Thursdays as well, so I expect I’ll see you again. Good night, my dear.”
“Good night, Mrs. Gallagher.”
“Oh please, Carla, call me Emily. Otherwise you’ll make me feel ancient.”
There seemed to be no question of anyone paying a bill, so Shakira just ignored it, and assumed, correctly, the check would be added to some kind of monthly account.
And with a friendly little wave, Emily Gallagher left her longtime local hostelry for the short 200-yard walk, straight up the well-lit main street, to her home.
Shakira smiled a smile of pure contentment.
The following morning, Fausi dropped her off in the main part of the town. She shopped in the supermarket, placed her packages in the car, and asked Fausi to meet her at one o’clock. She walked toward Mrs. Gallagher’s house, and at 11 A.M., right on time, she watched the old lady come out of the house with her dog on his leash.
Timing her walk perfectly, she arrived at the front gate twenty yards behind, and noticed how difficult it was for Emily to control the bounding big retriever. Catching up quickly, she said, “Good morning, Emily. Would you like me to help you with this ridiculous person? What’s his name?”
Emily Gallagher turned around, and laughed when she saw who it was. “Oh, it’s you, Carla. You’re right. He is ridiculous, and his name’s Charlie.”
“He’s very good-looking,” said Shakira, “and handsome people get away with a lot.”
Charlie, sensing, as dogs do, that he was in the presence of another friend, turned to Shakira and planted his front paws on her belt, his tongue lolling out, his tail wagging fiercely.
She reached for the leash and said, “Let me take him. I’ll walk with you for a while.”
Emily looked relieved. “He is a terrible handful,” she said. “But I’ve had him for seven years now, and I would miss him terribly. He is a good companion for me, now that I’m alone. I usually take him about a mile down here, to the bend in the river.
“Last week, he got loose and jumped into the river. I thought he’d end up in Chesapeake Bay. But he just swam back to the shore and soaked me, shaking water everywhere.”
Shakira shook her head. “He’s almost too big for you,” she said, firmly pulling Charlie into line.
“I know he is,” replied Emily. “And, you know, if I ever miss a day taking him for a walk, he gets so boisterous, rushing around the house, knocking things over.”
Carla smiled and said, “Well, I love dogs, and I love walking. Would you like me to take him out sometimes?”
“Oh, my dear, that would be such a huge help. But would you mind? I hate to be a nuisance.”
“No, I should like it very much. I don’t have many friends around here yet. And he is the most gorgeous dog.”
Thus Carla Martin and Emily Gallagher became firm friends. Carla walked Charlie, three or four times a week, sometimes with Emily and sometimes not. Sometimes she had a cup of tea with the old lady before starting her shift at the Estuary, and occasionally they had lunch together.
Meanwhile, at the hotel she had become extremely popular, particularly with a youngish crowd who were in the hotel bar three or four times a week, always on Thursdays and Fridays, sometimes on Saturdays, and always on Sunday nights.
Despite all her efforts to play down her obvious charms with loose sweaters, wide skirts, flat shoes, no makeup, and her hair tied back in a plain ponytail, Shakira could not avoid attracting the attention of young men.
Among the group she saw most was Rick, the local computer engineer; Bill, whose father owned the supermarket; Eric, who had inherited one of the local building firms; Herb, who ran a photographic business; and Matt Barker, who had built and owned the local garage and Toyota dealership. Matt was older, maybe thirty- four.
The best-looking was Eric, twenty-four, divorced and the local golf club champion. Rick was the most studious and well-informed; Bill was the richest; Herb was showy and overconfident, with not much money but a lot of ambition to work in New York in fashion; and by far the most consistent in his admiration for Shakira was Matt Barker, who drove a Porsche and asked her to have dinner with him every time he saw her.
Shakira used all of her guile to remain remote from them. She hinted at a serious boyfriend in London; she always closed the bar by 11:30 and left by the back door, running swiftly across the parking lot and around the corner into a dark street, where Fausi awaited her, engine running.
She never said she was leaving, and her routine was not varied. She always pulled on a pair of short leather driving gloves, which she knew suggested she had her own car, and in turn that would discourage anyone from asking if they could drive her home. And once the gloves were on, she just slipped away, leaving the security to the night porter who supervised the last nonresidents, seeing them out, and then locking up.
After a couple of weeks, she became a woman of mystery. The guys used to ask each other, “When did she go? Which way did she go? She never even said good night.”
And she never would. Shakira had no intention of being alone outside the hotel with this high-spirited but well-mannered group of young bucks, the well-heeled middle-range stratum of Brockhurst society.
On busy nights, there were often girls from the town in the bar, but they tended to be those whose education or background had not taken them to a good university and on to Washington or New York. And Matt Barker and his guys had no serious interest in dating also-rans.
They had no idea who Shakira was (
And every time the group came in, one of them, sooner or later, asked her out. With Bill and Eric it was slightly frivolous; Rick and Herb seemed earnest and genuinely were looking for more permanent girlfriends. Matt Barker, however, from across the bar, was falling in love.
Shakira determinedly kept him at arm’s length, spending less time chatting to him than she did with the others, but sensing him watching her, admiring her, wanting to talk to her.
He was a big man, always well dressed, clean-shaven, with longish blond hair. At first sight, he could easily have been mistaken for a city lawyer or financier, except for his big hands, which were slightly rough from years of grappling with car engines, brakes, and chassis.
“Hi, Miss Carla,” he would say when he walked in. “Have you changed your mind about me yet?”
Shakira did not wish to offend him, and she tried to be evasive.
Matt did not buy it. He sensed she was alone, and at times, late at night after a few beers, he found her the most sexually alluring woman he had ever seen. He would stand looking at her back, watching the firm tilt of her hips as she hurried about her duties. Matt actually dreamed about her, dreamed she was naked in his arms, imagined the feel of her, longed for the moment when she agreed to go out with him, as he believed she would. One day.
But night after night, she always slipped away, vanishing into the dark, leaving Matt bereft of the only woman he believed he could ever love. The trouble was, Matt believed Carla Martin was simply playing hard to get, and that she too lay in bed at night thinking of him in a similar light. Which was about eight hundred light-years from the truth.
It was a Monday morning when Shakira finally hit pay dirt. She called at Mrs. Gallagher’s house to collect Charlie and went in for a cup of coffee. She sensed that Emily was about to ask her for a favor, and her instincts did not let her down.
“Carla, my dear,” she said, “I have been so terribly worried. My daughter has asked me to look after her dog for a month, and very foolishly I said yes. But I just don’t think I can cope, not by myself.”
“Name and make?” asked Shakira.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t quite catch that.”
“Name and make?” repeated Shakira, laughing. “Of the dog, I mean.”
“Oh, how foolish of me,” chuckled Emily. “He’s called Kipper. A King Charles spaniel. My son-in-law says he’s as silly as a sheep.”
