Paulina Rostakova’s Adventures
AUGUST 5
1:02 a.m.
Kazan, Russia
Vitale stole our car. And my passport, and my clothes, and Dixon’s clothes, and . . . well, pretty much everything.
Am exhausted. More later.
AUGUST 5
8:16 a.m.
Kazan, Russia
Dixon and I just had our first official argument. It started off when, while we were checking in to a motel on the outskirts of Kazan (keeping a low profile in case the Essex team was around—Tabby and Sam have been sworn to silence on their location, but from the looks Tabby keeps giving me, I think they’re just barely ahead of us), Vitale drove off in the Thomas Flyer.
“Hey,” I said, spinning around when I heard a familiar roaring sound go past the tiny lobby of the motel. “Holy shit! Dixon, that’s our car heading out—”
“What?” Dixon spun around, then bolted. He was through the door and running down the street after the car before I could even finish my sentence.
“Sorry,” I told the registration clerk, and, gathering up my skirts (sky blue with cream lace edging that was gorgeous but a horrible dust collector), ran after them. Out on the street there was traffic, but no sign of the Flyer or Dixon. I ran a couple of blocks in the direction the car had gone, but didn’t see any sign of them and eventually slowed down. It was late evening—about nine p.m.—and the people on the streets were giving me odd looks.
“Does anyone speak English?” I asked loudly. “Or French? Or a little very bad German?”
No one answered me. I spun around at the intersection, hoping to see Dixon or the Flyer, but the street was full of modern cars only, and not one single Englishman in Edwardian clothes. Tabby and Sam pulled up. They had stopped to fill their car with gas and passed me on the way to the motel at which we’d agreed to meet.
“Problem?” Tabby asked. A car behind them honked.
“Our car was stolen!” I wailed.
“Get in,” Tabby said, and gestured toward the backseat.
I climbed in, beating back the fuzzy boom microphone, and shoving the camera over, just barely getting my skirt tucked inside before Sam hit the gas. I explained briefly what had happened with Vitale.
“We’ll find them,” Sam said grimly, gripping the steering wheel with white fingers.
“Should we call Roger?” I asked, peering out into the lit streets, trying to see in shadows.
“Are you kidding? He’ll have kittens,” Tabby said, snorting a little at the idea. “If we can’t find the car, then we’ll have to, but it’s going to stand out like a sore thumb, so someone will see it. Left, Sam.”
“Why?” he asked.
Tabby pointed. “Sign for Kazan, Novgorod, and Moscow.”
“Done.” Sam turned left and wove in and out of traffic, ignoring the honking of irate drivers. It was about two miles out of town that we finally saw the Flyer ahead on the road.
“Got you,” Tabby said, and hooted.
“You bastard!” I yelled out the window when Sam, with a burst of speed, raced up and cut off the Flyer, forcing it to the shoulder.
“Where the hell did you learn to do that?” I asked Sam, momentarily flabbergasted.
He smirked as he pulled off his seat belt. “I used to drive cameramen in the Tour de France. After him!”
There was nothing to be after, thankfully, since Vitale didn’t run. He did argue quite loudly and profanely when I wrenched the long flat key from him, and then ended in tears when Tabby demanded he gather up his dog and pram and leave the car, begging us to help him get to Moscow.
“Stealing our car isn’t the way to go about getting help from people— Dixon!”
A car squealed to a stop behind us, a blue flashing light wavering drunkenly on the roof of the car. Out of it burst Dixon, followed by two men.
“You caught him! How did you— Oh, Tabby. Thank god. I saw a policeman and flagged him down. Luckily, he speaks enough English that he understood me.”
“I watch American television,” the man said with a huge smile. “I like CSI Law and Order. Is very informative. Book ’em, Danno!”
“Yeah, I think that’s another . . . Never mind,” I said, so relieved to see Dixon that I wanted to cry. Which was disconcerting as hell, because I’m not the crying-at-the-sight-of-a-person sort of woman. I was mulling over this strange situation when I realized what was going down in front of me.
“Hey, what are you doing?” I said, moving quickly to the Flyer when the cop brought out a zip tie and spun Vitale around to face the car. “No, no, no, don’t arrest him!”
“No?” The cop hesitated when Dixon asked, “For god’s sake, why not?”
“He hasn’t done anything wrong other than take the Flyer.”
Dixon breathed a bit heavily through his nose. “Repeat that last bit: he stole the Thomas Flyer. Our car. The one we need for the race.”
“Yes, but he just took it because he’s trying to get to Moscow. He’s not a bad person, not really. He’s just super focused on a goal.” I pointed at Chou-Chou, sitting regally in the backseat. “And he has an old dog that he takes care of. Not many people would go to the trouble of wheeling their old dog around the world.”
“He stole our car!” Dixon said, running a hand through his hair.
“Because he wants to go to Moscow and we were leaving him here in Izhevsk.” I looked meaningfully at Dixon.
“No,” he said firmly, and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Oh, come on. It’s just a few hundred miles.”
“It’s over seven hundred miles, and I refuse to chauffeur a man who stole my car.”
“It’s partly my car, and I say he can ride in my half,” I snapped, getting annoyed. Why couldn’t Dixon see that this was the right thing to do?
His jaw worked for a second, but he said nothing.
The cop waved the zip tie around. “I arrest or not?”
“Not,” I said, my eyes still on Dixon. He looked quietly furious. “We’re taking him to Moscow.”
Dixon turned around and got into the car behind the steering wheel. I told Vitale, who was looking miserable, that we were going to drive him to Moscow, but that he needed to behave himself and stop stealing cars. After thanking the policeman, he hurried around to the passenger seat.
To my surprise, rather than pull out and turn around, Dixon headed in the direction the car was pointed—away from Izhevsk. “What are you doing?” I asked him.
“You wanted to drive to Moscow—that’s what we’re doing,” he answered grimly. “We’ll try to make Kazan by midmorning, then go on to Novgorod.”
“But we’ve been driving all day.” I looked at my watch. “It’s almost ten. I thought you were tired?”
“I am tired, but I’m not going to give our friend back there another chance to steal the car. Since you insist on bringing him along, we’ll drive all night, taking turns sleeping. You go first.”
“What about Tabby and Sam? You can’t just drive off without telling them we’re not going to the hotel.”
“At this point, I don’t particularly care about being filmed.”
“Roger will have a fit if he hears about that,” I murmured.
“I don’t care.” He relented after a moment, adding, “Sam and Tabby can catch up to us in Moscow. We’ll be too exhausted to go on without proper rest.”
I hurriedly texted Tabby.
August 5
To: Tabby
We’re going to Moscow.
August 5
From: Tabby
The fuck you are! That’s at least two days’ driving!
August 5
To: Tabby
Dixon doesn’t want to give Vitale another chance at taking the car. I think I may have broken him.
August 5
From: Tabby
Vitale?
August 5
To: Tabby
Dixon. He’s making odd little snorting noises and talking to himself under his breath. And there’s a muscle in his jaw that keeps twitching.
August 5
From: Tabby
Sam says we’ll drive for another hour or two. Then we’ll have to sleep. I’ll text Roger your plans. He was going to come back to watch over filming with you for a day.
August 5
To: Tabby
Come back? Dammit, if he’s with the Essex team, that means they are ahead of us!
August 5
From: Tabby
Hell. Pretend you didn’t see that.
—
I eyed Dixon and considered whether or not I wanted to tell him that the Essex team was definitely ahead of us. As I watched, he growled something and flexed his fingers on the steering wheel. I was grateful I couldn’t see his eyes through the lenses of his red goggles, because I had a feeling they would be shooting laser beams in my general direction.
We rolled into Kazan at about six in the morning. Neither one of us had slept much in the car, although Vitale appeared to snooze the entire trip. We stopped at a skanky-looking hotel, the kind where you don’t want to touch anything inside, and took turns taking a shower and changing our clothing.
“Do you want to sleep?” Dixon asked, his face haggard and his eyes red-rimmed with exhaustion.
I looked at the bed and shuddered. “In the car, yes. Not here.”
“Fine. Our guest can sleep here, and we’ll take the car.”
And that’s how it worked out. Vitale was a bit confused, but grateful to have a room to himself, while Dixon and I curled up in the car for two hours. We had more than five hundred miles to go to Moscow, and I feared we wouldn’t get there safely with only two hours’ rest, but I couldn’t complain since Dixon was doing as I’d asked.
I just hoped it wouldn’t kill us.