Нэнси Пикард - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 128, No. 6. Whole No. 784, December 2006

“It’s past lunchtime,” said the truckdriver. “Would you like to eat? The food is not bad at a hotel down the road.”

She looked at him. Was he trying to pick her up? He wasn’t bad-looking — early thirties, maybe, fine-boned, light-skinned — but a truckdriver, in a sleeveless T-shirt...

She would not mind a little fling during the vacation. In fact, in planning the trip she had half-imagined that her solo expedition up the coast, away from the tourist hotels and the pier where the cruise ships docked, might lead to just such an adventure. It might be exactly what she needed to get her past the strange, stale little dead end she had wandered into — career-wise, relationship-wise, everything-wise. It had all been fairly vague, in her musings, how the affair would develop or what the man would look like, but one thing was certain: It involved neither a car accident nor a truckdriver.

“Oh, thank you,” she said, “but I have to be getting on.”

He shrugged good-naturedly. “Where are you going?”

“Oh,” she said vaguely, “that way.” She pointed south in the direction of the road that led along the beach.

“You have a long drive?”

His questions, and her responses, were trapping her. In spite of everything, she was still hoping to stay in this town. Now, to maintain the integrity of the story she had told to avoid his invitation, she was committing herself to moving on.

“Not all that far. But I do have to get going.”

He shrugged. “Okay. Have a nice stay.”

As she drove off, he smiled and waved.

She smiled back, working hard to make it appear sincere.

The road paralleled the beach. She drove it slowly, aching to pull over and walk barefoot across the powdery sand to the water. Up ahead on the right was a bright-blue building with yellow trim. A sign outside said: “Hotel-Restaurant de l’Anse.” As she approached, she was engulfed in a delicious spicy, lemony smell of cooking. A tree-shaded outdoor dining terrace was next to the hotel. They were doing a good lunch business. A perfect beach, a perfect hotel, and she was moving on. She banged the steering wheel in frustration.

A mile later, looking back from a hill at the perfect town and bay, she turned back.

Her truckdriver was seated, eating a salad, when she appeared in the entrance to the dining terrace. He saw her, smiled broadly, and motioned her over to his table. There were a dozen other diners, all islanders, predominantly men. She was conscious of their eyes upon her as she made her way across the cement floor.

“What happened?” he asked. “Another accident?”

She laughed — he really did have an appealing droll side. “No. I smelled the cooking when I drove past and I could not get it out of my mind.”

“You made it back just in time. Bébé stops serving at two.”

“Bébé?”

“The owner.” He lifted his chin in the direction of the back of the terrace.

There, at a large round table in the corner, sat a massive fat man with a huge moon face. His eyes, in contrast to his chocolatey skin, were a startling bright blue. It was clear how he had gotten the nickname: His limbs and body and head were eerily proportionate to that of a baby, albeit one blown up to three hundred pounds.

“Wine?” asked the truckdriver.

“Why not?”

The truckdriver flagged the waiter. Soon there was another salad and two steaming bowls of bouillabaisse before them. The stew was delicious, thick and spicy and lemony. The cold wine tasted marvelous with it. She drank one glass quickly, then another. He told her that he was from a town just outside the island capital, that he had worked for the trucking company for three years, and before that he had driven a taxi.

Not too much more was said, but it was okay, and not in the least awkward. She felt relaxed, loose, the first time she had felt that way all vacation. She called for another carafe of wine. The stew made her thirsty, made her sweat. The truckdriver was sweating, too. There were beads of perspiration above his upper lip. It was a finely shaped upper lip, she noticed, with the little divot under the nose very sharply defined. She allowed herself to imaging running her fingertips over that divot to brush the moisture away.

She smiled at him. He smiled back. Emboldened, she asked:

“Is it decent, this hotel?”

“One would imagine. Bébé is serious about what he does.”

“Serious is good, then?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“Well, at work, it’s good to be serious. One should do things properly, with care.”

“As opposed to on vacation?”

“Yes.”

“When one should be improper, and not careful.” She smiled lazily and allowed her eyes to meet his. He could not fail to understand the innuendo. He smiled back.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I’m going to see if they have a room.”

They did have a room, a big one, in the front on the second floor, with painted wooden walls, showing slivers of daylight between the slats. Floor-to-ceiling windows — the louvered shutters drawn against the midday sun. A high, soft double bed, a sink in one corner, an inexpensive armoire in the other. The armoire had a mirrored front. She sat on the bed and saw that the mirror reflected her image. How French to have the mirror directed at the bed, she thought. She lay down, stretching out on her side, looking over her shoulder at the reflected hourglass of her waist and hips. She imagined the slim, muscled body of the truckdriver standing over her. Her heart raced deliciously. She was about to have an adventure. A little French island adventure.

Flushed and even more tipsy than before she had left, she returned to the table.

“Do you know what I haven’t asked you?” she said, giggling.

“What?”

“Your name.”

“Etienne Dalhousie.”

“Etienne Dalhousie.” She repeated the name, turning the syllables over in her mouth, tasting their lightness, their Frenchness.

“And your name?” he asked.

“Geri Kronhardt.”

“Geri. Is that not a male name?”

She shook her head. “Different spelling. It’s short for GeriAnn.”

“GeriAnn. That is pretty.”

“No, it’s not,” she said. She had never liked her name. It was so corn-fed, so everything she had wanted to escape when she had left Indiana. It was a name for women who married their high-school sweethearts and had children and put on impossible amounts of weight.

“Etienne Dalhousie,” she enthused, slurring the words just slightly, perhaps even charmingly, “now that’s a name!”

He laughed. “If you say so.”

“I do. In the United States it would be the name of—” She groped for something appropriate — “of an art gallery owner!”

“I don’t understand.”

“In the United States we name our truckdrivers Tony or Joe or Sam.”

“There are names for people in certain occupations?”

She laughed. “No, no, no! It just works out that way. You see, to Americans, Etienne is a very sophisticated name. It’s not the sort of name you would expect to find on someone who drives a truck.”

Etienne Dalhousie’s face stiffened.

She was drunk enough to be puzzled at his reaction. What was the problem? It seemed an ordinary enough observation...

And then she realized what she had said.

Her cheeks burning, she stammered, “I mean, it’s not a question of the value of one—” She groped for the word for “occupation,” but in the embarrassment of the moment, her French was abandoning her.

Etienne Dalhousie looked at her, his wide-set brown eyes flat and cool and appraising.

“I have to be going,” he said finally. “My wife’s sister is coming over for dinner and we’re going to take the kids to the carnival. I hope you enjoy your vacation.”