“Have a good time, dear.”
“A job interview’s not my idea of a blast,” I said, pulling the covers up to my eyeballs, “but yeah, I’ll try.”
“And don’t forget—you don’t have to take just any old job,” she reminded me.
It was what she always said whenever I went up for something new. She would have loved it had I stayed at home all the time, puttered around the house, and kept her company when she needed it.
“And I won’t,” I assured her.
I’d told Carole Mills that I wouldn’t be in on Thursday on account of a doctor’s appointment and that I’d get some work done off-site. That was one more advantage of being a free agent—you could pretty much come and go as you pleased, tell them whatever story you wanted, and they had to believe you as long as you met your deadlines. How people toed the line for a company year after year, decade after decade, I never knew.
Well, I did know—it had to do with what you had backing you up. Or not backing you up. Me, I was one of the lucky ones.
Monica was off for the day with one of her friends on an antiquing jaunt down in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and wouldn’t be back until dinnertime. In the morning I sat in my study with my cappuccino (I’d gone out and bought a Tassimo ultimate brewing machine at Fortunoff) and typed out the Mexican-diet section of the diabetes brochure:
Suggestions for a taco: Organic black beans. Shredded organic lettuce. Chopped organic tomatoes. A sliver of organic avocado. Sliced onions. Lime-flavored salsa. Dispense with the meat and cheese. Grilled shrimp or fish—grouper, red snapper—might be added if so desired.
And don’t forget to show a little self-discipline and not gorge yourself while you’re at it. Of course, I didn’t put that in.
I had trouble keeping my mind focused on what I was doing, but I forced myself to keep typing.
Around noon I jumped into the shower, shaved, and dressed: a steel-gray Burma Bibas shirt, an Axis blended-wool jacket and black jeans, all from my favorite boutique, Palma, down on Broome Street. At about one fifteen I shoved off for the city. I left the BMW in a lot on lower Seventh Avenue and walked east, arriving at the restaurant about five minutes late.
Before going inside I peeked through the front window while pretending to check out the menu. At two in the afternoon there was hardly anyone in the place, maybe three or four occupied tables at most. If I wasn’t mistaken, my date was sitting at the street end of the bar, a drink in front of her. She was wearing a purple brocaded designer jacket and skintight sequined jeans. There was a male patron at the other end, toward the rear of the restaurant, chatting with the bartender.
The fact that Gretchen had gotten here first—if it really was her—gave me, at least in my mind, something of an upper hand straight out of the gate.
But maybe I was just blowing smoke up my own ass. I sucked in a deep breath and pushed through the door.
I took a stool halfway between the guy and the woman. He didn’t look in my direction. She did.
It was her, all right. I recognized her from her photo.
She smiled first. My heart did a flying leap into my rib cage.
“Gretchen?”
“You must be Jonathan.”
Jonathan? Who the fuck is Jonathan?
It took a few seconds before I remembered that Jonathan was the name that Richard Marzten was hiding behind.
Did she pick up on my hesitation? She smiled again, displaying a mouthful of perfectly even, porcelain-white teeth.
I reached out, and we touched hands.
Then I moved over, leaving only a single stool between us. I didn’t want to come on too heavy too fast.
Right off I realized that my luck was holding. Gretchen in person was downright exquisite—even more lovely than her snapshot. Jet-black hair cut in a bob that cupped her cheeks. Ice-blue eyes, and tasteful diamond studs in her earlobes that matched them in hue. She appeared to be buff and, like I said, well dressed, right down to her five-hundred-dollar Jimmy Choo pumps. A hybrid of Sherilyn Fenn and Lara Flynn Boyle wouldn’t be too far off the mark, if I had to say who she resembled. And there was nothing whatsoever of the high-priced escort about her, though at that point I wouldn’t have cared.
I tried to play it cool, but underneath my shirt I was sweating. The conversation bumped along at first. There were “uhs” and “hmms” and pockets of awkward silence, which made my nervousness worse.
Uh-oh, I thought. Maybe she doesn’t like what she sees.
Then she tilted her lovely head coquettishly.
“You showed up. I was just starting to worry that I was being stood up.”
“Got caught in a little traffic,” I lied. “And you know what it’s like trying to park in Manhattan.” Meanwhile I was thinking, I’d have to be insane to stand you up, baby.
I mustered up as much boyish innocence as I could. “So—are you glad I showed up?”
“So far. Unless, that is, you do something stupid.”
“Hey, I’m a male. There’s always that possibility.”
At that we both broke up, the upper half of her body tilted almost imperceptibly in my direction, and she reached out and lightly touched my leg.
Her hand felt damned good down there.
That was when I felt the first flush of guilt. Suddenly Monica was standing next to me. I pushed her away.
What the hell was I doing that was wrong, after all? I was just having a drink with an acquaintance. Research, for a novel I was going to write one of these days. Nothing wrong with that, was there? Hell, I could even claim it as a business expense.
The bartender, who was wearing a tropical shirt, came by and asked what I cared for.
“One of those martinis to die for.”
“You won’t be disappointed,” said Gretchen, jiggling her empty glass.
“Make that two.”
Instead of going straight at the reason we were both sitting in this shadowy bar in the middle of a sunny weekday afternoon, we danced gingerly around it. Nevertheless, the drink loosened me up a little, and before long we were yakking like a pair of old friends.
Gretchen was startlingly, even somewhat intimidatingly, intelligent. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, since her letter had been so well written—thoughtful, even, though she’d never dropped a hint about why she’d be interested in doing something sleazy and devious like we were doing now.
Or were about to. Because I had no idea what was going to happen. I’d never done anything like this before in my life.
Anyway, the conversation, once it got rolling, was lively. We flitted over everything from the latest films and novels to the opera, even to the dismal fortunes of the New York sports teams. Gretchen knew what she was talking about, too. And the reason I knew is because I was on top of things, like Carole Mills said. No tidbit in the Times or New York magazine ever escaped me. I had the disposable time to keep up with what was happening in the world, and apparently Gretchen did, too.
The entire situation—including Gretchen herself—made me feel a bit ill at ease, a little unsure of myself. Did I really have what it took to carry this crazy thing off? Could I really hold this babe’s interest? Sure, I was a good-looking guy (I’d always been told so, at least), but I knew that I’d deteriorated over the years from well toned and handball fit to what I was now—a trifle soft, as my life of ease had progressively taken over.
But Gretchen was still sitting there.
The idea of her taking off her clothes in front of me was almost too much to process. My mouth watered with adolescent anticipation.
“So—what’s your real name?” I said with a chuckle when we’d started on our second drinks.
“Gretchen.”
I picked up a little adamancy in her voice, as if using anything other than her real name had never crossed her mind. “Why? Isn’t Jonathan
yours?”
“Course it is.”
It was my second lie, but a bigger one this time. “I just assumed you might not want to be known by your real name—for obvious reasons.”
Her perfectly plucked eyebrows went into an arch. “Well—we are being ‘extremely discreet,’ aren’t we? Phony names are a little—well, you know.”
What was she about to say? Gauche? Sleazy?
If she wanted to use her real name it was okay by me—so long as no one found us out. She could be Gretchen, but I was going to stick with Jonathan, at least for the time being.
“Sure,” I agreed anyway.
Maybe it was just the alcohol, which can play nasty tricks on your perception of reality, but it seemed to me that Gretchen and I were getting along quite famously. We actually had a lot in common—a fondness for good Off-Broadway theater (and an equal disdain for cheesy Broadway musicals), exotic travel, fine restaurants. And like me, she apparently had unlimited access to all of it.
“You really are married, aren’t you?” I said when we’d been sitting there about an hour, since she was one of the very few women who hadn’t had at least something negative to say about her husband in her letter. By now she’d moved all the way over to the stool right next to me, and our shoulders and thighs had bumped more than once.
“Of course,” she said. “You are, aren’t you?”
I nodded. But I wasn’t about to go into detail.
At that moment Monica was back again. What if one of her city-crawling friends happened to see me now? I felt another pang of guilt. But it wasn’t strong enough to make me get up and leave.
I chalked up my latest attack of nerves to my newness at infidelity. Then I told myself I’d get over it.
“Leonard is wonderful,” she said.
Leonard?
“He’s always been wonderful,” she added, not altogether sincerely.
You fucking jerk. Leonard is her husband.
But hearing his name was a jolt. And what the hell kind of name was Leonard?
Like a fool, I was ready to cut the guy down. Damn it all—I was already jealous, and I’d just met Gretchen a few minutes ago. I had to be careful—Leonard was the reason Gretchen was here in the first place.
Before I could open my trap, she sighed: “But I’m only thirty-one, and he’s in his late fifties.”
Ah. His late fifties. Suddenly Leonard didn’t seem like such a bad sort to me.
“I see.”
We really did have something in common. I was all ears, and she went on talking.
Leonard was a Long Island estate attorney. A perfectly nice man, and she cared for him, but her dilemma was this generational gap between them: it made for problems in the boudoir. From a purely physical standpoint, it was sort of like going to bed with your father. And at his age, he didn’t quite have the appetite she had. Not that she preferred to subsist sexually on a guy approaching the age of sixty, but when that guy happened to be your husband . . .
I didn’t ask why she married him. I had the feeling I already knew.
“I know exactly what you mean,” I sympathized.
“Not that I’ve ever been to bed with my father.”
“I would hope not.”
That was good for another laugh.
I remembered how old Monica looked to me nowadays. The thought that I might as well be banging my mother sometimes crossed my mind when we were having sex. It wasn’t a pleasant thought.
But I said nothing, because it felt like a betrayal of sorts, worse even, than getting together with Gretchen in the first place.
I stared at our reflections in the long mirror behind the bar. Gretchen and I were an attractive twosome, all right.
I hadn’t hoped for much from this first tête-à-tête. I was prepared—and I had to be, really—for the possibility that there wasn’t going to be a second. Though I knew for sure by this time that I wanted it. I wanted all of Gretchen I could get.
She didn’t seem the least in a hurry. When she agreed to a third drink, I knew I had a shot at something. The question was how, exactly, to take it. And it was always better if the woman took it first.
Gretchen gave me a sidelong glance with those unreal blue eyes of hers. Was she drunk? She didn’t seem drunk a minute ago.
“What do you say?”
“What do I say to what?” I shot back playfully, hoping she wasn’t about to call it an afternoon.
“Should we . . . go somewhere?”
It was like she was reading my mind.
“Whatever you say.”
“Did you have any place in mind?”
“I hadn’t gotten that far.” I smiled. “You know—I wasn’t about to take anything for granted, just in case things didn’t work out.”
I watched for her reaction. There was none, except for a twitch of a smile.
“Well . . . there’s the Soho Grand, just a couple of blocks away. Any objection?”
Of course I knew the place. It’s the only hotel in the immediate vicinity.
I shook my head. “Not that I can think of.”
5.
As we exited the restaurant, I frantically began trying to puzzle out how I was going to cover the bill for a room at the Soho Grand, which would have to run several hundred bucks at least. I didn’t have that much cash on me (I never did), and I was afraid of leaving a paper trail, no matter how small, in my wake.
The fact of the matter was that I simply hadn’t planned on getting so far so fast—with anybody, let alone someone like Gretchen. I should have been better prepared. Knowing it now didn’t help a damned bit.
We strolled toward West Broadway. I knew it was probably just the martinis, but it felt like everything was happening as if it had been a dream I’d dreamed long ago and was now reliving all over again. I tried to shake off the creepy sensation of déjà vu. My only hope was that I’d come up with a solution to the problem of the room rental by the time we made it to the hotel.
And here was another thing: what if the Soho Grand didn’t have an empty room? It wasn’t the height of the tourist season, but still, what were the chances they weren’t full?
My brain was swarming like a beehive as we turned left on West Broadway. The crowds of fashionistas, gays, gallery vultures, and tourists drifting along the sidewalks were a comfort—they represented anonymity. That’s the great thing about the city: Nobody knows who the hell you are, and nobody cares. You could be a serial killer or a terrorist and be left in peace simply by getting lost in the crowd.
When we were twenty-five feet from the hotel entrance, Gretchen hit the brakes.
“After I check in, I’ll come back outside and tell you the room number,” she whispered with a sly grin. “Then we can go up separately. We don’t want anyone seeing us together, do we?”
“Right.”
Shit. That was something else I should have thought of. When it came to the fine details of a covert operation, Gretchen was light years ahead of me. Is it from experience? I had to wonder.
Something must have registered in my expression. “Don’t worry—it’s cool. Sometimes when my girlfriends are on a shopping marathon, we take a room here in town so we can rest. Leonard doesn’t mind.”
Well then, maybe it wasn’t experience talking. And thank God again for Leonard. He just saved me a few hundred bucks.
“What if they don’t have anything?”
“They always have something. You’d be surprised. Like I said—don’t worry.”
This girl knew what she was doing, all right. She winked at me as she pushed through the front door. I forced in a deep breath as I watched her sashay into the dimly lit lower lobby, her tight ass moving in exaggerated slow motion. It was, I realized, a walk meant to torment men. In a matter of minutes I was going to be cradling that ass in my hands.
P
oor fucking Leonard, I thought. But what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. It’s true for all of us.
Standing there on the curb with nothing to do but wait for Gretchen to come back, I had the uncharacteristic urge to smoke a cigarette. Since I’d kicked the habit years ago, after meeting Monica, I didn’t have one on me. Just as well, because I had a dread of being struck down by something like what had done my old man in. But I hadn’t felt this alive in years. I felt like a man walking a high tightrope.
I paced up and down with my hands in my pockets while the uniformed doorman, a heavy-set Greek-looking guy who was maybe in his late twenties, kept watch on me out of the corner of his eye. Maybe he thought I was a terrorist planning to blow up his building.
The fifteen minutes Gretchen was gone seemed like a small eternity. I was just beginning to have doubts about her when she reappeared.
“Suite 505. Give me five, ten minutes, then come on up.”
She seemed so sure of herself. Was this all just a little game to her? If it was, why the hell would I get bent out of shape? That’s what it was supposed to be for me, too, wasn’t it?
“Jesus, Jonathan, you look so nervous! Count to sixty, then go inside and have a seat in the lobby and relax.”
“Okay . . .”
She went back into the hotel. I did what she suggested, counted to sixty in my mind. Then I went past the doorman and up the cast-iron staircase to the lobby, where I dropped into one of the big cushioned chairs. Like a monk chanting his mantra, I repeated the suite number to myself: 505. 505. 505.
Across the room I caught sight of Gretchen waiting for the elevator. A car arrived, and without looking back, she got in along with two other guests, a silver-haired man and his wife, and a uniformed bellhop pushing a loaded luggage rack. Then the doors closed.
I picked up the Wall Street Journal someone had left on the adjacent chair. Flipping through it, I stopped at the Preferred Stocks listings page and out of habit ran down the columns where some of the Marzten holdings were located.
MerLynDisney was up a whole point. General Motors was up a half point. Sirius Satellite Radio was going through the ceiling, just like Exxon. Oriental Financial was holding. Same for Microsoft. I had to hand it to Monica. She’d made us another small fortune by investing in portfolios that seemed to never go cold.
No Strings Page 3