Broken Serenade (29 page)

    Most
certainly, you’re asking yourself why do I write these things to you now. I would’ve liked to have a pleasant answer. I would’ve loved to bring into your life a new friend – or even more than that – as I prepare myself to leave you. The fact that she has abandoned you could’ve been easily forgiven. She was only sixteen when she delivered you. But it’s very hard to forgive her actions following your birth. It is just as though the best she ever possessed she gave it to the world through you. She put it all in you. To the last drop of kindness.

   
In conclusion, my dearest, I have one piece of good news for you, drastically deteriorated by a lot of bad news. Your dear Mademoiselle Lili is alive. Sadly though, she is The Queen, and implicitly the one responsible for all the horrid crimes of her organization, The Amazons.

    As if it were
n’t enough, Lili – or Olga Lauren, as it is her real name – killed her psychologist before leaving London, and a few years later, she killed Nadine.

    Do not make the mistake of underestimating her, my dear Vi
vien! The fact that she gave birth to you will not impress her. Not as much as to give up her deeply rooted habits anyway. She cold-bloodedly eliminates anybody who stays in her path.

    I hate to expose you to all t
hese dangers. But you’re the only chance ‘This World Of Men’ has got. All you have to do is give this box with all its contents to their man. You may, or you may not remember him. I, personally, don’t recall his face. He’s Timothy Leigh’s brother. I hope they’re not changing the agent again. To verify that he is indeed the right person, you should initiate the conversation bellow.

    What followed it was a banal dialogue, which, in fact, constituted the password. Clark recognized it down to the last preposition
. After that, Carol Hopkins had concluded her letter with a short, very warm farewell to her dearest granddaughter.

    “I’ll be damned!” Cla
rk exclaimed.
Who would have imagined that Carol, that affected little old lady, was our link here!
He smiled melancholically, recalling Carol’s elaborated hats and her fancy, never-missing parasols. At Timothy’s wedding, a man accidentally caught his toupee on the ruche of her French parasol, exposing his secret boldness.
She was almost deadly with those light umbrellas.
In fact, between her memorable
faux pas
and Vivien’s unequaled performance, Timothy’s wedding had acquired the qualities of a particularly successful and exceptionally entertaining tragicomedy, in Clark’s opinion.      

    Clark
took Vivien’s birth certificate and her grandmother’s letter and thrust them into the inside pocket of his jacket. He needed to have a serious discussion with his brother and Vivien very soon.
The sooner the better.

CHAPTER 27

    “Please, love, take just a tiny bit! Just taste it,” Timothy insisted. “It’s the most amazing dessert in town. You have my word for it! I have a soft spot for sweets, and I believe I tried everything on the market here in the Bay Area.”

    “Do you think I would appear
uncivilized if I asked them about the ingredients?” Vivien suggested timidly, eyeing with interest the thin slice of chocolate cake moistened with syrup and artistically sprinkled with white vanilla sauce. “What I would like to know actually is what kind of fat they used. I don’t want to eat hydrogenated oils, and I advise you to apply the same rule when choosing your food.”

    Timothy smiled amused, but he didn’t answer her question. He seemed delighted to observe her every gesture, the mimicry of her face. He was so in love with her that he felt his heart soaring with happiness in his chest.

    He thrust the teaspoon in the cake and lifted a huge chunk to his mouth. He chewed it in ecstasy, moaning lightly under Vivien’s enchanted looks.

    “
Darling, I’m glad that the Italian gastronomy rewarded you tonight with an intense climax,” she teased.

   
A tall, scrawny old man from the neighboring table looked at her through his thick glasses.

    “
Seriously?” he whispered surprised.

    “Oops!” Vivien smiled embarrassed and covered her mouth with the tips of her fingers.

    “No, really! Is it possible?” he insisted with charming naivety. 

    “Henry!” his wife admonished him
.

    “I’m just curious, dear, that’s all!”

    Vivien leaned a bit in his direction and “confessed” in a conspiratorial tone.  

    “It happened to me a couple of times while eating broccoli.”
  

  
“Get out of here!” the man dismissed her explanation incredulously.

    His wife, Timothy
, and Vivien started to laugh.

    “That teaches you, dear. Maybe you’ll stop eavesdropping,” his wife
scolded, as he submissively returned to his steak. “It’s his hearing aids, you know. They make them better than the real things these days,” she added as an excuse.

    “Not a problem,” Vivien assured her promptly.

    Still laughing, Timothy took another piece from his dessert.

    “Let’s imagine that this
cake has been poisoned,” he suggested nonchalantly.

    “OK, OK, you convinced me,” Vivien cut hi
m short and attacked her small portion of cake with enthusiasm.    

    All of a sudden, Timothy became very serious.
Her gesture almost brought him to tears.

    “Do you really want to die with me?” he asked.

    “If I can’t live with you, that’s the best alternative.”

    Timothy touched the pocket of his coat. He was tempted to give her the ri
ng he had bought for her, but he managed to abstain. He would wait until he would have her in his bedroom again, in his bed this time.  Just the way he had planned it.

    “I can already feel the pounds crowding on my hips and
thighs after this rich dinner.”

    “I can’t see
anything changed,” Timothy observed, caressing her body with a famished look.

    “Love is blind, my darling!”

    “Not in my case! You can’t even begin to imagine the things I see in you, the things I want to do with you…”

    “Which reminds me…” She leaned a bit over the table and asked him in hushed tones:

    “When we first met, at your house,” she started and blushed just enough to look gorgeous. “You said you wanted to do to me things that would make a … a sexually experienced woman blush. I just want to know which one was it… from all the crazy things we’ve done together.”

    “We haven’t done that
, baby. That was a crime of impulse in the middle of a unique and unforgettable
coup de foudre
. It was something bold that I had in mind for a wicked, depraved woman with a voracious sexual appetite,” he pointed out smiling meaningfully.

    “I ca
n be wicked and depraved,” Vivien offered immediately.

    The skinny old man from the other table fixed her with mesmerized eye
s. His jaw had hit the floors, and his mouth had frozen opened waiting for the piece of steak that vibrated lightly in the fork just one inch further from his denture.

    Vivien swallowed hard. She had done it again.

    “OK, Henry. That’s enough. Hand me your hearing aids
, dear. I believe you’ve had your share of excitement tonight. And then, it’s not fair. I can’t hear a thing, while you’re having all the fun,” she said frustrated.

    The old man gave his grumpy wife the hearing aids looking at her crossly.

    “I would never do that to you,” Vivien told Timothy.

    “That’s why I love you so much, baby.”

    “She’s taking away his basic right.”

    “I agree.”

    “Now, back to our issue. Would you describe for me your… secret crime?”

    With his pointer finger, he motioned for her to lean closer. For almost
a minute, he whispered in her ear things that made her face display all shades of pink. Her eyes grew bigger, and she gasped a few times.

    “Tee, you’re
divinely naughty,” she concluded.

    “I know. Isn’t that wonderful?”

   “Yes, yes!” She radiated joy. “
That
should be heavenly pleasure. Although, I doubt that Heaven would really approve of
that
.
”

    “So, are you game tonight?”

    “Absolutely!
I can barely wait.”

    “Then finish your cake, and let’s go
, before we do some other crazy thing in here!”

    “I’m not going to
sexually assault you in public, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

    “One can never be sure.
And darling, the real problem is that I’m not afraid. In fact, I would welcome you right now.”

    “You insatiable beast!”

    She brus
quely changed the subject of discussion.

    “I suppose you have your own medical cabinet at home, don’t you?”

    “You mean… rubbing alcohol, cotton balls, aspirin…”

    “I mean over the counter medication for indigestion.”

    “I have the stomach of a horse! I never get indigestion. God, are you sick, Vee?” he asked, very concerned. “I’m so sorry I forced you to eat that cake.”

    “No, my darling, I don’t feel sick at all. But I want to be prepared. I don’t get
indigestion either. Of course, I don’t usually eat as I ate tonight. Anyway, we have to stop at a pharmacy on our way home.”

    Timothy asked the waiter for their bill, paid, and they left the restaurant. A young boy brought them their car. Timothy tipped him generously
, and they climbed inside the Mercedes laughing and stealing quick kisses.

    From a dark
area of the parking lot, a white van followed them at a considerable distance. The two lovers were too preoccupied with each other to notice that move.

    Soon
, they arrived at Safeway in Menlo Park. Timothy parked in one of the empty spaces right in front of the store.

    “
These places should be saved for old people,” Vivien pointed out.  

    “Good little old people should be in bed, sleeping at this hour,” Timothy replied.

    They got inside the grocery store and strolled directly to the over the counter medication aisle. A few late shoppers were quickly filling up their baskets with products. Vivien picked a few boxes and began to read the instructions on them.

    “We should be home now. I should be squeezing you in my arms… kissing you,” Timothy whispered in her ear
, touching her delicate nape with his scorching lips.

    Vivien
giggled happily and kissed him on the cheek.

    “May
I help you with something?” the pharmacist offered.

    “Thank you. But I already
found what I’ve been looking for,” Vivien refused politely. “We were just heading for the cashier, that’s all.”

    “You can pay here,” the woman insisted to help.

    Vivien fished the credit card out of her purse. She swiped it in the credit card machine.

    “Last four digits, please,” the pharmacist demanded.

    Vivien handed her the card.

  
The pharmacist’s face brightened all of a sudden.

    “Miss Hopkins? What a pleasur
e to make your acquaintance! I’m an old friend of your grandmother. Carol loved to talk about you all the time. She was very proud of you. She told me that you were very beautiful, but I didn’t imagine that you’d be drop dead gorgeous,” the woman complimented her without restraint.

    Vivien blushed embarrassed and thanked her quietly.

    “I am so very sorry about her death. Unfortunately, I learned about it a few days after her burial.

    The ringing of a telephone saved Vivien from continuing a difficult conversation with a total stranger.

    “It’s the emergency phone
. I have to answer immediately,” the woman excused herself.

    “Sarah!
” She summoned her colleague. “Please come and serve Miss Hopkins.”

    A buxom young woman approached slowly, in moody silence, from behind a glass door. She walked absently as a
somnambulist, heading directly to the rack that displayed the medication bags for clients. Sighing unhappily, she rummaged through them for a few seconds. She finally picked up a bag, came back, and flopped it onto the counter in front of Vivien. Instinctively, Vee cast an eye over the bag of medication. She wanted to tell the woman that it couldn’t be her prescription, but her words froze on her lips. Her grandmother’s name was written with capital letters on the paper that accompanied the medication and contained info about the patient.