The Bannerman Solution (The Bannerman Series) (11 page)

In conversation, he could discuss the music of
Brahms, Count Basie and Bruce Springsteen with equal ease. His range of interests included the French Impres
sionists, but not so much the Romantics such as Dela
croix, whose work Susan adored. He was a student of
European and American history, but seemed to have no
interest at all in American politics or current world
affairs. Revelation piled upon revelation. She might
have found so much sophistication intimidating had he
not been so offhand about his own acquired knowledge,
and had he not shown so much genuine interest in the
things that interested her. His passions included an
tique automobiles—it was his dream to own and restore
one—and the New York Giants football team, and, of
course, Alpine skiing. They did not as yet seem to in
clude Susan Lesko's body.

Not that she had any intention of leaping into bed
with him. She hadn't even intended to see quite so
much of him or any other man. But each time he called,
even when she had determined to spend some quiet
time alone, she found herself wanting to see him.

Her own intentions aside, she had presumed without
undue conceit that Paul would try to take her to bed as
soon as possible. By their second date, she'd allowed herself to imagine what he might be like. By the end of
their fifth date, alone in her bed, she found herself
fantasizing about him. He was great. Terrific. In her
fantasies he was warm, funny, affectionate, patient, con
siderate and excruciatingly sexy. In real life he was all
these things as well, except that at the end of each
evening he would glance at his watch and suggest, as
her father did, that she'd better get some sleep.

“Paul, can I ask you something?” They'd been seeing
each other for five weeks. It was now her second week
end with him in Westport. Except she didn't stay with
him in Westport. He had this perfectly lovely condo
minium at Beachside Common—they were there now,
with a fire going, the threat of snow outside, what could
be more romantic?—but he'd always take her back to
Allie's for the night.

“Beg pardon?” He was in the kitchen, mixing a
pitcher of hot spiced wine and setting out cheeses.

“I want to ask you something.”

“Sure.” He came in, setting the refreshments on the
rug by the fire.

“Are we friends?”

“I hope so.”

“Pals?”

“Absolutely.”

“Just two really good buddies, right?”

“Uh-oh.”

''Uh-oh, what?”

“I think I'm about to get hammered for not trying to
make love with you.”

“Never crossed my mind. But now that you bring it
up. . . .”

“Susan,” he squeezed one eye shut and looked at the
ceiling with the other as if he hoped to find the appro
priate response written there. “How about . . . I've
wanted you from the first moment I saw you at the
garage sale, which is the truth, and that I've dreamt about it every day since, which is also the truth.”

“How was I? Any good?”

“Susan. . . .”

“Sorry.”

“I suppose I've been waiting for the right moment. I
guess I didn't want to blow it by moving too quickly.”

“Oh.” The old right moment. Most men, she
thought, would probably feel that ta
k
ing a woman out
to dinner, then a show or gallery, then some late-night
dancing and getting her mildly blitzed would tend to set up the right moment. They'd danced long enough,
slow enough and close enough for her to conclude there
was plenty of
interest down there and for him to con
clude that she was probably not a transvestite.

“Want to know what the perfect moment would be?” he asked. “Not that I'd want to wait that long.”

“Halftime during the Super
B
owl?”

“Are you going to be a smart aleck or do you want
me to tell you?”

“Tell me. Not that I'm eager, of course. I know it can
be a mistake to rush into these things. If, for instance, you'd dropped your pants when I first saw you at that
garage sale. . . .”

“Susan, love. . . .”

”. . . I guess I would have thought you were the
pushy type and I. . . .”

“Okay,” he folded his arms, “I won't tell you. I'll just
go ahead and do it with Pia Zadora like I planned all
along.”

“I'll shut up now.” She clapped a hand over her
mouth.

He poured the wine and handed her a glass. “The perfect moment is about six weeks from today.”

Paul smiled at a barely audible “Oh, shit” coming
through Susan's fingers.

“The time,” he continued, “is about midnight next
January ninth. The place is in a private compartment
aboard the Orient Express somewhere between Paris
and Zurich.’’

Susan's eyes went blank. Her hand fell away.

“I'm in black tie,” he went on, pausing overlong to
sip his wine, “and you're wearing an evening dress;
black, low cut, it barely covers you from the waist up.
You're probably wearing some kind of flapper headband
with feathers in it because we'll have just left a dining car that looks exactly the way it did in 1928. . . . No,
that's not right.”

“No?” Perhaps she said “Oh?” Her mouth hung
slack and open.

“No, because right after the dining car we'd make
another stop in the bar car. Couldn't very well walk
right through. One after-dinner drink, champagne
seems right, as we listen to a few Cole Porter tunes
played on the black baby grand piano of the bar car.
Then we take the rest of the bottle with us, we lurch as
elegantly as possible back to our compartment. . . .
Pay attention, now.” He waved his hand over her eyes.
“We're almost at our big moment.”

Susan only blinked.

“I'm asking you to go with me.” He put his glass
down and took her hands. “Perhaps a couple of days in
London, then we board the Orient Express and take it
almost all the way to Klosters in Switzerland where I
have access to a small chalet. Then for the next three
weeks we ski our butts off.”

“Oh, wow.”

“Do you need time to think about it?”

“Oh, wow.”

“Not
Oh, wow.
Tickets to a Grateful Dead concert is
Oh, wow.
Making it to the ladies' room on time is
Oh,
wow.
Going to Switzerland by way of the Venice-Simplon Orient Express from London is ‘Oh, Paul, I'd love
to and I'm really sorry for giving you so much grief.’ ”

“Oh, wow.”

Paul let out a sigh and glanced at his watch.

“Paul?”

“Good girl. But you're still stuck on one-syllable
words.”

“Paul, old buddy?”

“Yes, pal?”

“If you look at that watch one more time and tell me
I'd better get some sleep I'm going to sock you right in
the mouth.”

He was almost everything she'd hoped he'd be. He
undressed her slowly. So slowly. For a full hour he ex
plored her body, probing for the nerves that made her
shudder and the nerves that made her gasp. And when
at last he entered her body, he had absolute control of it
and she felt as though she had none at all. She heaved
and lashed wildly as he thrust ever more deeply, his
lips and tongue finding still more nerve endings on her
neck and
shoulders. She heard growling sounds coming
from deep within her and she heard shouts as her taut
body went into mounting spasms and at last exploded
into flashes of colored light.

Afterward, after holding her a very long while, talk
ing to her, stroking her back and her hair, he offered her
a sip from the glass of wine she'd carried into his bed
room.

“You were yelling before,” he said to her. “Want to
know what you yelled?”

”Hmm. I'm not sure I do.”

“It wasn't anything terrible, exactly.”

“Oh, God. What?”

“You're getting warm.”

“Oh, wow? I gave you another Oh, wow?”

“More like ten of them.”

“Oh wow . . .
shit!”

“It's okay. You were wonderful all the same.”

“Me? You did all the good stuff. I just enjoyed the
ride.”

“If you think that was good, wait until you try it on
the Orient Express.”

“Really romantic, huh?”

“It is, but that's not it. All those cars were built in the
twenties. They still have their original springs.”

A grin spread across her face. “Up-and-down
bouncy, you mean?”

“You're beginning to get the picture.*’

“Oh, rats.” The grin turned to a frown.

“What's the matter?”

“We just blew your perfect moment.”

“Nope. Rehearsals don't count. Does that mean
you'll go with me?”

“The paper owes me two weeks' vacation. I'd have
to see about a third week.”

“Except for football games and white sales, nothing
much ever happens in January, anyway.”

“I'll tell my boss you said so.”

They made love again. Just as slowly as before, but
not as wildly. This time they talked and joked all the while. And afterward, Susan bathed him with warm,
moistened washcloths, intending to make love to him in
another way. She decided against it. Better to leave
something special for the train.

The
second time, and then the third, hours later when they woke
in each other's arms, were once again
all she could
have
hoped
for.
Almost
all.
There
was
a
thing
she’d
noticed
about
him
in
the
week
since
they’d
met
and
she n
oticed
i
t
now
in
the
way
he
made
love.
Paul
Bannerman
always
seemed
to
know
exactly
what
he
was
doing.
No
wasted
moves.
No
real
spontaneous
emotion
, at least so far. No
wackiness,
never
early,
never late.
It was
hard
to
imagine
Paul
ever
l
osing
him
self
in
lovemaking
the
way
she
sometimes
did.
Hard
to
imagine
him
ever
really
giggling,
or
shouting,
or
show
ing any
extreme
of
joy
or
sorrow.
I
t
was
hard
to
imagine
him angry.

They spent Thanksgiving at Tom and Allie
Gregory's. Susan had invited her father as well, but he
begged off, saying he'd promised to spend the day with
some of the Gallagher's crowd who had no such place to
go. She told him over the phone that she was thinking
about a January ski trip to Europe. He seemed genu
inely impressed. Even proud.

At first, Paul begged off as well. He spoke vaguely of
other commitments that he said he'd try to reshuffle. It
was only when he realized that her father would not be
there that his
other commitments
were resolved. Not
that she blamed him. It was still a bit soon to be meeting
family. And she'd known more than one young man whose interest in her diminished considerably after
spending an hour or two in friendly conversation with
Raymond Lesko. Oh, he was always pleasant enough.
But without actually threatening them in any way he
would manage to communicate that flossing with a
chain saw would be considerably less dangerous than
any libidinous lapse involving his daughter. Raymond
Lesko did more for male impotence than German mea
sles.

Still, it would have been interesting to see how Paul handled her father. The matador and the bull. Allie said
she could have sold tickets.