Finding It (19 page)

“Wait! Wasn’t
Doctor Who
a silly science fiction show? If David Tenant was on that show, he must be ancient.”

“Silly science fiction sh-show?” Poppy sputters. “What are you on about? You must be off your trolley!
Doctor Who
has been on the telly since the sixties. It is a significant part of British pop culture.”

“Ooo-kay, but it’s a science fiction show, right?”

Poppy puts both hands back on the wheel, inhales through her nose, and exhales through her mouth several times. Who knew a science fiction show could transform the unflappable Poppy Worthington into a hyperventilating Lamaze student? I have seriously taken the starch out of her stiff upper lip and it’s kinda funny.

“
Doctor Who
is a science fiction program about a Time Lord.”

“Time Lord?” Fanny repeats.

“Yes, the Doctor—or Time Lord—is a time traveling humanoid who explores the Universe in his TARDIS.”

“Tar-dis?”

I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing.

“A time-traveling space ship.”

“Okay, then,” I say, opening my eyes wide. “It sounds…”

“I know, it sounds bonkers, but it is really quite brilliant…and funny. You should watch it some time.”

“I suppose I will have to since I might be interviewing Doctor Time Lord.”

“The Doctor.” Poppy corrects me. “The Doctor is a Time Lord.”

“Wait a minute!” I frown as the wispy memory materializes more fully. “I think I remember watching an episode with my Gran set on a planet of caves run by warlords who were, like, intergalactic arms dealers, or something.”

“Season twenty-three. ‘The Trial of the Time Lord!’”

“If you say so,” I shrug. “I just remember my Gran kept feeding me stale butter and jam cookies so I would—”

“Jammie Dodgers!”

“What?”

“The biscuits. They’re called Jammie Dodgers and they’re the Doctor’s favorite.”

“Dude! You’re totally fangirling over the Doctor.”

“She is, isn’t she?” Fanny chuckles.

“I am British.” Poppy sniffs. “I don’t do fangirl.”

“Bullshit!” I poke Poppy in the arm. “You’re a David Tennant fangirl. It’s cool. I used to get that way over Ronnie Radke, the singer from Falling in Reverse.”

“Used to?” Fanny cries.

“Yeah, I think I am outgrowing him.”

“The end of an era.”

“I know, right?” I switch my focus back to Poppy. “So, tell me, have you always jonesed for the geezers or is it just this old Doctor dude that gets your juices flowing?”

“Vivian!” Fanny slaps my shoulder. “That is disgusting.”

“It’s all good. I’m not an ageist.”

“Ha! Ha!” Poppy laughs. “David is not a geezer.”

“Leave her alone, Vivian.”

Look at me, bringing foes together under a common banner. Too bad I couldn’t pop into Doctor Who’s space ship and travel back to the early nineteenth century; I’ll bet a few hours with me and old Nappy and Wellington would be slapping each other on the backs and swapping war stories like a couple of old cronies. “Waterloo? Where’s that?”

Poppy looks in her rearview mirror at Fanny. “You really like Zac Efron?”

I pull down the visor and look at my best friend.

“Well,” Fanny confesses, blushing. “I wouldn’t kick him out of bed for singing
High School Musical
ditties.”

“I hear you,” Poppy says. “And I wouldn’t kick David out of bed for eating Jammie Dodgers.”

While my two friends engage in girl talk, I send Bishop Raine a text.

Text to 44 20 7834 6600:

Thanks for the interview. You scored me huge points with Big Boss Lady.

Text from 44 20 7834 6600:

Who is this?

Text 44 20 7834 6600:

Vivia.

When he doesn’t respond I send another text.

Text to 44 20 7834 6600:

Vivia Grant. We met at Boujis.

Text from 44 20 7834 6600:

Right. Are you the brunette with the flag pasties?

Text to 44 20 7834 6600:

No. I am the GoGirl! reporter in the sequined mini-dress you tongue raped.

Text from 44 20 7834 6600:

LOL. Right. I remember. Glad my musings put you in right with the man..or the wo-Man. If praise from authority is what motivates you, California Girl, I am glad I could give you a boost up the corporate ladder.

“That’s odd.”

“What’s odd?” Poppy asks.

“I just sent Bishop a text thanking him for the interview, and he responded as if he barely remembered meeting me.”

Poppy chuckles. “That’s Bishop. Don’t take it personally. You know the Hollywood types—they suffer from attachment ADD. They’re only faithful to whoever is fawning on them at the moment. What have you done for me lately mentality and all.”

“Wow. I thought you were friends.”

“I am friends with Bishop—as much as anyone can be friends with a celebrity.”

“I thought he was different.”

“He is definitely different.”

Poppy and Fanny laugh, but I stare bleakly at my girlish pink rain boots and curse my flirtation with Bishop “I fink my Mockney accent makes me sound urbane” Raine. What a fool I was jeopardizing my relationship with a truly urbane man for a night of hollow ego-stroking.

Then again, it’s not like I had an affair. It was one stupid, meaningless, unsolicited kiss. How was I supposed to know Bishop Raine would stick his tongue down my throat or that the bobblehead bitches would snap a picture of us kissing and send it to Steven Schpiel? I love Luc, but he’s being totally unfair about this one.

“Bishop Raine. Zac Efron. David Tennant. Steven Schpiel. Luc de Caumont.” I cross my arms over my chest. “I am fed up with men. If a fleet of female aliens landed on this planet and enslaved every last one of them, I wouldn’t care.”

“Well then,” Fanny says, “it’s a good thing we are spending the week on a farm with only women for company.”

Make it Rain

Vivia Perpetua Grant @PerpetuallyViv

In 2009, a Scottish sheep farmer paid over $380,000 for an 8-month-old breeding ram. #BaaadInvestment

When we arrive at MacFarlane Sheep Farm, a cluster of charming cottages surrounded by rolling green pastures, the sun has settled low in the cleavage of two paps.

I read in my DK Eyewitness Travel Guide the Scottish refer to mountains as paps. I also learned: Drambuie, an aged malt whisky infused with honey and spices, is Scotland’s most popular potent potable; “
sláinte
,” which means to your health, is the preferred drinking toast; Ecclefechan Tart is a fruit pastry served with ice cream; and women outnumber men by five percent. Sophisticated alcoholic beverages, desserts served à la mode, and female domination. Something tells me I am gonna love this place.

Poppy follows the winding dirt drive to the end and parks the BMW beside a stone barn. Thick gray clouds have rolled across the sky like an old down blanket, just waiting to fall and shroud the world in darkness. A few determined rays of light punctured holes through the clouds and are streaming from the heavens to the hills, spotlighting herds of trembling sheep huddled together against the dying light.

“Have you ever seen anything more beautifully ominous?” I whisper, holding my iPhone up to snap a shot of the landscape. “I can almost see Rob Roy MacGregor reiving cattle from the hills.”

“It looks like a scene from
Outlander
,” Fanny murmurs.

A tall, barrel-chested, broad-shouldered man wearing jeans tucked into Wellies and a thin T-shirt walks out of the barn and stares at our car, a scowl marring his handsome face.

“I do believe we just found your Jamie, Sassenach.” I whisper to Fanny. “Sweet Shortbread! He’s one delicious-looking man.”

The scowl fades from the Scot’s face, replaced by a roguish grin. We open our doors and get out.

“Fàilte lassies! Fàilte tae MacFarlane croft.” He strides across the barnyard, closing the distance between us in three long-legged strides. “I didnea ken ye’d be arrivin’ so early.”

“My name is Vivia Grant,” I say, holding out my hand. “I am the columnist with
GoGirl!
I believe my editor contacted you.”

He takes my hand and shakes it.

“My name is Angus MacFarlane.” He says, switching from his thick Scottish brogue to slightly accented English. “Welcome to MacFarlane Farm, lassie.”

“Thank you.”

Angus quirks a brow. “Nice Wellies.”

I look down at my rain boots, the weak sunlight reflected off the glassine pink toes, and grin.

“Thanks!”

I am introducing the strapping Scot to my friends when several more strapping Scots emerge from the barn and form a semi-circle around Angus, muscular arms crossed over muscular chests.

I am vaguely aware that Angus is speaking. His lips are definitely moving, but my eyes are doing this crazy pendulum thing—as I swing my gaze from Angus to the hot Scots, Angus to the hot Scots.

Seriously? Some potent mystical substance must be in the water in the Highlands because the men are freaking huge—and gorgeous. I look around for a stripper pole and Matthew McConaughey in black leather chaps and cowboy hat because we must have stumbled onto the set of
Magic Mike III
. That’s the only explanation I can think of for this freak testosterone explosion.

I am envisioning Angus kicking off his Wellies and dry humping the ground while I make it rain with a fistful of twenties, when Fanny elbows me in the ribs, pulling me abruptly and painfully from my dirty daydream.

“Ow!”

One of the Scots, a tall strawberry-blond hottie with a military crew cut and chiseled cheekbones, notices the rib jab and grins. I flush from the tips of my pink rubber clad toes to the tips of my ears.

“Vivia!” Fanny nudges me again. “Did you hear what Angus just said? He offered to take our luggage to our cottage while Fiona leads us on a quick tour of the farm.”

I narrow the focus of my gaze on Angus, only Angus. “You don’t grind, er, mind, I mean?”

“Och, ye’re havering,” Angus says, waving a hand at me. “Of course I don’t mind. Dinnea ye fash yerself.”

While Poppy opens the trunk to remove our luggage and Fanny wrestles half of the entire Louis Vuitton travel collection from the backseat, I pretend to send a text to avoid making eye contact with any of the Scots—but particularly the grinning strawberry-blond hottie. His piercing blue-eyed gaze has completely discombobulated me. It’s like he used laser vision to peek inside my brain and read my dirty little thoughts.

My phone blings and vibrates. I open my e-mail box and the find the message I have been waiting to receive ever since Luc walked out of our hotel room five days ago. My stomach flips.

TO: Vivia Perpetua Grant

FROM: Jean-Luc de Caumont

SUBJ: I love you

I haven’t called because I need some time to think. I’ve also been having problems with my mobile. I can’t access my voicemail or text messages, so if you need to reach me, please send an e-mail or call the chateau.

The term ended last week, which means I am free for the summer. My brother asked me to lead a bike tour for Aventures Caumont. I leave for the Côte d’Azur in a few days, but will call you when I return.

Please be safe.

Luc

Luc sent me an e-mail! So why don’t I feel relieved or reassured?

I start at the top and read the e-mail again, analyzing the text and the meta-text, what Luc wrote, and what he did not write. The message is neither loving nor dismissive. Other than the opening hook—the “I love you” subject line—he didn’t give me a lot to grab onto.

He says he needs time. How much time? A week? A year? And what happens after he takes time to think? Will we resume our intense long-distance love affair—sending each other sexties, talking through the night, sharing our secrets and dreams, scheduling weekends of crazy-hot monkey sex and room service in Prague, Paris, Pisa?

I don’t think so.

Something shifted after Luc discovered the linguistically adept Bishop Raine stuck his tongue down my throat—a subtle rearranging and redefining of our relationship. My urbane, sophisticated, sexually-liberated French lover traveled back in time, entered a prehistoric cave, and walked out missing a few relationship chromosomes. I recognized the primal flash in his eyes when he saw the photograph of Bishop kissing me, that primal desire to lay claim, to make me his woman.

Then again, maybe I am reading it all wrong.

I look at his unaffectionate, unromantic last line.

“Please be safe.”

It’s not exactly the closing salutation of someone staking a claim.

I slide my iPhone into my pocket and walk to the back of the BMW. Poppy has removed her suitcase and cosmetic trunk and is about to lift my pink bag from the trunk when I stop her.

“No, please,” I say, reaching for the handle. “It’s crazy heavy. I’ll get it.”

“Pishaw.” Poppy lifts the bag from the trunk. “I don’t mind.”

“Thanks.”

I walk around the car, grab my MacBook case from the passenger footwell, and help Fanny remove her elephant-sized bag from Poppy’s peanut-sized backseat.

Magic Mike
III
’s bit players returned to their work in the barn, but Angus and the grinning hottie are still standing with their arms crossed over their barrel chests. They look a lot alike, actually, except grinning hottie is younger, blonder, and a wee more handsome.

Grinning hottie notices me staring at him and winks.

“A’ll see ye Monday next, then,” grinning hottie says, giving Angus one of those Macho Man half hugs with the bruising back slap. “Lang may yer lum reek.”

Angus laughs, slaps grinning hottie on the back, and repeats the salutation. He says it so fast, though, that it almost sounds like, “Long may your bum reek.”

Since the Scots are distracted with back-slapping and bum reeking, I turn my back on them and whisper, “Who is Fiona?”

Poppy and Fanny look at me with matching “What the hell, Vivia?” expressions.

“Sorry, I kinda zoned out. It was hard to focus with Rub Roy and his brawny band staring at me.”