The Goat by Roger Simon

Author:Roger Simon [Simon, Roger]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780578513973
Publisher: Green Hills Books
Published: 2019-08-31T22:00:00+00:00

IX

Tentazione

Dan was introduced to Olga Panova - known as the Second Sharapova or Sharapova Deux, depending on the news outlet, and, at twenty, the only professional female tennis player who doubled as a runway model for five of the world’s leading fashion houses - by his son. They were at a garden party given by the Fever-Tree premium tonic people who were sponsoring this year’s Queen’s Cup, the traditional warm-up for Wimbledon. Ogee, as Olga was called, was six-one and stood about two inches taller than Dan in her four-inch stilettos that, in this instance, were Jimmy Choos. She was, if anything, more extraordinary-looking than Sharapova herself, with a figure that might have been sculpted by Praxiteles, the deepest azure blue eyes and trestles of rust-colored red hair characteristic, he later learned, of her birthplace, the Central Russian province of Udmertia - not that she had spent much time there. She had grown up along Lake Como in a villa owned by her oligarch father somewhere between the residences of George Clooney and Pliny the Younger.

“Jay, I’d like you to meet Ogee,” said Zack, trying to suppress a smile. “She’s not playing Queens of course. No women. But she’ll be at Wimby… Ogee, this is Jay, although I’m sure, like the rest of the world, you know who he is and have seen him play.”

“For sure,” she said, with only the slightest hint of a Russian accent. Or was it Italian? “I have watched you play many times. What beautiful form. So Gucci!”

Gucci? He hadn’t heard that before. The names of fashion houses were the new terms of approbation? You couldn’t get more materialistic than that. “Thank you. You’re pretty Gucci yourself - a lot more than I am… for sure.” That last came out with an automatic smile. He was flirting without even deciding to do it. But, he assumed, she was used to that. Was his son deliberately placing temptation in his way, Dan Gelber wondered. If so, he had learned a lot. Perhaps he had underestimated Zack. “I’ve seen you on the cover of half the best magazines in the West,” Gelber added.

“Don’t throw shade on Asia, snack.” She pretended to frown in a playful way. “Their magazines are dank.”

“You would know. I’m sure you’re on the covers.” Dank? Snack? He could hardly keep up with the slang. How long was it since he had been to Brooklyn? Or maybe he should have been hanging out on Instagram. The way she looked, she must have had about fifty million followers. Still, he suspected all the argot was a bit of a put on. This young lady was clearly what his grandmother would have called “to the manor born.” The words seemed like they came from some list of the latest trendy slang you might find on the Facebook page for Teen Vogue, but what did he know?

“Unfortunately, I cannot read their interviews. Perhaps they do not like me.”

“I would doubt that. It doesn’t seem possible.”

Dan Gelber did

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