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burned his hands beyond recovery by rescuing her from a fire. It turned out
the poor stiff worked in a bakery, and his only musical talent was whistling
'After the Ball Is Over.'"
Lorie listened to this, and sat there silently for a long time. "Gene," she
said, "don't you think we'd better make this the first and last date?"
"You've decided you don't like me, huh? Is that it?"
"No, that's not it."
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"Then you do like me?"
"Yes. And that's the trouble."
Gene reached out again and stroked her cheek. She looked desperately sad, and
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he wished to God he knew why. She held his hand in hers, and pressed it
against her lips, kissing it gently.
"The truth is, Gene, that I love you, too."
He couldn't quite believe what he'd heard. "Are you kidding me? By Christ,
Lorie, I hope you're not kidding me."
"It's true," she said, in a throaty voice. "I think they call it love at first
sight."
He gave her a small, wry smile. "More like love at first bite, if you ask me."
She lifted her head. Her eyes were brimming with tears she didn't want to cry,
and she couldn't help sniffing.
"I loved you the first time I saw you," she said. "I know I haven't dated any
other men, and that I don't have any experience. Maybe I'm childish when it
comes to love. But that's just the way I am, and you're going to have to
accept it, I love you, Gene, and that's all I can say. I love you more than
anything."
"Lorie," he whispered. He held her close, and he kissed her. "Lorie why the
hell didn't you say... ?"
She started weeping openly now. "I couldn't say because it can't last. It
can't happen. I can't allow it to happen. If I fall in love with you, then
it's all going to start all over again, and I couldn't stand it."
He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed at her tears. "You're
still talking mysteries," he told her. "What can't you allow to happen? What's
going to- start all over again?"
She blew her nose. "I can't tell you," she said. "Not now, nor ever."
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He took another cigarette out of the box and lit ft. He took a long deep drag
to steady his nerves. "Not ever? Not even if we got married?"
She stared at him, her face pale and her eyes blotted With tears.
"Please, Gene," she said. "You swore you'd never ask. You swore."
He tried to manage a smile, but it came out unsteady and lopsided. "I'm a
politician, remember? Politicians have divine dispensation to break promises."
He tried to call her again and again on Monday, but the phone rang hollow and
distant and nobody answered. An unhelpful receptionist at the Franco-African
Bank said that Lorie Semple hadn't arrived for work and he didn't have the
time to go there and check for himself. Henry Ness wanted a detailed profile
of political structures on three Caribbean islands, and he spent an irritating
morning collecting data and statistics on banana production and sugar
shipping.
He had taken Lorie home on Saturday night, late, and they had kissed, but the
date had ended inconclusively, and he wasn't even sure if he was ever going to
see her again. She refused to talk about marriage and she refused to discuss
love, and she couldn't say when she might have another free evening. In the
end, he had driven off with a furiously surpressed temper and hadn't simmered
down until he got home and finished the left over jug of vodka.
"Walter's looking for you," Maggie said." He's not very happy about the
Isthmus file."
Gene lit his fifteenth cigarette of the day and refused to look up. "If
Walter's unhappy about the Isthmus file, let Walter come 'round here himself
and tell me."
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"What is this?" asked Maggie. "The workers revolution?"
"No," he said bluntly, "it's just the first day of Keep Your Nose Out Week."
Maggie glanced at the stack of untidy files on his desk. "Sugar's sweet but
Lorie isn't is that it?"
He scribbled percentages in the margin of his notepad. "Something like that.
It's a mystery of the first magnitude, if you must know."
"Idon'tgetcha."
He sat back in his swivel chair and stretched. Outside, through the pale-green
Venetian blinds, it looked as if a dark thunderstorm was looming from the
west. It was only one-thirty, but they had switched on all the office lights,
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and there was a humid electricity in the ait that didn't do anything to make
him feel better.-
"I'm totally baffled, if you must know," he said patiently. "She says she
loves me, but she doesn't want to be hugged, she's reluctant to kiss, and she
won't even, make arrangements for another date. I ask her why, and she goes
into histrionics and says there's some kind of mysterious reason that she
can't explain."
"Do you like her that much?" Maggie asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, do you like her enough to take that kind of stuff?"
He shook his head. "I don't know. I like her a lot. I love her, I think."
"Oh."
Gene saw Maggie's disappointed expression. "Come on, Maggie, he said. "It's
got to happen sooner or later. You said so yourself."
"I know-that. I just don't want you to get hurt"
"Maggie, I'm thirty-two."
"So you keep telling me. Eight years to go till you're 93
forty. Too young to settle down but too old to get hurt." Gene couldn't help
laughing. "Get out of here before
I marry you," he joked. Maggie was leaving when his telephone rang. He
picked it up. "Mr. Keiller? There's a cafl for you," the
switchboard girl said. "Sounds like someone called.
Sumpler."
Semple, pronounced with a heavy French accent. The way that Lorie's mother
spoke. "Okay," said Gene uncertainly. "Put her through.'* When Mrs. .Semple
spoke, she seemed curiously close, as if she was standing right next to him
and whispering in his ear. Her voice was rich and vibrant, and she sounded as
intimate and confiding as his own. mother.
"Gene? How is your shoulder?" "Hi, Mrs. Semple. It's fine, thanks. You did a
beautiful sewing-up job there. I don't know why you didn't become a
professional surgeon."
"It was something I picked up from an old Turkish doctor in Zagazig. Nothing
special, I'm afraid. You may always have a scar."
"I expect I can live with it. How's .Lone?" "Lone is very well." "She's not at
work."
'"Oh, you called the bank. No, well, she's a little tired, but otherwise she's
fine. It was about Lorie that I rang you, as a matter of fact."
He crushed out his cigarette in his Democratic souvenir ashtray and waited to
hear the worst. Perhaps Lorie had asked her mother to call him and put him off
for good. Well, he'd been expecting it. He was beginning to think that his
brief encounter with Lorie Semple was going to be just that and nothing more.
A
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