by James Tate
Staying at the Plaza was fun. She mingled easily with the glamorous people in the lobby, French businessmen, heiresses from Palm Beach and Newport, movie stars—Jean Paul Belmondo had tried out his line on her last year, “Have pity on an old man, my child. Let us compromise our lives wantonly!”—and famous writers. Yes, she was a presence in the Oak Room and the Russian Tea Room.
Whether or not management and the bartenders knew it, high-priced hookers worked the room with a panther’s grace. Ginger adored this part of her cocktail hour after the day’s work. She knew their moves, how they followed men out of the room on their way to the rest room downstairs. She knew what the women looked for: out-of-towners, a little tight, with money, vulnerable and randy. Most of the hookers that could make it in The Plaza were extremely beautiful and well-dressed. They could approach a single or a pair of gentlemen without attracting the least bit of attention. And what man, in the city without his wife, would complain to the management that a beautiful woman wanted to share a drink with him? Ginger had never seen one turned away, at least not for a drink. These women fascinated her. She had always meant to strike up a conversation with one.
As she dressed for her drink with hairy Herb she sipped from a glass of wine, washed down a little speed and puffed on a joint of some California sinsemilla her friend Laurie had sent her last week. I mean, she certainly intended to be a little buzzed to get through with this sleaze-bag. Maybe it could even be fun. Why not? Give the guy a bone and leave him sweating. The bar was crowded and she stood there at the entrance surveying the scene. From behind her hands were placed lightly above her hips. “My, aren’t we looking sexy,” he whispered into her ear.
“Nice line, Herb. Cut the shit and find us a table.”
Drinks were ordered, a Margarita for Ginger and a bourbon and water for Herb.
“You know, Ginger, you were magnificent today, a real ball-buster. You made Larry squirm, that’s an achievement.”
“Larry’s a pussywhipped wimp, just like you, Herb. He gave me what I wanted because I let him get a peek up my shirt. Saved me major bucks and he went home happy.”
“If it’s money you’re interested in, sweetie, I could get into that.”
Ginger smiled, her cruelest, sexiest, as though that were not out of the realm of possibility. Herb sipped at his drink through a straw and looked up at her. She was looking mean tonight, flecked blond hair, green eyes lit with mischief. Proud and desperate to be whatever it was she was.
“Ginger, I know you think I’m some kind of . . . greaseball . . . salesman, but I’ve got a heart, too, and I, well, I think you’re one of the most attractive women I’ve ever met.” Herb sported muttonchops and a plaid wool tie; he was married to someone even more overweight than himself, and there was little love lost between them.
“I don’t think you’re a greaseball, Herb. You just leer a lot. You know what I mean by ‘leer,’ Herb? A woman knows what’s on your mind. When we’re supposed to be talking prices, you’re actually thinking ‘pussy,’ you’re thinking ‘tits,’ you’re thinking you’d like nothing better than to stick your dick in my mouth. A woman knows these things, Herb. You’re not as subtle as you’d like to think.”
Herb was blushing now, speechless to hear Ginger use words like that. It excited him terribly, but it was also embarrassing. Hookers talked like that. He paid them to talk that way, but not attractive, respectable businesswomen, at least not in his experience.
“Well, it is true that I’ve had fantasies about you . . .” He sipped at his drink, unable to meet her sadistic gaze. Why had it started off like this? This wasn’t how he had imagined their “date.” He wanted to impress her with his considerate, tender, curious, witty charms. He knew she thought him to be coarse, coarser than the fashionable, younger people he imagined her dancing with after meetings when she came to town.
“Let’s hear them, tell me your fantasies about me.” Ginger’s head was fairly spinning with the mixture of the tequila and speed and sinsemilla. She was having a surprisingly good time making Herb squirm. She ordered another round from the waitress.
“No, Ginger, let’s talk about something else. I didn’t mean for it to be like this, honestly. I wanted you to . . . like me. I wanted to make you laugh.”
“But I am laughing, Herb. You said you’d had fantasies about me. I’m just curious. Was I good? Did you do anything weird to me, Herb? Because I’m not into being tied up or, you know, whips or anything.”
“There was nothing like that, Ginger, I promise you. It’s just that . . . No, I can’t say it. Tell me about your house in Connecticut.” He was sweating now. Herb always sweated. His chin was permanently pressed against his chest now. He made eye contact with Ginger only furtively now and then, knowing that she was mocking him.
“Herb, you’re being an ass now. Come on, I want to hear what you do to me in your dreams. Anything involving chocolate or electric appliances? Tell me, I’m flattered. You’ll cheer me up if you tell me. Otherwise, this is going to be a dull evening, okay?”
“It’s nothing special, Ginger.”
“Nothing special? Well, thanks a lot! That takes the cake!”
“No, I didn’t mean it like that. You know what I mean. I mean, we just do it, very romantically, very slowly, tenderly, and it’s . . . it’s beautiful and . . .”
“And what, Herb? And what?” “And well, you know.”
“No, I don’t know, Herb. It’s your fantasy, I don’t know.”
“And you tell me I’m the best you’ve ever had. That’s all.”
“Ginger couldn’t constrain herself now and burst out laughing. Of all the fantasies he might have confessed, this one struck her as the funniest. “You’re really something else, Herb. You know that?”
“I’m sorry, Ginger. Really I am. Forgive me.” He reached across the table tentatively and took her hand in his. He knew his was damp and he wasn’t entirely in control. Ginger was repulsed at first, but then realized what she had done. She had lured him into her trap, and had forced him into it, and then mocked him savagely.
“It was a sweet fantasy, Herb. I don’t know what made me laugh, I’m sorry.”
They sat there in silence holding hands across the table. Ginger had spent her venom for the moment. Herb’s confidence was slowly coming back to him. He even allowed himself to think: I’ve got her where I want her now.
“So what do you think, babe, shall we have one more round? You’re already home, just take the elevator to bed. How’s your room, by the way? Got a view this time?”
Ginger withdrew her hand slowly and finished her drink. “Sure, why not? Let’s have another. The room’s great, you know, magic fingers and soft porn on the cable. I could live in this hotel. Great room service, all these sexy Italian bellhops.”
“You’re too much, Ginger, you know that? If you were mine I’d give you anything in the world. Honest, I would. Nothing would be too much for you.”
Ginger smiled. “How much for one night?” she said. She hadn’t really meant to say it, it just leapt out automatically under her breath.
“What did you say?”
“I said, how much for one night? How much would you pay to, uh, have your way with me?”
Herb sat up straight now, the first time since sitting down. He looked her straight in the eyes. Was she starting up the game again? Was she mocking?
“You’re not serious.”
“Oh, I’m serious, Herb. I want to know, how much for one evening, straight, nothing weird, how much would you pay me?”
He was scratching his head and pulling at his muttonchops. “I don’t know, I’d have to think about it. You’re not serious?”
“Herb, you said if I was yours nothing would be too much. So I just want to know how much it would be worth to you to have me for one night.”
“Maybe three hundred. How does three hundred sound? That’s more than these girls get,” he looked around the room and, sure enough, there were at least three girls worki
ng the room right then.
“Yeah, but I’m not a hooker, Herb. I’m me, your fantasy girl. You know I’d never fuck you without some special incentive. Three hundred’s chicken feed. I wouldn’t let you squeeze my left tit for three hundred.”
Herb was puzzled now. Every time he made an effort to get the conversation on to something other than sex, this incredibly beautiful, younger businesswoman worked it back to dirty talk. “How much?” she repeated. “How much would you pay, Herb?”
“Well, I’m maybe not as rich as I let on. I don’t know, I guess I could come up with five, six hundred.”
“For six hundred I’ll dance naked for you but no touching, nothing.” Jesus Christ, Herb thought to himself, this woman is serious. She must be loaded. And then he thought, why not? Go for it. Fuck this dame, just plain fuck this beautiful dame because I am never going to have another chance.
“A thousand,” he said. “A thousand for the night, and that’s my last offer.”
“Let’s go,” she said.
If rooms could talk, if Suite 1306 could tell its long, jagged story. At eight o’clock on this particular Monday evening, a shapely blond woman with green eyes undressed before a perspiring middle-aged overweight man. Neither spoke. The caustic jibes had ceased in the elevator. Now Ginger’s hands shook as she removed each article of clothing. Herb sat on the edge of the bed tapping the fingers of his hands together. Then she tossed her sheer bikini panties over her shoulder and said, “There.” It was all done. She had had her appendix removed, he noticed that first.
Herb was a gentle lover. He never took his eyes off hers for the four hours they were in bed together. And he spoke only to ask if this was good, if this pleased her. And she said yes, yes, as if in a dream.
Michael called from the lobby around nine the next morning. In her room they shared a breakfast of cafe au lait and croissants with butter and jam. It really had been his mother’s birthday and he was sorry to have cancelled their plans. She told him she had stayed in and watched a movie on TV. She was hoping he would ask her to marry him again. She even thought of telling him that a man had offered her a thousand dollars for one night. Think of the money that he, Michael, would be saving in a lifetime of thousand-dollar nights. Suddenly, with no warning, she started to cry.
A WINDOW OF SOCIABILITY
Maxine and I had been married for over a year before I finally met her brother, Todd. It was a second marriage for both of us and we hadn’t invited family to the ceremony. Still, in the course of the first year we had more than made it up to her parents, inviting them over to dinner at least once a month, taking them to concerts on the green in the summer. It’s not as though Todd lived in Baghdad or something—he wasn’t more than three miles across town. And he was my age, too, which for some reason made it even more of a curiosity.
I spoke to him on the phone a number of times, and he seemed like a pretty exciting guy to me, the kind of guy that is always stumbling into the center of the action. Just this year alone he was in the bank when it was robbed—one of the masked bandits even took a shot at him when he tried to trip the alarm—and he was in the disco the night it burned down. His accounts of these calamities and others never fail to rivet me, my life pales in comparison, as they say. But Maxine barely responds when I tell her of one of Todd’s adventures, and she never invites him over and we never visit him at his place. Todd keeps saying he will have me over, soon as he can find “a window of sociability.” That always cracks me up. He’s some kind of inventor, and that interests me a lot also. I think I know the type—brilliant, obsessed, but chaotic, the house always a mess with little mechanical parts spread everywhere. Of course he could never get it together to throw a proper dinner party, and maybe even his own family thinks he doesn’t have time for them, maybe they’re hurt. But he sounds like somebody I would like, I would probably forgive him his eccentricities and find his obsessions very interesting.
Maxine really annoys me sometimes when I try to get her to talk about Todd. “His life’s his own,” she says, which is a very unsatisfying response. I don’t even know if he was ever married, things that basic. It’s true that when he calls he barely asks about Maxine. He will say “How’s Max?” but it’s clear in his tone that he doesn’t want a whole long story and will usually cut me off if I start one. “Gotta rush, something’s about to explode.” Every family has its mysteries and squabbles, I figure it’s just a temporary thing. But I didn’t have many friends, and I already liked Todd, as I said before, just from our phone conversations. I could use somebody exciting like that in my life, not that I was unhappy. Our marriage had so quickly fallen into place that it felt as if we had always been married, which was good, but still I hadn’t been out without Maxine even once in the whole year.
I decided to take the initiative, even if it might be awkward at first, and just drop in on Todd at his place. I didn’t mention Todd in the note I left for Maxine on the kitchen counter, just “Won’t be home until late. I’ll get something to eat out. Love—.”
“Todd.” I said, “I’m Jake. Thought I’d break the ice . . .”
He looked mildly surprised, but put me at my ease right away. “Come in, come in, I’ve been meaning to . . . Hey, glad you came.”
He turned off the television and invited me to have a seat, served me some iced tea, and we were off, like old friends.
“Jesus, Jake, I’ve got to tell you the damndest thing just happened to me. I was in the supermarket this afternoon, you know, sizing up some produce, polishing a couple of tomatoes, when this incredibly beautiful woman comes up to me and says. I swear it, she says to me, looking me right in the eyes, she says “I can polish better than that.” And she invites me over to her place and, I swear, I have never been seduced like that in my life. This woman does a striptease for me that would have popped your eyes right out of your head. Jesus, was she built. And she did it all, you know what I mean, all and more.”
“You’re kidding me? Today?” I didn’t know he was a ladies man on top of everything else.
“Yeah, I just got home an hour ago. Marathon, you know what I mean?”
“Sure, of course I do. A complete stranger, never seen her before in your life?”
“That’s right. She was rich, too, I can tell you that. Whirlpool bath, champagne, she drives a black Jaguar. It’s not the first time I’ve been picked up in a supermarket, mind you, but today was the best.” I looked around his little bachelor bungalow. It wasn’t nearly as cluttered and chaotic as I had expected. In fact, it was pretty plain, a high school debate team plaque was propped up on the mantle next to a dime-store picture of The Fonz.
“When I was in Nam . . .”
“You were in Viet Nam? Maxine never . . .”
“Oh yeah. Special Forces. I was at Ashair when it was overrun in ’65. That was some bad shit, let me tell you. I lost twenty-six buddies in two days. ‘One more GI from Vietnam, St. Peter; I’ve served my time in hell . . .’ That was some bad shit. In a monsoon, man, you know what I mean? The place was one blazing ammo dump. I didn’t know who I was shooting at. You just squeezed the trigger and kept on squeezing ‘til you woke up dead or alive somewhere. They cleaned our clocks.”
I didn’t know what to say but I was fairly certain therein lay the secret to the distant relations with the members of his family. I couldn’t help but sympathize with Todd, even though I sat that war out in college and felt a little guilty now. I’ve got nearly perfect relations with his parents and his sister and he can’t see them. It really broke my heart to think of what must go through his dreams at night. “Maxine never told . . .”
“Oh you know women. She wants to pretend it never happened. You say Bien Hoa to her, you say Bong-son, An-Khe, she thinks you’re ordering Chinese food. You say Death before Dishonor and she thinks you’re taking a nap before dinner. What do they know? Tell me that, huh, what do they know?”
“And what about your father, can’t you talk to him at least?”
; “My father thinks I should sell new cars, just like him. Don’t worry about it, Jake. I’m doing all right. Hey, look on the bright side. What about today, huh, what about that beautiful broad today? My life isn’t so bad, it just isn’t what they want it to be. So to hell with them is what I say. I’ve got my own life.”
“I wanted to ask you about that, about what you’re working on now.”
“It’s top-secret for the moment. But when the patent comes through you’ll be the first to know, Jake. You’re okay, you know that. You’re okay. I think I’m going to strike it big on this one, and maybe I’ll even let you in on a piece of the action. There should be enough for everybody. The folks will stop griping then, you wait and see. Money, the great healer, right?”
“I suppose so, Todd. I’m sure everything will change when they see what you’ve been up to. I think you’re just a bit of a mystery to them, that’s my opinion.”
“Say, you want to watch a Kojak re-run with me? It’s on in a couple of minutes.”
“Thanks anyway, Todd, but Maxine will be wondering where the hell I am.”
“Women. Sure. Hey, thanks for dropping by. It’s about time.”
“Yeah, let’s stay in touch, buddy.”
When I got home I couldn’t help it, I was really mad at Maxine. “Give the guy a break,” I said, “after what he’s been through.”
“What the hell are you talking about,” she said.
“I mean, it’s a miracle the guy’s alive and you and your damned parents can’t even treat him as if . . .”
“Just what in the hell are you talking about, Mr. Know-it-all?”
“Christ, Maxine, have you ever been shot at? Have you ever had twenty-six of your buddies killed? What do you think I’m talking about?”
“Frankly, my dear, I haven’t a notion of what you are referring to. Is this something to do with Todd? What did that asshole tell you to get you so riled up?”