Taxi to Paris (7 page)

She smiled back with the same friendliness. "You're not. I like to wait for people in peace and quiet."

"Peace and quiet" in conjunction with "waiting" was a in itself contradiction to me. I hated having to wait, and tried to avoid it whenever possible. In this respect, we seemed to be very different. I hoped that wasn't true in other things.

"Have you been here long?" A little small talk couldn't hurt. After all, this situation was really very different from all of our previous meetings.

"Not more than half an hour." Apparently, that was quite normal to her. It seemed like an eternity to me. I probably would've died from impatience.

"I hope you haven't been too bored." I still couldn't imagine why anyone would intentionally come an hour early.

"Bored? No. I'm never bored."

I wondered at the way she took this statement for granted and sighed a little. "I could never say that about myself. Just the opposite."

She laughed softly. "I can't imagine that."

I sounded to myself like a teatime chat in Queen Victoria's salon. That would definitely have bored me. I reached for the menu that lay on the table. "Have you ordered yet?"

She looked at me and grinned a little. "How could I? There's nothing Chinese or Italian here."

I got a terrible feeling in my gut. "Would you rather go somewhere else?" Damn it again, I'd picked the wrong restaurant! The evening was shot.

She looked right at me. Her eyes seemed to drill right through me. It was incredibly uncomfortable. I tried to hold up to her and not look away. "You are much too serious for your age," she finally revealed to me, conclusively.

"For my age? I just turned thirty-two!" I sputtered, because she'd surprised me so much.

She laughed, satisfied. She was obviously having a heathenishly good time. "Thank you!" she said with a little nod and a slight emphasis on the second word. "That was all I wanted to know."

At first, I had to steady myself a bit, but then it began to seem funny to me as well. "And I bet that if I ask you how old you are now, you won't answer, because it's not polite to ask a woman her age."

She winked at me. "Right."

Such a little tart! I was no longer so sure that I was ready for her. It was really difficult to guess her age. She could be anywhere between twenty-five and thirty-five, or so it seemed to me. I gave up. One would probably never get that secret out of a woman like her. Nevertheless, I assumed for no apparent reason that she was younger than I. But why did that matter? She was flirting with me; that was all that counted. And she was an expert at flirting.

I noticed how her magic worked on me, and I didn't even get the impression that she was doing it on purpose. She possessed a natural charm that was only emphasized by her impeccably good manners. I knew, though, that she could also put them aside if she wanted. Maybe that was part of her attractiveness. After all the effort and nerves it had cost me to get her here, and the cool precision with which she had made the date, it surprised me how relaxed she was. She laughed at my jokes and was incredibly charming. I was captivated. When she was this loose and relaxed, the whole world seemed to revolve around her. I'd never seen her like this before. She seemed more and more like the embodiment of my dreams. Could such a woman really exist?

I imagined what a relationship with her might be like. Our everyday lives didn't fit together very well, that was certain. When I went to work, she'd still be asleep. When I wanted to sleep, she'd be working. Working? Well, what else? Not exactly uplifting, the idea of what she did for a living. That brought me back to reality for the moment. Suddenly, something occurred to me. "Your eyes aren't blue at all!" I was truly surprised. I'd been fooled by my constant assumption that any woman I'd fall in love with had to be blonde with blue eyes.

"No, grey," she answered, somewhat put off. Until now, I'd always thought of grey as a rather dull color, but her eyes gleamed like glittering diamonds. Spellbound, I stared at her - I could barely tear myself away. "Is that a problem?" she asked, wrinkling her forehead.

I had to laugh in embarrassment. "No, of course not. I've just always thought you had blue eyes. I have sort of a funny fixation about that. But obviously I've never really looked at you carefully before."

She laughed. "I hadn't really gotten that impression." Then she became suddenly serious. "But perhaps my eyes aren't really what interest you most about me." She poked around in her salad a little and, with extreme precision, chose a single leaf.

Damn it again, I was a regular bull in a china shop! The relaxed atmosphere was gone. I tried to save the situation. "Your eyes are beautiful." What else could I say? That was a fact. But what woman wouldn't be offended if her date didn't notice that? I, for one, always took it very poorly. "I noticed that immediately. Just - unfortunately, you're incredibly lovely all over."

She quit sorting her salad and looked in my direction without actually looking at me. "Um, thanks," she said. She probably didn't know what to do with such an unusual compliment. I didn't know how to explain it either in case she asked me. But she didn't do that. A movement by the patio entrance distracted her. She sighed. "I knew that this was a mistake," she said, more to herself than to me.

"A mistake? What?" Now I was irritated.

"Going out." She closed herself off incredibly quickly. I could make neither rhyme nor reason of her reaction. The only thing I could imagine was...

"I should have known," she said, while she set her fork on the table and laid her napkin next to it. It looked very final. She laughed apologetically in my general direction. "It has nothing to do with you."

That didn't reassure me much, since everything about her behavior indicated that she was about to leave. And that was a much earlier and more abrupt end to the evening than I had imagined or hoped for. As long as I didn't know what caused this sudden change in her attitude, I could hardly stop her from carrying out her present intentions. So I had to find it out. "What should you have known?"

She coolly lifted an eyebrow, as if I'd asked a completely indecent question. "That isn't important," she said. She raised her hand to signal the waiter that she wanted to pay.

My God, this was going too quickly! I didn't know what I should to react to first. "Obviously it's grounds enough for you to leave," I said nervously, glancing around perhaps to learn what she had seen. I only saw a couple of people who had just come in: a middle-aged couple that was heading for a table at the other end of the gardens. The woman was very thin and petite. She walked rather stiffly behind her husband. Other than that, I saw no one. Suddenly, the woman spun around and threw an icy glare in our direction. It was only a brief moment, and then it was over. I turned back to the table. The waiter was already standing next to her. "Wait," I protested. "I'm the one who invited you." This was all moving much too fast!

"Leave it," she contradicted firmly. "I don't think you've gotten much for what you're trying to pay for."

What? What was that supposed to mean? She had completely confused me again, but before I could even reach for my billfold, the waiter was gone again. Just as suddenly, she was standing. "Please, stay and finish your meal," she said. "I'm sorry."

What was I supposed to do here without her? She didn't seem to think about the fact that I'd hardly come here to eat alone. I jumped up as she was turning to go. "Wait," I said again quickly.

She stopped for a moment and turned halfway back to look at me. "Please, stay," she said. "I don't want to be responsible for starving you as well." She forced a small smile.

"What's the meaning of this?" Even as I was saying that, she had turned around and started for the exit. I followed her and held her back. "Can't you tell me what the problem is?" She kept walking as if I hadn't said a thing. She ignored me. I would have to provoke her if I wanted an answer. "What's with that woman? Who is she?"

She stopped abruptly. "That's none of your business," she reprimanded me irritably.

So I'd hit the nail on the head. She was the reason. "Maybe not." I wasn't prepared to fight with her. "But was is my business is that I'm standing over here with you instead of sitting comfortably at our table and eating dinner with you. For that I would like an explanation. Even if it has nothing to do with me." She was quite agitated, I noticed. And I was probably irritating her even more. But if she just walked away, that wouldn't do much for me. I'd rather chance the storm.

"You are really..." She didn't say what it was she thought of me. Instead, she took a deep breath. "Okay. You're right. It's unfair. I admit that. Is that enough?"

She suddenly became very cool and calculating again. In that mood, I couldn't hope to get anything out of her. "Would you like to go somewhere else?" I asked, for the second time that evening.

"No," she answered promptly. "That was the mistake. My mistake," she stressed emphatically. "I don't normally go out." That surprised me, given our first encounter. She remembered that and corrected herself. "Almost never. And when I do, I don't go places like this." She glanced around.

"Are you looking for something in particular?" I had assumed she would go to her car, but she was still standing at the edge of the parking lot - really just a wide spot in the road under a couple of trees in front of the restaurant.

"A phone booth." She sounded rather distant.

"Here? In the middle of the woods? What for?" It was beginning to get tiresome, asking all these questions. She would only give out as much information as she absolutely had to. This was incredibly tedious.

"To call a taxi."

"You didn't drive?" She probably flew here on her invisible angel wings. I was getting sarcastic. My patience was finally wearing out. At least she answered me this time.

"I don't have a car."

I just had to laugh. I suddenly remembered the Italian coffee commercial where a handsome man tempts his lovely neighbor with hot cappuccino until she finds out he doesn't have a car and dumps him. I saw the way she was looking at me and stopped laughing. She didn't think it was a bit funny.

"Excuse me," I said, sobered. "I just thought of something..." I considered whether she might accept the offer of a ride. It was possible. Then there was always the question of where I would take her. I might've invited another woman back to my apartment for coffee. But her? And going to her place was out of the question. I chanced it. "Would you accept me as a taxi?"

"You?" She turned her head away from the tree she'd been looking at and toward me.

Perhaps I just wasn't born to be a taxi driver. In any case, she looked at me with disbelief. "Yes, me. I have a car" - I just had to grin at the thought of the Italian, he did it so well - "and I even have it here. You won't believe it."

She stayed cool. "I don't want you to go out of your way for me."

Out of my way? Oh, yeah, she didn't know... "I live right around the corner from you, if that's what you mean," I explained. She obviously wanted to go home. I could save myself the trouble of making another suggestion.

"Oh really?" It didn't seem to interest her very much. But I couldn't take this much longer. If I was going to have to let her go, I wanted to get it over with.

"My car is over there." I indicated a car on the left with my arm. Without waiting for an answer, I started for it. When I opened the driver's door, I looked over my shoulder. She was three steps behind me. I went to the other side of the car and unlocked the passenger door. She looked at me and smiled gently.

"How gallant," she remarked. At least she was starting to take me somewhat seriously again. But if she started flirting again, I was finished, I knew that much. I shut the door behind her quickly.

When I got in, I realized that I had forgotten to consider two things when extending my invitation: the unavoidable physical closeness inside an automobile and her erotic charisma. In the open air of the restaurant patio she'd already started to have an effect on me, but here, where she sat only a few inches away so I could feel the warmth of her thighs... I put the car in reverse and acted as if I were completely unaffected. My heart was beating in my throat. I thought about all the hot goodnight kisses I'd had in cars in my life. Would she give me one too?

In order to back up, I had to put my arm around the back of her seat. I tried not to touch her, but I could feel the heat of her body on my side. This could get interesting! Thank god the drive wasn't very long. I drove down the winding mountainside through the forest, giving my full attention to the road. It was very quiet and dark. Only the headlights cut into the night ahead of us.

When we were almost there, she cleared her throat. "Perhaps I should explain something."

"You don't have to." I wanted to appear disinterested in order to maintain the distance between us. A little closer, and I would fall all over her.

"I know." Apparently she'd brought herself to a conclusion, although it was difficult for her. "As I said, I almost never go out. Every once in awhile to the Bella, when I..." There it was again, something she didn't want to discuss. "But never in a public place," she continued, without really finishing the sentence. "So I should never have accepted your invitation in the first place." At least that explained why she'd taken so long to decide. At first I thought that was all she was going to say, but then all of a sudden she added, "But you were so stubborn." I heard the smile in her voice, even though I couldn't look at her because I had to concentrate on the road.

We had come into the city and were on a relatively straight street. Another restaurant was right in front of us. This was actually a tourist area. "Please, stop here," she said. Probably she had just realized that she'd rather walk the rest of the way than to open up to me any more. It was so hard to figure her out!

I found a parking place and stopped. I'd hoped she was going to get out, but she didn't move. I didn't dare look at her. The need to touch her kept growing inside me. With great effort, I stared directly ahead through the windshield, grinding my teeth. Oh, what was the point. She could leave any time if she wanted to. "I'd like to kiss you," I mumbled at the reflection of the headlights in front of me.