perfect teeth. He had two rather prominent canines, which seemed to fit his predatory image nicely.
“Yes . . . Tally . . . has been telling me that you were schoolmates together? At . . . Bryn Mawr? I don’t know it, I’m afraid—”
“A girls’ school, in Pennsylvania,” said Briony, trying to throw it away, but Tally would have none of that.
“We were Brecons together,” she cut in, her voice trying for a sultry whisper but ending in a dry cough. Briony glanced at her, a look of concern flickering across her well-defined WASP face, her hazel eyes sharp. Tally, a chain-smoker, had mild emphysema. When Briony looked back at Mr. Duhamel, she found him studying her exposed throat with a kind of vampiric intensity and resisted the impulse to lift a hand to cover her neck.
No, she was better than that. She straightened her shoulders, lifted her head, brushed her long silvery hair back from her high, clear forehead, and hooked a heavy lock of it behind her left ear, where a large diamond earring caught the random glare of a halogen spot and sent prisms of rainbow light dancing across her slightly too tight jawline. Duhamel watched her do this with obvious approval and gave her a sly, conspiratorial smile, as Tally Bowering caught her breath and began again.
“Brecon . . . is a residence there . . . at Bryn Mawr, I mean.”
She made a sweeping gesture, taking in the gathering of well-dressed and obviously wealthy women, all of a certain age, scattered about the sunlit atrium with the reflecting pool, revealing as she did so the slightly crepey flesh at the underside of her upper arm, looking, for a moment, shopworn, even jaded, as if she was being observed without the affection she genuinely deserved. With her face turned away as she spoke, Tally missed the glitter of distaste that flashed in Duhamel’s lambent brown eyes.
Briony Keating did not.
Tally came back, gasped a bit, and rushed on: “This is actually our reunion class of ’sixty-seven—Bree was our valedictorian—she went on to do something very clever for the government, didn’t you, Bree? She’s very close about it, if you want to know. I think she was a spy. Although everyone who goes to Bryn Mawr is expected to do something very clever afterward.”
Briony, who disliked being called Bree, gave Tally a tolerant smile, waiting for Duhamel to begin some “continental” charade of polite disbelief about her age, but Duhamel only smiled again and shook his head.
“And now you are in Savannah, Miss Keating? Do you live here?”
“No. God no. Too claustrophobic.”
“Really? Such a pretty town too. Draped in age, like the moss in the live oaks, yet somehow timeless. Why do you find it . . . ?”
“Claustrophobic? Well, you should remember that Spanish moss is a parasite. It would kill the oaks, if they let it. Savannah is a small town, with all that implies. Everyone knows everyone, and everyone talks about everyone else. The main entertainment around here is a kind of desultory adultery, if you’ll forgive the rhyme, with adultery’s faithful handmaiden, vulgar melodrama, following close behind. They have a school of the arts here—a ghastly ‘avant-garde’ sort of postcolonial snake pit. Odd combination of smug and venomous, as the radical left always are. You’ll have to drop by. Yesterday they did something called ‘GlobalWorming,’ which consisted of a lot of unattractive naked young people with tattoos and body piercings writhing around on a plastic sheet covered in motor oil to protest something or other perfectly ghastly that ExxonMobil was doing out there in the Third World.”
“It was olive oil!” Tally put in. “It wasn’t really motor oil.”
“Please,” said Briony with a drawl. “They looked like huge uncooked prawns, rolling about in the grease like that. Dreadfully earnest, the young. Utter bores.”
“And you did not . . . protest . . . when you were at Bryn Mawr?”
“Oh hell yes.
“Yes . . . Tally . . . has been telling me that you were schoolmates together? At . . . Bryn Mawr? I don’t know it, I’m afraid—”
“A girls’ school, in Pennsylvania,” said Briony, trying to throw it away, but Tally would have none of that.
“We were Brecons together,” she cut in, her voice trying for a sultry whisper but ending in a dry cough. Briony glanced at her, a look of concern flickering across her well-defined WASP face, her hazel eyes sharp. Tally, a chain-smoker, had mild emphysema. When Briony looked back at Mr. Duhamel, she found him studying her exposed throat with a kind of vampiric intensity and resisted the impulse to lift a hand to cover her neck.
No, she was better than that. She straightened her shoulders, lifted her head, brushed her long silvery hair back from her high, clear forehead, and hooked a heavy lock of it behind her left ear, where a large diamond earring caught the random glare of a halogen spot and sent prisms of rainbow light dancing across her slightly too tight jawline. Duhamel watched her do this with obvious approval and gave her a sly, conspiratorial smile, as Tally Bowering caught her breath and began again.
“Brecon . . . is a residence there . . . at Bryn Mawr, I mean.”
She made a sweeping gesture, taking in the gathering of well-dressed and obviously wealthy women, all of a certain age, scattered about the sunlit atrium with the reflecting pool, revealing as she did so the slightly crepey flesh at the underside of her upper arm, looking, for a moment, shopworn, even jaded, as if she was being observed without the affection she genuinely deserved. With her face turned away as she spoke, Tally missed the glitter of distaste that flashed in Duhamel’s lambent brown eyes.
Briony Keating did not.
Tally came back, gasped a bit, and rushed on: “This is actually our reunion class of ’sixty-seven—Bree was our valedictorian—she went on to do something very clever for the government, didn’t you, Bree? She’s very close about it, if you want to know. I think she was a spy. Although everyone who goes to Bryn Mawr is expected to do something very clever afterward.”
Briony, who disliked being called Bree, gave Tally a tolerant smile, waiting for Duhamel to begin some “continental” charade of polite disbelief about her age, but Duhamel only smiled again and shook his head.
“And now you are in Savannah, Miss Keating? Do you live here?”
“No. God no. Too claustrophobic.”
“Really? Such a pretty town too. Draped in age, like the moss in the live oaks, yet somehow timeless. Why do you find it . . . ?”
“Claustrophobic? Well, you should remember that Spanish moss is a parasite. It would kill the oaks, if they let it. Savannah is a small town, with all that implies. Everyone knows everyone, and everyone talks about everyone else. The main entertainment around here is a kind of desultory adultery, if you’ll forgive the rhyme, with adultery’s faithful handmaiden, vulgar melodrama, following close behind. They have a school of the arts here—a ghastly ‘avant-garde’ sort of postcolonial snake pit. Odd combination of smug and venomous, as the radical left always are. You’ll have to drop by. Yesterday they did something called ‘GlobalWorming,’ which consisted of a lot of unattractive naked young people with tattoos and body piercings writhing around on a plastic sheet covered in motor oil to protest something or other perfectly ghastly that ExxonMobil was doing out there in the Third World.”
“It was olive oil!” Tally put in. “It wasn’t really motor oil.”
“Please,” said Briony with a drawl. “They looked like huge uncooked prawns, rolling about in the grease like that. Dreadfully earnest, the young. Utter bores.”
“And you did not . . . protest . . . when you were at Bryn Mawr?”
“Oh hell yes.
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