Short Story, Part 1
Harry told Allain to watch himself. “Excellent.” Allain took another delicious sip of French red wine of some sort, thinking Harry should be watching himself. With a war creeping toward France, England, and the rest of the continent, everyone should be watching-out, even if a tide of Germans was not yet goose stepping across the channel. French people lived thinking about storm clouds rising and crushing hope. Meanwhile, the government’s regiment of the blind dance merrily to the steps of heavenly bliss, enjoying parties with icy champagne.
Churchill seemed to have open eyes, God bless him, while others kept theirs pointed at the next party. But this was France and Churchill was across the water, and even their hope suffered.
Frank Howard learned it the hard way. Hard way? Stupid expression. Frank was just a common newspaper writer, who had passed some paper to another friend who worked in Mussolini‘s Italy. Frank and a friend both were no longer among the living. Probably, the work of Mussolini’s secret police. One never knows and never will.
Sure, why worry? The trouble with democratic countries was they don’t understand that words don’t count with those who only believe in power and would always want more, and ready to do everything to get it. Austria, Czechoslovakia and Albania ring any bells? Allain heard it ringing, with a storm flashing in his mind.
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Tired of France, he went back to England, staying in his usual hotel, sitting at the bar. Allain happened to see her for the first time after her divorce. Really her? The face was all too familiar. He bought her a drink.
“No,” Alice said. “Not divorced.” She paused a second. “Well not really.” A telltale lemon dress. Sparkling eyes, light brown locks. Anxious to be herself again. He sure remembered.
Very nice bar in Hotel Gossip, or at least he called it that, fronted on one of the many tangled streets in Mayfair.
Alice slowly picked up her drink, and gingerly took a sip of a delightfully chilled martini in a beautiful tulip glass. A touch of red lipstick on the rim also let everyone know she was here to be seen for a reason. Chit chat. But he liked the thought of “Not really.” Better yet, she looked at the bartender and raised a forefinger for a second Martini.
“You’re not drinking?” She politely stared and waited for a reason.
“I have a little brandy coming.” And soon it did, warmed and delicious. He held it up and made a toast to a long life of Brandies and Martinis.
Another woman approached and slid her nicely curved red dress bottom onto another close red leather barstool. Alice smiled, and evidently knew her. “Sharon, this is Allain, a friend from years back. And don’t worry, or maybe you should worry.”
“Oh my god, not another Frenchman, ready to sweep me off my feet and keep me there!” A touch of Italian came out, but just a touch, or maybe not.
“I do my best.” Allain gave a smile. “French from my mother, well Canadian French anyway. Father is a New York City American.”
“We’ll both offer another toast,” Alice said, taking another sip of her Martini. “Here’s to French men who aren’t.”
“Well damn, wait for me,” Sharon said as the barkeep settled a tall frosted gem of a gin and tonic with a slice of lemon on the rim.
Funny, seeing Alice in this hotel, and unusual for him to be holding back, for reasons that didn’t seem to fit. It was like tasting last week’s luscious sponge cake and finding the icing didn’t taste quite right. It made him want to take another look at the menu.
Hummm, maybe a slice of Sharon chiffon, with an icing of Roman patois? Sturdy body, interesting conversation. Her eyes caught his and seem to slide a ‘sure, why not’ his way. Oh, that dark hair!
Alice must have realized something was going on by the time the three of them were down to the last of their pitiful icebergs and forgotten toasts.
Sharon said it was time to call it a night, but as a gentleman, he suggested they should go to a wonderful Indian restaurant. He added a nice smile and a ‘bet you can’t wink’.
Sharon finished things up. “No Indian for me.” That inch of Italian again. “My husband is in our room, watching the kids.”
Of course. He should have known. He sliced open an obligatory smile from his list of obligatories, asking all about the kids. How many? “Two.”
“Boys or girls?”
“One of each. The boy is just five and the girl is eight.”
Then a quick by-by.
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Alice found a cab and a perfect Indian spot, wonderful food, an hour of chit chat and a delightful red wine to top it off.
Easy to know how much he didn’t relish hearing the tedious details of her wonderfully torrid divorce, but he did his best. Could have summed it up with He loved someone else.
Finally, she got around to saying what she really wanted, which included lying in a cosey bed, with breakfast served on a silver try, including steaming coffee.
End of Part 1
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