Once More with Feeling by Cynthia Baxter Page B

farmer who pulled his dusty pickup truck alongside and asked if they could use a hand was certainly helpful. The driver of the tow truck was downright palsy-walsy. As for the proprietor of Cyril’s Auto Repair, he was grinning like a jack-o’-lantern as they said good-bye, leaving him their disabled vehicle.
    “Look at it this way,” Roger said with uncharacteristic cheerfulness as they stood on the corner in front of a scone shop, waiting for a bus. “We’ve already gotten to see a part of Toronto most tourists never get to see.”
    The Royal York Hotel was not only nice; it embodied the kind of old-world elegance and charm that Laura had only experienced in Edith Wharton novels. She was almost able to forget about the Great Auto Disaster that evening as she lay back in an oversized bathtub beneath a mound of scented bubbles. She hoped that while she was untying knots in muscles she hadn’t even known she possessed, Roger was turning back the bedspread, spraying on deodorant, and carrying out all the other preparations a groom on his honeymoon would be apt to make. So when she heard him speaking through the closed bathroom door, she sat up and listened.
    “Hello? This is room seven-eighteen. I’d like to order movie number three.... Uh, I believe it’s called The Harder They Come... .”
    Dripping bubbles all over the floor, Laura went to the bathroom doorway, a towel concealing as much of her body as possible.
    “Roger?” she demanded, incredulous. “What are you doing?”
    He glanced up at her, his hand covering the receiver of the telephone. “Just ordering up some entertainment. I figured—Yes, I’m here. Eight o’clock sounds fine. Go ahead and bill it to the room.”
    “Roger, I don’t think—”
    Before she could manage to say more, the telephone rang. She hoped it was the front desk, informing them that due to technical difficulties, the wayward cheerleaders or stewardesses or whomever room seven-eighteen had ordered would be unavailable. Instead, it was Cyril.
    “Whoooo,” Roger breathed into the phone, his back turned to Laura. “That much, huh?”
    “What did he say?” she demanded, perching on the edge of the bed. By then, she’d abandoned the idea of a long, hot soak in the tub. Instead, she was pulling clothes over her still damp limbs.
    “The car needs a new engine. Cyril says the old one—’
    “How much is ‘that much’?”
    Roger swallowed hard. “Five hundred bucks.”
    She stared at the carpeting, waiting for the rising panic to subside. “Whose five hundred bucks?” she finally asked.
    “We’d better call Dirk.”
    So it was that the first night of Laura and Roger’s honeymoon was spent in the company of romping cheerleaders ... and the second night with Dirk and his pal Igor stretched out in sleeping bags on the floor of their honeymoon hideaway. Dirk, after all, was the rightful owner of the ailing VW. If he chose to tow it all the way back to Pennsylvania behind Igor’s truck so he could personally fiddle with the recalcitrant engine, that was his business. Of course, where they spent the night was also Laura’s business. Still, she was a new bride, on her very best behavior, and she couldn’t bring herself to exile her brother-in-law of two days to the Y when she was enjoying such luxurious accommodations.
    That escapade, it turned out, was merely a precursor of the even more symbolic event that was to follow. On day three, over breakfast, Roger had a suspicious glint in his eyes, unlike anything Laura’d seen since he’d watched the cheerleaders video.
    “I had a great idea,” he told her. “How about renting a sailboat and taking it out on Lake Ontario? You and I haven’t had a chance to go sailing together yet. So far,” he added with a wink, “you’ve only heard about my prowess at sea. I’m anxious to show off.”
    Lounging on the back of the fourteen-foot sailboat that was theirs for the day, Laura couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt