Miss Match

by Leslie Carroll

  “Why not? I’m licensed.”

  “Bull puckey.”

  Walker sighed, then took her hand. “Come with me,” he insisted, attempting to steer her toward the bedroom.

  Kathryn planted her feet like a recalcitrant six-year-old.

  “Cut it out, Kitty. I’m not going to throw you on the bed like a Neanderthal. I’m going to show you my accreditation.”

  “Keep it in your pants.”

  “You know damn well what I mean.” He brought her into his bedroom and pulled open a drawer of his black lacquered bureau. His sock drawer. Walker withdrew a diploma-sized sheet of paper from the bottom of the drawer, nudging aside the balls of paired socks with dragons, clocks, and images of Betty Boop woven into the fabric. “See. One hundred percent legitimate,” he said, poking at the official document with his index finger.

  But Kathryn wasn’t paying attention. She was silently cursing herself for wondering if the queen-sized mattress was very firm, and how anyone could possibly sleep in a bedroom with white walls, except for the one with the large pastel-toned litho that looked like it used to hang in a Marriott. No doubt one of Sven’s choices. And it probably cost a fortune, but you’d never know it. Plus, not a book in sight. How different from her own inner sanctum that was cluttered with dog-eared volumes of everything from Shakespeare to Sheldon, depending on her mood.

  “Kitty?”

  “Sorry—I was thinking—this bedroom doesn’t look very . . . lived in. I’m almost ready to check the night-stand for a Gideon’s Bible.” What was that? She realized she was sort of pleased that it didn’t look “lived in.” Where did that come from?

  “Wrong pew.” Walker grinned. “So, now that you know I’m not going to send you to the emergency room, and that I know what I’m doing, let me give you a massage. You’re right, I owe you. So let this be a start.”

  “I’m not getting undressed.”

  Walker appeared to be getting exasperated. “Fine. It just won’t be very effective. Not as effective as it would if you did. I won’t look. I’m a professional. Once a body is on the table, it just becomes meat to me.”

  “That’s gross. Have you ever considered pathology instead of matchmaking?”

  Walker took out a bedsheet and a couple of large fluffy terrycloth towels from his linen closet and started to set up the table. “Do you prefer the head cradle, or not?” he asked, spreading the sheet over the leather-covered collapsible table.

  “With,” Kathryn responded, still not moving toward the table. “How did you end up a certified masseur?”

  “In college. Before I discovered the stock market, I worked my way through school that way. I was raised in a single-parent household and the money was always iffy, depending on business. So I developed a skill that people will always need and are willing to pay good money for. I still have private clients every once in a while, just for fun. My friends, mostly. I’ll give them or a family member of theirs a massage as a birthday or holiday gift.”

  “Then you’re rusty,” Kathryn pronounced, finishing her cognac. “You should give them shares of AOL instead.”

  Walker moved to refill her glass. “I gave my most recent massage two weeks ago. Fine with me if you don’t want to take me up on my offer.”

  Kathryn recalled that Eleanor had once accused her of being a “massage slut,” the kind of woman who would do damn near anything to get a back rub. The cognac was beginning to have its customary relaxing effect. Kathryn’s legs and arms were bare anyway, and the slipdress was pretty much history, if the stain wouldn’t come out. So, what the hell. She slid out of the flimsy shift and unbuckled her sandals, leaving her feeling extremely vulnerable in the black lace teddy.

  She pretended not to catch Walker’s admiring look, as he watched her undress out of the corner of his eye. He seemed amused that her defenses had given way to his hedonistic offer. “Well, I’m glad the dryer didn’t eat it,” he said, pointing his chin at her fragile undergarment.

  “Oh, hell,” she gasped, grabbing one of the beach-size towels. She wasn’t wearing a bra underneath the teddy, either.

  “I’m not saying this to tease you, Kitty, but if I massage you in that net thing, it’s actually going to hurt. Kneading that fabric into you will make your back smart a bit.”

  She hesitated. “Go into the bedroom.”

  He did as he was bid, and she slipped out of the teddy, leaving her underpants on, then hopped up on the massage table and covered herself from shoulder to toe with the towel.

  “Can I come back yet?” he asked from the other room.

  “All clear.”

  He had changed into a T-shirt that said “You’re the Top” baring his muscular forearms, and came out of the bedroom with a small bottle of lotion, which he rested on that butt-ugly coffee table. Then he turned a dimmer switch on the wall and lowered the light so that it was no brighter than a candleglow and lit a stick of ambergris incense, leaving it to burn in a glass ashtray.

  “Roll over, I’ll start on your back.”

  Kathryn clutched the towel to her body as she rolled onto her stomach. She heard him squeeze some lotion into his hand and rub his hands together. It smelled luscious. “What is that?”

  “It’s jasmine massage lotion. I buy it in Chinatown.”

  She briefly started to relax when he placed his strong hands at intervals along her back, feeling for tension and assessing her alignment before beginning to do any deep muscle work. When he began to apply more pressure, slowly moving his hands up the length of her back along either side of her spine, Kathryn began to have her doubts about going through with the massage.

  “Uh, oh.” She bounced up from her prone position, covering her torso with the towel clutched in her fist. This was more than she could handle at the moment. Her being nearly naked. Walker touching her so exquisitely that any second now, all her resolve, all her attempts at willpower, restraint, dignity, would dissolve into a puddle and any uncertainty she might harbor about the appropriateness of this situation would entirely be overcome by the intense desire to allow him to do anything to, with, and for her body.

  “What’s the matter, Kitty?”

  “No can do,” she responded simply. “Where are my clothes?”

  “I was only trying to make you feel better.”

  “I know, Bear. That’s why no can do.” She noticed that he was trying to keep his face placid, not to reflect his disappointment.

  “Well, you still need to relax. Here, let me pour you another.” He took Kathryn’s snifter and refilled it, then handed it back to her. “And we’ll try another cure for frazzled nerves.”

  “What?” Kathryn asked, turning away from him and getting dressed.

  “Music. Let me just get this out of the way . . .” He folded up the massage table and lugged it into the corner of the room, then moved to the stereo and perused his CD collection. “Just the ticket, I think,” he said, retrieving an album. “A timeless old standard. And more soothing under the circumstances than what I have been listening to lately.”

  “Which is?”

  “The Torykillers.”

  Kathryn registered a look of utter shock—something between unbelieving and appalled.

  “Just kidding! A feeble attempt at humor that fell way short of the mark. Ms. Lamb, may I have this dance?” Walker extended his hand, which Kathryn took somewhat reluctantly. The rich strains of Kern’s “Only Make Believe” began to play and he enveloped her into his arms and began to slow dance with her, holding her tenderly.

  It felt delicious. “I have a question for you, Bear,” Kathryn said, after a weighted pause.

  “Shoot.”

  “Bad word choice given the recent events of the evening, don’t you think?” They both smiled. “No . . . I was just thinking about something. Did you get good grades in school?”

  “It’s rather a funny time to ask a question like that. Why? Am I being graded now? There isn’t going to be a quiz at the end of the period, is there?”
>
  “No, Bear. I was just thinking about something . . .”

  “You said that already.”

  “But you didn’t answer my question.”

  “I did okay in school. Besides, no one asks you for your transcripts when you’re pushing forty.”

  “You’re an exceptionally graceful dancer,” Kathryn purred. “Not at all a klutz. You haven’t steered me into the coffee table once.”

  “I’m a musician. I chalk it up to good rhythm. I was also a varsity athlete, if you recall. Your point is, Ms. Lamb?”

  “My point is . . . that . . . since you walk into stuff sometimes, and tend to knock things over . . . that maybe you might need glasses.”

  Walker set his jaw and guided her through an intricate ballroom step. “I’ve never needed them before.”

  “I’m just saying . . .”

  “No way. Besides, they’ll make me look old. Or geeky.”

  “Not unless you get geeky frames,” Kathryn replied simply. She gave him an inadvertent squeeze. After all, she had just intended to make a gentle inquiry and ended up fairly flattening his ego. “Besides, I don’t think anything could make you look like a dweeb.” She rested her head on his chest and allowed him to gently partner her around the room.

  “Feel any better?” he asked, halfway through the song. She nodded into his shoulder. “All part of Six in the City’s patented personal satisfaction customer service guarantee.”

  Walker’s hands still smelled of jasmine. Kathryn found herself working to keep her equilibrium. “After tonight’s fiasco, you still owe me a replacement date, you know. A dance with you does not a date with an eligible bachelor make.” She gazed at the ceiling to avoid making direct eye contact with him.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Walker replied evenly. “I’ll make sure you get excellent prospects steered your way. Not that the two matches you’ve met through Six in the City are sub-par in the humanity department, necessarily, but I’ll give you a ‘freebie.’ Six guys for the price of five.”

  Kathryn’s eyes were still focused upwards. “Um . . . don’t look now, but did that leak get worse since the last time I was up here?” she asked her host, indicating the brown streak running down the corner of the wall at the far end of the living room. “You should talk to the landlord.”

  “My mother? The woman who flees in a crisis? Or gets married in one.”

  The song ended and Kathryn was still enfolded in Walker’s arms. “Better now?”

  “Yes,” Kathryn replied, her eyes shining—from the cognac, of course—as she leaned her head against him. He was so much taller than she was. The top of her head came to just below his collarbone. “Thank you. I’ll try not to get arrested again. If word gets out, it could be bad for business.” She looked up into his pale green eyes, and he bent forward to reach her mouth.

  “Ahhhhh-choo!” Kathryn’s sneeze involuntarily jerked her head away and Walker’s mouth landed on her cheek. They looked at each other awkwardly.

  “Gesundheit,” he said, after a pause.

  “Well, I guess that’s . . . good night, then,” she said briskly. “I’ll see you on the elevator or something. Or in your office. Thanks for the cognac. And the dance.”

  “I’ll let you out,” Walker said self-consciously, as he walked her to the door. “Sorry for the . . . everything.”

  Kathryn rang for the elevator and leaned against the wall of the hallway outside the penthouse. Well, I sure screwed that one up, she thought.

  Inside his mother’s aerie, Walker poured himself another cognac and sat on his leather couch, cradling the goblet in his hands to warm it up. Bad, bad Bear to try to cross the professional boundary with Kathryn. She was his client. What had he been thinking? That the woman was positively irresistible, that’s what. And he’d nearly let his libido get the better of him. “You screwed that one up, big time, bro,” he said aloud to himself. “Big time.”

  Chapter 10

  “I felt like I was back at my first seventh-grade dance,” Walker confessed to Josh over his second pint of Bass Ale at the North Star tavern in the too-trendy South Street Seaport. “Dork City.”

  “Bear . . . I’m playing devil’s advocate here. This is where you tell me to shut my yap; this is the woman of your dreams, and just because you pulled a Clark Kent when you tried to kiss her for the first time, it doesn’t mean you were right all along about your conviction to remain a bachelor for the rest of your life.”

  “Phooey.” Walker motioned to the bartender, an Irishman who looked fresh off the boat, and ordered another round.

  Josh popped a beer nut in his mouth. “I was thinking about you and the subject of risk taking. Remember when you came back to the city after grad school and you were first flirting with the idea of starting up a financial newsletter?”

  “That’s not all I was flirting with.” Walker launched into a chorus of “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before.” Several patrons turned their heads and an attractive blonde got off her bar stool and applauded. Walker held his beer glass aloft and brought it down in front of his chest with a theatrical sweeping gesture, as he took a bow.

  “So where are all those women, now, bro?”

  “Married. Except for the ones who are divorced.”

  “And what does that tell you?”

  “That they all wanted to get married and/or make babies, which is why I didn’t belong in the charming little domestic picture. How many times has Rushie been married? Are we up to a baker’s dozen yet?”

  “It still sounds weird to me when you call your mother by her first name.”

  “What do you call your mother, Josh?”

  “Mommy.”

  Walker snorted into his third pint. “I’ve lost track of all the times my ‘mommy’ has been married. And I’ve long since stopped keeping a scorecard of her paramours. Suffice it to say, I’ve never seen a happy marriage.”

  “See, I take that as a challenge, bro,” Josh said, raising his glass at his old roommate. “Don’t forget, you’re talking to an engaged man. I’d be a fool to let Lou get away.”

  “I seem to remember that I was the one who first told you that.”

  “Look, I love being with the woman. She’s a treasure to sleep with and a pleasure to awaken beside, and she wants to spend every day of the rest of her life with me, although God knows why. So I finally decided that if I kept putting off the inevitable, she’d finally get sick of my being afraid to discuss the M word and go find someone who would, even if that someone wasn’t me and didn’t fulfill her in the same way. And this is not just idle speculation because I actually know someone that happened to. Peter Gordon Weinberg dated this girl for what—six, maybe seven years; she keeps pressing him to commit, he doesn’t, so she smells the coffee, dumps him and boom! The next guy she dates, they’re engaged within eight months. I didn’t want to see that happening with Lou.”

  “You become a lot more voluble in vino, my friend,” Walker said.

  “Beer, Bear.”

  “Josh, I’ve been spending six days a week helping sorry souls try to achieve that elusive human connection known as connubial bliss. And I’ve probably met more deluded—and delusional—people than I ever want to see in a lifetime. I see how desperately they try to find ‘The One’ who will solve all their problems and enable them to live happily ever after in a penthouse in the sky. And most of it is castles in the air. It’s sad. Marriage isn’t going to solve those problems. In my experience of it, it creates them.”

  “That’s your mother’s experience of it.” Josh slid the bowl of nuts between the two of them. “When the hell are you going to stop living your mother’s life? She is not you; you are not her. It’s fucked up, man. Stop using it as an excuse. You have free will. Choices. I think you ought to ask Kathryn out. You know, I should wear a wire when I’m out with you, because ever since she walked into Six in the City, you mention her name far more often than any other person in every conversation we have.”

  “Maybe tha
t’s because you always ask me how it’s going with her.”

  Josh chewed on his lip and stared into his beer. “It only proves that the woman is on your mind. You’ve eaten her ginger cats—which in itself is borderline erotic, given the not-so-subtle implications here—and almost became intimate with some of her major muscle groups. I’d say that things have progressed pretty rapidly for someone who doesn’t want to get involved with a woman who envisions a chuppah instead of a pair of house seats when you mention ‘two on the aisle.’ ”

  “She could have her wedding canopy and her Broadway show if I took her to a revival of Fiddler on the Roof,” Walker said dryly. “I’m not saying that she couldn’t be a good friend, Josh. She’s pretty terrific. But she came to Six in the City in the first place because she’s goal oriented, and I’m not casting my net in that direction.”

  Josh gave Walker a good hard look, then shook his head. “ ‘A confirmed old bachelor and likely to remain so.’ Henry Higgins ended up a lonely man, my friend.”

  “So what do you think that was all about?” Eleanor said, following a slurp of Serendipity’s delectable frozen hot chocolate. She slid the enormous bowl-like goblet across the marble tabletop to her young daughter, who had been staring, fascinated, at the bright colors in the old-fashioned ice cream parlor’s stained glass panels and giggling flirtatiously with the perky waiters.

  Johanna immediately began to blow bubbles with the straw, creating an incandescent brown froth. She smiled, very pleased with herself when Eleanor shot her a disapproving frown. The toddler giggled, then took a proper sip with the straw. “Drink it like a person,” she scolded, obviously parroting something her mother must have told her more than once.

  “I’m not sure what it was all about, frankly. If I hadn’t sneezed, I guess he would have made it to first base. By that point, I certainly wouldn’t have minded if he’d kissed me, and I would have kissed back. I mean, he’s terrific looking, and after the night I had, I wasn’t exactly focusing on the ramifications of where things would have gone if we’d actually kissed. My feeling is that it was probably not such a good idea to begin with, and the sneeze was just a lucky break that got me out of having to deal with it either way.” Kathryn reached for the goblet of frozen hot chocolate and took a generous gulp of the icy concoction.