The Art of the Heart

House of Fun

This is so perfect! Karen has done an amazing job. Stevie was eyeing the high key lighting and vaguely kidney shaped tables in the swanky restaurant at which she had asked Don to meet her. It was going to be just right.

Following the maître d', who was escorting her to the table, she said a silent prayer that Robert would remember the drill. She'd run through the plan with him late afternoon, and he seemed confident he could inhabit his role fairly convincingly. She'd thought about asking Rod Stewart, who also happened to be in the country at the moment, but she just didn't think he had the acting chops, frankly. Plus, when the 'incident' occurred he might be inclined to play it a little too camp and that would never work.

She heard Don before she even peered round the maître d' and caught sight of him up close, though she had known he had been observing her progress towards the table closely.

"Stevie, baby. You look delectable!" he drawled.

Ughh. I'm not a goddamn hors d'ouevre. "Why, thank you, Don. You're looking pretty fine yourself," she said with as much canned enthusiasm as she could muster. "It's so lovely to see you again so soon. Thank you so much for agreeing to this little meeting." She was trying to be as coquettish as possible but the whole thing was giving her a knot in her stomach.

Ordering a bottle of chianti immediately, she thought she might as well get nice and relaxed. Everything had to go absolutely smoothly and that meant she needed to seem at ease in his company and make him suspect she was angling for a hook up. She could have sworn she noticed a particular sparkle in his eye when she'd bypassed the single glass option and asked for the whole bottle to be brought to the table.

After an amiable twenty five minutes, in which they mostly discussed holiday destinations, mutual acquaintances and Don's kids, she was surprised by a hand sliding from her left shoulder, close in to the neck, down slowly to her left wrist. It was accompanied by a face that appeared next to her left ear and said in a melodious and sexily raspy British voice, "Stevie, darling, it has been far too long. My mind is suddenly awake to new possibilities of beauty. You are a vision!"

Even though she'd been expecting something like it, she couldn't help but blush and giggle like a schoolgirl. Turning quickly in her chair, she rose to hug him. "Robert! Fancy seeing you here! I couldn't be happier! It has been far too long! Are you here with a large party?" She looked around, as if searching for his companions.

"No, I'm afraid not. I'm just a lonely cloud, wandering..."

He was cut off by a gushing Stevie. "Oh, you English men and your Wordsworth! Uhh--hmm. You know I love a man who knows his poets!"

Don was looking back and forth between the two, watching the exchange with what must, to other diners, have seemed like a roiling mixture of jealousy, fear, disbelief, disgust and annoyance.

"You absolutely have to, Robert! Don and I were just about to order. Please fetch Mr Plant a chair and make up another place at the table," she said firmly to the rather startled young man who had been escorting him to a different table. "You don't mind, do you, Don?" She added, batting her eyelashes unnecessarily.

"Uh, no. No, of course not," he replied, then muttering under his breath, "the more the goddamn merrier."

Things progressed fairly smoothly through grilled fennel and bacon in a smoky paprika sauce, beyond red wine, rosemary and garlic mutton pies and into yoghurt, mascarpone and boysenberry cheesecake. Robert was being incredibly charming and witty, paying particularly close attention to Stevie and touching her lightly on the arm every so often or grasping her hand enthusiastically during the most riveting part of an anecdote. Don had been shocked into submission by the competition initially but now seemed to be rallying.