After wrestling with philosophy, the phone call from Rita, and Jackie’s merciless grilling, it was nice that there was finally something real and rewarding to latch onto. “Absolutely,” I said, with the very best hearty good cheer I could simulate under the circumstances. Jackie gave me a somewhat cynical smile, and nodded toward the house phone.
I called in our order.
FIFTEEN
I was sitting on the balcony early the next morning, nursing my second cup of coffee, when Jackie came out and sat across from me. “Good morning,” she said brightly, brushing back a strand of still-wet hair that flopped over her forehead. She reached for the coffeepot and poured herself a cup. “Um,” she said. “I’m sorry if last night was a little …” She fluttered one hand. “I don’t know. I just got thinking that, you know.” She shrugged. “I really don’t know what to do with you.”
I must have given her a look that showed how strange her statement sounded, because she blushed, looked away, and waved a hand in the air.
“I mean,” she said, “I’ve never had a bodyguard before.”
“To be honest, I’ve never been one before, either,” I said.
“Right,” she said. She sipped the coffee. “But seeing you there all the time I forget why you’re here and I kind of … you know. There aren’t that many people I can just sort of hang with.” She made a wry face. “Especially men.” She gave me a half smile. “But I feel very … comfortable with you.”
I might have told her that this was not really a strong endorsement of her good sense, but she sipped her coffee and went on.
“You treat me like a human being,” she said. “Not like I’m a rare piece of china, or the Second Coming or something, and that’s … Do you know how unusual that is, for me? To be treated like … normal?”
“Not really,” I said. “But I think I’m starting to get an idea.”
“It’s very unusual,” she said. “I mean, I know it goes with the territory, and there are even some people who like it.”
“Yes,” I said, thinking of Robert. “I have noticed that.”
Jackie looked at me, and then smirked. “Yeah, he really does, doesn’t he?” she said, to show she knew what I was thinking.
“He certainly seems to.”
She shrugged and sipped a little more coffee. “Well, I don’t. I mean, it’s nice to have everyone think you’re wonderful, but sometimes I just want to feel like … you know.” She threw both hands up, almost as if she was indicating half a touchdown, and then quickly dropped them again. “Stupid, huh?”
“Not at all,” I said politely, only a little bit baffled.
“So to have you around, talking to me like we’re just a couple of ordinary people, it makes me … I start to relax, and really feel normal, and it’s really nice.”
She sipped again, looking down at the table. “And then I remember why you’re here, and … Oh, I don’t know.” She sipped again and then put the cup down. “I guess, you know. How things might have been different. If …” She stuck out her lower lip and blew out a breath. “Forget it,” she said, and she picked up the coffee cup again. “It’s stupid.”
“Not at all,” I said, and it really wasn’t stupid. Incomprehensible, yes, but not stupid.
“Anyway,” she said, with a strange forced smile. “Just a couple more days, and you can get back to your normal life.”
“Oh, but …” I said. “I mean, I really don’t mind.”
Jackie raised one eyebrow at me over the rim of her cup. “Really,” she said.
“Yes, really,” I said. I waved a hand at the suite, the balcony, the view. “All this is new to me. I don’t get to live like this very often.” I smiled my best Bumpkin in the Big City smile and said, “I mean really, this is fun.”
She looked at me for a long moment, then snorted. “Well, good,” she said. “Glad I can provide some entertainment.”
Jackie stared into her cup, and I wondered what I had said wrong. I had clearly hit a sour note somewhere, and I didn’t want to. I have always found it dangerous to flounder into unknown conversational waters, especially involving human feelings, but I didn’t want Jackie to slump back into her moodiness-especially if she would blame me for it. So I gave it my best shot, and said, “Jackie, really. I am having fun. I like being around you.” She looked up at me without changing her expression, so I added, “I like you.”
She looked at me over the rim of her cup with no expression. Her eyes flicked left and then right across my face. Finally, she sipped her coffee and then smiled. “Well, good,” she said. “I was beginning to think it was just the room service.”
“To be perfectly honest,” I said, “that’s pretty good, too.”
Jackie laughed, a short and musical sound, and her face lost its worry lines and changed back to perfection. “All right,” she said.
We finished our breakfast with scattered bursts of lighthearted chat and a brief infestation of Kathy-more paperwork and reminders of impending phoners-and in no time at all we were down in the lobby and hoping to get past Benny, the doorman, without hearing another hundred pages of his life story.
“Hey, Miss Forrest!” he called out cheerfully as we stepped out of the elevator. He completely ignored me, and although I couldn’t really blame him for preferring to look at Jackie, I still felt the snub.
Jackie, of course, took it right in stride. She gave him a big smile and said, “Benny! Don’t you ever sleep?”
“I can sleep when I’m dead,” he said. “But right now I got the world’s most beautiful star at my hotel.”
Jackie put a hand on Benny’s arm. “Very sweet,” she said, and the man actually blushed.
“No, listen, I mean it,” Benny said.
“Well, thank you,” Jackie said, patting his arm, and attempting to move past.
“Lemme get the door,” Benny said, rushing past us to hold the front door open and then waving Jackie through with a huge smile.
Jackie looked at me inquiringly. “Wait here while I check,” I said, and she nodded.
I stepped through the front door and nodded at Benny. “Thank you, my good man,” I told him, but I think his smile had stretched too wide and sealed his ears shut, because he kept looking toward Jackie and didn’t seem to hear me.
I went outside and went through my little security ritual. The Corniche was still parked ostentatiously in front, and our shiny new Town Car was pulled in behind it. Next to the Corniche, it looked like a wino crouching there and begging for spare change.
But the driver was the same, and all else seemed good, and so I went back in and pried Jackie away from Benny’s eager paws and handed her into the backseat of the Town Car. Just like yesterday, a small gaggle of onlookers clustered at the hotel’s front door and loudly wished us well. The car was already moving down the driveway as I buckled my seat belt, and as the driver turned onto the causeway leading to the mainland I heard the same popping backfire sound I’d heard last night. I remembered hearing a cycle starting yesterday morning, too, and I wondered whether they were everywhere now. Maybe there was a Harley convention in town. Or maybe the price of gas was forcing more people out of their SUVs and onto two wheels.
Or maybe it was more than that.
I felt a dry rustle of interior bat wings as the Dark Passenger stirred in its sleep and muttered, It’s only coincidence when you’re not paying attention, and I thought about that.
What if it wasn’t coincidence? What if it was not many motorcycles, but only one very persistent motorcycle, and it was following us?
Of course, even if that were true, it might be no more than a paparazzo hoping to snap a picture of Jackie without a bra, or picking her nose, or dancing drunkenly in a South Beach club. People like that were drawn to celebrities like moths to a flame. There were bound to be a few hanging around, and that was probably all it was: just somebody looking for a photo op.
On the other hand …