He studied her. "You could have minimized your beauty."
"I was afraid to. I didn't know how good my other weapons would be."
Struck by her honesty, he paused, still studying her. The amber of her eyes darkened; the tip of her tongue touched her upper lip. He took a step toward her.
"Matt," she said softly. "The game isn't over."
"It's barely begun," he said, but he stepped back and served the ball, and in another few moments Nicole won on a lazy return that sent the ball just over the net and off the edge of the table.
"Yours," Matt said with a laugh. "I should have guessed you'd pull something I hadn't seen before."
"I practice doing that." She picked up the bottle of cognac. "You're wonderful, Matt. Your eyebrows get fierce and your mouth determined. ..."
"I'm pretending to be a ship's captain getting you safely through a storm."
She gave a small laugh. "I'd trust you to do that."
Matt went to her as she filled their glasses and took the bottle from her hand. His arm circled her shoulders and his other hand covered her breast. Nicole leaned against him and raised her face. "Of course," she said, the words barely audible as her arms came up and circled his neck. "You did say the winner gets to pick the prize." Her mouth was full and soft beneath his, opening to let their tongues twist together; then, turning within his arm, she pressed the length of her body against his.
She held the kiss before slowly pulling away. Holding his hand on her breast she led him past the swing set and dart board, past stuffed animals and a hopscotch diagram on the floor, past jump ropes and pick-up-sticks and Lego sets, past the corner where he had once watched her shoot marbles, to a deep couch at the far end of the room. She drew him with her into the depths of its cushions. "If you knew how I've wanted you," she murmured. "Since that first night, at my party, when you looked wide-eyed at every room. ..."
"But tonight you chose Ping-Pong," he said, his lips against hers. He was above her as she half-lay against the arm of the couch; his hands moved from her breasts to her smooth skin and the long line of her throat. "All those damned games. ..."
Her eyes were closed, but her lips curved. "Everything is a game, Matt. Different names, different ways of playing, but it's always a game."
"And this?" His mouth came down on hers with a kind of fury at the passion pounding inside him while she talked of games. He raised his head. "Was that another one?"
"The best of all. Dear Matt, you play so beautifully, we're so well-matched, we'll be wonderful together. I promise. Whatever you want, however you want to play it. . . ."
Roughly he turned her and pulled down the thin zipper that reached her waist. The dress seemed to float off her shoulders, and he ran his hands over her bare skin, sliding them around her to cup her breasts, the nipples hard and pointed beneath his fingers. She made a low sound, like a long purr, and raised herself against him so he could pull off her dress and pantyhose, and his hands moved over her, discovering the taut lines
of her body, as lean as his, before they reached the silkiness of her thighs and the soft darkness between them.
He felt a slow shudder through her body, then she curved above him like a reed floating free in the water. "Your turn, dear Matt," she murmured, and bent her head to run her tongue along his neck, taking small bites while her quick fingers opened his shirt.
Her tongue followed her hands, the pointed tip licking small circles down his chest. He felt her warm breath as she reached his belt buckle and zipper and then her tongue moved down in long strokes as her hands slid off his clothes. Four months, he thought; no one for four months . . . But the words dissolved beneath Nicole's tongue; his hands held her breasts as her fingers curved around him, and then she took him deep into her throat, sending desire surging through his veins like a flood of molten silver.
He had to take her; the rest, the slow playing, would have to wait. He pulled himself out of her mouth and began to turn her so he could lie on her. But with a smile, as if it were still her serve, she stayed above him, moving smoothly, sinuously, upward, along his body. He saw the faint light reflected in her amber eyes; he saw the luster of her long pearls against her breasts; he watched her firm white body cover his darker one. His burning skin felt the marble coolness of hers, and fleetingly he thought of the strangeness of that, but then she was astride him, lowering herself onto him. Her breasts were above his face; he brought one and then the other into his mouth. He heard her say his name in a long whisper, like a breeze lifting their locked bodies, and then the playroom, like the past, disappeared.
66
I
'm inviting you to dinner," Tony said on the telephone. "I'll be there by four o'clock; five at the latest—"
"I'm sorry, Tony; we won't be here. In fact, we'll be in Los Angeles."
"You told me you weren't coming in this weekend."
"I wasn't. We decided at the last minute—"
"We?"
"My children and I. Peter is driving to college and we're going with him as far as Los Angeles for a couple of days. I've been promising them a trip for a long time, but Holly had to wait until the opera season ended."
"Wonderful. I'm a superb tour guide; we'll give them a visit they won't forget."
"That's sweet of you, Tony, but I know my way around by now. We won't bother you."
"I want you to bother me. I want to see you. I was coming to Santa Fe this weekend, remember? Call me when you get in. You're staying in the cottage at the Beverly Hills? Elizabeth? Will you call me or shall I call you?"
'Til call you if we have time, Tony. This really is a weekend for the three of us."
"I'd like to make it four. Think about it. Please."
She thought about it while taking turns at the wheel with Peter and Holly on the drive from Santa Fe to Los Angeles. The desert shimmered with heat waves rising from metallic brown sand to a pale sky, and when she was not driving she put her head back, eyes closed, playing word games with Peter and Holly or listening to Holly sing snatches of folk songs or operatic arias, or thinking of Tony.
"Are we going to see Tony?" Holly asked as they drove past the outskirts of Palm Springs, a sudden oasis, sharply defined, like a picture neatly cut out and pasted on the sand.
"I don't think we'll have time," Elizabeth replied.
"But won't he be at the television studios when you take us there?"
"Probably not. He doesn't come in on Friday."
"We could call him."
"I don't think so," Elizabeth said sharply. Then, more gently, she added, "We'll see how the weekend goes, Holly."
They did not mention Tony again, though later, as she led them through the different buildings of the television center, past dressing rooms and makeup rooms and along a corridor lined with studios, Elizabeth knew Holly was looking for him, and Peter was alert for anyone who looked at all familiar. "This is where we tape 'Anthony,' " she told them, and pulled open a high door, standing back to let Holly and Peter walk in ahead of her. "Tony's set," she said, gesturing toward the cut-away library where she had done her first on-camera interview, with Greg Ros-cov, in June. Almost three months ago, she thought. It was so fresh it seemed like yesterday, but at the same time it felt like years ago: so much had happened since then.
"You'd never know it's the same room you see on television," Peter said. "It feels fake when you stand in it and half of it isn't here."
Elizabeth smiled. "Television would collapse if it weren't for people's imaginations. Everyone would see it for the mirage it is. That's my set, in the other corner."
Holly was already walking toward it. The feel of the studio, dim, mysterious, romantic, sent shivers of excitement through her. Applause was best—an audience on its feet, cheering and clapping and calling for encores—but that was only a few thousand people. Television! Holly thought, stepping up to the platform where Elizabeth interviewed her guests. Millions of people!
On the platform, she sat down and looked ar
ound. It was a rustic
porch, with a wood railing and deep-cushioned bent-twig chairs drawn up to a round olive-wood table that usually held glasses and a pitcher of lemonade, or pottery mugs and a matching coffee pot. Behind the porch was a painted backdrop of green mountains fading into the distance. "It's exactly like our sets at the opera," Holly said. "Nothing looks real when you get up close."
"You waiting for Mom to interview you?" Peter asked, joining her.
"No, she should do you, you're the one leaving for college. Don't you have profound thoughts on life and love to pass on to the vast viewing audience of 'Private Affairs'?"
Peter tipped back his head and contemplated the thicket of canister lights hanging at all angles above them, covering the ceiling. "I'd tell them that no one knows if love will last and they shouldn't look for guarantees, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't take a chance because unhappiness doesn't last, either."
"Cynical," Holly observed. "But vague. Why don't you say what you mean? You told Maya you don't want her in Stanford."
"That's not for television," Peter said. "That is really and truly private. And since Mother has a way of getting people to tell her their secrets, that is why I am not one of her guests."
"Maybe you will be when you're becoming a famous anthropologist and writer," Elizabeth said. "People will want to know what's behind your success."
"Would you be a guest on Mother's show?" Peter asked Holly.
She shook her head. "I'd be afraid of blurting things out. Like you. You don't want to talk about going off to your exciting campus and leaving Maya behind."
"You don't know anything about it. She thinks I should start fresh in a new place, without being tied down. She thinks I can go faster by myself and she doesn't want to slow me down."
"She thinks or you think?"
"We both do! And she's got a job at home, helping run Isabel's campaign—"
"That's just volunteer stuff. Everybody in Nuevo is doing it."
"She's being paid; she's organizing the volunteers. She's terrific. When Isabel's elected she'll be her administrative assistant. She's got a career!"
"And maybe someday you'll get together again?"
"I DON'T KNOW! Damn it, I told you: there aren't any guarantees!"
"What about our tour?" Elizabeth asked. She had been watching them, wondering how well she knew these two adults who had been children such a short time ago. "Shall we go on?"
"I didn't enjoy telling her goodbye," Peter said. "It wasn't easy, you know."
"We know," Elizabeth said gently. "Come on, now. You haven't seen the control room. Holly?"
Holly came down from the porch. "I'm sorry," she said to Peter.
He shrugged. "You were only doing it to keep me from asking you about your own private affairs."
She looked at him mischievously. "It worked, didn't it?"
He laughed and they left the studio and walked down a long, wide hall, stopping now and then to examine painted flats and props stacked against the walls: sewing machines, rocking chairs, beds, fabric flowers, desks, bathroom scales, dishes, silverware, wine glasses, even a spinning wheel. Crew members were consulting prop lists and gathering items for different shows, and as Holly and Peter eavesdropped, taking it all in, Elizabeth watched them as she had before. It's hard to grow up, she thought ruefully. My talented, beautiful offspring are having trouble doing it, and sometimes I think, so am I.
They turned corners, peeked into makeup and costume rooms, slipped quietly into studios. In one, they watched a cast rehearse a segment of a soap opera; in another they listened to a comedian tell jokes to an audience, warming it up for the game show that was about to begin. After a few minutes, Elizabeth led them from the building, across a parking lot to another with a long hall running between small rooms, each with a glass window cut in the wall. "I feel like I'm in an aquarium," Holly said, watching technicians setting up satellite transmissions, working on sound equipment, remastering tapes of movies and miniseries to fit them on larger reels, and editing tapes of talk shows, newscasts, and sitcoms.
"It's like a whole town," Peter said as they crossed a grassy stretch to still another building. "All these people, and nobody sees them, or even knows they exist—but here they are, all working away just to get one face on a television screen—"
"And well worth it if the face is your mother's," said Tony Rourke, coming up to them at the door of the green room.
In the flurry of greetings and Tony's flamboyant kiss on the back of Elizabeth's and Holly's hands, Elizabeth missed the sudden change in Holly's face and the brightness of her eyes. Tony saw it, but gave no sign that he did, and Peter scowled, but in an instant her face was calm again and her eyes had the distant look they had on the opera stage when she was concentrating.
Inside the green room, a television set was tuned to the game show going on at that moment in a studio downstairs. A group of contestants
waiting for the quiz show that would follow it sat nervously shuffling their feet, sipping coffee, staring hypnotically at the screen. Tony and Elizabeth led the way to the lavish buffet where the four of them chose from an assortment of coffee cakes and cookies, and then to a pair of leather couches. Peter was talking all the while. "Mother told us you don't come in on Friday."
"She's right. But I change my schedule when I suspect we might have interesting visitors. Will you let me help you see Los Angeles? Starting with dinner tonight? I'd love to take all of you to some local spot, and tomorrow I'll dedicate myself to acting like a guide who thinks Los Angeles is paradise on earth."
"Oh, Mother, please," Holly begged.
"Not tomorrow," Elizabeth said. "It's the last day Peter will be with us for quite a while, and I'd like it to be just the three of us. But dinner tonight would be lovely, Tony. Thank you."
"Someplace where we can recognize people?" Holly asked Tony.
"Trust me," Tony said, and took them that night to Ma Maison. As they sat down, he watched in open amusement as Holly and Peter gazed around them with faces lengthening in disappointment. "Problems?" he asked.
"It's ... not what I expected ..." Holly said feebly.
"After seeing a parking lot filled with Rolls-Royces and Mercedes," Tony finished. "That, of course, is part of the charm of the place."
Holly was having trouble finding charm. Tony had called it one of the city's best-known restaurants, but all she saw was a small room with a low, faded canvas tent for a ceiling, white plastic chairs with small cushions, and a thin carpet covering the hard floor. Recalling the restaurants Matt had taken them to in Houston, she looked for glittering women in silks and satins, but there were none: the women were casually dressed, and few of them wore jewels. They looked quite ordinary.
"Dear Holly," said Tony, and took her hand for a moment. "Ma Maison poses. That does have a certain charm when it is not overdone. And if you'll look carefully, you'll see that nothing is overdone. A bud vase with a single perfect rose. A small candle. Waiters in tuxedoes, but with the homey touch of white aprons hanging to their knees. Fine china and silver, simple, not gauche. Now look again at the faces around you. I guarantee they're recognizable, though not as easily as if they were made up for television. Look closely, relax, and let the place grow on you. I recommend the lobster salad as a first course. And wine. Do you drink wine?"
"A little," Holly breathed.
"Elizabeth?" Tony turned in his chair, giving her all his attention. "My dear, you look exquisite. I haven't seen that dress."
"From a modest corner of Rodeo Drive," Elizabeth said, her color high as his eyes moved slowly over her face and body.
"If you found a modest corner on Rodeo Drive, you're the only one who ever did. Jonquil silk; perfect for you. And of course I recognize the necklace—"
Glancingly, Elizabeth saw Peter's eyes narrow in suspicion. "It was a gift from the staff of 'Anthony,' " she told him and Holly. "To welcome me to the show."
"It was indeed," Tony said promptly, picking
up her cue. "Though they asked my help in picking it out—in a not-so-modest corner of Rodeo Drive. It's wonderful with that dress: you have a glow that dims the candles at Ma Maison."
Elizabeth smiled again, but picked up the wine list and handed it to him, to let him know to stop. "Wine," he said immediately. "Thank you for reminding me. A bottle of Montrachet? Perhaps two. The offspring can join us."
Holly sucked in her breath. Offspring. And the way Tony's face had changed when he looked at her mother! She felt Peter's hand on hers and looked up to meet his sympathetic eyes. "Ignore it," he said under his breath. "He's an actor; it doesn't mean anything."
Holly nodded. "Sure. Thanks," she added. "That was nice."
"I'm a nice brother," he said, and grinned. Holly smiled back, suddenly very grateful for him. "Yes, you are," she agreed, and then settled back, looking around the restaurant, trying to see it with Tony's eyes—posing as a casual little summer place with food and prices that hardly matched. Charming, she reminded herself. And to add to the charm, the owner came from the small bar on the other side of the entrance to greet Tony, to shake hands with all of them, to admire Elizabeth.
That was the moment when Holly, looking beyond him, began to recognize other diners—and to see that some of them were casting sidelong glances at her. Well, not really, she thought; they're really wondering about Mother and Tony and how come Tony Rourke brings offspring on a date. But it didn't matter; it was fun to be watched; she liked it. And someday they'll watch me and know I'm Holly Lovell, the great singer, and they'll wonder who my guests are, that I liked enough to treat to a dinner at Ma Maison.
The owner left their table; waiters brought their dinner, and a soft wine that lay on Holly's tongue like a warm caress. She ate and drank slowly, savoring each bite, each sip, listening to Tony and Elizabeth answer Pe-
«J
ter's questions about television and talk about "Anthony" and people they knew. She was silent, listening to Tony's voice, low and smooth, and she pretended it was just for her.
Private affairs : a novel Page 36
