The Carlton Club Read Online Free PDF Page A

against him, talking to her, was perfect. Too perfect to disrupt.
    “Whose house is this?” Mark asked.
    “Jeff’s parents. We told them this party was for the kids only. They’re spending the night at the Stanford Court. This party will go on until dawn.”
    Mark wondered if Kathleen would return here after she left him.
    “These are your good friends, aren’t they?” Mark asked, stating the obvious. He was working up to the tougher questions. How old are you? What do you do? Who are you?
    “My best friends. My childhood girlfriends and boy . . . my very oldest, dearest friends. We’ve known each other since—”
    “The Katie days?” Mark asked, wondering about the boyfriends. How many of these men had been Kathleen’s boyfriends? How many had she slept with? Were any current boyfriends? Who was Bill?
    Kathleen could have told him if he had asked. Six. Six had been boyfriends. Real boyfriends. Man friends. She could have told him. But she might not have.
    Kathleen laughed, nodding.
    “Since the Katie days, yes. The Katie days were good days. I had long, black braids and made a pretty good little Katie. Then came the preppie days. We all disbanded and regrouped for the holidays and vacations. Then I was Kit and Kit-Kat,” Kathleen hesitated, then said, “and Kitzy! Awful.”
    “You prefer Kathleen.”
    “I do.”
    “So do I,” Mark said. Then he asked, “Disbanded from where?”
    “What? Oh. From Atherton, mostly. Some, like Jeff, from San Francisco proper. We were, are, the Carlton Club Kids. The Carlton Club is a country club in Atherton. Terribly upper crust, you know,” she said with a British accent. “Anyway, we met there as kids, spent our summers there, riding our horses, swimming, playing tennis, going to parties and dances. Some of us went to school together, but mostly we were scattered among private schools in the United States and Switzerland.”
    “Rich kids.”
    “Oh yes,” Kathleen said gaily. “You’d recognize the last names of about half the people in the house. Most of them work for, in other words manage, companies of the same name. Some have broken away completely of course and established themselves from scratch. Some aren’t doing anything.”
    Mark got the distinct impression that Kathleen fell into that group. But he asked, “Do you work for the company of the same name?”
    “Do you know a company with Jordaine in its name?” she asked lightly, turning in his arms so that she faced him. She looked into his eyes, her own flashing, smiling. Teasing.
    “No,” he answered, wanting to kiss her.
    “Would you like to know what my father does?” she asked, her face close to his.
    “Sure,” he sighed as he felt her body pressing closer to his.
    “He’s the CEO of an international computer and business machine company that I bet you’ve heard of.”
    “Oh?” Mark didn’t care. He would kiss her. The fog made it all right. And Janet had left him.
    Kathleen told him the name of the company as their lips met. Mark heard the name. The full effect would register later.
    All he cared about now were her soft, warm hungry lips. And his. And the lovely body that pressed, molding perfectly against his. And the soft, silky hair that fell down her back as they kissed. Mark held her and kissed her, intoxicated by the smoothness of her skin, the gentle touch of her hands on his neck, the warmth of her mouth.
    Until she began to shiver.
    Mark pulled back.
    “Cold?” he asked. Of course she was cold, he thought, in her sheer silk dress in the midsummer’s November fog. Despite his warm kisses and his arms around her, she was cold.
    “I don’t know,” she said. Cold or nervous, she thought. Nervous? Anxious?
    “You’re shivering.”
    “I must be cold.”
    “Let’s go in.”
    “Let’s go in and leave.”
    “OK.”
    They drove in silence to Mark’s apartment. He held her hand, releasing it only to shift gears in his vintage Volkswagen Beetle. The protected foggy mood