local color. I’m told the flamenco shows here in Madrid are really worth staying up for.”
He doesn’t want to stay, she thought, and had a moment of self-pitying loneliness before she realized the impression she must have given him. Dummy, she thought, you’ve been talking to him as if you were at an on-campus recruiting program. Talking work so you wouldn’t discover anything you might be afraid to lose.
She was on her feet too, walking with him to the door. What was about to happen was so clear in her mind that she could almost see it: the smiles of thanks for the dinner and his doing the interview, the light, almost-chaste kiss, the “sometime real soon,” the door closing and her alone with Larry’s Emmy and her two TVs and the wake-up call at six-thirty from the Spanish switchboard operator to look forward to. How many times before had she done the same thing? Four times in New York with Keith, and before that, during the six years with others she could scarcely remember, how many promises of “sometime real soon”?
She linked her arm with his and stopped walking. He turned, momentarily off balance, his dark eyes surprised, his face almost touching hers.
Then she kissed him.
So what if I fall in love , he thought, and drew her close.
When Sharon awoke sometime later, Keith was asleep beside her and the room was cold. The breeze snapped the curtains; the air smelled like rain. She got up to close the window. Hello, world , she thought, looking down four stories at the still-illuminated plaza and Ross Cantrell’s limousine. Hello, world, I’m back.
She was closing the window when she noticed that now Cantrell’s limousine had its uniformed chauffeur standing beside the passenger door. She looked at her clock: nearly four-thirty. Didn’t Ross Cantrell ever sleep?
Then she saw the explanation, and smiled to herself. A tall, statuesque brunette in evening dress, visible only for a moment, crossed the sidewalk in a few quick steps to the door the chauffeur had instantly opened. So Ross Cantrell is human too, Sharon thought. She watched the Rolls glide away from the curb.
PART TWO
June 14-25
1
Alone in the soft double bed of his hotel room, UBC producer Larry Noble woke at just after half-past five with the feeling that something was wrong.
Automatically he sat up in bed and reached for the cigarette pack he kept on the bedside table with what he called his waking-and-sleeping paraphernalia, the little collection he carried around from one sports event to another, from one hotel room to the next. The pocket lighter, gold-plated, a gift from his wife the Christmas before she died; the wide glass ashtray that each morning he lifted from its leather-covered stand and took with him into the bathroom to empty; the miniaturized Sony TV and digital clock radio like the one he had given Sharon; the box of cherries in cognac, covered in bittersweet chocolate shells.
Now that he was sleeping alone, Larry liked to munch on cherry cordials at bedtime and then, again, before getting up. The cognac, he had explained to Sharon as they went through Spanish customs together, helped him to unwind at night, and the caffeine and sugar in the chocolate helped him to get started in the morning. She had looked at his one-month supply—twenty-five boxes, each with a dozen cordials—and scolded him properly: his weight, his sweet tooth, his smoking. . . . He took the chiding as he took everything else, showing only an outward serenity.
The clock said it was thirty-three and a half minutes past five. In New York the eleven o’clock news would be over, in Los Angeles it would be 8:33, and the UBC broadcast would still have twenty-seven minutes to run. Larry blinked at the clock as he lit his first cigarette of the day, searching his memory of last evening for a clue as to what was bothering him. As he put the lighter back on the table, he felt a twinge of pain in his left arm; as he plucked two cherry
He doesn’t want to stay, she thought, and had a moment of self-pitying loneliness before she realized the impression she must have given him. Dummy, she thought, you’ve been talking to him as if you were at an on-campus recruiting program. Talking work so you wouldn’t discover anything you might be afraid to lose.
She was on her feet too, walking with him to the door. What was about to happen was so clear in her mind that she could almost see it: the smiles of thanks for the dinner and his doing the interview, the light, almost-chaste kiss, the “sometime real soon,” the door closing and her alone with Larry’s Emmy and her two TVs and the wake-up call at six-thirty from the Spanish switchboard operator to look forward to. How many times before had she done the same thing? Four times in New York with Keith, and before that, during the six years with others she could scarcely remember, how many promises of “sometime real soon”?
She linked her arm with his and stopped walking. He turned, momentarily off balance, his dark eyes surprised, his face almost touching hers.
Then she kissed him.
So what if I fall in love , he thought, and drew her close.
When Sharon awoke sometime later, Keith was asleep beside her and the room was cold. The breeze snapped the curtains; the air smelled like rain. She got up to close the window. Hello, world , she thought, looking down four stories at the still-illuminated plaza and Ross Cantrell’s limousine. Hello, world, I’m back.
She was closing the window when she noticed that now Cantrell’s limousine had its uniformed chauffeur standing beside the passenger door. She looked at her clock: nearly four-thirty. Didn’t Ross Cantrell ever sleep?
Then she saw the explanation, and smiled to herself. A tall, statuesque brunette in evening dress, visible only for a moment, crossed the sidewalk in a few quick steps to the door the chauffeur had instantly opened. So Ross Cantrell is human too, Sharon thought. She watched the Rolls glide away from the curb.
PART TWO
June 14-25
1
Alone in the soft double bed of his hotel room, UBC producer Larry Noble woke at just after half-past five with the feeling that something was wrong.
Automatically he sat up in bed and reached for the cigarette pack he kept on the bedside table with what he called his waking-and-sleeping paraphernalia, the little collection he carried around from one sports event to another, from one hotel room to the next. The pocket lighter, gold-plated, a gift from his wife the Christmas before she died; the wide glass ashtray that each morning he lifted from its leather-covered stand and took with him into the bathroom to empty; the miniaturized Sony TV and digital clock radio like the one he had given Sharon; the box of cherries in cognac, covered in bittersweet chocolate shells.
Now that he was sleeping alone, Larry liked to munch on cherry cordials at bedtime and then, again, before getting up. The cognac, he had explained to Sharon as they went through Spanish customs together, helped him to unwind at night, and the caffeine and sugar in the chocolate helped him to get started in the morning. She had looked at his one-month supply—twenty-five boxes, each with a dozen cordials—and scolded him properly: his weight, his sweet tooth, his smoking. . . . He took the chiding as he took everything else, showing only an outward serenity.
The clock said it was thirty-three and a half minutes past five. In New York the eleven o’clock news would be over, in Los Angeles it would be 8:33, and the UBC broadcast would still have twenty-seven minutes to run. Larry blinked at the clock as he lit his first cigarette of the day, searching his memory of last evening for a clue as to what was bothering him. As he put the lighter back on the table, he felt a twinge of pain in his left arm; as he plucked two cherry
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