by Robyn Sisman
But Nick seemed to find it fascinating. Bit by bit he drew out of her the whole romantic story of how her parents had met at nineteen, her mother a rebellious fugitive from her middle-class family in the gin-and-tonic belt, her father a coal miner’s son dreaming of a different life. They had fallen in love at first sight, moved into a London bedsit together and eventually, weathering the voluble disapproval of both sets of parents, swapped curtain rings and got married. Suze was born nine months later. She had a drawer for a cradle and tea towels for sheets.
“And which one gave you your wonderful hair?” Nick took a thick swathe, letting it sift through his fingers. Suze’s neck tingled.
“My father, though his is going gray now. My mother’s was blond, way below her waist. They were very beautiful.”
“I’ll bet. What did you all live on?”
“My father had bought his first camera when he was fifteen. Of course, everyone in Derbyshire thought that was tremendously artyfarty—‘That lad’ll never swing a pickax, taking fancy snaps of flowers and such’—but he had a real talent. He got a job as a darkroom assistant and soon he was taking pictures of people like Twiggy and Marianne Faithfull. Actually, he was quite famous once.” She swigged her drink, remembering the parties with candles and joss sticks, and the wonder of finding grown-ups lying peacefully on the floor. She had never felt neglected, just included in her parents’ fun. They had taken her on their wanderings through North Africa and the Greek islands, magical places of heat and color where you could go barefoot and eat plump fruits warm from the tree. She told Nick about the time she had been washed in a courtyard fountain tiled with golden dolphins in a turquoise sea, about the bliss of lying in a sleeping bag on the sand, watching the flames of a campfire and listening to someone play the guitar.
A high-pitched beep interrupted them. Nick groaned, pulled a mobile phone from his pocket and pressed it to his ear. As he listened to the voice he raised his eyebrows apologetically at Suze, signaling his helplessness. “Mort, baby, how are you?” Rather than hang around waiting for him to finish, Suze took the opportunity to go to the ladies’, a kind of concrete bunker which she found in the basement. Two giantesses with arms like spaghetti were gazing at themselves in the mirror, tweaking their identical blond hairstyles and waggling their bodies to the beat from the dance floor. Their eyes slid in Suze’s direction and dismissed her instantly. As Suze locked herself in the cubicle she could hear them continue their conversation as if she didn’t exist.
“So what was he saying?” gasped a baby voice.
“He asked if I wanted to come for a week on his boat in the South of France.” The other voice was contemptuous. “I happen to know for a fact that he lost all his money on some Wall Street thing and doesn’t even own a boat. As if I’m going to open my legs for a loser like that!”
“No way,” came the shocked reply. “I wouldn’t even kiss a guy worth less than five mil. I only came tonight because I heard Bliss Bogardo would be here. She promised to introduce me to a fabulous photographer, but she never even called.”
“She does that to everyone. Bliss is a twenty-four-carat bitch. I heard she was in California, having her boobs done.”
“What boobs?”
Suze could hear the pair of them snickering like chimpanzees. No wonder Nick preferred an intelligent woman like herself. Coming back upstairs, she found her way barred by a ridiculously handsome yuppie type who gave her a cock-of-the-walk look and said, “I wish you were my secretary.”
“I wish you were mine,” Suze shot back.
When she returned she found that Nick had finished his call. As she moved past him to return to her seat, he took her hand and pulled her onto the bench next to him.
“Finish your story,” he said. “What happened to that sixties wild child?”
“Is this an interview?” No Englishman had ever been this interested or watched her so intently. “I’m afraid it gets ordinary after that—art school, computer design course, first job, et cetera.”
“And your parents? What happened to them?”
“Nothing happened.” Suze laughed. “They’re still married, still in love, living on the edge of Wales. My dad teaches photography now but he still has his Harley-Davidson and drives us mad playing his old Jimi Hendrix records. My mother runs a plant nursery, specializing in herbs. She has a few cannabis plants at the back of the greenhouse so they can smoke the odd joint when they think I’m not looking. They’re barmy, of course. But sometimes I think they’re the happiest couple I know.”
“ ‘Barmy,’ ” Nick repeated, “I love that. So, Siouxie with an X, with such a great example, how come you weren’t tempted to get married at nineteen yourself? What are you—twenty-five, twenty-six?”
“That sort of thing. But marriage—pfff.” Suze tossed her head.
“Things were different then, fun and free and romantic. Nowadays it’s such hard work. Everyone is obsessed by ownership—owning houses, owning furniture, owning babies, owning each other. I don’t want to be locked into one of those relationships where couples argue about who takes out the rubbish and say things like, ‘We liked that film, didn’t we, darling?,’ as if they weren’t two separate people. I’d rather be single than stick with anyone once the fireworks are over. Wouldn’t you?”
She turned her face to his and their gazes locked. He was smiling into her eyes with a kind of surprised pleasure, as if he really did like her. Suze felt a jolt of excitement and tried to summon her defenses. It would be crazy to fall in love with someone just like that, on a first date.
Nick slid a hand down her bare arm. “Come on, let’s dance.”
Suze gave herself up to the music, letting the energy of the room flow through her, enjoying the steamy proximity of anonymous bodies. Lawrence had liked dancing, but his seventies-style head-shaking and stomping had always secretly embarrassed her. Nick rippled and spun, his body loose and sinuous. He had left his jacket upstairs and she could see the movement of his rib cage under his shirt. Though they hardly touched, his eyes held hers. Suze couldn’t help smiling at him. She felt herself sinking helplessly, deliciously into a wash of sensation.
As the music throbbed from one track into another, her body grew hot and slick beneath the second skin of her dress. When they were both breathless Nick spun her off the floor, found a single empty chair in the shadows under the balcony and pulled her onto his knee. She could feel his heart pounding—or was it hers? He held her casually, his hand resting on the curve of her waist, while they watched the other dancers—or at least pretended to. Suze was aware of his eyes on her face, then of his finger tracing a line over the curve of her cheek and under her chin, turning her toward him. For a long, exquisite moment they stared into each other’s eyes, while he rubbed his thumb gently across her lower lip. Then he smiled his lazy smile and said, “Another drink?”
They danced and drank, and drank and danced until the world began to spin, and Nick said that was enough heat and noise for one night. It was a relief to be out in the fresh air. The streets were deserted. The only sounds were the faint swish of car tires and a siren so far away it seemed as soothing and romantic as the hoot of an owl. Together they sauntered into the warm night, weaving a little from the multiple vodkas, her head in the hollow of his shoulder. Suze didn’t know where they were, or where they were going, and she didn’t care. Her brain had ceased to function. Her body felt light and liquid. She wanted to stay in New York for ever and ever.
They crossed a street and entered a square. The temperature cooled as shadowy trees closed about them.
“I hope there aren’t any muggers,” Suze said. Her voice sounded strange.
Nick laughed and squeezed her reassuringly. “I always walk through here. Once the pushers and tramps get to know you, they leave you alone. Besides, I have this.”
Reaching into his back pocket, he drew out a piece of steel the size and shape of a comb and flicked his thumb across the top. A thin, dangerous-looking blade sprang
out. Suze stared at it, fascinated and repelled. Before she could say anything, Nick bent down, sliced a red geranium from a flowerbed and presented it to her. “A flower for the flower child.”
Further on they came to a fountain. Nick sat on the stone edge and drew her between his knees, hands at her waist, looking at her so intently she thought she might burst into flames. “Never,” he said sternly, “cut your hair.”
Suze rocked her hips lazily within his grasp. “And what about you, party promoter?” She gazed into his eyes. “Tell me where you were born, where you grew up.”
“Oh . . .” He gave a dismissive shake. His gaze slid past her.
“Come on.” She stroked his cheek. “It’s only fair.”
“There isn’t much to tell. I’m from Oklahoma originally, what they used to call ‘the dust bowl.’ The life wasn’t too great, and my parents split when I was a kid. Then, when I was fifteen, my mother killed herself.”
“Oh, Nick.” Suze dropped her forehead against his, closing her eyes, and laced her fingers protectively behind his neck. “Do you know why?”
“Worn out, I guess. She didn’t leave a note. Anyway, I went looking for my dad, who was out in LA. He used to write me letters sometimes, and bragged about how he was working in Hollywood. When I finally tracked him down I discovered he was washing cars on one of the studio lots. That was my first job—assistant car-washer. Then I started running errands, fetching scripts, taking messages. Nobody notices a kid. But I watched them. Movie people are the most demanding in the universe. I got to know what made them tick. I learned how to make them like me.”
Suze tightened her arms around him, wanting to banish that forlorn look. “How could anyone not like you?”
Nick gave a jerky laugh. “Why am I telling you this? Usually I say I’m from California and leave it at that. Nobody wants to hear the other stuff.”
“I do.” Tenderly Suze smoothed back his hair and began to kiss him very gently, first his eyelids, then the hollows under his cheekbones, then the velvet skin behind his ears. By the time she reached the irresistible curling corners of his mouth, they were both trembling. Her legs started to buckle. Nick gave a tearing groan and pulled her hard against him, holding her prisoner between his thighs. His lips closed on hers. Suze could feel his hands sliding down her back and curving over her hips, drawing him to her. Waves of heat rolled over her skin. She wanted to lie down.
Something was making a strange noise. Suze felt him reach into his pocket. There was a jerk, a splash, then silence. Nick had tossed his mobile phone into the fountain. She felt his lips move against hers, his hot breath enter her mouth as he whispered, “Let’s go home.”
Suze couldn’t have told how far they walked, or how long, before they were stumbling up wooden stairs. At the top Nick leaned her carefully against the door while he got out his key. Drunk with desire, she watched dreamily as he bent his head to fiddle with the lock. “I love your neck,” she heard herself say.
Then she was inside a high room of silver light and black shadows, and his lips were at her throat, traveling downward. “Not as much as I like yours,” he murmured. “How do I get you out of this thing?”
She could feel him plucking at the straps of her dress, then sliding his hands up her thighs. Suze just arched her back and closed her eyes, letting his roaming hands turn her inside out.
“I think,” said a husky voice in her ear, “I’m just going to peel you open like a gorgeous juicy fruit.”
Suze heard a sharp click and felt something ice-cold on her naked flesh. Opening her eyes she saw the tip of Nick’s knife resting in the hollow between her breasts. She shivered. As she watched, the blade snicked the V of her dress and slid soundlessly into the rubber like a knife through butter.
Chapter Fourteen
Oh, God. It was too early. Why had she drunk all that disgusting pink vodka? Whoever had invented work should be shot, along with the torturer who had put her head in a vise and forgotten to unscrew it. Suze squinted at the pallid dwarf in the elevator mirror and groaned. She had left her stomach somewhere around the third floor and her legs didn’t work. Was it possible to get arthritis at thirty-two?
Moving like a sleepwalker, she located her office, took off the jacket she was wearing and hung it on the coatrack, wincing at the metallic clang. The jacket slid off, but bending down did not appear to be in Suze’s current repertoire. She groped her way down the corridor to the coffee machine. The pot was empty.
“What happened?” asked a sardonic voice. “Did somebody die?”
Turning her whole body in case her neck snapped off, Suze saw Dee Dee watching her, arms folded. “Only my brain,” Suze croaked. She aimed a hand at the coffeepot, fumbled the handle and sent the whole caboodle crashing to the floor, scattering coffee grounds. Very carefully she got down on her hands and knees and started scooping the mess into a plastic cup. Funny enough, she felt marginally better on all fours. Perhaps she could stay down here all day, like some novel kind of office pet. Or she could pretend she had just converted to Islam and needed to catch up on her praying. She practiced touching her head to the floor, just to see how it felt. Ouch. Then she felt hands at her shoulders, pulling her upright, and Dee Dee was marching her back to her office. Suze slumped gratefully in the high-backed chair. “Thank you, Dee Dee. You’re very kind.” Suze gave an infinitesimal dowager’s nod. It still hurt.
“You,” Dee Dee accused, “have a hangover.”
“Shh.” Suze put an unsteady finger to her lips. “Don’t tell Sheri. Important meeting this morning. Top priority. Got to shine.”
“Hmm. Wait here.”
Waiting she could do. By sheer willpower Suze held the usual office noises at bay. Time passed. She felt as perky as a slug.
“Aah!” She jumped. It was the telephone. Suze stuffed it in a drawer.
Dee Dee returned, carrying an ominous-looking glass. “Mr. Schneider was on this tomato juice and lemon diet a while back,” she explained. “I knew there’d be some leftovers in his executive refrigerator. And don’t worry about Sheri. She’s in conference with Mr. Schneider and some bigwig.”
Suze took the cup and peered inside. It looked like pig slop. “What else is in here?”
“Don’t ask.”
Suze closed her eyes, held her nose and drank the lot. “Eughgh!” She spat. A disgusting viscous liquid coated her mouth. Her stomach went into spasm. Her sinuses were on fire. Then a small time-bomb blew off the top of her head. Her eyes popped open. She felt . . . better. She practiced bending her head from side to side. The rolling lead ball that had been cunningly implanted in her brain overnight had disappeared. “Dee Dee, you’re an angel! A genius!”
Dee Dee’s round face blossomed into a smile. Really, she would be quite pretty if she lost a stone or two. “Let’s go out and buy you something fabulous at lunchtime,” Suze suggested impulsively. “Present from me.”
“Maybe you should concentrate on your own outfit first. Aren’t those trousers a little on the large side?”
Suze looked down, taking in the stone-colored chinos rolled up above last night’s strappy shoes and belted tight, the man’s white shirt hanging half in and half out, and the striped cotton waistcoat with its buttons done up wrong. A dim memory reached her of having woken up at the precise moment she was due at work, with nothing to wear except an object resembling a gutted garbage bag. Nick had done his best, grumbling and stumbling about, naked, and pulling things out of his closet for her. It was the Diane Keaton look, he told her. Suze thought Buster Keaton might be nearer the mark.
“Do I look totally ridiculous?” she asked Dee Dee.
“No, irritatingly enough. If you straightened your clothes and brushed your hair, you could probably pass it off as British street fashion.”
Suze heard the caustic undertone. She was aware that her super-hip outfits had caused comment at Schneider Fox, not all of it favorable. New Yorkers were shockingly conservative dressers, at work anyway, and Suze had swift
ly toned down the style of her wardrobe. “You mean, like the trendy crop-top I wore on my first day?”
Caught off guard, Dee Dee looked surprised. Her usual deadpan expression began to crumble. She caught Suze’s eye, her smile broadened and the two of them burst out laughing.
“I loved those Eiffel Tower shoes, though.” Dee Dee sighed wistfully. “London must be really wild if everyone goes around dressed like you.”
After fifteen minutes in the ladies’ room Suze was beginning to feel vaguely normal. What was a teensy hangover compared to last night? “Dynamite” was the word Nick had used. Her body fizzed at the memory. But this was no one-night stand. On Saturday he was taking her around the sights of New York; on Sunday evening he was coming to her apartment for dinner. Happiness swept through her. Here was the new Suze, no longer an object of curiosity at dinner parties or the pathetic prey of stupid men in suspenders. She was not a freak or a cast-off. The simple truth was that, until now, she hadn’t found the right man.
At the appointed time Suze presented herself at Sheri’s office. She had barely seen Sheri since the Matsuhana incident and was faintly apprehensive. But all Sheri said was “My, what an original outfit,” before asking her to close the door.
“No calls, Dee Dee,” she said into her speakerphone, so curtly that Suze felt a pang for her new friend. “Now, Suzanne.” Sheri arched her neck and threw back her glossy hair. “First of all I want to tell you how impressively I thought you handled our presentation of the Matsuhana invitation.”
“Really? You weren’t—”
“You displayed not only the initiative to produce a wonderful design, but the tact to give no indication that there had been any conflict of view within Schneider Fox.” She smiled warmly at Suze. “I’m sure you can understand that it would not have been appropriate to express my true feelings at that moment in time. I hope you will now accept my thanks and my congratulations.”
“Of course.” Suze tried to look nonchalant, but could not prevent a gratified smile tugging at her mouth.