“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your confidence, Sloan. You know I’ll go the extra mile for you any day.”
He expected that within the next nine months, he should begin to realize a profit from his investment in the Castle Hills center. So, with the assistance of a marketing firm, he investigated sites in several communities within forty miles of San Antonio. He didn’t want to locate a center farther away, because Jasper would have to move his family to another town, and he knew him well enough to know that the man wouldn’t want to take his children out of school, no matter what the move would mean for him personally.
“I’ve been fortunate in having a good bunch of men working with me,” he told Thelma that evening as he sat on her back porch enjoying pecan pie and espresso coffee. After he taught her how to make espresso, she served it to him each time he visited her. “I hope my luck holds with the next shop I open.”
“There’s a long stretch of highway between here and Austin,” she said. “Why don’t you check out Marcos, or someplace around there? You can put up signs that read, Last Service Stop Before Austin or Last Service Stop Before San Antonio.”
“You’re a peach, Thelma. I hadn’t been looking in that direction, and it’s close enough to San Antonio. I’ll look into it.”
“Where’s Lynne?”
“She’s practicing on several different clay courts getting in shape for the French Open.”
“Why don’t you go to Paris with her?”
“I’m going to do precisely that.”
* * *
On May 31, they walked out of Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and got into the limousine that awaited them. “We could had taken a two-bedroom suite,” she said. “That way, we’d be together, and we wouldn’t be shacking up.”
He moved so that his back was in the corner and he could look directly at her. “I won’t ask you to repeat that because I’m afraid you might. I thought we had separate accommodations because you considered it inappropriate for us to share a room. You don’t want to drift into an affair with me. Right?”
“Yes, but if we had a suite, we wouldn’t be sleeping together.”
He rested his right ankle on his left knee. “The hell you say. There’s not one thing saintly about me, and if I knew you were sleeping in the suite with me, you weren’t sick and your parents weren’t present, I’d get into whatever bed you happened to be in. I’d do it even if you were mad with me. Let’s get this straight. I want you, and not just occasionally, but all the time.”
“That’s what you say, but if I asked you not to do that, you wouldn’t.”
“Maybe you know me better than I know myself.”
“I know how you treat me, and that’s what I’m going on.” She shifted her position, leaned over and kissed his cheek.
He put both hands behind his head and leaned against the back of the car. “You could at least have kissed me on the mouth,” he said, his tone plaintive and his manner woebegone.
Although she was fairly certain that he was putting her on, nonetheless she stifled a laugh, stroked the right side of his face, urged him to her and kissed his lips. “What are we going to do when I’m not either playing or practicing?”
“We can visit some museums, take a ride down the Seine, go to the opera, listen to some jazz, go to the Lido, the Moulin Rouge, Montmartre. You can’t get bored in Paris, and you’ll never have to wonder what to do. Paris is great for people-watching. If none of that floats your boat, come next door to my room and we can make beautiful music.”
“How long did you stay here?”
“Till my money gave out. If I hadn’t promised my dad that I’d leave Paris with a hundred dollars in my pocket, I’d have stayed longer. I never want to see another canned sardine.”
“When you got back home, what did you do with the one hundred dollars?”
“I gave it back to my dad. He wanted to be sure that I wouldn’t be broke and stranded in a foreign country, so he gave me that money and extracted that promise from me.”
“Did you have a really good time here?”
“Lynne, I was eighteen and right out of high school. I had the time of my life. Before I left home, I promised Mom that I would stay sober, stay out of trouble and avoid disease, and that’s about all I can take credit for. Two months on my own in Paris. It’s a memory I’ll cherish forever.”
“Can’t you tell me what you did?”
“Uh...I did all the things tourists do, and I doubt Paris has changed in that respect. I met lots of females from sixteen to sixty, and French women are so frank about sex that I was shocked, though I welcomed the rewards. I sat in cafés, drank coffee and read books and newspapers. In the process, I discovered that what I wanted most was to be my own boss, to go and come as I pleased without having to account to anyone for my time.”
“Wait until I tell Brad about this,” she said to herself. “This will bring him down a peg or two.”
The limousine arrived at Hotel Belle Époque on the Champs-Elysées around noon. “Knowing the French, they’ll probably make us wait until check-in time, and that may not be until four o’clock this afternoon,” he said as they arrived at the registration desk.
The clerk raised an eyebrow at their request for separate rooms. “Are you traveling together?”
“Yes,” Sloan said.
She handed them their keys. “Four-sixteen for madame and four-eighteen for monsieur.” She handed Lynne an additional key, surprising her, and Lynne’s eyes widened. “For the door between the two rooms,” the registration clerk said, her expression that of one disgusted with such ignorance.
“Uh...thanks...I mean, merci,” Lynne said, wishing she could disappear.
She appreciated Sloan’s silence as the elevator took them to the fourth floor, although she would have loved to wipe the smirk off his face. They reached her room first, and he waited until she slid in the card and opened the door.
“If you decide you want to see me,” he said, “be sure and knock, because I have a habit of walking around undressed, and I wouldn’t want to offend your sensibility.”
“You wouldn’t...” She looked up at him, saw the glint in his eyes and punched him in the belly. He gave in to the mirth then and nearly doubled up with laughter.
“You’re not nice,” she huffed. “How was I to know what the darn key was for? This is the first time I’ve checked into a hotel in the company of a man.”
He sobered. “Didn’t you stay at a hotel on your honeymoon?”
“Are you serious? Willard was too cheap to spring for a hotel room. We stayed at his sister’s summer house on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. I don’t recommend cooking in a strange kitchen when you’re supposed to be deliriously happy.”
“Are you going to let me in my room through the magic door, or should I keep walking?”
She opened the door, stepped inside and looked back at him. “How can you look so innocent when you’re so wicked?”
He looked down at her, his eyes sparkling and his teeth flashing his charismatic grin. “I’m straight. If that reads innocent to you, I can’t help it. And I’m getting tired of standing out here. Can I come in, or can’t I?”
She stepped aside and walked in behind him. The man could turn her to mush with a flash of his smile. “You shouldn’t laugh at me,” she said, lowering her lashes in a shameless flirtation.
“I’m the one who’s more likely to be laughable in this setup,” he told her, and she suspected that he meant it, because he displayed no humor whatsoever.
He leaned against the wall and looked around at the king-size bed, sofa and chairs upholstered in the same olive-green and rust color that made the carpet, bedspread and draperies warm and inviting. A bouquet of yellow snapdragons sat on the coffee table, and from somewhere came strains of Gershwin’s “Love W
alked In.”
“You’d better set the rules right now,” he said, “and if you walk in your sleep, I’ll reserve the right to do the same.”
She walked back to where he stood near the door. “I’ve never walked in my sleep, but there’s a first time for everything.”
“If I walk in my sleep, there’s been no one to tell me, so I can’t say I won’t and swear to it.”
A feeling of contentment and of pure joy stole over her and she locked her arms around his waist. “Asleep or not, you’d never do anything to upset me. Who knows? I may be the one to knock on the door and ask to come in. Let’s play it by ear. Do you need to rest? Flying all night, even in first class, is not for me. I want to sleep for a couple of hours and then see some of Paris.”
With his arms enveloping her, he placed her head on his shoulder and stroked her hair until a restlessness washed over her and she moved back and looked up at him.
“Do you think this is going to work?” she asked him.
For an answer, he bent his head and covered her mouth with his until she opened it, took him inside and let him sear her body and soul.
“It will work,” he said later. “One way or the other.”
She found the key and opened the door between their rooms. “I’ve got a small bistro table and two chairs in front of my window,” he called back to her.
“I have, too, and I just found a little nook with a marble countertop, refrigerator, sink and a coffeemaker.”
“I have the same. Come here,” he called.
She rushed to him. “What is it?”
“Look at that. I can see the Eiffel Tower looming over all of Paris.” He stood behind her with an arm around her shoulder, and she turned to him, aware of him as the man in whose arms she had known boundless pleasure.
“What is it? Are you all right?” he asked her.
She moved away and blew out a long sigh. “I guess so.” She wished at the moment that she could get used to him, that his nearness wouldn’t heat her like a boiling cauldron. “I’m going to get a nap. I’ll knock in a couple of hours.”
“Sure you don’t want some company?”
“No, I’m not sure, but if I don’t rest right now, I won’t be worth a nickel when I go to practice tomorrow morning.”
“Right. See you later.”
After a quick shower, she dried off, treated herself to the soothing effect of her favorite lotion and slipped her nude body between the sheets. There was something about sleeping only a few feet from Sloan with an unlocked door between them that gave her a wanton feeling. She fell asleep remembering their last time together, when his mouth and tongue had caressed every inch of her.
She awakened distracted by her unfamiliar surroundings, made her way to the bathroom and brushed her teeth. Oops! With five o’clock hard upon them, it was probably too late to go sightseeing, but she could put her feet on the sidewalks of Paris. She dressed quickly in a white waffle piqué skirt and jacket and a kiwi-green tank, put on a pair of black loafers, combed her hair and knocked on Sloan’s door. After knocking several times and getting no answer, she opened the door and called to him. However, when she saw from a reflection in a mirror that he was in bed, her alarm buttons went off, and she ran to the bed and shook him.
“Sloan. Sloan, wake up.”
He turned over on his back, opened his eyes and gazed up at her through a sleepy haze. “Oh, Lynne.” He turned over and went back to sleep.
It would be cruel to awaken him, she thought, but if I don’t, what will he think?
She sat on the edge of the bed and was about to pull the covers off him when she realized that he was nude. She stared down at him, and her mouth watered as the thought of stripping off her clothes and getting in that bed began to tantalize her. She swallowed hard as the heat settled in her loins.
“Sloan,” she whispered. “Get up before I do something outrageous.”
“Huh?” He opened his eyes and looked up at her, and at that moment, she knew with certainty that she was forever his and his alone.
She leaned over and kissed him quickly on the mouth. “It’s past time for you to get up,” she said.
He stretched lazily and invitingly. “Why didn’t you join me?”
She explained to him how she happened to be in his room and added, “I would have joined you if I hadn’t been dressed when I came in here. Come on and get up.”
“Okay, but something tells me you’d rather I let you leave first.”
“Right,” she said, although she would love to see him in splendid nudity, standing tall like Michelangelo’s exquisite “David” in Florence, Italy’s Galleria dell’Accademia.
She winked at him. “This is a case in which honesty is not always the best policy.”
He rolled over on his belly. “Keep at it, and you may find yourself spending the rest of the afternoon differently from the way you planned.” Then with a mild yawn, he said, “I’ve done nothing to deserve this punishment... I have always been a moral person. Here I am, a thirty-six-year-old man, healthy and virile, sentenced to spend two weeks of abstinence in a hotel room with a woman whose moves in bed make my jaws lock. Is there any justice anywhere?”
“You poor baby. I’m leaving so you can get up.”
She closed the door behind her, went to her bathroom and put a cold wet washcloth on the back of her neck. “This man is not to be played with.” For want of diversion, she flipped on the television and immediately wished that she was more fluent in French. The swift pace of the dialogue was too much for her, and she switched to CNN, which broadcast in English. Within fifteen minutes, she heard his knock on her front door.
“Why didn’t you use the connecting door?” she asked him.
“I’m keeping it between the lines. The first time I knock on that door, I will definitely mean business.” He took her hand and walked with her to the elevator. “Let’s go to the Lido. I know it’s touristy, but I have this memory of the dancers kicking up their heels as they did the cancan, and I want to know if it seems as naughty now as it did when I was eighteen.”
They walked down the broad avenue, holding hands and laughing. “I knew you didn’t have on anything in that bed,” she told him.
He hugged her as they walked. “Wasn’t I even a little bit tempting?”
“I refuse to incriminate myself.”
“The Lido’s over there,” he said, pointing to his left. “Let’s sit on one of these benches and watch the people.”
A woman, who she guessed to be about fifty, burst out of a food delicacies shop gesticulating wildly and shaking her fist at a man of about twenty-five who wore his hair jet-black and spiked. The man spread his arms wide, but she continued to shake her fist at him and, if the words Lynne caught from the woman’s rapid speech were evidence, she also called him a vile name. The Parisians went their way as if they saw and heard no one, but the woman raved on, her voice becoming increasingly shrill. Finally the young man knelt and in a prayerful mode, said, “Ah, ma petite chou, comme je t’aime.” Ah, my little cabbage, I love you so.
“Oh, Pierre. Pierre,” she said, opening her arms wide, and he dashed into them. Arm in arm, they went back into the shop.
“Well, I’ll be doggoned,” Lynne said.
Sloan shrugged. “They probably play that scene half a dozen times a day. People here ignore it.”
They ate dinner at a small bistro, and when she refused the wine, she swore that the waiter looked down his nose at her. When he returned to take their orders, she ignored him and let Sloan tell him what she wanted. Later, he brought the food, served hers with the greatest care, bowed and asked her, “Would madame care for anything else?”
“No, thank you,” she said.
“I noticed that he didn’t ask me if I wanted anything else,” Sloan said, “but I can’
t blame the man for wanting to please a beautiful woman.”
She didn’t bother to tell Sloan that the poor Joe was correcting his error in the hope of getting a big tip. After their dinner, they strolled a few blocks further down the Champs-Elysées to the Lido, where Sloan bought their tickets, and they entered the dark, almost blackened theater. A man sat on the other side of her, and immediately Sloan exchanged seats with her, so that she sat at the aisle.
“I’m taking no chances,” he said. “I didn’t come to France to get locked up.”
The curtain rose and a row of women dressed in white bonnets, black-and-red skirts and red ruffled petticoats, black stockings and high-top buttoned shoes milled around and caroused on stage. The curtain fell, and someone in the audience shouted an obscenity.
“Looks as if the stagehand made a mistake and raised the curtain too early,” Sloan said. And then the famous cancan music began, the curtain rose and the chorus of dancers brought the audience to its feet, until all the dancers fell to the floor one after the other in their famous split. The deafening applause reminded Lynne of the sound of the fans screaming and applauding her on center court.
I’ve got to get back to the top, she said to herself, and I have to keep my word to Sloan and retire after the coming US Open. She hadn’t used the word “retire” to him, but she had let him believe that after that tournament, she would be ready to begin life with him.
“Was it all that you remembered?” she asked Sloan as they left the Lido.
He rubbed his chin and gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. “It was very entertaining, and I’m glad I saw it with you. But somehow, petticoats don’t have the same appeal.” A short laugh escaped him. “I’ve seen undergarments from a better vantage point.”
“That’s incontestable,” she said. “When I’m preparing for a tournament and when I’m playing in one, I try to go to bed by nine-thirty. Do you mind?”
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