chignon. It must be very long, he thought to himself with delight, imagining her hair flowing down her beautiful back.
It was a warm and humid Palm Beach evening. Nick was sweating by the time they reached the entrance. 'Could you do me one more favor, Nick?' Mrs. Silver asked. 'Could you carry her up to her room? My husband's not here and the help has all gone to bed. And I doubt seriously if she's going to get herself together well enough to climb the stairs, even with my help, in the near future.'
Nick followed Mrs. Silver's instructions and carried Teresa through the atrium, into the living room, up the entry steps onto the platform, up the left flight to the second floor, and then into her bedroom. It was huge. In her room Teresa had a king-size bed with four posters, a giant television, an entire cabinet of movies for the VCR, and a sound system that would have been a credit to any rock and roll band. Bruce Springsteen posters and photos were all over the room. Nick laid Teresa gently on her bed. She murmured 'Thank you,' indicating to him that at least she was semiconscious. Her mother bent over her and gave her a kiss.
Nick left the two of them alone and went back down the stairs into the living room. He could not believe that somebody really could live in a house like this. Why the living room alone was bigger than the house in Falls Church where he grew up. He wandered around the room after he came down the stairs. There were original paintings on the walls, crystal glass chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, and art objects and bric-a-brac both on the tables and in every nook and cranny. It was all too much for him. He was overwhelmed.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and involuntarily recoiled. Monica Silver chided him, 'Goodness, you're jumpy. It's only me. ' He turned around to look at her Was he imagining it or had she somehow combed her hair and put on fresh makeup in the few seconds they had been separated? For the first time he saw her in the full light. She was the most beautiful woman that he had ever seen. His breath was taken away and he felt giddy. Outside he had not been able to see her skin clearly. Now he found himself staring at her bare arms, following the elegant contours of her neck. Her skin had the smoothness of ivory. It called to him to touch it. Watch yourself, Williams, he heard a voice inside him say, Or you are going to be outrageous. He tried to calm himself.
But it was useless. He could not take his eyes off her. She was saying something. She had asked him a question. He had not even heard it, so dumbfounded was he by what was happening, by where he was. She was leading him somewhere in the house. His imagination was running wild. She took him into a small room with a table and told him to sit down.
'It's the least I can do,' she was saying, 'to repay you for what you did for Teresa. I know you must be hungry. And we still have some great food left over from the party tonight.'
Nick was in a breakfast nook just off the kitchen. To his left a door led to the patio and then outside, into the back yard. The lights around the huge swimming pool were still on. He could see manicured gardens with roses in bloom, chaise longues, colorful umbrellas, white iron tables with twisted, lacy legs — he could not believe that it was all real. He felt transported to another world, a world that existed only in books and movies.
Monica Silver laid out some food on the table. Smoked salmon, onions, capers, cream cheese, two different kinds of bread, plus a dish of some other kind of fish that Nick did not recognize. 'That's marinated herring,' she said with a smile, noticing Nick's quizzical expression. She handed him a wine glass. He took it and unconsciously looked her straight in the eyes. He was transfixed. He felt weak and powerless, as if he were being drawn into her deep brown, bewitching eyes, into her world of richness and luxury and beauty. His knees were weak, his heart was racing, he could feel his fingers tingling
She poured some white wine in his glass and then in