The Foreigners by Maxine Swann Page B

Plan.”
    On her side, she was perfectly naked under her corduroy coat, which stopped just above the knee. Or at least that’s what it looked like. Not a stitch of other fabric was showing.
    I followed her through a wrought iron doorway. The place was a converted mansion. Inside was a plaque on the wall that said “Built in 1913 by the Allemand family.” We entered a passage lit with low yellow light, what had formerly been a garage.
    â€œThe hunt is on,” Leonarda said.
    I tried to suppress a giggle. I had never done anything like this before.
    She looked over her shoulder, then back. “I don’t want to wound him right away. This is just about letting him know that I’m out there, that I’m after him. I want him to start getting scared.
    â€œOh, wait, lipstick,” she said. She got out a mirror and a lipstick tube and began reapplying a deep red. She had already explained to me that lipstick was meant to represent blood on the mouth of women, making them attractive.
    â€œWhy would that make them attractive?” I had asked.
    â€œIt goes back to primal times, when a red mouth showed you were lucky and healthy, having just devoured prey.”
    Was this hunting metaphor actually getting us anywhere? I wondered, as I applied more lipstick too. Yet in another part of my brain, I heard drumbeats. I pictured us strapping on weapons. We resumed walking. We were two against one, but she didn’t see it that way.
    â€œI don’t need you here,” she said. “I want you here. I can handle the guy perfectly well on my own.”
    We reached the far side of the yellow passage and stepped out into a garden. Ivy covered the walls. There was a bathtub to one side full of water, with goldfish flitting around inside. Champagne was being served on a table along the wall. A white stone staircase led upward from the garden to the second floor. Leonarda stood, a bit slouched in her high heels, checking out the scene. She suddenly changed her posture and moved into action. This was the point where her social fears, her pathological shyness, collided with her ambition. The shock could yield some interesting results. “Come on,” she said, “let’s check who’s here.”
    We got glasses of champagne and climbed the staircase so we could look down from the terrace above. She pointed out heads, trashy history writer, novelist, filmmaker, right-wing journalist, backs of heads, tops of heads, a face just turning, dark, gray, curly.
    â€œOkay, I’m bored,” Leonarda said. She turned around. The house rose up behind us. “Come on, let’s look inside.”
    From the terrace we stepped into several large, open rooms, where the Allemand family used to entertain. There was a DJ set up beside the piano, a service area to one side. Above on the wall was a projection of a large rose-like flower, pink, white, red, circling slowly.
    A set of steep stairs led to the next floor. It was darker here, quiet. This was where the family had had their private rooms, slept, dressed. We went through a door, then crept down a hall past a bathroom. We heard giggling voices. A couple in a corner room was smoking a joint. We passed through. In the adjacent room we stopped. A dark window looked down on the garden, a whole other view. We were high up here. Vines bounced in the wind.
    â€œWe have to go back down there,” Leonarda said, as if it were a condemnation.
    â€œDo we?” I asked. “Why?”
    I felt it too, dread.
    She looked at me. She didn’t have her glasses on. She had her exposed look, then didn’t.
    â€œBecause we have to,” she said. “The plan dictates that we have to. Come.” She took my hand in her little hot one. We went back downstairs. “Let’s smoke,” she said.
    We asked a woman at one of the tables inside for a cigarette and stepped out on the terrace to smoke.
    Down below was a cluster of people posing for