A maître d’ comes to seat us a moment later and greets Maya like an old friend, so of course we get an excellent table by a window with a magnificent view of the city and Grand Canal. Venice is romantic and I wish Ian were here with me to enjoy it. With that thought I shake my head: I’m getting too attached to him way too soon. I have to stop it. Plus, right now he’d be lousy company since he’s fit to be tied.
“I told Lucien Phillips that I’d be done with my engagements by late next week and that I could meet with him in Paris. Apparently that wasn’t good enough for him?”
Maya St. Sauveur is not the type of woman to cross. She is nearly six feet tall, thin but not painfully so, and has such an erect carriage that she must have been a dancer at one time. She wears her light brown hair in a loose chignon and is dressed all in black, slacks, sweater, and flat loafers—elegant but formidable. I’d much rather be her friend than foe.
“I do apologize if this taping is inconvenient for you, Ms. St. Sauveur. Am I pronouncing your name correctly?”
“Yes, your pronunciation is fine. And no, it’s not inconvenient, per se. It’s just that that man irritates me. I’m doing him a favor, not the reverse, and yet he’s quite demanding nonetheless.” She assesses me slowly before continuing and I feel myself wilt beneath her sharp gaze. “Be careful with Phillips, Ms. Strong. He wants what he wants when he wants it. He’ll run ramshod all over you.”
“Are we talking about the same man? Lucien has been unfailingly polite in my dealings with him thus far.”
“Oh, really? Perhaps it’s just me he annoys with his impatience and exactitude. I am not a woman with whom to trifle, and Monsieur Phillips doesn’t appear to comprehend this factoid.”
I begin to get a slightly uneasy feeling about Lucien: first, Ian, now Maya. I dismissed Ian’s instincts as jealousy automatically because he seems to overreact to any men having any dealing with me. Maya, however, does not seem the type to rush to judgment so I put more stock in her opinion—which is weird because I don’t know her at all. My instincts tell me Lucien is a nice guy—and I like him just fine, so far. I hope my instincts prevail.
Dinner is excellent and I end up having an interesting chat with Maya—as she instructed me to call her. She’s had a fascinating multicultural life and she could be the subject of a film herself. We decide to meet in her suite at eleven the next morning and I walk back to my own hotel two hours later, enjoying the stroll in such a beautiful city. Along the way, I pass a bent old woman, dressed all in black, feeding a group of stray dogs. There are six or seven skinny mongrel waifs and they’re surrounding her as she hands out food. I can’t help but smile because the scene seems straight out of a Fellini film, many of which I watched in my undergrad cinema class.
The canal waters are shimmering with reflected lights and I watch as the vaporetto slides into a dock to unload its passengers. Tomorrow I’ll go to the Bridge of Sighs and Piazza San Marco to feed pigeons. I’m actually thrilled to be here in Venice.
It’s almost eleven when I get to my room—that means three in the afternoon in Portland. Time to call Ian. I muster the courage to look at my messages: none. Uh-oh. I call voice mail: there’s one from my mother and another from Lucien, asking me to call him to give him an update.
None from the man in Portland. A cold, slithery worm of anxiety works its way up my spine. What’s going on with him?
Lucien gets a quick text message to let him know that Gerard and I have arrived and that we’re meeting with Maya in the morning at her hotel. I grab a bottle of Drambuie from the minibar to fortify myself for my call to Ian. By the time I reach the bottom, I feel warm and courageous. I punch in his number on the speed dial.
The call goes to voicemail.
I start to feel ill: he hasn’t called nor left any message and now he’s not taking my calls. What exactly is he trying to tell me? My first instinct is to cry—I don’t know why but I feel as if I should, as if I’ve lost him before I ever really had him. Did I do wrong? Wasn’t he being unreasonable? This job does mean something to me, after all. Shouldn’t he support me in my career ambitions? I would certainly do the same for him.
But maybe I pushed him too far too soon. Though it seems incredulous for a man of Ian’s looks and stature in society, he is incredibly jealous, possessive, insecure… and crazy. I need to take all of that into account when making decisions. And Lucien has been imposing on me all at once, I suppose, if I try to see it from Ian’s perspective. My head starts to hurt from all this thinking I’m doing.