‘The Klone and I’: my chapter-by-chapter recap of the ‘high-tech love story’ only Danielle Steel could write
Sources say there is no better way to pass the time during your COVIT-19 self-isolation than to read my chapter-by-chapter recap of Danielle Steel’s ‘high-tech love story’ The Klone and I. Brew a pot of tea, put your feet up, and enjoy.
Chapter One
When I set out to read The Klone and I, I hope for a kooky read. Chapter One surprises me; in its most inspired moments, it feels like the beginning of a literary novel. This chapter concentrates on one monumental event: the sudden and, for our narrator, Stephanie, wholly unexpected ending of her marriage to Roger (that cad). He leaves his devoted wife of thirteen years, mother of their two children, for a younger woman. The break-up scene is so clearly drawn that I have to wonder if this is how one of Steel’s five marriages ended.
As happens in the worst moments of our lives, small details burn into Steph’s memory. When Roger dumps her, she wears an old flannel nightgown, has uncombed hair, and a blueberry from the muffin she ate an hour earlier is lodged next to her eyetooth (she later discovers). By chapter’s end, the divorce is final.
Klone status at chapter’s end: nil klone.
Star par of the chapter: I had fallen into disrepair like a sailboat no one loved anymore. I had barnacles on my bottom, my sails were frayed, and my paint was chipping. But I was still a damned fine boat, and he should have loved me enough to see through it.
Chapter Two
Maybe I’m dealing with a shit sandwich here. While I dug Chapter One, Chapter Two declines steeply. Chapter One was written as a scene, whereas in Chapter Two Steel reverts back to her usual style (tell don’t show). The narrator tells us everything she’s been up to since the divorce, which is not much, until she (being very rich like most Steel protagonists) decides to leave New York for a while and shop the hell out of Paris.
From here, everything is too easy. Steph trips the tourist trail and designer boutiques, buying enough luxe underwear to ‘become a courtesan in the court of Louis XIV’. One day, over lunch at Deux Magots, she spies a cool, handsome man who, turns out, just happens to be staying her hotel on the Left Bank. The man’s Peter, an American who owns a Silicon Valley business. They share some oysters and make loose plans to see each other in New York. But Steph surmises that he’s so seemingly perfect he’s ‘obviously a sicko’.
Klone status at chapter’s end: nil klone.
Star par of the chapter: I had not only lost my illusions, my innocence, my youth, when I lost Roger, I had also lost my flannel nightgowns. I had given up a lot for Roger.
Chapter Three
I presume it’s school holidays, because Steph whisks the kids to a holiday house in East Hampton for an extended stay. One of many odd features of this chapter is their attitude towards the neighbours’ dog, a Great Dane, which goes to the toilet on their front lawn ‘hourly…we tracked his little gifts all over the house, grateful we hadn’t gone barefoot’. Steph’s response to this situation is to basically adopt the dog, which sleeps in her son’s bed, her daughter’s bed, and sometimes even in her bed. Now that the dog’s in the house instead of outside, he starts pooing indoors, which the family groan about as they continue helplessly stepping in and spreading what they euphemistically call ‘dog tracks’ through the house. It’s a tight foursome now of Steph, the Great Dane, and the kids Charlotte (bratty teenager) and Sam (pre-pubescent boy)…but not for long.
Peter of Paris fame happens to be staying nearby, ‘with friends in Quogue’, and calls to invite Steph to dinner. She initially rejects him because she thinks he’s the refrigerator repairman. Once that laboured misunderstanding’s out of the way, dinner is a happening thing. And before you can say ‘Quogue’, Peter makes the foursome a fivesome. Charlotte thinks he’s a total dork. Sam likes him. Charlotte grills her mother on whether or not she and Peter have kissed yet and Steph, lying, says no. Then we get into some weird sex stuff. Not kinky weird, but super-repressed weird. In rationalising why she lied to Charlotte, Steph tells us: ‘I had somehow kept a firm grip on the belief that, whatever happened, and whatever you did or didn’t do, you had to pretend you were still a virgin.’ Okaaay. She may think she can fool her daughter, but I fail to see how she can keep up the pretence with Peter, with whom she swiftly goes on to make a lotta love to in this same chapter.
Sadly, all good things must come to an end. The prolifically-pooing Great Dane must be left behind when Steph and the kids return to New York. Peter lives in New York, too, but travels frequently to California for work. He tells Steph he’s got to head west for two weeks — ‘but I have a surprise for you…you won’t be lonely for a minute,’ he teases.
Klone status at chapter’s end: a hint of the klone to come…
Star par of the chapter: “What are you in real life? A dermatologist? Why are we having this conversation?” — “Because your refrigerator is broken, and I have no idea how to repair it. I’m a high-tech scientist, Stephanie, not a repairman.”
Chapter Four
If The Klone and I was a dish on MasterChef, Chapter Four would be ‘the hero of the dish’. The star ingredient — the klone! To flog this metaphor to death, I have to add that our mouths have been watering for Paul Klone. Given the book’s title, we know the klone’s here somewhere, but we are made to wait. Steel rewards our patience by having the klone arrive in style.
When he turns up at Steph’s door, she thinks he’s Peter. He didn’t tell her he was sending his newly-created klone to keep her company. She’s surprised that he’s not in California, and she’s shocked by what he’s wearing. ‘Fluorescent green satin pants, skintight and revealing, with a see-through black net shirt, with a little sparkle to it, and a pair of black satin cowboy boots I’d seen in a Versace ad, with rhinestone buckles.’ He ‘walks with an outrageous swagger…almost grinding his hips.’ Peter’s lost his mind, Steph surmises. But again, he’s not Peter, and he doesn’t pretend to be.
Unlike Peter, this guy’s appallingly handsy, a big drinker, a bit of a slob. Steph’s reaction flip-flops from one extreme to another within sentences. One moment she’s ‘terrified’ of multiple personalities, the next she’s grinning, mesmerised. Then she’s back to feeling trapped in a nightmare. She looks ill. He looks crestfallen. He says he’s not Peter but Paul Klone, created and sent by Peter, the high-tech scientist (who wouldn’t even try to fix Steph’s fridge in East Hampton?). She doesn’t believe him, but he wins her heart by whipping round the kitchen to cook dinner, and bonding with the kids. Charlotte suddenly thinks he’s cool because he’s wearing designer clothes…sounds legit.
Once the kids are asleep, Paul Klone whips off his gold G-string and seduces his way into Steph’s bed, ‘making love to me as no one ever had before’. Steph’s reassured — Peter’s gone weird but who cares, the lovemaking* is amazing. Until, post-lovemaking, while she’s lying next to the man she thinks is Peter…Peter calls from California! She faints, and that’s the end of Chapter Four.
Klone status at chapter’s end: the klone has entered the building.
Star par of the chapter: It had been an insane evening, but as he slipped out of the G-string, and tossed it in the air, I grinned at him, and found him more irresistible than ever. “You are amazing…”
*In deference to Steel, I too will refrain from using the word ‘sex’.
Chapter Five
Chapter Five is all about Steph and Paul Klone having a damned fine time together. Both have expensive tastes and expanses of time. The loved-up pair lounge around Steph’s apartment washing down buckets of caviar with Louis Roederer Cristalle and Château d’Yquem. And the lovemaking. Oh, the…lovemaking? It’s…deeply unsexy. Danielle Steel claims to spend upwards of 20 hours a day writing, and I believe her. If the volume of her output wasn’t proof enough, then the moves she’s dreamed up here more than hint at a dearth of satisfactory time spent in the bedroom.
Paul Klone has signature moves that escalate as we get deeper into the book. Here in Chapter Five, we begin with one tentative ‘double flip’ (I’ll recount it in Steph’s words below). For now, let’s hear from Paul Klone: ‘I managed a triple once…but I didn’t want to hurt you. I thought we should start slow at the beginning…and work up to a triple…even a quadruple…it adds something very special to a beautiful moment between two people, don’t you think?’ ‘I do,’ Steph says.
The effect of the flashy klone and his innovative lovemaking is that ‘Peter in his khaki pants and Oxford shirts was becoming a dim memory much faster than I would have thought possible, and only the klone seemed real now.’
Klone status at chapter’s end: winning Steph’s heart and mind.
Star par of the chapter: As we seemed to catapult out of the air, all the air in my lungs was sucked out of me, as we somersaulted in mid-air, still coupled, did a neat little pirouette of sorts, and would up artfully, almost gracefully, with me lying on top of him, on the floor…‘It’s called a double flip, Steph…it’s my specialty…do you like it?’ ‘I love it.’
Chapter Six
Peter, still in California but in regular phone contact with Steph, is increasingly concerned that Paul Klone is stealing Steph’s affections. He gets quite testy about her love affair, which is rich, considering he’s the one who foisted his surprise klone on Steph. But he’s right to wonder if his klone is outdoing him.
In Chapter Six, Paul Klone and Steph conquer the quadruple flip, and afterwards the klone pops out to Bulgari, Van Cleef, and Harry Winston to buy gaudy-sounding jewels to shower Steph with. They dine at all the New York hot spots. Steph’s feeling the love.
But remember, Peter’s only away for two weeks. Come mid-chapter, I’m extremely relieved that the klone will soon be back in the shop with his wires hanging out and his head off. His lack of boundaries is disturbing. He runs into young Sam in the hallway one early morning and they begin a Monopoly game which lasts hours. Problem is, Paul Klone lounges naked through the whole game. I don’t know who’s more off-colour here — the boundaryless klone, or the mother who laughs off her son gaming with a nude klone. Thankfully, Paul soon packs his purple alligator suitcases and bids a tearful farewell to the family before Peter’s return to New York. Some conflicting feelings from Steph in seeing Peter again would add some crucial narrative tension, but it’s not to be. Steph flip-flops again, switching almost immediately from being enamoured with Paul Klone to ‘loving Peter more than ever’ on seeing him at the airport in his grey slacks and blue shirt. A soppy reunion follows and the klone is all but forgotten…for now.
Klone status at chapter’s end: back in the shop with his wires out and his head off.
Star par of the chapter: It was an interlude in my life filled with ecstasy and thrills I’d never before dreamed of, and on our last night, at the thought of leaving me, he was too depressed to even try the double flip. He said his neck hurt too much.
Chapter Seven
The reunited Steph and Peter spend their days in boring bliss until his inevitable return to California for another two-week work stint. Will he send Paul Klone again? Steph daren’t ask, and Peter doesn’t tell. But sure enough, Paul Klone rocks up within hours of Peter’s departure in his mink jacket and chartreuse satin disco pants.
The presence of his purple alligator suitcases tells Steph he’s here to stay, and she’s thrilled to see him. ‘I suddenly realised how much I had missed him,’ she tells us. Still, she tries to remain loyal to Peter, but Paul wheedles his way into her bed. ‘Why are you so uptight tonight? He must be making you frigid or something,’ sulks the klone, when she tenses up at his touch. Instead of kicking his klone ass out of the house, she kisses him, and things get raunchy. ‘As soon as he touched me, I had absolutely no resistance, no morals.’ Clearly, we’re in for another couple of crazy weeks with the klone.
Klone status at chapter’s end: rewired and back in Steph’s heart and home.
Star par of the chapter: The last three months with Peter had been wonderful…but Paul brought with him something magical, and very different. A kind of madness blessed by outrageous spirits and kissed by elves.
Chapter Eight
With Paul Klone back, Steph blithely flushes her all her plans, including the one to find a job, down the toilet. When the kids are at school, Steph and Paul are in bed. Their nights are spent perfecting the triple flip. Bliss! Yet there’s an underlying torment for Steph in the uncertainty of who to love more — Peter or Paul? She sees the psychiatrist she saw after her husband left. The psych thinks she’s hallucinating and prescribes meds.
Peter calls that night, and this time he says he didn’t send the klone to keep Steph company; a predictable plot twist. Peter’s not that miffed about the klone’s presence. But how did the klone get there if he wasn’t sent? Surely he had to be assembled? ‘Not sure, but if he’s bugging you, I’ll have them send him back to the shop and take his head off,’ Peter replies, which is Steel’s way of saying, ‘don’t look for holes in the plot. Just go with it, darling.’
Klone status at chapter’s end: still in New York performing the quadruple flip with Steph.
Star par of the chapter: The [psychiatrist’s] office hadn’t changed much in two years, the couch I sat on, facing him, seemed a little more worn, and the pictures on the wall seemed a little more depressing. He had lost more hair, and the carpet looked threadbare. Other than that, the place looked terrific.
Chapter Nine
It’s Christmas party season, and at first it’s fun having Paul Klone accompany Steph to every seasonal shindig. Steph begins to tire of the klone, however, when he chooses to act out the word ‘fart’ at one such party. Steph is appalled, and not least because Paul has flagrantly breached the rules of charades. ‘They were doing movies, Paul. I have never seen a movie called Fart,’ she chastises him in the cab home.
En route, they stop for a drink. At the bar they run into Steph’s ex-husband, Roger, and Roger’s new wife, Helena, which puts Steph in an even worse mood. Despite this, she allows Paul to give her a gentle massage in bed that night, which leads to a ‘very modest double flip’. Inner turmoil mounts. Paul Klone seems to think he’s husband material, proposing marriage. Steph doesn’t say yes or no. Peter’s coming back from California, and he’s her real love…but can he ever commit? Who should she choose? The klone, aka ‘the kindest, funniest, sweetest, sexiest man ever’, or the man who created him?
Klone status at chapter’s end: still in Steph’s bed…but still in her heart?
Star par of the chapter: ‘Don’t feel bad, Steph. [Helena’s] a giant zero. Her boobs aren’t even real…and Christ! That awful dress. You’re ten times better looking than she is. Believe me. And who wants a woman with that kind of taste?’ As he said it, his pants were twinkling brightly, and the Christmas balls on his jacket were dancing in the breeze.
Chapter Ten
The next morning, Paul Klone leaves. It’s very emotional. ‘In a few hours, I’ll have my head off again, and all my wires out, and you’ll be out with him.’ He’s right. Peter and his grey slacks and grey turtleneck return, and although the reunion’s fine, Peter senses that Steph misses the klone. He announces that something’s come up and he has to leave town for a while, to Steph’s shock and disappointment.
This is the final chapter, so it’s big finish time. Peter leaves….and Paul Klone’s back! But his purple alligator Hermes luggage is gone, replaced with bright red ostrich Vuitton. Bemused Steph lets him inside and he chooses vodka, not his customary bourbon, from the liquor cabinet. Hmm. Other than that, he acts as he usually does, sprawling over a chair and sloshing booze around. He’s talking Peter down more than usual, criticising his clothes, his personality. She defends both Peter and herself when the klone calls Peter ‘pathetic’ and her love for Peter ‘disgusting’. Not for the first time in the book, I’m urging Steph to kick this guy out of the house. She doesn’t go that far, but is ‘determined to resist him’.
Her determination only goes so far. Too soon, they’re in bed. He’s massaging her buttocks. This inevitably leads to an attempt at a quadruple flip but, for the first time ever, it ends in disaster, because…you know…he ain’t the klone! He’s Peter pretending to be the klone! Peter can’t do the quadruple flip: no flesh-and-blood man can. But, bless him, he tries, and he barely manages to not break his neck when he falls. What he does do is give the game away.
‘Peter?’ Steph says hoarsely, ‘You didn’t…you couldn’t…why would you?’
‘…I thought you were in love with him, and didn’t want to see me.’
And that’s when they both come to the same realisation: ‘we didn’t need him anymore. We had each other. Forever.’
As Peter and Steph snuggle in bed, they come up with a solution for those regular weeks-long periods when Peter has to be in California for work. A babysitter!
‘The kids won’t mind too much if you leave them?’ asks Peter.
‘They’re old enough to manage without me,’ Steph answers.
Your son’s eight, Steph! And what about that job you wanted in New York? Apparently, all is forgotten, except the crazy love of one woman and her high-tech scientist.
‘This was the dream. Everything that had come before it had been the nightmare…I was his now…The two of us from now on, and no more klone. Just Peter and I.’
Klone status at chapter’s end: ‘He’s in the shop with his head off, and he’s going to stay there.’ — Peter.
Star par of the chapter: In spite of myself, I knew I would miss him. Who else would wear red spandex and green satin, not to mention the leopard G-string?…but even as I lay beside the naked splendour of his klone, all I could do was think about Peter.
