The Pride

by Wallace Ford

  When she was away for several days, like this trip, I missed her lips and hips and mouth and arms and endless legs. But in a bizarre and counterintuitive and interesting way, I enjoyed our separations because our reunions were so wonderful.

  There was the time, for example, that she returned from an unusually long trip to Italy. She appeared at my door one Saturday afternoon in the spring wearing a drop-dead designer raincoat that she had picked up in Florence. It looked like a fortune, especially in the rain. But it was not until she entered the foyer of my house that I realized that, under that raincoat Samantha wore absolutely nothing but a pair of fishnet stockings and a garter belt, the better to complement the stiletto high heels that she wore. I did my very best to welcome her to America well into Sunday afternoon. The phone and the doorbell simply went unanswered.

  I dared not think of the treats that might be in store for us that evening; it would certainly have distracted me from my preparing dinner. And it would have just overloaded my precarious circuits. The mere anticipation of Samantha’s arrival was arousing enough.

  As I prepared another martini and contemplated the exact steps that I would take to prepare our meal, I had only two objectives in mind—to present a meal that would unlock her appetites and passions—first for the meal and then for me.

  I had decided on a meal that was, in my view, imaginative, but fairly straightforward in its preparation. As the Far Niente Chardonnay continued to chill, I contemplated the coming meal of blackened red snapper, rice and beans and spring broccoli imported from the Cape Verde Islands that would be steamed with Sandeman port wine (most appropriate given the broccoli’s Portuguese origins).

  As I started to heat the pans and season the foods, I had a few minutes to think about Samantha Gideon and me and what had come between us in just a few years.

  CHAPTER 53

  Paul

  Samantha on my mind …

  I remember when we met. I was waiting to meet a client in the lobby of some midtown hotel, The Palace, I believe.

  In one of those very strange concatenations of truth and fable and chance and circumstance, the client called down to the lobby to tell me that it would take him about forty-five minutes to join me. He asked that I have a drink in the hotel bar while waiting for him.

  It was certainly not the best news of the day for me, but business was business. I dutifully trudged over to the lounge, fully intending to have yet another in a long line of Bombay Sapphire gin and tonics while listening to some forgettable lounge singer or pianist. At least that was my plan. That was my plan until I saw Samantha for the very first time.

  The songwriters and poets say that love can begin with a smile, a touch, a sigh or the lyrically impossible symphony of a shared laugh. I guess that sometimes it can be the proverbial gaze across the proverbial crowded room. All I can say is that in my case, I never knew what hit me.

  I remember sitting at the bar, starting to sip my drink when I heard the first strains of “The Man I Love” being sung. Not remarkably well, if the truth be told, but in a memorable sort of way that grabbed my attention. But for some reason that I could explain right after I get around to explaining the origins of the Law of Gravity and the Law of Unintended Consequences, I happened to look up and right into the face of an angel whose name turned out to be Samantha Gideon. She was gorgeous and more important, she had the grace and affect and chemistry that made me feel like I had died and gone to heaven. At that moment she was my angel, singing to me and only me.

  The fact that she was an early evening lounge act at a midtown Manhattan hotel was in no way reflective of the quality of her singing. The truth is that you can go into the leading Baptist church in almost every major city and you can find at least one or two people in the choir who could sing as well as Aretha Franklin and who can make Mariah and Brandy and Whitney and Salt and Pepper want to go back home and start all over. It has always been about packaging, opportunity, ambition, fortune and circumstance. Clearly the stars had not properly aligned for Samantha Gideon just yet.

  Samantha did not have a major label record contract and she did not have expectations of being in the big-time anytime soon. But she loved to sing and she sang whenever and wherever she could. In this case, on that particular day, it turned out to be in a hotel lounge where I was waiting for a client.

  Samantha had charm and personality, but she would definitely take no shit from anyone. And that was probably one more reason why she was singing in a hotel lounge in Manhattan instead of in one of the main rooms in Las Vegas. But she also had the charm and style and personality that made every man in the room feel that she was in love with him, and just him. I know I felt that way.

  When I first heard her sing, her voice had the quality of Brenda Russell. Or was it the lead female singer for Hiroshima? Everything But the Girl? Swingout Sister? Her voice had the ability to make me smell colors and hear bass lines clearly for the very first time.

  As it turned out, Samantha also labored under a misconception not unknown to unusually beautiful women. Men did not ask her out much because there was an unspoken assumption that there must be a man in her life. How could there not be?

  So Samantha spent many nights at home alone. There were a lot of reasons that she was glad to be working that night. Not having to be alone was one of those reasons.

  It defied logic that nobody was waiting for this woman after the show, at the stage door or at home. But logic and reality only have a nodding acquaintance in my world. I gave a waiter twenty dollars to take my business card and a note to Samantha when her set was over.

  It was going to be another twenty-five minutes before my client came downstairs and amazingly, Samantha came out from her dressing room fifteen minutes before he was due to arrive. It turned out to be the shortest fifteen minutes of my life.

  Actually, it was more like the shortest fifteen seconds. She came over to my table just long enough to sprinkle the pieces of my card and my note on my table, give me a smile that was imported from somewhere near Antarctica and walk away. It took an entire week of phone calls before she would agree to speak with me and another two weeks before she would meet me for drinks.

  I must say that, when we finally did meet on purpose, there was a certain magic, electricity and chemistry that neither of us could deny. It would be our loss to try to fight it.

  It was as if we both knew that there was something right away. Whether we acknowledged it or not was going to be the only question about us, as there was already an “us.” I cannot deny that I originally pursued Samantha for the sheer interest and pleasure of it all. After that first date, I needed to be with her. It was that simple.

  One morning in bed, a few months later, I remember Samantha saying, “Paul, I decided to go out with you because I really didn’t have a lot else to do. But darling, the truth is that after spending some time with you, something happened that hadn’t happened in a long time. I started to feel reactions like longing, desire, a very real suspension of time and space.”

  Our love affair began with that cosmic starburst of energy and longing so characteristic of those first days of true romance. Our own special brand of magic became known to us when, after several months, we found that we felt the same way as we had at the very beginning.

  I couldn’t wait to see Samantha when she was away. She would tell me that she would wait in her hotel room anticipating my next phone call like a lovesick teenager. I would find myself fussing and fuming like some jealous schoolboy, cursing myself for even caring if another man would show her more than perfunctory attention. To put it simply, we were hopelessly in love.

  As I turned my attention to the finishing touches of the meal, I couldn’t help but think about the Water Club luncheon again. It had really gone well I thought. Getting Jerome, Gordon, and Diedre together for lunch had been a hunch. A correct one as it turned out—the three principals had bought into the concept. The devil would be in the details.

  First of all, Raymond R
ussell Beard III was going to be trouble. And then there was Diedre. Unbelievably I found myself trying to understand the hint of feelings that seemed to surface during our conversations. I could not understand how that could be possible after so many years of having reached an accommodation of sorts—a working arrangement. What could that be about?

  As I lit the candles on the dining room table the doorbell rang. It was Samantha. All the thoughts of the Water Club and the merger and Sammy Groce and The Pride blew away like wisps of smoke on a windy day.

  It was time to take the first of my seven steps to heaven.

  CHAPTER 54

  Paul

  This is my beloved

  As I went to the door I thought about how much I looked forward to seeing her. And I really had to laugh at myself as my sophomoric heart skipped a beat. Greeting Samantha was always a pleasure and even after having dated her and loved her and romanced her for almost two years, I still experienced a very special thrill every time I saw her at my door. Every time was almost like it was the very first time.

  As I opened the foyer door there she was. She was wearing a mink coat that was the color of black diamonds seen through the waters of a bottomless lake. But she could have been standing in a denim jacket for all I cared. Samantha was about five feet ten inches tall, incredibly erect, slender, with hair the color of dark clover honey and a complexion that reminded me of a cup of café con leche that I once had on the Avenida Castellana in Madrid.

  Her eyes were dark, not black and not brown; they were the bottomless color of dreamless nights that seemed to go on forever. And she had a graceful delicate air that absolutely changed the universe in which she walked.

  “Good evening, Mr. Taylor.”

  “I’m sorry, miss, do you have a reservation?”

  “Actually, I do have reservations about coming to see a man that I have dated for almost two years who won’t give me a key to his front door and makes me stand out on the stoop like a delivery from some cheap escort service.”

  “Cheap? I’m prepared to pay good money! Hell, I’m willing to go up to twenty dollars.”

  As I said that, opening the door to escort her inside, her smile appeared. Her smile was always my personal beacon of happiness. It lit up my world and made all the shadows of doubts and cares disappear in the warm embrace of its brilliance.

  This exchange continued as I took Samantha’s luggage from the driver who had brought her in from the airport. As we walked up the steps from the foyer Samantha had to get in the last word.

  “Twenty dollars doesn’t buy what it used to, Paul Hiawatha Taylor. You may be a very sad brother by the end of this evening.”

  I recall being desperately glad that the conversation had magically moved away from that “key” thing. In my mind and heart, I absolutely loved Samantha. I dreamed of a life with her. Loving her and being loved by her made hope and happiness bloom in my heart. But giving her the key to my house … !!

  She already had the keys to my heart. And I would think that would be enough. I would be a fool to have the Lisette Baileys of my world come to visit my private pleasure palace once I gave a key to Samantha. And while I truly loved her, I was not sure that I was ready to abandon the occasional dalliances and fun-loving frolics that had been a part of my life for so many years. But at that point all I could do was embrace that woman in my arms, having missed her for so long. For a few moments we held the whole world within our arms. I kissed her with a passion that probably surprised the both of us. Maybe it was the excitement of being together again after being apart for too long. Maybe it was the stress and colliding influences of the day.

  Maybe it was the martinis. I just know that I kissed her like the photo of the Navy sailor kissing the nurse in Times Square at the end of World War II. And for those wonderful moments we were the only two people in the world.

  “Whew! Mr. Taylor! You should let a girl know if she needs to brace herself for that kind of greeting! Is it going to be like that all night?” Samantha threw that last line with a smile that let me know that my passion was a shared treasure.

  I helped Samantha to remove her coat and it was like unveiling a masterpiece at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She could have been wearing sweatpants and a torn T-shirt and it would have aroused me beyond the horizon. But she was not.

  She was wearing a “simple” black dress that was cut three inches above the knee and displayed a pair of legs that were like stairways to heaven. The fact that she was wearing black mesh stockings (not pantyhose) just added to the hypnotic effect. With her four-inch heels she could almost look me in the eye. And in her eyes I could see yearning, desire, appreciation and a love that bordered on desperation. Dinner had to wait that evening.

  In a whirlwind of kissing and holding and fondling and embracing and sucking and undressing we found ourselves on the living room couch. Time only permitted me to take off my pants and shorts, and as her dress rose up her thighs as she lay down, I removed the lovely black silk panties that were the only thing that stood between me and an eternity of passion and mad happiness. Somehow my shirt disappeared along the way and then we were both naked, except for Saman-tha’s stockings.

  There were all kinds of foreplay … I pleasuring her and she pleasuring me, all I can remember are the moans and begging for more. And then we made love on the couch with the gentle passion that was just the storm before the hurricane of sex and passion that would be part of our dessert.

  At some point we roused ourselves from the trance that we had entered. I put my slacks back on without bothering to button my shirt. Somehow we found her panties rumpled in a corner of the couch cushions and her dress was not too far away. Samantha went to freshen up in the powder room and I went into the kitchen to find that mercifully, dinner was still in good shape (the heat was low in the kitchen while it was up high in the living room).

  By the time she sat down to the dining room table I presented her with a martini and a kiss and then … it was time for dinner.

  CHAPTER 55

  Paul

  Getting to know all about you

  I went back into the kitchen and within minutes appeared with a teak wheeled serving cart—blackened snapper, pasta with a soy and ginger sauce, broccoli steamed with port wine and a perfectly chilled bottle of Far Niente Chardonnay (the last twenty minutes of chilling must have done the trick). Just like I planned it. A perfect meal for a perfect evening with the most perfect woman I knew.

  I could tell that as I served the dinner at the table the stress of her moving halfway across the country in the course of a day had started to fade. I could only hope that Samantha could sense and appreciate the attention and attentiveness that truly came from the heart.

  As our Mikasa crystal glasses clinked I virtually sang out a toast to Samantha, my desire for her simply had no bounds.

  “Salud, amor y dinero y el tiempo para gozarlos. Health, love and money and the time to enjoy them.” We sipped and then we dined.

  And, as two people who had really started to know each other very well, we really didn’t need a whole lot of conversation, even though we had been apart for weeks. Being together, the wonder of being close again, that was enough for the moment. But we both knew it was only for the moment.

  “Paul Taylor, I swear I feel like I may have died and gone to heaven. That was simply an excellent meal. You have truly outdone yourself this time.

  “I swear, if you don’t marry me soon, I may just have to hire you as my personal chef … and consort.”

  “If I don’t marry you soon, I would be a fool….” As soon as the words left my lips I knew that I had said a lot more than I had intended to on that particular evening at that particular time. I remember cursing the hell out of the Belvedere vodka that I had been drinking. Or was it the Far Niente Chardonnay? Perhaps it was the black mesh stockings.

  “What was that?”

  “I said, Ms. Gideon, I would be a fool if I didn’t marry you soon. But right now I have a custom-mad
e serving of Bananas Foster waiting to seduce your mouth and tongue.”

  Samantha and I knew each other very well. She knew better than to press me with respect to anything important. That was the best way to get me to do the opposite, even if it was against my own best interests.

  Besides, Samantha was a lot of things, but she was never, never, never stupid. I knew that she knew what she had heard. And I could feel her heart smiling. Samantha knew that she was the love of my life. And while marriage was not in the top five on my “Things to Do” list, it never seemed to be at the top of Saman-tha’s either.

  As I headed into the kitchen I now recall hearing her stifle a cough. It didn’t seem like anything resembling a problem at the time.

  At the time, having been married to Diedre, and having had that marriage implode and explode, I had sworn off permanent relationships. Of course that was before that night in that midtown hotel lounge. I found that despite the profound nature of the difference between our lines of work, I truly felt that she was that ever elusive soul mate, and she was very, very good for me.

  I had to admit to myself, if to no one else, that I did want my house to become a home, not just a funhouse. But at that moment I couldn’t help thinking about that cough.

  I remember thinking, as I sliced the warmed bananas and began the simmering of the rum and brown sugar glaze, that I had been hearing that cough for more than a little while. Actually, since the Halloween party we had attended in Malibu, and by now it was January.

  Being the totally dedicated performer, Samantha never missed a gig. She also found a way to not go to the doctor. Again and again. Since the cough didn’t really interfere with her singing, she always acted as if it was no big deal. And I wanted to make sure that I didn’t “control” her or “direct” her. So I said nothing.