You told me to write you a story.
“I want it to be true,” you said. “Tell me the truth about the things that you do.”
You don’t know a thing about what I do. All you know is what I tell you. And over the past two weeks, since you responded to my craigslist ad, I’ve told you random things. Banter.
“It’s interesting that you’re a surgeon,” I told you over dinner at a swank steakhouse in Nolita. “I manage a hedge fund. There aren’t a lot of women in finance. Isn’t it important to do exactly the opposite of what people expect?”
I’d been vegetarian for fifteen years. When the waiter came, you ordered for both of us.
“We’ll have the rib eye.”
While you were in the operating room last night, I was in the West Village. An Irish businessman offered to buy me dinner and then let me laugh at him while he undressed. That was his fantasy: humiliation polished to a shine. I said I’d think about it. Instead, I thought about you.
I drank a fifth of gin and took a taxi downtown. I tipped my head out of the open window and let the summer night start to consume me. When I got to Eighth Street, I walked into the first tequilery I saw and texted the stranger I was supposed to meet. I ordered a margarita and sent him a text.
Having a drink if you’d like to join me.
He wrote back immediately: Yes! Where?
Five minutes later, a tall, sharply dressed man with a knockout smile was standing beside me, looking as relieved to see me as I was to see him. We hadn’t exchanged photos. We hadn’t planned anything. We connected at 8:57 p.m., and by 10:30 we were laughing over salt rims and limes.
We are a very good looking pair and anyone around assumes that we are lovers. There is a middle-aged couple celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary sitting at the table behind where the two of us are perched at the bar. Their phones are out on the table and they’re each looking at the menu like it’s an algebra problem.
My companion’s name is Luke, and when I put my hand on Luke’s thigh and lean toward him, the woman behind us makes a fist and leers at her husband. He hasn’t touched her that way since she can recall. He’s never touched her that way, period.
Luke comments on our androgyny. “It’s why no one can take their eyes off of us,” he says without visually acknowledging the sad woman who is still staring. I curl my fingers and he straightens his back and we both agree that what we really need is a vodka martini, somewhere outside…
[part two]
and when i check out, it won’t matter how my name’s spelt. cause when you pass through, you only keep what you can’t sell…