There's Something About St. Tropez (14 page)

“I just met this strange boy,” she said. “Pirate was curled up on his bed as though he belonged. His name is Bertrand Olivier. I told him we were going away and said if he liked he could take Pirate for walks.”

“Okay,” Mac said.

There was a knock at the door. Mac went to open it. Little Laureen stood there, still in the orange tutu of the day.

“Oh, hi, Little Laureen.” Sunny smiled, surprised.

“Hi.” Laureen stared down at her feet in their scuffed ballet slippers. “I know you're going to Paris,” she said, “and I wonder if you would please let me look after Tesoro.” She looked up, her usually blank eyes beseeching. “She could sleep on my bed,” she added quickly.

“Why, Laureen, I think that's a wonderful idea,” Sunny said. “Don't you, Mac?”

“Oh, sure,” Mac said, sounding doubtful.

“Now I know I won't need to worry about Tesoro,” Sunny said, hoping once again she was doing the right thing. “And I know she likes you, Laureen, because I saw she let you stroke her.”

“She knows I will look after her,” Laureen said solemnly. Then with a brief wave of her hand and a lingering look at the small dog, she flitted back up the corridor to her own room.

“I thought Billy and daughter were going to the beach,” Mac said, watching her go.

“Somehow I don't think Little Laureen is quite ready for the beaches of St. Tropez yet,” Sunny said thoughtfully. “Let's hope Tesoro will help bring her out of herself a bit.”

Mac sighed. Personally, he wasn't too optimistic about Tesoro's magical abilities with people.

 

17.

 

 

Sara Strange sat, shoulders drooping, on the edge of her bed gazing at the heap of shopping bags with names like Blanc Bleu, Cavalli, Erès, Sergio Rossi; names she had only ever seen in magazines. Belinda was taking a shower: “washing off all that fitting room sweat” was the way she had put it. She had told Sara they were going to the beach and that she was to wear the new Erès bikini.

“I've never worn a bikini before,” Sara had protested in the store when Belinda had forced her into the dressing room with half a dozen tiny garments to try on.

But Belinda had only laughed. “Aw, come on, even in Kansas they must wear bikinis,” she'd said. And then, when Sara was still struggling into the lavender-striped one, Belinda had peeked in and said, “Sara Strange where have you been hiding that body! The boyfriend definitely did not deserve it, you've been giving it away as a gift, girl.”

Blushing, Sara had said she didn't feel comfortable in the suit but Belinda had summoned the saleswoman and said they would take these two, plus the turquoise caftan and the white pareo.

“Belinda, I can't afford them,” Sara had wailed. “And I can't let you pay. Really, I just can't . . .”

“
I
am not paying.
The husband
is. And since he's about on par with the boyfriend, we're a team. Right, Sara Strange?”

Belinda had high-fived her. Sara wasn't quite certain how high-fiving worked and she'd been a bit clumsy about it, making Belinda laugh some more.

They'd bought shoes in Sergio Rossi and Belinda had kindly allowed
Sara to get the wedge heels instead of stilettos. They were toweringly high but at least she had a chance of being able to walk in them. And nothing sensible like black. These were apple green, kind of a snakeskin, and they tied in pretty bows round Sara's ankles that Belinda said were certainly skinny enough to be able to wear them.

They had “picked up” (Belinda's term for “bought”) a little Cavalli silk dress with ruffled puffy sleeves—“to hide your twiggy arms, m'dear”—and a sort of cardigan wrap in silk that draped at the front to go with it, and all the color of fresh apricots.

“Shouldn't we get green to match the shoes?” Sara had asked but Belinda had said firmly, “No ‘matchy-matchy.' ”

By then Sara was getting a teeny bit fed up with what Belinda said, and was wishing, like Dorothy in
The Wizard of Oz
, that she was back in Kansas. But then Judy Garland wouldn't have been traipsing every morning to a safe job at the hospital where she worked as head of admissions in the surgical center, stopping off first for her daily Starbucks—or at least she had until last year when she'd begun to save for the cruise. And now that she thought about it, why had her boyfriend
not
had to save for that cruise?

In fact, he had not seemed bothered by the cost at all. And he had not even bought her an engagement ring, simply told her they would get it when they could afford it. Oh, yeah, like when? Sara thought now.

In fact she was also wondering why Mr. Handsome-Smoothie-Charmer-Womanizer had bothered with her at all. Except of course, he had lived for free in her small one-bedroom apartment for a year, while he traveled “on business.” And “To save money to buy a house when we get married,” he'd said.

Now Sara was asking herself why women always found out too late that they were being used. In fact she'd seen less and less of the fiancé—all that “business” traveling—as the year progressed, and if she had not personally booked and paid for the cruise (he'd promised to repay her), she knew now he would not have gone with her.

“Fool!” she said out loud, agonized. “You fucking little fool.”

She had never in her life used the F-word before and she stopped, shocked.

“Did I just hear you say
fuck
?” Belinda stood at the bathroom door clad in a white bikini that was, Sara thought, even smaller than her own.

Belinda laughed and said, “Well, I guess that's what's known as progress.” She checked Sara. “We should have picked up a pair of beach sandals for you.”

“I have my flip-flops.”

“I'll bet you do, and all the way from Rexall drugstore for two dollars
and change. Lucky for you they're fashionable right now. Okay, so come on, get ready. We're off to the beach.”

Reluctantly, Sara picked up the two bikinis.

“The stripy one,” Belinda decided.

It was the one with the smallest triangle of a top, and Sara shuffled the thin fabric through her fingers, looking miserable.

“Don't worry, you'll be taking the top off anyway,” Belinda said.

With a shocked gasp, Sara retreated into the bathroom. She closed the door firmly behind her. She was
not
taking off her top.
Never. Not in this world
. Her mother would
kill
her. No! She would wear the turquoise caftan over the bikini and her big straw hat and pray that no one would so much as even look at her.

When Sara finally emerged, Belinda was waiting, tapping her gold-sandaled foot impatiently.

“Jesus, I thought you were getting ready for a ball.” Her sharp blue eyes appraised Sara, head to toe. “Pretty good,” she decided, nodding. “In fact a definite improvement. Right?”

“Right,” Sara admitted, though she still didn't quite believe it.

“Well then, let's go. We'll have a late lunch at the beach. We'll toast the husband in St. Tropez rosé. Or maybe champagne?” Belinda thought about it. “No, champagne can sometimes give you a headache in the sun. Rosé it is. After all,” she added, beaming at Sara and linking arms with her, “the old bugger's paying for it, isn't he?”

 

18.

 

 

Billy, hat still rammed over his eyes, was propping up the bar at Le Club 55, usually known as Le Cinquante-cinq.

“Another beer, Texas?” The barman held up a second bottle of Kronenbourg.

“Why not?” Billy agreed, smiling his big friendly smile.

It was impossible not to like Billy Bashford. He was so outgoing and easy and so curious to know about this, to him, new country and its people. He marveled at the crowded tables, shaded under swags of white canvas propped up by leafy tamarisk trees whose leaves fluttered in the gentle sea breeze. He was amazed that it was heading up to three o'clock and all these folks were still eating lunch and drinking wine like it was twelve noon. Hell, back home, they woulda been finished by twelve-thirty max. A quick sandwich, a beer and back to work.

Of course they were probably on vacation and slept real late, but Billy had had nothin' since that coffee and croissant at somewhere round eight that morning and boy, was his belly rumblin'.

“Think I could get me a table?” he asked the barkeep, who nodded and summoned the maître d', who in any case turned out to be the owner, and who said, Five minutes, Monsieur Texas, and you shall have your table.

That was okay with Billy. Or least it was until he spotted Belinda Lord making a grand entrance, trailed by the Strange girl hiding under a straw hat that was almost as big as his own. Sara looked different. She was wearing something pretty, though her twiggy arms and legs still made her look like the eternal waif, while Belinda had a white bikini under her gauzy see-through
caftan and it didn't take a connoisseur to know she had a great body. In fact Billy had never seen a woman quite like Belinda: gleaming, tanned, smooth as silk. Sure they had great-looking women in Dallas, not that he got there often because despite his wealth somehow he and Betsy had never moved in that glossy society league.

“Down-home folk” is what we are, Betsy had always said, and it was the truth. For Billy there was no place quite like his home, though sadly, with Betsy gone, it was not like “home” anymore. Now, its heartbeat was missing.

“Well, well, Billy Bashford.” Belinda slid onto the barstool next to him. Leaning toward him she deposited a quick kiss first on one cheek, then the other, then back again. “For your information, Billy, that's a true ‘French kiss,' ” she said with that grin that lit her face like a lamp on a dark night.

Blushing, Billy got quickly to his feet and offered Sara his seat. He was nervous around Belinda.

“No, no, please.” Sara hung back and Belinda said impatiently, “Oh for Christ's sake, Sara, you're like that ladies' companion in the old movie
Rebecca
, before she married Laurence Olivier and became Mrs. de Winter. You have to stop it. When a man offers you his seat you take it.” She thought for a moment then added, “Unless he's a complete stranger of course, then you'd have to suss him out first. No more trash, right?”

Sara slid meekly onto the barstool, still warm from Billy's ample behind. “Thank you,” she said to Billy.

“You're welcome, Sara. Now, what can I get you ladies? A martini? Champagne?”

“Let's order the Château Minuty rosé,” Belinda said. “It's always good. And since we're about to have lunch, why don't you join us, Billy?”

He beamed at her, delighted. “Well, thank you, I would be pleased to join you,” he said formally. “But lunch is on me.”

“No it's not. It's on the husband.” Belinda's voice was crisp and cold at the edges. “I'm spending as much of his money as I can while I still have the opportunity. After that I'll have to go to court to get any and believe me, it will not be easy. That bastard will threaten me, he'll scare the hell out of me, and probably try to kill me. But damn it, I've paid my dues, I'll get him where it hurts most.”

Sara's brown eyes bugged with shock. “Belinda, he won't really try to kill you? I mean not
really
. . .?”

“Oh yes he will. Of course I won't allow him to succeed, but I'm gonna have to watch my back, as you Texans say.” She gave Billy a little nudge in the ribs.

He grinned back at her, perplexed. “I don't think we're about to let that happen to you, ma'am,” he said solemnly. “Not with Mac Reilly and myself around, we're not.”

“Plus Nate Masterson,” Sara said, spotting him in the crowd.

“Oh my God, and in his bumblebee outfit.” Belinda laughed, watching Nate who was standing on the wooden boardwalk at the tree-lined entrance. He still had on his helmet though now with the goggles pushed up, and was wearing the tight yellow and black Lycra bicycle-rider shorts and shirt that gripped his body like a second skin. She had to admit though it did offer a girl a rather tempting glimpse of what lay beneath: hard and muscular and in fact very attractive.