Sailing to Capri Read Free

nothing. My lobster bisque and his duck confit arrived. Sir Robert ordered a bottle of white Bordeaux from the sommelier. We ate in silence for several long minutes. The soup was heaven.
    “So what’s your name?” he said finally, putting down his knife and fork.
    I gaped at him, stunned. I was having dinner with a man who didn’t even know my name!
    “Daisy Keane,” I said quickly.
    “Daisy? What kind of name is that to inflict on a kid?”
    “My mother had a sort of gardening mania. She named her three daughters Daisy, Lavender and Violet. It was a case of wishful thinking because our front door opened right onto a paved Chicago street. Not a meadow in sight.”
    The sommelier poured a little wine into Sir Robert’s glass. He tasted it and approved. The glasses were filled.
    “Try it,” he said. So I did. It was delicious.
    “Sort of like new mown grass on a summer day,” I said.
    “In keeping with your name, wouldn’t you say?” He grinned at me, and his wide flat face lit with a spirit I hadn’t seen earlier.
    “I know you’re supposed to drink red with beef,” he said, “but this wine happens to be a favorite. And besides, you’re eating chicken.”
    By now I was, and I was practically humming with pleasure. “This is the best chicken I ever tasted,” I said, but Sir Robert was already attacking his roast beef. There is no other way to describe the way he ate. He was like a man with his last meal, intent on savoring every morsel. In his massive hands the silverware appeared smaller than life-size and his enjoyment had smoothed the scowl from his face. There was more than a faint resemblance to Shrek here, I thought.
    “So what exactly are you doing here in London, anyway?” he asked suddenly.
    “I told you, I work for an American magazine.” Oh my God, the lies came so easily it was scary. Until now I’d been honest all my life. Yeah, and look where that got you, a cold little voice whispered in my head.
    “Hah! You’re no more a gossip columnist than I am. They’rea breed apart, recognizable at fifty paces at any party. And none of them ever looked like you.”
    My hackles rose. I put my knife and fork carefully onto my plate. “Oh? And exactly how do I look then?” I prepared mentally for his attack.
    “Like a woman who got lost somewhere along the way.”
    He completely took the wind out of my sails. Was my past written so clearly on my face, like scars after a bad accident?
    “Don’t worry,” he said, in a softer voice. “I’ve been there too, at the bottom of the emotional heap. Oh, I know, looking at me, reading about me in the papers, you’d never think this brash, common, ugly old bastard had feelings. But … I’m a man …”
    I was silent. I didn’t know what to say to this total stranger.
    “Well?” He was looking at me, brows raised, awaiting an answer. I glanced down at my fingers, twisted together like hightension wires. Here was my opportunity to tell my story, but I couldn’t. It was too humiliating. I shook my head. I could not confess my plight to this man. I just could
not.
    He summoned the waiter and ordered coffee. The bottle of wine, only half-drunk, sat unwanted in its bath of ice in a silver bucket. The spark had gone from the evening. I suddenly remembered his dog. Worried, I asked if Rats might need to go for a walk.
    “They’ll have seen to that,” he said. “But thank you for thinking about him.”
    I shrugged. At least I understood his love for his dog.
    He signaled the waiter for the bill. When it came, he pushed it across the table at me. “A deal is a deal, right?”
    Oh God, I’d forgotten that he’d said I should pay. I’d been living on cereal and cheese sandwiches for two weeks. If I paid, I doubted I’d be able to eat at all. I stared numbly at the breathtaking numbers. Pride up, I dug the last of my money out of my bag and counted out the correct amount.
    “Mustn’t forget the tip,” he said, with a patronizing little smile.