Shimmers of Pearl (The Pearl Trilogy, Part 3) (3 page)

Finally, she breaks the silence. “I haven’t spoken to Alexandre for days - so you came to London all alone, Pearl?”

I swallow. A mélange of root beer and cinnamon swirl about my mouth. It tastes of America and I feel momentarily soothed. “Yes, I’m alone.”
Is she testing me?

“How is your wedding gown coming along? Is it finished yet?”

Oh God, what do I say?
“I’m not sure,” I hedge. And then I blurt out, “Do you know Laura?”

“Laura?”

“Alexandre’s—”

“I don’t see her anymore,” Sophie interrupts.

But when I was at Laura’s house Sophie called her and said that she was coming over!
“Do you phone her from time to time?” I ask, the conversation fresh in my mind; Laura chit-chatting in perfect French and telling me it was Sophie who’d called.

“No, not for ages.”

Oh. Strange. Someone’s hiding something. Laura? Sophie? Laura, probably.

I ask, “Do you like her?”

“No, but she was in a wheelchair so I had to be nice.”

“I see.”

“She’s been calling my bruzzer again?”

“They are seeing each other…a lot,” I mutter. I want to tell her about Laura, what she said – I want to spill all the beans but stop myself. I suddenly think of Alessandra’s warning once again…that carving knife… If I tittle-tattle on Laura she’ll tell Sophie about me and Alessandra. Actually, she might tell Sophie anyway…I’ll be in trouble, no matter what.

Then Sophie says with her mouth full, “You and me got off on wrong foot, Pearl. I’m sorry. We need to talk.”

My heart begins to race but I reply, “Yes we really do need to talk. I’m sorry, too, if I’ve been…” I trail off – I don’t know how to express myself – how much should I tell her?

“Zee last time I spoke to my bruzzer he tell me you know about me and
Stone Trooper
.”

Uh, oh, here we go.

“I guess you know why I got involved?” she asks narrowing her eyes (the way her brother sometimes does).

“Not completely,” I say, giving her an opening. I need to see which direction she’s going to take with this conversation.

“Alessandra.”

“Yes.”

This is beginning to sound like some enigmatic scene in a Harold Pinter play. How much longer can I beat around the bush?

“Alessandra is my girlfriend.”

I look down at my sneakers.”Yes, I know.”

“She tried to seduce you?”

I can feel my face burn like glowing coals, although I have been told by people I don’t go red. But I feel like I’m on fire. “Why do you ask?”

“Because it’s her nature…Italian. Flirt. I have a husband, you know – I can’t blame her for a little extracurricular activity.”

The carving knife comes to mind, yet again. “You don’t get jealous?”

“Yes, but I cannot have my cake and eat it too, you know?” Sophie looks at me and throws some more candy into her mouth. “Sorry, very rude, I eat zee whole packet. I get very greedy with this Jelly Belly. So if she flirts I’m not cross – I know you both spent a lot of time togezzer on zee script.”

“Alessandra thinks you’re very jealous,” I venture, my heart still hammering inside my chest.

“She loves drama. She likes zee idea zat I scream and shout, you know?”

“So if she did something with another woman you wouldn’t come after the other woman with a carving knife?”
Oops, I didn’t mean to be so blunt. Blunt about something so sharp.

Sophie bursts out laughing. “She tell you zat? No, Pearl. Only one time in my life did I come after someone wiz a carving knife and zat was my fazzer.”

I seize this rare opportunity to find out more – my Sherlock instinct piqued. “What happened to your father?”

“He’s around. He lives in Rio, I sink.”

“He’s
alive?
I thought he disappeared.”

“Yes, he disappeared - to Rio.” She’s staring out the car window now – I can’t judge the expression on her face.

“How d’you know he went to Rio?”

“A friend of Alexandre say she see him zaire one time.”

Interesting.
I change the subject. “So how long are you in London for, Sophie? How come you haven’t spoken to Alexandre? I thought you two spoke every day.”

“Not since I bought him out.”

“He sold you his shares in HookedUp?”

“You didn’t know zat? I buy but I cannot pay for it all in one go. HookedUp is worz so much money, you know? Even I cannot afford to buy in one go.”

We sit there in silence both licking our lips after our Jelly Belly binge. Then I exclaim, “Sophie, I may as well tell you…Alexandre has left me. He’s gone back to Laura. We haven’t seen each other for over two weeks.”

She stops chewing and her jaw drops open. I see a mélange of blues and yellows of the candy stuck on her perfect white teeth. Her usually flawless composure slumps into disbelief. Her eyes widen. She is genuinely shocked – this is not an act.

“I knew zat fucking beach was up to no good.”

It takes a beat for me to realize that ‘beach’ means bitch.

“I went to Laura’s house today. The reason I went was because…because she told me that you caused her accident, Sophie…that you wanted me dead…that you would have me killed… ‘topped off’—”

“
Merdre! Poutain!
You believe I would do zat?”

I drop my head in shame and a smart of pain shoots through me – I realize, too late, I have nipped my lower lip. Tears start spilling from my eyes, “I’m sorry, Sophie. I thought you hated me. Yes, I believed her – she was very convincing. I was going through a rough patch and well…I was vulnerable.”

Sophie, to my surprise, folds me in her arms and draws me close to her slim frame, hugging me like a long lost friend. Her gesture makes me shake with unbidden emotion.

I made Alexandre sell his share of HookedUp to her, and I caused him, through my nagging and suspicion, to run back to Laura. I dug my own grave. I have nobody to blame but myself.

I spill out my woes and tell Sophie the whole story, omitting only the kinky stuff with Alessandra – I come clean about everything else. She apologizes, too, tells me that she is sorry for having slipped into the
Stone Trooper
deal without warning me.

Finally she cries out in anger, “Anyway, I don’t believe Laura for a second. Alexandre is crazy about you. Zaire is no way he start fucking zat skinny gold-digger beach again. No, Pearl, he loves you too much – why would he go for hamburger when he has steak at home?”

Alexandre once said that to me. I try to smile but I feel so raw inside. Raw like the steak I’m supposedly meant to be. I tell Sophie, “Laura says they’re getting married.”

“You know sumsing about that skinny, asparagus beach? She’s a good liar.”

I wipe my face with my coat sleeve. Asparagus must be the French equivalent to bean-pole. Normally I would be laughing but none of this is funny. I reply, “Laura had me fooled, that’s for sure. But she could be telling the truth. Alexandre was there at her house, I saw him – it looks as if he’s moved in with her.”

“You spoke to him?”

“No, I just missed him. And whenever I’ve called his cell, his voicemail always picks up.”

“You leave zis to me, Pearl. Sumzing is not right. He loves you – he is crazy about you. I know my bruzzer, believe me.”

I burst out crying again. Something about having Sophie on my side when I thought she was my arch enemy stirs my deepest sentiments.

She takes her arms away from my shoulders and says, “We have arrived.”

I look up from my blurry-eyed vision and see that we are in the heart of Hampstead Village, crawling along a beautiful tree-lined street where houses are like country mansions. Sophie fishes her cell phone from her purse and calls her friend.

“I get out here, Pearl. My driver, he takes you wherever you want to go and he picks me up later. We speak tomorrow, no?”

“Thank you, Sophie.”

“It’s normal,” she says with a smile as she eases her graceful way out of the limousine. And then she turns and fixes her eyes on my face as if she is studying me. “I’m sorry, Pearl for zee names I called you once.”

“It’s water under the bridge.”

Water under the bridge
. It brings a memory to mind - when I was a little girl playing Pooh-Sticks with my brother, John; throwing the stick off the bridge upstream and rushing to the other side to catch the stick bobbing along the foamy water. The memory makes my eyes prickle again.
Get a grip, Pearl, stop the
waterworks already.

“Bye, Sophie. Thanks so much for lending me your driver.”

“What time is your flight?”

“About ten twenty, I think.”

“Who are you flying wiz?”

“American Airlines.”

“Bon voyage, Pearl – see you in New York. Soon.”

***

Sophie must have called the airport because when I board the plane I find I have been upgraded to First Class. The irony is not lost on me. Finally, she and I have a chance to be friends – she is making so much effort - but our friendship has come too late.

I mull over everything that Laura said about her and envision Laura clicking her slim fingers and the hot, passionate embrace that she and Alexandre must have shared, knowing that their relationship was back on course. A rush of jealousy floods through me and for a moment I feel the urge to plot some kind of Sicilian revenge on her, but then I sink back into my plush airplane seat and appreciate the fact that she knew Alexandre first. She must feel she has priority, and however strongly I feel about him is neither here nor there. It is Laura he has chosen, not me.

Traveling First Class reminds me of how my life would have continued had I been the wife of a billionaire. That word, ‘billionaire’ sounds ridiculous – out of my league – even out of Alexandre’s league because he’s just a young guy in T- shirt and jeans who likes to surf and rock climb. But he
is
a billionaire – that’s who he is - and Laura is claiming him for her own because of it. His wealth is letting our love down. I think of the tree house option in Thailand and wish I had snapped it up there and then; away from Laura and her treacherous, gold-digging claws.

Alexandre doesn’t love me, it’s clear. He doesn’t even pick up the phone anymore.

It is over. I will just have to go back to how things were before – back to The Desert. Because the only person I want is him. I cannot even imagine kissing anyone else, let alone sex.

I stretch back on my comfortable seat and close my eyes. I can feel his touch; the way he strokes my inner thigh, brushing his finger lightly against my panties which are always soaked by the time we make love because he waits until I’m begging him – screaming for him. He is always rock hard, even when he just kisses me, even when all he does is look at me.
Stop, Pearl! Stop torturing yourself!

“Would you like a beverage, ma’am?” I look up from my reverie and a pretty flight attendant is looking at me sweetly.

“Yes, please. Bring me a Bloody Mary with extra horseradish and one of your best Russian Vodkas – you choose.”

“Certainly.”

Perhaps I can drown my sorrows, one last time, before I land in New York and start my life afresh. I have already arranged things with Daisy. She and Amy will be moving in with me. I’ll be back working on documentaries and back to being the self-sufficient woman I was before.

Life happens when you’re busy making plans.
So true.

I
fumble with my new apartment key, already impressed with the grand lobby and its plush décor below. I’m feeling really nervous now. It seems a lifetime away when I last spoke to Alexandre in the back yard of my brother’s apartment in San Francisco. Here I am now, standing by the door of one of the ‘fuck-off’ farewell gifts – part of his guilt package that had him running back to Laura and brushing me off with money to ease his guilt.

Then my mind gets working…no…would that be possible? Would it have been possible that he wanted Laura back, all along, and they were in it together – that he knew about her telling me that Sophie was out to kill me? He knew that would have made me run for the hills…a sure way of getting me out of the picture….

To my amazement, the door swings open, before me, and I nearly jump out of my skin. I tumble into the open gap and a pair of muscular arms catches my fall. My apartment being broken into, already, and I haven’t even started living here yet? My heart is racing and I yelp at the surprise of a stranger in my new building. I trip forward in a double stumble and dare to look up at my adversary. I expect a masked robber in a balaclava but instead, I see a pair of peridot-green eyes that are inches away from my face.

“Alexandre.”

“Pearl, baby.”

My stomach is flipping and folding in on itself. I fall headlong into him, gasping with desire, lust, happiness and relief. But then my inner voice warns: L.A.U.R.A.

He loves another woman.
Be careful, Pearl.

He’s holding me now, tightly in his arms as he tilts my head up to kiss me. Tears are in his eyes. “Jesus, I’ve missed you. I can’t live without you, Pearl. I need you. I’ve been climbing the walls.”

I try to push him away. “Get off me! What are you playing at? You’re with Laura now. Leave me alone, Alexandre. Why are you torturing me?”

He grabs me in his embrace, again, and presses his lips to mine. His eyes are hungry, roaming and boring into me, the green flickering like the color of lit brandy aflame. “What are you talking about? I’m not with Laura.” He breathes sex into my mouth.

I turn my head to the side and hiss, “Don’t screw with my head, Alexandre! I saw you enter Laura’s front door today. You fucked her in the middle of the afternoon. You took her a gift in a big box. You’re living with her. You’re going to marry her – she said so!” The words come out in screeches and squeals. I must be waking up the whole building – not the best start to my new life here in this apartment.

To my horror, Alexander says nothing, just shakes his head as if in disbelief. I step back away from him and observe a huge bulge in his jeans and a look of libidinous need in his eyes. Laura was right, he’s ‘in lust’ with me. He loves her and wants to be with her but he wants to ‘fuck’ me. His hand cups his crotch as if to adjust his massive, uncontrollable weapon – a weapon that wants to claim me and posses me. He’s wearing one of his hand-tailored, made-to-measure suits. I wonder if the Savile Row tailor instinctively knows he needs to give extra space in that area – room for Alexandre’s ‘weapon’ to flex and maneover itself.