The Crasher (16 page)

She was thinking the same thing. There was a lot she could do to help Poppy. For a start, she could streamline her spectacular
curves. Obviously this was something this particular “friend”—Svank, now she remembered his name from business school—wanted,
and she couldn’t say she blamed him. Poppy ought to be kept under wraps for her own good.

In return, Poppy could help her get invited to at least some of the social stuff they’d just been discussing. Her imagination
was working overtime. They could both show off her clothes.
WWD,
here I come, Ginny thought excitedly.

Before they left Lee said, “Don’t you think you should get Poppy’s number? In case she doesn’t call?”

There was something off-putting about Poppy’s table. “Don’t worry, she’ll call.”

“She may not.” Lee stalked over to Poppy. Ginny could see her hand Poppy her card. In a few seconds she was back, looking
annoyed. “They weren’t very friendly. One of the goons just said, ‘She’s in the book,’ but I don’t believe it.”

“What did Poppy say?”

“She didn’t; she looked distinctly nervous to me.”

“Well, she’ll call.”

Ginny was flying, an almost forgotten adrenaline pumping through her. She hadn’t been at the party in Chelsea for more than
a few minutes when she was introduced to Ricardo Vicarno, an artist from Milan, in New York for the first American exhibition
of his work.

They shook hands for the longest time; they couldn’t stop looking at each other. His eyes are the same color as mine, Ginny
thought; no, darker, really dark green-brown.

Although they sat and stood and sat again, she didn’t concentrate on what they talked about so animatedly for more than an
hour. His work, her work, New York, Milan, mountains, shadows, swimming in cool lakes. Lots of words, but more meaningful,
lots of silences.

Lee came by to say she wanted to go home and so did Marilyn. She hovered, obviously unhappy that Ginny was not going to leave
with them. Ginny walked them to the door with Ricardo, his arm around her waist.

“Can I get you a taxi?” he asked, with Marcello Mastroianni charm.

“They have a car, a Big Apple,” Ginny said too quickly. She couldn’t wait for them to go.

For some ridiculous reason Lee cried out angrily, “Don’t forget Poppy’s going to call.”

Poppy? Was it possible she’d already forgotten about Poppy, and her bold plan for the future? Yes, it was possible. She’d
forgotten everything.

The lights dimmed and people started dancing to Latin music. Ricardo moved close, closer toward her. She didn’t want to hear
the music; she buried her head in his shoulder;
she didn’t want to see; she closed her eyes. She only wanted to be aware of the slight roughness of his chin on her cheek
when she lifted her head, the faint aroma of cologne as he moved his arms tighter around her and the giddy, mind-bending sensation
of sexual arousal as he suddenly kissed her hair.

They stopped dancing and stood, their arms around each other, looking out at the empty street. Somebody jostled them and a
glass of red wine spilled on her priceless jacket. She didn’t say a word or feel a thing. No rage, no sorrow, only a sense
of diving off the high board as, hand in hand, they went to find a bathroom and found a bedroom instead.

There was no need for words, no need to fear not knowing what to do. She just thanked God there was a key in the door, a key
Ricardo turned in the lock.

She noticed his hands. They were the way artists’ hands should be, fine, slender. He slipped her jacket from her shoulders.
She wasn’t wearing a bra; she rarely needed to wear a bra. He looked at her with such wonder, for the first time she was proud
of her body and not her clothes.

He cupped her small breasts, pushing them up toward him. He bent his head of thick dark hair down to kiss and then deeply
suck her nipples. She was weak; she was totally gone, open, wet, longing for him. So this was what being in love meant.

Oh, please, Ricardo, now. I don’t want to wait any longer.

He lay her down on the bed and began to kiss her, her face, her ears, her neck. His fingers were cool and strong; he searched
for and found her response.

It was the most beautiful night of her life.

When Ginny woke she was alone in a strange bed in a foreign, bare, bleak room with not a fringe in sight. She could still
feel Ricardo’s hands. She ached, she didn’t know how, but yes, it was a physical ache to feel them again. She wanted him.
Cheap love songs about want and need and longing played through her mind. She felt so lonely, she couldn’t move. She wanted
to weep and moan into the pillow. Where was he?

The door opened and Ricardo came in, laughing like a boy,
although now she could see gray streaks in his hair, fine lines on his amazing patrician face. He was carrying her jacket.

“Sleepyhead, your jacket is ready. I cleaned it at my studio. Put it on. Now I want to take you there.” His Italian accent
made every word sound poetic.

It was incredible. There was no trace of red wine, but she didn’t want to put her jacket on; she didn’t want to put on anything.
She wanted to put off getting dressed for as long as she could. She wanted him back in bed with her now, this instant.

She pouted. She held out her arms, but he only laughed again. “They want the room,
cara.
Let’s go home to my place.”

It was shameful. She could hardly walk along the street, she was longing so much for what had gone before and what she knew
was only minutes away.

It was a perfect winter day, cool but not cold, with a brilliantly blue sky and valleys of golden sunshine, a time when she
usually loved to walk everywhere, but feeling the way she did, this walk was too long and Ricardo made it longer. Every so
often he stopped to swing her around or lift her high into the air like a child.

He had rented a big loft in Chelsea. It reminded her of one of her favorite advertisements—for a man’s fragrance, a Spanish
one by Paco Rabanne, where a gorgeous bare-chested man was on the phone, sitting in a studio on a rumpled but pristine white
bed, obviously talking to the girl who’d just left it.

There was a smell of turpentine, cologne, coffee and expensive cigars; piles of canvases; sweaters, pants, belts hanging topsy-turvy
all over the place.

Ginny sat demurely on the bed, forcing herself to smile. He stood over her, powerful, wonderfully powerful; he held her head
between his hands and slowly brought her tight against his jeans.

It began again, the delirious ascent, descent, ascent, descent into a world she’d never known. Thank God, she’d taken Esme’s
advice and months ago started on the pill “in case” one night “it” happened.

Around four in the afternoon the phone rang and her gorgeous
bare-chested, bare-everything man picked it up with his girl still in the tousled bed. He spoke in rapid Italian, but Ginny
still caught
cara
every so often. Perhaps she caught it because after the first few minutes he stopped stroking her hair, her breasts, which
he had told her over and over were like delicate exquisite flowering buds.

The phone call went on and on. It doused her senses like cold water. She didn’t want to leave, but she got up and slowly dressed
in last night’s fancy clothes, waiting every second for him to stop talking and rush over to bring her back to his side. He
was so engrossed, he didn’t even seem aware she was still there.

She crossed the room and went to the door. She opened it and, without leaving, banged it noisily shut. Her hatred for the
person on the other end of the wire was frightening. Ricardo looked up, still speaking, but he still didn’t seem aware of
her. He was upset about something, someone?

With a painful lump in her throat she walked out, sure he would follow her. Perhaps he was talking to his mother, perhaps
she was ill; then she remembered he’d told her the evening before he’d lost both his parents in a car crash. At one moment
she had nearly asked him if he was married, but the moment had passed and she hadn’t wanted to break the magic spell.

She played a game with herself. If there was a cab cruising by when she reached the street, she would take it. If there wasn’t,
she’d go back up the stairs and wrest the phone away and kiss him passionately. Of course, a cab was cruising by. Like a sleepwalker
she got in. By the time she neared Sophie’s, she knew she had to start looking for a place of her own. It was bad enough taking
a broken heart home; taking it to somebody else’s home was impossible.

A vivid blonde was waiting at a stoplight. She reminded her of Poppy. It was hard to believe she could forget her plans for
Poppy Gan, forget about dressing her to improve her fashion image, as in turn Poppy helped promote her clothes. It was unimportant
now.

The next day, with no word from Ricardo, she called in
sick, pretending to Sophie that she had stomach flu. In a way she did. Her stomach was violently upset—until one o’clock,
when a bunch of dark velvety violets arrived with a card, which said only, “Will you…” By six o’clock she had received four
more bunches, each with a card carrying only a few words. She laid them out on the coffee table. “Will you… have dinner with
… me tomorrow night?… love Ricardo… call 808-3592.”

In Sophie’s hall mirror as she dialed the number she saw her face. It was glowing, full of anticipation.

So began eight weeks of a roller coaster life, soaring to the sky, descending to the bottom of the earth. “It’s that elevator
feeling,” said Esme, with all the wisdom of her relationship with Ted. “There’s nothing to beat it.” That was for sure. On
the rare days when there were no calls, she crashed down to the depths, certain he was never going to call again.

He was evasive on the subject of other relationships, only saying he had once been married and was very attached to his two
sons, who lived with their mother. There had been other calls while she was in the loft. She didn’t leave. She waited, however
long they took, and Ricardo always had a lot to talk about. “Business,” he would invariably say when finally he put the phone
down.

“Monkey business?” she once teased. He didn’t like it. She spent the rest of the day trying to cajole him out of a foul black
mood. There were others equally black, but soon forgotten in bed, when he blamed his moodiness on the pressure of getting
ready for his exhibition.

She was exhausted, living between his calls and their dates, on the edge of her emotions. She even fell asleep a couple of
times at the office.

He was so loving and thoughtful the days before his big show, talking about a life together in Milan, buying her an enormous
book about Italian cities and their art collections, encouraging her to start Italian lessons.

Finally the day of his exhibition came. She tried to stay in
the background, but to her joy, he said he wanted her always to be in “viewing distance—my view.”

The gallery was packed. It seemed a big success, ten paintings sold in the first thirty minutes, although “You never know
what the critics are going to say,” he had warned her the day before. “They smile with their lips, but their pens are as sharp
as daggers.”

Afterwards there was a big party at a nearby Italian restaurant. Lee and Marilyn were there, with Lee still wearing a disapproving
smirk. “Don’t believe everything you’re told,” she had the gall to say. Ginny decided she would not invite her to the wedding.

Around midnight Ricardo pleaded a terrible headache. He looked white, strained.

“Let’s go home,” Ginny said. “Let’s get away from all this noise and tension. I’ll massage you.”

“No, no, no. I have to be alone. When I have these headaches—only a few times in my life—I know I have to be alone. I take
a special drug. I will be out for twenty-four hours, then I am myself again.”

She had no alternative; and with a headache herself from too much red wine, Ginny didn’t protest too much when he put her
in a cab with a soft, gentle kiss.

It was the last time she ever saw him.

The next morning a huge bouquet of roses was waiting for her at the office, with a card signed simply Ricardo. When she called,
the phone was busy, then didn’t answer in the late morning or the afternoon.

At seven o’clock, she was about to go down to the loft, dressed in the oilskin bodysuit he loved, her freshly washed hair
loose and fragrant around her shoulders, when a letter arrived by messenger.

It was brief and to the point. He would always love her, but he would be ill if he did not return to Milan to his wife and
adorable sons. He hoped she would forgive him and understand a father’s devotion.

“You have told me you want a place of your own. Please
move to my loft. I had to rent it for a year and there are several months left. It will give you time to find what you want
and, believe me,
cara,
I want the best in the world for you,” said the last paragraph.

She caught a cab down to the loft. She couldn’t accept that he wouldn’t be there, but he was gone, and so were all the things
that belonged to him.

Only a bunch of violets in a Murano glass suggested he had left thinking of her—and one remaining canvas, an abstract of a
cool deep lake, with shadows, cast by tall mountains, sweeping across it. “For Ginny,” said the card. “I will never forget
the last two months.”

“Neither will I,” she said to herself, but he had his wife and sons to help him recover. She was alone, miserably, terribly
alone.