by Robyn Sisman
Still, he mustn’t allow himself to feel too down. He had a job—a choice of three, in fact. Betsy was not pregnant after all. And he was not going on vacation with Betsy’s mother! Lloyd waved his spoon euphorically in the air, spattering the furnishings with soggy cereal. Whoops.
More calmly, he poured himself another cup of coffee. Outside the sky was a pure, cloudless blue. Trees shimmered olive and silver in the sunlight. His last day in London stretched before him, full of possibilities. He might go into town and see an exhibition. He could check out the second-hand bookstores in Cecil Court. Then there were presents he needed to buy: for Dee Dee, for Jay, for Lorna’s irrepressible little daughter and, of course, for Suze. Especially for Suze: he owed everything to her. He would give her the present tonight.
Oh—and packing. Lloyd shrugged. Probably he could clear the whole shebang in ten minutes, once he put his mind to it. He clattered his dishes together, ready to take them into the kitchen, and turned up the music another notch. It had been a long time since he had felt free to play it as loud as he liked.
I love the way you walk as you cross the street. How did Suze walk? He’d never even met her.
But he would tonight. Lloyd did his syncopated chicken walk down the hallway and clashed his cup and cereal bowl together. Baby, I wants to be loved.
They were going to meet for dinner. She’d suggested the place; it was sure to be as wild and upfront as she was. What should he wear? Suze would probably think most of his clothes dull. Hmmm . . . A daring thought struck him. Why not buy something new, just for tonight? Splash out! He would head down to Covent Garden after breakfast and show his credit card some major action.
Lloyd piled his dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, alongside the whiskey glass from last night. Then he wandered into the bedroom. He picked up the photograph from the chest of drawers. She looked pretty: he grinned. Too pretty: he scowled.
He put the picture back. What was he thinking of? All they were going to do was exchange keys and catch up on some work details. Nevertheless, as Lloyd shrugged himself into his shirt, with Muddy Waters still rampaging through the flat, he couldn’t help snarling under his breath. “I’m a hoochie-coochie man. I never miss. When I makes love to a woman, she can’t resist.”
Chapter Thirty-three
Suze negotiated the bizarre entranceway, with its miniature Japanese-style water-garden, and climbed the wooden staircase on teetery heels. Behind her a muscled doorman-cum-bouncer carried her bags. As she mounted the stairs the buzz of sophisticated chatter grew louder. She could hear the clatter in the kitchen, where the carrot-haired chef regularly threw tantrums and caught a gust of coriander as one of the waitresses carried out a tray to the dining room. At the top, the tired-looking blonde, who always reminded Suze of a 1930s hatcheck girl, gave her a hard look, then smiled. “Hi. Wilding, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.” Suze smoothed her dress. “Is it OK if I leave my cases here? I’ve come straight from the airport.”
“No problem.” She swung open the hatchway, then consulted her reservations book. “Your table’s in the far corner, by the window.”
“Right.” Suze swallowed. “And, um, has by any chance—?”
“He’s already there.”
Suze nodded. Her mouth was suddenly dry. The blonde was watching her with a look of faint amusement. Suze rubbed her lips together, lifted her chin and walked into the restaurant.
She saw him at once—a lean figure in a pale jacket and indigo-blue shirt, half turned to the open sash window so that he could look down onto Portobello Road. One long arm was crooked on the back of his chair. His profile looked thoughtful. For some reason, Suze smiled.
As if she had called his name aloud, he turned his head and stared straight into her eyes. He rose from his seat and stepped forward to meet her. “Suze? Is it you?” He looked delighted.
“Hello.” Heavens, he was tall. She stopped awkwardly, uncertain what to do. She knew him so well that shaking hands seemed absurdly formal, yet she could hardly kiss someone she’d never even met. For a moment Lloyd seemed similarly stumped. Then he put a warm hand on her back and steered her with casual authority to the table. He pulled out her chair, in that old-fashioned way Americans had, and seated himself opposite, smiling at her with amazed curiosity as if she were a surprise present he’d found in his Christmas stocking. Suze felt herself flushing under his scrutiny. In the flesh, with his rangy shoulders and penetrating blue eyes, he was disconcerting.
“You cut your hair,” was the first thing he said.
“Oh, God. Don’t look.” Suze placed both hands on top of her head. “Is it a total disaster?”
“Absolutely not. I like it. You remind me of that movie star—you know . . .”
“Yul Brynner?”
Lloyd burst out laughing. She had heard him laugh many times, but the physical details of his expressive eyes and straight white teeth were new. “I don’t see you starring in The Magnificent Seven just yet.” He chuckled. “The Magnificent One, maybe.” He leaned forward, eyes alight. “Because that’s what you’ve been, Suze. You know that. Without your help I’d be nowhere. Up the creek. In the gutter. Down the tubes.”
“Pfff,” said Suze. “Anyway, it was fun.”
“Fun?” Lloyd shook his head in wonder. “You put your job on the line for me. I call that heroic.” He reached out and lifted a bottle from the ice bucket. “Have a glass of champagne. I’m pretty much living on the stuff these days.” He filled her glass and raised his own. “To us.” They clinked glasses. His eyes lingered on her.
Suze took a sip and gave a contented sigh. Beside her the window was open. The air was rich with heady metropolitan smells—diesel fumes and summer leaves and delicious cooking. Above the rooftops the sky was glowing ultramarine, spattered with peachy clouds. She felt cool and sleek in the sleeveless silvery dress that she had packed in a cocoon of tissue paper at the top of her case. At Heathrow, she had spent almost an hour dolling herself up for this meeting, wanting to look good. Lloyd’s expression told her that she had succeeded.
A waitress appeared at their table and handed them a couple of menus. The restaurant specialized in girls of offbeat beauty, decked out in long white aprons wrapped over black micro-skirts, with hair and lipstick in wanton colors. They were part of what Suze liked about the place, along with the handsome proportions of the room, its glorious big windows framed by long crimson curtains and its eccentric decorations. Roman-looking busts, garlanded with gold-foil laurels, stared blindly from high shelves; by the entrance was a topiary swan in a stone pot; a stuffed parrot perched on the bar.
“I’m paying for dinner,” Lloyd said masterfully. “If you want to make me happy, you’ll order all the most expensive dishes on the menu.”
“Great! I already know what I want.”
“Then let’s order.”
“But you haven’t even looked at the menu yet.”
“Oh. Yes. OK.” While Lloyd studied the menu, Suze stole a concentrated look at him. He had a strong face, with dark eyebrows that slanted up to his temples and a decisive-looking nose. He was thin, but substantial, with none of that English skimpiness. In swimming trunks, for example, he’d probably look—
“Everything looks delicious. I can’t decide what to have. What are sweetbreads?”
“Animal innards—the pancreas, I think.”
Lloyd checked to see if she was joking. “Maybe I’ll pass on that.”
The waitress reappeared and took their order. Not having eaten on the plane, Suze found she was ravenous. She propped her elbows on the table and smiled at Lloyd. “What time does your plane leave?”
“Midnight. But I’ve got to check in at ten.”
“Piffle. Those airport people don’t feel happy unless they’ve herded everyone together hours in advance. If you leave it late, they have to let you jump the queues and you breeze through. That’s what I always do.”
“Really?” Lloyd looked unconvinced. “Maybe I cou
ld get there a little late. I already checked my bags at the airline office. How long will a cab take from here?”
“At this time of night, only half an hour.”
Lloyd raised one eyebrow.
“All right, forty minutes. Max.”
Eventually a cab was ordered for ten. Suze could see that Lloyd thought this tremendously daring.
“By the way,” he said, “don’t let’s forget. We must give each other the keys.” He reached down to a small canvas hold-all by his chair, unzipped one of the compartments, extracted her keys and handed them over. “You’ll find the other set in your apartment.”
Suze was still hunting through her handbag, trying to screen its bulging cornucopia from his sight. Coins, tweezers, pen tops, lighter, breath freshener, safety pin, miracle lip-restorer—Christ, where were they?
“Do you always travel this light?”
“Ha, ha.”
“Hey, isn’t that one of my pencils?”
Suze looked embarrassed.
“Keep it.” He gestured magnanimously.
Eventually Suze found the keys sandwiched between the folds of her checkbook and passed them to Lloyd.
He hefted them in the palm of his hand. “I guess I really am going back.” He sighed. Then his fingers closed around the keys and he dropped them into his jacket pocket.
“So Betsy’s not going back with you?” Suze fished.
“No. She’s staying in England, to take a trip with her mother.”
“I expect you’re sad not to be going too?”
Lloyd fiddled with the pepper grinder. “Well . . .”
“One salmon blini with lime chutney, and one risotto nero.” The waitress placed the dishes in front of them both. “Enjoy your meal.”
Suze waited for Lloyd to say more about Betsy.
“Tell me more about the presentation,” he said.
In between forkfuls, Suze gave him the full picture: Dee Dee masterminding the videolink from an outer office, calming her nerves with a jumbo-pack of cinnamon doughnuts; Harry half smiling like a sphinx; Bannerman and Tucker almost comatose from Sheri’s barrage of statistics. “And you should have seen them when you came on!”
Lloyd shrugged modestly.
“That stuff about the passwords was brilliant. How did you figure it all out?”
Lloyd sipped his champagne. “I made it up.”
“Lloyd!”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
Suze looked at his face—confident, amused, in control—and let out a gust of laughter. “I wish you could have been there. By the end, Bernie looked as if he’d swallowed a whole pig.”
“And some humble pie?”
“Absolutely.”
“How was Sheri’s presentation?”
“Bor-ing . . . Almost like a parody.”
“Poor Sheri. So much ambition, so little talent.”
“Ye-es. I see that now.”
“And Passion really liked our ad?”
“They loved it. It didn’t look at all bad, actually, considering I had to use videotape and cobble odd bits and pieces together.”
“Hooray for you.”
“They were your ideas.”
“Hooray for us, then.” They toasted each other once again.
“Jay was a star,” she said. “He’s so nice. I really like him.”
“Well, I can reveal something. He likes you too. He was telling me just yesterday—at some length. He said I had to meet you.”
“How funny. He told me the same thing about you.”
Soon Suze was floating on a delightful little bubble of alcohol and flattery. She listened while Lloyd talked about his work on the Passion account, laying down his knife and fork and gesticulating in the air. He had expressive hands, with elegant wrists and long fingers. She wondered what it would be like to—
“Kiss,” he said suddenly.
“Wh-what?” Suze felt herself blush.
“Kiss—Keep It Simple, Stupid. Don’t you have that expression over here?” He looked up inquiringly. Her embarrassment must have shown, for his whole face sharpened with intensity, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. A spark of excitement arced between them.
“Yes. Of course we do.” She seized her water glass and took an inordinately long drink, staring at the tablecloth.
As the waitress laid out their main course, Suze reflected on what it would be like to go out with someone nice, who wouldn’t abandon her at parties to get drugs for other people; someone intelligent, who wouldn’t patronize her, or regard her as a pleasant diversion for an empty weekend.
“Tell me,” she asked, “what do the words ‘Prince of Denmark’ suggest to you?”
“Hamlet, I guess. Why?”
“Nothing,” Suze answered airily. Then her face became stern, as she remembered Betsy.
“Mr. Kipling must have been special.” Lloyd was looking solemn. “‘The cat that walked by himself .’ ”
“Huh?” said Suze, through a mouthful of frites.
“The Kipling story,” he explained. “Rudyard Kipling. I assumed you named your cat after him.”
Suppressing a bubble of laughter, Suze nodded in agreement. Lloyd was looking splendidly serious; she didn’t want to dash his illusions about her literary erudition. Actually she had named the cat after a brand of prepacked baked goodies called Mr. Kipling’s Exceedingly Good Cakes, because he was so greedy. She had been working on the account at the time.
She swallowed her mouthful. “I have a confession to make as well. Your leather sofa: I’m afraid it’s acquired a rather large black hole, courtesy of a burning cigarette.”
“Oh.” Lloyd frowned. Then his mouth curved. His eyes glinted. “You know what? I hate that couch. I always hated it. It was some crazy idea of—well, of a friend of mine, to recreate the atmosphere of an English gentleman’s club. Now that I’ve been in England, I realize that such things can’t be bought. They have to be distressed over the centuries by aristocratic rear ends and port glasses. Frankly, I think a cigarette burn has added several hundred dollars to its value. How’s your fish, by the way?”
Suze glanced at her plate in surprise. Some food had definitely disappeared. She was quite unaware of having eaten it. “Very good.”
“That’s all?” His eyebrows shot up. “Not ‘divine’—or even ‘divinely divine’?” He was teasing her, with a look that gave her goose-bumps. She shivered and ran her hands up her bare arms.
“Are you cold?” Lloyd’s face sharpened with concern. “I’ll shut the window.”
“No, don’t. I love London in the summer—when it’s warm even at night, and you can smell the trees, and hear people enjoying themselves.”
“Then take this.”
Before she could protest he had stood up, peeled off his jacket in one fluid motion and was bending over her to drape it around her shoulders. She slid her arms inside the silky lining, warm from his body, and pushed up the overlong sleeves, breathing in its masculine smell. She couldn’t help hugging it to her.
“There are still some things I don’t understand,” she said, trying to steer the conversation away from dangerous territory. “For example, did Harry know what was going on?”
“Only that Stateside might come on board if Passion dropped us. He didn’t know what Sheri was up to, of course—or not until I told him.”
“I see. What will happen to Sheri, do you think?”
“My guess is that she’ll get a job with Stateside. I think she must have worked her magic on Tony Salvino. By the sound of that tape you sent me, she had certainly cast a spell on Bernie.”
It was Suze’s turn to raise her eyebrows.
“What’s that look supposed to mean?”
“From what I heard, Bernie wasn’t the only one to be enchanted by Sheri’s lovely legs.”
Lloyd confusion was a joy to behold. “But that—I never—She just—”
“You copywriters have such a great way with words.”
Lloyd bow
ed his head, conceding victory.
At that moment a voice said, “The taxi has arrived, sir.”
“What? Already?” Lloyd looked amazed and checked his watch. “Ask him to wait for a while, will you?” When the waitress had gone, he leaned forward. “Suze, can I ask you something?”
“I should think so.” What was he going to ask?
“Why did you decide to help me?”
“I’m not sure. At first I believed what Sheri told me. I began to change my mind because the people I really liked—Jay and Dee Dee—always believed in you. And then when I realized that you’d been set up, it seemed so unfair. Also—” She paused, staring at her plate.
“Yes?”
She looked up into his eyes. “I began to like you myself.”
“What about that time when you called me, and then Sheri came into your office? You sounded so stern! For a while there I thought you really were mad at me.”
Mrs. Rennslayer’s ghastly smile surfaced in Suze’s mind. “Of course I wasn’t.”
The daylight had ebbed away now; the room inside darkened. Suze and Lloyd seemed drawn together into their own private pool of candlelight. Suze let her eyes wander over his thick, dark hair and along the faint line of muscle in his shoulders, and rest on the triangle of flesh at the base of his throat. He caught her peeking.
“I like your shirt.” She blushed again.
“I’m glad. I bought it today.” His eyes added, Especially for you.
