally televised show. Where Marie and Cassie and Linnea and Lavender would get standing ovations after their performances, she would get a standing ovation with half the audience shouting, "Team Number One," from just walking on stage. People she had worked with for years were nodding politely to her, calling her 'Ms. Collins' instead of Ariana, ushering her to the head of lines, dropping everything else at her slightest request, and pointing her out, usually somewhat discretely, to people. It was almost depressing. She didn't know whether to long for or dread the final episodes.

As the troupe bustled to find seats for the episode viewing, Ariana half expected to find a throne instead of her preferred bar stool...

The four remaining teams had landed in Austria, rushed around the small country, which seemed to be nothing but mountain slopes, and battled their way through the Fire (glass-blowing), Water (sailing across a mountain lake) and Earth (tin mine) challenges. It was while hurtling across the Austrian landscape that Garrett and Jeremy had taken the lead...

They had been hurtling along the winding road edging the Aeolian Escarpment. She had been driving, Nathan had been navigating, and Ben and Ari had been silently videotaping them. They were behind Garrett and Jeremy, but she was certain they were gaining. "Read those directions ta me agin, Nathan."

"Proceed on highway 486 along the Aeolian Escarpment overlooking Donnenbruck to the cable car station. Teams must decide whether to take the 45 minute cable car ride and then proceed to the pit stop in Donnenbruck Soccer Stadium, or take the hour and a half drive on the road past the cable car station down the twisting, hairpin curves to the city of Donnenbruck, and proceed to the pit stop. The last team to arrive will be eliminated," Nathan read calmly as the occupants of the car were alternately thrust against opposite sides of the vehicle as Ariana took curves on two wheels, and passed cars and trucks which weren't exceeding the speed limit anywhere near as much as she was.