by Anne Weale
After taking great care with her appearance, she arrived for the ultimate test to find she had only two rivals. Both were so poised and stylish that she didn’t feel she had a hope of being the one chosen by the exacting Mr Washington.
The three of them were introduced to each other by Mrs LaRue, who had conducted the penultimate interviews. Although in her early fifties, Mrs LaRue still had ‘great legs’, Sophie noticed as the older woman showed them to a comfortably furnished waiting room.
‘Mr Washington has been delayed. He expects to arrive very soon,’ she said, before leaving them together.
Although none of the three would have been in their present jobs if they hadn’t been friendly young women adept at getting along with other people, in this situation their natural warmth was under constraint.
It was Sophie who broke the ice. ‘Are you both native New Yorkers? I came here from London a couple of years ago.’
‘I’m from Milwaukee,’ said Amanda, a willowy brunette with designer glasses framing her long-lashed dark eyes.
Eileen, a freckled redhead, told them she came from Boston, but her colouring suggested that Ireland was where her forebears had originated.
For about fifteen minutes the three of them made somewhat forced conversation. Amanda was the most restive. She prowled the room, looking without much interest at the pictures on the walls, bending to sniff one of the roses in the arrangement of fresh flowers on a side table, and finally selecting a copy of Vogue from the low centre table and sitting down to glance through its glossy pages.
Of the three of them, Eileen had the best legs, Sophie considered. But she also had an irritating habit of picking at her nails. Perhaps she was only doing it because she was nervous and would control it while she was being interviewed.
‘I wonder who’ll go in first?’ said Amanda. She had put Vogue back on the table and now jumped up to inspect her reflection in a large mirror with an ornate-glass frame.
It had been the first thing Sophie had noticed when they’d entered the room because the ornamental frame was typically Venetian, instantly recognisable to anyone who had ever seen one before. But, while the frame was antique and very beautiful, the original glass, which would have made it worth many thousands of dollars, had been replaced by a piece of modern glass.
Mrs LaRue reappeared.
‘I’m sorry, ladies. I’m afraid it won’t be possible for Mr Washington to see you this afternoon after all. Something has come up that requires his immediate attention. He’s asked me to apologise to you.’
‘When will he be able to see us?’ Amanda asked, frowning.
‘That I can’t say at the moment. I’ll be in touch as soon as possible.’ Mrs LaRue’s expression and tone were sympathetic.
Sophie had an intuitive feeling that, inwardly, she was annoyed with her employer for messing them about in this way. Perhaps he was a difficult person to work for, with little thought for other people’s convenience as long as his own was never interfered with.
Going down to street-level in the elevator, the other two had some pithy comments to make.
‘I’m beginning to wonder if I really want this job,’ said Amanda. ‘The salary is what grabbed me. I’m not crazy to spend time in Venice. I was there on honeymoon with my ex. The shops were better in Rome.’
They parted at the entrance on Sixth Avenue, the other two diving into cabs, leaving Sophie to saunter home in a mood of anticlimax. Merle was out that evening at a party given by a former colleague who was now married.
Sophie found herself pacing the apartment’s living room as restlessly as Amanda had prowled the waiting room. She had hoped by this evening to know where she stood instead of being still in suspense.
She was eating her solitary supper when the telephone rang.
‘Hello? Sophie Hill speaking.’
‘This is Audrey LaRue, Ms Hill. Mr Washington has decided that it won’t be necessary to put you to the trouble of attending a further interview.’
Sophie’s heart sank with disappointment.
‘After studying your CV and my report of the talk we had last week, Mr Washington has decided you are the candidate best qualified to fill the position in Venice.’
‘Oh…Oh, that’s wonderful!’ Sophie exclaimed, her spirits soaring. ‘When does he want me to start?’
It was only after they had concluded their conversation that she realised that, while Mr Washington had Mrs LaRue’s opinion of her to go on, she knew little more about him than she had at the outset.
It might be that when they did meet she would take an instant dislike to him…
Marc opened his eyes five minutes before they were due to land. Instantly alert to his surroundings and aware of his last words to her, he said, ‘Made up your mind?’
Sophie took a deep breath. ‘I’ll come to Venice.’
‘Good.’ He pressed the service button and, when the steward came, asked for a glass of water. ‘Would you like one, Sophie?’
‘Please.’
They were both drinking iced spring water in crystal tumblers when Concorde touched down at Charles de Gaulle Airport where the time was forty-five minutes past ten in the evening. They had been in the air for less than four hours.
When Sophie had queried being re-routed via Paris when her previous Alitalia ticket had been for a flight direct to Venice, Mrs LaRue had merely said, ‘Overnight accommodation in Paris has been arranged for you, and a car will take you to and from the city.’
At the time Sophie had been baffled by these arrangements. Merle’s reaction had been, ‘Go with the flow, honey. If they’re picking up the bills, why should you worry?’
In the back of the limousine taking them from the airport to the city centre, Marc said, ‘I have an engagement this evening and two meetings tomorrow. But I’m sure you can amuse yourself. We’ll fly out first thing the day after tomorrow in my plane. It was grounded with technical trouble after I flew in last week, but the problem has been fixed.’
Some years earlier Sophie had worked for some wineshippers in Bordeaux to perfect her French. The MD had flown his own plane around south-western France but had never undertaken long flights such as crossing the Swiss Alps between Paris and Venice.
As if he could read her thoughts, Marc said, ‘Don’t worry, my pilot is very experienced. I have a pilot’s licence myself, but I shan’t be at the controls tomorrow.’
When they reached central Paris, she expected to be dropped off at a modest hotel before he drove on to one of the grand luxe establishments. When the car came to a halt outside an imposing entrance and a liveried doorman opened the nearside rear door, Marc stepped out first, then turned and waited for her to follow.
As they entered the building he said, ‘As I’m often in Paris, I have a suite here in preference to an apartment. If you go to the desk, they’ll show you to your room. We’ll have dinner together tomorrow night. Tonight I suggest you have something light in your room and watch a movie on television. They’re usually quite soporific. By the morning you’ll have adjusted to European time.’
He turned away in the direction of the lift.
CHAPTER THREE
ALTHOUGH she rarely bought clothes on impulse, preferring to stick to a carefully thought out plan, the next day Sophie fell for a top she saw displayed in a window. It matched her eyes but, in terms of cost per wear, would take for ever to earn its keep in her wardrobe. She couldn’t resist it.
Walking back to the hotel, swinging the elegant carrier bag, she knew she had bought it partly on the assumption that she would be dining with Marc in an ambience demanding something more exciting than the cream silk shirt she was wearing again today or the black silk standby in her overnight case.
When she collected her key from the desk, the hall porter handed her a message scrawled on one of the hotel’s elegant note slips: ‘Bring a wrap. We’ll be eating out. M.W.’
She could take her silk-look raincoat. A better option would be the black cashmere shawl
packed in her hold luggage. That had been a sensible buy, expensive but endlessly wearable. Retrieving it from her suitcase involved finding a pair of scissors to cut the band of security tape which had been on the case when it appeared on the carousel. The shawl was at the bottom of the case. As she unpacked and repacked Sophie chided herself for going to these lengths to dine with her boss.
When, later, she went downstairs and saw that the large, softly lit bar was now full of elegant people, she was glad she had taken the trouble. She remembered reading somewhere that, as well as this hotel being a home from home to the world’s rich, its bar was also a fashionable early evening rendezvous for Parisians.
A man in a dinner jacket was standing just inside the bar. Evidently he was staff as he gave her a slight bow, saying in English, ‘Mr Washington is waiting for you at a table in the corner, mademoiselle. Permit me…’ He conducted her through the crowded room.
Marc rose from a velvet banquette when he saw them coming. In place of yesterday’s casual clothes he was wearing a dark blue striped suit and a pale blue shirt. Its white collar emphasised his tan. His tie was plain dark blue silk. His elegance made her glad she had bought the chic top.
‘Thank you.’ She smiled at the man who had led her to him.
Almost before she had sat down a waiter was there to attend to them. Marc hadn’t ordered yet. He had been reading a French paper.
‘What would you like?’
Out of the past came a memory of a voice saying, ‘Spritz al bitter, per favore,’ and of a glass filled with deep pink liquid shining in the evening light on the wide, busy waterfront of the Riva degli Schiavoni.
‘May I have a Campari spritzer?’
Marc looked at the waiter. ‘I’ll have the same…and some croustades, please.’ Turning to her, he asked, ‘What did you do with yourself today?’
‘Nothing special…just enjoyed Paris. It was too warm and sunny to be inside a museum.’
‘No shopping?’
‘No intentional shopping. I did buy one thing that caught my eye.’
‘This?’ He indicated her top.
‘How did you guess?’
‘It looks French. Also, women like to wear something new as soon as possible.’ Knowledge of how many women had contributed to that statement? she wondered.
‘Did your meetings go well?’
‘Yes, our French operation—sports equipment—goes from strength to strength. It started with a small company in which my grandfather invested before other people foresaw the masses enjoying activities that, in his day, were exclusive to the idle rich. Now we have sports supermarts in the commercial section of every large city in France.’
He was talking about the latest developments in the manufacture of indoor climbing walls when their drinks arrived, accompanied by a silver dish, its contents hidden in the folds of a white linen napkin embroidered with the hotel’s monogram.
‘We’ll go out to eat,’ said Marc. ‘I don’t care for the dining room here. The food’s good but the atmosphere’s dull. When I don’t want to go out, I dine in my suite.’ As he spoke he picked up his glass, removing the olive from it. ‘But as you’re already rather tense about working for me I won’t suggest we do that this evening.’
His eyes, amused, held hers while he drank.
Sophie wondered if he was testing her, wanting to find out how she would cope with flirtation. She broke their eye contact, taking the olive on its stick out of the pinktinted mixture of wine and soda.
‘I haven’t tasted Campari since I was in Italy,’ she said, after sipping it. ‘What time do we take off tomorrow?’
‘Early. The car will be here at seven-thirty. You can breakfast at seven, if you like—room service is very efficient—or on the plane. I always run before breakfast. Tomorrow I’ll have my coffee and croissants with Werner after take-off. He used to fly for Lufthansa but got tired of the same long-haul routes. Flying for me is more interesting, and often his wife, Lisa, comes with us.’
Sophie was eating her olive. After swallowing it, she asked, ‘Is Lisa also German?’
‘Australian. She’s the daughter of one of our executives in Sydney and her parents would have preferred her to marry someone local. She’s a useful person to have around. She was a nurse until Werner walked into her life. I don’t know how the arrangement will work out when they have children, but she’s only twenty-three so they’re not in a hurry to start a family.’
This gave Sophie a cue to ask, ‘Do you have children, Mr Washington?’
‘No.’
For a moment she thought he was going to leave it at that and wondered if she was being snubbed because he regarded his private life as off limits.
Then he added, ‘Like you, I have no “hostages to fortune”…if you know that expression.’
‘“He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief”,’ Sophie quoted. ‘Written by Frances Bacon in his essay Of Marriage and Single Life. We did his essays in my last year at school.’
‘Do you agree with his view?’ After unfolding the napkin, he offered her the dish of croustades.
Sophie had eaten them before, during her time in Bordeaux, and had sometimes made them herself when she and Merle had given a party.
‘Thank you.’ Taking one of the crisp golden curls of bread, spread with butter and Roquefort cheese and sprinkled with caraway seeds, she bit into it with care, trying not to scatter crumbs on her black skirt.
‘We could use some napkins.’ Before helping himself Marc looked around for the waiter. Having beckoned him, he said, ‘Until one arrives, use this.’ Taking the silk handkerchief from his breast pocket, he spread it across her lap.
She had already noticed the rich but subtle colours in the overflow of silk, wondering if it might have come from a shop in Venice where once she had feasted her eyes on wonderful ties and handkerchiefs costing hundreds of thousands of lire.
Since breakfast she had had only soft drinks and coffee in a couple of pavement cafés, sitting in the warm endof-summer sunshine, watching the passing scene. The croustade tasted deliciously cheesy. She hadn’t realised till then how hungry she was.
When the waiter brought two small napkins she returned Marc’s handkerchief. As he stuffed it carelessly back in place she said, ‘In sixteenth-century England a wife would have been an impediment to a man who wanted, for example, to explore the New World. But now that women are included in space missions and a British girl has walked the length of Africa there’s no reason why a wife should be an impediment to virtuous enterprises. As for impeding mischief, she has never done that if her husband is the promiscuous type.’
Marc moved the dish closer to her side of the table. ‘I have a longer reach. Help yourself. They’re good, aren’t they? Although not, for my taste, quite as good as Italian crostini hot from the oven on a cold winter morning. What time of year were you in Venice before?’
Her answer was not exactly a lie, but it came perilously close. ‘This time of year.’
He said, ‘I like Venice under snow, or shrouded in mist, when the only foreigners around either work there or are in love with the place. When I was small, but old enough to explore on my own, there wasn’t a camera or camcorder round every damn corner between the Piazza and the Rialto. It’s a vicious circle: without the hordes, Venice wouldn’t survive, but their presence makes parts of the city horribly overcrowded.’
Between them they finished the croustades. By the time she emptied her glass, his had been empty for some minutes.
‘Would you like another drink?’
‘Not for me, but please go ahead if you would.’
‘In that case, let’s go and do some serious eating.’
Midway through dinner Sophie realised this was the best evening out she had had in a long time. They were in a neighbourhood restaurant on the Left Bank. It was not unlike her favourite West Side place. Here, as there, it was run by a f
amily—the parents sharing the cooking, one son behind the bar and another son and daughter waiting on the dozen or so tables. The food was traditional cuisine bourgeoise, the helpings generous, the good but inexpensive house wine served in earthenware jugs.
‘How did you discover this restaurant?’ Sophie asked, following Marc’s example and mopping up the last of her gravy with a piece of recently baked pain de campagne.
‘I first came here as a student, when Maman and Papa were in their forties and Célie, their daughter, was still at school. I had a vacation job in our Paris office. For a while I had to live on my wages so I only ate here once a week. My grandfather thought it important to know how the other half live…the people who have to live on a low wage all their lives.’
Earlier, during the first course, he had given her a rundown on the many and various operations under the corporate umbrella, lacing the facts with amusing incidents and insights.
Sophie, who had sometimes found her attention wandering when her ex-boyfriend Robert had talked about his job, had found Marc’s exposition riveting. She liked his quirky sense of humour, a trait it was hard to resist in anyone. But she had the feeling she was seeing only one side of him, and that there might be others she would like a lot less.
After dinner they returned to the hotel on foot. As the black calf pumps she was wearing had low heels Marc’s suggestion that they should walk didn’t dismay her. The exercise and fresh air should help her to sleep on a night when she had many reasons for feeling keyed up.
‘One of the things you’ll like about living in Venice is the freedom to walk about at night without being molested,’ he told her. ‘So far, we don’t have that problem. I’m not saying there aren’t a few areas where it would be unwise to wander with diamonds flashing or a bulging billfold on view. But from being a city where, in centuries gone by, a great many bodies were fished out of the canals with stab wounds and broken skulls it’s now as safe and respectable as small-town America was when my grandfather was a young man.’
