Do This For Me

by Eliza Kennedy

  “Which site are you using?” she asked.

  “All of them,” Cameron replied.

  “All of them?”

  “The top ones, anyway. OKCupid, Match, Bumble, JDate, EDate, PDate, Fleek, Flook, Burnt, Turnt and Shakl.”

  “Shakl.” She sounded intrigued. “I don’t know that one.”

  When I came out of the dressing room, they were both absorbed in Cameron’s laptop screen. Sarah looked up. I was wearing a black cashmere turtleneck, a plaid kilt and a yellow suede trench coat.

  “Yes to that,” she said. “A thousand times yes.”

  Amanda looked down at her phone. “I’m not getting good reception in here. I’ll be out front.” With a final, curious glance in my direction, she left the changing room.

  Cameron said, “The first thing people notice about you is…”

  I scrutinized my reflection. “My eyes?”

  “Say lips,” Sarah advised. “That will make men think of blow jobs.”

  Cameron looked at me. I nodded. He bent over his keyboard.

  “Lips it is,” he murmured.

  * * *

  —

  Wally and Jonathan were soon called away. They left reluctantly, and only after further offers of legal representation and weapons procurement. I watched the door close behind them.

  All I had to do was ask? There had to be more to it than that.

  I pressed the intercom button. Renfield appeared with her steno pad. I leaned back in my chair.

  “A few things,” I said. “First, I need you to find someone who can help me buy new clothes. Someone really good.”

  “A stylist?”

  “Yes. Second, call Sarah and ask for the name of the guy who does her hair. Make me an appointment as soon as possible. Third, find the best place in the city for me to get a makeover.”

  Renfield glanced up from her notepad. “You want a makeover?”

  “Whatever people do when they want a total overhaul. Skin, makeup, nails—set me up with everything. Fourth, I need a list of the best hotels—”

  “I’m beginning to have the most terrible sensation of déjà vu,” she murmured.

  I told her what happened. I thought she’d stagger back, clutch her heart, holler and storm and swear. Instead she went very still.

  “You’re sure,” she said.

  I nodded.

  “Positive,” she said.

  I nodded again.

  She looked down at the list. Her brows drew together. She looked me in the eye.

  “I know a guy,” she said.

  My colleagues and their assassins. It was touching, yet alarming. Renfield grew up in Bensonhurst. I was sure she did know a guy.

  I asked her to cancel my afternoon meetings and call Cameron—he could probably help me figure out what else I needed to do. She finished scribbling and hurried out of the room.

  Then the phone rang.

  * * *

  —

  I left the dressing room in a zebra-print slip dress, a purple calfskin jacket and a pair of gold stilettos.

  “I think I want to have sex with you in that,” Sarah said.

  I heard a muttering, which grew in volume, accompanied by the clinking of glass and a familiar heavy tread. Renfield huffed through the doorway with a cardboard box. “I got all the testers I could find.” She saw me and her mouth fell open. “Jesus Mary and Joseph!”

  Cameron peered into his screen. “What are you most passionate about?”

  “Put down gourmet cooking and exotic travel,” Sarah told him.

  “She hates to travel,” Renfield said. “And she can’t even make a cheese sandwich.”

  “It’s for her dating profile,” Sarah explained.

  “Ah.” Renfield nodded sagely. “Better skip the part about the cheese sandwich.”

  She plopped down on the sofa. Sarah handed her a glass of champagne. To me:

  “You said you’ve already got a date for tonight? Who with?”

  * * *

  —

  The phone rang a second time, and a third. I didn’t recognize the number.

  What now?

  Renfield picked up. A few seconds later, her voice came over the intercom. “It’s a guy from Citywide Movers. Says he needs to talk to you.”

  I hit speakerphone. “Hello?”

  “Ms. Moore?” A deep, accented voice. “It is Arnault. I helped you move to Brooklyn some time ago?” He paused. “Then move back again?”

  “Arnault. Right.”

  He told me about a box found in a truck that hadn’t been used for three months. He thought it was mine. He was very sorry.

  I tried to remember what he looked like. Tall, dark, mournful?

  “I can bring the box to you, or if you prefer I can—”

  “Arnault?”

  “Yes, Ms. Moore?”

  “Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?”

  * * *

  —

  “A moving man,” Sarah mused. “I wouldn’t have thought that was your type.”

  “He called at the right time. I figured I’d start there.”

  I went back into the dressing room and came out in a blue bias-cut devoré dress, a sheer ivory cardigan and a pair of gladiator wedge platform sandals.

  “Who knew that’s what you were hiding under those godawful suits?” Renfield said. She and Sarah raised their glasses and toasted me.

  “Let’s do perfume,” I suggested.

  “You betcha.” Renfield pulled a slim bottle from the box she’d brought up and lifted her reading glasses from her chest. “This one’s called,” she squinted, “Black Opium.”

  She spritzed fragrance into the air. We all paused, sniffed, shrugged. She put it back in the box. My phone pinged.

  —We’ve made so much progress. We’re so much stronger than we were. Please pick up the phone, Raney. Please—

  Delete!

  “This one is called Love Bomb.” Renfield spritzed. We grimaced. She put it back. My phone pinged again.

  —Sorry I missed the big powwow today. Heard it went well.

  Singer. Before I could respond, he added:

  —You definitely owe me a sandwich. Possibly even a bag of chips.

  “This,” Renfield announced, “is Sex Party.”

  She spritzed. We all smiled.

  “We have a winner!” Sarah said gaily.

  “I gotta get out of the office more often,” Renfield said. Then she hiccuped.

  Sarah reached over to refill her glass. She glanced toward the doorway and froze. “Oh sweet Jesus look at that.”

  Athena had reentered the changing area, a bronze-and-black tunic draped over her arms. It had a long skirt and a neckline that plunged nearly to the waist. Sarah, Renfield and I bent closer. The gown was covered with thousands of metallic disks that shimmered like tiny fish scales.

  “Any special events coming up?” Athena inquired.

  “You would look great in this, Rane.” Sarah stroked the scales with one finger. “Like some kind of badass warrior mermaid.”

  Cameron’s phone buzzed. “Jorge’s downstairs. We have an hour before he has to take it back to the showroom.”

  “Take what?” Renfield asked. “Never mind. I wanna be surprised.”

  I led my troops to the elevators. Then I remembered I was wearing several thousand dollars’ worth of clothing that didn’t belong to me.

  “We’re stepping outside, Athena. I’d better change back into what I was wearing when I came in here.”

  “Too late!” She smiled sweetly. “I already burned it.”

  “I love her,” Sarah whispered loudly.

  We crowded onto the elevator. “How about a status update?” I said.

  Cameron checked his phone. “You’
re getting your teeth whitened tomorrow at eight, the nutritionist can start you on the detox at ten and the designer will stop by to take a look at your office at noon.”

  Renfield checked hers. “Olga at Bergdorf’s will be ready to help you with makeup in an hour. On Wednesday, you’re booked for a full day of appointments at the celebrity spa on Downing Street. And I got ya subscriptions to Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire and Cosmo.” She glanced up. “That’s the one with the sex tips.”

  “Was it this much fun last time?” Sarah asked.

  Cameron: “Ha. No.”

  Renfield: “Last time was frankly very terrifying.”

  The elevator doors opened, and we wended our way through Fine Jewelry and Luxury Handbags. We walked through the double doors onto Madison Avenue and stopped.

  “Holy Moses,” murmured Renfield.

  A red-and-silver car was waiting at the curb. It was a boat of a car, a yacht, luxurious, sensuous, with swooping tail fins, double headlights and a white convertible top.

  Jorge got out of the driver’s seat and stood next to us. We all stared.

  “What is that?” Sarah asked.

  “A 1959 Plymouth Fury,” Cameron replied.

  “How appropriate,” Renfield muttered.

  “Totally refurbished,” he continued. “It has a 6-liter V-8 engine and automatic transmission. New upholstery, new brakes, new shocks, a custom—”

  “Hush, man,” Jorge said. “We just wanna look at it.”

  I don’t talk much about my grandmother. As I’ve said, she was a quiet, self-effacing woman. Her stories of the good old days were few.

  Unless you got her started on her Fury.

  It had been an anniversary gift from my grandfather. She loved to recall the day she found it waiting in their driveway. She would drive my mother to school in it, even though they lived only a few blocks away. They took it all over the country on family vacations.

  The car was long gone by the time I was born. When I was little, I dreamed of buying her another one, parking it outside our brownstone, seeing her face light up when she came outside. But by the time I could afford it, she’d passed away.

  We were still staring. Passersby were slowing down to admire it.

  Sarah: “This is insane.”

  Cameron, with enthusiasm: “Right?”

  Jorge: “It rides so smooth. Like I was driving on a cloud or something.”

  Renfield: “How much does it cost?”

  Cameron, checking his phone: “Eighty thousand dollars.”

  Jorge, Sarah and Renfield each made a noise like the wind had been knocked out of them.

  I turned to Cameron and smiled.

  “I’ll take it.”

  TWENTY

  If I had ever imagined what it would be like to start jumping into bed with strange men—before I actually started doing it, I mean—I probably would have assumed awkwardness and discomfort to be the order of the day. My experience was limited. I didn’t see myself as a free-and-easy sexpot. So the idea of taking some guy who I’d known for only a few hours, and…getting naked with him? Writhing around with him? Being penetrated by him?

  That was nuts!

  No surprise then that I was nervous at first. I survived my date with Arnault the French moving man only by subjecting him to a dinner-length interrogation about every aspect of his life. By donning my professional armor and treating him like a witness, I was able to avert painful silences and calm my hammering heart. He probably went to bed with me only to shut me up.

  But there’s the key.

  He did go to bed with me.

  We stepped into the hotel room. We faced each other. We touched—lightly at first, with hesitant looks.

  Can I do this? Is this okay? Do you like this?

  Once you begin, it gets easier. There are things to do, tasks that distract your anxious thoughts.

  Hands roam. Kisses go deep. Clothing slips away.

  It was fascinating. And slightly unreal—even as I went on more and more dates with more and more men. As I met them in bars and cafés. As I sat across from them in restaurants. As I learned how to flirt, how to gauge their interest, how to signal mine. As I rode up with them in elevators. As our clothes slipped away.

  This is me? I thought. I’m really doing this?

  It might seem like an unconventional reaction to the news that my husband hadn’t been entirely forthcoming about his affair. But I’d tried everything else. I’d raged. I’d relented. I’d talked and listened, delved and explored. Joining the party—having sex myself, sex for sex’s sake—seemed like the last available path toward the understanding I still craved. Not about Aaron, or my marriage—those were things of the past. This time, I was focusing on me, and my persistent confusion about sex. Could I like it? Should I like it?

  And wanting. What was that all about?

  Answer those questions, and I could move on. To what, I didn’t know. But Bogard always told me to stop looking to other people, and to focus on myself. I was following the doctor’s orders at last.

  That’s what I told myself, anyway.

  * * *

  —

  I went out with Garth on a Monday in mid-January. I arrived at work the next morning around nine. I was wearing my faux-ocelot coat open to a velvet-trimmed blazer, a pair of fitted trousers, a blue silk shirt and ankle boots. My hair was slightly wavy from the light snow falling outside.

  I breezed past Renfield’s desk and into my office. She followed a few seconds later with the mail, a stack of phone messages and a client engagement letter. She waited while I skimmed the letter.

  “He called again,” she said. “Says he needs to talk to you about some bills he’s getting.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  She snorted. “To go screw, of course.”

  I signed the letter. “Good.”

  “You got that ACLU call in ten minutes. I’ll buzz you when I’ve dialed in.”

  There was a partner lunch scheduled for one o’clock. A few minutes beforehand, Wally and Jonathan rolled in. “You coming upstairs?”

  “Give me a second.” I was writing an e-mail.

  They each took a chair. I reread the e-mail, hit send and looked up. They were watching me with a strange expectancy. “Do I have something in my teeth?”

  “Did you go out last night?” Jonathan asked.

  “Yes. Why?”

  “We’re curious,” he said.

  “Intensely curious,” Wally added.

  “Did you…?” Jonathan made an unmistakable gesture.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Our lives suck, Raney,” Wally said. “We’re so bored. So boring. Your personal sex revolution is the most exciting thing that’s happened in a long time.”

  Jonathan nodded eagerly. “The glamorous new look? The parade of sexual partners? The luxurious sex pad? You’re living the dream.”

  “Talk to us,” Wally begged. “Tell us your dreams.”

  “My sex life used to make you cringe,” I pointed out.

  “That was the old you,” Jonathan said. “This one is, you know…”

  “Different,” Wally proposed. “Let’s just say she’s different.”

  Andy Templeton leaned through the doorway. “You guys coming to lunch?”

  Wally adopted the mock-heroic tone he sometimes used with Templeton. “All in good time, young Andrew. All in good time.”

  “We’re discussing how to revamp the orientation program. I was thinking Moore could lead a panel on the acceptable use of firm computers.”

  “So witty, Andy,” I said. “How long did it take you to think that up?”

  “Get over it, Templeton,” Jonathan said. “Everybody knows, and nobody cares.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” he replied. Whe
n none of us took the bait, he shrugged and left.

  “So!” Wally slapped his knees. “Back to your sex life.”

  “Nice try.” I stood up. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  —

  I was packing up that night when Cameron appeared in the doorway. I waved him in. He took a seat, smoothing down his tie. I shut down my computer.

  “So,” he said. “The dashing and magnetic Garth.”

  “Eh,” I said.

  “Really?”

  “He was fine. Exactly as advertised. But,” I picked a speck of lint off my trousers, “there’s a sameness creeping in.”

  He cocked his head. “How so?”

  “They’re all lawyers or bankers or executives. They live in Gramercy or Wall Street or the Upper East Side. They like sailing or opera or museums.”

  “The bastards,” Cameron said.

  Fair enough. My dates were, with few exceptions, perfect specimens of educated, polished, eligible New York City manhood. They were handsome and fit and agreeable. They were what any woman would want.

  But I wasn’t learning anything. I wasn’t getting it.

  Cameron pulled out his phone. “Sounds like maybe you need more variety.”

  “Men who are younger, maybe? Or work in the arts?” I opened my bag and dropped in a few files, a legal pad, a binder. “Get creative.”

  “Sure thing.” He typed quickly. “I’ll adjust your profiles.”

  * * *

  —

  “Let’s talk about your relationship with your paralegal,” Bogard said.

  I was in the middle of describing my date with Garth. “Cameron? Why?”

  “It’s somewhat unorthodox, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “He’s highly efficient. I trust him. I consider him a confidant.”

  Bogard pressed his thin gray lips together. “Your firm hired him to assist you with legal work. Instead, he became an accomplice in your revenge against Aaron. Then, you set him to the task of researching infidelity and sex. After your second break with Aaron, you turned to Cameron to help engineer your new lifestyle. He procures dates for you—”