«You didn't do that, did you, Maggie? That's crass.»
She rolled her eyes. «No, I didn't do that, and I know it's crass, as well as a cheap joke. But I'm going nuts here, Alex. I don't understand what they're saying, they don't understand what I'm saying—and I swear to God, nobody understands all the rules. Look,» she said, grabbing a card from her desk. «See this? This is a coupon for a free companion ticket. I buy one, you fly free. I buy two, two fly free. I understand this. This is fairly basic, right?»
Alex took the offered ticket. «Quite a few asterisks leading to several separate bits of barely readable print, aren't there? I do see the small K down at the corner. You've circled it.»
«Right. It's a K . But guess what? I need a U. An U . Whatever. You can have a K , but you can only use a U.»
Alex deposited the ticket on the coffee table. «I think I'm done understanding, thank you,» he said, wiping his hands together.
«Oh, no. No, no, no, you're just getting started . I can use the K if I use a U with it. The second person I talked to told me that. I'm eligible for a K , but not for a U , and I can't use a K without a U —but they sent me a K anyway, because I qualified for that one. If I spend another bazil-lion bucks, I can get a U to go with the K , but by then the K will have expired. Machiavellian in its brilliance, isn't it?»
«American ingenuity at the corporate level. The K did get you to pick up the phone, didn't it?»
«Don't interrupt. I don't actually need the K , or the U . The third gal I talked to told me I have enough flyer miles to go from here to Hawaii and back, and take half a football team with me. Except that there are only about six seats a plane that are available for free miles, so you have to book in advance. We're talking way in advance here, maybe a decade. So I've got about a million free miles I can't use, sucker offers with the wrong letter on them, and the ditz who just put me on hold knows how to pronounce Schwarzenegger, but doesn't know how to spell Margaret. That's it, Alex. We're not going.»
«You're only saying that because you're looking for an excuse not to fly at all. Because you're afraid of flight.»
«Damn straight I am. This whole thing is driving me nuts. Do we fly out of Kennedy for one price or go to Newark for a better price? Or, since we can't leave until after Thanksgiving anyway, do we fly out of Philly? But which is the right choice? Do I go for convenience? Or price? And then, just when I think, okay, out of Philly, the idiot on the phone who told me about the flight says, No, that one's booked, so I start thinking, Okay, maybe God wants me to fly out of Kennedy, maybe he knows something about the Philly flight. Then again, he could know something about the Kennedy flight. But then again, maybe God's just pulling my chain. I could be making a life-or-death decision here, and God's trying to be funny.»
Alex sighed. «Maggie, hang up.»
«Hang up? Are you kidding? I spent twenty minutes online trying to figure out when the hell I'd tried online before and made up a user name and password, because I sure couldn't remember them. Then, once I'd gotten a new password, the damn site wouldn't recognize my credit card number anyway, so I had to call, wait, talk, be put on hold, talk, be put on hold, talk, be put—I am not hanging up until and unless this woman figures out how to spell Margaret!»
«Since you already know how to spell stubborn . Very well,» Alex said, walking over to the credenza and pouring himself a glass of wine, as he had the Regency Era disdain for water. «Then you wouldn't be interested in knowing that thanks to my speaking last week with a representative of the production company, who happened to phone while you were out and I was here, doing nothing in the least nefarious, and after putting forth my personal recommendations on the matter, three airline tickets were delivered just minutes ago to my apartment. I, by the grace or possible cruel joke of God, decided on Philadelphia, by the way, with our return to Kennedy. We depart for Heathrow the Sunday after Thanksgiving, traveling in something called first class. And you Americans vow you aren't class conscious.»
Maggie just sat there, stared at him. «You… it's all… so I'm driving myself nuts for… damn it, Alex, why do you keep doing this to me?»
The man had the nerve to look innocent and the panache to carry it off. «Doing what, my dear?»
«Oh, don't get cute. You know darn well. Stepping in. Taking charge. Never getting ruffled. Always getting what you want. Making me feel like an idiot because I always do things the hard way. And you got three free tickets out of them? I mean, okay, me I can understand. I'm the author. They could certainly spring for a ticket for me. But you and Sterling? How did you finagle that one?»
»Finagle? I'm not familiar with the term, but I'm confident the Viscount Saint Just does not finagle. But, as I am your personal assistant and liaison with the press and Sterling is your spiritual advisor, it was, of course, only logical that we should accompany you.»
«And you're expecting me to swallow this? Oh, wait. The person who called? Female, right?»
«Why, yes. Miss Browning. She had a lovely laugh. Very like the soft tinkling of delicate silver bells tickled by the breeze of a clear spring day.»
«As I'm sure you told her.» Maggie made some sort of low, chuckling sound. «They don't even see you, and they go all gooey and do whatever you want them to do, just the way I planned you. Man, I'm good. But that's manipulative, Alex, do you know that? It's not nice.»
He shrugged, put down the empty wineglass. «In point of fact, it's a woman who doubtless spent the remainder of her day spreading her joy to everyone. It is also, my dear girl, three free first-class plane tickets to England. I believe we are all to be considered winners in the exchange.»
«Okay,» she said, giving up. «I'm the last one to be arguing over saving money. Unless you're actually going to start paying your own way around here, Perfume Man.»
Then she gave herself a swift mental kick because that blow had been below the belt. She knew better, she knew his vulnerabilities, because she'd created him. The Viscount Saint Just placed a lot of his pride on being self-sufficient, in all ways.
«Oh, God, I'm sorry, Alex,» she said quickly. «You've paid back every cent I advanced you when you first… first showed up. And you're paying off the mortgage on your condo. You're an honorable, upstanding—oh boy, I'll grovel later. She's back on the line.»
«Maggie, what are you—?»
Maggie held up a finger, motioning for him to be quiet. «Yes, yes, that's right. Missy Schwarzenegger. Two g's? Oh, right. Two g's. Boy, you're good. Uh-huh. Uh-huh, yes.
That's four round-trip tickets, first class, from Kennedy to Heathrow. And I'd like to add a leg from Heathrow to Oslo, back to Heathrow, and then to Kennedy. Oh, and I'll need two kosher meals and one diabetic meal. Uh-huh. And will there be room for the Way-Bac Machine? Uh-huh, Way-Bac Machine. That's W-a-y- capital B-a-c . No k . God knows we don't want anything with a k in it, right? Uh-huh. It's… it's kind of a… well, it's a necessity for one of the passengers. Uh-huh, my boy Sherman. You'll check? Yes, yes, of course I can hold.»