I wore mama’s clip-on pearl ear studs that pinched, a short black dress that wouldn’t pass inspection, and silver heels so high my toes whimpered. The dress was too short, too low-cut, but that evening I was slim, reckless, almost beautiful.

M’s driver bowed, then was waved away.

“I’ll drive myself,” M said, in his dreamy, Omar Sherif voice.

The convertible’s hood came down, and my carefully lacquered hair dissolved into tangled ribbons. I didn’t mind because my Dark Prince turned poetic as we set off. His deep marble eyes shone.

“Bolts of velvet,” he said. “Your hair flies about your little face like bolts of new spun velvet.”

I was overwhelmed by his expert verse, which critics might have dismissed as clumsy. To me, it was Shakespeare by moonlight. Jazz hummed from the radio, the road curled silver toward Qutub Minar, and his hand burned against mine.

“A storm’s brewing,” he said. 

“I see stars,” I countered.

He chuckled low. “Count the stars in the halo, you’ll know how many days until it breaks.”

Clever, dazzling, impossible. What was he doing with eighteen-year-old me?

Then, out of nowhere: “I believe you like to read, sweetie?”

He had done his homework. Sweetie? Had he said Sweetie??

He drove us to a flame-lit cottage: The Little Book Café. Podgy men in blue rushed out, bowing. “Welcome sir, madam.” Me? Madam?

Inside, candles flickered, saddles served as barstools, a shimmering pool rippled in the center. Perfume mingled with the smell of damp earth. Glitterati floated in sequins scattering air-kisses. I tugged at my hem, while women in liquid dresses drifted around M like moths.

One skeletal woman thrust her half-finished wine glass at me.

“More of the same, please.”

“Darling!” She melted against M who smiled thinly. “Robin, meet my friend.”

His arm draped over my shoulder, my ticket back into existence. He swept me upstairs. A library unfolded like a vision. Mahogany ladders, Afghan carpets, books piled on tables, scattered artfully on the floor. People read and scribbled under a glass ceiling. It was Henry Higgins’ study, magnified.

“My first book café. Launched today,” M said, dimple piercing cheek. “I wanted you to see it before the world did.”

Me? He wanted me to see it?

I babbled about what an ideal place it was for book readings, wine-and-cheese evenings. His eyes twinkled.

Then the dream curdled. Voices rose. A podgy usher whispered in his ear. In a blink, the dimple vanished. Narcissus to Hades. His jaw hardened, his grip on my elbow turned to iron.

The music died. I heard raised voices outside. The beautiful people of a moment ago transformed into cowering half-wits and scuttled around like ants fleeing a kicked nest.

Staff wrapped us in black sheets like corpses prepared for shipment. We were hustled through the back door. My stomach lurched. For the first time in my sheltered life, I smelled danger, raw, metallic.

We ran. An owl shrieked. M navigated the car without lights. Blazed down the dark road. A few kilometers on, he murmured, “Sorry, did I frighten you?”

My words tumbled out gibberish. 

He laughed, tried to hold me. “Labor union trouble, nothing to worry about. Soup, somewhere safe? Let me make it up to you.”

The dimple returned. His hands warmed mine. Hunger won. I nodded.

That’s when the lorry appeared. A shadow, a roar, then metal screamed. His sports car crumpled like tin foil. The impact tore him from life.  It tore my legs from my short black dress.

When the wreck stilled, the night was terribly calm. The jazz was gone, the dreamy voice extinguished, the dimple erased forever. I lay pinned in the ruin, tasting blood, staring at the indifferent stars.

The storm had come, just as he’d promised.