Elements of Chance. Barbara Wilkins
The traffic on the San Diego Freeway was backed up as far as Valerie could see in the rearview mirror of her red Ferrari. Five miles ahead, maybe more, the private planes landed at the southernmost part of Los Angeles International Airport. She turned up the classical music station. Vladimir Horowitz was playing Rachmaninoff.
Sitting, stalled in traffic, she watched the temperature gauge on the dashboard quiver upward. Her gauzy white dress clung to the leather of the seat. The engine was making strange popping noises, as if it were about to die.
Valerie glanced at the dashboard clock and checked it against her Piaget watch. The timepiece, with its loose, wide band and tiny diamonds at each number, had been a present from Victor when he returned from Paris several weeks ago. It was nearly three o’clock now, and the company’s 727 jet would be landing. Valerie felt a twinge of anxiety at the thought of being late. She was never late when it came to Victor. She was always there, waiting.
“I’m flattered,” she remembered Victor saying on the phone that morning when Valerie insisted on picking him up. “How long have I been gone? Two days? It must be love.”
“It is love,” she whispered, holding the receiver close to her lips as she pictured the living room of their penthouse in New York City. She visualized the signed antiques, the magnificent Sarouk carpet, the new Renoir already in its ornately carved gilt frame over the mantelpiece, the view of Central Park below. “I start to miss you when I even think you’re going to be out of my sight.”
“After twelve years of marriage?” he gently mocked in his soft, English-accented voice. “That’s quite a testimonial from a former child bride. I miss you, too. So much, darling.”
“We have that benefit tonight at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.”
“I know, I know,” he laughed. “We always have a benefit at the Beverly Wilshire. What’s the disease of the evening?”
“Cystic fibrosis,” she said, “and I have a new dress.”
“I can’t wait to see you in it. I can’t wait to touch you. What time is this thing?”
“The usual. Seven o’clock for cocktails.”
“That will give us a few hours alone, darling. I can’t wait to have you in my arms, to be inside you. I’m barely alive when I’m not with you, Valerie. You know that. I love you.”
A thrill went through her the way it always did when Victor, so proper, so formal, talked about making love to her. Even over the phone he could make her nipples harden, make her ready for him. Newspapers and magazines called theirs a great love affair; they were the perfect couple. Both were tall and slim; elegant and proud. Their colorings complemented each other perfectly. Victor’s hair was dark brown with just a bit of gray at the temples, his eyes a pale blue. Valerie’s hair was so blond it was almost white, cut to perfection like a cap on her small, well-shaped head. Her long, dark lashes framed large eyes that changed from hazel to green, following her moods or the clothes she wore.
When they were sensuously, erotically together, Valerie became so lost in Victor’s pleasure that she felt herself disappear into him. When he was finally spent, lying across her, it was always with a tiny shock that she found herself once again to be a separate body and mind. At those moments, Valerie would stroke his thick, dark hair, run her tongue along the nape of his neck, and think that never could there be another love so perfect, that no woman could feel as tender, trusting toward any man.
Well, Victor would love the way she would look tonight in her new gown, Valerie thought with a smile, remembering her reflection in the huge mirrored dressing room off her bedroom. The gown was glorious, in black silk chiffon with spaghetti straps that showed off her white shoulders, the white swell of her breasts. Below the waist, slight flares flowed in two tiers to the floor.
“It’s perfect,” Mary di Stefano, Valerie’s personal shopper, had breathed. “I knew it would be.”
“I love it,” said Valerie, spinning around. “Victor will love it. Nobody has taste like yours, Mary.”
“I think the emerald earrings surrounded with the diamonds,” Mary suggested. “Maybe nothing around the neck.”
“I thought the pear-shaped diamond drop earrings and the diamond necklace,” Valerie said.
“Which one?”
“The