Dating Game (32 page)

“Was I right?” he asked her in the car, grinning happily as he drove her to the office. “He's great, isn't he?” He was practically in love with him himself, but he also looked a little like Steven.

“Totally,” Paris agreed, but she didn't wax poetic about him, and she didn't offer further comment.

“So?” He could see that something was wrong. “What aren't you saying to me?” Bix asked, curious about her silence, and she seemed to be thinking about it herself.

“I don't know. I know this sounds crazy, and you'll think I'm nuts. He's incredibly nice, looks great, he's obviously smart. I like his house. But I don't feel any chemistry for him. Nothing. He doesn't appeal to me or turn me on. I have no vibes at all. If anything, I think he's boring.”

“Shit,” Bixby said, looking heartbroken. “I finally find you a good one and you don't want him.” But he knew himself that if there was no chemistry, there was nothing. And why and when there was, was impossible to explain, but it was crucial.

“It must be me. I just don't feel anything. If I met him at a party, I think I'd probably walk right by him. Just nothing.”

“Well, so much for that,” Bix said, looking disappointed. “Are you sure? You decided that very quickly.” But chemistry was a quick decision. They both knew you either felt it with someone, or you didn't.

“Absolutely. I'm not sure I want anyone anymore. I'm perfectly comfortable the way I am.”

“That's when the good ones always come. At least that's what they say. When you don't give a damn anymore, they flock to you like flies to honey. God, if that guy were gay and I was alone, I would leap on him.”

“I'm sure he'd be happy to hear it,” Paris said, laughing. “I don't think he's gay, by the way. He's just not for me, and I don't think he felt anything for me either. No electricity, no contact.”

“Well, back to the drawing board,” Bix said cheerfully. He had tried, and Paris was grateful to him for it.

“I think you can put the drawing board away. For now anyway. I think I'm burnt out on men.” He could see why. Her little episode with Jim Thompson that summer had really disappointed her. The one thing Paris didn't need was another rejection, and Bix didn't want that for her. She'd had enough heartache for one lifetime.

They went back to the office after that, and got to work. They worked their way through their October events, and it was early October when she and Bix were sitting in his office working out the last details of an October wedding. The bride was French, and her parents were bringing in a photographer from Paris. But other than that, they were using all their usual resources, and so far everything had gone smoothly. The bride looked like a little porcelain doll. And the dress had been made by Balmain in Paris. It was going to be the social event of the season, possibly the decade.

“Do we need to book a room for the photographer?” Paris asked, checking her notes.

“I already took care of it. He's staying at the Sir Francis Drake. I got a good rate. He's bringing two assistants. He's coming out before the wedding, to do family portraits.” There were also at least a dozen relatives, and twice as many social friends, many of them titled, coming in from Europe. They were all booked into the Ritz. All the last details were set. And the only last-minute hitch was that the van they had rented for the photographer had to be picked up in the city, and not at the airport.

“He can take a cab,” Bix said. The flight was due in an hour.

“I can pick him up,” Paris volunteered. “He may not speak English, and all we need is some spoiled-brat French photographer having a tantrum at the airport and kicking our ass for it later. I have time this afternoon. I'll do it.” She looked at her watch, and knew she had to leave in a few minutes.

“Are you sure?” She had better things to do, and Bix hated to use her as a chauffeur. But everything was in good order, and she liked to make sure that every last detail and loose end was tied up, even if she had to do it herself.

She left for the airport five minutes later, in her station wagon, and hoped she'd have enough room for their equipment. If not, they could put one of the assistants in a taxi, but at least the photographer himself would feel that they had paid him sufficient homage. She knew how the French were. Or photographers, at least. And it was a nice break to drive to the airport. It was a crisp October day, and San Francisco had never looked better.

She parked her car at the airport, and went to wait while the passengers made their way through customs after an eleven-hour flight that had just landed from Paris. She assumed she would recognize them by their equipment. The photographer's name was Jean-Pierre Belmont. She had seen his work in
French Vogue
, but hadn't a clue what he looked like. She kept her eyes peeled for people carrying cases that looked like photographic equipment. And finally she saw them. There were three of them, a distinguished older man with gray hair, carrying two enormous silver cases, and two younger ones, one of whom had bright red hair and looked about fourteen and another barely older with spiky black hair, an impish smile, and a diamond earring. The younger two were wearing leather jackets and jeans, and the older man wore a proper topcoat and a muffler. And Paris rapidly approached them.

“Hello,” she said with a broad smile. “I'm Paris Armstrong, from Bixby Mason. Mr. Belmont?” she said to the older man, and she heard a burst of laughter behind her, and the boy with the red hair chuckled. The older man looked uncomfortable and shook his head. It was obvious that he didn't speak a word of English.

“You are looking for Monsieur Belmont?” the imp with the spiky hair and diamond earring asked her. He seemed to be the only one who spoke English, though with a heavy accent.

“Yes, I am,” she said politely. She was wearing slacks and a pea coat and the spiky-haired imp was barely taller than she was. But she saw as she talked to him that he was probably a little older than she'd guessed. She had figured him for about eighteen or twenty, and seeing him at close range, she guessed him to be Meg's age. “Is that he?” She indicated the older man again without pointing directly at him. He had to be. He was the only obvious grown-up in the threesome.

“
Non
, ” the imp said, and she wondered if she had mistaken the entire group and they were playing with her. If so, she had missed the right crew completely, and had no idea where they were now. “It is me, Monsieur Belmont,” he said with a look of vast amusement. “Your name is Paris? Like the city?” She nodded, relieved at least to have found them, although it was hard to believe that this boy was Jean-Pierre Belmont, who was a considerably well-known photographer in Paris. “Paris is a man's name,” he corrected her. “He was a Greek god in mythology,” he said with interest.

“I know. It's a long story.” She was not going to explain to him, with subtitles, that she had been conceived on her parents' honeymoon in Paris. “Do you have all your bags?” she asked him pleasantly, still trying to figure out who was who. But if he was Belmont, the other two were obviously his assistants, although one of them looked old enough to be his father.

“We have everything,” he said in heavily accented but coherent English. “We have very little bag, only cameras,” he explained and pointed, and she nodded. There was something vastly charming about him. She wasn't sure if it was the accent or the hair or the earring, or maybe the smile. She kept wanting to laugh every time she looked at him. And the red-headed boy looked like a baby, and was in fact Jean-Pierre's nineteen-year-old cousin. Belmont himself was thirty-two, Paris discovered later, but looked nowhere near it. His whole demeanor and style was that of someone infinitely younger. He was the personification of charming, outrageous youth and totally Parisian.

She told him she would be back in a minute with the car, and left the three of them with a porter, and five minutes later she was back, and the two assistants and the photographer himself proceeded to pack her station wagon with such speed and precision that it looked like some kind of puzzle. And moments later he was in the passenger seat, the two others were behind them, and they were on their way to the city.

“We go to the hotel or to see the bride girl now?” he asked clearly.

“I think they're expecting you a little later. I thought you'd like to go to the hotel first, rest, eat, shower, and get ready.” She said it carefully and clearly as he nodded, and seemed very interested in his surroundings. He spoke to her again a few minutes later.

“What do you do? You are secretary… assistant… to the bride mother?”

“No, I plan the wedding. Bixby Mason. Flowers, music, decoration. We hire all the people to do the wedding.” He nodded, having understood what her function was in the scheme of things. He was quick and alert, and extremely lively. And as he looked out the window, he lit a Gauloise,
papier mais
, with bright yellow paper made from corn, and a pungent smell like no other filled her station wagon.

“Ees okay?” he asked politely after it was lit, remembering that Americans weren't nearly as amenable to smoking, but Paris nodded.

“It's okay. I used to smoke a long time ago. It smells nice.”

“Merci,”
he said perfunctorily, and then chatted with the others. Although she spoke a little French, she had no idea what they were saying. They spoke far too quickly. And then he turned to her again. “Ees a good wedding? Beautiful dress?… Good?”

“Very good,” she reassured him. “Beautiful girl, beautiful dress. Handsome groom. Beautiful party. It is at the Legion of Honor Museum. Seven hundred people.” The Delacroix family controlled an enormous French textile industry and had moved to San Francisco during the Socialist regime, and then stayed there, to protect their fortune from French taxes. But they still spent as much time in France as they could get away with.

“Big money, yes?” he inquired, and Paris smiled and nodded.

“Very big money.” She didn't tell him, but they were spending two and a half million dollars on the wedding. More than respectable, to say the least.

She drove him to the hotel without further ceremony, and arranged at the hotel desk for someone to pick up their van and deliver it to them. All they had to do was show their driver's licenses and sign the papers. She handed Jean-Pierre Belmont a map of the city, and showed him on the map where they had to be at six o'clock.

“Will you be okay?” she asked, as he blew a cloud of smoke in her face inadvertently, and someone at the desk asked him to put it out. He found an ashtray full of sand a few steps away, and came back to Paris at the desk. “Call me if you need anything,” she said, and handed him her card. He was going to be doing portraits of the family and the bride.

He relayed everything to the others then, waved at her, and they disappeared into the elevator to find their rooms, as Paris went back outside to her car. Being around Jean-Pierre was like being in a whirlwind, with arms waving everywhere, hands gesticulating, clouds of smoke, and snatches of conversation with the others that she didn't understand. There were lots of exclamations, facial expressions, and through it all he never seemed to stop moving with his big brown eyes and spiky hair. He looked like one of Meg's friends, except everything about him was so French. And at the same time, although he looked young, he seemed very much in command. She could still smell his corn-wrapped cigarettes when she got back in her car and drove back to the office, to pick up her messages and a last file.

Bix was still there, and he looked up when she came in. “Everything go okay?” She nodded, glancing at her messages. Everything was on track for that night.

“Fine,” she reported, and then told him about Jean-Pierre Belmont. “He looks about twelve. Well, not quite, but close.”

“I figured he'd be older than that,” Bix said, looking surprised, and she nodded.

“So did I. He's very French. Too bad Meg has a boyfriend, he'd be fun for her.” But she wasn't sorry really that Meg had Richard. He was so wonderful to her. They'd been dating for almost three months, and Meg was ecstatically happy.

Bix and Paris were both at the Delacroix house that night, overseeing a family dinner for thirty people, as people started arriving from France. And Paris stood in a back corner to watch the portraits being done. Ariane Delacroix looked exquisite when she posed in her wedding dress, which no one else saw. The bride looked like a tiny fairy princess, and laughed when she saw Jean-Pierre smile his outrageously contagious smile. When he caught sight of Paris, he winked at her, and then went back to work, as his assistants alternated cameras, and changed film for him. He took several family portraits. And when the bride went upstairs to change into a dinner dress, to pose for a photograph with her mother, he stopped for a minute to talk to her.

“Would you like a photograph?” he asked Paris formally, since no one else was around, and she shook her head quickly. It would have been terribly unprofessional, and she would never have done that.

“No, no, thanks.” She smiled.

“Beautiful eyes,” he said, pointing to her green eyes.

“Thank you,” she said, and as he looked at her, she could almost feel an electric current run through her. It was exactly the opposite of what she had felt, or hadn't felt, for Malcolm Ford. She couldn't even talk to this man, and he looked about half her age, but everything about him was masculine and electric, and he had a visceral effect on her. She could never have explained it, nor wanted to. There was nothing gentle or subtle or cautious about him. Everything about him was bright and vibrant and bold, from his brilliant eyes to his spiky hair, to the diamond in his ear. And when the bride and her mother came back, he went back to work again and Paris disappeared. But she felt almost shaken as she left the room, as though she had touched something and gotten a severe electric shock.

“You okay?” Bix asked as she walked by. He thought she had an odd look on her face.

“Yes, I am,” she said, and they met again once the family and guests had gone into the dining room, and Jean-Pierre and his crew were leaving too. He smiled at her, and she had never had such a flirtatious look from any man. And certainly not one her own age.