Read Count Geiger's Blues for Free Online Page B

withdraw my claim. But I’d like to set two conditions.”
    “And they would be . . .?”
    “First, let me watch the shoot. I want to see what Salonika’s finest couturière has been doing lately.”
    Bari said neither yes nor nyet. She wanted Xavier to state his second condition.
    He obliged: “Second, let me take you to dinner when you’ve finished here.”
    After a brief hesitation, Bari agreed. Xavier was surprised. His photo appeared in the paper a few times each month, but he didn’t make the money in a year that Bari’s of Salonika took in every fortnight (if not every day); and he was such a minor celeb that it embarrassed him—made him feel like an imposter—if anyone approached him to thank him for a column or to request an autograph. But Bari was willing to go to dinner with him. Did she know what she was doing?
    Well, she had agreed, and although the shoot required five hours and dozens of costume changes, she said goodbye to her models and left the Upshaw with him at 9:17 P.M. After a twenty-minute wait, they got a table at Lesegne’s and dined on blackened pompano with a bottle of Meursault white burgundy. They made each other laugh, enjoyed each other’s talk, and rubbed noses good-night on an ornate little drawbridge in front of Bari’s red-brick atelier, set in a remodeled rivershore neighborhood thick with elms, sycamores, and willows.
    This could be the start of something big, Xavier thought in the taxi on his way home, humming and snapping his fingers.
    It was the start of something big, this sporadic romance. Its sporadicity resulted not from their lukewarm feelings about each other, but from Bari’s work, which took her out of Salonika at least once a month. She knew several famous designers, including Kawakubo in Tokyo and Alaïa in Paris, and to sell to her retailers abroad and to renew contacts with her mentor-peers, she had to fly off to see them.
    Everyone in the industry advised Bari to leave Salonika, to set up a studio in New York, London, or Paris; but one of her goals—as quixotic as it seemed, even to Xavier—was to turn her city into a respected international capital of fashion. This goal made Bari seem to him not merely an intelligent woman but a soul mate, for just as he hoped to elevate the tastes of the masses, she hoped to show the sachems of haute couture that a city in the southeastern state of Oconee could waltz, gracefully, with the elite.
    Chances to date Bari sometimes arose, and these dates kept Xavier from regarding their relationship as doomed. For example, after attending a performance of Twilight of the Gods by Salonika’s Rivershore Opera Works (Donel Lassiter praised the orchestra; Ivie Nakai criticized the singers’ acting), he and Bari had a martini together and took a cab to her studio.
    Inside, he found that the old mill housed not only a big second-story work area, but also quarters downstairs for seven of her firm’s twenty employees. The other thirteen men and women had their own homes or apartments. Bari lived in the loft and slept on a mattress under a drafting table. She’d learned this time-saving procedure from the Tunisian, Alaïa, who had also told her to secure her workers’ loyalty by showing concern for their welfare, eating with them, and taking every available chance to talk to them. As a result, she had a kitchen on the studio floor, and she and her hires prepared a communal meal at noonday: a monstrous chef’s salad, three or four baked chickens, or a host of cucumber-and-pâté sandwiches.
    Xavier admired this setup on one level, but found that having seven workers on the premises at all hours sabotaged not only his peace of mind but also his libido. So he often tried to persuade Bari to come to his place. When she did, they enjoyed themselves in every way that two people can. He appreciated her body, the breadth of her learning, the near-flawlessness of her tastes. And, knowing so little about haute couture, he asked her to teach