At the concert, Rae’s very first concert, the speakers thumped the music all through her body. Her very cells reverberated with the bass drum, and her lungs rang with the cymbals’ clash. The band, Killer Valentine, played long sets that rocked the house.
She sang along until she was hoarse, and the lead guitarist played straight to her for three songs because they were in the front row.
The weight of fifty thousand people pressed behind her, all wanting to dance right in front of the stage like she was doing. Sweet pot smoke wafted down from the rafters.
A little voice kept whispering in the back of her head: Don’t get used to this. Don’t get used to this.
Wulf had changed clothes in the airplane’s minuscule bathroom and wore a black tee shirt and jeans to the concert. The tee shirt was not tight, but it clung to the round, hard muscles of his shoulders and chest. Except for those few hours in black fatigues before Aunt Enid’s Celebration of Life, Rae had never seen him outside of a suit.
Well, of course she had, but he’d put the suit back on afterward.
Wearing the jeans and the black tee shirt, he looked younger, like someone who she might actually know instead of a bank manager who owned the mortgages on her family’s ranch.
He looked like The Blond Hottie on his day off.
Rae laughed with him and danced to the music.
At the concert, as the music played and band sang, Wulf danced.
They had danced together at the party that first night, but that was a waltz. He had led with a firm hand but had not flung her around.
At the concert, Wulf danced like a man: a bit of leg movement, less arms, a subtle ripple of his torso, and watching Rae the whole time.
Lizzy and Georgie had lugged Rae to clubs last year, for which she would be eternally grateful. When she had insisted with a rising note of church-instilled panic in her voice that she couldn’t dance, that she wouldn’t dance, they had each grabbed one of her arms and hauled her out on the flashing floor to teach her. Lizzy had shouted, “Free your hips!” and undulated around her. Georgie had danced in a more sophisticated manner, her long arms waving to the music. Eventually, to her surprise, Rae had picked it up, and more surprising, liked it.
The lead singer played his guitar and sang right above Rae as she danced. He smiled at her, so she let her body go and danced like a rock star was watching her. When she stole a glance at Wulf, he was still watching her, and his blue eyes were crinkled with delight.
During a song that sounded kind of Asian, Wulf danced with his arms up for just a minute like he was pushing away the ceiling, and the lead singer pointed at him and mimicked the motion. The move was obviously a reference to something, but she was dancing flat-out to the hard drums with the band so close that the singer slapped her fingertips and all was amazing with the world.
Georgie and Lizzy were so never going to believe it, and Rae was sure that she wasn’t allowed to tell them.
But this wasn’t something private about Wulf. This was a Dom-Date.
She really hoped she could tell them. She wanted someone else to know how happy she was.
After the concert, Rae nearly hyperventilated in the back seat of the car while they went to supper. Dieter drove them to a restaurant that looked like the Greek Parthenon with its forest of white columns, except that tourists throng the Parthenon.
Rae stopped inside the door. Hundreds of empty tables were laid with white tablecloths, like a pond choked with sparkling white lily pads. China, crystal, and silverware sparkled. No other people walked among the deserted tables. “Are they closed?”
“They’ll serve us,” Wulf said. “Where would you like to sit?”
Half the security guys fanned out around the restaurant. The other guys made a beeline for the kitchen.
Rae said, “We shouldn’t ask them open up just for us. I saw some taco trucks a couple blocks away.”
“The owner and chef used to be in my employ. I’m invested rather heavily in his restaurant. Besides, I haven’t seen Jacques for months. We must drop by.”
A black-suited waiter bustled out of a door at the back and waved to them as he walked between the tables. “Hello! Here we are! Do you have a preference where you’d like to be seated?”
Wulf turned. “Do you, Rae?”
“Um, in the back? Near the kitchen?”
“Commendable.” They threaded their way between the tables.
The waiter fidgeted with his white gloves until they reached him, then he presented a table to them with flourish of his arms.
Wulf circled the table, pulled out a chair, and stood behind it.
Rae pulled out her own chair to sit down before she realized what was going on, and then she scooted past the chair that she had already yanked out and sat in the chair Wulf offered her.
Well, it was a night of firsts for her. She should be more alert.
From the menu, Rae ordered a chicken dish that she thought she recognized, and Wulf told the waiter, “Tell Jacques to surprise me.”
After the waiter scurried back to the kitchen, Rae asked Wulf, “What did you do when the band played that song? Where you did the ‘raise the roof’ move and the singer did, too?” She mimed pushing upward.
“That song had elements of Bhangra, music from northern India. The band is interested in Buddhism and Hinduism, so it must have been an intentional reference.”
“A guy that I knew said that the only reason guys dance is to get in girls’ pants. Male competition, female choice. He’s a biology major.”
Wulf laughed aloud. “He’s never been to a Punjabi wedding. For Americans, that may be true, but for the rest of the world, it’s a blatant falsehood. In Africa, in India, in South America, even Europe, men dance for the joy of it. Everyone dances. Old men. Old women. Babes in arms. It’s ingrained in the culture.”
“Oh. Cool.” Rae had suspected that Blake had been mired in cynicism. “Have you been to a Punjabi wedding?”
“Two,” Wulf said. “One was three days long, a minimalist affair. The other was eight.”
“Eight days? For one wedding?”
“The divorce rate is lower in India. I suspect it’s the fear of having to re-marry in yet another elaborate wedding. Even many European weddings are two days, one for the civil ceremony and one for the religious rite.”
“Here, you can get hitched in an afternoon. An hour, if you’re in Las Vegas.”
“How refreshing.”
“How did you end up at two Indian weddings?”
“Friends from school.”
“I thought you went to school in Switzerland.”
“It was an international school. No more than ten percent of the admissions were from any one language group. There were students from all over the world.”
“Oh, yeah. You’ve mentioned Yoshi.”
“Yoshi is Japanese. Sunil and Manpreet are Punjabi.” Wulf stretched his leg to pull his phone out of his pocket. He spun through the photos on it. “Yes, here’s Sunil’s wedding.”
Wulf leaned over and showed her. His bare forearm brushed her arm. A man wore a white and gold turban and pajamas. The stunning Indian woman next to him wore a red blouse and scarf on her hair. Gold jewelry hung around her neck and wrists and was woven through her hair and strung from her ears to her nose piercings. “Wow.”
“Yes. Punjabi weddings are lavish. The food was excellent, too.”
Their plates arrived, and they both tucked in. Rae’s plate held a delicate tower of red, green, and white layers. She whispered to Wulf, “Is this some of that molecular food?”
“No. This is excellent Nouvelle French with California influences.”
From behind them, a man’s deep voice boomed, “So you think zat it is excellent, do you?”
Rae thought that his accent was French, but it sounded so different than her Cajun French TA’s inflections that she wasn’t sure.
Wulf said, “Jacques!” and gestured to the chair beside him.
Jacques was a black man with a body so slight that he did not pull out the chair but just bent into it as if he were made of pipe cleaners. He continued in French, “Monsieur von Hannover, I trust you are enjoying?”
Rae followed along as best she could, but they both spoke French so quickly.
“As always, this verrine is delicious.” Wulf replied and ate a bite for emphasis.
“I have made something special for your dessert.”
“I shall surely save room for it. Jacques, may I present Mademoiselle Rae Stone. Rae, this is Monsieur Jacques Boucher, my friend and the owner and head chef of the very successful restaurant The Butcher Shop, and previously, my personal chef.”
“Enchanté, Mademoiselle,” Jacques said. He swayed out of his chair and drifted around the table.
Rae turned to shake his hand. “Enchanté, Monsieur.”
“Ah, you are from Louisiana?” he asked.
“No. I studied French with a Cajun professor.”
“Your accent is delightful.”
Wulf asked him, “Jacques, I have been wondering, do I have an accent when I speak French?”
The chef turned to Wulf with innocent, wide eyes. “Why, Monsieur? Do you prefer to have an accent?”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Jacques glanced at Rae with the slightest hint of get-me-out-of-this tilt to his head but said, “Is there a reason you are asking?”
“Jacques, tell me.”
The chef sighed, his exasperated breath flapping his skinny body. “Perhaps a slight Germanic inflection, occasionally.”
“No.” Wulf’s blue eyes widened and one blond eyebrow rose, the subtlest of motions that Rae knew meant he was aghast, and she tried not laugh.
“And sometimes,” Jacques mused, “you sound rather Anglophone.”
“That, too?” Wulf’s tone seemed even, like he was expressing mild curiosity, but Rae wondered if she and Jacques were going to have a major psychological crisis on their hands.
“I am afraid so, Monsieur.”
“Mon Dieu.”
“I must return to the kitchen. You will be in town soon to look over the books?”
“Next month, Jacques. This month is busy.”
“Yes, I can only imagine your schedule this month. When are you leaving for Paris?”
“Friday night.”
Rae caught Jacques’s glance at her, an unasked question.
Wulf shrugged one shoulder and smiled with one side of his mouth, a possibly positive but unconfirmed answer.
Yeah, she wasn’t going anywhere with Wulf until he answered a lot more questions, like how a person who Wulf had not spoken to for months knew that he was due for a trip to Paris next week.