Read Online Whatever Lola Wants by George Szanto - Free Book Online

and demanded a mock apology. Instead he merely watched as she left the dining room, hair just down over her collar, light tight red sweater, straight khaki skirt to her knees, low heels. All evening that image tickled in his memory. Coming in to breakfast, he saw she was already seated, her back to him. He took the chair directly behind her and sat, careful not to tap hers. After a sip of coffee he pushed backward. As their chairs touched he turned, just as she did. “Revenge.” He smiled.
    She looked puzzled, then tittered.
    A strange sound to come from between such lovely lips. He introduced himself: “Milton. Magnussen.” He reached out his hand.
    She stood, looking down on him, suddenly at attention, saluting, heels clicking together. “Theresa. Bonneherbe.”
    He stood. “At ease, Lieutenant Theresa.”
    She clasped her hands behind her back and took him in. At her height she could rarely look up to a man’s face. Most of the guys she’d dated had been shorter, too often a big deal for them. In Milton Magnussen she liked what she saw: a man maybe a couple of years older, thick black hair parted in the middle, a sturdy forehead, bulky eyebrows, gentle brown eyes, generous lips, close-shaven cheeks and chin, face more round than long, a broad, strong body. Only the small chin marred his face. She would suggest a beard. What? Oh dear, already making plans …
    So their conversation began. They spent most of their waking time together over the rest of the voyage. They learned about each other’s lives. Agreement about films and wine, books and skiing, roaring fires and pizza, the poetry of Archibald MacLeish and e.e. cummings, Oscar Wilde and W.B. Yeats, and the pleasure and irritation at having a single sibling. She knew nothing of farming, he not a thing about fencing. They described their set-in-stone plans for their European summers—he first to England to spend a couple of days with his sister, then to Freiburg to improve his German so he could read Goethe, Heine, and Rilke in their own language during long winter evenings at the Grange; she a few days in Paris, then to Lyon for her fencing tournament, next to a hotel a few miles north of Lyon where she would work and live in French. And afterward? She to Harvard University, a Ph.D. in philosophy; he back to the Grange, to help his father farm the land as his father had helped his own father. Lives to be lived.
    He would disembark in Southampton. They met before dawn as the Princess Isabella glided into the harbor, up to the dock. There at the rail he kissed her, their first time.
    â€œIt’s been fun,” she said.
    â€œAnd funny,” he said.
    They both laughed at the same moment.
    â€œWill you have any time when you pass through Paris?” she said.
    â€œA few hours.”
    â€œWant to spend it together?”
    He said, “I’d love to,” and it sounded in his ears, I love you.
    Theresa drank Paris down in huge gulps, using her greed for it all to drown away that other undeniable thirst—lust was not too strong—for Milton Magnussen. It must have already been there when they were both still on board the ship, but hidden away in some mental gap. Hiding on its own or hidden by her? Whichever, it had leapt out and screamed at her as the Princess Isabella steamed away across the Channel: And what if he gave you the wrong train time? Or if he decided to spend more time with his sister? Or if he fell and broke his leg and couldn’t travel? She couldn’t tell him the hotel where she’d be staying in Paris because she didn’t have it yet. How could you be so dumb!? She had stared back toward Southampton, and her eyes welled. The closest thing to an address she had for him was the university in Freiburg. Maybe he just didn’t want to see her again. A shipboard friendship, hardly a romance? But hadn’t he known how much more she must be feeling when she kissed him