flowers again and she realized how serious you are and tenacious .
“I know, drop it.”
Silence fell over the table for a couple of minutes.
“I would like to hear her sing,” Rudman said.
Keegan glared at him.
“Hey, she’s an entertainer,” Rudman said, his hands held out at his sides. “So let’s go be entertained.”
The minute she started singing, Keegan was sunk.
Rudman watched Keegan as he sat totally enthralled.
The next day Rudman sent her an enormous spring bouquet and charged it to Keegan. No card. They returned to the club that night, and the next, and the next. And each day Rudman sent more flowers. At the end of the week he told Keegan what he had done.
“She sings like a bird and if you’re not going to pursue her, I am,” he threatened.
And so it started over again, only this time Jenny Gould sensed his persistence. Out of curiosity she asked around and found out who he was. Every day for a week she received two dozen roses and every night the American and his friend reserved the same table at the edge of the stage at the Kit Kat, although he made no attempt to contact her or speak to her. He just sat and stared and applauded. Then one afternoon he showed up at her door.
“It’s lunchtime.” He was as awkward as a schoolboy. “You have to eat. I mean, you’ll get weak and faint in the middle of a song if you don’t eat. And I just happened to be driving by and she looked out at the car and back at him and finally sighed and took his arm and he led her out into the lovely late spring day.
He had arranged a picnic in a small park near the Opera House with a vase of flowers, champagne and sandwiches of Kasseler Rippchen, the little smoked and pickled pork loin she discovered he loved, frankfurter sausages, boiled eggs and sauerkraut, and for dessert there were several kinds of pastries. He had a windup Victrola and several radio transcriptions a friend had sent him and they sat on the blanket and listened to Billie Holiday sing “My Man” and “Stormy Monday Blues.” He was gracious and interested in her and funny and delightful and caring, things she least expected of this man everyone described as a rich, reckless American playboy. After that day they were together constantly. She moved into a small flat on the outskirts of Berlin soon after they met. They spent the days together and at night he sat faithfully at his customary table and listened to her sing. When he finally left to return to Paris for the opening of the racing season she lasted only three days without him. There had been three and four phone calls a day and finally she called him late one night.
“I have never been this sad in my life,” she told him.
“Come to Paris, Jenny,” he said. “Let’s give it a real chance.”
“But my job.
“With a voice like yours, you’ll never have to worry about a job.”
The next day he sent the plane for her.
The tan filly snorting like an engine thundered by them, her long legs snapping out, the jockey perched way forward, almost on her neck, going light on the whip. Keegan popped the button on his stopwatch as she streaked by. His face brightened.
Jenny’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “What do you think?” she asked.
Keegan studied his stopwatch. “Not bad, not bad at all. If it doesn’t rain she just might take the roses.” He looked up at the bright, cloudless sky. “But she’s not a mudder so pray that the skies stay clear.”
“A really gorgeous filly,” Rudman said. “Where did you get her?”
“Picked her up at a claiming race at Aqueduct.”
“Maybe you’ve got another Cavalcade on your hands.”
“She’s good,” said Keegan, “but I don’t think she’s got the stuff to be a Triple Crown winner.”
“She looks so beautiful, stretching out those long legs of hers,” Jenny said. “Why did you give her such a ridiculous name?”
“What would you call her?” Keegan laughed. “Honey Bunch?”
“Something other than Rave On.”
“Rave On’s a great name,” Keegan said.
“It does not make a bit of sense to me.”
“It’s an American expression,” said Rudman. “And you’re right, it doesn’t make any sense.”
“It’s not supposed to,” Keegan said. “I once knew a racehorse named John J. Four Eyes. Now
Jenny looked hopelessly at Rudman ‘who waved off the remark with a grin. “I can’t begin to explain that one,” he said as they walked across the infield of Longchamp racetrack toward the gate. The jockey, a Parisian whose name was Jaimie Foulard, slid out of the saddle and landed in front of Keegan.
