Cay is for charisma

It was part of Cayenne's magic that she thrilled me when she said, "I'm going to kill you." She said it when I was recovering in a hospital from a serious car accident.

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It was part of Cayenne's magic that she thrilled me when she said, "I'm going to kill you." She said it when I was recovering in a hospital from a serious car accident. Somebody had carelessly left what looked like a large and heavy bag on a traffic lane, and, in trying to avoid it while returning from dinner at midnight, I crashed into a traffic barrier. The car was totaled, and I was nearly totaled too. With no safety belts those days, the steering wheel just plowed through my chest and struck the sternum.

Cayenne, a colleague's wife, was returning late too from dinner and luckily passed my crashed car a minute or two later. She saw me lying unconscious. Cayenne stopped her car, got her chauffeur to help her lift me into her car and rushed me to the Emergency. I lay on the back seat, my bruised head on her lap. She also cajoled a doctor she knew to leave his bed and come to the hospital to check on me.

The next morning, she came again to check on me. I was happy, as ever, to see her remarkable face and made the mistake of smiling.

"Don't smile," she chided severely, "First you drive like a maniac and try to kill yourself. Then I must spend the night to take you to a hospital and get the right doctor. And I find this morning that my best dress is ruined because of your caked blood on it. I should kill you."