Free Last Night by James Salter

were given a cruise in the wake of Odysseus along the Anatolian coast, and in not much more than a year their first child came, a little girl they named Lily, loving and good-natured. Sally was a mother who, though completely involved in her child, still found time for all the rest, entertaining, seeing films, dinners with her husband, equality, friends. The apartment was a little on the dark side, but she did not expect to be in it forever. Grace lived just ten blocks away with her husband and two children, and Eva, the middle sister, was married to a sculptor and lived downtown.
    Lily was delicious. From the beginning she loved to be in bed with her mother and father, especially her father, and when she was three whispered to him in adoration,
    — I want to be yours.
    Two years later, as a reward, to make up for all the attention given to her new little brother, Brian took her to Paris for five days, just the two of them. In retrospect it was the moment of her childhood he cherished most. She behaved like a woman, a companion. It was impossible to love her more. They ate breakfast in the room and wrote postcards together, took the long, arrowy boat up and down the Seine, beneath the bridges, went to the bird market and the museums, Versailles, and in the giant Ferris wheel near the Concorde one afternoon rose high above the city, alarmingly high; Brian himself was frightened.
    — Do you like it? he asked.
    — I’m trying to, she said.
    No one is braver than you, he thought.
    At day’s end—the light was just fading—he felt spent. At the hotel, near the reception, there was a Canadian couple waiting for a taxi. Lily was watching the indicator light for the elevator, which had remained for a long time at the fifth floor.
    — Is it broken, Daddy?
    — It’s just someone taking their time.
    He could hear the couple talking. The woman, blond and smooth-browed, was in a glittering silver top. They were going out for the evening, into the stream of lights, boulevards, restaurants brimming with talk. He had only a glimpse of them setting forth, the light on her hair, the cab door held open for her, and for a moment forgot that he had everything.
    — Here it comes, he heard his daughter call, Daddy, here it comes.
    In late April was Michael Brule’s fifty-eighth birthday. For gifts he had asked only for things to eat or drink, but Del, Eva’s husband, had carved a beautiful wooden seabird for him, unpainted and on legs thin as straws. Brule was deeply touched.
    Brian was in the kitchen cooking. It was noisy. The children were playing some kind of game, to the annoyance of the dog, an old Scottie.
    — Don’t frighten her! Don’t frighten her! they cried.
    It was risotto Brian was making, adding warm broth in small amounts and stirring slowly, to the rapt attention of one of the girls hired to help serve.
    — It’s almost ready, he called. He could hear the family voices, the dog barking, the laughter.
    The girl, in a white shirt and velvety pants, was watching in fascination. He held out the wooden spoon on which there was a sample.
    — Want to taste it? he asked.
    — Yes, darling, she said.
    Ssh, he gestured playfully. Not looking at him, she took the portion of rice between her lips. Pamela was her name. She wasn’t really a caterer; she worked at the U.N. She and the other girl were hired by the hour.
    Her legs Brian saw when she came into the bar at the U.N. Hotel and sat down beside him with a smile, completely at ease. He had been nervous, but it left him immediately. From the first moment he felt a thrilling, natural complicity. His heart filled with excitement, like a sail.
    — So, he began, Pamela . . .
    — Pam.
    — Would you like a drink?
    — Is that white wine?
    — Yes.
    — Good. White wine.
    She was twenty-two, from Pennsylvania, but with some kind of rare, natural polish.
    — I must say, you are . . . he said, then felt suddenly cautious.
    — What?
    — Definitely good-looking.
    — Oh, I