The Summer of Sunshine and Margot(100)

“Some. Basic conversation.”

“You speak Japanese and you never thought to mention it to me?”

“Why would you want to know?”

“I don’t know—it’s an unexpected factoid.”

“Oh, if you say so. I picked it up while I was working in Japan for a few months. I did a series of commercials. I took Alec with me, of course. We had such a wonderful time together.”

After all these weeks, Bianca still had the ability to surprise her, Margot thought, both impressed and bemused. They sat on the sofa in the guest room, her laptop on the coffee table where they could both see the screen.

“Any other languages?” she asked with a laugh. “Or odd skills I should know about?”

Bianca laughed. “I don’t think so.” She pointed at the screen on Margot’s laptop. “So you think I should learn German and French.”

“They would be the most useful, given where you’ll be living in Europe. With your acting skills and your ear for accents, you’ll probably pick them up quickly. You could impress everyone by learning Russian, but only if you want to. I don’t think it’s really going to be that helpful.”

“Maybe Italian,” Bianca said. “Italy is so romantic.”

They’d spent the morning going over the cultural norms of various European countries. Bianca had memorized expectations for punctuality, how close to stand, how formal the greeting and a few key facts about every country.

“Bianca,” Margot began. “We are genuinely running out of things to talk about.”

Bianca raised her hand. “Tut, tut. We agreed not to discuss that until next week.”

“I’m not cheap. You’re spending a lot of money to keep me here and it’s not necessary.”

“It is to me. Now I don’t want to talk about it until next week. Is that clear?”

Margot thought about pushing back, but she’d learned that Bianca couldn’t be rushed. With a sigh, she said, “Sure.”

“Good. Now help me decide what language program I should use.”

“You can download a sample from a couple of them onto your tablet. Do the practice lessons and see which you like best.”

“Let’s do that now,” Bianca said, coming to her feet. “I’ll go get it and you can show me how to load everything.”

But before Bianca could walk to her bedroom, Edna appeared in the doorway.

“There’s a gentleman to see you,” she said, looking a little flustered.

“You mean Wesley?” Bianca asked. “I thought he was in meetings today.”

“Not him.” Edna turned to Margot. “A gentleman to see you.”

Who on earth? she thought, then mentally slammed on the brakes. No. No! It couldn’t be.

“Did he give his name?” she asked, hoping she sounded calmer than she felt.

“Dietrich. He didn’t offer a last name. He said you would know who he was.”

Oh, she knew. But how had he found her? She figured out the answer as soon as she thought the question. One of her friends had caved.

“Dietrich? Oh, the ex-lover.” Bianca’s tone was arch, her expression inquisitive. “This is going to be exciting, isn’t it? I do love unexpected drama.”

Margot couldn’t figure out what to say to that, so she ignored the comment. She rose and headed for the stairs, aware of the other women following her. How lovely—an audience.

At the bottom of the stairs she found Dietrich in the foyer. He looked as he always had—tall, thin, blond. There was a studied casualness about him, as if he had more important things to do than worry about his clothes or how he looked. He was a filmmaker. An artist. The mores of the ordinary world were not his problem.

He smiled when he saw her. “Margot. At last! I’ve been trying to reach you, but you are hard to find these days, aren’t you.” He put his hands on her upper arms, then leaned in and kissed each cheek before settling his mouth on hers.

She let him, wanting to know what she would feel. Regret? Longing? Desperate hope that this time it would be different, that this time it would be forever? She held her breath, braced for any emotion.

His mouth lingered. She didn’t respond, mostly because she really didn’t want to be kissing him. In fact, as she checked in with her heart and girl parts, she realized she felt exactly nothing. No anticipation, no passion, not even interest. If she had to define any emotion it was a sense of inevitability at the tiresomeness that was to follow. Getting rid of Dietrich before he was ready to be gone had never been easy.

He stepped back and smiled at her. “Oh, I know what you’re doing. Playing hard to get so I want you more. Well, it’s working, my love. How I have missed you. I’ve missed us. I have so many ideas for films, but without you, everything is meaningless. I thought we could start in Bali. A week at the St. Regis, yes? Then to work.” He smiled. “Do you want to go start packing?”

She didn’t have to turn around to know Bianca and Edna were right behind her, taking in every word.

“Just like that?” she asked. “You show up uninvited and expect me to drop everything so I can be with you?”

He frowned. “Of course. You always have.”

She always had. She wanted to ask why he would say that or even think it, only she knew the answer. She really always had.