One Way or Another(5)

In fact Martha was far from childlike; she was practical, competent, and determined. She was good at her job, which you might have expected to be something in fashion and, in a way, it was. Martha was an interior designer, not of the plush sofa, fluffy pillow variety, more of the clean, spare, industrial type—what Marco called her “concrete bunker look.” Needless to say she’d had a go at doing over Marco’s Paris studio, a one-room place, large though, and with a gallery sleeping loft where the mattress still rested on the floor, as it had since the day Marco moved in, and the chairs were threadbare green Eames worn practically to the frame. He had allowed Martha to do over his bathroom, though, which he described as cool—all steel and white tile, not a hint of granite in sight because Marco hated granite. The kitchen had rubbed concrete counters and gray slate floors.

The work part of the studio itself remained as it was when Marco had bought it with money earned from his first decent commission, a portrait of a French fashion icon that made him famous and sought after. Then he’d bought the tiny slab of a one-room house on the Turkish coast, with the small wooden boat, the gulet, with its pointed prow and wide painted eyes, which Marco said always seemed to be showing him the way, and which he had not allowed Martha to touch.

One look at that small boat and Martha knew there was nothing she could do with it. No cushions were ever going to turn it into the yacht she’d been expecting when Marco invited her to stay with him in Turkey. It had not mattered, they were so enamored of each other they hardly noticed their surroundings, until they came up for air and gazed, glasses of cool white wine in hand, at the beauty all around them.

Love, Martha decided, was what made her world go round. She had been content with her work, enjoyed what she did, had a busy social life, friends, a big family who mostly lived together, sharing the ancient country home in England, somewhat ramshackle now, but still beautiful, all mellow golden Cotswold stone and dark beams, as well as her own small and very charming New York apartment. Of course she had been in love before, madly, horribly, but he’d been too attractive, too smooth, too popular with women. He’d flirted and he’d cheated and he’d caste her into despair. She met Marco on the rebound in an antique store, both of them examining a strange brass ram’s-head lamp which she said was Egyptian and which he told her was certainly French.

They’d checked it out on Google over cups of coffee and bacon-and-egg sandwiches on kaiser rolls in the café around the corner. Martha could still remember clearly what she was wearing that day. It was a Saturday and under her coat she had on retro flared jeans and a skinny black cashmere sweater with pearl buttons. Her hair was held back with an elastic and she wore no makeup. She liked makeup-free weekends, when she had the time to herself; it gave her skin, and her, time to breathe, not to have to think about appearance, not to be “on,” or to be charming to please her clients. With only herself to please that afternoon she was not charming to Marco.

“Excuse me, but I saw that lamp first,” she’d said frostily. Marco already held it in his hands and was examining it.

He glanced up at her, taking her quickly in, the painter in him finding her bone structure interesting, the man in him finding her coldness irritating.

“Is that so? Then I wonder how I managed to pick it up and contemplate purchasing it. If it was already taken, if you see what I mean.”

“I do not see what you mean.” Martha reached out for the lamp.

Marco hefted it teasingly from one hand to the other, pretending to drop it.

“Jesus,” she exclaimed, snatching it from him. “You might have broken it.”

“But I didn’t.”

They stopped looking at the lamp and took a long look at each other.

“I was thinking of getting a coffee,” she said, making the first move.

And that was the beginning of that.





4

Through her job, Martha knew everybody. She had worked with many of them on their various homes, and now she was able to make a few calls and hitch a lift on a private Learjet to Paris. From there she accompanied a fashion shoot on their plane to Istanbul, then on to the small local airfield where Marco was waiting to meet her.

It was very hot and dark clouds pushed the blue from the sky, portending another storm. Marco knew the long journey must have been rough and Martha must be tired, yet she walked down the steps off the small plane immaculate as ever, in a white shirt, sleeves rolled, black skinny jeans, and red canvas espadrilles. An oversized white tote hung from her shoulder, stuffed with magazines and the goodies she knew Marco liked, including four Snickers bars; two slightly stale New York bagels that would be okay toasted; six giant sticks of red licorice, which she liked too; and a bottle of the Jim Beam she thought would make a change from the arak or whatever they drank in places like Turkey and Greece. She also carried the dog-eared trade paperback of War and Peace which for twenty years she had been promising herself to read. It was that or Pride and Prejudice, but she found Jane Austen incredibly slow and anyhow much preferred finding her way through all those Russian names. She was still on page thirty-five, but had hope.

She looked wonderful, Marco thought, dazzled anew by her wide blue eyes and swinging blond hair and the curvy body he knew so well. Martha was exactly the right height to fit under his arm when they walked along together, as they did now, out of the airport to Marco’s battered Jeep Safari with its rattling canvas top. He carried the heavy tote, demanding to know what was in there, then shoved Em from the passenger seat into the back, while Martha took the dog’s place.