Mortimer's, on the corner of Lexington Avenue and East Seventy-fifth Street, is the kind of neighborhood restaurant which wouldn't normally elicit a second glance. The main dining room has cafe- curtained windows, bare brick walls, a long bar to the left, and tables with white cloths to the right. Above the bar hangs a drawing of the restaurant's namesake—the fictional Mortimer—rendered as a romantic young man.
Inevitably, great potted palms (or, as on this day, giant arrangements of blossoming dogwood branches) sit atop the bar, leftovers from the previous night's private party.
That there is never a shortage of these horticultural extravaganzas attests to private parties being not the exception, but the norm: for nearly two decades, the city's rich and famous have adopted Mortimer's as their unofficial but highly exclusive club.
Now, at lunchtime, the main dining room was buzzing as the new arrival breezed in. She carried herself with a kind of breathless theatricality, and posed by the door for a long moment, her eyes spinning about to see who was already here.
Obviously, the usual battalion of ladies who lunch but do not eat.
Holding court at the preferred window tables were the likes of Gloria Vanderbilt, Annette de la Renta, Nancy Kissinger, Pat Buckley, Joan Rivers, Nan Kempner, and a Rothschild or two. Plus their pet escorts—Bill Blass, Jerry Zipkin, Johnny Galliher, and Kenny Jay Lane.
Even as the new arrival eyed them, so too did this cliquish audience eye her right back.
Dina Goldsmith did not disappoint. Her face was immaculate, tweezered, defined. Subdued makeup glowed in a palette of warm almond, creams, and rose. Her blonde hair was pulled tightly back and held in place with a gold barrette and fell loosely down her back like shimmering cornsilk. She was wearing a sable coat over a turquoise Chanel minisuit with orange and lilac braid trim. There were long ropes of tiny, carved, green onyx leaves around her neck, and matching earrings, bracelet, and brooch. Her purse and shoes were black crocodile, and she was carrying a shiny little string-handled red shopping bag.
Her entrance had the desired effect; it set off waves of sibilant whispers.
She savored the talking heads and appreciative looks. They were proof positive that she had Arrived—and with a capital A!
The proprietor, horn rims perched on the tip of his nose, scurried over to welcome her. "Mrs. Goldsmith!" he greeted warmly. "Ms. von Hohenburg-Willemlohe is already here."
Dina smiled brilliantly and, taking little high-heeled running steps, followed him past table IB—the one just to the right of the door, and which was still unoccupied—to the second one down, where Zandra was seated by the window, facing away from the door.
"Hello, sweetie!" Dina sang.
Zandra, who hadn't noticed her entrance, gave a start. "Dina! Gosh! Darling, how are you? Hullo!"
"Sorry I'm fashionably late, and I did so try to be punctual!" Dina leaned down and put her arm around Zandra and almost, but not quite, touched cheeks. "Mwah!" she air-kissed. "Mwah!"
The proprietor pulled out the chair facing the door, and Dina hopped around the table and sat down opposite Zandra and got settled. She put her bags down and pulled off her gloves and shrugged off her sable. Finally, placing her elbows on the table, she leaned forward. "There!" She smiled brightly.
"Gosh, Dina. But darling, you look smashing—it's so great to see you ... seems like it's been yonks! Life treating you well?"
"Oh, you know me, sweetie," Dina said, with a negligible wave. "Life always treats me well. Oh, I am glad you could make it—especially on such short notice!"
Dina's aquamarine eyes couldn't stay still but kept snapping here, there, everywhere. She was like a feverish bidder at auction, except that she exchanged little finger waggles and long-range air kisses with half the lunchers.
"Haven't you heard?" Zandra grinned. "Us working girls will go anywhere for a free meal."
"Pshaw! As if you eat much more than a bird!"
A young waiter appeared. "Would you like something from the bar?" he asked.
"Mineral water." Dina looked at Zandra. "And you?"
"I already have mine."
Dina smiled dazzlingly at the waiter. He was back in no time and poured from a little green bottle. Dina ordered salmon with ginger, and Zandra chose the chicken paillard.
"So what brought you out today?" Zandra asked when the waiter had gone.
Dina took a tiny sip of water. "Shopping, sweetie," she said cheerfully. "Tons of shopping. You wouldn't believe how exhausting it is!"
One certainly couldn't tell by looking at her. Besides, as Zandra well knew, Dina positively thrived on shopping marathons.
"Yes, tons of shopping. Thank God for the car. It's packed full, and there's still the whole afternoon left! Oh. Speaking of which ... here. I got you this." She passed Zandra the little red shopping bag.
"Carrier! What's this?"
"Oh, just a little something. Take it! When I saw them, I knew they had your name written all over them."
Zandra gave her one of those I-wish-you-wouldn't-have looks and accepted the bag and peeked inside it. She took out three boxes wrapped in white paper with red ribbon.
"Well? Open them!" Dina, finished scanning the restaurant, placed her chin on her hands and smiled with anticipation.
Carefully Zandra undid the ribbon of the smallest box and pulled away the wrapping paper. She eyed the tiny padded red box.
"Dina," she protested again.
Dina rolled her eyes in mock exasperation.
Slowly Zandra lifted the lid. She let out a little gasp. Nestled in a bed of white silk was an exquisite gold ladybug minibrooch in red and black enamel.
"Likee?"
"Yes, but—"
"No buts. I saw it when I got these. See?" Dina extended a limp wrist to show off her carved onyx bracelet, then fingered her matching necklace. "Now, do go on." She gestured with barely suppressed excitement. "Open the rest!"
Zandra dutifully unwrapped another box. It contained lady- bug earrings.
"Di-na!"
"Hush, sweetie. One more to go."
With a sigh, Zandra opened the longest of the three boxes. The breath caught in her throat. The bracelet, consisting of delicate gold links interspersed with enameled ladybugs, was the most exquisite piece of all.
"Gosh. I—I don't know what to say ... they're ... fab! Dina, you are a darling, but I couldn't possibly—I mean ... it's not even my birthday!"
"They're yours, and that's the end of it," Dina said with finality. "The subject is closed." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Look! There she goes already."
Zandra frowned. "There goes who?"
Dina tilted her head toward a bone-thin socialite who was leaving the room. She leaned across the table. "Haven't you ever noticed?" she whispered. "Really, sweetie! The way she runs back and forth to the ladies' room, I'd say it's time she stops taking laxatives!"
Zandra giggled. "Goodness, Dina ... is there anything you don't know about these people?" The salads arrived. "Oh, super. Thanks."
Dina continued to dispense gossip until the entrees arrived. The noise level had swelled by decibels; table-hopping had begun in earnest.
Suddenly, without warning, the dining room fell completely silent.
Dina, glancing beyond Zandra toward the door, murmured: "Goodness!" Her eyes had widened. "So that's who's getting the A table!"
Who ... ?
Zandra twisted around in her chair.
Karl-Heinz had just entered with Becky V, two members of a superior species seemingly indifferent to the sensation they created.
Zandra, mouth falling slightly open, felt a disturbing collision of emotions, and stared at him in surprise, her ears tuning out Dina's running, whispered commentary:
"... well, he would be accompanying her, wouldn't he ... I mean, considering all her titles and his ..."
Zandra's fingers tightened around her fork; brandished it in the air as if the piece of chicken were some freshly speared trophy. Curiously, time did the impossible: contracted—compacting the past three months, during which she'd neither seen nor heard from him, into a split millisecond.
Oh, dear God—Heinzie! What was it about him that made her go all weak—
The room blurred, as with fog, everything going shapeless and out of focus. In the silence, Zandra could hear her heart thundering like a piledriver.
And then the roar and clatter of the diners resumed. Her vision sharpened.
Oh, Lord, it can't be happening! she thought, guilt closing around her like a trap. I can't be falling for him. Christ, he's my bloody cousin—/
Her breast heaved, as if her lungs were struggling for air, and her heart continued to pound deafeningly, arrhythmically.
What is wrong with me? Why am I acting like some silly, infatuated schoolgirl?
"Zandra?"
His voice startled her, jerked her like the strings of a marionette.
"Zandra! Why don't you and your friend join us? Look, the table's laid for four. Zandra?"
She stared at him.
He stared at her.
Neither of them noticed Dina and Becky exchanging barely perceptible, knowing looks.
All they had eyes for was each other.
"Ms. Turner?" said Sheldon D. Fairey, popping his head in the door. "Emergency. A client's asked for an appraisal. Afraid she wants it done yesterday, which means this afternoon. Could you be so good ... ?"
Kenzie pulled a face. "It has to be today?"
"Afraid so. It's a special VIP case."
"All right." She nodded. "I'll take care of it personally."
"Good. I really appreciate it." He handed her a slip of paper. "Don't want to lose this one," he said. "Well, I have to dash. Lunch with a potential client. Huge collection."
And he was gone.
Kenzie stared at the slip of paper he had given her. Then slowly she unfolded it.
Suddenly she sat up straight, eyes bulging.
Certain she was imagining things, she shut her eyes, counted to ten, and looked at the note again.
Kenzie's years in New York might have jaded her, turning her into a cynic and a skeptic whom nothing, and no one, could impress. However, just when she had developed the blase indifference of the true cosmopolite, what should pop up but an exception.
She was floored—who wouldn't have been by the name Mr. Fairey had jotted above the address and the appointed time?
Lila Pons
447 E. 52nd St.
4:00 p.m.
Fabled legend of the silver screen, Lila Pons had been right up there alongside Dietrich and Garbo—and had become, if such a thing is indeed possible—even more reclusive than that most famous of all recluses, Garbo herself.
Lila Pons.
Kenzie sat there in stunned disbelief. Somehow, it felt unreal. Was it truly possible that she, of all the world's experts, should be chosen to appraise the Great Hermit's collection, perhaps even meeting the legend in person?
But there was the proof, right in her hand. In black and white. Lila Pons. "Jesus Christ," she whispered.
Zandra gulped the last of her coffee. "Sorry, darlings," she announced, putting down the cup. "Hate to eat and run, but I really have got to dash."
"Leaving already?" Karl-Heinz sounded disappointed.
"Afraid so, darling. Duty calls." Zandra scooted back her chair.
"Auction's next week, means work galore. And, with this Holbein fiasco, I'll be backlogged until God only knows when ... I mean, everybody, but simply everybody's, breathing down everybody else's neck. You wouldn't believe the stink. Honestly, you'd think they'd announced World War Three."
"Well," Dina murmured, "if you really have to be getting back, I suppose we can't keep you."
"I'm afraid there's no choice, darling. Things are in a bit of an uproar. You know how it goes. Starts at the top of the food chain and works its way down." Zandra smiled good-humoredly. "Look at it this way. At least it's not dull." She stood up and pulled her coat from the back of her chair.
Karl-Heinz rose also. "Perhaps you'll permit me to escort you?" he asked softly, taking her coat and helping her into it.
"Oh, gosh. Heinzie, shouldn't you stay and have a cordial or something?" she asked. "Really. It isn't necessary to escort me."
"I know, but I would like to." He glanced at Becky. "You do not mind?"
"Juste del, cheri." Becky gestured elegantly. "Don't be ridiculous. Off you go."
"I'll call you later," he told her. Then he took Dina's hand and raised it to his lips. "It has been a pleasure."
Dina preened. "The pleasure was all mine."
"Becky." Karl-Heinz gave a slight Prussian bow.
Becky's sculpted features did not alter as she blew him an almost imperceptible kiss. "A bientot, cheri."
Zandra leaned down and embraced Dina. "Marvelous lunch," she said. And, more softly: "But, darling, honestly ... you've simply got to stop with the gifts! Really. Not that they're unappreciated, but you're going to spoil me absolutely rotten. You know I'll love you forever anyway."
"Oh do stop, sweetie," Dina begged, although she looked pleased.
Zandra, smiling radiantly, turned to Becky. "It's been fab seeing you again!"
Becky smiled that famous Mona Lisa smile. "And you also, cherie."
Zandra tossed her scarf around her neck and shouldered her leather bag. "Well, toodle-oo you two!" She waggled her fingers and Karl-Heinz took her arm and guided her to the door.
Then they were gone.
"Alors." Becky, lifting her espresso, looked over the rim of the tiny cup with hooded eyes. "That went rather swimmingly, n'est-ce pas?"
"Yes," Dina agreed softly, "it did." She peered through the cafe curtains in time to catch Zandra and Karl-Heinz hurriedly jaywalking across Seventy-fifth Street. "You were right," she told Becky quietly. "They do make the most attractive couple."
"Oui." Becky sipped her espresso and put down the cup. "Alors. I believe the time has come for your little tete-a-tete with Monsieur Fairey."
Dina smiled. "About the weekend in the country."
"Oui. A week from this Friday would be perfect." Becky looked thoughtful and nodded slowly. "Quite perfect indeed ..."
Emotions collided inside her like a raging firestorm. Zandra couldn't remember when she'd felt so utterly powerless or vulnerable. She hated the sensation of helplessness, the inability to dominate her passions. Her reaction to Karl-Heinz had caught her completely off-guard.
On one level, the physical attraction he provoked was intoxicating, uncontrollable, energizing. That was the plus side.
On the negative, she found herself feeling tainted, shamed, repulsed.
He's my relative! she told herself grimly. Good Lord, what I'm fantasizing most likely amounts to incest—
Of course he was a distant enough relation for that not to be an issue. But, appalling as some people might find the notion, Zandra couldn't help wondering what an intimate relationship with him entailed.
Sliding him a brief, contemplative sideways glance, she thought: Sheer bliss, no doubt. Yes, sheer unadulterated bliss ...
Because Karl-Heinz was everything a woman could possibly want. Sleekly handsome, charismatic, holder of one of the world's oldest titles, and possessed of that aura of casual confidence which is the by-product of great wealth and power. He also looked younger than his forty years, and was thoughtful, amusing, and strong as the proverbial rock.
Heaven help me! she quailed inwardly. Why can't he have stayed at Mortimer's with Becky and Dina? Why did he have to insist upon coming along with me?
She was not aware of the traffic lights, or the clusters of lunchtime shoppers, or even the perilous fleets of speeding vehicles. The only thing of which she was conscious was Karl-Heinz's disturbing proximity.
Which explained why, at Seventy-third Street, she stepped off the curb without looking.
"Watch it!" Karl-Heinz yelled.
Grabbing her arm, he yanked her back to safety just as a taxi, horn blaring, went barreling past her.
"My God!" he gasped. "You were nearly run over! Zandra, you really must look where you are going!"
She raised her face and gave a jerky little nod. "Yes," she said hoarsely, obviously shaken by the close call.
"You are all right?" he asked, solicitously holding her by both arms and looking deep into her eyes. His touch was so electric, and his distress—instantly followed by immeasurable relief—so genuine, that she felt herself drowning in the depths of his eyes.
And it was then that she understood the true extent of what was happening.
There are men who are boy toys, men who are providers, still others who are protectors, and one in many millions who is the sum of them all. And he was one of the latter—she knew that in an unsettling flash of absolute, crystalline clarity.
His blue eyes, the color of gas flames, burned with a fierce intensity, and the wind lifted his thinning hair, which, Zandra noted with appreciation, he didn't try to comb over his receding hairline. Though handsome, slender, and perfectly groomed, he was no youthful Apollo, which was precisely the point. It was his very maturity which appealed. She'd had her share of vain young Adonises in her past.
The problem was pedigree.
Centuries of inbreeding had related her family and his. In the long- ago past, the adverse effects of genetics had been pretty much of a mystery, and the only requirements for noble marriages and propagation had been to forge political alliances, broaden sovereign powers, fortify and raise social positions, and multiply lands and immense fortunes. Among the ruling classes, marital matches had always boiled down to keeping power in the family.
Naturally, the by-product of all this inbreeding—hereditary disorders such as hemophilia, dementia, and birth defects, to name but a few—had cursed all the great ruling families of Europe.
In the last decade of the Second Millennium, though, the inherent problems of marrying one's kin were common knowledge. She had absolutely no desire to play procreative roulette. The very notion was unsavory, and fraught with potential disaster.
I'm not about to play with lives. Every child deserves a fighting chance.
The traffic lights changed, but she and Karl-Heinz remained immobile, an obstacle for the pedestrians surging in both directions. Despite the jostlings and occasional curses, neither of them moved.
He was still holding onto her arms. "We can cross now—safely," he said with a gentle smile.
Then he let go of her.
She nearly gasped, so unprepared was she for the sudden deprivation of his touch.
It was time to will herself to move. She knew that. Yet still she continued to stare at him, and despite January's freeze, a wave of incapacitating heat hit her like an accusation. She could feel the beads of moisture breaking out on her forehead. Leaving a glistening, telltale sheen, no doubt.
What is it with me? she wondered. Why am I staring at him so long? And how much more of a spectacle can I make of myself?
With a supreme effort, she managed to tear her eyes from his. Then, before her resolve could weaken, she got her feet working and mobilized herself, fleeing across the street—
—as if escape from one's emotions were that easy.
Karl-Heinz caught up with her and matched her brisk clacking stride. He hoped her need for silence was the result of introspection rather than a symptom of anger.
His breath sighed noisily. Whichever the reason, he wasn't exactly left with many choices. Two, to be exact. He could either drop behind and let her go on alone, or keep up, contenting himself with sliding furtive, inquisitive glances in her direction.
He chose the latter—not through arrogant confidence, but because her mere presence, however moody, put a shine on his day. His perseverance was rewarded by treasured little glimpses.
A burst of radiant sunshine lighting her head and illuminating her haze of billowing orange hair like that of some glorious pre-Raphaelite—a Rossetti maiden sprang to mind.
A gust of wind causing a streamer of corkscrew curls to flutter across her face, and the casual, automatic way she flicked them aside with her fingers—a simple reflex—somehow seemed special and appealed mightily; made him feel the overwhelming need to possess this astounding creature of thoroughbred lineage, devil-may-care elegance, and innate, unstudied sophistication. Most of all, he wished it were he who could reach out and gently, intimately, stroke aside the hair which the wind kept blowing in front of her face.
Why was it, he wondered, that she, of all women, should be the one to make him realize what he'd missed out on during decades of cutting a swath through life as a playboy? Good God, but she even made the prospect of domestication seem a pleasure to look forward to, rather than the tedious duty he'd always believed it to be!
Even so, the merciless disregard she showed him, dismissing his presence as if he didn't exist, lancinated his heart. He felt the sting of rejection as he hurried, in enforced, unnatural silence, alongside her. They might as well have been strangers, coincidental pedestrians sharing the same sidewalk, her proximity a mockery.
Finally, after they'd gone an entire block without speaking, he could take it no more. He had to shatter the invisible barrier separating them. If he didn't, he thought he would go mad.
His hand sought hers and, holding it tightly lest she escape, he stopped walking. She turned to him with huge reluctance.
"For God's sake, Zandra! What is the matter?"
She would not look at him. "What should be the matter?" she murmured, shrugging. Then she pried her hand loose and turned away, studiously perusing the hardware in the dusty window of a locksmith.
Standing beside her, Karl-Heinz thrust his hands into the pockets of his cashmere overcoat and studied her while she, as if with utter fascination, leaned into the flyblown glass and pretended to study the assortment of locks, doorknobs, window gates, and keys. They might have been a display of new spring dresses for all the attention she gave them.
He drew a deep breath. "Zandra," he pleaded. "Why won't you speak to me? Or is it too difficult to tell me what's wrong?"
"Wrong? What should be wrong?"
"I don't know," he said. "Why don't you tell me?"
"Maybe there's nothing to tell."
And abandoning her examination of the hardware, she hurried on, staring purposefully straight ahead. Her face closed. Making it clear the discussion was over.
On they rushed, her silence enforcing his, until they reached the faux- Renaissance palazzo where she worked, and high above which he lived.
Zandra felt a curious mixture of relief and heartache. Relief because she could finally flee Karl-Heinz's unsettling presence; heartache because, much as she longed for it, things could never—must never!—progress naturally between them as a man and a woman.
The awkward, oppressive sense of silence continued as they stood, buffeted by gusts of wind, under the flapping dove gray awning in front of the entrance. Neither of them seemed to know what to say. Zandra glanced longingly, almost edgily, toward the doorman and the giant etched-glass portals through which she'd make her escape.
But ingrained manners and protocol required that she bid Karl-Heinz farewell. And that meant looking him in the face.
She raised her eyes slowly.
Damn. She should have known. Those intense blue eyes of his were altogether too mesmeric, and conveyed entire unspoken words—desire, love, loyalty, need—all evident for her to see. She could feel her resolve weakening, her knees trembling and threatening to buckle. A lump rose in her throat.
You don't mess around with Mother Nature.
The silence grew. And grew.
It was Karl-Heinz who finally broke it. "I'm going to be in town for the next three or four weeks," he said.
She glanced desperately at the heroically scaled doors.
He took her hand in his. "I know you have to get back to work," he said. "But don't be a stranger. Okay?"
Zandra's nod was ambiguous, its two meanings cancelling each other: the first that his words registered, the second that she agreed. It was all a matter of interpretation.
But she knew she had to say something. They couldn't just part in silence.
She thought: He reaches too deep inside me. For both our sakes, I have to keep my distance. Somehow I must make certain we'll never see each other again.
Aloud, she said, "I'll be in touch."
The fiction was convenient and harmless; a necessary white lie. But her smile would have left Troy up ship's creek.
"See you," she added.
And she was like quicksilver. Here one moment and gone the next.