Whirlwind 01 - Finish Line - Pt. 04

PROLOG

This is the fourth part (of five) of the first story in my WHIRLWIND series. The WHIRLWIND series are unrelated stories (6 so far) with a common theme; each one is based on a short, slightly unusual courtship, with a primary female character who believes that she cannot find love for some reason -- and a primary male character determined to prove her wrong.

I visited Ireland once, for 13 marvelous days, and was enchanted by the lilting Irish speech. I have attempted to reproduce that in the dialogue of the Irish characters. WORD's Spelling and Grammar Checker hated it. I hope the reader doesn't find it too tedious. If so, please note that in the comments and I will use less of it in the remainder of the story. So far there haven't been too many complaints.

In previous writings, I don't think I handled 'flashbacks' well, so I wrote this one which has a number of flashbacks as its core. Be warned. There is also no sex.

I can tolerate few 'Reality' Shows. The AMAZING RACE is a notable exception. There are a dozen different spinoffs of the AMAZING RACE, each featuring contestants from a different country (i.e., Fantastic Race Canada, Fantastic Race Australia, etc., though the original AMAZING RACE is out of America with American citizens as contestants). This story hypothesizes the FANTASTIC RACE with international teams and slightly different rules.

FINISH LINE Part 4

Major Characters:

Lead Singers of the Celtic/Irish singing group 'The Madri-Gals':

Ariana Collins

Marie Kavanaugh

Linnae Jameson

Lavender Renaud

Cassie O'Hara

President and Web Administrator of the Ariana Collins Fan Forum:

Nathan Moore

The Teams for FANTASTIC RACE

(1) German national soccer champion and her husband

(2) Canadian hockey player and his wife

(3) French singer and her son

(4) Japanese pop star and her sister

(5) Captain of New Zealand rugby team and a young man (fan)

(6) American basketball star and young man (fan w/ Down's Syndrome)

(7) Gold medal Chinese gymnast and her brother

(8) Italian Gran Prix driver and his mistress

(9) Russian ballerina and her daughter

(10) American rock star and young man (fan)

(11) Ariana (Irish) and Nathan (American)

Nathan and Ariana are continuing their string of first place finishes, and the end of the race is looming -- But remember, the question is not whether they will win or not, but whether they will admit their love for each other and give it a chance -- and will it survive the revelations to come:

CHAPTER 14 [Twelfth (& FINAL) Leg (Austria to Azores to Alexandria, Virginia] -- Three teams remaining.             

After getting in to the airport, they had solved a puzzle within a puzzle, having to solve a math problem using the names of all of the different types of currencies from all of the countries they had visited. Then had come The four challenges had been a rushing blur where all three teams were practically neck and neck, their differences measured in seconds. Then the final dash to the finish line.

They had been hurtling down the road, a hundred yards behind Garret and Jeremy, but unable to gain because they were boxed in by traffic. The south entrance of Manor Hill Park should be but a few miles ahead of them, and then whatever dash to the checkpoint. She pounded the wheel. "We're trapped by this traffic!"

"Then we earned $275,000 for AIDS research and came in second doing our best."

Flicking a quick glare at him in the back seat, she said, "Ya know ya ur infuriating when you are so calm." She shifted her glare to the driver to her right, who glared back and then ignored her, shifting not an inch forward or back. Gritting her teeth, and conscious of the videographer in the back seat, she said, "Ya know, ya are the onla one to ne'er complain about me drivin. Everyone else tells me I am a mad woman behind the wheel."

Studying the map intently, Nathan answered, "I have a couple of decades of cautious 'parent driving' habit. You are - a more aggressive - driver than I am, and we are in a race, so you should drive. Conceding that, it would be churlish of me to complain. Besides, we are a team, aren't we?"

She glanced in the mirror. "Aye, we are a team, no matter what."

"So, wherever we go, we go together; the checkpoint, the hospital, the morgue." He looked up and smiled at her shocked expression in the mirror. "Wherever. Besides, if God wants us to win, we will."

Her retort had been cut off by the woman in front of them suddenly realizing she needed to be in the right lane, with her right turn looming unexpectedly ahead. The woman to Ariana;s right leaned on her horn as the car slid in front of her with inches to spare, being halfway into the lane before the turn signal had come on. And a half lane was all Ariana needed. The videographer yelped as Ariana tried to ram the accelerator through the floor and used every inch of space to pass.

"The park is ahead on the left," Nathan's voice stated, calmly.

"And the scoundrels kin no turn left through the traffic," she crowed, gaining ground by the heartbeat on the familiar car stopped ahead, with its turn signal flashing and the irate driver making obscene gestures out the window at the heedless oncoming vehicles. As they neared the car and a left turn lane appeared, Ariana peered ahead and saw a gap in the oncoming traffic - but was it big enough for TWO cars?

The gap flew by Garrett, and his car peeled rubber to pull left and dive into the park entranceway. Ariana followed, earning a blaring protest of car horns though there had been at least ten feet to spare in the 45 mile per hour on-rush. Streaking up the winding drive to the parking lot, they arrowed across the lot aiming for the parking spaces closest to the beckoning entrance.

They skidded to stop one space over from Garrett and Jeremy's car, thumping the curb soundly, and threw their doors open and hurled themselves out. With Nathan in the lead by a couple of strides, and trailing the other team by barely 10 feet, they dashed through the ornate, wrought iron archway of the park entrance. Just inside was a broad. deep set of stairs descending 8 feet to a wide grassy landing with long, shallow, sweeping ramps leading off to both sides and walled by a rainbow blaze of flower beds, and coming sweeping back in a long curve to end back in front of the landing, about 8 feet below the landing. Between the landing and the broad lawn below was a 2 foot high railing on the stone wall which was the lip, about 2 feet of space, and then an eight foot high thorn hedge.

Ariana looked around as she plunged down the steps after Nathan. Garret and Jeremy were hurtling down the first leg of the ramp on the left. Nathan ran straight to the railing, and leapt over, coming down behind the hedge. He turned and held his arms out and up.

Two weeks of answering 'yes' to the question, "Do you trust me?" took over, and, without a thought, without a word, Ariana leapt the railing in a move of such grace the Madri-Gals choreographer would have burst her vocal cords in a scream of joy. Nathan caught her, set her on the ground, and said, "Go under me, and then run, straight ahead, as fast as you can go." With that he turned and thrust his entire body between two thorn bushes with a strangled gasp, and heaved the bushes apart by spreading his arms and legs, opening up a hole.

Ariana's very first time in front of an audience had been in 4th grade as Alice in Alice in Wonderland. The teacher had made her practice diving through the tiny plywood entrance to the rabbit burrow time after time after time, until she could vanish like a startled snake down a hole. The collective gasp of the audience as she vanished had been almost as heady an experience as the applause for her afterwards. So she closed her eyes, remembered... and dove. Stray thorny twigs slashed at her face and hands and stomach as she shot through, and then she was up and running. There was a great tearing sound and a grunt of pain and determination, and Nathan was pounding along beside her.

There was a fountain ahead, stretching a hundred feet to either side, and beyond that, a set of stairs climbing the knoll in the center of the park. And on the top was the last pit stop, Tom, the other racers, and a battery of cameras. Barely conscious of the hysterically enraged yelling behind them - "NO! Not AGAIN! Not this time!" - Ariana charged the fountain. Nathan had said straight ahead, so straight ahead she would go. Side-by-side they vaulted the low concrete rim and landed in the calf-deep water, still charging ahead. Their boot soles didn't slip on the wet concrete basin as they plunged through three curtains of spray like gargantuan lawn sprinklers, too focused to notice the cold drenches. They leapt out of the fountain and raced for the first step. Jeremy's shout of pain as he tripped over the second spray fixture and fell in the fountain and dislocated a shoulder, and Garrett's fiery cursing as he slipped and whacked his shin hard enough to bruise the bone as he slipped while trying to jump out of the water, went unheard as they jumped onto the first step. Together, pumping arms brushing each other, they ascended the steps like angels preparing for takeoff as the other racers shouted approval. Lungs heaving and legs burning, their feet hit the mat simultaneously and they flailed desperately to keep from running right through Tom, who jumped back to save himself from the headlong lunge.

Tom stared at Nathan, and said flatly, "You're bleeding."

Nathan glanced down to where Tom was staring, and clamped his right hand over the deep slash on the inside of his left elbow, where crimson fluid spurted out to a jackhammer heartbeat. "Doesn't matter," he gasped.

Tom's smile ripped into television history as he yelled, "Ariana and Nathan, you are the winners of Celebrity Fantastic Race, are truly Team Number One for an incredible twelve of twelve times, and have won one million, two hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars for HIV/AIDS research!"

Nathan turned to her, and only the word 'exultation' could describe his face. He had grabbed her waist and lifted her high in the air, where she had waved her arms wildly and shouted in joy and relief.

Then she had looked down into Nathan's intense grey eyes, and froze as she realized the man holding her effortlessly in the air wasn't a fan, or a teammate, or a friend, but a handsome, intelligent, devoted man whom she had just realized was cradling her scarred and battered heart in his capable, loving hands.

His eyes held only the naked truth that he loved her too, with every heartbeat that went with every inch of the last 30,000 miles.

He set her down, slowly, their eyes locked on each other, and their lips met.

The intensity of his need for her beguiled her body, and spun her head around. Visceral desire, shiny bright and molten hot, blossomed deep in her belly, setting her legs a-tremble. Feelings she had once thought safely banished to deep dungeons in her memory were suddenly tearing manacles out of walls and hammering down doors in a desperate rush of wanton freedom. If they had been alone, the only question would have been, which was closer, the floor or the bed. Gasping, the kiss finally dissolved, and they stared at each other for a moment, two wounded souls who had just discovered that, together, they were more than whole.

All she had wanted to do, desperately, was kiss him again, to see if the sensual tsunami battering her spirit was a fluke or just a hint of wonders to come. From the startled wonder in his eyes, her question was his own, and he wanted the answer just as badly, but as they came together, and her eyes were closing, she had seen a single crimson drop poised on his lower lip, and tasted the salt on her own, where a single thorn had made a tiny, stinging cut. Her blood on his lip.

Without thought, a purely instinctive reaction, she had slapped him, hard, desperate to wipe the blood away.

Far away, Nathan was wrestling with his own feelings. He looked at the small piece of jewelry on the counter. He had been staring for several minutes. On the other side of the counter, the owner was all too aware of the magnitude of the sale, and wouldn't have complained if Nathan stared at it until closing, as long as he bought it.

When Nathan considered how different the two of them were, not the least of which was their age gap, his brain told him sternly that any proposal was madness, and might indeed be scorned. His heart kept screaming that faint heart never won fair maid, and that they had been so fine together that everything else was just details to work out. He also knew that she must be wrestling with some feelings of her own, personal and practical. Given her near total silence and unresponsiveness to his e-mails, he strongly suspected that if he asked, the carefully rehearsed answer would be, "No."

But should he ask, just in case? Should he ask, whether the 'No' was inevitable or not?

Then with a smile, he bought the ring.

Ariana was a superb actress. He knew that. He had also spent more than three weeks studying her face when she was confronted by people and situations. There had always been an infinitesimal flash of 'true feeling' expression, just before the actress mask had taken over to make her face, friendly, welcoming, stern, disapproving, or frustrated, or whatever else she had consciously chosen to be. But there was always that briefest of flickers of body language first. Someone who did not know Ariana as well as he did would probably miss it. That is what he would look for; her instant expression when they first saw each other again. That would tell him what to do.

CHAPTER 15 - Airing of Final Episode

It was Knoxville. It was Friday. Nathan had checked into the hotel next to the Palace Theater, put his bags in his room, and was out on the street, striding with urgent purpose with his eyes glued to the moving map on his smart phone. He had much to do today.

Nathan walked into the men's store barely a heartbeat after the sign had been flipped from 'Closed' to 'Open.' A clerk bustled over. He was middle-aged, impeccably dressed, and was a visual cliché of the perfect 'gentleman's gentleman.' "May I be of assistance, sir?"

Nathan's eyes swept the discrete and elegant nametag. "Andre, I bring your establishment a challenge."

"We have risen to many challenges, sir; what might this one be?"

"I will be attending a concert tomorrow night. I need some outfits - refined, elegant - something that a beautiful, younger woman would not be embarrassed standing next to. One formal, one semi-formal, and one casual."

Andre beamed. He snapped his fingers and several other people appeared from discrete corners and concealed entrances, and hurried over. "With such short notice it will be expensive, sir, if you care...." His eyes widened as Nathan handed him his Centurion Black American Express card. "Cost is no object," Nathan said, matter-of-factly. "Impeccable quality and perfect timeliness are all that matter."

"Of course, sir," Andre purred. Then he cocked his head slightly in polite puzzlement. "Pardon my saying so, sir, but you do look a bit familiar. Might I know you from someplace?"

Nathan gave him a wry smile. "That would be telling."

On Saturday morning, Nathan got a limousine to take him several dozen blocks to an elegant structure set back from the road. The limousine dropped Nathan off, and he walked briskly through the silver and glass doors of Amanda's Day Spa. The perfectly coiffed, perfectly attired receptionist, smiled perfectly enough for a sculptor. "How may I help you, sir?"

Nathan bestowed a bright, winning, smile on her. "I would like, very much, to speak to Amanda. I have an impossible task for her." The understated confidence the stranger exuded persuaded the receptionist to stop asking questions and buck this stranger up to her boss. She spoke a few quiet words into her headset and then smiled at Nathan. "Please have a seat, sir."

Nathan sat down, steepling his fingers in his lap and looking perfectly at ease. Several women drifted in and checked in at the receptionist, cast him curious glances, and were escorted to various pamperings in the back.

After two minutes, a tall, graceful woman of indeterminate age strode out of a side office and walked over. He stood as she approached, took her hand, and kissed it in continental fashion, his lips barely brushing the back of her hand and his eyes never leaving hers. "I am Nathan. And you can be none other than Amanda."

"None other," the woman responded, confidently. "Now what might this impossible task be; I admit to being a tad curious. And I do recognize you - and I have 100 dollars on you and Ariana to win. You wouldn't care to...?

"Under no circumstances," Nathan smiled. "I am here to present myself for your artistry. I must attend a performance tonight, and while I know that not even supernatural force could render me actually handsome, I believe in the depths of my soul that you can transform me into the best me that I can be."

"For a performance?" Amanda murmured. About one in fifty of her clients were male, and they were actually easier to please and much more grateful - and tipped much more extravagantly - than her female clients.

Nathan leaned forward, and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "At this performance I will be meeting a Lady." It took Amanda no imagination to hear the capital 'L' in 'lady'; nor any to know that for this man, here and now, nothing was more important. "I do not wish her to be disappointed in me."

Amanda examined him closely. She had actually seen him walk in from the parking lot, after being dropped off by a limousine. He moved with the presence of an ambassador, had the relaxed self-confidence of a martial arts master, and simply reeked of money. In her experience a lesser man would have the limousine wait in the parking lot. This man didn't do that. His manner suggested that the limo would be there when he needed it.

"Please come with me." She took his arm to escort him; and fought to keep her face straight. Even through the sport jacket and shirt, the muscle tone of the arm spoke of someone hammered out of iron. This might be easier than she had thought. She had seen more than her share of overweight, under-exercised, over-sixty, under-whelming men who wanted an overnight miracle so they could pretend that a twenty-something mistress could actually find them attractive. This was different. Men this - focused - had more serious goals in mind than trying to recapture an imagined youth or slide in an out of a bed. "And might this woman be... Ariana?"

"The Madri-Gals are performing in town tonight, and I was passing through and hope to get a chance to say, 'Hi!' I would hate to evoke memories of mud and sweat; I would rather leave a good impression." His grin was self-deprecating. "Therefore I need your attentions."

A thousand questions crowded her mind, but, tactfully, she could not ask any one of a new client.

That night, the Madri-gals were spectacular. Nathan knew that, because he sat as high up and far back as he could and still be thought in the same theater. He didn't have to be close. He only had eyes for Ariana, and he enjoyed the anonymity. He had a phony birthmark on his cheek, completely different frames for his glasses, and a first-class simulated surgical scar on his scalp. People either stared at the scar or avoided looking at him at all. One of the little tricks Ariana had told him about during the long flights, along with teaching him some Gaelic and opening up about herself. He lingered a few minutes after the show and followed the crowd out. He wondered if his anxiety would permit him to get much sleep that night.

The Madri-Gals were coming down from the performance in Marie's room. The troupe had all the rooms in one wing on one floor and there were discrete security personnel insuring privacy. Room service had cold beer and hot appetizers waiting, and the girls had unwound for two hours until Ariana had sent them off to Linnae's room, worried the beer might cause her to slip, and holding vast relief at arm's length that her iron self-censorship was nearly at an end.