I couldn't think of a good opening line, so I asked her directly, after I'd said who it was, "Have you considered my suggestion?"

"Which suggestion?" she asked.

I should have known! A week was, after all, a good stretch of time. How could I expect her to remember my invitation? She had certainly been busy with entirely unrelated things.

I was afraid to speak, because I knew my anger would be plainly audible. "Are you still there?" she asked after a bit.

"Yes," I said, carefully controlled, hoping that wasn't obvious through the telephone. "I had asked you if you'd go out to eat with me."

"Oh, yeah," she said, as if she could vaguely remember that. "I've considered it." That was a feat! She'd forgotten it, but still managed to think about it. Someone should do that to her sometime!

"And?" "Biting" might just begin to describe my tone of voice. "To what conclusion have you come?" I really didn't know how much longer I could control myself. She was definitely going to decline, I was sure of that. And that forecast calmed me. A short, painless (yeah, right!) end could, after all, only be good for me.

"I'm not sure yet," she answered softly.

"You've had an entire week to think about it!" The outburst came more from surprise than from irritation. But of course: she hadn't had a week to think about it, she'd just now been reminded of it by my phone call.

Why were so much anger and so much desire building inside me at the same time? Had she stood before me, I wouldn't have left like I had the last time -- that much was clear, regardless of whether or not she meant to charge me. I wouldn't have gotten what I really wanted from her, but at least I would've gotten great s.e.x. Even I knew that much!

"A week is short," she remarked, more as an excuse than as a statement of fact.

Oh, yes! I was convinced that the time had pa.s.sed much more quickly for her than it had for me. In a busy life like hers, time went by much faster. She made me look really old. But my rage slowly faded away. It was pointless, after all. She would put me off for another week if I let her, then another, and another...

"It's all right," I said, in a resigned, self-sacrificing tone. "You don't have to if you don't want to."

"I didn't say that." She surprised me yet again. Now it was turned around - I got a more positive answer than I had expected. "There's just so much to think about."

About a dinner invitation? She really did live in a wholly different world from mine. With me, there were only two things to consider: could I and did I want to. And perhaps also the type of food. But that decision couldn't possibly take a whole week - could it? "Why? Can you not decide whether you'd like Chinese or Italian?" As ba.n.a.l as that seemed to me, maybe it had a deeper meaning for her.

She laughed. "It's not that simple," she said. This line of reasoning was too much for me. I couldn't imagine any convincing grounds for this degree of complication. And I couldn't wait another week, I was sure of that. So it was now or never!

"Could you accept an invitation to meet at a place outside the city that's just opened, doesn't serve Chinese or Italian, and has a patio?" That truly left all possibilities open. It was neither too intimate nor too casual, and on a mild summer evening - who knew what might happen?

A sound came through the line that didn't sound too unlike a chuckle. "You're really stubborn," she said.

"Well, yes, it's hard work to convince you to go out to eat, I'll admit that. But for --" a beautiful woman, I wanted to say, but that would surely bore her since she heard it every day, so I finished with "a good meal, I'll do almost anything." That would have to do!

"Well, then...," she agreed goodnaturedly. "But I still have to put you off. I can't today. The first I could go is tomorrow."

Immediately, the wildest of possibilities flew through my head as to why she couldn't go out tonight. There could really only be one reason: she already had another commitment. And I could imagine with whom. It was certainly with a client.

A client, who was more important to her than I was. So we were back to square one. I suppressed a new wave of anger and the impulse to contradict her. "Should I pick you up or should we meet somewhere?" I asked instead.

"Tell me where it is. Then we'll meet there." She seemed to want to avoid dependence on me by all means possible. Although it seemed to me to be rather environmentally irresponsible to go in separate cars, it was clear that she wouldn't agree to anything else. So I told her the address.

"Oh, yes, I've heard of the place," she said in acknowledgment. Lightning flashed through my head again. From whom, I wanted to ask. But I didn't.

"When?" I asked.

"Eight o'clock," she answered, without thinking. She had her schedule memorized. That must help her avoid jealousy and embarra.s.sment.

"Then I'll see you there," I said finally.

"I'll be there," she a.s.sured me.

I hung up hesitantly. I would've liked to talk with her more, but there was absolutely no reason to go on. And I would see her the next day, or so I hoped. Would she keep this kind of date? I didn't know her well enough to predict that. Perhaps she would only come because she still saw a potential client in me, one she didn't want to turn away. Did I want to know that? No, I didn't want to know, I decided. But all that would be clear to me tomorrow after dessert, at the latest.

Chapter 6.

She was already there when I arrived, although I was, contrary to my usual habit, extraordinarily punctual. I'd been staring at the clock all day long, and it took a serious discussion with myself not to come early.

She was sitting under one of the old lime trees that made the patio such a lovely and interesting place, and would certainly make it a popular and crowded meeting place soon. Now, it was still relatively empty. I could see her from the entrance before she saw me. It seemed to me that she had dressed quite conservatively, but for my taste still very attractively. I asked myself what that meant. Did she always dress like that for dinner dates, had she had an appointment right before this one that had demanded such an outfit, or had she dressed that way for me? And if the last case was true, what had I to expect?

I wasn't going to solve this mystery standing in the doorway, so I entered the cobblestone patio and walked without hurrying - something that took a considerable effort - to the table. She was looking in another direction, so I had a good view of her cla.s.sical profile. Her beauty almost frightened me. The symmetry of her features was almost surreal. Never had I seen anything close in another woman. She first noticed me when I was close enough for her to hear my footsteps on the stones. Almost startled, as if she'd been thinking about something totally unrelated and wasn't expecting me at all, she looked up. I felt like a troublemaker. I deliberately put on a friendly smile, to take some of the uncomfortable intimacy out of the situation. "h.e.l.lo. I'm sorry if I'm late."

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?" d.a.m.n 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 a.s.sumed 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 a.s.sumption 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 embarra.s.sment. "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.

d.a.m.n 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 rea.s.sure 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 att.i.tude, 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 G.o.d, 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 pet.i.te. 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 a.s.sumed 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 pa.s.senger 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 G.o.d 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.

Her hand appeared next to the steering wheel and turned off the headlights. "So do it," she said. I froze. She touched my thigh briefly below the steering wheel, then took it away. The spot on my leg still burned. I turned toward her. "Would you believe me if I told you that wasn't why I asked you out?"

"No." Her voice still had a bit of a smile to it. "But that doesn't matter."