“You oughtn’t to waste vintage wine on me,” he said, pulling out the cork.
“It’s no waste. I’m educating you.”
“To what?” he asked cautiously.
“To the better things of life,” Megan said, presenting her glass.
“Or the worse?”
“For better or worse? Exactly.”
It confirmed his fears.
She raised the wine to her lips. They were fleshy and glistened as they parted. They reminded Brook of a silk-covered mattress. Megan was altogether a silk-mattressy sort of girl. Her face was offbeat, with a chin a little too firm, eyes a little too big — pearl gray, set wide; her nose was turned up; there was a faint constellation of freckles across the bridge. A face that looked best, he thought, in a horizontal position. As did the rest of her. There was something Minoan about her — broad shoulders, full breasts, tiny waist. The ones who jumped over bulls. All these goodies she had wrapped in a housecoat that was more like a negligee, translucent and given to parting, like a pair of theater curtains at the beginning of a performance. That there would be a performance tonight Brook was very sure. It might be dangerous. Megan wasn’t the sort, once she had her hooks in, to let go.
So he proceeded warily, smiling. Behind her, through the picture window, in the semidistance, lay the glowing dome of the Capitol. Around him the apartment, which she had done in what was supposed to be Danish modern — the phrase always made him think of pastry — rose high over a bend in the Potomac. It made for a cunning illusion of privacy far above the madding crowd that was Washington.
“You can have your Scotch and — ugh! — soda later,” Megan said. “First you drink that wine.”
“It sounds like symbolism.”
“What’s wrong with symbolism?” She sipped again, and set her glass on the table. She had cleared it in a marvel of legerdemain after the remarkable dinner she had cooked in a kitchenette no bigger than a small sloop’s galley. Obvious point: to demonstrate her housewifely efficiency. No doubt, no doubt. “Do you realize how long we’ve been getting to tonight?”
“Weeks,” Peter Brook said, shifting in the chair.
“Months,” she said severely. “One excuse after another. First your operation. Then that long trip you had to take. After that the long trip I had to take. A senator’s secretary shouldn’t have to take long trips, but my senator’s from all the way across the country.”
“I know,” said Brook. “Nothing ever quite works out in Washington.” He ran his hand down his side. It was still a little rough over the space between the ribs where the Congolese sniper’s bullet had gone in. They had flown him back after the infection set in. There seemed no doubt that Megan would get to see the scar this evening, so he would have to invent a legend for it.
She was eying him with a frown. “Why you, I wonder?”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, you’re attractive enough in a Madison Avenue sort of way. You dance nicely, play a good bridge game, and you hold doors open for ladies. But when you come right down to it, Peter, we haven’t a lot in common.”
This is it, Mr. Brook thought, and put down his wine. The gambit called for the automatic countermove, and he made it. He began to loosen his tie. “We’ve hardly exhausted the possibilities, Miss Jones. Let’s get to it, shall we?”
“Pig,” Megan said. “A boor as well! It just goes to show.”
“Don’t you want it?” he asked, half relieved.
“Did I say that?”
“You said—”
“I say not yet,” Megan said. “Slow is the password for tonight, buddy.” The curtains parted on cue. He could only admire the art of the scenic designer.
“You’re not really romantic, Peter. Not like me, certainly. And another thing. You can’t sing. That’s unforgiveable. Ever hear of a girl of Welsh descent falling for a man who couldn’t sing?”
“Oh, there are a few cases on record,” Brook said. “Can Richard Burton sing? If so, I never heard of it. And I am too romantic. When I’m sailing my boat I’m Jean Lafitte and Captain Kidd and every other pirate that ever lived. When are you coming sailing with me, by the way?”
“Another of those things we don’t seem to get around to.”
“That’s Washington for you.”
“Then why don’t we get out of it? Why don’t we both?”
“I don’t know about you, but as for me, I guess I like my job.”
“And that’s another thing. Why don’t you ever talk about your job? Especially when you like it so much?”
“What’s to talk about? Can you communicate a color? I’m a research analyst. Sort of high-toned bookkeeper. You have to have the soul of a bookkeeper to appreciate it.”
“Come on, Peter, it must be more important than that.”
“That’s what we keep telling ourselves,” Brook said, laughing. This time he got out of the chair and turned out two lights. That left only the dim one in the corner. He went to the door of the kitchenette, “Shall I make you a Scotch and soda, too?”
There was only a slight pause before she said, “Yes.” She said it in a murmur, as if she had never scoffed at the concoction.
Moments later they were on the sofa with Brook’s arms around Megan. He was clutching her warm body and marveling how, without actually moving, it seemed to crawl with life.
This was always the dangerous time with girls like Jones. It was not that it placed him under the shotgun of Damocles; they were both adults who knew how to take care of themselves, and Megan wasn’t the sort to scheme out a permanent arrangement via pregnancy. The thing was, he found himself liking it and yearning for more. That way loomed the license bureau. And the license bureau could have no place in his life, not if he wanted to hang onto it. A wife and kids were out of the question.
Her lips had the impact of a steam iron; the little hairs on her skin rose to his touch like flowers. She nipped his ear. “And I can cook, too,” her warm breath said, “you know I can,” and she laughed. He laughed back immediately. Laughter during love was very nearly the best part of it, because it was the safety valve that kept things under control. Brook bent to his task.
And there was an anxious little buzz that stopped them cold.
“Damn!” Peter Brook said.
“That,” Megan murmured, pushing away, “is a goddam dirty trick.”
He was glaring at his wristwatch, which was still buzzing. He pressed the button and stopped it. “Never fails to go off at the wrong time. The guy who invented the alarm watch must have thought he was doing something great.”
Megan said, “He was probably descended from the Puritans.”
Brook reached for his drink. She watched him. After a while he said, “It does knock hell out of the mood, doesn’t it?”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” Megan murmured, the curtains parting again. “The other way is to have fun getting it back again.”
“Megan,” Brook said. When the buzzer sounded all things took a back seat, even sex. “How long have you known me?”
“Total time? Six months. Actual contact? About six-minutes.”
“I mean do you know me well enough to believe I have my moments?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“This is one of them. I want to take a walk. All of a sudden.”
“You want to what?”
“Walk in the night. Hard to explain. This damned alarm watch. Spoiled everything. I have to cool off and calm down before I can start again.”