Chapter 98: The Father's Betrayal, Part 10, Twenty-Six Years Ago, Memories

KLEMPNER

She lowers herself carefully into the water but at the last moment, loses her footing on the slippery base and sploshes down. From my place at the other side of the large bath, I pass her a flute of champagne.

She's put up her hair to be clear of the water, twisting it high on her head and pinning it into elaborate bronze coils. Her neck is beautifully displayed; the curve from shoulder to her sculpted jawline and cheekbones. Even naked, she is elegant.

She smiles and sips. "Bubbles outside and bubbles inside," she laughs, tilting her glass to me. She has a point. Foam streams over her neck and shoulders and breasts, white against the gleam of her wet skin.

"If you tell me that champagne bubbles get up your nose," I say, "I'll mark you down as unoriginal."

"I'll not say that, then." She wrinkles her nose and sticks out her tongue then, with a flick of her fingers, swishes froth over me and into my own glass, giving me an unrepentant twinkle of the eye as I scoop soap