Stars (The Butterfly Trilogy) (49 page)

     "I haven't decided yet. How about you? Would you marry me, Judith?"

     "If I'm not busy that day."

     "I'm very rich. I have homes in Beverly Hills, Palm Beach, Manhattan, and Rome. I have my health, as you can see for yourself, and I'm reasonably presentable. And now very fit," he added, touching his flat abdomen. "It could be a fun life—"

     She laughed, then she grew serious. "I'm never going to marry again, Mr. Smith. I won't have any more children."

     "You mean you can't."

     "I mean I won't."

     "Well then," he said, falling silent and staring at her.

     Judith looked around the cluttered room, at the cards and letters, the baskets of fruit, the floral sprays with red ribbons that wished him well in gold glitter letters. There must be a thousand people represented here, she thought. More, she realized, when she saw a letter signed "All Our Prayers and Wishes, From the Town of Escondido."

     Judith tried to imagine Smith's life—the homes he had just mentioned, how elegant they must be. A man who had made fifty-four successful films and won two Oscars must be very rich and must have legions of fans and friends. What a glamorous existence, Judith thought, suddenly viewing her own life in a small, thin spotlight: the childhood in San Jose, followed by college and medical school, and then settling into a calm marriage to Mort in a small mountain community where the only famous person Judith had ever met was Miss Northern California Logging of 1979.

     "I've upset you," he said quietly.

     She looked at Smith. How many women's bedrooms, or desks, or lockers, she wondered, did his handsome features grace? How many female hearts had he stirred up, was he still capable of stirring up? A lot of the get well letters, she noticed, were written on feminine stationery.

     "No, you haven't upset me," she said. "I just have something on my mind."

     "You can tell me about it if you like. I'm an excellent listener."

     She looked into his deep blue eyes, which had the crinkles of age and wisdom around them, and then at his shoulders, which were still broad, his hands, which were firm and strong. Judith suddenly wished she weren't
his physician, but a woman who had the freedom to surrender to him. She wanted to be swept away by his dash, held and made love to in those inviting, masculine arms, and hear that capable Scottish baritone tell her that everything was going to be all right, that he would keep her safe, and that he loved her.

     Startled by her thoughts, and by the sudden realization that her cheeks felt unusually warm, she stood and said, "I must be going, I have other patients to see."

     He stood with her, with less effort than before, less evidence of pain. "Please have dinner with me tonight, Judith," he said.

     God, but she loved the way he said her name, bringing it up out of the ordinary and giving it an aristocratic luster, and sounding somehow also as if he liked saying it. She marveled at how straight backed he was, how tall. She thought of her ex-husband, Mort, who at forty-six was already showing signs of giving in to age and gravity—the paunch, the beginnings of shoulder stoop. Mort was the kind of semi-antisocial artist who populates alpine towns; he spent his days in his damp studio, hunched over lumps of raw clay or blocks of wood, creating marvelous sculptures that were going to endure and remain unchanged for eternity, while their creator grew stouter, shorter, smaller. Mr. Smith, on the other hand, was the embodiment of a lifetime of athletic accomplishment. Judith recalled seeing a photo of him in the
Los Angeles Times
two years ago, when he was sixty-seven, playing polo at a charity benefit.

     She would have loved more than anything to have dinner with him. But he was leaving Star's in three days. She would never see him again. Whatever attraction was growing between them could not be allowed to develop into something more. He had his glamorous life, his four homes, and plans to get married and father a child. There was no place in that sparkling picture for an ordinary, small-town doctor.

     "I'm not asking you out of loneliness, Judith," he said, standing close to her. "I would like you to have dinner with me because I enjoy your company. More than that, I want to reach inside you and draw out your sadness. Maybe heal you, in a way, the way you're helping to heal me. Please give me a chance."

     She was about to say yes when the phone rang, startling them both.

     "Pardon me," he said. It was his attorney, and as Smith started discussing the tabloid article over the phone, the terms of the lawsuit, Judith prepared to leave.

     Smith said, "Wait," and put the phone down.

     He removed a flame-colored rosebud from a Erté vase and came up to her. "So you'll think about me," he said quietly, slipping it into the lapel of her lab coat.

I
NGRID
L
IND HAD WATCHED THE TIGER GOD DANCE, AND THEN
she had brought him back to her hotel room where he made love to her. It had become Ingrid's tradition, at the end of every buying trip, to reward herself lavishly in Singapore, with food (remnants of a tandoori curry feast littered the tables of her suite); with jewelry (a buying spree had added rare black jade to her already vast collection); and finally, she rewarded herself with sex. The last time Ingrid was in Singapore, she had attended the festival of the Monkey God's birthday, and she had gone to bed with one of those celebrants, too—a wiry, copper-fleshed young Malaysian who had astonished her with his sexual gymnastics. The Tiger God, although not as creative in bed, had more endurance so that now, as the equatorial sun broke through her window, flooding her hotel room with stimulating light, Ingrid felt more contented and refreshed than she had in a long time.

     And that was why when the telephone rang, she decided not to answer it. She wanted to lounge in the rumpled sheets and relive some of the finer
moments she had spent with the Tiger God, who was deeply asleep at her side, his long black hair streaming across the pillow and almost down to the floor. Male dancers were by far the best lays in the world, she decided.

     Finally, unable to ignore the persistently ringing telephone, she picked it up. "Yes?" she said, brushing blond hair away from her face and fumbling on the night stand for a pack of cigarettes.

     "Ingrid," came the voice on the other end. "It's me, Alan."

     "Oh...hello, Alan." Wedging the earpiece into her neck, she pulled out a Gauloise, lit it with her gold-initialed Dunhill lighter, and blew smoke into the sunbeams that crossed her bed.

     Ingrid was staying at Raffles, one of the most luxurious and history-rich hotels in the world. One of the benefits of being a buyer for such a wealthy corporation as Starlite Industries, and one of the reasons Ingrid so liked her job, was the travel, which took her all over the globe as she searched for fabrics and fashions for Starlite's Perfect Size dress shops, from North Africa, where she picked up Moroccan turbans and headbands, to Egypt for cotton and linen, Pakistan for batik, and India for silk, until she ended here in Singapore, the import and export crossroads of Southeast Asia, where she rounded out the latest Perfect Size International line with such exotic accessories as reptile skin handbags, cloisonné jewelry, and human hair wigs.

     "What's up, Alan?" she asked, lying back into the pillows and blowing smoke up to the lazily turning ceiling fan. The morning was already warm. It was always warm in Singapore, where the temperature rarely fell below seventy, even at night, all year round.

     "I'm calling from Rio."

     "Oh," she said, "the Miranda International thing. I heard."

     "Listen, Philippa's back."

     "Yes, I know."

     "You know? How?"

     "So what's the problem?"

     "She's called an emergency board meeting three days from now, and she wants everyone there."

     "Sorry, I won't be back in time."

     "Well, I suggest you get back."

     "What's it all about?"

     "She's found a discrepancy in the accounting. A serious one."

     Ingrid frowned. "In my department?"

     "No. In foods. But get back here anyway. Pronto."

     She closed her eyes and silently said, "Screw you."

     The Tiger stirred at her side, inhaling deeply, stretching his long arms. Ingrid rolled over and, reaching down, took hold of him. He moaned softly.

     "Ingrid?" came Alan's impatient voice. "Is someone there with you?"

     "Yeah, a silk merchant! G'bye," she said with a laugh. As soon as she hung up she was suddenly engulfed in the Tiger God's arms.

     But, a minute later, Ingrid was telling her handsome god to go home. As much as she had tried not to let Alan's phone call unsettle her, it had.

     When the Malaysian dancer had gone, Ingrid went into the bathroom and stood for a long time under the cool shower, washing away the effects of last night's carousing on Arab Street in the Malay Quarter, where, with a group of Americans, she had watched a dazzling procession celebrating the virility of the Tiger God. The rowdy group had eaten vegetables on banana leaves and drunk authentic Singapore slings, and then Ingrid had brought the chief dancer back to her room at Raffles.

     Turning off the shower and wrapping her naturally blond hair in a plush towel, she slipped into a Malaysian sarong, which had been tailored for her from expensive hand-painted batik. Most of Ingrid's clothes were custom-made, because Ingrid Lind was a large woman—not fat, but statuesque, reaching a height of six feet one inch and weighing 180 pounds. Having had difficulties finding clothes to fit for most of her thirty-six years, Ingrid had developed an eye and a sharp sense for what looked good and felt comfortable on the larger woman, which was why she had been recruited by Hannah Scadudo seven years ago to work for the fashion division of Starlite Industries. Ingrid had been twenty-nine then, single, ambitious, and possessing many appetites, her three most voracious being for food, gemstones, and sex. Ingrid had looked over The Perfect Size stock and had declared that what was needed was more variety, something with an exotic flavor to distinguish Starlite fashion shops from the other larger-size clothing stores that were sprouting up all over. And so, with Ingrid's creative input,
Hannah Scadudo had created a new, more expensive line and called it Perfect Size International; it had turned out to be a hit. Bedouin-style caftans and Egyptian galabeyahs, accented with bulky jewelry, appealed to larger women who found the loose, flowing garments flattering and comfortable, as well as distinctive and rich looking. Ingrid's new costly fashions had been snapped up at once, making Perfect Size International a highly profitable line, and making Ingrid, after just a short time with Starlite, indispensable. Her fluency in several languages and her Scandinavian beauty had furthered her success, since Ingrid's travels took her mostly to dark-haired countries where blondes were unique and valued, especially among businessmen who were always eager to work deals with Ingrid. In Cairo, a wealthy Egyptian exporter named Ahmed Rasheed had once plucked a strand of her golden hair and paid her a hundred pounds for it.

     That was before she had invited him up to her suite at the Nile Hilton, where they had made love all through the night.

     Ingrid called room service and ordered oolong tea and a plate of fresh fruit, then she went to the window and parted the gauze curtains. Morning was breaking over Singapore Harbor, soft and opalescent, making the sky look like the underside of an oyster shell. Ingrid lit another cigarette and leaned against the window frame to survey the palm trees and exotic gardens that embraced the famous hundred-year-old hotel. When she saw a flash of red and green as a parrot flew by, she realized that she didn't want to leave this beautiful, peaceful place. She especially didn't want to give up Singapore's greatest gifts: the richest cuisine in the world; gold and silver and rubies and emeralds enough to appease even her; and finally, small, dark, sexually artistic men who appreciated statuesque blondes.

     But Alan's voice kept running through her mind like a corny song. She didn't like him ordering her around; he wasn't her boss. Only Philippa and Hannah had authority over Ingrid, and they, Ingrid thought smugly, could be handled.

     A hotel guest suddenly dived into the pool below, cleaving the blue-green water smoothly, his body skimming beneath the sparkling surface. Ingrid wished she could join him; she would have, if it hadn't been for Alan's phone call. Now that the working part of her trip was over and the new
fabrics were on their way to the U.S., Ingrid had looked forward to spending some time enjoying this Asian paradise. She had promised a wealthy Englishman, a banker, that she would fly to Kuala Lumpur with him today and explore the Batu Caves. And then there was Mr. Chang, owner of the famous Jade House, with whom she had planned an excursion to Brunei. He claimed to be a friend of the sultan. But now it seemed she had to change her plans.
All
of her plans, including the secret financial arrangements she was working on with the banker and Mr. Chang.