Because She Is Beautiful

by Cameron Dougan

Scott leaned over her, bracing himself against the armrests of the chair.

  "I don't need anything," he said.

  "Anything?"

  He lowered himself over her so that his face was inches from hers. "I saw the price tag."

  "But this is my drawing for you," she said.

  He nodded, almost imperceptibly.

  "You're not a schoolboy. I want you to feel deserving."

  "That's not what you want."

  "I want you to be happy."

  "I am."

  "Then I am too."

  The man reappeared with three shirts and three ties. He stood at a distance, waiting for Kim to signal him over. Scott stared at her.

  "You look great," she said.

  He stood straight.

  "This is an expensive dinner," he said.

  Scott picked a blue shirt and a dark navy tie with silver stitching that formed squares, and a silver dot in the center of each square.

  "That's the combination I would have chosen," she said. "They need to hem the pants. Don't forget shoes."

  "This is for tonight?" said the salesman. He crouched behind Scott, tucking the excess of pant leg up and under, working the fold to the right length, checking the mirror. "Like so? Then, if you please, step into the other room. The tailor will attend to you." He turned to Kim. "Say, two hours?"

  She looked at Scott.

  "Do you mind if I leave you here? I have to get ready."

  "No problem."

  "You'll be okay? When they finish, come to the hotel. Just ring me from the desk and I'll meet you."

  "I'll see you in a bit, then."

  "Before you know it. I don't want to go."

  She reached into his jacket and took out the drawing and waved it.

  "I'm taking this with me."

  "Wait."

  He came over to where she was standing. The space between them vanished. The union of their lips lasted no longer than the time it took Kim to close and open her eyes: but in that electrical flash of not seeing but tasting, and then his eyes staring back, still close, green, vibrant, she felt as though he'd filled her lungs with the warm whispered innocence of kept promises.

  "Hurry," he said, and went back to the fitting room.

  The salesman took an imprint of her credit card and she signed the slip.

  "We will take very good care of him," he said. "Bonne soirée. Enjoy your dinner."

  Not enough time, she thought, as she raced back to the hotel. The valets stared at her as she dashed up the carpeted steps and through the revolving door.

  She surged into her room, Frisbeeing her hat onto the bed.

  She unrolled Scott's drawing and laid it flat on the vanity, weighting it at either end with a compact to keep it flat.

  He'd said, "Hurry." He was right. She couldn't break the tempo of the day, this effortless rush. If lost, how would she find it again?

  She had already set two jackets aside. One was green satin, cut like an overcoat, an upside-down V that buttoned once just below the bust. It showed her stomach. She looked in the mirror and rejected it. The other was black. She wanted color.

  She rifled through hangers, wood and metal clattering, velvet and silk brushing her knuckles. She stopped at a silverish thigh-length jacket. It shimmered like the inside of a shell. The buttons were abalone. She held it to her chest and swayed side to side. Yes. She stood before the mirror on tiptoes, imagining the jacket with tapered black pants, or perhaps none at all—black stockings, stilettos. Then she hung it on the door and dashed to the bath.

  She showered with the detachable gold nozzle, the massaging spray beating against her closed eyelids, soap running down her neck and chest. She wrapped herself in towels and wiped steam from the mirror. Her nails would need touching up. She sat on the closed toilet seat with the door open so the bathroom could air, the warm terry towel bunched between her legs, another capturing her hair like a turban. Carefully she dabbed on polish, holding her fingers straight to the light, blowing on them gently. She willed them to dry. She started to perspire.

  She unwound the towel from her head and brushed her hair straight. Then the phone rang.

  "There is a Monsieur McKay to see you."

  "Tell him I'll be right down," she said.

  The hair dryer roared like a jet turbine. She tried the jacket without pants. Her thighs were white. No, only after she'd tanned. She reached for a black lace camisole and a pair of black cigarette tuxedo pants. She buttoned her jacket and sat at the vanity to do her lips, steadying her hand to paint the outline. She looked down at Scott's drawing.

  "Slow," she said, looking at herself in the round mirror.

  She lifted the lipstick to her lips and filled in carefully, blotting them on a tissue. She turned her head right, then left. She dabbed on perfume, touching the glass top to the base of her neck and wrists. She would wear no jewelry, only a watch—a diamond bracelet band with a mother-of-pearl face. She checked her black satin evening bag for lipstick and a compact and snapped it shut and went to the door. She looked once about the room.

  The elevator opened onto the landing. The concierge nodded down the short flight of steps to Scott, who was sitting very straight, a garment bag slung over his shoulder, dangling from a hooked finger. He saw her and stood. His hair was combed back, his suit buttoned. He moved to the foot of the steps.

  "What's that?" she said.

  "My clothes."

  She skipped down a step and took the bag from him and carried it to the desk.

  "They'll keep it for us," she said, coming back. She stood at the top of the steps and stared at Scott a moment before descending.

  "Where were we?" she said.

  He reached out a hand and she stretched toward it. Their fingers met and he guided her down to him, as though they were dancing, as though he were about to turn her, a gentle spin.

  "It's not fair," she said. "The suit, it was supposed to be for you, but it's for me again. You look so beautiful."

  "Shhhhh." He put a finger to his mouth. "You're too generous. If you knew how I've been thinking about you."

  "You have?"

  "Today on the quai, then when I was waiting for the suit . . ."

  "What were you thinking?"

  "The day you followed me—I knew you were there. I felt you watching me."

  "You sneak."

  "I was afraid."

  "Why?"

  "I couldn't believe you'd be interested in me."

  "That's silly."

  He lifted both hands to her face and drew her forehead to his lips. She looked up at him.

  He offered his arm and they walked past the vitrines, past gilded statues and floor-to-ceiling curtains. The maître d' led them through enormous doors onto the courtyard. Two waiters held their chairs.

  "My room is right up there." She pointed.

  Scott was staring at her.

  "What?" she said.

  "You are so beautiful."

  They drank an '82 Margaux. The sommelier approved.

  "C'est très fort," he said, pumping his fists for emphasis.

  "It's beyond what I imagined," said Scott.

  "It's like sitting in front of a fire," she said. "You taste the wood, the smoke, the tickle of wool from an old hand-woven blanket."

  Her napkin slipped from her lap. Before she could pick it up, a waiter was at her side. He removed the napkin and stuffed it under a cart. Using a spoon and fork like tongs, he placed a fresh folded napkin onto a silver tray and carried the tray to her table. He used the utensils again to set the napkin neatly before her. His hands never touched it.

  At the next table, a family was celebrating. The father was in black tie. The mother wore a sparkling silver evening gown and smoked a cigarette through a long filter. Their two daughters were dressed alike with pink skirts and blue sweaters, pink taffeta bows in their hair. They each held a large present. The father nodded for them to open the gifts: identical dolls. They jumped from their seats and rushed to him, kissing
his cheek, one and then the other, and then they went to the mother, who blew smoke and smiled, and leaned down to Eskimo-kiss their tiny noses. The father was signaling for the check.

  Scott watched.

  "This is the first night it hasn't rained," she said.

  They ate and talked about Los Angeles, what it was like growing up near the ocean.

  "I used to know a surfer," she said.

  "Have you ever tried?"

  "I wanted to."

  "I couldn't stand up. It's all timing."

  "You did other things."

  "I did other things."

  His father was an architect. He would take Scott to construction sites as a child, hoist him onto his shoulders, and walk through wood-framed skeletons of houses, pointing out hints of structure, describing things to come.

  "There would be a slab of poured concrete and a chalk-marked outline of a fireplace. My dad would describe the fireplace in such detail that I could swear I was looking at it. One minute, nothing; the next, sun-reddened rocks rising like a massive potbellied stove to a forty-foot-high ceiling. I got good at seeing things that weren't there. It was different for him. He knew the plans."

  "Is that where you get your creative genes?"

  He laughed. "I suppose."

  "He doesn't approve of your painting?"

  "He tries."

  "At least he tries."

  "He doesn't see it turning into anything." He set his silverware down.

  "You must come up for champagne after," she said.

  He looked at her and wiped his mouth on his napkin. "I want to."

  She ordered a bottle to be sent up to the room. Then the captain came with the dessert tray: assorted cakes and tarts on gold-rimmed plates. She ordered crêpes suzette and a half bottle of Sauternes. A busboy wheeled a cart up to the table. There was a burner and a pan. The captain lit the burner and set to cracking eggs.

  They spilled into the room and she felt for the light switch. The draft from the door caused the nearest vase of roses to stir, petals trembling as they sweetened the air. Kim plucked a rose and clipped it with her nail. She tucked the short stem through the buttonhole in Scott's lapel.

  He smoothed her jacket.

  "It's almost too perfect to touch."

  She unbuttoned the jacket and dropped it to the floor, never taking her eyes from his.

  "I don't like it, then," she said.

  She turned to switch off the overhead, the only light now coming from the window and the lanterns in the courtyard below. Scott explored the room, trailing a hand along the carved edge of the armoire, up the side of a vase, and over the round cluster of blooms. He saw his drawing and looked back at her. She sat on the edge of the bed, arms out. He crossed to her, touching her bare shoulder, then running a finger from the strap of her camisole to her hand, closed his hand around hers, and with the other grabbed the cold bottle.

  He didn't move. Their fingers remained interlocked.

  "You have to let go," she said softly.

  "You first."

  Their hands came apart slowly, the hair tickle of separating fingertips.

  He peeled off the foil seal and unwound the wire in steady turns. She stood and held out flutes. The cork shot across the room and he quickly tipped the bottle to her glass, a wave of foam rushing up the neck over the rim. She caught his cheek in her hand, felt the day's stubble of his chin, touched the scar by his eye.

  "How did you get this?" she said.

  He finished his champagne in one long gulp and turned to set down bottle and glass.

  "On one of my dad's construction sites," he said.

  She kissed the scar and he closed his eyes.

  "Edge of a crossbeam," he said. "I was running—didn't see it coming."

  She kissed the corner of his mouth, licked her fingers, then the moist blush of his cheek, tasting champagne.

  "Whether tonight, tomorrow, or a week from now," she said, "this is going to happen."

  "I know."

  She ran a hand up through his hair, pointing her fingers until they emerged like the tips of a crown. She pulled on the knot of his tie, ran a hand under his jacket, feeling his chest. He kissed her neck.

  "Tonight," he said.

  Her mouth opened to the ceiling, drinking the silence, the rustling of his kisses like wind through a sleeping house, swirling in the corners, whispering through keyholes. She felt her flute tip, heard the splatter, the fizz. She let go. The glass dropped. She was falling back over his arm as he kissed her breast, floating in fields of moonlit grass, silver bobbing dandelions; peacocks preened, gathering the stars in the net of their feathers; clouds like snow castles stretched to heaven.

  Suddenly they were on the bed, racing, peeling off clothes, a tangle of arms and bumping elbows, cycling feet, kicking off shoes, laughter like champagne bubbles popping off the ceiling, sprinkling down cool on their naked skin.

  He reached for the instep of her foot, ran his hand up her calf and thigh and between her legs, beneath her, turning his palm to support her back, inching farther, farther, until his hand was between her shoulder blades, the bend in his arm braced between her legs, lifting her as though she were weightless toward the pillows.

  Then he was on top. She felt the flex and tension in his arms as he planted them and ran her hands down his sides, feeling the press of his pelvis and the bowled hollows of his moving hips. He lifted to allow her to reach underneath, to take hold of him. He swallowed air. He gasped and looked into her eyes with what she thought was love, because there was humility there, and shame, and desperation, a smoldering need for affirmation, as though he had yielded too much too soon.

  Her hands were caught in front of her, folded between them. She freed them and reached around and hugged him, holding tightly as though she were falling, as though they were both tumbling, rolling down a hill in quickening, dizzying turns.

  "What should I do?" he said.

  "Lie with me."

  She stroked his back and listened to his breathing, watched his eyelids fall, then flutter open. Soon she was able to slip him inside. They made love slowly, without nervousness. She reached to the headboard, brushed at its edge in languid swimming strokes, gliding to his rhythm—a wake, slapping the banks of the Seine, clapping in the middle. She imagined Scott's face through closed eyelids. Opened her eyes to remind herself, quick flashes. She saw him on the quai, painting, rising up from his sitting position, stretching to the sky, splintering into a thousand shimmering pieces of light. Then he was above her, his face like the moon, blue, blue hair falling in waves over her cheeks, blue lips lapping at her ears, bathing her in night. There was no final dying thrust. It was a drawn-out sigh from somewhere deep, that came separate from their movements, from the contractions, like a traveling sound that lingers in the ear long after its passing.

  She could hear it still, far off, winging out over the rooftops, echoing in the drainpipes, drifting wayward as she curled into his arms and slept, the effortless sleep of a child.

  When she woke, he was standing by the window in his underwear, his head tipped somberly to the glass. The outline of his face and hair glowed in the dawn light—a sliver of sun emerging from behind the moon.

  She sat up, pulling the sheets around her.

  "Did I wake you?" he said. He stared at her a moment, then looked again out the window.

  "Come here," she said, patting the bed.

  The glow of the sun left his skin as he turned and faced the shadowed room, the half-light that absorbed all color and sound, as though stillness were itself a color, cool as the dawn gray, a slow breathing shade tone away from a whisper. Outside, she imagined words strung together in full tones, the full-color chaos of rising, flowers cupping open, insects flitting between blooms, shops opening, sunlight hitting glass, infinite motion blinding white—the color bleaching the senses.

  Scott lay down beside her and rested his head on her shoulder.

  "You're my beautiful painter," she said, kissin
g the top of his head. "I'm going to frame your picture. When I look at it, I'll always see last night."

  He squeezed her leg.

  "It's so good," she said, "being good at something. You . . . I wish . . . I'm making no sense at all."

  She kissed him again, stroked his hair, and thought for a while.

  "So you're studying now?" she said.

  He nodded.

  "Is it a special program they offer?"

  "Who?"

  "The Louvre."

  "No, they let me bring my paints and easel."

  "You're not going to school?"

  He shook his head.

  "But you said you were."

  "No, Kim. I should be going now."

  "I don't want you to leave. Do you have to?"

  "I don't want to, if that's what you mean."

  "Can I see you later?"

  She clutched his arm. He kissed her hand and climbed from the bed. He went to the closet and came out holding an open garment bag.

  "These aren't my clothes," he said.

  She laughed. "That's mine. Take it out."

  He slipped the uniform from the garment bag and held it up.

  "It's real," she said. "I found it in a vintage store. Try it on."

  He looked at his watch.

  "For me," she said. "Let me see what it looks like."

  He removed the pants from the hanger and shook them and slipped a leg through and then the other and buttoned the waist. They hung low on his hips.

  "Too big," he said.

  "Now the jacket."

  The sleeves reached to his knuckles. He fastened the buttons up the front and buckled the belt, then started to roll up the sleeves.

  "No, leave them," she said. She jumped from the bed and guided him to the window. She turned him so that the morning sun lit the buttons. The lapels puckered. The pants dragged.

  "I don't like it," he said.

  "Just a little second."

  She felt his shoulder and imagined a military tailor circling him with a tape measure. Scott's neck was white. The collar was loose.

  "This doesn't feel right," he said.

  She dropped to the floor and hugged his knees, pressed her cheek to the hard sinew of his thigh, and looked up at him. She reached up his chest, under the jacket, feeling his ribs. The jacket fell open and she kissed his stomach and unbuttoned his pants.