“There are a lot of things you’ve never done before, but that you’ll do with me. I just know it. We’re good for each other, Bobolink. Perfect, actually. We’re so alike.”
And Babe, searching the face of her new friend, so brash and confident, yet because he believed in that confidence, touchingly vulnerable, wasn’t so sure. And then, suddenly, she was. Because, of course, that was how she’d recognized him in the first place, when he, all five feet four of him, wrapped in an absurd plaid scarf, his hands nonchalantly in his pockets as he stood in the front of her plane, blinked to adjust his eyesight from the dark outside to the light within.
He was exactly like her. Rare and exotic and yet so completely messy and ordinary. Disgustingly ordinary. So ordinary that great pains must be taken to disguise the fact, to protect the feelings of those who invested so much in exoticism and perfection.
How could anyone else but the two of them ever know the cost?
“Let’s get out of here.” Truman stood up, shook his tiny white feet, and helped Babe rise. “I want to buy you something. A present—it’s only proper. Your hospitality, as advertised, is legendary and I have to pay you back.”
“No, Truman, you don’t have to. You have already given me more than you can know.”
Truman threw his arms about her.
“Of course you’d say that! But still, isn’t there some divinely picturesque market around here? I’ve heard so much about the colorful Jamaicans—I want to see some! It’s exquisite up here on your mountain, but a tad—well, you know.”
“A tad isolated and exclusive?” Babe laughed; just down the hill from their cottage was No?l Coward’s. And up the hill, Oscar Hammerstein sometimes vacationed. “Yes, there’s a lovely little market down the hill in Montego Bay. I’ll drive—it will be fun. I so rarely get to.”
Babe went inside the luxurious villa—all filmy white curtains and palm fronds and wicker, but weighed down by English antiques, a nod to the colonial history of the island—to “freshen up.” She emerged minutes later in the chicest pink linen sundress, not flouncy, but a cool column. She had on white leather sandals, carried a straw bag, and had subtly adjusted her makeup so that her lipstick now complemented the pink. She’d brushed some kind of iridescent powder on her cheekbones, to catch the sun. Truman clapped his hands at the sight of her, causing Bill Paley to look up from a hammock on the veranda and grunt.
“Darling Bill, we’re just going down to the market for a bit. Would you like me to get you anything?”
“How about some conch? Do we have any of that around? I like those little conch balls that the cook makes, rolled up and fried in that batter.”
“I’ll make sure you have some for dinner! We’ll be back before then.”
Babe leaned over to kiss her husband, who said, “Don’t wreck the car,” before he closed his eyes and resumed his nap.
The warning was not unfounded, Truman soon discovered. Babe was a terrible driver; he found himself clutching the dashboard and squeezing his eyes shut as she took the hairpin corners down the mountain to the bay. They roared past palm trees so fast, they were just blurry giants with fuzzy green hats; the dusty road was full of ruts, which launched the car into the air before it landed with a jolt that caused Truman to bite his tongue, hard, and wince in pain.
But Babe was jubilant; she had a fierce grin on her face the whole time, and when she roared to a stop outside a small courtyard in the middle of the town of Montego Bay—a collection of cobbled streets and brightly painted buildings—she brushed her hair out of her eyes, adjusted the Gucci scarf about her throat, threw back her head, and laughed.
“My, that was fun!”
“I’m glad one of us enjoyed ourselves.” Truman grimaced, gingerly tested his tongue, and Babe instantly stopped laughing. She whipped off her sunglasses and laid a hand on his arm, her gaze grave, a pucker between her eyes.
“Oh, was my driving terrible? I suppose it was—I don’t get to do it very often. Bill doesn’t think it’s fitting. I’m so, so sorry, Truman. Bill’s right. I never should have driven, because I scared you, and oh, that’s the last thing in the world I want to do!”
“No, no, it was fine. Really. Just fine.”