I thought it was really weird, and really crazy, that I couldn’t think of anything. I was so consumed with my work world, and Simon’s world, and Simon’s problems, and my dreams of W. What was my world? What did I like to do?
“I like to watch movies,” I said. “I know that’s boring.”
“It’s not boring. What kinds of movies do you like?”
I named some of my faves, and he came back with some of his faves. He told me he also enjoyed photography, and model airplanes, and making stuff work. He said he got into accounting because he liked everything to be in order. I wondered what he would have made of my life, if I had actually told him the truth about my life. Which I hadn’t.
I was a liar, and I didn’t belong here sharing this lovely conversation with him.
When he offered me another drink, I declined. I didn’t want to get any drunker, because it would only end one way, with an invitation back to his apartment, and I didn’t want our hour of pleasant and friendly conversation to go down that road.
“It’s been wonderful talking to you,” I said, “but I’d better go. Early appointments tomorrow.”
“Is that your exit strategy?” he said, smiling. Oh, that smile.
“No, it’s the truth.” No, it’s a lie. I’ve told you so many lies.
“Well, you know, we live close. Maybe I can take you out to dinner sometime.”
No was on the tip of my tongue. Regrets, and my polite decline, but he was already scrawling his number on the back of a business card. Anthony Pavone, Brooker and Associates, P.C.
I took the card from him and jammed it down in a pocket inside my bag. That’s when I noticed the piece of paper with GANSEVOORT PARK AVENUE at the top, and lines of W’s handwriting.
He’d left me a poem after all.
I shoved W’s paper deeper into the pocket and smiled up at Tony. Maybe I would go to dinner with him sometime, just to do something nice for myself. I was so grateful he’d talked to me, and been kind to me after all of W’s fuckery. He’d never know how much I’d needed it this particular evening.
We said our goodbyes, and I went back down to the room. I needed to dig out W’s poem and read it before I headed home, even if it blew up my fragile happiness. I thought about throwing it away instead, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to do that. I lay back on the bed and braced myself, and accepted the risk of his words.
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes.
For what it’s worth, Chere, he added in a post script, you’re more beautiful than any of that shit you put on.
In Between Again
I knew it was stupid, and I knew it was selfish, but I called Tony a couple days later. We picked a place to meet for dinner, and “not talk about work.”
I never would have done it, except that Simon and I had argued about Rachel again, and he called me a jealous bitch, and knocked me down when I wouldn’t give him enough money, and I thought, if he can have Rachel in his life, then maybe I can have Tony in my life, just for a friend. If you want to know the truth, I was thinking about really crazy stuff, like getting a real job, and leaving Simon for someone steady and kind like Tony. Maybe it could be one of those friends-to-lovers things, and everything in my life would change.
I tried not to think about W and our exclusive thing, or the fact that he’d called me beautiful, or that he wrote me poetry. I didn’t think about anything except that he would be sorry when I quit, because then he’d have to find some other escort to blindfold and torment. If he asked me why I quit, I’d say, because you never told me your name. But really, it was everything. I was tired of selling my body, and tired of doing a job I didn’t like.
So I went to meet Tony with all these ideals and hopes in my heart. I dressed up for him, a cute pink sweater and skirt, but not Miss Kitty pink. Just casual, friendly summer pink. Tony greeted me with a gracious compliment and a kiss on the cheek. He’d suggested a tapas place and I thought, of course, a place for sharing. All of this is fine.
“What do you like to eat?” he asked. “Let’s get, like, twenty things.”
“That sounds perfect.”
We got margaritas and ordered a few dishes to start, fish tacos and watercress salad and some calamari thing. There were tiny beef sliders and crusty bread with tomato and olive tapenade. In hindsight, I was doing too much drinking and not enough eating, and he...he was asking so many questions. He genuinely wanted to know about me, and it was flattering, but it was difficult too, because I had to lie about so many things. And lying and drinking don’t go together well.
He finally caught me in a lie, because I’d told him I was born in New York when I’d really been born in New Orleans, and I said something about growing up in the south and blew that all to hell. I was so tipsy and nervous I started making up this extended story about my childhood and some step-family I knew I’d never remember, and I looked into his warm, deep hazel eyes and thought, why can’t I just be me? Why can’t I tell the truth? Why am I making up lie after lie?
Because if we were going to have a future, as friends, or maybe something more, we needed to start out with honesty, and move forward with honesty. I put down my margarita and stared at the tangle of fried calamari, and it looked to me like the disgusting tangle of my lies.
“I’m going to say something really honest,” I blurted out. “Because you deserve honesty.”
He smiled, and I knew I was doing the right thing, because he was a very on-the-surface person. An accountant, who liked everything to be in order.
“So...” I lost my nerve a little bit. “Don’t judge me. Please.”
He shook his head. “I never judge.”
“I know we’re just having a friendly dinner here, and God, I’m having a great time, but I think you should know that I have a boyfriend.”
His smile faded. His eyes narrowed a little bit, but then he shrugged. “Okay.”
“I didn’t know… I wasn’t sure if this was supposed to be a date or just a casual get together.”
“I guess it can be whatever you want.” Still, he looked unhappy, which maybe was a good thing. It meant he was interested in me as more than a friend. “What kind of boyfriend are we talking about?” he asked. “Long distance?”
“Kind of long distance.” I spread my fingers, forcing myself not to take another gulp of the margarita. “In the sense that we’ve grown apart. Things are really not good between us. In fact, they’re really, really bad.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
Tony was so nice. He settled so smoothly into the role of concerned friend.
“How long have you been together?” he asked.
“Ten years.” I couldn’t believe it had been that long. “He’s an artist. He’s gotten into drugs and everything. He’s gotten really...flakey.”
Tony listened to all this, sitting still, staring down at his plate. He felt sorry for me.
“Drugs,” he finally said. “God, addiction’s tough. That’s got to be hard on a relationship.”
“I don’t use them myself.” It sounded like he thought maybe I did, and I wanted to set him straight. “I hate drugs. I hate what they’ve done to him, to us, to our relationship.”
“Is he at the stage yet where he’s willing to seek help?”
“No. But I feel like I need help. Like I need to let him go, but I can’t let go.” He looked so sympathetic, so kind, that all my shit came pouring out. “That night at the Gansevoort, when you came up and talked to me, I really needed someone to be nice to me, you know? I needed someone to be friendly and considerate. I haven’t had that in a while.”
He shifted pieces of the calamari around with his fork. “If you haven’t had that in a while, then it’s definitely time to let that relationship go.”
He was so right. His voice sounded deeper, almost reproachful. I didn’t blame him for di
sapproving.
“I’m sorry if you feel like I’m here on false pretenses, or to lead you along,” I said. “I should have told you the night we met that I was in a relationship. I just didn’t know how to explain everything. It’s complicated. I’m in that stage where I don’t know what we are, or what to do.”
“Can I ask you something?” He put down his fork and looked at me. “Does he know you’re here having dinner with me?”
“He’s passed out back at our apartment,” I said. “It happens a lot.”
“Is he the one you were supposed to meet that night at the Gansevoort?”
“No, I was there because...” No. Don’t say it. But you couldn’t build a future without truth. As for why I thought Tony and I had a future, I didn’t know. “I was meeting a client there,” I said.
“Physical therapy? It was almost midnight.”
“The physical therapy I do is... Well, not the kind of physical therapy you think. I’m an escort.”
There was a silence. He cracked a smile. “Oh, okay. You’re joking.”
“Not joking,” I said quietly.
“You’re an escort?” His opinion of me rearranged itself, went plunging downward. I saw it happen in real time. “You mean, like, a prostitute escort?
“I’m not a street hooker. I’m not even a hundred-dollar-an-hour kind of deal.” Like I could put a positive spin on my job. “I work for the best agency in New York. Big spenders. It’s very classy.”
“Like, Heidi Fleiss classy?”
“Better than Heidi Fleiss. I make a lot of money,” I said, hoping, praying, wishing that he wouldn’t stand up and stalk away from the table. “It’s very lucrative.”
“And illegal,” he said, frowning again.
“Not really. The dates are what the client pays for. Not the sex.”
“Although you usually have sex with them.”
“Not always.” I shrugged. “Some of them just want dinner conversation, or a travel companion. Some of them want a pretty woman to take to the company party.”
He’d turned a little pale under his olive Mediterranean complexion, but he didn’t stalk off. After a moment, he picked up his drink and smiled. “So, I’m lucky then, I guess. I’ve had drinks with you, and now dinner, pretty much for free. I mean, for the cost of a meal.” He waved a hand at all the dishes. His lips were curved like he was smiling, but the warmth had left his gaze.
“I don’t even know why I started doing it,” I said. “I’m saving money to get out of the business, to go back to school. That’s my ultimate plan.”
“So it’s just temporary.”
“Yes, absolutely. A temporary thing.” That wasn’t a lie.
He blinked rapidly for a moment while I clasped my hands together under the table. “How does that work with your boyfriend, and your job?” he asked.
“Well, this is hard to explain, but it’s really just business. The men I see in those hotels are just customers, you know? It’s a transaction.”
“A transaction that pays well,” he said with another smile.
“Yes. I make way more than I should.”
“So that night at the Gansevoort, you had just seen a client? Or you were waiting to see a client?”
I looked down at my lap. I didn’t want to talk about any more of the details. I just wanted to be real with him, and I wanted him to accept me, at least as a friend.
“I’d just seen a client,” I admitted. “Honestly, I couldn’t even tell you the guy’s name.”
I sensed he wanted to ask more questions, but he was too classy to do it. I imagine he wanted to know what I’d done with W that night, all the lurid details, because even the classiest guys were obsessed with sex. At least I knew Tony wasn’t an undercover cop. He would’ve whipped out the badge by now. He would have been reading me my rights.
And in some way, that would have been a relief.
“I’m sorry I lied to you,” I said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t myself, but I think you’re great, and you helped me that night, and I thought you deserved to know the truth.”
“Thank you for telling me the truth.” He let out a breath. “This is kind of anticlimactic, but after all the margaritas, I’ve got to hit the restroom. I’ll be right back.”
“Okay.”
And I knew from the way he stood up that he wouldn’t be right back. That he wasn’t coming back.
He didn’t come back, although I waited almost half an hour, nursing my drink and picking at the food left on the plates. I would have felt sad if I didn’t feel so humiliated and numb. I took out my wallet to throw down the money for the check, but then I realized Simon had taken all my cash. My wallet was fucking empty. One of my credit cards was missing too. Shit.
I paid with a different card, a secret one Simon didn’t know about, that I kept hidden in a different pocket in my bag, then I stormed home planning to rip him a new one. But when I got there, he was super high and super messed up.
“Where have you been?” he asked. “Where the fuck have you been?”
His eyes were wet, his clothes covered in paint. He’d been in the middle of working when the drugs took him to a bad place.
I made him some coffee and sat with him on the floor of his studio. I let him talk because he needed to talk, and because that way, I didn’t have to admit I’d been out with someone else. He talked about his art and his upcoming show, and the way nobody wanted him to succeed. Anxiety and paranoia didn’t mix with whatever downer he was on. He felt heavy and listless in my arms.
“I just want you to be happy,” I said. “If the art doesn’t work out, you can do something else.”
“It’s got to work out. It worked before. I’m going to make a comeback. Trends come and go, but real talent never goes out of style.”
I stroked his hair. It felt greasy. He didn’t smell the way he used to, all fresh and masculine. He smelled stale. “I want you to get better,” I said softly. I hoped he was too down at the moment to fly into a rage.
He didn’t. He started crying again instead. “I’m sorry I’m like this,” he murmured against my neck. “Addiction is really hard when you have children. I feel like I’m letting them down.”
“Simon,” I said wearily. “We don’t have children.”
“My paintings are my children. They’re suffering because I don’t have my shit together. And then I feel bad, and I do more drugs because I’m so tired of feeling bad.”
“I know.”
“I’m going to die pretty soon,” he said, clutching at me.
“No. Don’t say that.”
“I’ll die if I can’t beat this. I don’t want to die, Chere. I went to a meeting. I wanted to stay sober and I went to a meeting but I found out Baxter died.” Baxter, one of his art world friends. “I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I just talked to him last week.”
“You have to stop using drugs, or you’ll end up like Baxter. You have to keep going to meetings, and get sober.”
“I’m trying!”
There was the rage. I held him tighter, trying to head it off. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it right now.”
“I’m afraid.” He wrapped his long, paint-stained fingers in my sleeve, turned around and gave me a clumsy embrace, a kiss. “Don’t leave me. Please, I’ll change. Please help me.”
“I will. I’ll help.”
“Don’t leave me. Don’t go away. I needed you tonight and you weren’t here.”
I was still angry about the money, the money he probably used to get high like this, but I felt guilty too. What was worse? Stealing, or cheating on your partner? I held him in my arms and rocked him, and rested my cheek against his. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. I’m sorry I was out with someone else.
Even if that someone else was nicer, and better adjusted, and richer than Simon, in the end, that someone else hadn’t wanted me. That someone else walked out on me without saying goodbye because I was just that horrible in his eyes.
But Simon wanted
me, and Simon accepted me. All these fucked up things that were happening to me—they were the universe’s way of punishing me for making plans to desert Simon. I decided I wasn’t going to let W, or Tony, or anyone mess me up like this again.
The Standard Session
I tried to pull my shit together when W scheduled a session for that weekend. He told Henry he wanted to meet me at The Standard, a hotel in the Meatpacking District known for its floor-to-ceiling windows and unobstructed views.
Voyeurs congregated outside at night, to watch the exhibitionists have sex with the curtains thrown open and the lights on. I hoped that wasn’t what W had in mind. The Standard was for people who wanted to be seen, and I wasn’t in the right frame of mind for exposure. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind for W and his shenanigans either, but a job was a job.
And I was a whore, as he was so fond of saying. So I straightened my dress—nothing fancy, I was done dressing up for him—and knocked on the door.
He opened it and motioned me in. He looked handsomely businesslike, in summer slacks and a button up, with a light blue tie. He didn’t look irritated like last time, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
“Take off your clothes,” he said by way of greeting. “Take off everything and sit on the bed.”
I stripped and sat where he indicated. It was seven in the evening, our usual meeting time, and summer sun still streamed in the windows. I felt like I was under a spotlight, but at least it was too bright for anyone to be peeping in from outside.
“How have you been?” he asked, peering down at me.
“All right.”
He handed over a paper. A clean STD test, with all his identifying information redacted, as promised. Stupid, so stupid. I shrugged. “Fine. Oral only, though.”
His eyes narrowed as he studied me. When I ducked my chin, he raised it again and scrutinized me in the evening light. His voice, when he spoke, was low and even. “What happened to you?”
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