had planned.
With the car parked, and Pearl desperate for the ladies room, we went inside the small airport of Van Nuys. She dashed to the toilets.
I waited for her. And waited.
I stood there like a fucking lemon, holding Pearl’s handbag. At first I wasn’t paying attention because I was so busy talking on my cell, organizing our wedding. What a fucking joke. I called the car rental people to ask them to come and pick up the car key from me. Hang on a minute…where’s the bloody key? I fumbled in my jacket pocket…no key. Did Pearl have it? No, why would she? That was the first alarm bell. When I saw that the coast was clear and no other women were in the ladies room, I snuck in.
“Pearl? Hurry up, baby. Are you done?” She had told me that she needed to change her tampon. Nothing. The place was empty. I peered into all the cubicles. What the fuck? Then I saw…I looked up and there was a tiny window, wide open. I dashed out of the room, through some double doors, and onto the tarmac to the spot where I’d parked the Mercedes.
Gone.
She’d done a bloody runner! I looked in her bag and she had even left her phone behind. And her credit cards. She was that desperate to escape from me. A woman on the run. As if I were a wife-beater or something—she wanted nothing more than to get the hell away from me. Tears prickled my eyes. This woman does not want me . I felt as if a hole had been scooped out of my gut. Now I knew the British expression of ‘feeling gutted.’
The jet was waiting.
But without Pearl, I had nowhere to go.
6
T hat whole night was torturous. I feared that in Pearl’s state she’d drive off a cliff or something, so I called the car rental company and, as I suspected, they had a GPS system fitted underneath the car—Pearl could be tracked. I offered them a bribe, or as I liked to phrase it, “a big tip” so that I could keep her under my radar without causing too much fuss. But it was proving to be tricky because I hadn’t included Pearl in the insurance policy (how the fuck was I to know that she’d make off with the car?) so I bought the car, instead. It was heading toward San Francisco. Good. She was on her way to her brother’s, obviously. My head was like a computer unscrambling data. I couldn’t find a solution to my predicament. The only words I heard ricocheting in my brain were, Pearl doesn’t want you Alexandre . Accept it.
I made up my mind, then and there; I wasn’t going to chase after her anymore. I’d take my own tried and tested advice: let her come to me—the bulldozer technique hadn’t worked. I remembered a couple of adages—ironically given to me by my father (when he was in one of his kind moods): What’s yours won’t go against you , and What’s yours will come back to you. Was Pearl mine? I certainly felt she was. I’d have to wait and see. Wait and see if she would return to me—be mine. And not only come back to me, but stick with me for good. I had to bide my time.
Having paid for the jet, I thought I might as well use it, so I flew straight to San Francisco and checked into a hotel. I totaled up the amount of hours it would have taken her to drive here, and I called Anthony, knowing that by now, she would have arrived. He denied that she was with him. More proof that she wanted out. I told him I had a team of detectives on the case. I wanted her to feel the gravity of what she’d done. I didn’t need a detective; I myself was enough of a Sherlock Holmes to make up for the whole of Scotland Yard. But he believed me, I guess.
After I hung up, I listened to the messages on Pearl’s phone. Most of them from me—but then one from Laura. I pressed my ear to the receiver and heard her sickly sweet-butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth tone:
“Pearl, you don’t know me. I’m sorry to bother you like this. I finally tracked down your number. My name’s Laura, Alexandre’s ex…maybe you know who I am?”
I shook my head in disbelief. This woman
With the car parked, and Pearl desperate for the ladies room, we went inside the small airport of Van Nuys. She dashed to the toilets.
I waited for her. And waited.
I stood there like a fucking lemon, holding Pearl’s handbag. At first I wasn’t paying attention because I was so busy talking on my cell, organizing our wedding. What a fucking joke. I called the car rental people to ask them to come and pick up the car key from me. Hang on a minute…where’s the bloody key? I fumbled in my jacket pocket…no key. Did Pearl have it? No, why would she? That was the first alarm bell. When I saw that the coast was clear and no other women were in the ladies room, I snuck in.
“Pearl? Hurry up, baby. Are you done?” She had told me that she needed to change her tampon. Nothing. The place was empty. I peered into all the cubicles. What the fuck? Then I saw…I looked up and there was a tiny window, wide open. I dashed out of the room, through some double doors, and onto the tarmac to the spot where I’d parked the Mercedes.
Gone.
She’d done a bloody runner! I looked in her bag and she had even left her phone behind. And her credit cards. She was that desperate to escape from me. A woman on the run. As if I were a wife-beater or something—she wanted nothing more than to get the hell away from me. Tears prickled my eyes. This woman does not want me . I felt as if a hole had been scooped out of my gut. Now I knew the British expression of ‘feeling gutted.’
The jet was waiting.
But without Pearl, I had nowhere to go.
6
T hat whole night was torturous. I feared that in Pearl’s state she’d drive off a cliff or something, so I called the car rental company and, as I suspected, they had a GPS system fitted underneath the car—Pearl could be tracked. I offered them a bribe, or as I liked to phrase it, “a big tip” so that I could keep her under my radar without causing too much fuss. But it was proving to be tricky because I hadn’t included Pearl in the insurance policy (how the fuck was I to know that she’d make off with the car?) so I bought the car, instead. It was heading toward San Francisco. Good. She was on her way to her brother’s, obviously. My head was like a computer unscrambling data. I couldn’t find a solution to my predicament. The only words I heard ricocheting in my brain were, Pearl doesn’t want you Alexandre . Accept it.
I made up my mind, then and there; I wasn’t going to chase after her anymore. I’d take my own tried and tested advice: let her come to me—the bulldozer technique hadn’t worked. I remembered a couple of adages—ironically given to me by my father (when he was in one of his kind moods): What’s yours won’t go against you , and What’s yours will come back to you. Was Pearl mine? I certainly felt she was. I’d have to wait and see. Wait and see if she would return to me—be mine. And not only come back to me, but stick with me for good. I had to bide my time.
Having paid for the jet, I thought I might as well use it, so I flew straight to San Francisco and checked into a hotel. I totaled up the amount of hours it would have taken her to drive here, and I called Anthony, knowing that by now, she would have arrived. He denied that she was with him. More proof that she wanted out. I told him I had a team of detectives on the case. I wanted her to feel the gravity of what she’d done. I didn’t need a detective; I myself was enough of a Sherlock Holmes to make up for the whole of Scotland Yard. But he believed me, I guess.
After I hung up, I listened to the messages on Pearl’s phone. Most of them from me—but then one from Laura. I pressed my ear to the receiver and heard her sickly sweet-butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth tone:
“Pearl, you don’t know me. I’m sorry to bother you like this. I finally tracked down your number. My name’s Laura, Alexandre’s ex…maybe you know who I am?”
I shook my head in disbelief. This woman
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