Mr. Nice Guy

by Jennifer Miller

  “Who else?”

  “Well, I might have heard something similar about Karen Scarpelli, the MMA fighter.”

  “Who else?”

  “That’s all.”

  As the driver pulled onto the FDR from 96th Street, Lucas racked his brain for a credible way to change the subject.

  “That can’t be all,” Jays said. “I’m something of a man-about-town, you know. Surely I’ve fabricated more than two relationships.”

  “I really don’t—”

  Jays shook his head. “Don’t be a buzzkill, Luke. We’re having fun!” He gave Lucas a playful, if forceful, nudge.

  “I think there was one other? Jasmine Washington, the actress.”

  At once, Jays’ smile vanished. “That’s not office gossip.”

  Shit. Now Lucas remembered that Washington had not been lumped in with the other women. Carmen had told him about Jasmine Washington. How after just a few dates Jays was convinced the actress was in love with him. He’d boasted about it everywhere, made it seem like Washington couldn’t keep her hands off of him. It wasn’t true. And even if it had been, no woman deserved to be humiliated like that. When Washington discovered what Jays had been saying, she threatened to make a public statement that would not only damage the Editor’s reputation but also put off other actresses from wanting to be in the magazine. To keep Washington quiet, Jays had run a feature-length advertorial about her new business—a line of cocktail-scented incense.

  “I could have sworn that somebody from the office said—”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Lucas. Carmen’s the only one who knows.”

  “I’m not going to tell anyone,” Lucas said. “I promise.”

  “That—”

  Lucas was sure Jays was about to say bitch. Instead, the Editor turned to the window. “She’s the last person who has any right to talk about inventing things. Especially relationships.” His face striated with shadow, Jays turned back to Lucas. “Did she mention any of that to you? I’m sure she didn’t. It’s not really in her interest to do so.”

  “Any of what?”

  “Only that a lot of the men she’s written about are totally made up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s simple, Lucas. Carmen invented a large number of the men she claims to have slept with, dated, what have you. Probably in the columns she wrote about you—all that talk of banker boys, and whatever bullshit she wrote. Those aren’t real men. Those are her imagination. Go on and ask her about it. I’d love to know what she says.”

  Lucas was stunned. What was Jays trying to pull? “That can’t be true,” he said. And yet. She’d been the one to suggest that they start inventing sexual escapades for “Screw the Critics.”

  “Truth be told, when she wrote the first Nice Guy column, I thought it was just another fake. When the rebuttal came in, my first thought was that she’d written it herself.”

  “But why would she have done that?”

  “Oh, why does she do anything? She has all sorts of excuses. Here’s my take: It’s much easier to sit at home with your laptop and a glass of wine than to actually go out and report. I have to give it to her; she’s pretty good at making stuff up. You’d never know which columns are about actual human males. Even you—the actual human male who’s been screwing her—didn’t know that she was approximately sixty percent less experienced than she claimed to be.”

  “Or maybe I was so inexperienced, I couldn’t tell the difference,” Lucas said, feeling suddenly morose.

  Jays appeared not to pick up on this and burst out laughing, a deep guffaw. “I like you, Luke. I really do. I’m happy we’re in this together. At any rate, thanks for indulging me. This was fun.”

  The car was now wending its way through the East Village. It stopped outside Lucas’s apartment. Fun, Lucas thought as he got out, was not how he’d characterize that conversation.

  CHAPTER 37

  For the next two weeks, Lucas and Carmen took meetings during the day and reveled through the city at night. They began developing an event series and podcast called 21st Century Sex. They were treated to dinners at Mission Chinese, Momofuku Ko, and The Spotted Pig—the kinds of restaurants most New Yorkers had to wait hours or days to get into but where Lucas and Carmen could now enjoy seats whenever they pleased. At the trendy bar Death & Co, they celebrated the launch of a new cocktail called The Screwed Critic (it contained two beaten eggs, which symbolized … balls? Breasts? Lucas was unclear). They faked merengue moves at Bembe, hooked up in the bathrooms at Le Bain, shared a blunt with hipsters at Output, and whispered snarky comments about the glam crowd at Provoc as sparkler-capped champagne bottles bobbed by. They also had a lot of sex. The public’s enthusiasm energized them, fed their hunger for each other. The chemistry was back in a big way.

  Carmen was impressed by how well Lucas did in the spotlight. He was confident but never cocky, always willing to pose for selfies, always upbeat. She was also happy to see that he’d taken the initiative on innovating the column. It had been his idea to have readers suggest their weekly assignments—finally, no more ideas from Jays!—as a way to expand the audience. So far, there’d been dozens of requests for anal (Carmen: no thank you), role play (Lucas: yes to Hamilton; Carmen: no to Frozen), and the switching of traditional gender roles (Carmen drew on a mustache and Lucas donned a skirt). Suggestions came from every state, from the most ordinary people: from civil engineers to insurance agents. Often, there’d be a letter attached. Readers, it seemed, were curious but embarrassed and shy. They wanted to try new things but were afraid to ask for them—and so they lived through Lucas and Carmen, as if these two could test-drive their desires and give them a sense of the potential pitfalls.

  One afternoon, they lay naked in her bed, their bodies slick.

  “I’m going to miss this,” Lucas said. “When you leave.”

  Carmen smiled. “So will I. Can you believe we’re here? Considering how we started.”

  “Well, you’re different,” Lucas said.

  “How so?”

  You’re unguarded. You’re real. You’re lovely. He wanted to say these things, but he was suddenly embarrassed. Instead, he traced his index finger down her sternum, slowly circling each of her breasts. He saw goose bumps rise on her arms. “The way that people look at you, when we’re out together—they admire you. I admire you.”

  He’d thought a lot about Jays’ revelations the other night and decided not to dwell on them. The woman Carmen had been back then—who thrived on judgment and created suitors from whole cloth—she was not this woman.

  “They don’t admire me, Lucas,” she said. “They admire us and what we’re doing.”

  Us.

  They began to kiss, but there, very quietly in Lucas’s ear, was a voice. Careful, it said. Remember what happened the last time. So Lucas told the voice: This is nothing like last time.

  “Lucas,” Carmen murmured, sliding her hands down his thighs. At which point, the voice shut up.

  CHAPTER 38

  Halfway through Carmen’s remaining tenure, Jays summoned his critics to discuss a new assignment. Lucas had not stepped foot inside One World Trade since he’d been appointed Brand Ambassador, and he imagined that his colleagues had been speculating avidly about his new, if modest, celebrity. He couldn’t wait to regale them with tales from the sexual trenches. But riding to the twenty-ninth floor, Lucas began to worry. He thought about Franklin, his head buried in copy, his days spent checking the details of other people’s lives. He thought about Alexis, deferring solely to Jays on all matters large and small. His own schedule was exhausting, but it was also downright bacchanalian, tumescent with pleasure: eating, drinking, screwing. It was pretty ridiculous when you stopped to think about it. More than this, he now knew what it felt like to be wanted. Producers wanted his ideas. Journalists wanted interviews. The public wanted his advice, wanted selfies, wanted even just a glimpse of him. Carmen clearly wanted him. Jays wanted him to keep a successful thin
g going.

  He was a little worried about how his colleagues would react to his swift success. But Lucas had worked for his new role. Like Jays had said, he deserved it. The important thing, he decided as the elevator doors opened, was to show gratitude and humility. In short, not be a dick.

  The office was typically quiet for a midweek afternoon. He stopped by Alexis’s desk, but she wasn’t there. Should he wait? The Sphinxes were watching him; at least some things never changed. He continued on. A few of his colleagues looked up. They seemed a little perplexed to see him there, like he might be a mirage. Lucas smiled, waved. Word of his presence began to spread. Chairs swiveled. But nobody got up. Lucas slowed his walk. Still, nobody got up. He hadn’t thought this through. What had he expected people to do—form a conga line behind him? At last, he reached the exurbs. He’d intended to stealthily slip into his old desk chair, but his chair was occupied. The new fact-checker, short and trim with thick dark hair and rimless glasses, looked a few years younger than Lucas. His face screamed high-school chess champion. He was in the middle of relaying a story to Franklin and Alexis—something about a magazine feature and his dad and an elephant. He was cracking them up. Lucas felt like he was intruding. But that was ridiculous. “Hi, guys,” he said.

  The new kid craned his neck around. “Oh my god!” he exclaimed. “You’re Lucas Callahan.”

  “Lucas!” Alexis gave him a big hug. Finally.

  “The king returns to his kingdom.” Franklin lifted his hand lethargically. “But what are you doing here?”

  “I still work for this magazine,” Lucas said.

  “Well, yeah,” Franklin said, although he sounded dubious.

  “Hey, I’m Pete.” The new kid stuck out his hand. “It’s great to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much—and read so much, of course.”

  “Pete’s your replacement,” Alexis said.

  That word—“replacement”—made him feel weird. But why? He’d never wanted to be a fact-checker and now he wasn’t.

  “Pete’s dad is Richie Sullivan,” Alexis added. And all at once, the spotlight above Lucas’s head flickered crankily. He was standing before the son of a literary superstar—famed New Yorker writer, National Book Award winner, New York Times best-selling author. If your dad was Richie Sullivan, you could walk into any magazine you wanted. Pete smiled huge at Lucas, and Lucas tried to hide his annoyance.

  “So anyway, to finish the story,” Pete continued, not even bothering—Lucas noted—to fill him in, “apparently the editor had told the art director that my dad’s story was really about ‘the elephant in the room.’ And ‘we really need to focus on the elephant in the room’ and ‘just don’t forget the elephant in the room.’ So when the photos came in, they featured a picture of an elephant—a literal elephant—standing in a room. They spent like fifty grand on it.”

  “Oh, come on!” Franklin said, wide-eyed in a way that Lucas had never seen.

  “Well, this was back when magazines had fifty K to throw around.” Pete said this like he’d been there.

  “What was the story about?” Lucas asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Something about the economy.”

  Could Pete have been any more dismissive?

  “I can’t believe the magazine OK’d the bill!” Alexis said.

  “I can’t believe the art director was that big an idiot,” Franklin said.

  “Well, I’ve got a meeting with Jays,” Lucas said.

  The three of them turned to him. “Oh, OK,” Alexis said. She seemed a little disappointed, which Lucas appreciated. But he wasn’t feeling especially social anymore.

  “It was great to meet you, Lucas,” Pete said. “I know I’ve got big shoes to fill.”

  Here was the praise that Lucas had been expecting—except he was being congratulated for the wrong thing. “I just did my job,” Lucas said. “No shoes to fill really.”

  “But fact-checking is integral to making this magazine. My dad says that anything you can do to actually make the magazine is admirable and honorable. That’s why I’m here.”

  Was this guy for real? How was Franklin’s bullshit meter not about to explode?

  “Hey, these guys were telling me about a story you’d been reporting,” Pete continued. “Sounds like you’re really following the scent of something. It would be so cool if I got to fact-check it. When do you think it’ll be ready?”

  Alexis and Franklin knew he’d been writing a profile of Nicholas Spragg and that he’d followed a lead to Wisconsin just before Christmas. But that was all.

  “You know how long these stories take,” Lucas said now, shifting his weight, eager to get away. “All the drafts…”

  “Sure, sure,” Pete said, nodding. “Well, I’ll keep my eye out.”

  “Great,” Lucas said. With that, he hurried away. He couldn’t understand it. His friends didn’t care one whit about his new position and his replacement had basically accused him of selling out by becoming Brand Ambassador. Which obviously wasn’t true. He was writing. His byline was there, right beside Carmen’s. In every issue. He’d tried to write a feature, and it wasn’t his fault that Jays killed it.

  * * *

  The Editor showed Lucas and Carmen into his office, where Lucas was surprised to see a tumbler of scotch on the coffee table. Jays never drank at work. Something was off. Carmen must have noticed it, too, because she asked if everything was all right.

  “Of course!” he snapped, shutting down further inquiry. “Look, I know you two are very busy, so let’s get to it. We’ve been inundated with requests from around the country. America wants you to date.”

  For a moment, neither Lucas nor Carmen said anything. “I don’t understand,” Carmen said finally. “Dates are all we’ve been doing. Drinks, dinner, dancing, parties, more drinks.”

  “And sex,” Lucas said, as though they needed a reminder.

  “Frankly, I’m exhausted. I can’t keep up with this. Lucas, aren’t you?”

  “I’m having fun,” he said meekly.

  “People want you to date,” Jays said, clearly annoyed. “They want romance. So: Monday, it’ll be fancy reservations, flowers, a good night kiss. Tuesday, an afternoon in the city, doing something date-y—a museum or ice skating.”

  “Hold on a second,” Carmen interrupted. “You said no feelings.”

  “I know. But we did some polling and romance is what people want—or what they think they want.” Jays continued the schedule. Tuesday afternoon they’d get to Second Base. Wednesday there’d be another romantic dinner, after which Carmen would take Lucas upstairs. “And then on Thursday you’ll stay home and fuck each other’s brains out.”

  “And what happens on Friday?” Carmen asked. “Do we have boring relationship sex and then bicker about taking out the trash? And then break up on Saturday?”

  “Not break up,” Jays said, refusing to acknowledge her sarcasm. “Just decide that you’re better as lovers than lovebirds. But after each date, you’ll write something for our website. You’ll take pictures, shoot some video, let people experience the romantic tension.”

  “I don’t like this experiment,” Carmen said. “Lucas and I have known each other for months. We’ve been having sex for months. We can’t just push some imaginary ‘reset’ button, playact a relationship.”

  “But you’re terrific at playacting,” Jays said.

  Carmen’s face went white. But Jays simply continued, “What I mean is, this entire column has been largely performative, has it not?”

  “And in fact,” Lucas interjected, “a PhD student at Brown just tweeted at us. Her dissertation title is ‘From Carrie Bradshaw to “Screw the Critics”: The Politics of Sexual Structuralism, Media, and the Male Gaze.’ She wants an interview.”

  “How the hell did she fit all of that into a tweet?” Carmen demanded.

  “Come on, Carmen,” Lucas urged. “It’s just a game. We’ll have fun.”

  “Are we finished?” Jays sounded uncharacteristically impat
ient.

  “Fine,” Carmen groaned. “But I’m not participating in anybody’s dissertation.”

  CHAPTER 39

  The following Monday night, Lucas arrived at Carmen’s apartment holding a bouquet of roses in one hand and his phone, already recording video, in the other. “Seriously?” she said opening the door. “We’re really doing this?”

  Lucas did not respond right away. He was still taking her in: her sleeveless knit dress, slinky and gray with a slight metallic sheen; her dark waves swept back; her neck bare save a penny-sized gold circle, attached to a delicate chain. “You look incredible,” he said.

  Carmen glanced down at herself. “Yeah, pretty good, right?” Then, as though suddenly embarrassed, she hurried off in search of her shoes. “The vase is above the sink!” she called back. “And turn the camera off. You got your footage.”

  Lucas complied and was filling the vase at the tap when she came up behind him and slid her arms around his stomach. “Wouldn’t you rather just stay here?” She squeezed.

  He turned her around. “We’re on assignment,” he said. “It is ze order of Jez Jacobzon!”

  She seemed to laugh in spite of herself. “Come on!” he said, and led her out of the apartment and into a taxi, opening every door. They rode around the block a couple of times.

  “Why are we going in circles?” Carmen asked.

  The taxi pulled over just a few blocks away in front of Mira’s building. “What are we doing here?” she asked, but Lucas was already scrambling out of the car and around to her door. He helped her out and they walked up the front steps. She was surprised to see him produce a key both to the front door and to the apartment. “After you,” he said, and followed her inside. When he flipped on the light, Carmen gasped. The tiny space had been transformed. Ropes of twinkling bulbs hung above them, turning the ceiling into an arbor of pale white light. The end tables bloomed with vases of Winter Jasmine, Sweet Alyssum, and Calendula. In the center of the small room, Mira’s card table was set with her best tablecloth and china.