one day he would go on a dig. Carthage, first, for the professor.
On the last night before the schooner was to dock in Tahiti, Jeff was summoned to Louise Hollander’s stateroom. She was wearing a sheer silk robe.
‘You wanted to see me, ma’am?’
‘Are you a homosexual, Jeff?’
‘I don’t believe it’s any of your business, Miss Hollander, but the answer is no. What I am is choosy.’
Louise Hollander’s mouth tightened. ‘What kind of women do you like? Whores, I suppose.’
‘Sometimes,’ Jeff said agreeably. ‘Was there anything else Miss Hollander?’
‘Yes. I’m giving a dinner party tomorrow night. Would you like to come?’
Jeff looked at the woman for a long moment before he answered. ‘Why not?’
And that was the way it began.
Louise Hollander had had two husbands before she was twenty-one, and her lawyer had just made a settlement with her third husband when she met Jeff. The second night they were moored at the harbour in Papeete, and as the passengers and crew were going ashore, Jeff received another summons to Louise Hollander’s quarters. When Jeff arrived, she was dressed in a colourful silk pareu slit all the way up to the thigh.
‘I’m trying to get this off,’ she said. ‘I’m having a problem with the zipper.’
Jeff walked over and examined the costume. ‘It doesn’t have a zipper.’
She turned to face him, and smiled. ‘I know. That’s my problem.’
They made love on the deck, where the soft tropical air caressed their bodies like a blessing. Afterwards, they lay on their sides, facing each other. Jeff propped himself up on an elbow and looked down at Louise. ‘Your daddy’s not the sheriff, is he?’ Jeff asked.
She sat up in surprise. ‘What?’
‘You’re the first townie I ever made love to. Uncle Willie used to warn me that their daddies always turned out to be the sheriff.’
They were together every night after that. At first Louise’s friends were amused. He’s another one of Louise’s playthings, they thought. But when she informed them that she intended to marry Jeff, they were frantic.
‘For Christ’s sake, Louise, he’s a nothing. He worked in a carnival. My God, you might as well be marrying a stable hand. He’s handsome – granted. And he has a fab bod. But outside of sex, you have absolutely nothing in common, darling.’
‘Louise, Jeff’s for breakfast, not dinner.’
‘You have a social position to uphold.’
‘Frankly, angel, he just won’t fit in, will he?’
But nothing her friends said could dissuade Louise. Jeff was the most fascinating man she had ever met. She had found that men who were outstandingly handsome were either monumentally stupid or unbearably dull. Jeff was intelligent and amusing, and the combination was irresistible.
When Louise mentioned the subject of marriage to Jeff, he was as surprised as her friends had been.
‘Why marriage? You’ve already got my body. I can’t give you anything you don’t have.’
‘It’s very simple, Jeff. I love you. I want to share the rest of my life with you.’
Marriage had been an alien idea, and suddenly it no longer was. Beneath Louise Hollander’s worldly, sophisticated veneer, there was a vulnerable, lost little girl. She needs me, Jeff thought. The idea of a stable homelife and children was suddenly immensely appealing. It seemed to him that ever since he could remember, he had been running. It was time to stop.
They were married in the town hall in Tahiti three days later.
When they returned to New York, Jeff was summoned to the office of Scott Fogarty, Louise Hollander’s attorney, a small, frigid man, tight-lipped and probably, Jeff thought, tight-assed.
‘I have a paper here for you to sign,’ the attorney announced.
‘What kind of paper?’
‘It’s a release. It simply states that in the event of the dissolution of your marriage to Louise Hollander –’
‘Louise Stevens.’
‘– Louise Stevens, that you will not participate financially in any of her –’
Jeff felt the muscles of his jaw tightening. ‘Where do I sign?’
‘Don’t you want me to finish reading?’
‘No. I don’t think you get the point. I didn’t marry her for her fucking money.’
‘Really, Mr Stevens! I just –’
‘Do you want me to sign it or don’t you?’
The lawyer placed the paper in front of Jeff. He scrawled his signature and stormed out of the office. Louise’s limousine and driver were waiting for him downstairs. As Jeff climbed in, he had to laugh to himself. What the hell am I so pissed off about? I’ve been a con artist all my life, and when I go straight for the first time and someone thinks I’m out to take them, I behave like a fucking Sunday school teacher.
Louise took Jeff to the best tailor in Manhattan. ‘You’ll look fantastic in a dinner jacket,’ she coaxed. And he did. Before the second month of the marriage, five of Louise’s best friends had tried to seduce the attractive newcomer in their circle, but Jeff ignored them. He was determined to make this marriage work.
Budge Hollander, Louise’s brother, put Jeff up for membership in the exclusive New York Pilgrim Club, and Jeff was accepted. Budge was a beefy, middle-aged man who had obtained his sobriquet playing right tackle on the Harvard football team, where he got the reputation of being a player his opponents could not budge. He owned a shipping line, a banana plantation, cattle ranches, a meat-packing company, and more corporations than Jeff could count. Budge Hollander was not subtle in concealing his contempt for Jeff Stevens.
‘You’re really out of our class, aren’t you, old boy? But as long as you amuse Louise in bed, that will do nicely. I’m fond of my sister.’
It took every ounce of willpower for Jeff to control himself. I’m not married to this prick. I’m married to Louise.
The other members of the Pilgrim Club were equally obnoxious. They found Jeff terribly amusing. All of them dined at the club every noontime, and pleaded for Jeff to tell them stories about his ‘carnie days’, as they liked to call them. Perversely, Jeff made the stories more and more outrageous.
Jeff and Louise lived in a twenty-room townhouse filled with servants, on the East Side of Manhattan. Louise had estates in Long Island and the Bahamas, a villa in Sardinia, and a large apartment on Avenue Foch in Paris. Aside from the yacht, Louise owned a Maserati, a Rolls Corniche, a Lamborghini and a Daimler.
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