Evan Hunter: Me and Mr. Stenner

When we got back to the hotel that afternoon, I said, “Well, I guess you didn’t have a chance to look for it. Taking all those pictures, I mean.”

“I looked for it,” he said.

“Did you find it?” I still had no idea what “it” was.

“Nope.”

“Well, what are you going to do?”

“Look for it in Rome.”

“Suppose you can’t find it in Rome, either.”

“I’ll find it,” he said.

“Meanwhile, can we go for a swim?”

“That’s exactly what I want to do,” he said.

“And maybe if Mommy takes a long time getting dressed, we can have a drink on the terrace together, and watch that man who’s always fishing in the river.”

The hotel had a little band there that evening, three pieces — piano, guitar, and drums. We sat in the outdoor garden, Mr. Stenner sipping at his Scotch on the rocks, and me sipping at the Florentine version of the Italian Shirley Temple. The drinks he ordered for me were different in each city. He simply asked the waiter for “un ’ invenzione,” and was always quick to add, “Senza whisky,” which meant, “Without whisky.”

The Florentine invention without whisky looked like a rainbow. I’d never seen a more beautiful concoction in my entire life. It seemed a shame to drink it. I kept telling Mr. Stenner he should take a picture of it. But he didn’t have his camera around his neck. He looked very nice and tanned, and very relaxed, and he kept tapping his hand on the table in time to the music the band was playing.

Something happened then that almost caused me to die of embarrassment.

A boy came over to the table.

He bowed from the waist.

In heavily accented English, he said, “ Mam’selle , you prefer to dance?”

“What?” I said.

“Voulez-vous danser avec moi ?” he said, and smiled. He looked about fourteen.

“He wants to dance, Abby,” Mr. Stenner said.

“That is fine with you, m’sieur?” the boy said.

“It’s up to Abby,” Mr. Stenner said.

The boy was standing there, I could feel him getting more and more embarrassed with each passing minute, standing there like a dope with the sleeves of his sweater knotted around his neck, the sweater trailing down his back, the poor thing, standing there risking rejection!

So I nodded, and almost knocked my chair over when I got up.

His name was Henri Jacques.

Mr. Stenner later told me the boy was probably a famous American writer, since his name translated from the French as Henry James.

He was only thirteen. He told me that he lived in the town where Joan of Arc lifted the year-long English siege in 1429. He said if I ever came to France, I should look him up. He told me his father was the manager of a bank in Orleans. Then he asked me what my father did.

“He’s an architect,” I said.

“Ah?” he said.

“And a photographer,” I said.

“Ah,” he said.

“In Italy, he’s mostly a photographer.”

“Ah,” he said.

“Though in France once, he was an architect.”

I was telling the truth.

Sort of.

After dinner, Mom and Mr. Stenner chatted with his parents, while Henri Jacques and I swung on the glider overlooking the river. The same man was down there fishing. He was always there in his boat whenever we came back from the city, sitting there all alone — boat, fisherman, and fishing pole reflecting in the water.

He never caught a fish all the while we were at that hotel.

“How old are you?” Henri Jacques asked.

“I’ll be twelve next month.” I said. “He’s getting me a present that begins with an F,” I said. “When we get to Rome. He hasn’t found it yet.”

“Something that begins with an F,” Henry Jacques said.

“Mm,” I said.

“Perhaps he buys you a Fiat,” he said.

“What’s a Fiat?” I said.

“An automobile,” Henri Jacques said.

“I don’t know how to drive,” I said.

“You must learn, non?” Henri Jacques said, and shrugged.

When we got to Rome, Mr. Stenner told us he wanted to spend a few hours alone on the Via Condotti, and I immediately asked, “Are you going out to look for it?”

“Yes,” he said.

“What is it? A Fiat?”

“A Fiat? That’s an automobile,” he said.

“Sure, I know. Are you buying me a car for my birthday?”

“Who’d drive it for you?” he asked, smiling.

“I thought maybe you could get me a chauffeur, too,” I said, and giggled.

It was three days to my birthday.

When he got back to the hotel, he was whistling.

“You got it, didn’t you?” I said.

“I got it,” he said.

“What is it?”

He shook his head, and smiled, but I wouldn’t give up. I kept poking and prodding and guessing and pleading, and on the day before my birthday, I finally found out what he’d bought me. We were on our way to the Villa Borghese. Mr. Stenner was driving the rented car, Mom was sitting beside him, and I was in the back.

“Is it a fake something?” I asked. “Is that what the F stands for? Like a fake diamond, or a fake...”

“No, it’s very real,” Mr. Stenner said. “And listen, Ab, I don’t want to answer any more questions about it, okay? You’ll find out tomorrow.”

“Is it a fan? I saw some pretty fans in one of the shops yesterday.”

“I’m not even going to answer you,” he said. “Really, Ab. Even if you do guess what it is, I won’t tell you.”

“Well, is it a fan?”

“No, it’s not a fan.”

“Then is it a fife?”

“Abby,” he said, “if you ask me one more question about that damn bracelet...”

He cut himself short.

He had said it. He had told me what it was.

There was a stunned moment of silence; he was realizing he’d told me, and I was realizing I’d spoiled my own surprise.

“A bracelet,” I said.

He said nothing.

“But that doesn’t start with a... oh, I get it,” I said. “A forever.”

He still said nothing.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stenner,” I said.

“I’m the one who should be sorry,” he said.

“I shouldn’t have kept pestering you that way.”

“I shouldn’t have slipped.”

Mom looked first at him and then at me, and then she sighed.

When I woke up the next morning, there were 12s stuck to the ceiling all around my bed. Big 12s. They’d been made out of Italian newspapers, he’d cut up newspapers into 12s and Scotch-taped them to the ceiling like a canopy. There was a mild breeze coming through the window, the 12s flapped lazily. I was twelve years old. I shrieked in delight when I saw all those black-and-white 12s, and then I ran into the room next door without knocking and threw my arms around his neck and kissed him and said, “You made all those twelves, didn’t you?”

“Not me,” he said. “Must’ve been the concierge.”

“The hall porter, you mean.”

“Right, right, I keep forgetting what you call that guy downstairs. Did you see what’s on the dresser?”

An envelope was propped up against a small box wrapped in gold paper. I knew what was in the box, of course. A bracelet. That much of it I’d managed to spoil. The card was in Italian. There was a little girl skipping rope on the front of it, and the words Buon Compleanno, Mia Figlia. I studied the card for a long time, trying to make out the Italian. Then at last, I said, “What does it say?”

“It says, ‘Happy Birthday, Daughter.’ ”

I put the card down. I unwrapped the small package. The bracelet had three slender strands of something dark that looked like leather. They were fastened with thin gold strips to a thicker gold band behind them. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life.