I made a few more turns, just to see if we were being followed. The BMW and the motorcycle, which was behind it, would disappear with each turn and then reappear as I got farther along.
“Are they still with us?” Charlie asked. She was looking straight ahead, so as not to tip anyone off that we knew we were being followed.
“So what should I do?” I asked.
“Well, this is a Jag,” she said. “Maybe you should try to lose them.”
“Seriously. This isn’t a movie. I have a better idea. I’m going to pull over and ask them what they want.”
“You can’t do that!” Charlie exclaimed.
“Why not?” I demanded.
“We have no idea who they are. Maybe they’re car thieves trying to steal Nana’s Jag. This is a very expensive car.”
“So what do you think we should do?”
“Well, as I said, this is a Jag.”
“I’m not going to go racing through the streets of Cambridge and get the two of us killed, me arrested or the car destroyed…but I will do a little something.”
There was a red light up ahead, and traffic was settling in at the intersection. I slowed down and signaled for a left turn as I came up to the traffic. Already, vehicles were starting to fill in behind me. The BMW was now hidden behind a big truck, and the motorcycle must have been even farther back, as I couldn’t see it anymore.
I saw a big gap in the oncoming traffic, so I gunned the engine and pulled out. There were cars coming, but I could get to the intersection before they did. I then hung a quick right turn, tires squealing. Rather than slowing, I pushed down on the accelerator and put some distance between us and our pursuers. I glanced quickly in the rearview mirror—there was nothing behind us—and then hung another quick left to get out of sight and continue to race away.
“That was a rather clever move,” Charlie said.
“Well, it is a Jag.”
“Hang a left up ahead and that will take us over to the motorway.”
There was still nobody in my rearview as I took the turn. “I just don’t know why anybody would be following us.”
“I have an idea…but I’m almost embarrassed to mention it,” she said.
“Don’t be embarrassed, just tell me.”
“Paparazzi.”
“Aren’t those the guys who take pictures of celebrities?”
“Yes.”
“Then why would they be following us—wait…they’re following you! You think they want to take pictures of you?”
She shrugged and smiled. She really did look embarrassed. “This modeling thing has sort of started to take off…that and being around certain people.”
“So how long has this been going on?” I asked.
“It hasn’t been an issue yet, but I was warned it was probably going to start.”
I laughed before I could stop myself, and she looked even more embarrassed. “I’m sorry. It’s just that if I’d known that was a possibility, I wouldn’t have done a James Bond move. I would have pulled over and let them take your picture.”
“And your picture. They would have wanted to snap pictures of whoever I’m with, and right now I just can’t have my picture taken with you.”
“Sorry if I’m an embarrassment.”
“It’s not that. It’s complicated, and I really can’t explain it,” she said. “Besides, why did you think we were being followed?”
I wasn’t about to explain my paranoia, so all I said was, “I noticed the BMW was behind me and I thought it was weird.”
“So you had no reason at all. At least my thoughts were grounded in some reality.”
We drove along in silence. At least I had the rearview mirror to attend to. So far, no black BMWs or motorcycles appeared in it.
“Nana’s always talking about climbing Kilimanjaro with you,” she said, breaking the silence with a safe topic.
“Your nana’s pretty cool.”
“I think so too.”
“Kilimanjaro has an ongoing effect. I don’t think there’s one day that’s gone by since I got down that it hasn’t been in my thoughts,” I said.
“I can imagine. And the pictures were so stunning.”
“The pictures don’t begin to capture it,” I said. “It’s something you have to experience.”
“I’d love to do that. Are you going back?”
“Are you asking me to climb Kilimanjaro with you?” I joked.
“Nana has talked about returning one day—not to climb, mind you, but bringing me along. I think there might be space for a third person.”
“I’m not sure what your boyfriend—I’m sorry, your man-friend—would think about that.”
“I am free to make my own decisions. Isn’t that how you treat your girlfriend?”
“Is that your clever way of asking if I have a girlfriend?” I asked.
“Well, do you?” she asked.
“Nobody serious right now.”
“I would imagine I owe you an explanation for taking your hand and telling that professor you were my boyfriend.”
“That did confuse me.”
“I just hate when men, particularly much older men, look at me that way. I don’t know if you noticed.”
“I noticed.” I just hoped she wasn’t including me in that group of men who looked at her wrong.
“It’s easier if they assume I’m taken, especially by somebody who’s big and strapping and looks like he could beat the snot out of them…like you.”
“I guess I’ll take that as a sort of compliment.”
“The whole concept of being taken, owned or possessed by a man is just so ancient, pre-feminist, and it’s chauvinist garbage to begin with!”
“Don’t get angry with me, it wasn’t me who used the word.”
“I know. It’s just that—” Charlie stopped talking as her phone rang.
I could tell by the tone of her voice when she answered that it was him again. I didn’t even know his name and I didn’t like him. I had no information to base that on and no right to feel anything, certainly not jealousy, but still I did.
“I’m so looking forward to it,” she said.
There was something about her voice, all soft and breathy and so English-accented, that it was almost like a drug, relaxing and soothing and exciting all at once. Why didn’t girls in my area sound like that? I knew we all had accents—I had an accent. Maybe people here found my accent as adorable as I found hers…no, probably not.
“Me too,” she said. “See you then.” She hung up.
“Did he ask if you were with nobody again?”
“You know I didn’t mean it that way. I owe you an explanation,” she said.
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“Well, I’ll give it to you anyway. As I said, this is all rather complicated. My friend is well known, and his relationships are scrutinized by the public and the press.”
“Anybody who has so many relationships that they need to be scrutinized seems like trouble to me,” I commented.
“It isn’t the quantity but the quality. People wonder if the person he’s seeing is good enough for him.”
“If anybody has any question about you being good enough for him, they obviously don’t know you.”
“That is such a kind thing to say,” she said. She offered another one of those wonderful smiles, and I felt my feet sort of melt.
It was kind, and although I meant it, I was surprised that I’d blurted it out.
“But to be honest, I’ve been wondering myself if I’m up to such standards,” she said.
“His standards or somebody else’s standards?”
“Mostly others’,” she said.
“Mostly? If he isn’t sure you’re good enough for him, then he’s a bigger git than your cousin. So he’s famous…and rich?”
“Very rich and very famous.”
“And hounded by paparazzi?”
“Everywhere he goes.”
“So is that going to be a problem for your date on New Year’s Eve?”
“Not a problem, but a solution. That’s our official coming-out party. After that, everybody will know we’re dating.”
“Then I guess congratulations are in order,” I said. This time I didn’t mean it, or at least didn’t feel it.
“Thank you.”
I changed lanes again and watched in my rearview as the car three back from us shadowed my moves—again. It wasn’t a BMW or even black, but it did seem to be following us. A third tail or more coincidence? I wasn’t even going to mention it.
“Could I see those papers again?” Charlie asked.
“Of course.”
“I’m being careful. I wouldn’t want to tickle us off into a ditch.” Once again she reached into my jacket pocket, and once I again I flushed in response. She removed the papers, unfolded the sheets and began studying them.
“There’s something about these numbers that’s been troubling me,” she said.
“The whole thing is just getting more troubling and more confusing. It seems like the more I find out, the less I know.”
“But the numbers…something is so familiar about them. There must be a pattern of some sort that twigs a solution.”
“The only pattern I can see is that while each of them is broken into different combinations, each line is ten numbers long,” I said.
“Like a phone number.”
“It can’t be that simple…can it?”
“I know one way to find out for certain.”
She pulled out her phone, put it on speaker so I could listen, and began dialing. With the first number, a recorded mechanical voice came on: “We’re sorry; your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please check the number and dial again. This is a recording.”
“So much for that theory.”
“Lots of numbers are disconnected,” Charlie said.
She tried the second and then the third number, with the same result—or lack of result.
“I still think there’s something here if only I could…” She started laughing. “So simple and so silly.”
She began dialing again. I expected the same recording to come on, but it didn’t. This time, she got a ring.
“They were backward!” she exclaimed. “I recognized the area code for London as the last two digits on two of the numbers and—”
“Hello,” a voice said on the other end of the phone. “Hello?” The voice was male, with an English accent, and he sounded older.
“Say something,” Charlie mouthed. “Talk.”
“Um…hello,” I said. “This is…this is David McLean calling.”
“David!” he exclaimed. “You shouldn’t be calling on this line.”
There was a click and then a dial tone.
“Should I redial?” Charlie asked.
I hesitated, thinking it through. “No. I don’t know who he is, but I want to talk to him face to face.”
“But you don’t know where he lives, or even who he is,” Charlie said.
“I think we can figure that one out. Right now, let’s just get back to your nana’s house.”
I put on the turn signal and took the exit ramp.
“This isn’t the exit!” Charlie exclaimed.
“Oh…sorry.”
I slowed down, came to a stop and did a quick turn onto the entrance to the motorway. The white car had followed us off the highway, but it kept going and didn’t follow us back on again. I was glad I hadn’t mentioned it.