Five Things I Can't Live Without (18 page)

“That compliment shows that you’re in the right line of work.” I liked knowing that some people land where they’re supposed to. Anyone could see looking at her that Denise had.

“I haven’t even asked about your work yet. What’s it like?”

“It’s picking up.” I tried to sound noncommittal, hoping she wouldn’t ask more.

“I knew it would work out.” She beamed at me. “So what brought you here? Do you want to volunteer?” she teased.

I laughed. “Actually, I’m going to lunch with Estella.”

“Really?” She looked surprised.

“I know. It’s kind of weird.” I looked around, suddenly realizing how unusual it was that ours was the only human activity in evidence. “Is Maggie around?”

“No. They all did a run to the pound.”

“Estella too?”

“Yeah. That’s why I was surprised you were here to see her.”

Sweet Denise. I thought she’d been surprised because she couldn’t imagine Estella and me being friends. I sure couldn’t. “What time do you think they’ll be back?” I asked, fighting my feeling of annoyance. Here I was, doing Estella a favor, and she was standing me up.

“I’m not sure. They’ve been gone awhile now.”

I thought about a course of action for a minute, then said, “I’ve been craving the
shawarma
from the Middle Eastern place up the street, so I’m going to grab a sandwich. If Estella gets back soon, could you tell her she can come join me?”

It was true that I was craving the
shawarma.
I had eaten at the storefront Lebanese restaurant with its peeling paint and scarred formica floor at least once a week when I worked at the shelter. It wasn’t a particularly friendly establishment, which I appreciated that day as I fumed about Estella’s rudeness. It was run by a family and the sulky nineteen-year-old who had waited on me about fifty times showed not a flicker of recognition as I ordered my sandwich. My irritation turned inward, as it was wont to do. I berated myself for not bringing a book. When I ate alone, I always hid behind a book, even when there were only eight other customers in the joint, like there were that day. I was thinking that there had to be a more dignified way to make a living than this, when I remembered that Estella wasn’t paying me.

For the first five minutes of my wait, I was still hoping she would come so I wouldn’t have to sit alone, but then my plate arrived. I decided that if I ate fast enough, I could escape with my moral superiority. But in the midst of my maniacal chewing, Estella appeared, striking as ever and slightly out of breath.

“I ran all the way here.” I supposed that was in lieu of an apology. She settled herself across from me and pointed to my half-finished sandwich. “That looks good. I’m starved.”

I swallowed an enormous bite and wiped my mouth with a napkin. I tried to modulate my annoyance because she wasn’t really that late. Now I was stuck helping her. “It is good,” I said. “Have you had the chicken
shawarma
here?”

“No. I think I’ll try it, though.” She called out, “Somar, can I have a chicken
shawarma
?”

And at that, the nineteen-year-old’s face lit up. “Sure, Estella! I’ll get you one.”

Oh, for Christ’s sake.

“So, Nora. How
are
you?” Estella now fixed her smile on me.

“I’m good. But you don’t have much of your lunch break left, so maybe we should talk about you,” I said, preferring to skip the niceties and get right to being used.

“You know, I’m not so good,” she said. She pushed her long hair back behind her ears and thrust her face a little bit forward. It was what I thought of as her signature move, the one that highlighted just how perfect her tanned face was. The only flaw I could detect was a little bit of acne around her hairline, and I was glad to see it. Then her hair fell forward and it was concealed again. She even had a trick for that.

“What’s wrong?”

“I need a man. A good man.” She studied my face, waiting. I stared back. “And I know you’re still helping people work on their profiles, so that must mean you’re pretty good at it. Otherwise, you’d need to get a job like the rest of us, right?”

“I’m all right,” I said. But in spite of myself, I felt a little flattered. I mean, in a way, I was different now. I might have been tired of whiling away the hours in art museums, but it was undoubtedly a luxury most people didn’t have.

“I thought maybe you could help me work on my profile. It wouldn’t take too long. Only as long as this lunch, I promise.” She smiled brilliantly. “I’ve got it right here.” She pulled a few pages out of her handbag and slid them across to me.

“You do know that I normally charge people for this.” I continued to eat and didn’t reach for the pages. I was going to help her, of course, but professional pride and my own ego dictated that I at least say that much.

“You know the kind of money I make. I can’t afford your rates.” She had the barest trace of a pout.

“Do you actually know my rates?”

“Well, no.” Her eyes flitted away. “I just know that I can’t afford anything.”

“I guess it depends how bad you need a man.” It occurred to me that I was being slightly sadistic. But why resent Estella? I wasn’t beautiful like her, but I’d never had trouble finding men. And I had my own business while she was still essentially a glorified dog walker. Not even that glorified. I picked up her papers.

The tagline above her profile read, “I Look Good And I Taste Even Better.” I almost choked on my sandwich with suppressed laughter. Her pictures were equally ridiculous in their over-the-top sexiness. In one, she was actually bent over lacing up her knee-length boot. Another was a full-length shot of her in tight jeans with her midriff exposed. Before moving on to the text, I said, “Just to clarify, you do get plenty of responses.”

“Yes. But they’re all jerks!”

I continued reading, trying to resist my impulses to wince, roll my eyes, or guffaw. I put down the paper. “This is all wrong,” I said. I wasn’t in the mood to sugarcoat. You get what you pay for. “I mean, every sentence drips with sex. All that stuff about being fiery. Even that line about your dog …”

“There’s nothing in there about me having sex with my dog!” Estella’s cheeks flushed with indignation.

“I’m just saying, on the list of things you can’t live without, he’s sandwiched in between scented oils and whipped cream.”

“It’s about getting noticed. It’s innuendo.” I could see her trying to keep the defensiveness out of her voice. She probably realized I hadn’t done anything for her yet, and could easily walk away.

“The guys who contact you, how do they treat you?” I asked to underscore my point.

She dropped her eyes and when she raised them again, they were blazing. “It’s not my fault that men are assholes!”

“I didn’t say it was. But if every man that comes to you based on this profile is an asshole, then something’s wrong with the profile, right? That’s why you e-mailed me, isn’t it?” It came out more condescending than I’d intended, so I softened it into something I’d said perhaps a dozen times already to other clients. “It’s a weird thing, having to market yourself.”

And like at least twelve before her, Estella quieted, then exhaled. “It is weird. I mean, how am I supposed to know what to write? I’m not intellectual.”

“I just think we could cool this thing down, flesh it out with things you’re interested in.” I’d slipped into “we” mode unconsciously. Force of habit. “You want to include things that are unique and surprising, things people can’t tell by looking at the pictures. Do you know what I mean?”

“I guess.” She looked troubled. “I’m not sure I’m very unique.”

It was a surprising admission. “Of course you are,” I said immediately. “Everyone is, right?”

Estella shook her head no.

Apparently she was an absolutist. “You’re uniquely firm in your opinions. You know your own mind, and you won’t back down.” I didn’t necessarily mean those as compliments.

“Lots of people are like that.”

“No one else at the shelter is.”

She thought about it, then looked a little less dejected. “I guess that’s true.”

“Let’s go at this another way. I’ll just ask you something, and you’ll give me a spontaneous answer, okay?”

She laughed uneasily. “Okay.”

“What’s the most charming, quirky thing a guy has done for you?”

Estella twirled her hair for a long minute, then finally said, “My laundry. I came home once and my boyfriend had gotten my roommate to let him in and he’d hauled like four loads of laundry down to the Laundromat. He didn’t even have a car.”

“That’s good stuff. Write that down.” I pushed the pages back toward her. “See, the fact that you can enjoy a gesture like that makes you more approachable. I think this profile is scaring off a lot of decent guys. Reading this profile, I’d have no idea

that you could be happy with some loads of laundry. Maybe guys are even scared off thinking they couldn’t satisfy you in bed.” My new business card could read: N
ORA
B
ISHOP
, D
IME
-S
TORE
P
SYCHOLOGIST
.

Estella laughed. “My last boyfriend was impotent half the time. If they beat that, I’d be happy.”

There was no ready answer.

“That’s so funny that you thought sex was the most important thing to me. Not at all.” Another hair toss. “But it’s the most important thing to men. Which is why I mostly hate them.”

“Let’s leave that out of the profile.”

We both laughed. It should have been one of those breakthrough moments: The beautiful person reveals just how ordinary she is, the ordinary person realizes her own beauty, and the scene sings with life-affirming connectedness. But this was not one of those moments. This was me phoning it in. And what’s so affirming about helping someone like Estella weed out the great unwashed masses?

“Could you give me some other pointers?” Estella asked, looking peppier by the second.

“Changing the pictures can do a lot. The pictures clue people in about how to read the profile.” It was more of my usual patter. “Different pictures could really help. Maybe some that are less overtly sexual.” That last part was new.

“I don’t really have a lot of pictures of myself. I don’t even own a camera. I just had my friends take these for the profile.”

So she did mastermind the boot-lacing picture. I knew it! “There’s a photographer who’s taken pictures of some of my other clients and they turned out great. But I’m pretty sure he won’t work for free.”

“I could pay him.”

Oh, now she could pay. “How much?”

“How about half of his going rate?” It seemed her bout of insecurity had passed.

“I’m not getting into that,” I said firmly. “I’ll call him and tell him you’re interested in pictures. He’ll contact you, and you can negotiate then.”

“Thanks, Nora.” She maintained eye contact. “Really, thanks.”

“You’re welcome. You’re picking up lunch, right?”

“Of course,” she said, wide-eyed, as if she couldn’t believe I even had to ask.

I wasn’t surprised when I got Alex’s voice mail a week later. “Thank you so much for introducing me to Estella. She’s incredible. What a sweetheart. We walked all over her neighborhood taking pictures, then took some more back at her apartment. We got some great shots. I’m just hoping she never has to use them. It was the best date I’ve had in … I don’t know how long, and it wasn’t even a date. Do you know if she’s got any other guys on the string right now? Could you maybe put in a good word for me? …”

Chapter 12

C
limb aboard,” Dan boomed.

So this is what we’ve been reduced to
.

Well, it was eleven o’clock, and I was tired anyway. Climbing over Dan rather than aboard, I went into the bathroom and started brushing my teeth. I slowed my motions when I realized my gums were starting to bleed from the force. I needed to release tension somehow, and it wasn’t going to be through sex.

In case you’re wondering, what you just heard was Dan telling me to mount him. Now, there are maybe,
maybe
three ways a man saying “Climb aboard” to indicate woman astride can be sexy. Dan projecting his voice like a jolly skipper is not one of them.

Still
in that voice
, Dan called after me, “Hey, where’d you go?”

I reached over and slammed the bathroom door, then spit into the sink. There was no denying it. My profile writing wasn’t the only thing being phoned in. Dan and I were in a rut.

I put down the toilet seat and sat down, resting my chin on my hand. All the signs were there. We watched a lot more TV together. Dan was watching sports more often, and while he patted the seat cushion next to him, he didn’t seem too bothered when I read in the bedroom instead. We didn’t talk as much or as intently as we used to, and we fell into Mrs. Pimmbottom and Rodney a lot. One minute we’d be having a lackluster conversation and the next Dan would be making ape noises. But the most damning evidence of all was our sex life. We were only having sex at night, even when we had all weekend to spend together, and we were having it the same way. Our movements seemed choreographed. We were both able to come reliably, because we knew each other’s buttons and we pushed them. I was on top about 80 percent of the time. At first, Dan’s preference for that position seemed enlightened, and besides, it was my favorite. But recently he’d explained it as “a combination of my two favorite things: having sex and doing nothing.” He meant it as a joke, but I was not amused. I thought there was more than a grain of truth in it. What bothered me most was that predictably enough, my sex drive had dropped. I was now content with once a week. If that.