Chapter Twelve
In Between
The Gansevoort’s rooftop bar wasn’t the scene it was in its heyday, but it was classy and elegant, and a really nice place to chill out under the night sky. Patrons crowded the tables, but it didn’t feel suffocating, and the sultry, jazzy music created a laid-back vibe. There were plenty of dark places and alcoves to hide in if you felt like it, but I sat at the main bar. I needed to be seen. I wanted to be admired. W was right about that, he was just too mean and sadistic about throwing it in my face.
The bartender smiled at me as he handed over my Old Fashioned. See, a friendly smile. That was all I needed. I felt some taut misery within me begin to uncoil. I knew in my heart that I was more than an escort. I was more than a “whore,” as W was so fond of saying. He didn’t know how much those careless comments poked at my tender spots. Or…wait. He probably did, which was exactly why he said them.
The dirty, depressing truth was that I hated escorting. The money was good, sure, but the work was so soul-deadening. So many of my clients annoyed me or disgusted me, and I felt disgusted by myself when I played along with their fantasies and desires. The whole thing was just so fake. I didn’t feel okay about my life. I didn’t feel authentic when I was playing that damn Miss Kitty role, because that wasn’t me.
And W was the one who’d made me face these truths, with his blatant disdain for my Miss Kitty persona and my profession. W was to blame for ninety-five percent of my unsettled feelings at the moment, which freaking made me mad. It’s not like I could quit and do something else. I had no degrees, no qualifications, no way to do any other job that would pay me enough to support Simon. I had to keep escorting until he made it through this rough patch, but maybe, just maybe, he was on the other side of it. He’d started painting with more energy and inspiration, getting ready for his show at Boris White’s gallery.
If Simon could straighten out his shit, get cleaned up and start making money again, then I’d feel more secure about killing Miss Kitty. I could go back to school, study fashion or art or design, and start a new career where things could be beautiful rather than squalid. W had told me he worked in design. If the two of us could have talked, really talked like friends, I might have asked him about design careers. But no, that wasn’t happening because he wasn’t my friend.
Ugh. I didn’t want to dwell on the distancing lecture he’d delivered down in the hotel room. I didn’t want to get all depressed again. Take a drink, lift your chin, be normal. I looked around at the other bar patrons. What did they do at their jobs? This was New York City, the land of endless opportunities. If I was going to find a real job, I’d have to get on the ball soon. I was pushing thirty, for God’s sake.
I took a big swig of my drink, wanting to quiet my stresses and regrets, wanting to quiet every thought and feeling. Hell, I wanted to get so wasted I could barely stumble back to my hotel room. I was just signaling the bartender for another Old Fashioned when the man next to me turned around and looked at me. His generous mouth tilted up in a smile.
“An Old Fashioned girl, huh?” He studied me more closely. “Wait, do I know you?”
I always freaked out when men asked, “Do I know you?” because my first thought was always, is he a former client? But on closer inspection, I knew he wasn’t. I would have remembered those eyes. They were big and expressive, and looked brown at first, until he leaned closer and I realized they were a very, very dark hazel that looked nice with his curly black hair. He wasn’t model-gorgeous, or hyper-masculine like W, but he was attractive in a friendly kind of way.
I needed friendly, so I smiled and said, “I don’t think I know you. Maybe we live in the same neighborhood or something.”
“Lower Manhattan? Tribeca?”
After playing twenty questions, we figured out that we did live pretty close to each other.
“So what are you doing here?” he asked. “Cocktail after work?”
I almost choked on my drink. Yes, this was essentially a cocktail after work, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. “I was supposed to meet a friend here,” I said, “but she flaked out on me.” Already with the lies. I gestured down at my get-up. “I came out anyway since I was already dressed.”
“Why waste a great dress?” he agreed, giving my outfit the appreciative once-over that W had so angrily withheld.
Ah, he was charming. He had a bit of a Mediterranean look, the way I pictured W before I met him. Actually, he looked a lot like Simon—yes, Simon, remember him, Chere? Your boyfriend?—but I could tell this guy was nothing like Simon. He wasn’t artsy and haunted by demons and complicated. He was clean-cut and well-adjusted, a businessman probably. An ad account exec or something. Maybe a lawyer, for the prosecution, not the defense.
“Are you having a cocktail after work?” I asked, indicating his dark suit and patterned tie.
“Yes. Well, I’m celebrating with some people from work. We nailed down a huge account today, closed out the books—”
He interrupted himself, jabbing a finger in the air.
“And I’m not going to talk about work, because it’s boring, and I’m an accountant, and I try to forget it when I’m in a situation like this.”
“When you’re on the roof of the Gansevoort?” I joked.
“No. When I’m talking to a beautiful woman who’s not looking over my shoulder and planning her exit strategy.”
“You know, I can plan exit strategies without looking over your shoulder. I mean, with eye contact and everything.” I held his gaze and smiled. “Some of us are that good.”
He gripped his chest, the universal gesture for you wound me. I took the opportunity to check for a ring. Was it possible he was just a normal single guy having a celebratory drink with some coworkers?
A couple of them sidled up, right on cue. He introduced them to me. One was Vince, an older dude with a comb over—the absolute visual of an accountant—and the other was Randy. And they were nice, and all of this was so nice, and I felt like I could have wrapped myself up in this nice normalcy and lived like this for the rest of my life.
“Vince and Randy were great,” I said, after his coworkers left us. “But I don’t know your name.”
He seemed so pleased that I’d asked. “It’s Tony. Tony Pavone.”
No secrecy, no mind games, just the offer of his name. I wanted to kiss him for it. Tony and Pavone rhymed, and he was Italian, and he signaled the bartender casually, not like an asshole, and ordered me another drink. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Chere.” Chere, who shouldn’t be talking to you, because she has a drugged-out, failed artist boyfriend, and bamboo welts all over the backs of her thighs. “Chere Rouzier.”
“And what do you do for a living, Chere Rouzier? Nothing so boring as accounting, I hope.”
“I’m a…consultant. Physical therapy. Physical therapy consultant.” I had no idea if such a thing existed. I headed off any further questioning by saying, “But we shouldn’t talk about work. I need a night where I don’t think about work.”
The bartender brought my drink and Tony held up his glass as if to make a toast. We clinked and gulped, and he was so perfectly normal I wanted to cry.
“My friend is a bitch,” I blurted, meaning W. “And work is a bitch sometimes, you know?”
“Oh, I know. I could tell you some stories. But I won’t.” He grinned at me. “Because we’re not talking about work. Let’s talk about not working. What do you like to do for fun? What would you do all the time, if you didn’t have any other responsibilities in the world?”
I thought it was really weird, and really crazy, that I couldn’t think of anything. I was so consumed with my work world, and Simon’s world, and Simon’s problems, and my dreams of W. What was my world? What did I like to do?
“I like to watch movies,” I said. “I know that’s boring.”
“It’s not boring. What kinds of movies do you like?”
I named some of my faves, and he came back with some of his faves. He told me he also enjoyed photography, and model airplanes, and making stuff work. He said he got into accounting because he liked everything to be in order. I wondered what he would have made of my life, if I had actually told him the truth about my life. Which I hadn’t.
I was a liar, and I didn’t belong here sharing this lovely conversation with him.
When he offered me another drink, I declined. I didn’t want to get any drunker, because it would only end one way, with an invitation back to his apartment, and I didn’t want our hour of pleasant and friendly conversation to go down that road.
“It’s been wonderful talking to you,” I said, “but I’d better go. Early appointments tomorrow.”
“Is that your exit strategy?” he said, smiling. Oh, that smile.
“No, it’s the truth.” No, it’s a lie. I’ve told you so many lies.
“Well, you know, we live close. Maybe I can take you out to dinner sometime.”
No was on the tip of my tongue. Regrets, and my polite decline, but he was already scrawling his number on the back of a business card. Anthony Pavone, Brooker and Associates, P.C.
I took the card from him and jammed it down in a pocket inside my bag. That’s when I noticed the piece of paper with GANSEVOORT PARK AVENUE at the top, and lines of W’s handwriting.
He’d left me a poem after all.
I shoved W’s paper deeper into the pocket and smiled up at Tony. Maybe I would go to dinner with him sometime, just to do something nice for myself. I was so grateful he’d talked to me, and been kind to me after all of W’s fuckery. He’d never know how much I’d needed it this particular evening.
We said our goodbyes, and I went back down to the room. I needed to dig out W’s poem and read it before I headed home, even if it blew up my fragile happiness. I thought about throwing it away instead, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to do that. I lay back on the bed and braced myself, and accepted the risk of his words.
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes.
For what it’s worth, Chere, he added in a post script, you’re more beautiful than any of that shit you put on.