There weren’t many surprises when Craig drove up to Lara Croft’s manor, but then there wouldn’t be in some old country estate. These things hadn’t changed since the days of Jane Austen. That was the point.
And Craig might’ve bought a magazine once which did a piece of Lady Croft. Lots of pictures of the gate, the grounds, the great big circle of a driveway. Lots of talk of the woman herself too. She was so witty, yet reserved, that you’d think she paid the writer to do the whole thing on his own and make her look good.
Maybe she had; she could afford it.
It had all made Craig feel like a boy, like boys throughout history had, gawking at sex symbols like Ursula Andress, Raquel Welch, Marilyn Monroe. They were unobtainable. The measure against which you judged every other woman. The closer she was to Lara Croft, the better off you were.
Craig parked his car, got out, and went up to the door. The gate had let him in as he pulled up—he hadn’t even touched the intercom. Now he found himself similarly anticipated: there was a Post-It stuck to the middle of the grand wooden door.
Good of you to make it, Mr. McLain. Usually you’d be greeted by the butler, but as I have to do without his assistance, I’ll be doing some improvisation. Come right inside, the door is unlocked. I’ll be attending to other business while awaiting your arrival. Nothing too important. Simply let me know you’ve arrived and I’ll be happy to receive you.
Craig tried the doorknob. It really wasn’t locked. He would’ve thought it was more probable that this was all some elaborate prank—look at him trying to get inside, he really thinks it’s open!—than that he was actually walking into Lara Croft’s home. But he could walk right in.
He made himself do so. He wouldn’t be intimidated. She was just another blueblood. Beautiful, yes. Actually talented, unlike most nepo babies who just knew how to talk in a posh accent. But, at the end of the day, the only thing special about her was her parents and her grandparents and her great-grandparents. Put her in Scotland and she’d run home at her first sight of haggis.
Still, the inside of the manor made Craig feel like a caveman trying to appreciate a Yeats poem. He didn’t have the words, the vocabulary, to describe the tastefulness of the decoration—the spiky contrast between the Rococo furniture and the bizarre trinkets from her travels, all of which somehow seemed to gel with the accent colors, the portraits and landscape on the walls, the plush carpets that buried the hardwood floor.
It made him feel like a beetle, in his studio apartment with his IKEA furniture. And now he’d been scooped up and relocated to some giant aquarium to see how the most exotic of fish lived.
He took a step forward, dazzled, wanting to look at everything from a new angle because he couldn’t be sure it wouldn’t all flicker out of existence like some optical illusion. Something crinkled underfoot. Craig cringed, sure he’d accidentally destroyed the toebone of a T-Rex or some other priceless antiquity.
But when he stooped down, what he found was a computer printout. A map of the ground, with one X by the entrance—You Are Here—and a circle around the room labeled Sauna. I Am Here.
Craig turned the paper over and recognized Lara’s handwriting from the Post-It note. Bad news: you’re late. The good news is that I’ve finished my duties for the morning and am now relaxing with a little self-care. Please join me, assured that all you’ll be interrupting is some light reading. You’ll notice that the kitchen is on the way. Go ahead and help yourself to some refreshment if you’re famished.
Note: please do not try to enter the wine cellar. There’s a project in there at the moment which must be left absolutely untouched. But if you wish to indulge yourself, you’re welcome to. Just please bring me something. I’m interested in your taste in beverages. For a Scotsman, your social media is rather light on drinking preferences.
Clutching the map in his hand, Craig limped his way through the house. His shin had blocked a nasty kick while sparring the other day. It felt like a previous occasion when the bone had chipped; he knew it should heal up with some rest and a poultice his grandmother had shown him how to make.. He had a crutch in his car, but he didn’t want to use it in front of Lady Croft.
He dragged himself right by the kitchen. Everything was as lavishly decorated, as precisely tasteful, as the foyer. It made him a bit numb.
Finally he came to the west wing, where—he double-checked the map—what had once been a pool had been drained and turned into a shooting range. He took the stairs down, going from hardwood to cobblestone floor, and didn’t need the map to recognize the thick wooden door with a glass porthole as the entrance to a sauna. He went to it, checked for any other notes from Lady Croft—with none in evidence, he went inside.
The heat was overbearing, as to be expected. Steam filled the room, coursing over the wooden slats of the benches, the cedar floors and walls, and the sauna rocks that nearly glowed red with all the heat inside them. Craig waved a hand about his face, already wishing to clear his sinuses of the heat-thick air.
“Do take off a layer or two, Mr. McLain. I work my people hard, but I try not to give them heatstroke.”
Craig quickly decided that, while it might make a point to keep on his jacket, he didn’t feel like sweating out a percentage of his body weight. He took off his jacket, then his overshirt.
Lara’s voice he recognized from soundbites, from interviews, from a perfume commercial she’d done. He wasn’t a stalker. But not knowing that crisp British lilt, so acute and yet so playfully cloying, was like not knowing what the Beatles sounded like.
Craig peered through the roiling fog, trying to catch a glimpse of the woman, but she must’ve just poured water on the sauna rocks. The steam was omnipresent.
“And sit down, please. I know the grounds are rather expansive. Some days I think about buying a golf cart to ride around in. Oh, but the aesthetics…”
Craig lowered himself onto a bench. “Should I take my shoes and socks off too?”
“You should take your pants off, but I understand if you’re shy. The mark of a sensitive soul, I say.”
Craig took off his shoes, stuffing his empty socks into them, then decided that was as far as he was going to relax. He reached into his pocket and took out the check he’d received the other day, with a time and address written on the back.
He wouldn’t have believed it could possibly be from the real Lara Croft, except he recognized the signature.
“I found this in my gym locker the other day.”
“Before or after your match with Alberto Felix?”
“After.”
“I trust he didn’t give you too much trouble. The man’s a lout. All punch, no strategy. If you’re going to hit someone for a living, you might as well put some thought into how you’re doing it.”
Craig rubbed at his jaw. “Not too much trouble.” If he wasn’t careful, he could listen to this woman talk about pugilism all day. “I came to return it.”
“It’s a check, dear boy. If you don’t want it, you could simply tear it up. Or perhaps have it framed. Yes, I’d find that a bit more gracious.”
“It struck me as rude to refuse a direct invitation; you’re a hard woman to RSVP to.”
“I’m hard to say no to as well.”
The fog began to clear. Craig saw the outline of Lara’s body; the wonderful honey color of her flesh. It was like staring through layer after layer of gauze and yet it was achingly provocative. Especially because he could recognize her from the set of her jaw, the high proud angle at which her neck rested, her body firm but relaxed. A queen in her throne couldn’t be more regal and a tiger at rest couldn’t have seemed more dangerous.
“You’re aware of my predicament?”
Craig cleared his throat. “I got an e-mail about your butler, but I didn’t buy that the real Lara Croft would be contacting me—”
“Hence the retainer. Oh dear; is that why you didn’t cash it? You feared you’d be arrested for fraud?”
“That’s not it,” Craig said, though it somewhat was. It was all so fantastical—and yet, there was a kind of elegance to it, a dreamy certitude that had unfolded bit by bit. This had to be the real Lara Croft. This was how she did things. And now, here he was. With her.