more about yourself. What are you doing, here at this house?’
‘Well – I am – his daughter. And he is an excellent painter. And I’m here to teach the boy to speak good English, I think. Though I don’t quite understand that because his mother seems to speak perfectly good English herself.’
‘Of course, because she was educated in England.’
‘She was? . . . Well. Well, then, I’m not certain. I’m also meant to keep company with Mrs de Saulles, apparently. Due to her being so far away from home, my father said. But she doesn’t much seem to want that and – apart from just now – I’ve not really even met her yet . . . I asked Mr Hademak several times this afternoon what my job here was meant to be – and all he can say is, I’m supposed to make them “giggle”, which isn’t something I’ve ever been particularly good at. But. Anyway, I have no idea what I’m doing here really, Mr Guglielmi. I wish I did . . . I’m a not-quite-guest,’ I added, ‘a bit like you’ – and immediately regretted it. ‘Only even more so, because they don’t seem to want me to do anything . . . Except stay out of sight.’
He laughed aloud at that. A wonderful laugh, it was – it still is: heartfelt, so warm, and so magically infectious. I heard myself laughing with him . . . And then, from the drawing room, the music reached us . . . just a silly ditty, it was. So silly.
You made me love you . . . I didn’t want to do it . . . You made me want you . . . And all the time you knew it . . . I guess you always knew it . . . I guess you always knew it . . .
I think I fell silent. He said, ‘You look worried.’ But I wasn’t worried! I was listening to the music, and the night creatures, and feeling the warm air on my skin. I could feel nothing but the music, the warm air – and his voice – and I longed for him to ask me to dance, and in my head the longing obscured everything. I was frightened he might ask me to dance and yet even more frightened that he would not, and that this moment would end without his arms around me, and he said, ‘It’s beautiful music, isn’t it?’
And it was!
You made me love you . . . I didn’t want to do it . . . You made me want you . . . And all the time you knew it . . .
‘Do you like to dance, Jenny?’
I told him I loved to dance. And whatever else it may have been, it was bold of me, I think, to dare to dance with him, after I had seen him dance with Miss Sawyer.
For once, I resisted the urge to babble. I was silent. Without any more words, he turned to me – and we danced. There on the veranda, by the light of the moon . . . I swear I never danced so well. I think, in his arms, it would have been impossible to dance badly – as if his grace were like his laughter: irresistibly, magically infectious . . . the most generous dancer, the most generous lover; the most generous man in the world.
. . . . Did I write that I hadn’t fallen in love with him that night? Did I write that?
How absurd!
And now I simply have to sleep.
Chapter 3
Hotel Continental New York
Saturday, 14 August 1926
Not so sure what to do with myself. Don’t want to sit, in case the dress creases. But it’s only seven o’clock. I have two hours to kill and – oh, hell, maybe I should change back into my chemise, just for a short while. But then I shall want to shower again, in this heat, and it was a long enough wait to get a turn in there the first time, and then suppose they ran out of water? Besides, it so happens I look just about as good at this particular instant as I have in my entire life.
The party’s too far to walk. Maybe I’ll take a taxicab, which means leaving at – what time? I mustn’t arrive before Rudy. They may not even let me in! But if I arrive too long after he does he may think I’m not coming at all.
I’m so goddamn nervous. I could have dined with him at the Colony tonight, and gone on with him to see the show. Why didn’t I? He said he’d come by and pick me up, and I know he wanted to.
He said, I can’t contemplate a whole evening without you . . . Only I couldn’t contemplate an evening of sharing him, I suppose; of dining with him and all the others whom I know he is obliged to be dining with tonight. I couldn’t have done it – as his date? I think not! As his newly engaged scenario writer? Perhaps . . . Except then I would have to sit there in my off-the-peg beautiful, beautiful dress, and my off-thepeg beautiful satin slippers, and smile sweetly, which isn’t my style, and they would all bawl at one another across the table about this and that, and whether Rudy and Pola intend to be here or there . . . I couldn’t quite have done it. I would have half shrunk into the floorboards, and that’s no way to keep a man’s interest, when he’s recently been voted the most desirable movie star in history . . .
The party tonight is in his honour, as parties he attends are prone to be, these days. I should have preferred not to go to that either, and to wait to see him tomorrow, when we can be alone again, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He said he would send his driver to fetch me. I said I didn’t know where I would be, and he said he would order his driver to search every corner of the city until he found me.
So I’ve said to the nice fat guy – the room clerk – at the front desk that when a driver and a big car arrives for me he is to send them right away again. The fat guy was dreadfully curious, needless to say, but I wouldn’t give him any more details.
I shall make my own way. When I’m good and calm and ready. That’s what I’ll do. Call a taxicab. Or something . . . Oh, God . . .
A cigarette!
And a cold shower.
The trouble with this new-fangled, fancy-pants typewriter, which I adore more than anything I ever had, except the dress – no, including the dress – the trouble with this beautiful machine is you can get the words out so fast that you wind up scribbling down any amount of hogwash. So. A little self-control is what I seem to be lacking. (Nothing new there, I guess.)
Two hours to kill until I see him, or slightly less now, and not enough running water in the joint for me to be sure of another cold shower. I wish I could sit still. I wish I could stop remembering his hands on me, his eyes on me, his tongue, his fingers, his kiss, his . . . Oh, I shall go crazy any minute. I shall go stark raving round the twist.
– – –
A long, deep breath . . . A slurp of magic, rancid moonshine from my little flask . . .
Much better.
This Is What I Did Today
On the Second Best Day of My Life By Lola Nightingale a.k.a. Jennifer Doyle a.k.a. Mrs Rudolph Valent— I’m getting ahead of myself.
– – –
So I slept for six hours straight and I swear I’ve not done that since God knows when. First, I didn’t sleep until the day was already begun and I could hear the autos honking and grinding outside, and my skin was already beginning to prickle with the morning heat. And then, finally, when I woke, half
