After strong black coffee the following morning Rezia unpacked. Choosing a sleeveless beige linen dress she decided her priority was shopping for basic groceries. She found a store which sold all she needed in a nearby side street, then she decided to have breakfast in the nearest cafeteria. It was run by a family of cheerful, noisy Italians, and when they heard her accent they insisted she had to have pancakes and maple syrup.
'Just one, then,' Rezia agreed, and soon received a huge plate covered with a thick pancake. Light and fluffy as it was, she could manage less than a quarter, but they didn't seem offended.
Mama patted her own bulging stomach. 'No matter. Soon you have curves the boys admire, hey?'
All the way home she wondered whether she would meet the disturbing Klaus again. Back in the apartment she firmly thrust speculation about him away and set to work. She had a map of New York with the main museums and art galleries where she would be working ringed in red, and to her delight found that most of them were on Fifth Avenue, or just a couple of miles away in Greenwich Village. She spread out her notes and began to plan. Most of the portraits she was to photograph had been selected by the authors of the various articles in the book, but she had discretion to choose additional ones if they seemed appropriate. There were so many scattered in the hundreds of galleries, and new exhibitions all the time. She sighed with pleasurable anticipation. This was more like a feast than a job.
She was due at the A.P.P. office, near Carnegie Hall, by mid-afternoon. It was just south of the Park, and she would walk there. But first she would contact Sarah Mancini, a friend from college days who worked at The Frick Collection, and perhaps they could meet for lunch.
*
'Hi, Rezia, great to hear from you!' Sarah said when she finally got through to Sarah's office. 'Lunch? Sure. We can get something from a deli and eat it in the Park. Do you know how to find us? Twelve then, at the entrance here. See you.'
It was only a few blocks away. Rezia slung a large bag over her shoulder, with her notes and a small camera she used for her own snapshots, and strolled along Fifth Avenue, absorbing the atmosphere. It positively breathed affluence, with expensive stores and boutiques, apartment blocks which were, she was certain, as luxurious as her own behind their discreet facades. There were hundreds of taxis, and more huge stretch limousines within half a mile than she had ever seen in her entire life. Twice she thought she recognised movie stars stepping out of chauffeur driven cars and entering expensive boutiques. The people were a very mixed bunch, many dressed in the latest fashions, but also plenty of others, of all colours and races, who wore cheap clothes and looked unhealthily pale. New York, she decided, was probably the most varied city in the world. On the far side of the road the trees of Central Park, heavy with summer foliage, shady and inviting, provided relief from the hot and dusty urban landscape
The Frick Collection was on a corner of East 70, housed in an early nineteenth century mansion which had belonged to an industrialist. Rezia looked at it with interest. She would be working here for some time, particularly on Dutch paintings, and the Van Dykes and Gainsboroughs.
Sarah was waiting for her, and steered her swiftly to a delicatessen where she bought bowls of salad. Then they crossed to the Park and only a short distance into the trees found a seat in the shade of a huge tree. Sarah sank down with a sigh.
'Whew, it's so hot!' Rezia exclaimed. 'This is cool, though. And you can hardly hear the traffic. How come there's such a huge bit of open country in the middle of the city?'
'It looks like open country, but it was landscaped deliberately. Don't come here after dark, or even early in the morning. It can be dangerous unless there are plenty of people about.'
'I thought one of your Mayors had cleaned up New York?'
'He has, lots of extra cops, zero tolerance, and so on, but you still need to be sensible. How long are you staying?'
'As long as it takes, within reason. Probably a couple of months.'
'Great, then when I get back we can see a lot of each other.'
'Get back?' Rezia asked, dismayed. She'd looked forward to having Sarah's company.
'I'm off for a few days, just visiting an aunt in the Catskills, but it will be wonderful to get into the hills for a while.'
*
All too soon they had to part, and Rezia walked through the Park. She came towards the crowded district where the tall buildings rarely allowed glimpses of the sun to reach street level. It wasn't difficult to find the A.P.P. office and meet her contact, Frank Wilson, who had made appointments for her with various museum curators and gallery owners.
'A lot of the work will have to be done during opening hours, I'm afraid,' he said when he gave her the schedule he'd fixed up. 'I've organised early starts or closing day sessions where I could. I hope that's OK?'
'Of course, and this looks pretty comprehensive.'
'Here's a list of phone numbers, names of the people you'll need to see, or who'll be able to help. I've tried to combine the work so that you spend whole days in one place, but that means hopping about from one topic to another. Will that throw you?'
Rezia reassured him. 'I'd rather do that than have to keep going back over the same galleries. Some of these museums are huge, it will take me half an hour to get from one end to the other without stopping for photography.'
'Right then, have an early night. We're meeting at the Met at six in the morning, to show you round before the crowds arrive.'
Rezia had known Americans began the day early, but she blinked at this. Thank goodness she was living almost opposite to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
*
For several days Rezia was totally absorbed in her job, finding her way round New York, meeting curators and beginning her work at the Frick Collection and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Every day she blessed Gina that she didn't have to struggle with the crowds she saw emerging from the subways. Mrs O'Brien, a thin woman of forty with a broad Irish accent, told her where all the best neighbourhood grocery stores were, and Rezia cooked for herself. Apart from not wanting to run into Klaus, she couldn't afford to eat out much.
By the weekend she was feeling as though she'd imagined their first encounter. She'd seen no more of him, and half-believed he'd been a dream. Then on Saturday morning he knocked on her door.
'I knocked,' he greeted her, and she laughed at the virtuous expression on his face. 'I came to ask you to come to a party.'
'A party?'
'Yes. Mrs O'Brien, she cleans for me too, says you do nothing but work. I'm visiting my sister at the family summer house in Long Island, and you are invited.'
She knew she ought not to go, but she had been feeling lonely. She had few contacts with anyone but Frank Wilson, her boss at the A.P.P. New York office, and the curators of museums, and they had their work to do and were happy to leave her to get on with her own job. Sarah was away and she was tired of evenings on her own.
'Your sister?' she asked cautiously.
'And her husband and three children. You'll be well chaperoned. It's right on the shore and we can go sailing tomorrow. How about it?'
It was probably mad of her. If she saw too much of him she wouldn't be able to resist his attraction. But it would be wonderful to get out of the oven New York had become. 'Thanks. I'd like that.'
'Be ready in ten minutes then. Don't bother with smart clothes, just one party dress. We'll spend most of the time on the beach.'
*
She frowned at his back as he departed. She'd heard that before. If she took him at his word she'd be bound to discover his sister in a smart designer frock while all she had were scruffy shorts and sandals. She'd try to be prepared, take a good dress as well as casual clothes for the beach. The pale apple green with the midnight blue splashes, another of her mother's creations, simple but figure hugging, would be ideal. And she'd take her tiny camera, she promised herself. It was toy sized, but an excellent camera for taking snapshots, and she took every opportunity of recording the places she visited. She slipped it in her bag before she hastily packed the clothes she thought she might need for the weekend.
She was just ready, wearing white cotton jeans and a pale yellow patterned shirt, when Klaus reappeared. He wore grey, a blueish grey tee shirt which made his blue eyes seem more intense than she remembered. He was even more handsome than she recalled, with his firm straight nose, square, determined chin, and the most kissable lips she'd ever seen.
She suppressed these thoughts as they rode the elevator, and Klaus led the way to where a long, low convertible white Ferrari waited in the forecourt. Soon they were speeding along the expressway. Klaus mentioned casually that he had been away for a few days, but mainly he pointed out landmarks and told her of all the places she ought to visit in this part of New York.
'My house is about seventy miles away, on the north shore. That's roughly half way along. One day we can explore further, see the Hamptons and Sag harbour.'
'It's very crowded,' Rezia commented. She'd expected Long Island to be more rural.
'Too many people have discovered it, and it's easy to commute to Manhattan, so Queens and Brooklyn have spread in the past few decades. It's too expensive for most people to live downtown.'
The country grew more open, with many vineyards and more scattered settlements. Klaus left the expressway and travelled along smaller and smaller roads until finally he turned into a narrow dirt track which ended at his house set on a low cliff.
*
It was larger than Rezia had expected, since he'd described it as a holiday home. It sprawled over the uneven ground, and though meant to be single storey, there were the odd few steps between the different levels. At the side overlooking Long Island Sound the rooms were all on one level, and tall windows, all open to the wide terrace, stretched along the house. From a railing at the edge of the terrace the cliff dropped sheer for twenty feet into the sea, and the waves pounding onto the jumble of rocks below provided a constant, gentle background murmur. To both right and left were wide, white sandy beaches, and several small boats were pulled up onto the sand, or moored to buoys just offshore. In the far distance the mainland coast could just be seen through the haze.
Klaus's sister Johanna was lying in a hammock and greeted Rezia lazily.
'Come and join me,' she suggested. 'Or do you want to swim before we eat?'
'Yes, we do,' Klaus replied for her. 'I'll show you your room, Rezia.'
He led her through one of the sets of windows into a large, comfortable looking family room. The floor was highly polished, with sheepskin rugs, huge settees, and brightly patterned cushions. A large fireplace was laid with what looked like driftwood. They went along a corridor with doors opening both sides, and Klaus opened one near the end.
'Here it is, and the bathroom's through there.'
The room was spacious, beautifully cool, cream-painted. On the bed was a patchwork quilt in pale greens and browns, with the occasional dark brown contrasting section. Rezia thought how much her mother would appreciate the pattern. White filmy curtains billowed at the open windows, and the same material hung from a ring in the ceiling to frame the head of the bed.
'How lovely!' Rezia exclaimed.
'It owes some of its inspiration to Danish customs,' Klaus said. 'My grandfather emigrated from Denmark, but he insisted his family remained proud of their heritage. See you on the beach.'
Rezia was soon changed into a scarlet bikini, revelling in the coolness of the sea, and laughingly joining in a splashing contest with Klaus, his three young nephews, and their father, Felix.
*