Chapter Ten
Isobel knelt with her backside in the air, trying to detach a ground- level painting from the wall, when she heard the door chime. “I’ll be right with you,” she called out over her shoulder, continuing to struggle to release the obstinate wire behind the frame.
“Maybe I can help with that?” asked the strong but pleasantly disembodied voice.
She jerked round, somehow rather unsurprised to see Lance descending to his knees beside her. Several days had passed since she sent him a polite, but brief, text message thanking him for the flowers.
“I can manage, thank you.”
“But it would be a pity to damage such beautiful nails.”
Isobel gave up on her efforts and sat back on her heels.
“And what brings the man with no pressing engagements here today?” she asked.
“Well, up to a second ago I was admiring your derrière, but in truth I’m looking for Pauline. Is she around?”
“And you picked the one time she isn’t to come in to find out?”
He laughed, sprang to his feet and extended a hand. She accepted it, pulled herself up and brushed down the knees of her slacks.
“Am I that transparent? I did hear that Pauline had taken on some help, but I was told it was an attractive young Mexican lady. And if I’m not mistaken, I met such a girl on your porch, so now I’m intrigued.”
“If you’re here to buy, then that’s something I can help you with. But otherwise, I’m rather busy.”
He looked around with a wry smile. “But the store appears to be empty.”
“Though it’s no business of yours, I’m cataloguing some items. And I don’t want Pauline to return and catch me idly chatting.”
“Yes, I suppose that could be a problem, since she’s old school about that sort of thing. So you’re helping Pauline out too, as well as the young Mexican lady?”
“Juanita, her name is Juanita.” Isobel brushed back her hair. “I’m sorry, I must seem impolite and ungracious. It’s thanks to your referral that she’s working here part time and that Pauline has been so good as to allow me to place a painting in the shop.”
“In exchange for working on your hands and knees?”
“I pop in once or twice a week, most times for less than an hour. I like to do something to keep busy when I’m here.”
“Well, I won’t detain you from your duties.” He looked at his watch. “As you haven’t responded to my lunch invitation it seems I must eat alone today. I was just going to take a bite in Café Nuevo, where I can recommend the seafood salad. The prawns are to die for, if that might tempt you.”
“I’m watching my cholesterol.”
“As you wish.” He acquiesced, his smile still unfaltering. “If Pauline returns in the next hour, perhaps you can still join me for a coffee and we can continue our conversation. They have decaf, in case you’re worried about your blood pressure as well as your heart rate.”
Isobel cycled the short distance from the gallery to Café Nuevo and secured her bike to the nearest tree. Lance sat at a sidewalk table, half in sun and half in shade with the light playing across his chiselled features. It seemed he had found company for lunch. The burly black man who seemed to be his shadow sat opposite. Lance and his companion were chatting to four airmen in their distinctive green flying suits, who sat on the adjacent table. She took off her helmet and shook her hair loose, conscious the gazes of six men had turned to her. Lance rose to welcome her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to disturb your meeting.” The man in the black suit now stood, a cardboard takeout cup in his hand. The giant block of muscle smiled at Isobel, but did not introduce himself. “I’ll be in the car if you need anything, boss.”
Lance nodded a good-bye. “Would you prefer the sun or the shade?” he asked Isobel.
“Here’s fine,” she said abruptly, taking the seat opposite and folding her arms.
“I didn’t know you liked to cycle.”
“Why would you?”
“Are we going to begin every conversation as if it were a fencing contest? I thought we had gotten on rather well at the Del.”
“I’m sorry; I felt awkward interrupting. You did say you were eating alone.”
“Jed’s been keeping me company while I loitered over coffee…hoping you might show. It’s a baking-hot afternoon; it didn’t seem right leaving him sitting behind the wheel with the upholstery melting around him.”
“And Jed is your chauffeur?” said Isobel, sceptically.
“That’ll be the day. Chauffeurs disappeared about the same time as silent movies, at least in SoCal. Jed works in security. He moonlights as a driver when things are quiet.”
A waitress appeared at the table, smiling at Isobel before engaging Lance in Spanish. They exchanged pleasantries before he switched to English. “This is Isobel. She’s an artist from England.”
“You are most welcome. Would you like a menu?”
“Iced tea will be fine, thanks.”
“Algo mas, Lance?”
“I’m good, thanks, Silvia. “
“I’ll bring your tea right away,” said Silvia, performing a pirouette before giving Lance a coquettish backward glance.
“One of your former conquests?” inquired Isobel, raising her eyebrows.
“Just an old friend. She flirts with all the customers; it’s good for business.”
“I didn’t notice her flirting with me.”
“Perhaps you didn’t give her any encouragement.”
Isobel now regretted her impetuous decision to take the seat in the sun, and shielded her eyes from the glare. He noticed her discomfort and suggested they move to the table that the airman had vacated, and she accepted with relief.
“Now where were we?” he said as Isobel settled herself.
“You started by talking about fencing. Which is an interesting choice of metaphor. Because at the Del you asked a lot of questions, but didn’t tell me much about yourself.”
“Which made you suspicious of my intentions?”
“I think I’ve already worked out your intentions. At least as far as I’m concerned.”
“That’s unfair, given we are only getting to know each other. But what would you like to know?”
“What does every woman want to know about a man she has just met who sends her flowers and asks her to lunch?”
“If you mean am I married, I am not. Nor am I—how do they put it on those social network sites? —nor am I in a relationship.”
Isobel shuffled the cutlery and napkin to one side before replying, as if clearing the space between them. “Then perhaps you should know that I am both married and in a relationship.”
“But from what I gathered on your porch, not with the same person?”
“My husband and I are separated.”
“And your children are back in England?”
“No.” She hesitated. “We don’t have any.”
He puckered his chin and gave a slight nod of his head. “That surprises me. But since we’re exchanging family history, I do have a daughter of eleven, but she lives with her mother on the East Coast. We divorced when she was three.”
“So you’ve been free and single for seven years?”
“Nearer to eight. I’ve had relationships since, but nothing serious in the last two years, and nothing at all at the moment. And I assure you, never with Silvia, as attractive and flirtatious as she may be. But what about you? Is your current relationship connected to the reason you’re separated, if I may ask?"
“No, it’s with someone I met in Los Angeles, after I got here.”
“The charming gentleman I met on your porch?”
Isobel did not feel obliged to apologise for Ryan’s confrontational behaviour. If Lance’s idea of the art of seduction included unannounced visits to ladies of uncertain marital status then, she reasoned, a punch on the nose came as a hazard of his trade.
“The very one.”
“So a new relationship, and in a distant zip code?”
“But still a relationship.” The man sitting opposite, she reminded herself, the hombre encantador as Juanita had described him, had by his own admission been playing the field for the best part of a decade. How old-fashioned she must seem to such a man. An English curiosity, some relic from the days before chat rooms and dating sites, from a time where a friend was someone you liked and a boyfriend was the deadbeat trying to get his hand up your jumper.
“Well, now that we know everything a man and woman need to know about each other, there seems to be no reason why we can’t be friends.”
Isobel let out a hollow laugh. “Except I don’t want to complicate my current relationship.”
“But why would a platonic friendship complicate anything?”
“You know very well why. Because men, in my limited experience, do not understand the concept of a platonic relationship, unless they’re gay. And even though you might say you do, I’m sure my boyfriend wouldn’t.”
“Then the answer would seem to be for me to declare myself gay.
Then the problem is solved.”
She gave an involuntary smile. His easygoing humour was now finding chinks in her armour. But she remained determined to keep her distance.
“A gay playboy. I don’t think so.”
“A playboy? Is that what you think of me?”
He had given her an opportunity to do her own teasing, and she seized upon it. “Well, let’s consider the evidence, shall we? You seem to be able to swan around Coronado at your leisure with no pressing engagements, other than to flirt with every girl who passes your way.”
Whatever her intention, she realised her mockery only amused him. He seemed incapable of being ruffled, and she found it worryingly disarming.
“And where is the downside in that colourful assessment?”
“I do believe,” she replied, fearing that she sounded like a stiff spinster in a Jane Austen novel, “that you’re quite incorrigible.”
A laugh flickered at the corner of his lips. “Of that I have no doubt, but rarely have I heard it so eloquently put.”
Whether she had entered into a battle of wit or of wills, or both, Isobel could not be certain. But either way it felt like a duel she had little chance of winning. She chose to retreat. She picked up her helmet. “Anyway, delightful company as you are, I cannot stay here all afternoon amusing you. Thank you again for the flowers and for your referral to Pauline.” She touched his arm lightly, her look softening, for the first time allowing a glimpse behind the mask. “I really am grateful for that. If I can return the kindness in some way, I would like to.” She eased back her hand, and her look became serious again. “But as to anything more, I’m afraid I do have a steady boyfriend.”
Silvia passed by and Lance signalled for the bill.
He held out his hand to discourage her from rising. “Just before you take off, tell me, if you and I were both in business, and I asked you for lunch, would you refuse because you feared for your virtue?”
An interesting change of tack, thought Isobel. An appeal to logic over sentiment. The argument of a barrister from the lips of a pleasure- seeker. She thought before answering. “I suppose that’s different. At work there are boundaries, there are rules, and everyone understands them.”
“Yet most people, I’m told, meet their partner through work. So it’s possible to both respect the boundaries, and to break them. And whether or not we do so is a matter of choice, and of timing. Why can’t we be friends and respect those boundaries? We share an interest in art, which is a business to many, and one you’re beginning to embrace, or so it seems. Would it be so terrible if, say, we were to spend a day together at the San Diego art museum?”
As a closing up speech it ranked as a good one. Isobel now realised her sparring partner was blessed with more substance than she had given credit for. “Buying me presents and sending me flowers is hardly the sign of a man who wants to respect boundaries.”
“Perhaps. But you’re not wearing a wedding ring, and I took from what few things you told me that you were staying in Coronado alone. So perhaps you will forgive my original error. But please believe me, my intentions were good.”
“Good intentions are one thing, living up to them is another, and I know that more than most,” she said, her tone again a touch softer.
Lance sighed and leant back in his chair. “Look, I can’t deny that when I first saw you I found you captivating and, when we chatted, I found you fascinating.” He leant forward, his eyes searching for a response. “And you give every indication of being a sophisticated lady, which also attracts me. But that does not mean I’ll try to throw myself on top of you the first chance I get.”
Determined as she had been to be brief and businesslike when she sat down, she now had to summon up the will to end this relationship before it started. She wanted to leave things clear as to where she stood, but also determined to be gracious. “I do respect that, I really do. And who knows, another time and place, things might have been different.”
As a dismissal of an unwanted suitor it lacked conviction, and Lance’s response fell short of that of a man who knew the situation to be hopeless. “Yes, if only we could always choose the time and place, life would be so much simpler.” He settled the bill in cash. “I would offer to drive you back, but you have cleverly pre-empted that by arriving on your bike.”
She had arrived by bike for precisely that reason. But now faced with the consequence, irritation irked her. What harm would it have done, she asked herself. “I couldn’t leave it outside the gallery. Pauline has already implied it lowers the tone.” Her voice was again light and amusing. The door she had thought she had only just closed now seemed to be inching itself inexorably back open.
“Pauline, though a fine lady, is what I think in Britain is called a ‘snob’; I did wonder, why didn’t you call me before you saw her? It would have made it so much easier for you.”
“Perhaps I didn’t want it to be made easy for me,” she replied.
His response, when it came, seemed too perceptive to be so instantaneous, as if he were drawing on conclusions already formed. “Is that because you have, in the past, been used to men making things easy for you? Making the decisions? And now you’re determined to depend on no one other than yourself?”
Perhaps he intended it as a compliment, but he had touched a nerve. Fifteen wasted years playing the obedient wife that a workaholic husband expected had left its scar. She had fled to California to exorcise that, not to be lectured on it. “So you’re a shrink now, as well as a playboy,” she snapped.
He touched her forearm. “Forgive me, I didn’t mean to offend. I apologise for my clumsy presumptuousness.”
But the red mist before her could not be so easily cleared. “There’s nothing to think about,” she said, gripping the armrests for support. Her breathing fluttered and she inhaled deeply. “Thank you for your offer of friendship. But I don’t think trips to visit museums, or anywhere else, is something I’m up for. As I said, I’m in a relationship and my boyfriend wouldn’t understand your fine distinctions between business and pleasure.”
She stood to leave. He rose with her, the smile finally fading from his lips.
“And your boyfriend,” he asked, his tone now challenging, perhaps irritated, the first sign that his patience with his pursuit might be finite, “have you asked him not to see anyone else, on business I mean, now he’s seeing you?”
“That’s not the same.”
“I see very little difference.”
“That is your privilege.” She coolly put a note on the table. “And here’s five dollars for the iced tea.”
Her concentration diluted by temper, she fumbled with the combination lock before securing her helmet. She sidestepped across the frame, her head turned from him. He had left the boundary of the café and approached her. “It’s a one hundred dollar fine for cycling on the sidewalk.”
Did he want to fire a parting shot of sarcasm, she wondered, the last missive of a spurned suitor, or had he simply retreated behind his cloak of indefatigability? She pointed the bike between the parked cars, pressed on the pedal and looked back. “Thanks for the legal advice.”
The last thing she remembered was the screeching of brakes.