Something caught the eye of one of the newspaper photographers. Out in the parking lot on the other side of the runway fence. The photographer broke from the pack and started shooting on the run. When his rivals noticed, they stampeded for the same picture, followed by reporters with open notebooks.
The traveling publicist noticed the crowd around her client getting a little lean. Where’d the media go? She looked back and saw her worst nightmare. On the other side of the fence was a lone picketer, an elderly woman with an expression of collapsed hope, barely strong enough to hold up her homemade sign written in a pitifully unsteady hand: I HAD TO GO BACK TO WORK.
“Goddammit!” shouted the publicist. “What did I ever do to her?”
28
THE HONEYMOON WAS a corker.
The gang gave Serge and Molly a traditional Keys send-off. They waved farewell from the dock on Little Torch Key. Serge and Molly waved back from the rear of a charter boat with aluminum cans and fishing bobbers tied to the stern, the gunwales shaving-creamed:
“I’m dying to know where we’re going!” said Molly.
“I told you,” said Serge. “It’s a surprise.”
“I’m so excited!”
The ferry took them on a short, three-mile hop to a private dock, and that’s when Molly saw it. She grabbed Serge around the neck and jumped up and down. “I love you! I love you! Thank you!…”
“Easy, my neck.”
Little Palm Island.
Oasis.
Tahitian bungalows riding small rolling hills, surrounded by bright island flowers and coconut palms growing out over the water. More like the South Pacific, which is why it was the movie location for
A chilled bottle of wine waited in the couple’s suite. Molly walked onto the veranda and drank in the aquamarine harbor. She squealed with glee and swirled in a circle.
Nothing was too good for his Molly. Serge had arranged a mega-package of romance and pampering. All weekend long: the serenity massage, seaweed body mask, volcanic earth clay ritual, bali spice treatment, then hours together in their private teakwood Jacuzzi filled with lilacs.
And the food! An elite team of world-class gourmets kept it coming. Breakfast: avocado omelets, salmon mimosas, silver pots of coffee and fresh-squeezed juice, then a room-service lunch of chilled lobster bisque, black mussels poached in fennel, goat cheese with arugula, goose liver pâté, steak au poivre and pommes frites. Wait, leave room for dinner: petite bouillabaisse, grilled yellow snapper, pollo-sautéed andouille with hearts of palm and corn-roasted chipotle sauce. Finally, the pièce de résistance, raspberry tart with crème anglaise.
It didn’t come cheap. As they say, don’t forget your VISA. Seven thousand bucks. Molly read the welcome card that came with the chilled wine.
Almost forgot! The sex!
Serge had been apprehensive. He was a fairly urbane guy — didn’t want to spook Molly with anything too weird right away. He brushed his teeth and walked barefoot into the room with the mahogany poster bed and gauzy white canopy. “Honey?…”
Something slammed him hard from the blind side and knocked him onto the mattress.
“I’m going to make you so happy! I’m going to be the best wife!…” She seized the front of his pants. His zipper ripped apart.
Serge grabbed her wrists. “Honey, slow down. We’ve got the rest of our lives.”
“I’m sorry. Did I do something wrong? I did, didn’t I? I’m so sorry….”
“You’re fine. Just don’t burden yourself.”
She stared down. Serge gently put a hand under her chin and raised her head. “You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but… is this, uh, your first?…”
She tried to lower her head again, but Serge’s hand was still there. She nodded.
“No crime in that. Let’s start slow with the basics.”
It was a precipitous learning curve. What Molly apparently lacked in experience, she more than compensated for with enthusiasm, stamina and mind-curving imagination.
Serge began to suspect he wouldn’t last the night. At the two-hour mark, he tremored on the mattress. “Where’d you learn to do
“I just made it up. Want me to stop?”
“Hell, no!”
Deeper into the night. More pioneering technique. Serge never would have guessed she was double-jointed. And just what was this she was starting to — oh, no!… Serge’s head arched back over the pillow, his mind’s eye catapulting through the Milky Way, comets and quasars zooming past….
She sat up. “You didn’t like that, did you? I’m sorry. Now I’m embarrassed.” She put a hand over her eyes in shame. “You’re always going to picture me doing that….”
Serge pulled the hand away from her face and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Holy God!… You sure you haven’t done this before?”
She shook her head.
“I want you to listen carefully and trust me on this one,” said Serge. “You’re incredible. You have absolutely nothing to feel self-conscious about.”
“You really mean it?”
