he called out as she emerged from the limousine. “Oh, please, Kim, listen to me, my heart is breaking!”
Hers was sinking, like a ton of cement. She was aware of Sam next to her, tall, silent, observing the spectacle. She didn’t need this. A clown was not part of the plan.
“Tony,” she said coldly. “This is enough, d’you hear? It’s not funny anymore. Will you please just stop it?”
He began to sob, big, noisy, wet clown sobs. The children cheered.
“She doesn’t love me!” he wailed between convulsions of grief. “I’m going to die of a broken heart!” The children laughed harder.
Kim took her key and pushed it into the lock, saying no more. She felt Sam behind her, knew he was wondering who Tony was. “Don’t pay any attention to him,” she said casually, loud enough for Tony to hear. “He’s my stalker.”
“Your stalker?”
They got into the elevator. “It’s the newest craze, haven’t you heard?” she asked breezily.
Sam frowned. “Who is this guy? What does he want?”
“I met him at a party three weeks ago, and he sort of trapped me in the corner of a room and bored me with endless self-involved stories about how he is misunderstood as an artist and an actor and how the world owes him respect and admiration. I found it a little hard to take, but I was trying to be nice and I tried to listen, and I think he thought I was…eh—”
“Charming?”
She made a face. “Something like that. I didn’t want to charm him at all. What I really wanted to do was to get away from him.”
“You’re not having a lot of success,” Sam said dryly. “So what else does he do besides play the clown?”
She shrugged carelessly. “Oh, harmless stuff. He sends me things—flowers, paintings, poems, love boat tickets. He leaves sappy messages on my answering machine, nothing dangerous. He’s basically a frustrated, out-of-work, aspiring actor in need of a cause.”
“And he sends you cruise tickets?”
“He has a rich daddy.”
The clanging elevator struggled its way to the top floor. She wondered what Sam was thinking of the rattling old contraption, what he would think of her rather unusual living quarters.
She’d spent the morning housecleaning, shopping for food and getting ready for Sam’s visit. Her plan was to cook something simple yet delicious, not wanting to overdo things by offering him something extravagantly expensive and ostentatious. Simple, yet elegant was the key. She’d made a cold sauce of olive oil, Gorgonzola, prosciutto, sun-dried tomatoes and garlic, to be tossed with hot pasta and lots of parsley and chopped walnuts. It was ready apart from cooking the fettuccini and assembling the salad. The washed greens were in the crisper, the lemon-ginger dressing was made.
She opened the door to the loft, looking forward to a nice evening, and stopped dead in her tracks. A man lay sprawled on her sofa, asleep—or dead, or in a coma, you couldn’t tell by the way he lay there—lifeless, motionless, his mouth slack, one arm dangling off the side.
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