Five Days in Paris(16)

They swam silently at opposite ends of the pool for a while, and then passed each other several times, as they both did laps, working earnestly to flee their private torments, and then as though by design they both stopped at the far end of the pool. They were out of breath, and not knowing what else to do, unable to take his eyes from her, Peter smiled at her, and then she smiled in answer. And then just as suddenly, she swam away again before he could speak to her or ask her any questions. He hadn't been planning to anyway, but he suspected that she was used to that, people who hounded her, or wanted to know things they had no right to ask her. He was surprised to see that she wasn't accompanied by a bodyguard, and he wondered if anyone even knew she was down here. It was almost as though they didn't pay any attention to her. When he had seen her with the senator, they hadn't looked at her, or spoken to her, and she seemed perfectly content to be in her own world, just as she was now, as she continued swimming.

She came up at the far end from Peter this time, and not really intending to, he began to swim slowly toward her. He had no idea what he would have done if she had spoken to him with any real interest. But he couldn't imagine her doing that anyway. She was someone one looked at, or was fascinated by, an icon of sorts, a mystery. She was not a real person. And as though to prove what he thought, just as he approached, she stepped gracefully out of the pool, and with one swift gesture, wrapped herself in a towel, and when he looked up again, she was gone. He had been right after all. She wasn't a woman, only a legend.

He went back to his own room shortly after that, and thought about calling Kate again. It was nearly seven o'clock in Connecticut by then, and she was probably at home, having dinner with Patrick, unless they were out with friends.

But the odd thing was that he really didn't want to talk to her. He didn't want to put up a front for her, or tell her things were fine, nor could he tell her what had happened with Suchard. He couldn't trust her not to tell her father, but not being able to say anything to her made him feel oddly isolated as he lay on his bed at the Ritz in Paris. It was a special kind of purgatory, in a place meant only to be Heaven. And he lay there, in the warm night air, feeling better than he had before, physically at least. The swim had helped. And seeing Olivia Thatcher again had fascinated him. She was so beautiful, yet so unreal, and everything about her made him somehow feel that she was desperately lonely. He wasn't sure what made him think that, if it was just what he had read about her, or what was real, or what she had conveyed to him with those brown velvet eyes that looked so full of secrets. It was impossible to tell from looking at her, all he knew was that seeing her made him want to reach out and touch her, like a rare butterfly, just to see if he could do it, and if she would survive it. But like most rare butterflies, he suspected that if he touched her, her wings would turn to powder.

He dreamt of rare butterflies after that, and a woman who kept peeking at him from behind trees, in a lush, tropical forest. He kept thinking that he was lost, and as he would panic and begin to scream, he would always see her, and she would lead him silently to safety. He wasn't entirely sure who the woman was, but he thought it was Olivia Thatcher.

And when he woke in the morning, he was still thinking of her. It was the oddest feeling, more of a delusion than a dream. Seeing her close to him all night, in his dream, had actually given him the feeling that he knew her.

The telephone rang then. It was Frank. It was four o'clock in the morning for him, in Paris it was ten, and he wanted to know how the meeting with Suchard went.

“How did you know I'd see him yesterday?” Peter asked, trying to wake up and gather his wits about him. His father-in-law got up at four in the morning every day. And by six-thirty or seven, he was in the office. Even now, within months of retirement, or so he said, he hadn't altered his routine by so much as a minute.

“I know you left Geneva at noon. I figured you wouldn't waste any time. What's the good news?” Frank sounded buoyant, and Peter remembered only too clearly the shock of everything Paul-Louis Suchard had told him.

“They haven't finished their tests, actually,” Peter said, sounding intentionally vague, and wishing that Frank hadn't called him. “I'm going to wait here for the next few days until they're finished.”

Frank laughed as he listened to him, and for once the sound of it grated on Peter's nerves. What in God's name was he going to tell him? “You can't leave your baby alone for a minute, can you, son?” But he understood. They had all invested so much in Vicotec, money as well as time, and in Peter's case, his life's dreams had gone into backing their new product. At least Suchard hadn't said it was dead, Peter thought to himself, as he sat up in bed. All he had said was that it had problems. Serious ones to be sure, but there was still hope for his dream child. “Well, enjoy yourself in Paris for a few days. We'll hold the fort for you here. There's nothing dramatic happening at the office. And tonight, I'm taking Katie to dinner at '21'. As long as she doesn't mind your cooling your heels there, then I think I can get by without you.”