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“I’m cried out, Kissy. If you live with it long enough, even high tragedy gets to be mundane.”
“Like Oedipus Rex.” Kissy dabbed at her eyes. “I was in the chorus when I was in college. We must have performed that play for every high school in the state.” She flipped onto her back. “There’s a master’s thesis in here somewhere.”
“How do you figure?”
“Do you remember the characteristics of a tragic hero? He’s a person of high stature brought down by a tragic flaw, like hubris, the sin of pride. He loses everything. Then he achieves a catharsis, a cleansing through his suffering. Or her suffering,” she said pointedly.
“Me?”
“Why not? You had high stature, and you sure have been brought down.”
“What’s my tragic flaw?” Fleur asked.
Kissy thought for a moment. “Shitty parents.”
Late the next morning, after showers, aspirin, and room-service coffee, they heard a knock at the door. Kissy opened it and emitted a loud squeal. Fleur looked up just in time to see the Belle of the Confederacy hurl herself into Simon Kale’s forbidding arms.
The three of them had breakfast in the revolving dining room on top of Munich’s Olympia Tower, where they could gaze out over the Alps, sixty-five miles away. As they ate, Fleur heard the story of Kissy and Simon’s long-standing friendship. They’d been introduced not long after Kissy’s arrival in New York by one of Simon’s classmates at Juilliard. Simon Kale, Fleur discovered, was a classically trained musician and as menacing as Santa Claus.
He laughed as he wiped one corner of his mouth with his napkin. “You should have seen Fleur taming King Barry with her story about having a venereal disease. She was magnificent.”
“And you didn’t try to help her out, did you?” Kissy gave him a none-too-gentle punch in the arm. “Instead you gave her that I-eat-white-girls-for-breakfast look, just to amuse yourself.”
Simon acted wounded. “I haven’t eaten a white girl in years, Kissy, and I’m hurt that you would suggest such a perversion.”
“Simon’s discreetly gay,” Kissy informed Fleur. And then, in a loud whisper, “I don’t know about you, Fleurinda, but I regard homosexuality as a personal insult.”
By the time breakfast was over, Fleur decided she liked Simon Kale. Beneath his threatening facade lay a kind and gentle man. As she watched his delicate gestures and finicky mannerisms, she’d have bet every penny of her meager income that he would have been more comfortable in the body of a ninety-pound weakling. Maybe that was why she liked him. They both lived in bodies that didn’t feel like home.
When they got back to the hotel, Simon excused himself, and Kissy and Fleur set out for Barry’s suite. It had been cleaned up since last night’s party, and Barry was once again in residence, nervously pacing the carpet as they entered. He was so glad to see Kissy that he barely listened to her breathlessly convoluted lie about why she was late, and several minutes elapsed before he even noticed Fleur. He made it obvious with a less than subtle glance toward the door that her presence was no longer required. Fleur pretended not to notice.
Kissy leaned forward and whispered something in his ear. As Barry listened, his expression grew increasingly horrified. When Kissy finished, she gazed down at the floor like a naughty child.
Barry looked at Fleur. He looked at Kissy. Then he looked at Fleur again. “What is this?” he cried. “A friggin’ epidemic?”
Kissy’s two weeks of vacation from the gallery ended, and she and Fleur said a tearful good-bye at Heathrow, with Fleur promising to telephone that evening at Parker Dayton’s expense. When she returned to the hotel, she was depressed for the first time since she’d started her job. She already missed Kissy’s quirky sense of humor and even quirkier view of life.
A few days later Parker called with a job offer. He wanted her to work for him in New York at nearly double her current salary. Panic-stricken, she hung up the telephone and called Kissy at the gallery.
“I don’t know why you’re so surprised, Fleurinda,” Kissy said. “You’re on the phone with him two or three times a day, and he’s as impressed with your work as everybody else. He may be slime mold, but he’s not stupid.”
“I—I’m not ready to go back to New York. It’s too soon.”
The distinct sound of a snort traveled through three thousand miles of ocean cable. “You’re not going to start whining again, are you? Self-pity kills your sex drive.”
“My sex drive is nonexistent.”
“See. What did I tell you?”
Fleur twisted the phone cord. “It’s not that simple, Kissy.”
“Do you want to be back where you were a month ago? Ostrich time is over, Fleurinda. It’s time to return to the real world.”
Kissy made it sound so easy, but how long could Fleur stay in New York before the press discovered her? And she still didn’t like Parker. What if her job with him didn’t work out? What would she do then?
Her stomach rumbled, and she realized she hadn’t had anything to eat since the night before. Another change this job had made in her life. Her jeans were already too loose, and her hair had grown down ove
r her ears. Everything was changing.
