by Sandra Brown
“What do these three items have in common?” he asked.
“They’re all bribes.”
“Cute. Try again.”
“You must have had a terrific day at work. What’s going on?”
“Will I have to find another girl to play with, or what?”
“Okay, okay. Flowers, wine, and bread,” she mused. “Does it have anything to do with spores or mold, something like that?”
He shook his head. “It’s not so much the flowers as the ribbon around them.”
“Red, white and blue striped.” She began to sing. “ ‘My country ’tis of Thee, sweet land—’ ”
“Another country whose colors are red, white, and blue.”
“England.”
“Another.”
She picked up the bottle of wine and read the label. Then, lifting her quizzical gaze to Dillon, she said, “France?”
He broke into a wide grin. “Congratulations, young woman! You win first prize.”
“Which is?”
“Two years, maybe more, in Paris!”
“Dillon?”
“Actually just outside Paris—Versailles, where the palace is located. I don’t think you’ll mind living in the suburbs, will you?”
Debra squealed, “Dillon, what are you talking about?”
He told her about the job Pilot had offered him. “It’s for an international insurance firm. They were building a new office complex for their European headquarters. The contracting firm turned out to be incompetent, and the work was scrapped until a new one could be hired.”
“Pilot bid on the project?”
“Right. Now Pilot needs a troubleshooting engineer to go over there and whip this mess into shape.”
“And Forrest G. Pilot chose you.”
He spread his arms away from his naked body and tried in vain to look humble. Debra launched herself against him. He toppled over backward, carrying her down with him and squashing the loaf of French bread.
“Can you believe that he thought living in France would be a drawback?” Dillon asked. “Little did he know that my wife’s main ambition in life is to go to France and hone her skills in the language.”
“Did you tell him that?”
“Hey, I ain’t stupid. I appeared disgruntled over having to live abroad and said that if I accepted the job, I would have to have more money.”
“What did he say?”
“A hundred dollars a week raise.”
In an orgy of excitement, they made love again. The hamburgers Debra had planned to serve for dinner were substituted with the smashed loaf of bread and the tepid bottle of wine. After they had demolished the last crumb and drained the last drop, they lay together on top of the scattered, crushed flowers and drowsily discussed their sunny future.
* * *
The move was a nightmare. There were passports and visas to obtain, weepy relatives to bid goodbye, and a million loose ends to tie up. Those responsibilities generally fell to Debra while Dillon was busy familiarizing himself with the unfinished project he had taken on. He was eager to get under way. As it turned out, he went to France ahead of Debra to make living arrangements and met her at Charles de Gaulle Airport three weeks later.
Leaving customs, she rushed into his arms and they held each other close. As he escorted her through the busy international airport, he told her repeatedly how much he had missed her.
“You can’t fool me, Burke,” she teased as they entered the parking garage. “You’ve probably gone through a score of French mistresses in the last three weeks.” Laughing, he ushered her toward a car. “Is this ours?” she asked incredulously.
“ ’Fraid so.”
“It’s so tiny.”
“That’s the only way you can survive the traffic over here. You’ve got to be able to slither through or you’re stuck for hours.”
She gauged the small interior against the length of Dillon’s legs. “Can you fit into that?”
“It’s a tight squeeze. As a result, there’s something I’ve got to tell you.” Solemnly he said, “I can no longer father children.”
Debra pressed her hand against his crotch. “As long as it still works, I don’t care.”
He was momentarily shocked by her public flirtation, but she reminded him that they were in France and that the French were famous for their tolerance of lovers.
He apologized to her for their apartment, which was on the third floor of a building with an elevator he didn’t trust and that he ordered her never to use. It was a narrow, drafty building with four apartments on each floor. “It was the best I could do,” Dillon said regretfully as he unlocked the door and swung it open. “Everything here is so expensive.”
What he found antiquated and inconvenient, Debra dubbed quaint and charming. “We’ve got a balcony!” she exclaimed, rushing toward the window and pushing open the shutters.
“Not a very good view, though.”
The balcony looked down over a sadly neglected courtyard. Within weeks, however, there were primroses blooming from the window boxes Debra had installed. She covered the cracks in the interior walls with colorful travel posters and made casual slipcovers out of bedsheets to hide the tackiness of the furniture, which had come with the apartment. It soon became a home that Dillon wouldn’t have traded for the nearby Versailles Palace.
On weekends, native Parisians made an exodus to the country, leaving the city to tourists like the Burkes. They parked their car on the outskirts of the city and used the Metro. Soon they became expert at negotiating its multilayered, underground stations. Like hungry gourmands at a feast, they consumed everything French. They fell in love with the sights, smells, and sounds of the City of Lights. They haunted the museums, parks, and historically significant public buildings, and discovered hideaway cafes where even Americans were charged fair prices for exquisite meals.
Cathedrals with windows of stained glass were dark sanctuaries where they sought privacy to kiss instead of pray. American hotdogs paled in comparison to those sold in Montmartre alongside original paintings.
To celebrate their first wedding anniversary, they spent a long weekend in the wine country, sampling the local vintages until they grew maudlin, and sleeping in small hotels where the featherbeds were as thick and sumptuous as the sauces served in the intimate dining rooms.
But there was a serpent in their paradise.
His name was Haskell Scanlan. Dillon’s title was supervising engineer in charge of construction. Haskell handled business matters—payroll, purchasing, and bookkeeping. They had met briefly in Tallahassee. Dillon had hoped that his first impression of the man would change once they got to France. For Debra’s sake he had hoped they could be friends with Haskell and his wife.
Unfortunately, Haskell Scanlan turned out to be as big a pain in the ass on foreign soil as on domestic. None of the construction workers could stand him. An unmerciful timekeeper, he docked their pay if they clocked in thirty seconds late. When the foreman approached Dillon about a pay increase, he took what he believed to be a fair request to Haskell Scanlan. Haskell adamantly refused even to consider it.
“For Chris’ sake, give them the raise!” Dillon shouted after a half-hour of heated argument.
“Across the board?”
“Across the board.”
“That’ll only encourage them to ask for more later on.”
“Hell, Haskell, they’re only asking for what amounts to twenty cents an hour.”
“Multiply it out. It adds up.”
“Okay, so raise them ten cents an hour. That would demonstrate our goodwill and might give them enough incentive to stay with us. I lost two good carpenters last week because they could make more money working on that new sports arena that’s under construction.”
“The carpenters you lost were replaced.”
“But it took several days out of my work schedule to interview and hire them. I don’t like losing days. The building is scheduled for completion sometime next summe
r. I’d like to finish it by early spring.”
“Why?”
“Because Debra’s pregnant. Much as we love it here, I’d like my baby to be born at home.”
“Personal interests shouldn’t override the interests of the company.”
“Fuck you.”
Haskell had all but tsked him. “Resort to that kind of language if it makes you feel better. I assure you it’s not going to change my mind.”
Dillon resorted to that kind of language and a whole lot worse before the issue was settled. “I hate to jump the chain of command on him,” he told Debra that night over dinner. “But the man’s a penny-pinching prick who can’t see anything except the bottom line. What he doesn’t seem to understand is that the sooner we get the building up, the more money he’ll save Pilot Industries.”
“Maybe jumping the chain of command is warranted,” Debra said. “You can’t be effective if you’re constantly quarreling with a man who’s obviously jealous of you.”
“Jealous?”
Haskell and his wife had come to dinner one evening at Debra’s invitation, so she had had a chance to observe him. “Dillon, be realistic. You’re everything he would love to be. You’re handsome; he’s not. You’re tall and strong and manly, and he’s a pale, puny weakling. Despite the language barriers, you get along well with the men, but they ridicule him. Didn’t you tell me that they call him the French equivalent of ‘asshole’? I don’t even think his wife likes him.”
He made a moue of grudging assent. “You may be right, but there’s a big difference between determining the problem and solving it.”
“Call Pilot. Lay it on the line.”
“Issue an ultimatum—Haskell or me?” He shook his head. “I’m not ready to chance that. Haskell’s been with the company longer and Pilot puts a lot of stock in seniority. If he chose Haskell, I wouldn’t get to finish my building. Besides needing the job, I want to see my building finished for my own satisfaction.”
Dillon lost two ironworkers the following week. He blew his top when Haskell refused to give him a budget with which to bargain.
“They’re only trying to manipulate you.”
“Go to hell.” Dillon left quickly, so that he wouldn’t slam his fist into Haskell’s parsimonious puss. He decided he had no choice but to call Pilot.
Pilot wasn’t pleased. “I certainly didn’t think I’d have to worry about personality conflicts from two so-called professionals.”
“I’m sorry I have to bother you with this, but if Haskell keeps his fist closed around the company purse, I’m going to lose qualified builders. I’ll be forced to hire second-rate workers, and I don’t think either of us wants that, do we, Mr. Pilot?”
Static crackled through the long-distance connection during the ensuing silence. At last Pilot said, “Tell him that I personally authorized a ten-cent-an-hour raise across the board.”
“Fifteen?”
“Twelve, and that’s it, Burke. Don’t involve me in these squabbles again. I put you in charge of this project, so take charge.”
Pilot hung up before Dillon had a chance to say thank you. He reasoned it was a good thing. Otherwise, it might look like Pilot was playing favorites instead of exercising sound business sense.
Haskell Scanlan didn’t see it that way. “Did you go crying to Daddy?” he asked snidely when Dillon informed him of the conversation with Pilot.
“I told him what I thought was in the best interest of this project.”
“Oh, sure,” Haskell replied cattily. “Pilot looks at you and sees a younger reflection of himself. Beneath the gilt of his success, he’s as brash and uncouth as you. He prides himself on being a self-made man. So don’t make the mistake of believing that you won this quarrel on your own merit. You only won because you’re the boss’s ego trip.”
Since he had ultimately won, Dillon didn’t concern himself with Haskell’s opinion. Beyond a few days of cold, miserable rain, things at the construction site ran smoothly through the autumn months. Dillon lost no more workers, because they knew he was responsible for their raise.
The workers seemed to appreciate his talent for remembering their names, his ability to tell a dirty joke like one of the boys, and his sense of knowing when to interfere in private disputes and when not to. He asked nothing of them that he didn’t require of himself. He took risks, stayed overtime, ate a packed lunch alongside them, and earned their respect for mixing with them instead of setting himself apart.
Dillon preferred to know his building intimately—every rivet, every cable, every brick—rather than seal himself off in his trailer. He inspected every phase of the construction. His high standards caused his next altercation with Haskell Scanlan.
“What the hell is this?” Dillon was holding a strip of electrical conduit in his gloved hands. The unfortunate electrician whom Dillon had randomly selected to question glanced warily around the circle of onlookers and, seeing no one willing to leap to his rescue, began explaining in rapid French.
Dillon didn’t understand a word of it. He shook the strip of wiring at the man’s face. “This isn’t what I ordered. Where’d you get it?”
One of the electricians spoke a smattering of English. He tapped Dillon’s arm. Dillon angrily spun around. “What?” The man pointed toward the stacked spools of wiring. After a brief inspection, Dillon addressed the men now standing idle. “Don’t install any more of this shit. Got that?” The man who had been serving as interpreter conveyed the message to the others.
Lifting one of the heavy spools onto his shoulder, Dillon used the service elevator to get to the ground floor, then barged through the door of the trailer. Haskell, seated at his computer terminal, jumped reflexively at the sudden interruption. When he saw Dillon, he frowned in disapproval of his barbaric behavior.
“I want to know what the hell this is.” The reel of conduit landed on top of Haskell’s desk with a solid thud. He sent his desk chair flying backward on its casters.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he squealed. “Get that thing off my desk.”
Dillon braced his hands on either side of the metal spool and leaned over it. “Listen to me, you little shit, I’m going to make you eat every foot of this worthless stuff if you don’t come across with a full explanation of why you didn’t buy what I wrote on the purchase order months ago. You’ve got ten seconds.”
“The wiring you ordered was three times as expensive as this,” Haskell said, having recovered some equanimity.
“The wiring I ordered is three times as good and three times as safe.”
“This meets local building codes.”
“It doesn’t meet mine,” Dillon said through clenched teeth.
“If I didn’t know it was sufficient—”
“You don’t know jackshit. This building is going to be filled with all types of sophisticated electronics. To avoid catastrophe, it’s got to have the best possible wiring.”
Dillon grabbed the telephone and dropped it into the unsuspecting accountant’s lap. “Now, get your skinny ass on the phone and place the order I originally sent in. I want the materials delivered no later than noon tomorrow, or I’m going to send every one of those electricians with nothing to do in here to jerk off on your desk.”
The telephone clattered to the floor as Haskell shot to his feet. “You can’t talk to me like that.”
“I just have.” Dillon nodded down at the telephone. “You’re wasting time. Do it.”
“I won’t. It’s my responsibility to see that we keep expenses down.”
“I agree, as long as it doesn’t compromise the integrity of the building. In this instance, it does.”
“The wiring I ordered is sufficient and, according to the local government, safe.”
“Well, according to Dillon Burke, it’s crap. I won’t install it in my building.”
“Your building?” Haskell said with a supercilious smile.
“Just order the wiring I requested, Scanlan.”
> “No.”
Dillon liked harmony as well as the next man, and he avoided confrontation whenever he could. But he wasn’t about to lower his standards on his first project. Nor was he willing to go to Pilot again. Pilot had already told him to take charge.
“Either get on the telephone now,” he said calmly, “or you’re fired.”
Haskell’s pointed jaw fell open. “You can’t fire me.”
“The hell I can’t.”
“Oh yeah? We’ll see what Mr. Pilot has to say about it.”
“I’m sure we will. In the meantime, consider yourself off this project. And, unless you want me to pound the crap out of your face, I suggest you stay away from me until you’re gone for good.”
* * *
Debra’s adversary was boredom. Their first few months in France, she had occupied herself with decorating the apartment on a shoestring budget and had succeeded as far as the limitations of the building permitted.
They had discussed the possibility of her getting a job, but it wasn’t feasible. There were no openings for teachers in the English-speaking schools, and shopkeepers preferred to hire their own rather than employ an American. So she wiled away the daytime hours by reading, strolling the narrow, quaint streets, and writing long letters to her many relatives. Although she tried to hide it from Dillon, she became homesick and listless. She had to forcibly stave off depression.
Her pregnancy rejuvenated her. She suffered no unpleasant side effects and swore she had never felt better. She was imbued with energy. Daily, she and Dillon marveled over the subtle changes in her body. This new kind of intimacy deepened their love for each other.
To help pass the time until the baby came, she enrolled in a cooking class that was held within walking distance of the apartment. There were four other women in the class and two men, all of retirement age. They, along with the grandmotherly chef, fussed over her like mother hens. Afterward her days were spent either in class or in her tiny apartment kitchen practicing what she had learned, or shopping in the neighborhood markets for the ingredients necessary to audition her culinary skills for Dillon. She would arrive home with her arms loaded with purchases and take them up by the creaky elevator that Dillon had forbidden her to use.