The Last Theorem - Arthur Charles Clarke [45]
Gamini gave him a rebellious shrug. “Can’t be helped. He even wanted me for dinner tonight, but I told him positively no.” He studied Ranjit for a moment, then grinned. “But, damn, I’m happy to see you! Give us a hug!”
That Ranjit was willing to do, first so as not to embarrass Gamini in front of the girls, then, as Gamini’s lean, hot body pressed against his own, with a return of real affection. “Anyway,” Gamini said, “you haven’t even had a drink yet. Pru, take care of that for me, will you?”
Aware that both girls had been studying something or other artistic, Ranjit tried conversation. “So you want to be an artist?” he asked Maggie.
She gave him an incredulous look. “What, and starve to death? No way! I’m pretty sure that what I’ll be doing is teaching art in some community college near Trenton, New Jersey, where my folks live. Or wherever my husband’s job is, when I have a husband.”
The blonde, Pru, spoke up. “Oh, I’d love to be an artist, Ranjit. I won’t make it, though. I have no artistic talent at all, and I don’t want to go back to the family in Shaker Heights. What I’m hoping for is a job as auctioneer at someplace like Sotheby’s. Good money, interesting people to work with, and I’d be around art even if I wasn’t creating any.”
Maggie handed Ranjit his arrack and Coke, laughing. “Fat chance,” she said.
Pru reached around Gamini’s legs with one of her own and kicked her. “Pig,” she said. “I don’t mean right away. You start out as an intern, and maybe the first thing they give you to do is get the numbers from the bid paddles that people at the back of the room are holding up—you know, where the actual auctioneer won’t be looking. Ranjit? Don’t you like arrack and Coke?”
Ranjit didn’t have a good answer to that. Actually, he had liked it pretty well when he and Gamini had been exploring Colombo but hadn’t had any of that particular drink since Gamini had left. But when he tasted it, it went down pretty agreeably. So did the next one.
Although the evening wasn’t what Ranjit had expected, it wasn’t turning out badly at all. At some point the girl named Pru had detached herself from Gamini and settled in next to Ranjit himself. He immediately noticed three things about her. She was warm, she was soft, and she smelled quite nice. Oh, not as nice as Myra de Soyza, or perhaps even as nice—in a quite different way, of course—as Mevrouw Beatrix Vorhulst, but still quite pleasing.
Ranjit not being a fool, he was quite aware that the way women smelled was primarily an artifact purchasable at any pharmacy. No matter. It was still quite pleasing, and Pru had other virtues as well, which included feeling good against his arm and, quite often, saying amusing things. Taken all in all, Ranjit decided that he was having quite a good time.
But as the evening wore on, he was aware that he had some unanswered questions in his mind. When the two girls went off to the powder room, he had a chance to approach some of the questions. As a beginning he asked Gamini if he had seen much of them in London. Gamini looked surprised. “Never set eyes on either one of them until they turned up on the plane from Dubai and we got to talking.”
“Oh, I see,” Ranjit said, although he wasn’t sure he did. For clarification he asked, “What about your friend Madge?”
Gamini gave him a long and amused look. “You know what your problem is, Ranjit? You worry too much. Madge is in Barcelona, I guess with whoever it is that sends her texts every other hour. Have another drink.”
Ranjit did. In fact they both did, and so did the two girls when they returned. It wasn’t quite the same as before, however. Ranjit’s drink sat unfinished before him, and so did most of the others. And then Maggie whispered something in Gamini’s ear. “Oh, all right,” Gamini said to her; and then to Ranjit he said, “I’m afraid it’s about that time. It’s been good seeing you again, but my father and I have to take off for Grandma’s first thing