‘That sounds great.’
‘I should go,’ he said, taking back his hand and pushing himself up.
‘Clarence, wait. I have a favour to ask you.’
He sat back down again.
‘My friend Lyra is going to the University of New Hampshire in a few weeks as a journalism major. Right now she’s interning at the Lakeborough Times and trying to write a story about the rich kids of Lakeborough.’
‘Yawn.’
My stomach twisted. ‘I know. So, last night I told Lyra about your dad’s campaign and the trip to the moon with Ryan. She’d love to be able to go along too. It would make a great story.’
‘You spoke to Lyra last night?’
‘She drove me home from the Institute.’
Clarence began inspecting his fingernails. ‘You may not know this, Eden, but Lyra Thornhill dated Orion for a year or more. Has it not occurred to you that she may still have feelings for him?’
‘It has occurred to me.’
‘You don’t mind?’
‘Ryan and I were friends. But . . . well . . . some people are a lost cause.’
A lazy smile spread slowly across his face. ‘You’re right about that. Now I really have to go.’
My throat clenched. ‘I told her you probably couldn’t make it happen.’
Clarence looked at me, his eyes blazing confidence and arrogance. ‘I could make it happen.’
‘Really? Your dad would listen to you if you asked?’
‘Of course. But why would I want to do anything to help Lyra Thornhill?’
‘Because her other idea is a bit ordinary. She was telling me she had some information about a drink-driving cover-up. Someone well known.’
He drummed his fingers on the table and frowned. ‘She said that?’
‘Yeah. But I think she’d do better to write about Ryan. I mean, his story is much more interesting. I think that if she had access to a story like that, she’d drop the other one completely.’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘I’ll do it. I’ll call my father’s personal assistant from the car and get Lyra’s name added to the passenger list. But make sure she knows I helped her out.’
‘I will.’
He leant forward and smoothed my hair. ‘If I do this for you, what are you going to do for me?’
I blinked slowly and forced myself to smile. ‘What do you have in mind?’
‘When I get back from the spaceport, I’m taking you to my family’s home in Quebec for the weekend. Just the two of us.’
‘Can’t wait,’ I said.
The wipers whipped across the windscreen, but they couldn’t keep up with the water pouring from the sky. Thunder rumbled from the other side of the mountain.
We were on the expressway just outside Lakeborough and the traffic had slowed to a crawl.
‘We get a lot of localised thunderstorms here in the mountains,’ said Peg. ‘Once we get past the rain, things will speed up a bit.’
‘How long a drive is it?’ I asked.
‘Two hours on a good day. Bad weather, traffic, it’ll take longer.’
The battery on my old phone had long since died; I had no way of knowing the time. I couldn’t see a clock on the dash.
‘It’s half nine,’ said Peg. ‘We’ll need to be at the check-in by noon. So we’re cutting it fine.’
‘We have to make it,’ I said.
Forked lightning split the sky and thunder bellowed overhead. Why couldn’t Fate just work in my favour for once? The cars ahead of us slowed down even more. There were six lanes on the expressway, but each one was solid with nose to tail traffic, crawling along at twenty kilometres an hour.
‘Can’t you just drive on the hard shoulder all the way to New Marseilles?’ I asked.
Peg pulled a face. ‘You can’t drive manually on the expressway. We just have to be patient. When the storm passes, traffic will speed up.’
‘What if it doesn’t pass in time?’ I said.
He scanned on the traffic news and we listened as the announcer reported on all the lane closures, accidents and heavy traffic in the area.
‘Do you think the weather will delay the flight?’ I asked, groping for a glimmer of hope.
He shook his head. ‘There’s no weather in space. Not the sort of weather you’re talking about, anyway. And we’ll be portalling off the planet.’
We inched forward, close to the next exit off the expressway.
‘Is there an old road? A road used before this one was built?’
Peg shrugged. ‘I suppose there might be.’
‘Have you got a map?’
He reached across me to the passenger glove compartment, pulled out his port-com and dragged a few icons across the screen. ‘Here you go.’
It was open to a page that showed our location in relation to Lakeborough. I zoomed in close and searched for smaller roads. It looked like there was one. It ran almost parallel to the highway, though it was less direct.
‘Take this exit,’ I said.
‘An old road might be longer and slower,’ said Peg. ‘If we stay on the expressway, eventually traffic should speed up.’
‘You can drive manually on the old road, right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So let’s go.’
He took the exit and followed my directions to a narrow road with just one lane in each direction.
‘This road will take us all the way to New Marseilles,’ I said.
The rain was still heavy, the storm circling overhead, but there was no other traffic on the road. Peg increased his speed, hurtling round the corners and racing down the hills so rapidly I thought I was going to be sick. I focused on the small flashing dot on the map that showed where we were.
‘Was it difficult to convince Lyra to help us?’ I asked.
‘No. This story will be a real coup for her. A trainee journalist with the inside story. Orion will talk to her in a way he won’t talk to a journalist he doesn’t know.’
‘Fingers crossed that Clarence manages to sort things out at his end,’ I said.
If he did, she would be on the same ship as Ryan. She would get to speak to him and spend time with him. The thought that I might never see him again if I didn’t make this work tore at my insides.
‘Where will she meet us when she gets to the spaceport?’
‘Apparently there’s a bar that’s open to residents and visitors. She’ll meet us there as soon as she’s allowed off the ship and let us know where he’s being held.’
‘When I said goodbye to Ryan at the Institute, he asked me if you and Lyra were together yet,’ I said.
Peg glanced at me sideways, before turning back to the road. This was not the sort of road where you could afford to lose concentration, even for a moment. Especially at this speed.
‘Did he?’ It wasn’t really a question.
‘He said he wants you to ask her out.’
Peg laughed.
‘He thinks you like her. And that she likes you.’
Peg said nothing.
‘You do like her, don’t you?’
‘Yeah, I like Lyra.’
‘And he said he’s not going to be around so it wouldn’t be weird. I think he wanted you to know that.’
We rounded a corner and were met with clear blue skies. Bright sunlight glared from the wet tarmac.
‘You were right about the weather,’ I said.
‘You were right about the road.’
‘Peg?’ I said. ‘Do you think we can pull this off?’
‘Ordinarily, I’d say no. No way. You’d have to be crazy to even think it. But I have the feeling you’re gonna make it happen.’
We made it to the New Marseilles spaceport with five minutes to spare. The port was shaped like a clock: a large round central building with twelve smaller round buildings ringed around it.
‘What are they?’ I asked Peg.
‘Each one is a spacedock. Some are for freight, some are for cruise liners, some are for workers. We’re employees of the spaceport now, so we’ll get the cheap seats.’