For Two Nights Only

  She looked at me and smiled. A renewed sense of purpose had taken over.

  “I’m working on a banquet for a couple hundred bankers. It’s boring, Chris, really. I’m sorry, I know I’m not opening up, but it’s all I think of during the day. I came out with you tonight to take my mind off of it.”

  “I understand. I suppose I shouldn’t have asked. No one likes talking about work.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t be silly. It’s perfectly fine. Most of my day, if you really want the truth, is spent rebuffing uncomely comments about my breasts. Bankers have much to learn about manners.”

  “I can’t disagree with you there.” We shared a warm smile, both of us relaxing.

  “That’s why I was looking forward to this evening, and hoping you would call. British men are, in general, boorish creatures. Whereas American men are rumored to be gentlemen.”

  “We certainly have our boorish among us. Strange, though, we generally consider the British to be well-mannered.”

  “Because of the royalty.” She spoke with such earnestness I had to laugh.

  “What does that mean?”

  She gave a playful frown and batted her hand in my direction, as if to discard my reaction.

  “It means people assume a nation that still has a king and queen and princes and princesses must still adhere to a certain modicum of decorum.”

  “A certain modicum of decorum?” This sent me laughing, and when I’d had a good chuckle I leaned over the table and looked her straight in the eye. “The way you talk is fantastic. I could listen to it all night.” Okay, probably not totally acceptable for a man in a serious relationship, but it felt like the truth. “I understand,” I continued immediately, “it probably does color our impression of you all that you still have royal ceremonies. But there are impolite people everywhere.”

  “Well it just so happens that most men with poor manners possess a certain high level of wealth, and all of my clients are wealthy.”

  “Sounds awful. Let’s talk about more interesting things to the both of us. You can start by telling me how much more polite Americans are than your fellow countrymen.” I felt 22 again.

  “Oh, so much more polite,” she said, playing along. We were settling into the game. “It’s so easy to award points when one is respectful.”

  “Oh, we’re collecting points now, are we?” It had been well over a year since I’d flirted with anyone. Most of my subjects were men, and the occasional female rock star that did cross my path had no interest in batting her eyes in my direction. That archetype had too many courters more accomplished than me. Female rock stars were tough, aggressive, and the rare one that did make overtly feminine music (hushed vocals, slow tempos and atmospheric keys) always surrounded themselves by brick walls. Any skills I had once possessed in sexual sparring – of dancing closely to topics left untouched and words unsaid, of intimately raising a corner of the mouth or an eyebrow at the precisely opportune time – were gone, completely wiped away by time spent catering to one female in one specific way. I’d become so attuned to Claire’s wavelength, to speaking to her in the level that made sense to her, that the universal language of coquetry had long since left me, and my tongue, face and arms no longer knew how to translate my sexual desires to anyone but Claire.

  “I am. Aren’t you?”

  “What score am I working towards, exactly?”

  “If I have to spell it out then I’ll simply skip your numerical score and tell you you’ve a very long way to go.” Heather, on the other hand, knew full well what she was doing. The words she chose, the way she slid them off her tongue and let that appendage sit on her lips for a second longer than was necessary – coupled with a smirk in her cheek at certain phrases, a wink in an unmoving eye – all indicated I was far out of my league. She played the game extremely well, had probably done it with more than a few bankers before growing tired and branching out to further her skills with someone new, someone from a foreign land. Having learned all the secrets of the trade in her own country, and now bored, she was conquering new lands to see what she could learn. Unfortunately, I had nothing to teach.

  “And here I thought I was doing so well.” I tried not to sound defeated, and yet there was a sense of relief. I didn’t know to what purpose I’d been working, what endpoint on the horizon I’d been moving toward. I’d urged my feet forward with Heather, setting one in front of the other, thinking that I would stop them if I got to a cliff. It’s not that I wanted anything to happen with her, though in a theoretical sense I did, but I was curious if something could. I wanted to see how far my skills had fallen off; and if they had dropped too far it would, in a sense, validate my current path with Claire. There would be no need to detour, ever, because the detour was a dead end.

  “You have your moments,” she smiled.

  The waiter with the crooked nose set our salads down in front of us, confusing them at first and giving Heather mine and me hers before correcting himself and darting off.

  “What’s it like working for a magazine?” She tossed the question out lightly, almost as if giving up, waving a white flag, while she took her outside fork and began picking at the foliage on her plate.

  “I thought we weren’t bringing up work.” I flagged down a waiter as he was passing our table and spun my finger in a circle above our empty glasses. The sign didn’t immediately register, instead eliciting a confused look that creased his forehead. After a quick second the uncertainty went away and he acknowledged the desire for another round.

  “Not of my work, we aren’t, but yours I actually find interesting. And I’m not asking about your subjects, I’m asking about your profession. Do you have an office? A secretary?”

  Her pronunciation of the last word, short vowel sounds and consonants scrunched together, made her momentarily more adorable. The feeling must’ve shown on my face. She didn’t know how to react or what she’d done to cause my smile, though she seemed pleased.

  “I don’t. Most of what I do is freelance. I have editors I’m in contact with, and they either ask me to interview someone they’ve chosen or I scout people myself and pitch the idea. It’s an independent lifestyle, which suits me, I suppose. I can come and go as I please, take time off when I want. No bosses. But no secretary.”

  “Do you ever work with other people?”

  “Fact checkers, sometimes. And sometimes a photographer is there, briefly, to plan a few shots. Rarely do they ask for my input, photographers are a pretentious group, but there are some I’ve worked with repeatedly and we’ve slowly gotten onto the same page and realized that coordinating efforts is better than going independently. If we communicate with one another, my article will benefit from the types of photos he takes, and his photos will benefit from the slant of the article I intend on writing.”

  “And what about me? What if I was a photographer and we went on a shoot together? Would we work well together?”

  It was an enormous lob in my direction, right across the plate, the size of a melon and floating in the air like a balloon.

  “You and I?” I said, to buy myself another few moments to think.

  “Yes. You and I. How might we,” she paused, with an intention that sat palpably between us, “work together?”

  “Well,” I said, “I think we’d do alright.”

  “Just alright?” A sly grin escorted her words. “Would you boss me around?”

  “Not at all.” I picked up my Scotch and stared at it, trying to play dumb to what I thought we were really talking about. “I’d take the lead, but I like to work with people who can think for themselves.”

  “Then we’d definitely do alright. I know how to keep myself busy.”

  I was losing track of the undertones and hidden meanings, and tried to bring us back to safe ground. The skills weren’t there. Like an apprentice, I had a vague idea of what I was supposed to do but no confidence to act.

  “Any siblings?”

  “Already trying to meet the fam
ily?” She enjoyed her own joke, her eyes smiling at me as she took another sip of wine.

  “Not at all. Just curious about whether I’m dealing with an only child, eldest, youngest, or the ignored middle.”

  She laughed and shook her head, smitten by the comment. Her eyes moved to the floor off to the left, still turning my words over in her head. A chuckle came out, bringing her focus back.

  “No, I’m the youngest of two. I have an older sister. Raised in a very nice home, my parents are still married. We come together for the holidays, they visit on my birthday. My sister is an accountant in Bristol.”

  “Totally normal, then.”

  “Absolutely.” With sparkling eyes she looked right into me. “It’s all quite boring,” she added, breaking the moment, “but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. My family’s important to me. And what about you, Chris? Living in the shadow of an older sibling?”

  “Speaking from experience?” My rhythm was slowly coming back. A few pointed comments, then laying back to wait, attacking again when the opening came. Always at the ready, the mind sharp, reading each comment for an appropriate place to slip in a sly retort or innuendo. It was tiring. I could see why courting was for the young.

  “Not at all.” She sat up straight, faking insult.

  “Just seemed you jumped to that conclusion so quickly.” I let the words sit between us, asking for a reply. My best offense was a defense.

  “I meant nothing from it. You were the one to make assumptions about birth order.”

  “Was I?” I shrugged. “I suppose.”

  From the corner of my eye I caught our waiter on a straight line toward our table, a young clone trailing behind him with two large plates.

  “I believe this should be us,” I nodded in their direction. Heather turned to see what I’d referred to, and when she looked back I’d raised my glass to cheers. “To a dinner spent in good company.”

  She smiled warmly, picked up her wine and clinked it against my Scotch.

  “And to not living in shadows.”

  Track 12

  Sometime after our dinner plates had been cleared and the Sherry ordered, Heather’s guard dropped. If we hadn’t stayed so long I wouldn’t have noticed, but nearly two hours into the evening she finally stopped trying. What she had been trying for I couldn’t say, and I knew with how much I’d drank that the change, as slight as it was, could have been a product of my imagination. But from the way her flirtation became less frequent and overt, and how her answers to questions expanded and fleshed out, I got the sense she was enjoying herself. Only when the thought struck me did it occur that perhaps she hadn’t before, that maybe I’d been the last resort in a gloomy trip to London, her plans from the previous night having fallen through. Whereas before I was a mild form of entertainment, I’d become a welcome addition to her evening, even her trip. Planning to present Darin with the check, an idea that seemed much more feasible in the moment than it did the next morning, for numerous reasons, I offered to pick up the tab and invited Heather to glasses of wine and myself to stiff drinks until the restaurant emptied, and only the wait staff remained.

  We left the restaurant warmed and full of food and alcohol, opting to stroll in the direction of The Goring rather than take a cab. Between the lampposts and headlights of passing cars the venerable streets of a dim London stretched romantically before us, and I saw the appeal of the city that had inspired Dickens and Shaw.

  “Shall we go for a nightcap?” she asked, as we neared the hotel. I held back a laugh, once more feeling all thirty-one of my years. It always filled me with a sense of wonder how aged rockstars, a decade or more older than me, managed to drink for four hours and then with glassy eyes ask, “Where to now?”

  “Heather,” I tried to formulate the sentence in my head before sending it to my lips, “you are full of wonderful ideas, but I have to pass. If anything I can accompany you to a quiet little place with a view in our hotel, but going out is well beyond me.”

  She looked earnestly at me, wearing an expression of regretful understanding.

  “You look cold,” I added, sensing her disappointment in my answer. “Here, take this.” Shaking off the blazer I’d gotten from the hotel, I placed it around her shoulders. To my relief she didn’t protest the gesture and instead thanked me warmly. In her reaction I noticed a genuine sense of surprise and appreciation, as if seeing a kind man for the first time.

  “You’re such a gentleman, the stereotypes are true. Which is why I’m inviting you to my room. Unfortunately the restaurant at The Goring is closed by now, but I have it on good authority my icebox is filled with possibilities, and maybe some of those small bottles of wine they give on airplanes.”

  The offer should have been natural, should not have caught me off guard and I should have been able to smoothly accept or decline. My mind set off with the implications, analyzing the subtext, whether any existed, and searching for the correct answer. I paused, though Heather seemed not to notice the lapse.

  Of all the possible replies, I went with the wrong one.

  “Not a chance,” I said, stealing a look at her to gauge her reaction. When I read shock on her face, which satisfied my curiosity as to her intentions, I made a move that surprised me. I put my arm around her and, still walking, pulled her close, wanting in that moment to feel the warmth of her body and desiring physical contact because the evening had been so powerful and lively, and I couldn’t accept the idea of not sharing the feeling. She giggled like a young girl and reached an arm out from under the blazer to rest a hand on my hip. Her grip was not tight, though firm enough to let me know it was there.

  “Tonight we drink on Darin. I have a few shooters left in my room. To the penthouse we go.”

  “You’re full of good ideas,” she smiled up at me. I wanted to bend over and kiss her but despite the fogginess of my thoughts I refrained, knowing well enough it wasn’t possible, or right.

  “The view is something to behold. You won’t regret it.” I removed my arm from her shoulder and set my hand firmly in my pants pocket. She took her hand from my waist and, almost unsure what to do with herself, pulled the blazer tight around her neck.

  “Who said anything about regrets.” She looked up at me. I shook my head, not sure how or if to respond. “Look,” she said, nodding ahead of us. “We’re here.”

  Track 13 (Medley A)

  After an hour we had a collection of empty miniatures lined up on the windowsill, and I left Heather in the room to venture downstairs for whatever alcohol the older gentleman at the front desk could provide. With difficulty I made my way to the elevator, swerving from one side of the hall to the other before finding comfort against the doors, awaiting its arrival. Once inside the small compartment I told myself aloud to keep it together, and luckily rode all the way to the ground floor without anyone joining me.

  Walking slowly and deliberately I made a straight line to the reception and, in what was undoubtedly a string of sentences filled with slurred consonants, requested a few more complimentary minis of wine and four nips of Scotch. The gentleman had seen me walk in with Heather, and his eyes showed sympathy as he informed me that, regretfully, he was unable to fulfill my request. I protested, and let him know in which room I was staying.

  “I’m aware of your accommodations with us, sir, but our policy prohibits gifting drinks. I’d be happy to add them to your tab, however, if that is alright with you.”

  “Why didn’t you say so earlier?” I said, trying to sound jovial so that he might see me as a merry fool instead of a severe drunk. “That’s no problem at all.”

  He disappeared into the back room, and returned with a small wicker basket full of my requests.

  “We’d like to thank you for your patronage,” he said, as I scribbled my name on a piece of paper to add additional charges to the room. Darin would certainly understand. If anything, I imagined he’d be upset I’d gone on a binge without him.

  Making a gesture as if tipping my ha
t, I replied, “I’m empathetic to your situation as well.” Then, extending my hand, which hung in the air unmet by his, I added, “Thank you for your help.” Looking down at my hand, still hovering, I retracted, grabbed the basket and swung it down off the counter.

  “I bid you adieu,” I called over my shoulder, which I thought made a fitting exit except I then waited in awkward silence for the elevator, which had gone to the third floor. When the doors swung open a man in his forties stepped out. He wore a pin-striped suit, finely tailored, with his hair slicked-back like a banker from the eighties. With a slight nod in my direction he walked forcefully past, never meeting my eyes. I hopped into the elevator, hit the button for the penthouse and leaned heavily on the side wall while the machine lifted me up into the air.

  Track 13 (Medley B)

  Feeling victorious, I entered the room with a swagger and set the basket on the coffee table in front of the sofa, revealing it with a spread of the hands. Heather clapped excitedly and laughed at the exaggerated presentation.

  I took a seat next to her so we could both look out onto the hotel’s garden. Light escaped through the curtains of adjacent rooms and made it possible to see the rows of trees squaring in The Goring’s courtyard. The serenity of the setting elevated my triumphant mood, and I was only slightly aware of a feeling of invincibility. The result of too much alcohol.

  “Frankly,” I confessed, “I’m exhausted.” I met her eyes, only realizing from her hopeful expression that she’d seen in my meaningless statement some deeper message. Quickly, I added, “I think one more drink for me and then I should get some sleep.”

  “Agreed,” Heather nodded and, unexpectedly, advanced our dance by laying her head on my shoulder. I breathed in the thick, weighty scent of her blond hair, closing my eyes for a second before recovering a brief sense of myself, my surroundings, and the situation. It was clear to me that a line between us had been crossed. Her head, on my shoulder, close to my neck, moving slightly with each breath, prickled my skin. I feared she felt my heart pounding inside my chest, sure it was moving my entire torso in sharp thuds. I was intensely aware of the blood moving through my arms and legs in pushes and pulls originating from somewhere inside my ribcage. A vividly loud voice told me to admit to Heather I was in a relationship, to start talking about Claire, finally giving myself up for the faker who’d taken her on a ride with no destination. I’d known for a while I was going along just to see what it was like, and now I found myself too far into the trip. I imagined my next move, coming clean, confessing everything, and I saw in her face the shock and disappointment at a broken promise. A second voice broke in, reasoning that no promise had yet been made. With my creativity impaired, every immediate explanation to Heather that came to mind left me feeling like a schmuck.