One Unforgettable Evening Read online

  One Unforgettable Evening

  Dusty Miller

  This Smashwords edition copyright 2014 Dusty Miller and Long Cool One Books

  Design: J. Thornton

  ISBN 978-1-927957-04-2

  The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person living or deceased, or to any places or events, is purely coincidental. Names, places, settings, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. The author’s moral right has been asserted.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Scene One

  Scene Two

  Scene Three

  About the Author

  One Unforgettable Evening

  Dusty Miller

  Scene One

  “Hello. I hope you will forgive my intrusion.”

  “Huh?” Leon looked at his wife as if to ask, ‘Do you know this guy?’

  Adelia was shaking her head.

  The stranger was tall, aquiline, with jet-black hair raked back in long lines and held down with mousse. He stood beside their table, where the pair had been having a standard-issue anniversary dinner. He was very good-looking.

  It was their seventeenth anniversary. It was a number which, as Leon had pointed out earlier, didn’t call for anything special.

  “Pardon me, sir?” Adelia was a little bit intrigued, if nothing else, by the question of how to make this guy go away.

  They needed to make an escape.

  She just wanted to get it over and done with by this point, chalk it up to experience and go home. The dress she had picked out of her closet, which looked fine in the bedroom mirror at home, was somewhat frumpy and a little out of place compared to the chic and expensive frocks she was seeing all around her. Her shoes were a little too flat and and maybe a little too sensible, and her hair was all wrong, and what did she expect anyways?

  She was a married woman.

  Leon looked completely underwhelming in grey slacks and a golf shirt that didn’t cost him nine dollars, and that ill-fitting dark blue jacket, now that he wouldn’t let Adelia shop for him anymore. You couldn’t pay Leon to wear a tie these days.

  It was company branding and all that. They said it was working out, though.

  “I couldn’t help myself. It’s just that I was struck by your wife’s timeless, ephemeral beauty, sir, and I simply had to congratulate the happy couple on their anniversary.”

  Adelia’s eyebrows rose. She’d never heard the like. His eyes swept over her and then he turned back to Leon.

  “My name is Thomas Darban.” Leon rose and they shook hands. “May I send some champagne over? It would be my privilege.”

  Leon’s mouth opened but no sound came out.

  He raised a hand and the waist-coated waiters, with puffy white sleeves and red pants if you can believe it, scuttled forward with glasses and a bottle in a bucket of ice. Leon scuttled a grin, but he’d never taken the intangibles, the ambience, all that seriously. Not here, anyways.

  Leon settled back into his chair. Sometimes silence is golden. But he had to say something.

  “Mister and Missus Leon de Marco. This is Adelia, my wife. I’m Leon—obviously.” This was said with his customary grin. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Mister Darban.” Adelia’s voice was unusually low, husky, even.

  Like she had something in her throat.

  “Dom Perignon. Enjoy.”

  Darban nodded pleasantly at Leon and took another assessing glance at Adelia, blushing and suddenly looking very pretty in the scintillating light of the chandeliers.

  Leon wasn’t exactly blind to it, inept might be a better word.

  And then the fellow bowed, and made a kind of exit, although his own table was not far away. He was over by the back wall in a corner booth. She watched him go, and then looked around.

  On this Friday evening, and even in this grimy but bustling northern industrial town, it was still a bit early. The place was filling up and the noise had picked up considerably. There were three or four empty tables, but more voices sounded in the vestibule, so that wouldn’t last very long.

  “Who the hell was that?” The waiter had poured, and so Leon figured he might as well drink it.

  “How would I know? I thought you knew him.”

  “Not hardly.” Leon nodded and waggled his eyebrows at Adelia.

  She picked at her desert, but as usual was having a tough time; conscience versus desire.

  Always watching her waistline, and for what?

  For what?

  As for the eyebrow waggling, that was just his substitute for meaning in communication.

  “Come on, drink up. I want to get out of here and beat the traffic.”

  Get home and watch the second half of the game, is what he meant.

  She gave him a look, one not without humour.

  He also knew he wasn’t fooling her, but she was pretty good about such things. They smiled at each other relatively fondly over the remains of dinner. A waiter stepped in and grabbed her last plate.

  She really wasn’t quite done with that…to hell with it.

  Adelia picked up her glass and sipped it slowly, looking around in spite of her better judgment. That man, Darban, was watching her. She lowered the glass and watched open-mouthed as he raised his own glass to her, and then drained it in a gulp.

  Darban winked at Adelia. Then he rose, setting the glass down. He turned and left the room, of which the Royal Armitage had several.

  “Leon?”

  “Yes, honey?”

  “Who is that guy?”

  Her husband shrugged, shook his head and concentrated on what he was doing.

  Leon sloshed more champagne into his glass. He’d already had three beers over dinner, about the only real compensation such nights usually brought. But that was harsh. It’s just that they were getting older now. He could always try harder.

  As for the booze, he would make her drive for once.

  “Come on, Honey. Drink up.” He waved for their dinner bill.

  ***

  By the time Leon had drunk most of the champagne, although Adelia was tippling a bit herself tonight, another half-hour had gone by. She’d had her customary one glass of white wine with the chicken, and now she was hoarding her third glass of champagne, which was excellent, by the way. But it would keep Leon from drinking all of it.

  The chicken was okay, although somehow she remembered it as being better than it was.

  Leon was hitting it pretty hard, but that was unusual, and that in itself was a good thing, a thing to be thankful for. It must be kept in perspective.

  The drinks helped quite a bit, actually. Why rush off?

  She stole one or two surreptitious glances at their benefactor. Tanned and lean, Thomas Darban was exotic-looking in that he was impeccably dressed in something genuine, a soft charcoal jacket that fit his shoulders like a glove. The shoes were beautiful, and his upper legs bulged a bit inside the thin black trousers. The man walked like a tiger. He was the only man in the room with a bow tie, a red silk one, and he appeared to be dining alone, which Adelia thought was a little unusual.

  I wonder what he wants.

  She shrugged the thought off.

  Right about then the lights dimmed in the dining room, but only slightly, although in the very next room it was
much darker suddenly. Coloured spotlights flicked on, one by one over there. She craned her head to look. Leon brightened up when some sparkling riff of piano music started up.

  “Oh, yeah. That’s right.” He smiled across at her, possibly the most genuine sign of affection or even liking he’d shown her all night.

  “Yes, dear?”

  “Remember?”

  She coloured slightly.

  “I remember.” She smiled then bit her lip.

  All of that was such a long time ago.

  Her jaw dropped as Leon rose, half-bowed, extended a hand and invited her to dance.

  There was a weird air of unreality about it as the couple followed several other people, through the dining room, past the eyes of all the other people in there, and out into the shuffling mass that was the dance-floor.

  Well, well, well.

  What’s gotten into you?

  She’d have to get him drunk a little more often.

  As they took their positions and began waltzing through the first few fumbling steps, Adelia caught a glimpse of Mister Darban over the tops of heads and through the archway, sitting there like a tiger poised to spring, in the the brightness of the Fieldstone Room.

  He was watching her still, with those big dark eyes like just coal.

  ***

  After a couple of numbers, they were back at their table. Darban must have come up on silent feet. She twitched nervously.

  “So sorry, Madame! Excuse me, Mister De Marco, but may I have the honour of dancing with your wife?”

  “Uh—oh—sure.” Leon looked at her, realizing that she might have other ideas. “Honey?”

  He lowered his chin, opened his eyes wide, raised his eyebrows and waggled them.

  “Why, thank you. I would love to.” She stuck out her lip, gave Leon a pouty look, a slight headshake, and then turned and took Darban’s hand with a ravishing smile.

  The bit of colour high up on the cheekbones gave her away.

  She picked up her glass and had a quick slug, giving Leon a tolerant look.

  Leon grinned. He nodded and winked at them indulgently.

  Good for her. She’d always had a way of standing up to him. It’s one of the things he liked about her, then and now.

  She rose, the epitome of grace, with a polite inclination of her head in Leon’s direction and the couple went off to the dance floor. As she brushed past, the heat of her body could be felt on the back of his hand.

  Huh. Interesting. Leon was just contemplating the dregs of the champagne bottle, his wife’s empty glass and the notion that he had a couple of cans of beer at home. Also, some real food, in real proportions, proportions not meant for the habitually anemic.

  Leftovers were always good.

  Still, this night might work out. She had been kind of starved for attention lately. He’d been working like a madman for about the last six months now, and there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about it.

  Right about then the waiter arrived with fresh glasses, ice and another bottle of Dom.

  “Oh, nice.” Leon muttered lugubriously, but he was too polite, or merely too slow, to wave off the man before he could refill his glass.

  “Oh, boy.” Leon took the smallest possible sip of the sweet and bubbly stuff and looked around to see how they were getting on.

  Hopefully there would be a fresh gallon of milk at home, what with the boys being away at their grandmother’s for the weekend.

  As the revolving crowd swept past the archway, he picked out Adelia and Mister Darban in amongst the crowd. They were doing a lovely foxtrot, and honestly, Adelia was in her element.

  He really couldn’t deny it. She was in her glory now. He turned away thoughtfully.

  The music was really good here.

  You had to get a ways back from your life sometimes, just to see the true beauty in it. Seventeen years of marriage. Wow. Whoever would have thought?

  The truth was that they were happy. They were having a pretty good life.

  His wife really was beautiful.

  She really did dance well. He remembered things, many things. Leon looked at his watch.

  It was interesting to see her in the arms of another man.

  A bit of a lesson in life there. If only one had the wit to see it sometimes.

  ***

  “He put his hands on my bum, Leon.”

  “Yeah, that’s kind of rude, Hon. It’s understandable, though. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.” They hustled across the dark parking lot, with the wind whipping the trees and the sky ripped by nearby lightning, still inside the clouds but it would be along any minute now.

  “I mean, seriously…” She was sort of pleased and sort of appalled. “…with you right there and everything…”

  “Yes, quite bold, some of these foreigners.” Leon had no idea of what he was actually saying, but it sounded well enough.

  He was just teasing her.

  The first few drops of warm rain pelted the ground outside the vehicle as they slammed their doors.

  Leon put the key in the ignition and turned it.

  Whirr-irr….irr. Whrrr…wrr.

  “Aw, no. Shit.”

  “Oh, Leon.”

  It was that damned alternator, either that or the battery, which had been giving him a bit of trouble lately. He should have known better.

  “Relax, dear.”

  Leon blinked through the alcohol fumes. He wanted to try just one thing before calling the auto club for a boost.

  Popping the hood, Leon took a small flashlight from the glove-box and went around to the front of the car. Thunder rumbled on and on all around them.

  Maybe, if he wiggled the battery terminals. Or, sometimes you could just tap on them with something.

  Scene Two

  A long black car with engine positively purring pulled up alongside of Leon as he looked for the battery cables in the dim light. They were the newfangled ones, down low, bolted to the side of the casing. His flashlight held just a dying yellow glow. That was predictable enough.

  The right side rear window came down.

  “Are you having car troubles? Perhaps we could offer you a ride home?”

  The rain was pelting down more strongly now. Leon straightened up. The connectors on the battery were tight. He belatedly thought of the bluish-green crust that came off there. It would eat away at any clothing he touched. He dusted off his hands and then carefully rinsed them in rain water from a nearby puddle. He pulled out his handkerchief as Darban watched patiently.

  “Yes, Mister Darban. Dead battery.”

  He closed the hood with a resolute thud.

  “Hang on a second.”

  Darban nodded.

  Leon got in the driver’s side, leaving the door open. That side was relatively sheltered.

  “Who’s that, Honey?” There was a tone of finality in Adelia’s voice.

  “It’s him, dear.” Leon cranked it over, but it was no good. The battery was definitely dead.

  He looked at Adelia.

  “Any thoughts?”

  “Shit.”

  He nodded, and gave a skeptical shrug.

  “Yeah.”

  Leon and Adelia baled out and moved, head down and lashed by the warm raindrops of late spring as the man inside hastily popped the door open and slid over to the far side.

  ***

  “Well, I must say. This really is very nice.”

  Adelia was clearly impressed.

  “It is an honour, Mister and Missus de Marco. The pleasure is all mine, Adelia.”

  Something about the way he said her name. He really was terribly sophisticated, but there was a hint of something more. He patted her on the knee, leaving his hand there for a shade too long.

  The little squeeze he gave spoke volumes. Leon didn’t even seem to notice, looking back out of his side window as if saying some forlorn goodbye to the four year-old Ford, which he’d actually bought second-hand.

  Thomas Darban sat on the left, with
Adelia in the middle and Leon on the right.

  There was a glass partition between them and the driver, but it was down and Adelia caught the fellow, an Oriental, with a squat, very bald head and wearing a black bowler hat of all things, studying her in the mirror with his almond-shaped eyes.

  She coloured slightly.

  “Ah. This is my driver, and my valet, and also, if I might say so, my very close personal friend for all these many years. Georges Hatsumaka, say hello to the people.”

  “I am ever so pleased to meet you.” Georges nodded politely, making eye contact with her in the mirror. “Hello.”

  Georges spoke very good English.

  “Pleased to meet you.” Adelia fumbled with her handbag.

  Her eyes slid to the right.

  Leon still seemed oblivious.

  “I wonder.” Thomas seemed pensive.

  “What?” They spoke as one.

  Leon was at last back with them, and that was good.

  “What, Mister Darban?”

  Adelia put her hand on Darban’s knee, shocked by the casual nature of it, but maybe it would spark something in her husband.

  “Well, yours is such a lovely city. Perhaps you would care to join us, and enjoy a ride in my lovely limousine—and perhaps you could show me, that is to say, Georges and I, around in return.”

  “Well…”

  Leon spoke up.

  “I gotta piss. Real bad, Thomas.”

  Adelia slapped the back of his hand and he grinned unexpectedly, leaning out a bit to exchange pleasantries with Mister Darban, attentive on the far side.

  “See what I got to put up with?” He put his left arm around Adelia and gave her little squeeze.