Hoping to distract myself, I look around for some social interaction. After the big briefing in our hotel’s mammoth conference hall, everyone seeks out others whom they know. They hail each other with high waves, two-arm hugs, loud hellos, and hearty backslapping. Like groundlevel bird feeders, every coffee table has attracted its own drip-dry crowd, everyone dipping forward, pecking cheeks, their yellow plastic P2P tags on red lanyards dangling and clacking as they do. We don’t know anyone in the Rally except Matthieu, though apart from a few emails since meeting in Colorado two years ago, we haven’t had much contact. Still, I’ve used this slim thread of correspondence to weave a handy fiction that once we’re in Beijing he’d take us under his wing, offering access to a ready-made circle of our own. Matthieu gives us a cordial greeting, then drifts over to his own huggy group. He’s joined by five others; together, the six of them form a team of three cars. From the ease with which they move off, I surmise they’re good friends. It doesn’t escape me that no invitation to backslap with them has been issued.
Months back, feeling the P2P was all about Bernard’s dreams and not about mine, I created a secret mission for myself. While Bernard would be doing the P2P to test his stamina and driving skills, I would use it as immersion therapy, surrounding myself with hundreds of people for over a month. Normally I’m a loner, though the sort who secretly longs to be the center of attention. If things went my way, I’d emerge from the P2P cured of my hermit-like tendencies, returning home a person who not only had covered 7,800 miles, but who would seek out crowds like a salmon seeks its home drainage. This to me seemed like a character rebuild worth achieving.
At the moment, though, I amble about, lonesomely superior, dodging the shrapnel of laughter from groups of which I’m not part. It’s exactly how I used to feel at high school dances thirty-five years ago. Once I’m in its grip, the memory of that experience leaves me feeling just as vulnerable as if the dance had been yesterday. I can see myself leaning against the gym’s stained white cinder block wall, staring at a nearby empty chair, hoping to convey telepathically to anyone who might notice me that I find the details of its construction truly fascinating. Then I occupy that chair and transfer my attention to the pleats of my skirt, as I whisper to myself, “Who’d want to dance with any of those losers anyway!”
“Baby steps,” I say to encourage myself now. “You do have Bernard.” He’s walking beside me, fit and trim, his brown hair buzz cut to a military quarter-inch, the thick brush of a mustache he’s sported ever since I’ve known him offsetting the lack of hair above. Both of us are the same height, five foot six, and our stride as we wander the mausoleum-like lobby easily matches step for step. We are alike in so many ways, but when it comes to looking for the support of others, Bernard and I are opposites, and I don’t expect to get much succor from him on this matter. We head for the elevator and retire to our room.
One invigorating bubble-bath later, we wander into the starkly modern lounge on our hotel floor, in search of a reviving snack and some refreshment. Signing in, I notice the telltale P2P badges sported by several people sprawled on angular, pale yellow leather couches. They’re engrossed in trading stories in that peculiarly British way in which one hair-raising tale is told in understated fashion, only to be topped by another, more mind-blowing adventure recounted in even more modest terms. These are my fellow competitors, in manageable numbers. I should say something. But what? “Hi, my name is Dina and I’m navigator for a LaSalle?” How inane is that? Instead, I sidle by them, eyes averted, as Bernard and I walk to the open bar.
“You lovely woman you!” booms a male voice in a clipped British accent. “Let me buy you a glass of champagne! Better yet, you buy me one!” Spying an open bottle of champagne, I clutch it along with a few glasses and turn toward the sound of the voice. It appears to belong to a man about my age, whose pale wavy hair and somewhat fleshy features would be called pleasant, but not handsome. His arm is draped around a petite woman and he eyes me flirtatiously, then turns happily to the woman and gives her shoulder a squeeze. “Look Maddy, that wonderful woman is bringing me champagne,” he says, gracing us both with an impish grin. We all start laughing. Drinks in this lounge are free.
I sit opposite them and fill the glasses. “Cheers,” I say. “I’m Dina.” I present my P2P badge to prove I know my name. “This is Bernard, my driver. And also my husband.”
“Don’t sit over there!” the man booms. I wonder whether this man ever speaks in anything other than exclamation points, but I say nothing, afraid my relief that anyone at all is talking to me, let alone someone who appears genuinely friendly, is so palpable that it may be off-putting. “Come sit by me . . . you don’t mind, do you Bernard?” Before I have a chance to change seats, he grabs Bernard’s hand instead, yanks him onto the couch by his side, and enfolds him in a one-armed bear hug. “You’re Americans? I love Americans. What’re ye drivin’?” doing his best John Wayne imitation.
“We have a 1940 LaSalle,” Bernard begins, in his deep, warm, Frenchaccented voice. The man interjects, now morphed into Maurice Chevalier. “Aaah, an American car, but ‘LaSalle’ is a French name. You say you are American, but from the way you speak I think you must be French. How clever. How confusing. I, too, have an American car in this Rally.” Here he pauses for effect, then says, “A 1927 Chevrolet 75 roadster.” He taps his P2P badge as proof.
Just like that, we have friends: Robert, like a bounding puppy, covering all comers with his loving slobbers. Maddy, his wife, though sometimes more like a proud owner, fondly tugging on the leash, but never too hard. Robert makes further introductions, pairing each person with their car. There’s Ralph, a wiry coat-hanger of a man, seemingly composed solely of ligaments and tendons, whose brown eyes appraise me from behind Ben Franklin spectacles. Running his hand over his nearly bald head, he flashes me a smile revealing more bad teeth than I thought could fit in one jaw. “The organizer didn’t want to let me in. Said my car rode too low to the ground. That the rough road would chew it up and I’d never make it. You’ll see. I’m going to prove him wrong.”
Then there’s Nick and Sybil, both tall, he with a thatch of preternaturally white hair, she with an equally striking mop of black hair. And their friends, Carol and Robin, and Michael and Sophie. All of them have cars from the early 1930s, works of art with running boards, spoke wheels, and big tear-drop fenders. Everyone stands up and hugs me. It’s as if someone’s waved a magic wand and just like that I’m transformed from Cinderella sweeping ashes into a princess at the ball.
Robert is happy to share his claim to fame. In 1997 he was the British Airlines pilot for the flight that brought many of the first P2P competitors to Beijing. At that point, he swore he’d return to do the race himself. Now he has. “Bernard man,” he says now, assessing that Bernard is shorter than doctor charts say is average for a man. “Do you ever plan to grow?” He laughs so heartily at this that no offense can be taken, especially since he himself would barely reach the nipples of an NBA player.
Conversation swirls away from me, as the others compare notes on where they’d each recently driven their spectacular cars. Talk quickly fills with “Remember when’s,” “Did you do’s,” and “Have you seen’s.” When it touches on vehicles, Bernard can jump right in, the language of cars and engines being universal. I listen, smile, nod, and practice feeling part of the group. This is ever so promising. From zero I suddenly know eight people to whom I can say, “So how has YOUR day been?” without having to introduce myself. I’m certain they’d return the favor and ask me the same. After all they’re British, which means they’re polite.
Maddy turns to me. “Have you looked through the route book?”
“No. Should I? We’re not due to drive till day after tomorrow.”
“Well, it helps to familiarize yourself with this Rally’s style of instruction, make your notes . . . ”
“Notes? What would I note? Isn’t the book complete as is?”
“I’m sure at one point, early on, it was. By now there will be things on the route that have changed. The organizers send an advance car over the route 24 hours ahead of us. At the end of each day they send the Clerk of the Course, who’s back with us, their route revisions. We get them the following morning. It’s good to have a feeling of how the original route was intended, so you can easily assess how it’s changed.” Nothing was said about this at the briefing, which my stomach now assures me is cause for distress. It starts to squeeze itself into a tight ball, threatening to eject the array of delectable miniature hors d’oeuvres I’ve just wolfed down.
“Advance crew? I thought they were going ahead to check our hotel reservations.”
Maddy starts to laugh, then catches herself. “Have you used a route book before? Or ever been on a rally?” she asks in the nicest possible way. There. At last my dirty little secret is out.
“Well, this is my first time, and I don’t know what I’m doing,” I tell her, feeling all blushing virgin. For a moment I’m silent. Then I decide this makes me out to be even more incompetent than I am. I blunder on. “I know. It sounds bad. We’d planned to do an easy rally before this. You know, for practice. I was also supposed to have time to work with the GPS. But . . . ” and my voice trails off.
“Let’s get together after dinner,” Maddy says. “I’ll take you through it. Don’t worry!” she adds, giving me a pat on the arm that would have been motherly if we weren’t the same age. “You’ll get it. We all do.”
“Dinner!” Maddy’s Robert booms. “Peking duck anyone?”
We adjourn to a nearby restaurant favored by locals, where we sit around a ten-foot diameter table with an equally enormous lazy Susan in the middle. The others order Peking duck, with its accompaniment of duck soup and bronzed duck skin served on tiny crepe-like cushions smeared with salty, sweet Hoisin sauce. I order an item described as crispy duck parts. It sounds bizarre in an appealingly crunchy way. Platters mounded with glistening, succulent duck meat and slivers of jade green scallions are brought for the others. When my order arrives, it’s a heap of deep-fried beaks and bones, golden and glistening with oil. Bernard wrinkles his nose. “You’re not going to eat that, are you?” he asks.
“Why not? It’s on the menu. Someone here must find it appetizing. Besides, if a bird’s being slaughtered for your Peking duck, you wouldn’t want the rest of it to go to waste, would you?” I survey the mound in front of me, happy in the knowledge that no one will ask to share. Anyway, I’ve had Peking duck before. Why not try something new?