Wheels

Adam and Erica walked away arm in arm, knowing something important had happened to them both. Later, they might talk about it. For the moment there was no need for talk; their closeness was all that mattered.

"Mr. and Mrs. Trenton! Wait, please!"

A company public relations man, out of breath from running, caught them at a ramp to the Speedway parking lot. He announced, between puffs, "We just called the helicopter in. It'll be landing on the track. Mr. Hewitson would like you both to use it for the first trip. If you give me your keys, I'll take care of the car."

On their way to the track, with his breath more normal, the p.r. man said, "There's something else. There are two company planes at Talladega Airport."

"I know," Adam said. "We're going back to Detroit on one."

"Yes, but Mr. Hewitson has the jet, though he won't be using it until tonight. What he wondered is if you would like to have it first. He suggests you fly to Nassau, which he knows is Mrs. Trenton's home, then spend a couple of days there. The plane could go down and back, and still pick up Mr. Hewitson tonight. We'd send it to Nassau again for you, on Wednesday."

"It's a great idea," Adam said. "Unfortunately I've a whole string of appointments in Detroit, starting early tomorrow."

"Mr. Hewitson told me you'd probably say that. His message was: For once, forget the company and put your wife first."

Erica was glowing. Adam laughed. One thing could be said for the executive vice-president: When he did something, he did it handsomely.

Adam said, "Please tell him we accept with thanks and pleasure."

What Adam did not say was that he intended to be sure, on Wednesday, he and Erica were in Detroit in time for Pierre's funeral.

They were in the Bahamas, and had swum from Emerald Beach, near Nassau, before the sun went down.

On the patio of their hotel, at sunset, Adam and Erica lingered over drinks. The night was warm, with a soft breeze riffling palm fronds. Few other people were in sight since the mainstream of winter visitors would not arrive here for another month or more.

During her second drink, Erica took an extra breath and said, "There's something I should tell you."

" If it's about Pierre," Adam answered gently, "I think I already know."

He told her: Someone had mailed him, anonymously in an unmarked envelope, a clipping from the Detroit News - the item which caused Erica concern. Adam added, "Don't ask me why people do those things. I guess some just do."

"But you didn't say anything." Erica remembered - she had been convinced that if he found out, he would.

We seemed to have enough problems, without adding to them."

"It was all over," she said. "Before Pierre died." Erica recalled, with a stab of conscience, the salesman, Ollie. That was something she would never tell Adam. She hoped, one day, she could forget that episode herself.

From across the table dividing them, Adam said, "Whether it was over or not, I'd still want you back."

She looked at him, emotion brimming. "You're a beautiful man. Maybe I haven't been appreciating you as much as I should."

He said, "I guess that goes for both of us."

Later, they made love, to find the old magic had returned.

It was Adam, drowsily, who spoke their epilogue: "We came close to losing each other, and our way. Let's never take that chance again."

While Adam slept, Erica lay awake beside him, hearing night sounds through windows opened to the sea. Later still, she too fell asleep; but at daybreak they awoke together and made love again.

Chapter 29

In early September the Orion made its debut before the press, company dealers, and the public.

The national press preview was in Chicago - a lavish, liquor-laced freeload which, it was rumored, would be the last of its kind. The reason behind the rumor: Auto firms were belatedly recognizing that most newsmen wrote the same kind of honest copy whether fed champagne and beluga caviar, or beer and hamburgers. So why bother with big expense?

Nothing in the near future, however, was likely to change the nature of a dealer preview which, for the Orion, was in New Orleans and lasted six days.

It was a spectacular, show biz extravaganza to which seven thousand company dealers, car salesmen, their wives and mistresses were invited, arriving in waves of chartered aircraft, including several Boeing 747s.

All major hotels in the Crescent City were taken over. So was the Rivergate Auditorium - for a nightly musical extravaganza which, as one bemused spectator put it, "could have run on Broadway for a year." A stupendous climax to the show was the descent, amid a shimmering Milky Way and to music from a hundred violins, of a huge shining star which, as it touched center stage, dissolved to an Orion - the signal for a wild ovation.

Other fun, games, and feasting continued through each day, and at nights, fireworks over the harbor, with a magnificent set piece spelling ORION, closed the scene.

Adam and Erica Trenton attended, as did Brett DeLosanto; and Barbara Zaleski flew in to join Brett briefly.

During one of the two nights Barbara was in New Orleans, the four of them had dinner together at Brennan's in the French Quarter. Adam, who had known Matt Zaleski slightly, asked Barbara how her father was.

"He's able to breathe on his own now, and he can move his left arm a little," she answered. "Apart from that, he's totally paralyzed."

Adam and Erica murmured sympathy.

Barbara left unexpressed her daily prayer that her father would die soon, releasing him from the burden and agony she sensed each time she looked into his eyes. But she knew that he might not. She was aware, too, that the elder Joseph Kennedy, one of history's more famous victims of a stroke, had lived for eight years after being totally disabled.

Meanwhile, Barbara told the Trentons, she was making plans to move her father home to the Royal Oak house with full-time nursing care. Then, for a while, she and Brett would divide their time between Royal Oak and Brett's Country Club Manor apartment.

Speaking of the Royal Oak house, Barbara reported, "Brett's become an orchid grower."

Smiling, she told Adam and Erica that Brett had taken over the care of her father's orchid atrium, and had even bought books on the subject.

"I dig those orchids' lines, the way they flow," Brett said. He speared an Oyster Roffignac which had just been served him. "Maybe there's a whole new generation of cars hung in there. Names, too. How about a two door hardtop called Aerides masculosum?"

"We're here for the Orion," Barbara reminded him. "Besides, it's easier to spell."

She did not tell Adam and Erica about one incident which had happened recently, knowing that if she did it would embarrass Brett.

On several occasions after her father's stroke, Barbara and Brett stayed overnight at the Royal Oak house. One evening Brett arrived there first.

She found him with an easel set up, a fresh canvas, and his paints. He had sketched on the canvas, and now was painting, an orchid. Afterward Brett told her that his model was a Catasetum saccatum - the bloom which he and Matt Zaleski had both admired the night, almost a year ago, when the older man flared up at Brett and, later, Barbara forced her father to apologize. "Your old man and I agreed it was like a bird in flight,"

Brett said. "I guess it was the only thing we did agree on."

A little awkwardly Brett had gone on to suggest that when the painting was finished, Barbara might like to take it to her father's room at the hospital and position it where he could see it. "The old buzzard hasn't got a lot to look at. He enjoyed his orchids, and - he might like this."

Then, for the first time since Matt's affliction, Barbara broke down and wept.

It had been a relief, and afterward she felt better, aware that her emotions had remained pent up until Brett's simple act of kindness released them. Barbara valued even more what Brett was doing because of his deep involvement with a new car planning project, Farstar, soon to be presented at a top-level strategy meeting of company officers.

Farstar was occupying Brett's days and nights, leaving time for little else.

Obliquely, at the New Orleans dinner table, Adam referred to Farstar, though cautiously not naming it. "I'll be glad when this week is over,"

he told Barbara. "The Orion is Sales and Marketing's baby now. Back at the farm we've new things borning."

"Only two weeks to the big-you-know-wot parley," Brett put in, and Adam nodded.

Barbara sensed that Adam and Brett were tremendously caught up in Farstar, and wondered if, after all, Brett would go through with his private plan to leave the auto industry at year end. She knew that Brett had not discussed the possibility yet with Adam who, Barbara was convinced, would try to persuade him to stay.

Barbara revealed some professional news of her own. The documentary film Auto City, now complete, had been enthusiastically received at several critical advance showings. The OJL advertising agency, Barbara personally, and the director, Wes Gropetti, had received warm letters of praise from the client's chairman of the board and - even more significant - a major TV network had committed itself to showing Auto City as a public service during prime viewing time. As a result, Barbara's own standing at OJL had never been higher, and she and Gropetti had been asked to work together on a new film for another agency client.

The others congratulated her, Brett with obvious pride.