Sleeping in Flame

Standing at that table was a very tall woman dressed all in black except for a round red velvet hat that looked like something a bellboy would wear. The first thing that entered my mind was how wonderful it would be if she were waiting for me. Her face was cloud white, her eyes dark, large, and memorable. The fu

Someone put his hands on my shoulders from behind and 1 felt myself pushed toward her.

"Nicholas!"

"Hello there!"

They embraced and I watched her pull him in with a giant bearhug. So what? This woman was Maris York. Sometimes life hands you a big tip.

"I am so glad to see you."

"Me too, pal. Maris, this is my friend Walker Easterling."

She continued to hold his arm while we shook hands. She gave me a good shake: strong, totally there.

"It's good to meet you, Walker. It was so nice of you to come."

It astounded me how poised and happy she looked. A couple of hours ago she had been attacked, but now she stood there like the unruffled hostess at a diplomatic cocktail party.

"Hey, what's that?" Nicholas pointed to a dark mark below her right ear.

"A souvenir from Luc. I think my jaw is going to be a hell of a sight tomorrow. I'll look like a boxer who lost."

"Wait a minute. Let me get some wine and then we can talk about everything." He walked to the bar. Maris watched him closely. When she turned to me she was crying and smiling at the same time.

"Please excuse me, Walker. I just –" She put a hand to her eyes and brusquely rubbed tears away. "It's so good to see you two. After Nicholas called this morning I was so happy. Then this stupid thing had to happen." She rubbed her eyes again. "I was really lost today. I thought I was going to drown."

"Are you all right now?"

"I want to be all right, but I'm still pretty bad. I wish we could have met under different conditions."

Nicholas came back with a large bottle of white wine and three glasses. "So, have the police caught him yet?" He handed her a glass with wine to the top.

"No, and I don't think they will, either. If I know him, he's on his way to France by now. He's been in trouble with the police before. Whenever something bad happens, Luc zips back to Paris. He's got family there. At heart he's a big scaredy-cat."

That did it. That she should call the man (monster?) who'd so recently tried to kill her a "scaredy-cat" made me love her. Believe me, it was that simple.

The keys that unlock the heart are made of fu

Nicholas and Maris continued talking while I stared at her and tried to figure out what to do. When I tuned back to their conversation, he was asking what she was going to do.

"Stay with a friend. I want to leave town as soon as possible because I don't know when he'll be back. I don't know where to go yet, so I'll have to figure that out first."

"Do you want some money?"

She reached over and touched his cheek. "No, but thank you for offering. When I was home I took all of my cash and checks and passport, just in case. I'm not going back to that apartment. I'll call my friend Heidi and have her move my things to a warehouse, or something. Wherever Luc is, he won't leave me alone anymore. I didn't tell you a lot of the things that have happened. I used to think he was just angry and hurt, but he's really crazy, Nicholas."

"Why don't we take you with us to Vie

I said that.

Both of them looked at me with the same expression: Huh?

Nicholas drank some wine, then looked at his watch. "He's absolutely right. Let's go, Maris. We've got forty-five minutes."

She put a hand to her mouth. Oh! The moment before she spoke was ten years long. What the hell would I do if she said no? What would the night be like back in Vie

"I think I want to do that."

"Then do it. Let's go."

Her coat was short and black and made of some kind of satiny material. I watched her pull it around her shoulders as we got ready to go. She turned and looked at me.

"Is this crazy? Should I do it?"

"I guess it's no crazier than anything else today, you know? Does Luc know you're friends with Nicholas?"

"Oh yes, but he'd never expect me to go to Vie

'Then you're all set."

She took a deep breath and nodded, more to herself than to me. "Yes, you're right. Thank you."

Nicholas took her arm and started for the stairs. I followed, wondering what part God or fate or luck played in this script. There was still a fear around my heart that she would suddenly stop and say she couldn't possibly go. Maybe without thinking I walked behind them on purpose, to catch her if she began to fall back into uncertainty, or ran up hard against the wall of risk she was facing.

A few weeks later I asked Maris what she was thinking that night as we walked out of the restaurant. She gave a strange answer.

"I was thinking about a woman I know who entered contests. For years she clipped coupons and filled out forms, did all those things you do to enter contests. A real fan. Well, one day she won. Won first prize. It was a three-day trip across Colorado in a hot air balloon. Gourmet picnics, see the mountains from up high, the works. Nice, huh? The day she was to go up, she had to meet the balloon in a big field somewhere that bordered a national forest. When she arrived, there were all kinds of cameramen and TV reporters there to record the festivities. She loved that because she's kind of a ham. So now the prize was even better than she'd hoped. How many times does that happen in life? First, she'd won the contest, then she was going to be on the six o'clock news. Everything was wunderbar.

"There were four people in the balloon, and once they were all on board, the thing took off. The television cameras were rolling, everyone was shouting good-bye and waving, the pilot had broken out a bottle of champagne. . . . Then the balloon caught on fire. Don't ask me how. The whole thing just went right up, swoosh! They were about two hundred feet in the air. No, that's too much, but they were very high, according to her. The balloon started disintegrating and dropping pieces of burning canvas on them.

"My friend and two of the other people panicked and jumped right over the side. Those other two were killed as soon as they hit the ground, but by some miracle my friend hit a tree and was slowed or deflected. She didn't die, but she spent the next three years in a hospital and walks with two canes now."

"God, what a story. But what does it have to do with the night we met?"

"That night I was wondering if flying off to Vie

"From the frying pan into the fire?"

"No, because the fire was all around me. Luc had burned that day to the ground. I thought that even if I came down and hit like an egg in Vie

We drove to the Munich airport in her old red car. It was as Nicholas had described – a mess. The ashtrays were packed, the back seat sported a big rip, books were scattered everywhere. I spent most of the trip trying to read the titles by passing streetlight. I wondered if she was a slob, but I was so happy about what was going on that I didn't care. Nicholas asked her to turn on the radio, but she said it had been broken the week before. He leaned over the backseat and winked at me.