Long Island Noir (16 page)
Marky toddled up and stared at Pamela. “You can’t lick me!” she said in mock horror.
Pamela read the dog’s look again when Marky wouldn’t go away. She reached down, scooped him up in a hug, and realized what to do. And as Marky ate his food in bliss and in near-oblivion over what had just happened, Pamela understood. We are who we are, she thought, and sometimes that’s more than enough.
L
OVE AND
O
THER
H
ORRORS
I
was the managing editor of a new magazine. The introductory issue had been a great success. While I worked diligently to make it so, the aging publisher’s latest girlfriend, La Diva of the cocaine-induced blow job, who serviced him assiduously from beneath his desk each day during lunch, licked her lips sweetly and demanded my job.
There was no contest. After receiving the news, and since we were at the start of a new season, I was left little choice but to meet with the editor of our rival publication.
Michael Ashforth was a tall WASP in his fifties, balding ever so slightly, his remaining hair graying silently. He wore a salt-and-pepper mustache reminiscent of the 1970s that he kept neatly trimmed. When he sat cross-legged, you could see that he had a bit of a paunch. He examined my resume like a doctor reading a chart while I sat across from him in an uncomfortable, cool-to-the-touch, middle-school wooden chair. He peered through the wire-framed pharmacy reading glasses that made him look like an intellectual while his elegant, tapered fingers gently fondled the sheets of paper resting on his knee. I quietly waited for him to finish, feeling demoded and pretending not to care. When he was done, we made small talk, discussed the weather, where and how long I’d lived in the Hamptons, and then the conversation took a more personal turn. Where had I grown up and was I married? I explained that New York City had been my home for most of my life. That I was divorced, and childless. As it turned out, we were the same age and we had both grown up in the city. Coincidentally, his uncle’s town house was on the same street as my childhood home.
Since we appeared to be heading down that road, I asked about the photograph of the attractive young girl above his desk. With a note of pride in his voice, he announced that she was his daughter and the love of his life. He made no mention of a wife. I checked for a wedding band. None. No other photos, not even a smiling group shot complete with cats and dogs, posed on the front lawn.
I reminded myself that I was there to pitch my stories. I offered each one as if it were a delectable, handmade chocolate morsel on a silver tray. Energetically, I presented every article I had planned for my own magazine for the season. He devoured them, saying yes to each and smiling greedily. He explained that I would be standing in for a writer who was on vacation for the summer. But there was something in his manner, something intangible, something electric, simmering beneath the surface.
The deal made, we stood up to shake hands and say goodbye, when he gently brushed a loose strand of hair from my right eye. His phone calls and e-mails commenced the next day. After all, we had a professional relationship. I was the new writer, and had to be nurtured. Jokingly, I requested to be sent to The Hague to cover the war crimes trials of deposed despots. His response was, only if he could go with me. Assigned to cover a gallery opening, I asked whether he’d care to accompany me there. He politely declined. But by the time I returned from viewing the exhibition, eight phone messages were waiting in my voicemail.
“Hi. I … er, was just thinking of you and thought I’d say hello.”
Click
.
All my life I had successfully employed a policy to never fool around with the men I worked with, particularly if those men were married, and especially if those men were in positions of power. But this guy was making it difficult. A haze of ambiguity surrounded the risks involved in becoming lovers; the fact that doing so might cause me to lose my job which I desperately needed, versus my turning him down, which also might cause me to lose my job, added a certain relish to the mix. I was rushed off my feet by excitation and flattery; imagining what he stood to lose if we were caught.
My last relationship had ended over a year ago, and I did not care for one-night stands. Instead I chose to spend time on creative projects or activities like dinner and movies with friends. The transition from magazine editor to freelance writer also left me with more time on my hands than I was accustomed to having. To my surprise, I discovered that I was lonely and hungry for attention. His constant calls not only gave my ego a buzz, they reawakened my sensuality, exposing in its wake a voracious hunger for sexual intimacy. The strength of his ardor made me realize just how parched I had become.
There was no question, he was offering himself to me as a very willing drink of water, slightly toxic perhaps, but water nonetheless.
The next morning at nine o’clock the phone rang.
“Hi. I was wondering whether you’d be available for lunch today?”
“Lunch?” I said. “Well, sort of short notice but okay, yes.”
“I’ll swing by at twelve-thirty then.”
I was still toweling off when I heard the screen door slam and a man’s voice downstairs shout, “Hi! I’m early!”
Running into the bedroom, I dripped water across the floor. The clock read noon.
“I’ll be down in a minute!” I responded.
The clothes I’d planned to wear were laid out on the bed. Grabbing the loose-fitting linen shirt and pants, I ran a comb through my wet hair and walked down the stairs, almost breathless. He looked up, came over, took my face in his hands, and kissed me.
“I’ve wanted to do that ever since we met,” he said.
I found his behavior disarming. Moving away, I sat on the sofa.
“I’m starving,” I said, “where shall we eat?”
“You tell me.”
Things were happening faster than I had expected and I needed time.
“How about Yama-Q?” I suggested. “We can walk.”
“First tell me about this painting,” he said, pointing to the art above the fireplace.
I felt him stalling.
“That’s my Great-aunt Sophie with the red hair, holding court at her nightclub in Berlin.”
“You had an aunt who had a nightclub in Berlin?”
“In the ’20s.”
“Is she still alive?”
“No, but she survived the war, whereas most of my family did not.”
“Who painted the picture?” he asked.
“One of her many lovers, a Polish artist.”
“What happened to him?”
“He became a scenic artist in Hollywood.”
“I’m not worthy of you,” he said.
“That’s not good.”
“No, that’s not good.”
We sat at a little table in the corner. He asked why I left my previous job. I explained about the under-the-desk, cocksucking, drug-using publisher’s girlfriend.
“Are you married?”
“Yes,” he said, and looked directly into my eyes.
“You don’t act married.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“About the fact that you are married or about the fact that you don’t act married?”
“The first.”
“Depends …”
He ate his sushi with chopsticks, slowly, meticulously, taking small breaks between pieces, placing his chopsticks on the side of the plate and tilting his head as if to indicate that he was listening.
“We haven’t been together in a long time.”
“Sexually?” I asked.
“I no longer love her.”
“Why do you stay?”
“It’s complicated,” he answered, and washed down his last piece of pink tuna with some steaming green tea.
I thought,
He’s full of shit
, but said nothing. Beneath the pretense I sensed need, warmth, and something else, sadness perhaps, something tragic. After lunch, we walked the halfmile to my house. It was a sunny June day, the buds on the trees had burst, all the leaves were fresh and bright. I invited him inside. We sat on the sofa and talked about the stories I would write and we kissed again, and hugged for a long time. He was gentle and his clothes smelled of laundry detergent. I felt a mixture of tenderness and sorrow.