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"But . . . check with the knight," she said, "and check with the bishop, and guard your queen! Isn't that a pretty move?"
Blood drained from my face. Check I had expected. Guard-your-queen was a surprise.
"Pretty indeed," I said, years of emergency-training forcing me casual. "My goodness . . . Hm . . . There's a move to be framed, it's so pretty. But I shall slip like a shadow away. Somehow like a shadow, Ms. Parrish, the Beast shall slip away. . . ."
Sometimes the beast twisted free, others he was herded into a corral and checkmated, only to be reborn half-a-cookie later, trying once more to catch her in his traps.
What strange alchemy between us! I assumed that she had a variety of men for her romances as I had women for mine. Assuming was enough; neither of us pried, each was infinitely respectful of the other's privacy.
Then once hi the middle of chess she said, "There's a movie tonight at the Academy that I ought to see. The director might be good for us to think about. Want to come along?"
"Love to," I said absently, tending my defense against her king-side attack.
I had never been inside the theater of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; I was glamour-struck driving past the building. But here was I inside, watching a new film with a crowd of movie-stars. How odd, I thought. My simple life of flying is all at once connected to the inside
of Hollywood by a book and a friend who beats me often as not at ray favorite game.
After the movie, as she drove us east on Santa Monica Boulevard through the twilight, I was struck by inspiration:
"Leslie, would you care to ..."
The silence was so tantalizing she said, "Would I care to what?"
"Leslie, would you care for a hot fudge sundae?"
She recoiled. "A what?"
"Hot . . . fudge . . . sundae. And a round of chess?"
"What a depraved thought!" she said. "The hot fudge, I mean. Haven't you noticed that I live on seeds and raw vegetables and yogurt and only rarely even a chess-cookie?"
"M. Noticed I have. That is why you need a hot fudge sundae. How long has it been? Honest, now. If it was last week you have to say last week."
"Last week? Last year! Do I look like I've been eating sundaes? Look at me!"
For the first time, I did. I sat back and blinked to discover what the dimmest male saw at once, that here was an extraordinarily attractive woman, that the thought that had built the exquisite face had also built a body to match.
In the months I had known her, she had been a charming bodyless sprite, a mind that was a dancing challenge, a reference-book of film production, classical music, politics, ballet.
"Well? Would you say I've been living on sundaes?"
"Beautiful! That is, no! That is definitely NOT a hot fudge body! Let me say this for certain ..." I was blushing. What a stupid thing, I thought, for a grown man . . . Richard, change the subject fast!
"One little sundae," I said swiftly, "it wouldn't be harm,
it would be happiness. If you can make a turn there through traffic, we can get our hands on a pair of hot fudges, small ones, right now. ..."
She looked at me, flashed a smile to assure me our friendship was safe; she knew that I had noticed her body for the first time, and she didn't mind. But her men-friends, I thought, would mind indeed, and that could bring problems.
Without discussion, without a word to her, I erased the idea of her body from my thought. For romance I had my perfect woman; for a friend and business-partner I needed to keep Leslie Parrish just the way she was.
thirteen
"IT'S NOT the end of the world," Stan said quietly, even before I had settled in the chair on the other side of his desk. "It's what we could call a bit of a reverse. The West Coast Commodity Exchange collapsed yesterday. They filed for bankruptcy. You've lost a little money."
My financial manager was always understated, which is why my jaw tightened at his words. "How little have we lost, Stan?"
"About six hundred thousand dollars," he said, "five hundred ninety-some thousand."
