Danielle Steel - Passion's Promise

The woman in the grocery store knew her well.

“Ah signorina, comè sta?”

“Bene grazie, e lei?”

“Così così. Un po’ stanca. Che cosa vorebbe oggi?”

And Kezia wandered amidst the delicious smells and chose salami, cheese, bread, onions, tomatoes. Fiorella approved of her selections. Here was a girl who knew how to buy. She knew the right salami, what to put in a sauce, how a good Bel Paese should feel. She was a nice girl. Her husband was probably Italian. But Fiorella never asked.

Kezia paid and left with the string bag full. She stopped next door to buy eggs, and down the street she went into the delicatessen for three boxes of chocolate cookies, the kind he liked best. On her way back, she strolled slowly through the ever-thickening groups on the street. The aroma of fresh bread and salami wafted around her head, the smell of marijuana hung close by, the heavy scent of espresso drifted out of the cafés, while a rich twilight sky stretched overhead. It was a beautiful September, still warm, but the air felt cleaner than it usually did, and there were pink lights in the sky, like one of Mark’s early water-colors, rich in pastels. Pigeons cooed and waddled down the street, and bicycles leaned against buildings; here and there a child skipped rope.

“What’d you get?” Mark was lying on the floor, smoking a joint.

“What you ordered. Steak, lobster, caviar. The usual.” She blew him a kiss and dropped the packages on the narrow kitchen table.

“Yeah? You bought steak?” He looked more disappointed than hopeful.

“No. But Fiorella says we don’t eat enough salami. So I bought a ton of that.”

“Good. She must be a trip.” Before Kezia had come into his life, he had existed on navy beans and chocolate cookies. Fiorella was just another part of Kezia’s mystery, one of her many gifts to him.

“She is a trip. A good trip.”

“So are you. So are you.” She stood-in the kitchen doorway, her eyes alight, a twilight glow filling the room, and she looked back at Mark, sprawled on the floor.

“You know, once in a while I think I really love you, Marcus.”

“Once in a while I think I love you too.”

The look they shared said a multitude of things. There was no unpleasantness there, no pressure, no strain. No depth, but no hassles. There was merit in that, for both of them.

“Want to go for a walk, Kezia?”

“La passeggiata. ”

He laughed softly at the word. She always called it that. “I haven’t heard that since you went away.”

“That’s what it always is to me, down here. Uptown, people walk. They run. They go crazy. Here, they still know how to live. Like in Europe. Le passeggiate , the walks Italians take every evening at dusk, and at noon on Sundays, in funny little old towns where most of the women wear black and the men wear hats and white shirts, baggy suits and no ties. Proud farmers, good people. They check out their scene, greet their friends. They do it right, it’s an institution to them. A ritual, a tradition, and I love it.” She looked content as she said it.

“So let’s go do it.” He rose slowly to his feet, stretched, and put an arm around her shoulders. “We can eat when we get back.”

Kezia knew what that meant. Eleven, maybe twelve o’clock. First they would walk, and then they would run into friends and stop to chat on the street for a while. It would get dark and they would take refuge in someone’s studio, so Mark could see the progress of a friend’s latest work, and eventually the studio would grow crowded so they would all go to The Partridge for wine. And suddenly, hours later, they would be starving, and Kezia would be serving fettuccine for nine. There would be candles and music, and laughter and guitars, and joints passed around until they were tiny wisps of paper in somebody’s roach clip. And Klee and Rousseau and Cassatt and Pollock would come alive in the room as their names flew among them. Paris in the days of the Impressionists must have been like that. Unloved outlaws of the art establishment banding together and forming a world of their own, to give each other laughter and courage and hope … until one day, somebody found them, made them famous, and offered them caviar to replace the chocolate cookies. It was a shame really. For their sakes, Kezia almost hoped they would never leave the fettuccine and the dusty floors of their studios and their magic nights far behind them, because then they would wear dinner jackets and brittle smiles and sad eyes. They would dine at “21” and dance at El Morocco and go to parties at the Maisonette.

But Park Avenue was far from SoHo. A universe away. And the air was still rich with the last of summer, and the night was filled with smiles.

“Where are you off to, my love?”

“I have to go uptown to do some errands.”

“See ya later.” He wasn’t paying attention to her; he was intent on a gouache.

She kissed the nape of his neck on her way past him and looked around the room with a brief, swift glance. She hated to go “uptown.” It was as though she was always afraid she wouldn’t find her way back. As though someone in her world would suspect what she’d been up to, where she had been, and might try to keep her from ever coming back here. The idea terrified her. She needed to come back, needed SoHo, and Mark, and all that they stood for. Silly really. Who could stop her from returning? Edward? Her father’s ghost? How absurd. She was twenty-nine years old. Still, leaving SoHo felt like crossing the frontier into enemy territory, behind the Iron Curtain, on a scouting mission for the underground. It amused her to fantasize about it. And Mark’s casual way of treating her comings and goings made it easier to float back and forth between both worlds. She laughed to herself as she ran lightly down the stairs.

It was a bright sunny morning and the subway let her out three blocks from her apartment, and the walk down Lexington Avenue and across Seventy-fourth Street was crisp. Nurses from Lenox Hill were dashing out to lunch, afternoon shoppers looked harassed, and traffic bleated angrily. Everything was so much faster here. Louder, darker, dirtier, more.

The doorman swept open the door and touched his cap. There were flowers waiting for her in the refrigerator kept by the building management for instances such as this. God forbid the roses should wilt while Madame was at the coiffeur—or in SoHo. It was the usual white box from Whit.

Kezia looked at her watch and made a rapid calculation. She had the day’s calls to make on behalf of “Martin Hallam,” snooping secretly for tidbits. And she also had the column she’d already finished which she still had to phone in to her agent. A quick bath, and then the meeting for the Arthritis Ball. First meeting of the year, and good meat for Martin Hallam. She could be back in SoHo by five, stop briefly at Fiorella’s for provisions, and still be out for the nightly stroll with Mark. Perfect.

She called her service and collected her messages. A call from Edward. Two from Marina, and one from Whit, who wanted to confirm their lunch at “21” the following day. She returned the call, promised him her full attention at lunch, thanked him for the roses, and listened patiently while he told her how much he missed her. Five minutes later she was in the bathtub, her mind far from Whit, and shortly thereafter she was drying herself in the big white Porthault towels discreetly monogrammed in pink. KHStM.

The meeting was at Elizabeth Morgan’s house. Mrs. Angier Whimple Morgan. The third. She was Kezia’s age, but looked ten years older, and her husband was twice her age. She was his third wife, the first two having conveniently died, augmenting his fortune handsomely. Elizabeth was still redoing the house. It just took “forever to find the right pieces.”