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MEMORANDUM

To: Staff

From: Janice Foster, General Manager, HUSH Hotel

Date: Sunday, July 6

Re: Trevor Little

Mr. Trevor Little will be bringing another guest this week. We will be following the usual pattern of gifts: flowers Monday, spa visit Tuesday, bracelet Wednesday, negligee Thursday and the molded chocolate sculpture Friday. Reminder: please treat his guest with absolute courtesy and do not act as if you’ve seen him here before. As usual, calls to his room should be forwarded to his voice mail and anyone asking for him should be told he is not registered here.

Note on housekeeping board:

Someone else gets to clean Trevor Little’s room. I got it last time. Yick!

IF SHE THOUGHT of the Midwest Airlines airplane as a womb, and the jetway into Newark airport as a birth canal, then May Hope Ellison figured she was about to be reborn. Her first symbolic breaths of new life were only yards away in the hallowed area outside gate B40.

Okay, so maybe that was pushing it.

She’d been planning to fly into LaGuardia since Manhattan was her destination, but Trevor had insisted she fly into Newark. To save her the traffic and hassle of LaGuardia, he’d said. And with luck, he’d get out of his meeting in New Jersey early and be able to meet her on the eleven-thirty-five train to Penn Station.

May’s mother, born and bred in Wisconsin, but lived in the Big Apple for a couple of years before she married, had shrugged and said she’d never had any trouble at LaGuardia.

Of course May hadn’t told her mother about Trevor. Mom thought May was exploring New York with her high school friend Ginny. Mothers didn’t generally get very excited about daughters flying halfway across the country to spend a week of wild passion in a luxury boutique hotel with a man they barely knew.

Well, maybe they did get excited. But not in a good way.

One more step, around the corner, and there was her first sight of her new temporary life and— Wow. Lots of gates. Lots of noise. Lots and lots of people. This was not Milwaukee. And it certainly wasn’t Oshkosh.

She wasn’t aware she’d stopped dead until someone bumped into her and muttered something not terribly flattering or polite.

Forward, then, going with the flow, heading out of the gate-studded cul-de-sac, up a long corridor, then around another corner into the main terminal. Even more people. Security lines many many yards long, three of them, two and three people deep. She clutched the directions Trevor had e-mailed her and followed signs for the shuttle to the N.J. Transit train that would take her into the city.

After much confusion, buying the wrong ticket to the wrong destination—why would they name both the New York and New Jersey stations Penn Station?—she finally made it onto the right train, counting the cars carefully so she’d be in the one she and Trevor agreed upon. Third behind the engine.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t there. Or fortunately, depending on whose nerves you asked. Not that she wasn’t thrilled to be doing this, of course she was. It’s just that…well how did you behave during a long commute with someone you barely knew that you were planning to screw for an entire week?

Hey, how are you? Hot for this time of year, isn’t it? Looking forward to penetrating me?

Maybe it was better they’d meet at the hotel.

Half an hour later, May emerged from the train onto a hot, dark, underground platform, dragging her rolling suitcase behind her. She inched along, in closer proximity to more strangers than she cared to be, and struggled up the stairs. Penn Station made Newark Airport look like a ghost town.

Not that she’d never seen crowds before. Not that she hadn’t expected everything to be Milwaukee times four, Oshkosh times ten. And Pine River, Wisconsin, the town she grew up in, times…did they make numbers that big?

Onward to her adventure. She’d met Trevor a month ago when he’d come through for the University of Wisconsin “spirit day” celebration and stopped by to catch up with an old professor at the business school, where she worked as assistant to the Dean.

They’d hit it off immediately. Gone from polite chat, to his invitation for coffee, to his invitation to drinks, to his invitation to dinner, to his invitation to his hotel room, which she’d declined, though she’d been tempted. When had any man paid this much attention to her? Then after he left town, he’d e-mailed her. Called her. And, incredibly, called her again. Until chatting with him became a regular part of her day. A bright spot in the last few dismal months since Dan had pronounced their six-year relationship over, because he wasn’t feeling the excitement anymore. Because he’d had a vision of them together for the rest of their lives, doing the same things, having the same arguments they’d had since college, and it wasn’t pretty.

Pretty? Who could keep pretty going forever? Life wasn’t an adventure day in and day out. You worked, you came home, you had kids, you raised them, you retired, you died. Along the way you found things to enjoy so you stayed out of ruts.

Of course she couldn’t stop him going where he needed to go. But feeling left behind sucked, not to mention feeling as if your guts had been ripped out. Though she knew Dan top to bottom, and couldn’t help the sneaking suspicion that after he sowed whatever oats he felt he had to sow, he’d be back and their lives would progress smoothly toward the future as they’d always planned. Life was beautiful and miraculous all on its own. You didn’t need to keep creating adrenaline rushes to enjoy it.

Okay, so she was after one now. Probably in reaction to what Dan had said about her, about their lives together. Dull and predictable? Not this week, honey. The e-mails and phone calls with Trevor had gotten increasingly intimate. Increasingly…sexual in tone. Why not? Dan was the only man she’d ever been with, and admittedly she was curious. Trevor was extremely attractive, and he must be a gazillionaire because he’d unexpectedly and thrillingly invited her to stay with him for a week at HUSH Hotel in Manhattan.

Her jaw had nearly hit her desk when she researched it on Google and got an eyeful of the luxurious accommodations, the “discreet” nature of the place. Said jaw nearly hit the floor when she got a load of the price tag. A family of four could eat for a month on what it cost to stay there one night.

So here she was, on her way to having a wild, wonderful sexual fling. And then going back to her so-called boring life. Which didn’t really seem that boring apart from a little restlessness, a niggling suspicion now and then that there must be more. She figured that was normal. Her mom had chased a dream to Radio City Music Hall and discovered being a Rockette was hard work, fun, sometimes tedious, occasionally exciting, occasionally disappointing, same as anything. Maybe that’s what Dan needed to learn. Maybe once he learned it, he’d come back to her.

Or maybe this week would change everything.

Now. To find her way up to street level and get a taxi to the hotel. She moved purposefully forward and bumped into someone, then someone else on the rebound. “Excuse me, I’m sor—”

“Watch where you’re going, honey.”

Honey? She made a face at the suited back of the retreating jerk, and then realized poking her tongue out in Penn Station was definitely not a New Yorker thing to do. Giving him the finger probably was, but she didn’t have that in her.

Okay. She was going to have to become Veronica Lake to deal with this. All her life she’d combated shyness and introvert tendencies that separated her from the social mainstream. As a tactic to give herself courage she’d imitated leading ladies from her mother’s stack of old movies. When Mom said she looked like Veronica Lake, her movie star persona had achieved focus.

So. Onward, Veronica.

She straightened and walked briskly, trying not to gawk at everything, trying to keep a furtive eye out for signs to where she was going. Seventh Avenue, Eighth Avenue, which exit did she want?

She picked Seventh and was rewarded with a street view and the marquis of Madison Square Garden. Taxi stand here, Trevor had said. Yes, there. With a thirty-foot lineup.

Veronica’s who-cares expression crumpled a little. Was everyone in New York waiting here? It would take hours to get a cab.

Straightening her shoulders, she marched to the end of the line. No problem. Veronica did this all the time. This was her city. She was coming home after a wild weekend with fraternity boys at Princeton. Nobody better mess with her.

In line, she started realizing how warm it was for early July, at least compared to Oshkosh. The noon sun managed to find its way through the buildings and beat right down on her. Horns honked. The whistle of the uniformed man guiding people to cabs shrieked repeatedly. Cigarette smoke traveled unerringly into May’s face with every puff and exhale of the woman in front of her. Sweat formed on her forehead and prickled under her arms. Lovely. She hoped she had the chance to shower at the hotel before Trevor showed up.

A thrill of adrenaline shot through her as she moved up in the line. She was really doing this. Really going to see him again. Really going to spend the week in his jovial sexy presence. Really going to have the kind of attention and luxury lavished on her that most people only dreamed about.

Hot damn.

Except as she moved closer—and no, she wasn’t going to have to wait for hours, duh farm girl—the adrenaline kept coming, but the thrill turned more to fear. The woman in front of her lit another cigarette. The sun kept shining on May’s too-heavy jacket. A cab farther back in line tried to take on a fare before his turn and the man with the whistle blew shrilly and kept blowing, then held up the line for five eternal sweaty smoky minutes by having a…well, animated shall we say, conversation with the driver.

People around her muttered. A drunk passed, yelling randomly about Jesus and video games and roast pork sandwiches.

Then it was May’s turn. The cab pulled up. She lugged her suitcase in and sat, registering disappointment at the non-air-conditioned interior.

The driver glanced in his rearview mirror with dark tired eyes. “Where to?”

She gave him her haughtiest movie star stare while her entire body begged her to tell him to drive her back to Wisconsin, damn the cost.

“Hush Hotel.”

His brows shot up, he turned fully around and—oh joy—leered at her, then winked and pulled out into heavy-but-moving traffic. And for the next fifteen minutes, while the meter ticked higher at a speed faster than his, he proceeded to try as hard as he could to get them into a fatal accident.

My God, the city was immense, impossibly crowded, a hodgepodge of neat and slovenly storefronts and neat and slovenly people. How could anyone stand having to navigate all this every day? No wonder New Yorkers were considered tough. You needed a thick protective coating just to cross the street.

Finally, the driver executed another of his who-needs-lanes moves, pulled under the overhang in front of the hotel and came to a stop that made the whole car bounce. “Here you go.”

May fumbled shakily in her wallet. How much was too much to tip? How much wasn’t enough? She erred on the side of too much. After all, he’d done his best to teach her how precious her life was.

He accepted the bills with a nod. May took a deep breath. Three, two, one—

The door to the cab opened, and an attractive man in a black uniform with silver buttons and HUSH stitched in pink letters on the left breast of his jacket extended a white-gloved hand to help her out.

She took it reluctantly and emerged into the exhaust-smelling air to a hot breeze that threatened her careful French twist. Her head started to throb.

“Good afternoon, ma’am. Welcome to Hush Hotel.”

A sudden burst of jackhammering in the street made him have to shout.

She nodded cool thanks, not wanting to have to shout back, and nodded again to the other attractive black-uniformed man who whisked her bag out of the cab behind her. Should she tip all these people? How much? God she was out of her depth.

The jackhammer clattered again. Another young hunky hotel employee blew his whistle for another cab. Someone shouted behind her. An ambulance siren grew louder; horns honked frantically as cars tried to get out of its way. May did manage to resist the urge to launch herself into the hotel through the ornate leaded-glass doors, but probably walked a bit quicker toward them than was perfectly haute-whatever of her.

A massive-shouldered doorman whooshed open the door just as she reached it and was about to put out her hand. She stepped inside and immediately wished she was somebody Terribly Important, and that she had a Terribly Chic faux-fur wrap to slip from her shoulders into the waiting arms of an attendant. Then she’d burst into a sultry song and the uniformed men around her would be her dancing chorus.

What a place.

Cool air wafted through the midsized lobby, deliciously scented with something vaguely herbal she couldn’t identify. A few people milled about, a few checking in or out, a few in consultation with the pink-haired concierge. A few sitting in deep comfortable-looking black-and-grey or seafoam green chairs. Few being the operative word.

Best of all? Quiet. Who put the hush in HUSH Hotel? Whoever did, May’s head was extremely grateful. And her nerves even more so. The tension started ebbing out of her. She half expected to leave a visible stress trail as she walked over the lush carpet—black, gray, pink and touches of that lovely green—following the bellhop up to the registration desk, a chest-high shiny black lacquer rectangle. Behind it on the wall in pink neon, the word HUSH, in art deco lettering.

Oh, this was soooo cool.

May gave her name, affecting bored disinterest, while willing her cheeks not to flush as she did so. Hi, I’m May Hope Ellison, I’m here to have sex for an entire week with someone I barely know.

Of course she needn’t have worried. The registration was speedy and pleasant. The lovely woman behind the counter couldn’t have been more professionally cordial. Did anyone ugly work in this hotel?

With a nod of her perfectly coiffed head toward the elevator and a genuine smile along with the key card, the-lovely-woman-behind-the-counter sent May off to her den of iniquity, hunky bellhop in tow, past more chairs, a mirror and a black cat with a pink collar, which no one but her seemed surprised to see sauntering about the lobby.

Waiting for the elevator, May kept her face impassive, legs practically quivering from suppressed anxiety. As the doors closed in front of her face, and the bellhop lit the fourteenth-floor button pink, her panic rose. She needed a time-out. A moment for a deep breath. Or twenty. But how could she tell this lovely, patient, suitcase-bearing Adonis that she was completely freaking out?

She couldn’t.

Ten…eleven…twelve…fourteen, and here they were. She stepped out of the elevator and stared blindly at the room number directions painted on the wall. Her room was number 1457. Which direction did that mean? Her brain was gone. Liquefied. Soon it would seep out of her ears and that would be that.

Adonis cleared his throat, gestured to the left. May smiled and thanked him, grateful when her tight voice didn’t crack. She really didn’t want him there if she opened the door to Trevor. Didn’t want anyone to bear witness to her nervous meltdown. But what choice did she have? She didn’t have Dan and his calm, protective, take-charge strength to go back to. She was on her own.

Sally forth. She reached 1457, thrust the key card into the lock. Green light went on. Door opened. May went in.

Empty.

She took a few more steps in; the bathroom door was open.

Empty, too.

Oh, thank God.

A rush of delighted relief made her bestow a giant smile of gratitude on Adonis and give him five dollars, which in her estimation was a ridiculously enormous tip but for him probably branded her as Cowpoke Cathy.

He accepted the cash, gave a slight bow and exited the room.

So.

Panic over, she turned to survey her home for the next week. In a word: exquisite. A king-size bed with an arched headboard of two-toned wood, cherry and maple, dominated the room. She sank onto the thick down comforter in geometric patterns of black, white and burgundy. Bliss. She lay flat, her no-longer-aching head relishing the soft pillows, then stretched her right arm over the empty side, imagining Trevor lying there.

Along with the thrill of anticipation came an unexpected stab of nervous pain and longing for Dan. She put her hand to her chest where his grandmother’s locket had rested for so many years. It still felt empty.

Enough. She sat up abruptly, padded over the thick cream carpet with a burgundy border, past the elegant spare desk that echoed the two-toned wood of the bed. On it, a bouquet of white and burgundy alstroemeria reflected the colors in the room; the feathery greens added a fresh, living contrast. On a slender-legged table near the window stood a giant bouquet of at least two dozen red roses. With a card. “I can’t wait to see you. Trevor.”

She smiled and rubbed the edge of the card back and forth across her chin. Dan was in the past—and possibly again in her future someday. But he didn’t exist to her here. This would be a really, really nice week.

She drew back the gauze curtains and gazed out at the cityscape, at the people hurrying along the sidewalk. It was so peaceful away from all that rush and chaos. She let the curtain fall.

What else? Drawing back the doors on the entertainment center exposed a TV twice the size of hers at home, a VCR, a DVD player and in a narrow cabinet, video-recording equipment.

Gulp.

To the left, a black lacquer tray displaying fancy bottled water, glasses and ice. A bowl of apples, clementines, kiwis and grapes, and a basket of rolls and crackers. In the minibar along with the usual assortment of booze and snacks, lay foil-wrapped French cheese, pâté and tins of smoked oysters.

Oh, this was so not what she was used to. Ginny would freak. May would have to take careful note of everything to report back to her glamour and celebrity-hungry friend. What heaven. At least for a while. Eventually it, too, would get dull and predictable, like everything familiar.

In the bathroom she discovered a huge whirlpool tub, a portable showerhead, a bathrobe, a beautifully arranged basket of high-end cosmetics, lotions, shampoo and specialty soaps—all a hell of a lot fancier than the stuff she bought from the Pick ’n Save in Oshkosh.

Total fantasy. Impulsively, she turned on the tub and left it filling. That’s what she needed. A nice soak to get rid of the travel smells, the city smells and the cigarette smoke smell that still clung to her from the woman in line at the cabstand. To refresh herself.

And if Trevor showed up in the middle of it, so much the better.

She smiled wickedly, went back into the room to undress and noticed the message light blinking on the black-and-gold old-fashioned style phone. She punched the button and unpinned her French twist. Receiver pressed against her cheek, she shook her head to let her long hair flow past her shoulders, wicked smile turned dreamy.

The machine picked up; the message played. Trevor’s voice.

She listened. Hit Replay when the computerized voice gave her the option, and listened again. Just in case she hadn’t heard right the first time. Just in case the second time through would be different.

It wasn’t.

Trevor wasn’t coming.

MEMORANDUM

To: Staff

From: Janice Foster, General Manager, HUSH Hotel

Date: Monday, July 7

Re: Beck Desmond

Most of you already know that we are hosting author Beck Desmond in 1217. I’m posting another reminder that he is not to be approached for autographs or chitchat. While strolling the various parts of the hotel, he is often deep in concentration and we don’t want to be responsible for interfering with his work. It’s an honor that he’s chosen HUSH as inspiration for the setting of his next thriller. Anyone who bothers him will be transferred immediately to the pet area for waste removal duty.

Note for Shandi Fossey, bartender, Erotique:

See if you can get me Beck Desmond’s autograph. Janice

BECK DESMOND took the phone away from his ear and stared at it with immense irritation. From the black receiver emerged the shrill heavily New York–accented voice of his agent, Alex Barkhauser, chattering away. He felt like affecting a high thin voice and saying, “Yes, dear” at regular intervals.

Except that was undoubtedly what she wanted him to do.

After a deep breath, he put the receiver back to his ear. Might be a good idea to hear at least some of what she was saying.

“…me wrong here, Beck, your books are great, you know they’re great and you know I love them. But I just feel…”

He pictured her squinting off to one side, gesturing in swooping circles the way she always did, as if she were beckoning the words out of her mouth. “Yes?”

“I just feel like we’re sitting on something that could get bigger, you know?”

“Bigger.” He let the word drop, then waited. Old sales technique his father taught him; let the silence sit and your opponent will fill it with what you need to know.

“Sharon and I think you should try more emotion in your stories, more warmth, add a girlfriend for Mack, soften him up a little. Believe me, you’ll double your readership. Women will buy you in droves. Right now you’re selling to men. Women are a huge market in book sales. Huge. This is the next big step in your career.”

Beck leaned back in the chair he’d brought with him from his condo on East 97th Street, spanned his temples with his thumb and middle finger and squeezed to try and relieve the ache. “Let me get this straight. You want me to take my hero, Mack, who has seen more of the baseness of human nature than anyone alive, and—”

“Soften him up. Give him more heart. Give him more sensitivity. Give him…”

“A puppy?”

He heard a sharp thwack, and knew Alex had slammed her palm on the desk, a sure sign his complete joke of an idea excited her. “Yes! Perfect! A puppy. Small one, the kind women love to stop and pat in the street. He could meet his—”

“You’ve got to be kidding me, Alex.” Next she’d want Beck’s ruthless detective spending afternoons shopping for shoes. “Mack is a man. No, he’s more than that, he’s the man.”

“So make him the man with the woman.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s a loner, he’s a tough guy. It’s not him.”

“Give him a woman strong enough to change him.”

“Strong enough to—” Beck reached for his bottle of Evian water and found his fingers trying to strangle it. Change him? Change the man Beck had lived with in his imagination for seven years, through more harrowing adventures, more near-fatal experiences, more death-defying risks than any mere mortal could stand? The man who’d taken down serial killers, drug lords, crime bosses, international art thieves, muggers, murderers and everything between? Change him? With a woman? “I thought women knew never to get involved with a man hoping to change him.”

“She can change him without trying. Simply by being who she is and affecting him that way. Having him become a better person because of loving her.”

“The only effect I want any woman to have on Mack is a raging hard-on. I don’t write romance novels.”

Alex made the sound of exasperation New Yorkers excelled at, a cross between a cough and a raspberry. “I’m not asking you to write a romance novel. Just make him more human.”

Beck exhaled his annoyance. The very quality that made Alex Barkhauser an incredibly effective agent on his behalf, also made her a formidable opponent. Namely, she was a pit bull. “I’m sorry, I can’t see Mack—”

“Here’s an example.” Pages rustled over the line. “The sex scene you have here with whatsername.”

“Tamara.”

“Tamara.” Alex’s voice turned scornful. “Total stripper name. Call her Susie or something.”

“Susie? Susie wears pigtails and scuffed sandals, not black lingerie. And women named Susie don’t masturbate.”

“Well no woman masturbates like this.”

“Like what?” The defensive edge in his voice disgusted him.

“Like a male fantasy from a porn movie.”

Beck’s mouth opened to protest. Then closed. Because it had nothing to say. That’s exactly what had inspired the scene. A movie he’d snuck in to see as a teenager and had never forgotten.

“You can’t tell me your girlfriends do it like that when they’re alone. Wearing this entire black lace getup, do you have any idea how itchy and uncomfortable that stuff is? Plus, you have to be five-eleven, one hundred and ten pounds but oh, yes, somehow with enormous boobs, to look good in it. And the ten-inch dildo? Please.”

“Alex. Can we move on to—”

“Make it more real, Beck. That’s what I’m saying. The book rocks otherwise. But make Mack’s relationship with women, his attention to women, his sex with women, more real. Less like a teenage boy’s wet dream. Let’s start there and see where it takes us, okay?”

“Where it takes us? To five percent sell-through, that’s where it takes us. For every female reader we gain, we’ll lose two men. I guarantee it.”

“No. Your stories are great, Beck, this story is great, that won’t change. You’re not going to lose men over a love interest for Mack. Most men have actually been in love, you know.”

“But this is fantasy. They read my books to escape all that.”

“To escape being in love?”

Beck closed his eyes. “That came out wrong.”

Or maybe not. Weren’t most men wanting to escape now and then from the female-directed rules of “relationship” into something nice and tidy like good guys blowing up bad guys?

Relationships had to be examined and worked on in exhaustive detail. Men had to be told they weren’t doing this, that or the other to female satisfaction. And always the question, what happened to the wonderful romantic men they used to be?

The wonderful romantic men they used to be disappeared about the same time the adoring sweet women they were dating became critical, judgmental shrews.

“Just try it, Beck. Try it. Soften up the sex scenes. Especially make Tamara’s self-pleasuring scene more real. Try that one first. And when Mack joins her, make him feel it in his heart as well as his dick.”

“Alex—” Beck sighed. It was hopeless. When your editor and agent were against you, things were tough. Add in the members of the marketing department and the ever-dreaded focus groups, and you might as well bend over and take it.

If he had a dime for every person envious of a writer’s so-called complete freedom in his work…

Well, if he did, he’d be rich enough to keep Mack’s mind on his dick during a sex scene, where it belonged.

“Okay.” He ran his hand over his aching head and jaw. “Just on the one scene with Tamara. See how it feels. How it reads.”

“Wonderful. You’re fabulous. It’s going to be so much better, you’ll be amazed, I promise.”

“Right.” He shook his head and hung up the phone harder than he needed to. Got to his feet and strode over to the window, pulling back the sheer curtains to gaze out at Madison Avenue.

Damn it to hell. He might have known this would hit eventually. This or something like it. He didn’t know a single writer who hadn’t come up against a brick wall at some point in his or her career. And Beck’s journey so far had been relatively easy. Alex had picked him up when he was still unpublished, working as an editor, still learning the craft in his own writing and from that of his authors. She’d seen enough raw talent to judge him a good commercial risk.

After extensive revisions, his first book had sold, then his second and his third. Mackenzie “Mack” Adams had starred in six books in the past six years, and for a while it seemed Beck’s star would never stop rising. Three years ago he’d quit his job to write full-time. Then the flattening sales, the apparent loss of reader interest.

And now back to extensive revisions. And the girlification of a true man’s man.

Worse, to rewrite the scene the way Alex et al wanted him to, Beck was going to have to find a woman who would be willing to describe her masturbation practices for him.

Of all the research he’d done, this was potentially both the most enjoyable and the most agonizing. Not to sound arrogant, but the women he’d dated hadn’t needed to touch themselves when he was around. And asking old girlfriends their current autostimulation techniques wasn’t the most tactful way to get back in touch.

No way would he ever admit to male friends he needed a woman to ask. He didn’t have any female friends close enough to broach a topic like this. His brothers would tease him unmercifully or slug him if he suggested asking their significant others.

The ideal would be a sexually open complete stranger he could talk to and never see again. Like that was going to happen. Though if it were possible, HUSH was as likely a spot as any to find one.

This was all too depressing. Next he’d start contemplating hiring a hooker.

His cell rang again and he rolled his eyes and reached for it to check the display. He didn’t feel like talking to anyone at the moment.

Oh.

Mom.

“Hi, Mom.” He rubbed his forehead, waiting for his headache to get worse. He loved his mother, loved his whole family, but his idea of how much time was appropriate for a man his age to spend with them differed vastly from theirs.

“Hello, Beck, how’s the writing going?”

“Fine. Just fine.” She asked every call, to be polite, and every call he answered fine. His entire family was in the restaurant business, an Italian place on West 55th Street—he was the black sheep. They wouldn’t care or understand about his line of work, so he generally didn’t bother sharing.

And he was pretty sure asking his mother about masturbation would not be a good way to start.

“Thursday night is the thirtieth birthday party for your brother Jeffrey.”

“I know.” He screwed his eyes shut, the predicted worsening of his headache making its first throbbing appearance. Of course he knew, Dad had called him two days ago to remind him and Mom a week before that. “I’d really like to come. But I have revisions due on Friday, and it’s going to be close.”

“Sure, close, you can’t get away for an hour?”

No use. He could try to explain that it wasn’t just the minutes he’d spend away from his keyboard he’d miss. It was the mental buildup, the interruption, the wind-down time it would take to get back into his work. And how was he to know if Thursday night was going to be a particularly creative time, when everything would come together in a huge burst of output?

“I’ll come if I can, Mom. I promise.”

“Good enough. Everything okay there? You want me to send you some food to the hotel? Something decent? Some of your dad’s osso bucco?”

“Thanks, Mom, they’re feeding me fine.”

“Okay. Okay. I’ll go. But everyone wants to see you, the whole family misses you. You sit in that room all day long working, it’s not healthy.”

He chuckled. “I should be out in the fresh air?”

“I get it.” She laughed. “You’re not a little boy anymore. Moms are all the same. But if you need anything, you call me.”

“I will.”

“Even if you don’t. Just to say hi. Okay?”

“Deal. Thanks for checking on me.”

“You’re a good man, Beck. I worry about you.”

“I’m really fine. Bye, Mom.” Beck clicked the phone off before she could start listing single women she knew, then stood there imagining her bustling to the front of the restaurant, making sure everything was perfect, flowers and candles on the tables, menus clean and carefully piled, staff in place, complimentary antipasto dishes lined up in a neat row.

That world could have been his.

Sometimes he thought he’d been switched at birth, and somewhere some serious scholarly couple were wondering how they had ended up with a boisterous half-Italian chef for a son.

He needed a drink.

More than that, he needed one out among people. Usually he was content to be in his room, or prowling the hotel; he was a loner at heart like most writers, something his jovial family of extroverts couldn’t understand. Tonight, for some reason—probably that the soul was about to be ripped out of his life’s work—he’d rather indulge his demons with strangers around than tackle them on his own.

And who knew? Maybe his sexually open female stranger was at the bar right now, waiting for him.