One Fifth Avenue

Lola was so literal, he thought. But did it really matter? Don’t think, he reminded himself. She was moving in with him, and if it worked, great, and if not, they’d move on. It wasn’t such a big deal. He flipped the pages of the magazine—Time Warner was breaking up, he saw—and then put it down in the sand. He closed his eyes. He needed a vacation. With Lola sorted out now, perhaps he could finally rest.

The prospect had appeared unlikely when he’d met Lola at the airport in Barbados two days ago. Amid the bustle of holiday travelers in gaudy resort wear, she was sitting forlornly on her suitcase—a Louis Vuitton rollerboard—her hair fallen across a pair of large white-framed sunglasses. As he came up beside her, she stood and removed her sunglasses. Her eyes were puffy. “I shouldn’t have come,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to call you, but I didn’t want to ruin your Christmas. And I didn’t want to disappoint you. There was nothing I could do, anyway. It’s all so depressing.”

“Did someone die?” he asked.

“I wish,” she said. “My parents are bankrupt. And now I have to leave New York.”

Philip didn’t understand how her parents could have lost all their money. Didn’t people have savings? His impression of Fabrikant mère and père was that, while superficially silly, they were simple, practical people who would never allow themselves to be involved in any kind of scandal. Especially Beetelle. The woman was too voluble, too impressed with her narrow circle of life, but also far too judgmental to get into a position in which she might be unfavorably judged herself. But Lola insisted it was true. She would have to leave New York; she didn’t know where she would go, but not with her parents. Worst of all, she wouldn’t be able to continue to work for him.

He understood immediately what she was angling for. With a word, he could solve all her problems. Taking care of Lola wouldn’t be a burden financially, as he had plenty of money and no children. Bu

t was it the right thing to do? His instincts told him no. She wasn’t his responsibility; if she moved in with him, she would be.

When they arrived at the Cotton House hotel in Mustique, they immediately made love, but just as he was about to come, she started crying silently, turning her head away as if she didn’t want him to see. “What’s wrong?” he said. Her legs were over his shoulders.

“Nothing,” she whimpered.

“Something’s wrong,” he said. “Am I hurting you?”

“No.”

“I’m about to come,” he said.

“This might be one of the last times we make love. It makes me sad,” she said.

His hard-on dissipated, and he lay down next to her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, stroking his face.

“We’ve got a whole week to make love,” he said.

“I know.” She sighed and got off the bed and went to the mirror and distractedly began brushing her long hair over her naked breasts, wistfully looking at herself, and him, in the background. “But after this week, we might never see each other again.”

“Oh, Lola,” he said. “That kind of thing only happens in movies. Or Nicholas Sparks’s books.”

“Why do you always make a joke when I’m being serious?” she asked. “Obviously, you don’t care if I stay in New York or not.”

“That isn’t true,” he said.

Thinking it would make her happy, he took her to Basil’s Bar, famous for being one of Mick Jagger’s favorite haunts. Mick Jagger was even there, but Lola acted as if she didn’t notice or care, drinking her rum punch through a straw and staring determinedly out at the harbor, where several yachts were anchored. She answered his questions in monosyllables, and finally, he got up and talked to Mick and got him to come over and meet Lola, but she only looked up at him with big, sad eyes and limply held out her hand as if Philip were secretly abusing her.

“You met Mick Jagger,” Philip said after Mick walked away. “Aren’t you excited?”

“I guess.” She shrugged. “But what difference does it make? It’s not like he can help me.”

They went back to the Cotton House. She took a walk on the beach alone, saying she needed to think. He tried to take a nap. The bed was surrounded by a canopy of mosquito netting, but he couldn’t manage to get it closed properly, and after being bitten three times, he gave up, went into the bar, and had a few more drinks. At dinner, Lola ordered a three-pound lobster and picked at it. When the waiter saw the uneaten lobster and came over to ask if anything was wrong, Lola began to cry silently.

The next day wasn’t much better. They went to the beach, where Lola alternately moped on her towel and tried to make him jealous by flirting with two young Englishmen. Philip realized he would either have to give in or let her go. Why did women always have to force the issue?

In the afternoon, while he was having a massage, she said she was going to take a nap. When he got back to their bungalow, she wasn’t there. He panicked. What if he’d underestimated her and she had done something after all? He tried calling her on her cell phone but found she’d left it in the room, along with her purse. This was more troubling, and he went to the main house and found a porter who drove him around the property in a golf cart, looking for her. They searched for an hour; Lola, it seemed, had mysteriously disappeared. The porter reassured him that she couldn’t have gone far—they were on an island, after all. But this only made Philip more nervous, bringing to mind the American girl who’d disappeared on a small Caribbean island two years before. Perhaps she’d gone shopping, the porter suggested. Philip took a taxi to the port, searching the bar and the row of tiny shops. He returned to the Cotton House, defeated. What was he supposed to do now? Call her parents and say, “I heard you lost all your money, and I’m sorry about it, but you just lost your daughter as well”? He called her cell phone again, for the hell of it, hoping she’d come back to the room while he was gone, but it only rang and rang in her purse. He hung up, unable to tolerate the abandoned electronic bleat.

Finally, at six P. M., she came into the bungalow. Her eyes were sad, but her skin was glowing, as if she’d been swimming. “Ah, Philip,” she said dully. “You’re back.”

“Of course I’m back,” he said. “Where were you? I’ve been searching the island for the past three hours.”

She momentarily brightened at this information but then went back to being depressed. “I figured you probably wanted some time away from me.”

“What are you talking about?” he said. “I went to get a massage.”