'Camcorder ready!' Boris informs us.

And now we're going to immortalize this wonderful moment on film!

'Ms Russell?'

'Yes,' I raise a sa.s.sy brow.

'You have something stuck to your heel!' Boris peers closer. 'It looks like an airline ticket?'

'Oh my gosh,' my hand goes to my heart. 'Imagine if I forgot this!' Checking the details I read out loud: 'MISS LARA RICHARDS. LAX to FRESNO-YOSEMITE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. Yup, that's me. Going to see my beloved. Just the two of us and the wild wilderness-'

Suddenly I freeze. My eyes are on the departure time.

'Oh no.' I fill with cold dread.

'What?' Zo yelps.

'What time is it now?' I ask, trying to remain calm despite the feeling that I'm being sucked into quicksand.

'Just coming up to 4pm.'

'Oh no, oh no.' Underneath the pancake foundation I've turned a wispy Cate Blanchett white.

'Lara what is it?'

'My flight leaves in an hour.'

'No, you said 7pm....' Zo takes the ticket from me. I watch as realization contorts her face. 'Oh s.h.i.t.'

'I just saw the 7 in the 17.00. I thought-' I shake my head, foiled again by the 24-hour clock. I take a breath as my brain races trying to think of a way round this. I know Helen said it was the last flight of the day but maybe I could find another airline? Or would that break The California Club code? If I hired a car and drove, maybe no one need know? But it's a six-hour slog. Oh G.o.d, oh misery, oh Elliot! slipping ever more out of reach. And then I feel my body slumping in defeat.

It's over.

Chapter 20.

'You can still make it!'

'What?' I look up at Boris.

'You are packed?'

'Suitcase is in the car.' For what it's worth.

'You can, you can do it.'

'Unless you've got a fully working replica of Chitty Chitty Bang-Bang out the back-'

'Freeway is no good now but you can take Western Avenue most all the way.'

Zoe brightens. 'It's got to be worth a shot!'

'But we don't even know where Western Avenue is!' I protest.

'Is simple. I show on map.' Using the glitterstick he traces the path to the airport.

Zo and I stare at the shimmering snail-slick, paralyzed by the prospect of negotiating unfamiliar roads at high speed.

'But maybe this flight is not so important?' he shrugs.

Suddenly we're animated. 'Oh yes it is!' we insist.

How could I even consider giving up without a fight?

'Well, then!' He makes a grand shooing motion with his arms.

'Oh my G.o.d!' we cry, lunging for the door only to find our stride severely restricted by the dresses. 'The costumes!'

'Quick, turn around!' I twizzle Zo and fiddle frenetically with the sequence of hooks and eyes at her collar. 'Keep still!' I squeak as she kicks off her shoes, dropping three inches and causing me to catch the top hook in her wig.

'Aaaghh!' Zo screeches as her head wrenches back. 'Undo the zip!' She panics, reaching around behind her, wriggling as if she's been doused in itching powder.

'Stop!' Boris bellows.

We look up from our grappling, startled by his vocal amplification.

'Much as I would love to watch you two ladies undress one another ...' he smiles, savoring the moment for a millisecond longer than our schedule can allow. 'I trust you, so GO! You bring back tomorrow, okay?' He squeezes Zo's elbow as he herds us to the door.

She reaches back and smothers him with a feather-up-the-nostril hug. 'I'll be here before breakfast, I promise thank you so much!'

For a moment his face fills with transcendental bliss as his hugging hands discover her zip has descended as far as her G-stringed bottom. But before Zo even realizes what's going on, he zips her back to decency.

'Tomorrow,' he concludes, eyes misting with delicious antic.i.p.ation.

'I'll drive!' Zo s.n.a.t.c.hes the keys from my trembling hands as we do our hobbling version of a Benny Hill dash to the parking lot.

'You sure?' I frown. This surely isn't the best time for experimentation.

'You'll be too stressed. Just read the map,' Zo insists.

'But-' I'm thrown. I've never seen Zo take control before. And she's not messing the engine is already revving.

'Get in!' she commands.

I leap into the pa.s.senger seat, twisting around to check the street name. 'Er, this is Vine so go left then down two blocks to Sunset.'

We screech into the street, only taking the wrong side of the road for a hair-raising thirty seconds.

'Yikes!' Zo hoots, yanking us back over to the right.

I try to laugh along but only manage a petrified wheeze.

As we power down Western Avenue I steal a glance at Zo. Were it not for the fact that she looks like some freaks how granny driver (hugging the wheel with her shoulders up to her ears, wig yanked back to her collar and a bank-robber stocking showing at the front of her head) I'd be impressed she's driving like a rally driver.

'Blimey! Girl racer!' I brace myself on the dashboard as we surge ahead of the traffic.

Zo smiles. 'My boss sent me on a defensive driving course last summer. He said I was such a bad driver I'd probably need to make a speedy getaway from an irate motorist at some point. Whoah!' She swerves to avoid an outrageously handsome man exiting a gas station in a silver convertible. I wait for Zo's lecherous comment but it doesn't come. Her eyes are trained on the road ahead.

'How come you've never driven when we've been places before?' I'm suddenly curious.

'I don't know it was always like you and Elliot were Mum and Dad and me and Sasha were the kids in the back,' she shrugs. 'I didn't think there was any point messing with the equilibrium.'

I smile. 'You're a good driver.'

Zo floors it.

'A little bit fast ...' I gulp as we gobble up the miles. 'Oh G.o.d!' I close my eyes as we swoop across three lanes in one go.

'Our exit!'

'Is it?' I look down at the map, desperately trying to locate us.

'It had a big airport sign, don't worry, we're going to do this.'

I make a silent pact - if I make this flight I'll take it as a sign that I have to tell Elliot how I really feel. What have I got to lose now?

'What airline is it?' Zo asks, already approaching the first terminal.

'Skywest.'

'Okay, when we get there, I'll pull up right outside and you just run in.'

'What about the car? I'm supposed to drop it back at Enterprise.'

'I'll do it.'

'But how will you get back into town?'

'I'm sure one of these nice gentlemen will give me a ride,' she says eyeing a fleet of prowling black limos.

'Skywest! Pull in!' I blurt, suddenly spotting the overhead sign.

Zo skims the curb and pops the trunk. The second my suitcase hits the pavement she hollers, 'Run!'

I obey but instead of an athlete's springing gait all I manage is a tic-tac shuffle.

'The dress!' I turn back in panic.

'I'll sort it with Boris!' she a.s.sures me.

'Aren't you running low on s.e.xual favors by now?' I hesitate, suddenly loath to leave her.

'Never!' she grins, waving me through the automatic door.

'Vegas?' the check-in girl enquires without looking up, seemingly unfazed to find her peripheral vision filled with sequins.

'Fresno,' I correct. 'I'm really late. Can I still get on?'

'Let's see what we can do.' Her fingernails do a frantic tap dance across the keyboard. My heart leaps as she nods for me to heave my suitcase on to the metal plate. There's hope!

'You can make it if you run but I can't guarantee your luggage will get on board.'

I roll my eyes. Surely it wouldn't happen twice?

'That's okay. I'll take my chances.'

She hands me my boarding pa.s.s like it's a relay race baton and says, 'Gate 17. You're gonna have to Flo-Jo it!'

There's only one thing for it, I hitch up my skirt, exposing my pink skin-socks for all the frequent flyers to see, and charge.

Heckles are surprisingly few. Far more common is: 'Hey look, Mom, they must be shooting a movie!' followed by gawping around the concourse for camera crews.

The departure lounge is deserted bar the ticket-taker cheering me on to the finishing line. I'm ready to cry with relief as I stumble jelly-legged down the prefab corridor and on to the plane but it's not quite over as the last person on a full flight I have to play hide-and-seek with the one remaining seat. All eyes are on me as I slink my sequins down the aisle. You'd think someone would raise an arm and say, 'Coo-eee! There's a free one here!' but no apparently my fellow pa.s.sengers want me to suffer for delaying take-off. It's working: my already sweaty pink face now takes on the radioactive glow of embarra.s.sment.

Naturally the one remaining s.p.a.ce is a middle seat: a man with extra-long legs extending into the aisle has to unbuckle himself and step out in order to let the freak in the fancy dress in. Sliding past him with a salvo of 'Sorry's I get entwined in his headphones. It's an excruciating palaver and yet all of a sudden I don't care frankly I'd sit on his lap and sing Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend if I had to-all I can think is: I made it! I'm on a flight that is taking me to Elliot and for the first time in years I'm going to be truly alone with him.

After this farrago, telling him that's he's my one true love is going to be easy.

Chapter 21.

My luggage decided not to join me on my journey to Yosemite. No surprises there. What has thrown me, however, is the dramatic change in the weather. I left LA in streaky pink sunshine and now I'm convinced that our one-hour hop up the coast involved a diversion to Lapland.

It began with a noticeable drop in temperature when I stepped on to the airport concourse, but there was no real hint that a whirling snowstorm lay ahead. (I'm sure I wouldn't have been given a white rental car if they'd known I was about to become invisible on the roads.) Initially I drove quite happily, watching Days Inn and Dairy Queens give way to quaint establishments like the Elk Lodge and The Ol' Kettle cafe where the big news was that 'Wild Hare is Back' on the menu. I also pa.s.sed several outdoor outfitters but they were all closed. Who'd have thought I could look so covetously at a Puffa gilet? And what I wouldn't do for a pair of cashmere gloves! I can only endure occasional eyeball-drying blasts from the car heater any longer and it gets too 'can't breathe' claustrophobic. As a result my frozen fingers are hooked around the steering wheel like eagle claws. An eagle with highly manicured nails, I muse, admiring my glossy red talons.