All That Glitters Page 8
* * *
—
The second house party was different, but just as much fun. There was a prosperous-looking older man there in his sixties, who had a girlfriend Coco’s age. He was British and she was Russian and was an interesting girl. She had been the mistress of a well-known Russian businessman, and had a four-year-old daughter by him. The rest of the guests were a good mix of people. Coco loved the life she was sharing with Nigel, and the people he was exposing her to. She was enjoying her job, and liked working for Leslie. She was getting an inside look at the magazine business, although she wasn’t doing anything important herself, but she liked the atmosphere and the people. Most of all, she was enjoying Nigel. When they came home from the second weekend, they sat kissing for a long time, and it was harder and harder to remain sensible. He looked at her seriously for a minute.
“Would you go away with me next weekend, Coco?”
“I think we just did.” She smiled at him.
“Not to a house party. Just with me, the two of us. I’d love to take you to Paris. It’s my favorite city in the world.”
“That sounds like a plot to seduce me,” she said, laughing.
“It is,” he admitted freely. “I don’t want to just fall into bed with you some night, although I would be thrilled if you did. Or get lucky at a house party, because we’d had too much to drink. I want to take you away and make love to you, to get us off on the right foot. Would you do that?” he asked, his eyes pleading with her.
She kissed him and nodded and then whispered, “Yes, I would.” There was something so touching about his request, this time she couldn’t resist him. And they’d known each other for a month and spent a lot of time together.
He was so excited, he looked like he was going to explode. He planned it all meticulously. They left early Friday evening on the Eurostar and arrived in Paris in glorious, warm, end-of-September weather, and took a cab to a small romantic hotel he knew on the Left Bank. They had dinner at Le Voltaire on the quai of the Seine that night, and walked along the river afterward, as the Bateaux Mouches glided by all lit up, full of tourists.
Then they went back to their room at the hotel, with a romantic four-poster bed covered in toile de Jouy fabric. He carefully undressed her like a work of art he had longed to possess since he first saw her. He made love to her tenderly, and they were both engulfed by the passion that had been growing for the last month, like a hurricane waiting to happen. The romantic little room was perfect for their first night of love. He looked at her in the moonlight and had tears in his eyes when he told her he loved her, and as she held him in her arms, she told him she loved him too, and meant it. They both had so much to give to each other. They made love again until the sun came up, and then they slept at last, in each other’s arms. They both felt as though they had come home at last.
* * *
—
When she woke up in the morning, Nigel was sitting on the bed, admiring her. He had brought her café au lait and croissants from downstairs and she smiled as she woke up.
“I must be dreaming,” she said happily.
“No, this is my dream, Coco. I’ve dreamt it all my life, and now you’re real.” It was like a fairy tale, for both of them. It was exactly what they wanted, and the place and time were perfect.
They walked past the Invalides that morning, and went to the Jeu de Paume, and then walked to the Petit Palais to see a visiting Renoir exhibit. Then they stood outside Notre Dame, looking at it with awe. It wasn’t repaired yet after the fire, and he spoke to her solemnly.
“Coco Martin, on this day I vow to love you forever.”
“I love you, Nigel,” she said softly in response. She was speaking of that moment, and made no promises for the future, because she no longer trusted the future, ever since her parents’ deaths. There was no forever. But she knew she loved him, and he believed her.
They did a little shopping after that, and went back to the hotel. He had bought a small sketch of Paris for her at one of the book stalls along the Seine as a souvenir of the time in Paris they would never forget. It was a perfect beginning for their relationship. They made love again before dinner, and ate at a small romantic restaurant, and then went back to their hotel room and made love again. He was an expert lover, but didn’t make it seem that way. His love for her was genuine, and so was their lovemaking.
They got up early the next day, and walked around the Left Bank, and at noon, with great regret, they took a cab to the train station, and took the train back to London, their hearts full of memories of the trip to Paris where their life together began.
* * *
—
Coco didn’t keep her relationship with Nigel a secret from Sam this time. She told him the day after they came back from Paris, and he was panicked. She sounded madly in love with him, and it was easy to see why. Nigel was doing everything right. It sounded like a movie or a fairy tale, but not like reality to Sam.
“Coco, wait! Slow down! Take it easy here. You’ve known the guy for a month. He takes you to parties at castles, introduces you to half of London, the fancy aristocratic half. It sounds like everyone he knows has a title, and now he takes you to Paris for a weekend, and sweeps you off your feet. Dracula would seem like Prince Charming in that scenario. He may be a wonderful guy, but let’s see a little real life here first. The ‘normal’ stuff, remember? You’ve got another exciting guy on your hands here. How does he act when he has a cold, or when you’re in a shit mood and pick a fight with him? I know you feel like a fairy princess right now. Who wouldn’t with a guy swearing to love you forever in front of Notre Dame? Shit, I would fall for him if he said that to me. I just don’t want you to make another mistake like Ed and get hurt. Slow down, and give it time.”
“I am. I’m not going anywhere.” It bothered her that Sam was so distrustful of him. She was certain that Nigel was real.
“You need to be sure there’s no ulterior motive behind this. Ed wanted to have a twenty-one-year-old sex toy. What is this guy after, if anything? You can’t forget that your father left you a hell of a lot of money. You need to be sure that’s not the draw here.” She was disappointed by Sam’s reaction. She was sure that there was no ulterior motive with Nigel. He just loved her.
“My boss has known him since they were kids, she went to school with his cousin. She says he’s a great guy. He doesn’t know I have money. He just thinks I’m a young girl working in London.”
“Don’t be so sure. You don’t look like a pauper. I’m sure the place you’re renting is more than a girl in your job could afford. And you’ve been places and done things that poor girls can’t. Trust me, he knows. He may not know how much you’ve inherited, but he’s figured out some of it. And it sounds like he loves the good life and admits he has no money. If he’s for real and not after anything, I will run you down the aisle, not walk you. Just give it time, and see what he does. You’ve got another highflyer here. Normal guys don’t take you to Paris to make love for the first time, or take you to castles for the weekend.”
“No, they lure you into the back of their car, and you get knocked up at sixteen,” she said, and he laughed.
“Well, not quite.” Despite her strong religious convictions, he had finally managed to have sex with Tamar on a night that her parents were in New Jersey with relatives, sitting shiva for a great-aunt who had died. She lived at home too, which gave them few opportunities, so they took what they could. He said he loved her, but was in no rush to do anything about it. Unlike Coco, whom he didn’t trust not to do something extreme now that her parents were gone and not there to reason with her and hold her back. Her father would have kept a close eye on her. And without them, she was desperate for stability in her life. Sam wasn’t convinced she was looking for it in the right places. Certainly not Ed, a married man in his fifties, cheating on his wife. And Nigel was a dark horse in t
he race. She didn’t know him well enough to judge him objectively after a month. Sam was sure her parents would have agreed, even though they had married young, but they had known each other for several years before they eloped. “I just want you to take it slow and be sure.”
“I am taking it slow. At least be happy for me that I’ve met a nice guy.”
“I am happy for you, if he turns out to be everything he appears to be. Right now, he’s a dazzler. That can be blinding. Like Ed.”
“This is nothing like Ed. He’s not married, and he’s not a liar.”
“That’s a good place to start,” he said, but Sam wasn’t convinced.
“How’s Tamar?” she asked to get the spotlight off her for a minute.
“Great. She got a promotion at the bank. She wants six kids, and a kosher home. I introduced her to my mother, now my mother thinks I should marry her immediately.” It sounded like a death sentence to Coco, and an end to his freedom. She was just as worried about him as he was about her. “I think I need to come over and meet this guy. I want to see him for myself,” Sam said seriously.
“Any excuse is good. I would love you to come over. Do you think your father will let you?”
“I’ll tell him I have to.” As her self-appointed guardian and big brother, he wanted to meet this guy and make his own decision about him. He could tell that Coco had stars in her eyes, and he didn’t blame her. “I’ll let you know if I can do it.”
True to his word, a week later Sam texted her that he’d be there in a week, for a four-day weekend. They would be closed for a holiday in New York, and he was stealing an extra day, and had gotten a cheap ticket. She couldn’t wait to see him, and told Nigel how much Sam meant to her. Nigel was spending every night at her house now, since Paris, and they were both loving it. They made love as soon as they got home from work. She made breakfast for him in the morning, and they cooked dinner together, or went out. As people met Coco, invitations for both of them began flooding in. He introduced her to so many people that she was suddenly sharing in his booming social life. She had to convince him to pick and choose. They couldn’t go to everything, although he would have liked to. She realized that he liked going out more than she did, but she never had a bad time when she was with him. He was easygoing and kind, and the people he knew were wonderful to her, and thrilled for him. They all told him how lucky he was to have found her. They made a perfect couple and he agreed. He was in heaven, and so was she.
* * *
—
When Sam came, Coco picked him up at the airport. She was taking two days off from work. She wanted to spend as much time with him as she could. Whatever the excuse, even his suspicions about Nigel, she was thrilled to see him. He had taken a late flight on Wednesday and arrived on Thursday morning. He had slept on the plane, so he wasn’t tired. After she picked him up at Heathrow, they went out, had lunch at a small Indian restaurant, and walked around the neighborhood. When Nigel came home from work, Sam was eager to meet him. Nigel had brought home a bottle of good malt whiskey, and a bottle of French wine. They were going to cook dinner at the house.
Coco could see that the two men were taking each other’s measure, and she left them alone to figure each other out. She loved both of them, and she knew Nigel could hold his own. She wasn’t worried, as she busied herself in the kitchen. They had opened the bottle of whiskey by the time she served dinner, and both men looked pleased and relaxed.
She had bought steaks, which she knew they would like. They were both hearty eaters. She had made string beans and mashed potatoes, and miraculously, it had all come out just right. With the French wine at dinner, it was the perfect meal.
Nigel talked about his job in answer to Sam’s questions, and Sam admitted that it was challenging working for his father and doing everything his way. He wasn’t enjoying it, but felt it was his duty to work in the family business with him, and his father’s distrust of any kind of technology made everything more complicated. Sam was trying to modernize the business, with tremendous resistance from his father. He said they argued about it every day. Looking at him, Coco realized that he looked stressed and not very happy. And his sister had finally just gotten engaged to her Irish Catholic boyfriend, and his mother was irate, so things were tense for him on the home front. He said his parents were pushing him about Tamar.
“You’re ten years younger than I am,” Nigel commented, as they ate Coco’s delicious dinner that she had prepared with the utmost care to get it right for the two men she loved. “Why are they pushing you to get married? At twenty-three, I was still raising hell, chasing barmaids and cocktail waitresses,” he said, and Sam laughed.
“It’s Orthodox tradition to get married young and have a lot of children, like Catholics. My father is more relaxed about it, but my mother is very religious, and definite about her point of view. My sister marrying a Catholic isn’t helping, and my other sister says she won’t get married until she’s thirty, if then. Knowing her, maybe never. My brother is the family scholar, so they think he’s a saint. Which leaves me, as the standard-bearer of all their hopes. I believe in doing things slowly, so I’m in no rush to get married.” He looked pointedly at Nigel, to get his message across, even if subliminally.
“At your age, I wasn’t either. At mine, you start to think about it, if you want kids.”
“Coco is younger than I am,” Sam said directly, and she looked mildly embarrassed. Sam was definitely acting like her big brother, even though he was only a year older. But she had no one else to look out for her interests, and she knew he meant well. “At twenty-two, she’s too young to have children.”
“I think when you meet the right person, it’s the right time,” Nigel said quietly. “The right one doesn’t come along ten times in a lifetime. It never has for me until now.”
“That might be true. But good things don’t happen in a hurry,” Sam said firmly. Nigel nodded and didn’t comment. “I think if it’s right, it can wait, for a while anyway.” There was a moment of silence after that, and then the conversation moved on to other things. On the whole, the two men in her life liked each other. Nigel insisted on brandy after dinner. By the time they all went to bed that night, Sam and Nigel had had a lot to drink.
Nigel had already left for work the next morning when Sam got up. Coco had taken that Friday off too, so she was waiting for him when Sam appeared in the kitchen squinting in the sunlight and she laughed.
“Oh God, I’m so hungover,” he said with a pained expression. “I forgot the way the Brits can drink. There was an English kid in my econ class at NYU who could drink anyone under the table. I think Nigel must be related to him. Coffee, quick, this is an emergency.” He looked better after he’d drunk it, had a piece of toast, and taken an aspirin. He still had a headache, but it was tolerable.
“So what do you think?” she asked him nervously. She wanted Sam to love Nigel too.
“I like him. He’s a good guy, and he’s obviously nuts about you. But you still don’t know him after so little time. Don’t go off half-cocked and do anything crazy.”
“I’m not going to,” she said firmly.
“I think he would, and he may try to talk you into it. I think you need to run a check on him. I’m worried about his finances. He talks about how poor he is. He may be exaggerating, but if he isn’t, his expectations of you may be excessive or unrealistic. Your father would have worried about that too.” That was always the key with her, what her father would have done, or thought, or disapproved of.
“He’s not marrying me for my money, Sam. He doesn’t know how much I have. And he hasn’t asked me to marry him. You’re jumping the gun here.” But he had hinted at it, and his intentions were obvious, although they seemed honorable. He kept hinting at marriage. And he said he wanted kids. Soon. So Sam was worried.
“Don’t be so innocent. People guess or talk, or know things.
He may have run a check on you. People do that. And they marry people for a lot less than you have. I don’t want that to happen to you. If you marry him at some point, you’ll need an airtight prenup. And you should get married in the States so it’s legally binding. You should do that with anyone. Don’t even think about it without a solid contract.” He really did sound like her father.
“He hasn’t asked me to marry him, so you have nothing to worry about.”
“I think he will. And so do you. The other thing that worries me is that he doesn’t have a career. He has a job, and one he hates. If he decides to stop working if you marry him, there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it. You need to think about this stuff, Coco, and get a sense of what his plans are, and his goals, and his values. How would he feel living off a rich wife? Would that be fine with him? You don’t want a dead weight around your neck, with a guy who doesn’t want to work. It happens, more often than you think. For him it may seem stupid to bother working with everything you have, once he realizes it. It sounds like he has no real interest in his career or any career. At his age, he should. You and I are just starting out. He’s ten or twelve years into his work life, at what should be the high point of his career, not the low point. Instead, he’s a low-level advertising guy and hates his job. That’s not good news for you. And you may be very good news for him. I don’t want to see that happen to you. You deserve better than that. He seems more like a play and party guy to me. He’s charming as hell, and he loves you, but you should have someone who contributes more than that. He wants kids, but how is he going to support them, and you?” She knew that her mother had lived on her father’s meager earnings when she’d married him, and worked herself. She wasn’t sure how ambitious Nigel was. He talked about people, and their social plans, and the house parties they were going to, not about work, or building anything for the future, or saving money. Sam was giving her good advice.