“I can talk about grown-up things too,” Bill said indignantly.
“Yes, yes, of course you can. What I meant was, we’re going to talk about things that wouldn’t interest you. What’ll you have to drink? Can I offer you a whisky and soda, wine, tequila… ?”
“How do you know they wouldn’t interest me, lots of things interest me,” the child persisted, before Peterson could answer. The situation was saved by a light, firm voice calling from another room. “Boys! Come here at once, please!” The two vanished without argument. Peterson stored for future use the verbal backhand he had been about to deal the older boy.
“I see you have some Pernod there. Could I have a Pernod and tequila, with a dash of lemon, if you please?”
“Jeez, what a mixture. Is it good? I don’t often drink hard liquor myself. Liver, y’know. Sit down, I’m pretty sure we have some lemon juice. My wife will know. Does that drink have a name or did you invent it?” Kiefer was acting erratically again.
“I believe it’s called a macho,” Peterson said wryly.
He looked around the room. It was simple and elegant, totally white except for a few Oriental pieces. An exquisite screen stood against the far wall. To the right of the fireplace was a Japanese scroll, and a flower arrangement sat in an alcove. Opposite the fireplace, uncurtained picture windows looked over roofs and treetops towards the Pacific. The ocean was a black blanket beside lights that glittered everywhere else, up and down the coast, as far as Peterson could see. He chose a seat on a low white sofa, sitting sideways at the end of it so he could see both the room and the view. In spite of little heaps of muddled papers here and there, obviously Kiefer’s, the room exuded a certain serenity.
“I hope this is right. Equal amounts of Pernod and tequila, is that it? I’ll go and check on the lemon juice. Oh, here’s my wife now.”
Peterson turned toward the doorway, looked and looked again. He rose slowly to his feet. Kiefer’s wife stunned him. Japanese, young, slender, and very beautiful. Not taking his eyes from her, he tried to sort out his first disoriented impressions. In her late twenties, he decided, which explained Kiefer’s having such young children. A second marriage for him, no doubt. She was dressed in white Levis and a high-necked white top of some slithery material. Nothing under it, he noted with approval. Her hair fell smooth and straight, almost to her waist, so black it seemed to have a blue sheen. But it was her eyes that riveted his attention. Seeing her all in white in this dimly lit white room, he had the eerie sensation that her head was floating by itself. She had paused in the doorway, not deliberately for effect, Peterson thought, but her appearance was dramatic. He felt unable to move until she did. Kiefer darted nervously forward.
“Mitsuoko, my dear, come in, come in. I want you to meet our guest, Ian Peterson. Peterson, this is my wife, Mitsuoko.” He looked eagerly from one to the other like a child bringing home a prize.
She came forward into the room, moving with a fluid grace that delighted Peterson. She held out her hand to him: cool and smooth.
“Hello,” she said. For once Peterson felt he could use the standard American greeting “Glad to meet you” with sincerity.
He murmured “How do you do?” narrowing his eyes slightly to communicate what his formal greeting lacked. The merest hint of a smile lifted the corners of her lips at his unspoken message. Their gazes held fractionally longer than convention dictated. Then she withdrew her hand from his and went over to sit on the sofa.
“Do we have any lemon juice, honey?” Kiefer was rubbing Iiis hands together again in his awkward way. “And what about you? Will you have something to drink?”
“Yes to both questions,” she answered. “There’s some lemon juice in the fridge and I’ll have a little white wine.” She turned to Peterson with a smile. “I can’t drink much at all. It goes straight to my head.”
Kiefer left the room in search of lemon juice.
“How are things in England, Mr. Peterson?” she asked, tilling her head back slightly. “It sounds grim in the news here.”
“It
“I was there for a year a while back. I’m very fond of England.”
“Oh? Were you working there?”
“I was on a postdoc at Imperial College in London. I’m a mathematician. I teach at UCSD now.” She was smiling as she watched him, expecting a reaction of surprise. Peterson did not show it. “I can see you expected something like a philosophy degree.”
“Oh, no, nothing so conventional,” he said smoothly, smiling back at her. He thought of philosophers as people who spent great swaths of time on questions of no more true depth than “If there is no God, then who pulls up the next Kleenex?” He was about to form this into an epigram when Kiefer came back into the room with a glass of wine and a small bottle.
“Here’s your wine, love. And some lemon juice”—this to Peterson. “How much, just a dash?”
“That’s splendid, thank you.”
Kiefer sat down and turned to Peterson. “Did Mitsuoko tell you that she spent a year at London University? She’s a brilliant woman, my wife. Ph.D. at twenty-five. Brilliant and beautiful too. I’m a lucky man.” He beamed proudly at her.
“Alex, don’t do that.” The words were sharp but her affectionate smile took the edge off them. She shrugged deprecatingly towards Peterson. “It’s embarrassing. Alex is always boasting about me to his friends.”
“I can understand why.” Behind Peterson’s blandly smiling exterior he calculated. He had only one evening. Did they have an open marriage? How direct an approach would she tolerate? How to broach the subject with Kiefer there? “Your husband tells me that things are pretty bad here too, although it doesn’t look that way to a visitor.”
What did her smile mean? It was almost as though they shared a secret. Was she in fact reading his thoughts? Was she merely flirting? Or could it be—the thought flashed upon him—that she was nervous? She was certainly sending him signals.
“There’s a psychological inability to give up luxury standards,” Kiefer was saying. “People won’t give up a life style that they think is, ah, uniquely American.”
“Is that a current catch phrase?” Peterson asked. “I saw it used in a couple of magazines I read on the plane.”
Kiefer gave this hypothesis his best concerned frown. “Um, ‘uniquely American’? Yeah, I suppose it is. Saw an editorial about something like that this week. Oh, say, excuse me, I’ll go check the boys.”
Kiefer left the room in his eager-terrier style. In a moment Peterson could hear him talking mildly but firmly to the boys somewhere down the hall. They regularly interrupted him with tenor bright-boy-aware-that-he-is-being- bright backtalk. Peterson took a pull on his drink and reflected on the wisdom of proceeding further with Mitsuoko. Kiefer was a link in Peterson’s information-gathering chain, the most essential part of an executive’s working machinery. This was indeed California, notorious California, and the date was well advanced beyond the nineteenth century, but one could never be sure how a husband would react to these things, never mind what they said in theory about the whole matter. But beyond such calculations was the fact that the man irritated him with his fanaticism about health foods and nonsmoking and undignified devotion to those decidedly unpleasant children.
Well, executives were supposed to be able to make quick, incisive decisions, correct? Correct.
He turned to Mitsuoko, seeking the best way to use these moments alone. She was staring out at the view, which she must have memorized ages ago.
Before he could formulate an opening she asked, not looking at him, “Where are you staying, Mr. Peterson?”
“La Valencia. And the name is Ian.”
“Ah, yes. There’s a nice strip of beach there, south of the cove. I often take a walk there in the evenings.” She looked directly at him. “About ten o’clock.”
“I see,” Peterson replied. He felt a pulse beating in his neck. It was the only outward sign of excitement. By God, she had done it. She had made an assignation with him almost under her husband’s nose. Christ, what a woman.
Kiefer came back into the room. “There’s a growing crisis here,” he said.
