Dating Game полностью

“Very good!” he said. “Very, very good marriage! Beautiful photographs … beautiful decor … et les fleurs !” The flower arrangements Bix had designed were beyond belief. They were all roses and lily of the valley, and exquisite tiny flowers Paris had never even seen before. They had been flown in from Africa and France and Ecuador, at outrageous expense. But the Palace of the Legion of Honor had never looked more beautiful. The lighting Bix had organized was spectacular and worthy of Versailles. And as she and Jean-Pierre stood there under a starry sky at two in the morning, she wasn't even tired. “We go for a drink?” he asked, and she was about to say no and then nodded. Why not? He was leaving in a few days anyway. She knew he was going to stick around to take some shots in San Francisco, although she also knew that his assistants were leaving the next day. “I go in your car?” he proposed, and she told him she'd meet him out front in ten minutes.

She told Bix she was going, and he was about to leave too. All the members of the family had left, and there were only a few stragglers left. Neither he nor Paris needed to stay.

“It was terrific, wasn't it? We did a hell of a job.” Bix beamed, tired but pleased.

“No, you did. All I am is the shepherd, and the organizer of details. You're the genius behind all this, Bix.” He kissed her and thanked her, and then she left to retrieve her car from the valet, and a moment later she and Jean-Pierre were in it, speeding off into the night. There was nowhere to go at that hour, except an all-night diner she knew, but he was enchanted when he saw it, and immediately started taking photographs at weird angles, including a quick roll of her. And then he settled back in the booth and ordered pancakes and scrambled eggs. He hadn't had time to eat all night.

“I love America,” he said with a jubilant look, and he looked more than ever like an elf who had fallen from another planet. He was medium height, and taller than Paris, but he was extremely wiry and lithe. Almost like a young boy. “You are married?” he asked her, although she had a distinct impression that he wouldn't have cared if she were.

“No. Divorced.” She smiled at him.

“You are happy or sad?”

“About being divorced?” she inquired, and he nodded. And she thought about it. “Both. Very sad at first. Very, very sad. Now I'm happier.”

“You have a little friend?” She looked puzzled, and he wrapped his arms around himself in a passionate hug and looked like he was embracing someone, and she laughed. “Un petit ami,” he said in French this time, and she understood.

“A boyfriend! No. No boyfriend.” It seemed a funny question for him to be asking, and she pointed a finger at him to ask the same question. Not that it mattered. She was nearly twice his age.

“My little friend … my girlfriend … she go away… I am very, very sad.” He made a tragic face and marked tears down his face with his fingers. “Now I am verrrrry happy. She was very much trouble.” He managed to get his messages across, and Paris laughed. “You have children?” She loved his accent and his mannerisms, and he was full of life as he conversed with her. Language didn't really seem to be a problem.

“I have two children. A son and a daughter. Maybe older than you. How old are you?” she asked, and he laughed. People never guessed his age correctly, and he found it funny.

“Thirty-two,” he said, and she looked surprised.

“You look younger.”

“And you? Thirty-five?”

“Merci, ” she said, laughing at him too. “Fortyseven.”

He nodded with a very Gallic face. “Bravo. You look very young.” She loved his accent and the way his eyes danced. “You are of California?”

“New York. Then Connecticut. Now here for nine months, because of the divorce. My children are here,” she explained.

“ 'Ow hold?” He had trouble with h 's, but she knew what he meant. How old?

“My daughter is twenty-four, and my son is nineteen. He's in college, and she lives in Los Angeles and works for a movie studio.”

“Very good. Actrice? ”

“No. Production.” He nodded, and they continued to chat while he ate his pancakes and eggs, and she drank tea and had an English muffin. She wasn't hungry, but she was enjoying him very much. “How long will you be here?” She was curious. It would be fun seeing him again, although it seemed a little silly. Even though he was older than he looked, he was still very young. Too young for her, no matter how attractive he was.