“Kek! I have a wonderful idea!” She brought her drink up and sipped it impatiently, anxious to be done with it and return to her thesis. A frown crossed her face; she set her drink down and hurried on, anxious to correct any misinterpretation. “I don’t mean getting married...”
Huuygens, sprawled comfortably in an easy chair and nursing a brandy, grinned at her. “Well, at least that’s a step in the right direction.”
“Yes.” Anita’s head bobbed. “This idea is much better. Why don’t I move in with you?” Kek’s eyes widened in shock that was only partially pretense; Anita hurried on, determined to get in all her ammunition before a cease-fire was unfairly declared.
“It’s a beautiful idea, Kek. Look.” She swung her hand about, encompassing the apartment. “Your maid has no idea of how to keep a house clean. If there were a woman here, she wouldn’t dare leave the kitchen the way she does or the bathroom. And I’m sure she hasn’t dusted properly in weeks.” She shook her head. “And your answering service? I’ll bet they make lots of mistakes, but if—”
Kek pretended to be stung. “My answering service is infallible.”
“Well—” Anita was reluctant to abandon any weapon. “—Maybe...” She instantly attacked on another flank. “There’s something else: your maid doesn’t get here until ten in the morning—”
“Nine.”
“It’s still too late to make you breakfast. You have to make your own. And that’s—”
“I eat at the café downstairs.”
“But that’s just the point,” Anita said triumphantly, as if pleased that Kek was being so cooperative. “You shouldn’t. Restaurant food is — is — boring. Especially in the morning.” She took a quick sip of her drink and returned to the fray, refreshed. “Just think how nice it would be to have a hot breakfast waiting for you when you got up in the morning...”
Kek shuddered. “All I can tolerate in the morning is coffee. Black.”
She shook her head with almost maternal pity. “It’s the very worst thing you could do. You should have something solid.”
He grinned. “Like you?”
Anita smiled, an enigmatic smile, like a cat dreaming of some hidden cache of mice. “That, too. And just think, you wouldn’t have to take me home at some ungodly hour of the morning, and then try and find a cab when it’s raining, halfway across the city—”
“You live exactly two blocks from here,” Kek pointed out.
“Well — I might move someday...” She returned to her drink for comfort, pouting at it. “I still think it’s a wonderful idea. I could see that your laundry went out on time, and that you always had enough liquor in the house, and you know I’m a good cook, and if you were working on anything, I’d be as quiet as a mouse...”
The gray eyes of the man in the chair twinkled. “You’re making me think I should hire you instead of my maid.”
Anita swung about, her pout instantly disappearing, replaced by a brilliant smile. “Kek! That’s a marvelous idea!” She considered it a moment, and then added thoughtfully, “We could keep Marie on, of course, to help me, and I could live in. It’s perfect.”
Kek shook his head in wonder. “Anita, you’re incorrigible.”
“Well,” Anita said, her tone accepting the logic of it, “if a woman is living with a man, I shouldn’t think he’d want her to be corrigible. At least not all the time.” She gave him her gamin grin, but there was more than a hint of seriousness behind it. “When would you like me to start?”
“I’d have to think about it, of course,” Kek said slowly. “One doesn’t change maids lightly. Not these days.”
“Not change,” Anita said firmly. “Supplement.”
“Even supplementing maids takes thought.”
“But you’ll think about it?”
“Definitely,” Kek said solemnly.
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
Anita swung about on the upholstered stool several times, like a child at a soda fountain, her ankles neatly crossed, propelling herself with one hand on the bar. She brought herself to a stop and then folded her hands in her lap, looking at him almost demurely.
“Now, if I were living here, I could also be a sort of secretary for you. I don’t take shorthand, and I don’t type, but I could always learn. And even before I learned, I could be useful to you. I could remind you of things...”
Kek grinned at her. “Such as my letting you know my decision?”
“Exactly.” Anita looked pleased at his complete grasp of the full potential of her suggested employment.
Kek shook his head slowly, and then raised his glass in a toast to her convoluted logic.
“You know, Anita,” he said with admiration, “I’m sure you’d get along fine in my business. No...” He raised a hand quickly. “Don’t suggest a partnership. I have a feeling I’d end up being the junior partner.”
The telephone rang sharply before Anita could protest the unfairness of this statement; he drank the last of his brandy and leaned toward the desk at his side, exchanging the empty glass for the instrument. He brought it to his ear.
“Hello? Who? Yes, this is he...” He cupped the receiver with one hand, looking at her over the rim. “Long distance.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
He shook his head. “And travel those two blocks halfway across the city to your apartment, alone and late at night? No. Besides, all good secretaries are confidential, if they’re anything at all. Instead of leaving, you can practice being a good maid. By getting me another drink, please...”
She came down from her stool immediately, retrieved his glass, and returned to the bar. The instrument in Kek’s hand became alive, exchanging foreign languages in a bored fashion. The smile disappeared from his face at once, making it appear leaner, and somehow more predatory. He pulled himself erect in his chair.
“Hello? Yes, I’m still here. And I’m still M’sieu Huuygens.” There was a brief pause. “Hello?”
Anita poured a generous amount of brandy into the glass and brought it back, balancing it carefully, determined to deliver a glass of brandy as no other maid in the world could hope to deliver it. She placed it within reach on the desktop and stood back, watching him gravely. The complete change from the easygoing, laughing man who had been relaxing in the chair to the hard person bending almost fiercely over the telephone somehow made her feel happy. It was as if just being present at the metamorphosis bound them closer together. It was a feeling she could not have explained, even to herself, but she knew she reveled in it.
Huuygens took a deep breath, and expelled it abruptly as a voice came on. “Hello? André? What? I’m fine.” He brushed aside the other’s opening words impatiently. “Everyone’s fine, and I’m sure you are, too. Now — what else is new?”
At the other end of the connection, André debated whether to be cute or not, and finally settled on a line somewhere in between. He managed to sound curious. “Kek? Tell me something — how does one go about getting in touch with you? To offer you a job?”
There was a moment of silence, and then Huuygens closed his eyes, masking the sudden gleam of excited triumph that had appeared in them. He opened them almost at once, as if afraid he might miss some of the beauty of the situation. Anita, watching him, felt a wave of tenderness at the thought that the man she loved could be so mercurial, so changeable. Huuygens chuckled softly.