by Paul Kenyon
"Helena, Helena, rallentare! Slow down! I'm not shopping for a lover just now!"
"Penelope, at least meet him!"
"Well…"
"Good! Now don't change your mind! I'll be right back!" She jumped up, a tiny dark-haired girl with a bright monkey face who looked much too frail to contain the enormous soprano voice that had filled most of the world s great opera houses.
She took a step, then came back. "You'll be doing me a favor," she hissed in a whisper that might have been heard in the furthest balcony. "Clem is getting jealous of Ruggiero, and if I can't persuade him that Ruggiero is having an affair with someone else, then he may become too angry to give me the Rolls Royce he promised me for my birthday! Besides, if you don't have an affair with Ruggiero, I may be tempted myself!" She darted through the crowd, a little flurry of motion in a Saint Laurent gown.
Penelope sipped her martini. Prince von Furstenberg waved at her from across the room, and she waved back. Burton noticed her, and played a few bars of a Cole Porter song she'd once told him she liked. Christina leaned out from behind the young man with the beard who was crowding her against the wall, and blew a friendly kiss at Penelope. She felt relaxed and content, and she needed rest, and she certainly wasn't going to acquire a lover.
The guests parted like waves before the bow of a ship, and Helena was on her way toward her, towing a tall young man by the arm. She recognized Ruggiero from his pictures, a fresh, animated, somewhat hollow-cheeked face under a huge mass of curly dark hair. He was very handsome, lithe, with a conductor's grace showing in his movements.
Their eyes locked. Something passed between them. It was as direct as a jolt of electricity. They let the current flow between them while Helena chattered.
"…Ruggiero is a great conductor, you can't tell by looking at him; Penelope is a great beauty, you can tell at a… What's the matter? You two aren't talking! You aren't even smiling! Don't you like one another?"
Penelope got to her feet and tucked her arm in Ruggiero's. She smiled at Helena. "We don't know yet, cara. Run along and we'll try to find out."
Helena looked at their faces, smiled uncertainly, then backed away in the direction of Burton and the piano. Penelope squeezed Ruggiero's arm. It was as hard and wiry as a steel cable under his sleeve.
"It's true what Helena said," he said in a low, husky voice. "We weren't talking."
She led him toward the door. "We've got better things to do than talk," she said, as she looked up at him seductively.
