“Oh, hi,” I heard through the scratchy connection. “Coming to Grenoble?” she asked.
“Uhh…only if you want me to,” I said, trying to be cool.
“It’d be nice to see you,” she said, rather breezily.
“Good, I’ll be there in a few days.”
“No, Nick. I’ve waited for you for weeks at a time in the past. If you really want to get together, tell me exactly when and I’ll try to be here.”
“O-o-kay,” I stammered, consulting my rail schedule. “Day after tomorrow, the connecting train from Rome arrives at 2:30 p.m.”
“Carolyn’ll be sorry she missed you. She’ll be on a ballet field trip. But that’s all right. We can find something to talk about,” she acknowledged coldly.
Was this the same Lindy? I wondered. She sounded bored, even angry. Those thoughts were with me as I tapped on her door two days later. When I hugged her she was as stiff as a board, granting me just a hint of a smile.
“Oh, good. You brought some wine. Can we open it now?” she asked.
I uncorked the large bottle and we sat, drinking, with me on the sofa, she in a plush easy chair with padded arms that faced it. Her legs were tucked beneath her. She was ravishing. She wore a black, sleeveless top and a short gray skirt that stopped above her knees. Her tiny feet were shoeless. My groin pulsed a couple of times as I wondered if she were wearing panties. “You look good,” I murmured.
“Thanks, so do you,” she said, distractedly. “Ummm, I need to make a call. Would you excuse me for a minute?”
Her French had improved. She spoke in the language with someone about having difficulty with the theory behind a couple of paintings, then agreed with whomever she was speaking with, saying she’d see the person soon. She then went into the bedroom for a minute. Coming out, she brought a little box, extracting a small pipe and some pale green chunks of something from it.
“That looks like hashish,” I said. I’d had some in Berlin.
“You’re right, Nicky!” she responded, her green eyes flashing. “What’s this look like?” she asked, flipping a photograph at me that landed in my lap. It was of me, nude, with an impressive erection, grinning at the camera; one of several that Maureen had taken of me months before in Paris. I was speechless as Lindy explained its source. “My lovely mother always uses pictures as bookmarks. That one was in a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Appropriate, dontcha’ think?” She lit her hash pipe. “Want some?”
“Yeah…please,” I gasped, anxious to relieve some of the pressure I felt. If I’d been on top of the situation I would’ve said: “Well, at least it wasn’t Catch 22.” But the drug hit me immediately and I thankfully submitted to its sensuous tendrils enveloping my mind.
“I could have killed you,” I heard her say, “taking advantage of my lonely mom the way you did.”
I started to object but we were interrupted by a knock at the door. Lindy rose and opened it, admitting a tall, thin black man whom she introduced as Jean-Pierre. I poured him a glass of wine and he sat in the easy chair, with Lindy sitting beside me. “I’m currently living in Napoli,” I told him, in French.