(Originally posted on Discovering Diamonds)
Read the story ... guess the song
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| clue... end of the day |
She sat somewhat prim and proper at one of the small marble tables tucked into a neglected corner of the bar. Attractive, well-dressed and forty-something, she made sure to look aloof.
He could tell she had come alone. Well-to-do single women all had that certain look. ‘Don’t you dare buy me a drink. But please, please, rescue me.’
Helen noticed
him immediately, leaning against the hotel’s elegant bar. He was tall. He was
handsome. Sipping her Pinot Grigio—the
headier Chardonnay having gone out of
favor recently—she gazed into the stale air, her thoughts rife with
speculation. He had just smiled and inclined his head at her.
“Pardon the
intrusion. For a moment I was transported to another time. I thought I was
seeing Marilyn Monroe.” Shamelessly corny, it was delivered in his best
Eton-tinged accent. It always worked. Everyone in the San Diego area knew the
old classic ‘Some Like It Hot,’ filmed on location at the world-famous Hotel
Del Coronado.
Accepting
another glass of wine from him, Helen opened up like a rosebud. She was soon
caught hook, line and sinker by his continental charm. That she was far from a
bleached blonde with a thirty-six-double-D bust didn’t matter.
What mattered to
the temporarily homeless Edward was that she owned a townhome in the
canal-crossed Coronado Cays, where you parked your car in front and tied up
your boat in back. Hers was a sleek twenty-seven foot Catalina. Life couldn’t have been better. Edward’s silver
Jaguar Coupe sporting the older-model rapacious hood ornament befitted the
pricey neighborhood. Helen arranged and paid for his sailing lessons. On
Sundays, they sailed up the Bay for brunch at the venerated San Diego Yacht
Club. During enchanted evenings, they strolled hand-in-hand along the beach to
watch the sun sink below the whale-hump of Point Loma.
To show his
appreciation for her delightful company and comfortable abode, Edward took
Helen to Jessop’s Jewelers down-town ostensibly to buy her a bauble. The lady
blushed. Might it be something for her finger? But, to her bewilderment, with Edward
virtually in tears, they had to leave.
“Heavens, what’s
the matter?”
Between sighs
and mumbling ‘terribly sorry, dear,’ Edward pointed to a window display. There,
on gray velvet, reposed a pair of gold and diamond cufflinks. The discretely
noted price evoked another sigh.
“Those are like
the ones my departed papa left me,” Edward sobbed. “They were the only thing I
had from him.”
Helen touched
his arm. “What happened to them?”
“They were
stolen.” A dramatic pause. Then, “Would you mind terribly, my love, if we don’t
do this today?”
Helen’s heart
skipped a beat. He had just called her ‘my love.’
That Friday
evening, the intuitive woman surprised Edward with the precious cufflinks. He
took her in his arms and they spent a perfect evening dining on her boat as
they watched the peach-colored dusk slip into its indigo cloak.
On Saturday evening
Helen, a high-powered executive and consummate professional when not enthralled
by tall Brits, informed him she had an early morning flight to Europe and that
her generosity, alas, could not extend to her home, her Mercedes and her
treasured sailboat while she was away.
Edward
understood. He returned her key, kissed her good-night, promised to call, and
left to spend an undignified night at a flop-house in Imperial Beach.
Sunday morning
the normally fastidious Edward did not shave. Dressed in midnight-blue silk pajamas
and leather slippers, he drove to affluent Coronado. A couple of homes down
from Helen’s, he expertly scooped a Sunday paper up. Then he stopped at a lone
beach emergency-telephone and called a locksmith. The man met him in front of Helen’s
within thirty minutes.
“Can you
imagine? Here I am in my pajamas. I come out to pick up my Sunday paper and the
door slams behind me.” Edward’s speech was colloquial and friendly.
“It happens a
lot,” the locksmith commiserated. “I’ll have you back in your house in no
time.”
“Oh, while you
are here,” Edward suggested, “could you change the lock for me? Ex-girlfriends,
you know.” He winked at the pot-bellied man.
The locksmith
winked back. He might not have first-hand experience with ex-girlfriends, but
he understood. He ground a couple of extra keys for the new lock sure they
would be handed out again in due course.
Edward’s
delightful set-up came to a crashing end when Helen returned early. When the
lock gave her problems, she went through the side-yard to the back. There, she
found her former guest on her boat wooing a star-struck matron. Helen sent the
apoplectic woman packing and called the police.
Edward took his
suitcase outside. Pulling the pudgy officer aside, he quietly, man-to-man,
explained the situation. Ex-girlfriend, emotionally unstable, pretending this
was her house.
“Here is my own
key. See, it fits.” He cautiously opened and closed the front door. “I admit,
Officer, I dated the woman. But she turned out to be a stalker. I have no idea
how she got in while I was away on business. See, I haven’t even had a chance
to take my suitcase in.”
When the officer
assured him that he could easily remove the female inside, Edward said, “I
don’t want to press charges. Who knows what she’ll do. Let me handle this myself.
You know how it is.” The sweaty man grinned. At the end of his shift he was
only too glad to let the rich bastard deal with his own woman troubles.
As
usual, the foresighted Edward had a fallback plan. He drove across the elegant
span of the Coronado Bridge. To the north lay La Jolla, the Jewel of Pacific
Coast communities.
There, one enchanted evening another lady
was soon to fall victim to his charm ...
© Inge H. Borg
song: Some Enchanted Evening - from South Pacific lyrics by Richard Rodgers
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Visit
Inge H. Borg’s Amazon Author Pages here:
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Loved this. Just concerned Edward isn't working his way up the coast to my town of Del Mar! I've warned my friends to be extra cautious of a charming lonely bachelor at the races...
ReplyDeleteOh, he's been up there plenty of times. However, the besotted LJ matron takes him to Cairo - where he wreaks more than heartbreak in Books 2-5 of the Legends of the Winged Scarab - Now on SALE as a BoxSet.
ReplyDeleteEdward is as subtly nasty this time round as well
ReplyDeleteFor sure. He is one slippery cad - and still, women fall for him. But not us. Right?
DeleteThank you, Helen, for featuring my Bad Boy today. His story may be revisited, but the warning about his trickery never gets old.
ReplyDeleteIt was a joy to read this one again Inge!
ReplyDelete