Chapter Seventeen
If Isobel had a strategy for her time with Maria it involved exhausting her with a frenetic daytime schedule. This, Isobel reasoned, might spare her from being enlisted in any unwise nocturnal adventures. She anticipated that Maria would want to take advantage of her freedom until Arnie arrived, that her hedonism would drive her to want such escapades, and that her libido would be demanding it. Maria did nothing to dissuade Isobel from this assessment and, on the contrary, did much to encourage it. She took every opportunity for flirtatious behaviour and did not hesitate to let Isobel know that, as soon as she recovered from her jet lag, she would like to see what San Diego had to offer by night.
For the next three days Isobel insisted on early morning bike rides, taking Maria around the scenic cycle paths that ran the length and breadth of Coronado. After a coffee break, she continued the bike tours along the white sand beaches that encircled the Island, and ran continuously as far down as Mexico.
A brief stop for breakfast and she then whisked her friend off again, around the main tourist attractions of the San Diego area. They visited many of the places she had wanted to go herself since she arrived but had postponed because she knew she would enjoy them more with a companion. Lance had disappeared on another of his mysterious business trips, this time to El Paso. He had not invited her to join him, nor did he keep her abreast of his movements. She felt strangely snubbed, even though she barely knew him.
Ryan had started to call and text more often, usually several times a day, behaving like a regular boyfriend rather than a part-time lover. Isobel had tried her best to disguise her conflicting emotions from Maria, her feelings for Ryan and her burgeoning interest in Lance, who she had yet to even mention. The more evasive Isobel became the more it seemed to fuel Maria’s suspicions as to the nature of Isobel’s relationship with Ryan.
In moments of introspection, Isobel would grapple with the root of her dilemma. Ryan had come into her life when she was at her lowest, at her most vulnerable; when she was empty from homesickness and in need of reassurance. She had been attracted to Ryan physically; by a yearning, she had no doubt, aggravated by months of celibacy. But she had survived that low point in her life and would, somehow, have come through it with or without Ryan. Yet her knowledge of the debt she owed him remained. She knew they were different in many ways, but no more different than others who had become soul mates in life. The arrival of Lance, so urbane, so self-assured, had created the problem; it had rekindled old questions in her mind. Questions that she now suppressed not only out of commitment to Ryan, but also out of doubts about Lance, and her own fear of a return to loneliness.
The two women enjoyed a whistle-stop tour of the jewel in the crown of San Diego, Balboa Park, the sprawling but beautiful area familiar to most visitors because of the zoo located there. As well as a pleasure park, it also served as the cultural heartland of the city, a place where those who had made their fortunes in the city chose to leave their legacy. The philanthropists of a century and more before had housed their paintings and other assorted treasures in museums and galleries that bore their names, built in a style reminiscent of the great towns of southern Spain. Spoilt for choice, and knowing her friend’s appetite for art to be finite, Isobel chose to focus on the less contemporary works.
Eventually, one gallery began to look much like the next to Maria. By mid-afternoon, with the temperature still high, Maria called for respite. “I need a break,” she declared. “Fascinating as it’s been, I don’t think I can take one more minute of living in the past.”
“But we absolutely must visit the air and space museum,” protested Isobel. “I’ve been leaving the best for last.”
Maria gave a heavy sigh. “As with serving wine, that is rarely a good idea. I for one have seen enough. It will be boys’ toys anyway, and perhaps Arnie will want to visit, so I can always come back with him.”
“It’s only four o’clock. Let’s take a break, grab a coffee, and see how we feel.”
“Done in is how I feel,” said Maria, adopting an English colloquialism, as she often did. If it hadn’t been for her lingering accent and occasional tendency to still use Spanish speech patterns, she could have easily passed for one brought up in earshot of the great bells of Shoreditch. “And don’t think I don’t know what game you’re playing, trying to tire me out as if I’m some filly you’re exercising. I suggest we go home, take a nap, and regain our strength for the evening. A long evening. And as for any more bike riding, my crotch is already crying for mercy. ”
“Are you quite sure it only wants mercy?” Isobel asked, feigning concern.
“That is quite uncalled for, and somewhat beneath you, if I may say so. But now you come to mention it, some night time excitement is, I believe, overdue.”
Isobel acquiesced with grace. “I know what you mean. I think we’re trying to do too much, but then again I have so much I want to show you, and enjoy with you.”
“Your company is pleasure enough for me,” said Maria, encircling Isobel’s waist with her arm and pulling her close, “at least during the day.”
The ocean sparkled in the red rays of the dying sun as Isobel and Maria made the short walk from the beach house to the Del hotel. Looking along the sand, where a pier once ran from the hotel into the sea, Isobel could see the sun deck bar where she had spent that first lazy Sunday afternoon with Lance. As they turned to walk along the frontage of the hotel, Isobel’s thoughts were with what he might be doing in El Paso.
“You’re miles away,” said Maria, pulling Isobel from her trance.
“Sorry.”
“Not the first time these last few days. Thinking of young master Ryan, I suppose?”
A light flush of heat went to her face. “Yes,” she said, “just thinking about Ryan,” and tugged her chiffon scarf tighter around her shoulders.
They meandered into the public lounge after dallying to watch the final moments of the setting sun. Guests were milling around the public areas and the lounge buzzed with visitors enjoying the last of happy hour, the one time in the day when the prices of cocktails came down from the stratosphere. Alongside the drinkers, others stood around idly, as if waiting.
“Busy, busy,” said Maria, as they eased their way through the throng, “surely all these people can’t be here for the concert?”
A woman overheard the question and chipped in. “Some LA celebrities are supposed to be coming, that’s why everyone is here. There’s a whole raft of paparazzi around the front. It’s like Oscar night out there.”
They continued to squeeze through the crowd, which thinned out as they moved along the gallery of gift shops and boutiques, and thickened again as they reached the wooden staircase that led up to the hotel lobby.
“How desperate are we to listen to a jazz legend?” said Maria, looking up the line of bodies that blocked their progress.
“All the proceeds of the evening go to some charity for the homeless. I had to enter a lottery to get the tickets, and I did it for you more than me, so one way or another, we’re fighting our way up those stairs.”
At the head of the line, hotel staff also fought to bring order to the august hotel. A pair of security men in dark blazers and grey slacks worked their way toward them, issuing apologies left and right as they created a pathway to one side of the stairs with poles and ropes; reluctant bodies shuffled aside to allow them to pass. A lady in a crisp receptionist’s suit and practical black shoes appeared at the top of the steps holding a sign that read “Ticket Holders Only.” Word filtered down from the top of the stairs that entry to the lobby area was temporarily restricted to the main entrance to the hotel, and the tide of people began to recede, drawn back out into the night as if retreating with the ocean.
“Quick, before we’re trodden like ants,” said Isobel, lifting the rope for Maria to duck under.
Isobel brandished out the tickets as they approached the top of the stairs, clutching them as a cleric might hold forth a crucifix to ward off evil spirits. The man in black nodded them through as he undid the purple rope.
“What’s going on?” asked Isobel, making a fuss of adjusting her dress. “We could have lost our lives in that melee.”
“Apologies, ma’am, word about celebrities attending tonight hit the streets before it reached the hotel, and we still don’t have any confirmation. We’ll have it all under control right away, but you may now want to make your way to the Crown Room, just in case there’s another crush.”
“It’s so exciting, isn’t it?” said Maria, “and you told me nothing much happens in Coronado.”
“Well, it’s all happening tonight. Come on, let’s take our seats before some crazy with a gun mistakes us for the celebrities, and shoots us.”
They entered the Crown Room, in which Isobel had first met Lance. Where before white-clothed tables had filled the room, a stage now stood at one end and a temporary bar at the other, and in between were set out rows of seats like church pews, separated by a centre aisle. A buzz of expectation filled the air, those lucky enough to have had the foresight to secure tickets now feeling doubly blessed to have found themselves the chosen few from the hoi polloi jostling in the lobby. Patrons were already taking their seats as others formed a queue at the bar, waiting good- naturedly for refreshment. After a moment’s hesitation, they decided to go to their seats, some thirty feet from the stage, against the aisle. A gap separated the front two rows from the third, with a rope separating them.
“That must be the VIP section at the front,” whispered Maria.
“There’s no one here tonight more important than you, but let’s just be thankful we got in at all, there can’t be more than three hundred seats here.”
“A private audience rather than a jazz concert. And so intimate a setting. This is what I call a real treat. I only wish Arnie could have made it, he adores jazz.”
“But Arnie being here could have been a bit of a complication later,” said Isobel, giving Maria a friendly dig with an elbow. Maria returned the dig, throwing back her hair as if such considerations were beneath her.
The room continued to fill with smartly attired guests and the hubbub of a hundred different conversations filled the air. An usher passed out complimentary programmes. The main doors through which Isobel and Maria had entered, toward the rear of the Crown Room, and through which the sounds of the hopeful celebrity hunters in the lobby still filtered through, slowly closed, pulled by invisible hands. Apart from the two empty front rows the few remaining seats were taken by the last of the stragglers from the bar. The makeshift concert hall now fell into semi- darkness, with only the stage area and the front row bathed in a reflected glow. A fresh stream of light broke into the room as a door to the front swung open; the audience quietened in expectation.
“Must be the distinguished guests coming through from some VIP lounge,” whispered Isobel, leaning in close to Maria.
They watched as anonymous tight-knit groups of the great and the good of San Diego and beyond ambled in. Isobel thought she recognised a silver-haired man, perhaps a politician, accompanied by a couple she vaguely remembered from a long-running American sitcom. She wondered if they had been the cause of all the commotion in the lobby. If so, their fading celebrity status hardly seemed to warrant the media and public interest outside.
Maria confirmed Isobel’s suspicions. “You recognise the couple with the silver-haired guy?” Isobel nodded, not minding whether or not her friend detected her affirmation in the darkness.
As Isobel settled down to enjoy the concert, a shaft of light alongside the VIP row distracted her. A side door opened and a silhouette emerged. Whoever had stolen in wore a baseball cap and stooped, as late arrivals to a theatre often do, and crept along the front. The man glanced up as he slid into his seat, and Isobel let out a gasp. He did his best not to be noticed, but even in the half-light and with the beak of his cap pulled low she recognised the face, and her stomach churned.
So airport-hopping Lance had returned from his latest trip. He had not told her, but then nothing obliged him to account for his movements to her. She, after all, did not rank as mother, wife or girlfriend. But her reasoning could not deny the emotion his appearance had stirred, still tumultuous in her stomach. She had an urge to take out her phone, to check for a missed message, but before she could another figure entered through the door, a woman that half the world might recognise.
Top fashion model Chrystal Brakeley had taken the floor dressed to impress. She wore a sequinned full-length dress that parted at the front to accommodate her cleavage, and a cut away at the side revealed her curvaceous lower form from ankle to hip. Gasps came from the audience as she stood to pose, one knee bent to open the slit of her dress, a hand on her hip with her head cocked to the side, encouraging her flowing blond locks to cascade over her left shoulder. She held her position as bulbs flashed in the audience, others struggling to retrieve their camera phones from tight pockets and tiny clutch bags. She twirled around full circle, giving a wave before raising her dress clear of her stilettos and advancing to take an aisle seat next to Lance. As she arranged her dress and her hair, Lance leant in to speak to her, a smile playing across his lips as they almost brushed her ear.
The cold logic that had until then fought against heated emotion within Isobel now ebbed away; in her mind uncomfortable questions fell over one other like pins struck by a bowling ball. Had the two found themselves sitting together by chance? They had entered separately, that much she knew. And Lance had not risen to his feet, as a gentleman might, when the lady he is attached to arrives to take her seat. But something in the way she had turned to him suggested a greeting of two people who had met before, and perhaps much more than just met.
“Well, now we know what caused all the fuss,” said Maria. “She’s quite striking, isn’t she?”
“Yes, quite striking,” said Isobel, strangely feeling like she had been stood up on her prom date, but trying to sound nonchalant.
“Maybe it’s the guy in the baseball cap’s lucky night.”
Before Isobel could reply, a trumpet sounded and strobe lights began to flash as the second most famous celebrity in the room ascended to the spotlight. He acknowledged the applause, perhaps unaware that his entrance had already been upstaged, and that it would not, after all, be his face that filled the front page of the San Diego Tribune the following morning.