Читать книгу Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl - Tracy Quan - Страница 14

Etienne arrived last night, carrying a chocolate-brown umbrella with an engraved brass handle in the shape of a swan’s head.

“Very handsome,” I told him. “Did you find it in Paris?”

“It keeps me dry,” he said with a humorous shrug. “My children gave it to me for Christmas.”

Etienne’s son is an eye surgeon, and his two daughters are teachers. I think he once told me that the oldest daughter is married to a guy at Salomon.

Lying on the couch with my bare feet nestled in Etienne’s lap, I smiled as he traced gentle lines on my calves with his fingertips. “Do you know what your most interesting feature is?” he asked dreamily. “I am always curious to know what a woman will designate as her most important feature. Women are so often at odds with their paramours.”

I gazed down at my legs. Sometimes, when I’m with Matt, I get paranoid about my thighs. But never when I’m with a customer. At work, a pragmatic self-appreciation kicks in: I instantly feel, oh, 10 to 30 percent more attractive as soon as I have an appointment lined up. It’s an engine that switches on by itself. You answer the phone, make the appointment, look in the mirror, and you see what the client will be getting. It’s hard to be so objective with a boyfriend. And lovely to be appreciated by a succession of men over fifty.

I was wearing my new zebra-print thong and nothing else—so I couldn’t hide the effect this was having on my nipples. A familiar tingle caused my thighs to turn in slightly. Etienne ran a considerate fingertip over my right breast and smiled. Now, I thought, smiling back, here he comes, as predictable as a clock. Sensing my body’s pliant mood, he moved closer. His lips made a dangerous beeline for mine, but I dodged him gracefully and I slid away from his kiss.

“Let’s continue this biology lesson in the bedroom!” I giggled, grabbing his hand.

“You are a foul-tempered devil,” he muttered. “Why do you welcome my kisses here,” he said, tapping the front of my panties, “but not here?” He touched a finger to the corner of my mouth.

“One of life’s mysteries,” I murmured, slipping out of my panties.

“You never answered,” he said, placing his mouth against one breast. His tongue was warm, not too demanding, and my nipple couldn’t help but encourage him. “If you had to choose just one important feature?”

“I’d pick two,” I said, knowing how much my vanity pleases Etienne. “My face and my breasts.” I couldn’t exactly repeat my secret answer: “If only I didn’t rely on them so much! My face has made me rather lazy about exercise, and my tummy always threatens to betray me. I should go to the gym more often, but I seem to be getting away with it because you keep calling.”

He smiled and cupped one breast, then ran his hand over my abdomen. “No quarrel with your assessment—but for me, it’s your skin.”

“Really?” How, after a decade of seeing me, does this man come up with such charming new material? He’s a born flirt, the genuine article.

“The texture is what I find so…compelling.” And then, as my flattered smile registered on Etienne, his intrusive mouth sought another off-limits kiss.

“Darling,” I breathed, maneuvering my neck to evade him, “my pussy is getting so impatient…” I tactfully directed his face toward my open thighs. Almost six-thirty. How time flies when you’re being hustled by a veteran john!

When I emerged from my building—just a few moments after Etienne’s departure—Matt was waiting in a cab, delighted that, for once, I was ready on time.

Elspeth’s buffet was in full swing when we arrived at her apartment. My cousin Miranda was standing next to a giant brioche, halfheartedly fending off a sandy-haired, somewhat beefy-looking guy I’ve seen many times before. He’s at all of Elspeth’s parties and I think he must be one of her junior lawyers, but I can never remember his name. Miranda has a permanent tan from growing up in Trinidad, and her mother, like my dad, is half-Indian.

“Fascinating,” the sandy-haired guy was saying. “I had no idea such a unique mixture of beauty was actually possible. Your father’s Chinese?”

Miranda smiled oddly and pulled me toward her.

“Meet my cousin Nancy,” she told him. “This is…um…Christopher. I’ll be back!” she added, pulling me in yet another direction. “Let’s get Nancy a drink.”

“Well, I guess Matt can keep him busy,” I said. “How’s everything?”

“Oh, fine, now that you’re here! All these men keep hitting on me!” she complained. “I thought you’d never arrive. And that…Christopher. He keeps talking about how exotic I am. You know, I feel like an object,” she said in a low bitter voice.

The terrible twenties! She really believes she doesn’t want all this attention. Even though she’s wearing a cropped cashmere sweater and the tightest Dolce & Gabbana pants I’ve seen in weeks.

“Your outfit’s kind of sexy,” I pointed out, as she steered me toward the champagne. “And your belly-button ring is a definite draw.”

“Not that kind of object!” she said. “He keeps harping on how exotic I look just because—just because I’m half-Chinese.” And she still has that trace of a Trinidad accent, which suburban New Yorkers like Christopher don’t expect a Chinese-looking girl to have. I don’t have that accent, because I left at the age of two.

“He meant it as a compliment,” I said. “Be nice to him, he’s trying to be poetic and charming. And don’t take it so personally! To him, you are exotic.”

“Well, I’m sick of everyone asking me where I’m from,” she told me. “Especially men.”

“Then go back to Trinidad where everybody will know exactly where you’re from. And you won’t be exotic anymore. But you’d hate having to deal with Trinidadian men. Can you imagine?”

In this, we’re viscerally united. Neither of us has ever had a boyfriend from the islands. Though she still has the accent, she really can’t go back. Miranda clinked her champagne glass against mine and gave me a rueful smile.

“I suppose that’s right. Look, here he comes. Mr. Exotic himself.”

“You just resent him because he’s not wearing one of those strange little goatees. He’s a nice guy! Let him take you out to dinner sometime.”

“Oh, he’s not my type,” she sighed, rolling her eyes at me as if I were one of our great-aunts. Except that she would never actually roll her eyes in that way at any of our great-aunts. It would have to be done on the sly.

Christopher and Matt were heading toward us, led by Elspeth, who was dressed in party Manolos, black satin capris, and a transparent silk T-shirt. Elspeth is one of those A-cup gals who can maintain her respectability in a see-through blouse. Her short auburn hair topped off a smooth, pretty line that ended at her pointy toes. An audible “Nancy!” startled a few guests. That brittle voice takes some getting used to—it doesn’t really go with her pixielike features. “Miranda!” Much air-kissing. “Being engaged to my little brother really agrees with her!” she exclaimed. “You look different tonight. Isn’t she radiant!” she said to Matt and Miranda. “I swear to god, you’re glowing, Nancy.”

That’s because, while rushing Etienne through his session, I felt obliged to throw in a real orgasm. A man won’t think of you as a pleasure-pinching hooker if you take a little time out for an orgasm. If, just minutes ago, he felt the tremors of your clitoris against his tongue, it’s a cinch to get him off, then send him out early, feeling pleased with himself.

I glanced around at all the high-heeled guests and felt a twinge of ambivalence. Should I have worn sluttish stilts instead of flats? Nobody would guess that less than one hour ago I was lying in bed with my thighs wrapped around the face of a gray-haired man, conjuring up degrading fantasies (with Matt in the lead role) so I could get my orgasm over with, already. Not with all these women gliding around on their party stilts while I stand here in my shiny good-girl flats. Deep cover.

“Men are dogs,” Elspeth was saying. “Jason promised to be here no later than six! To help! Yeah, right. He’s stuck in a meeting and he totally forgot. Did you get my e-mail?” she asked. “About the fabric dyes?”

“I haven’t had a chance to log on all day,” I explained. “I was, um, trying to get this project finished and I got sort of caught up—overwhelmed by it.”

“And listen, there’s this website that—don’t knock it till you try it—helps you organize your wedding. I wish this had been around five years ago, when I got married. Take it from me, the Day will go more smoothly if you break it down into components. They have a private chat list for anxious brides. Lucy, my colorist, says they discuss everything.” She cast a meaningful glance at Matt, to indicate the Girls Only quality of the list.

“Really? Like, first-night jitters?” Matt said, with a mischievous smirk.

“No.” Elspeth pretended to be annoyed. “Lingerie and bouquets. So, Nancy: this project that keeps you so busy. What’s the latest? Are you almost done?”

Miranda turned away from Christopher and leaned in to hear more. I felt a quiver of insecurity in my solar plexus, which I tried to quell with champagne, then managed to make a few non-remarks about my fake job. Matt, Elspeth, my family, his family—they all think of me as a part-time slacker who does copyediting for extra money. Miranda is so clearly a girl with an allowance that any relative of hers can be tarred with the same brush, so Matt assumes that my work supplements a modest income from my parents.

Fortunately, most people think the doings of a copy editor are pretty boring. It’s easy to get them distracted from my supposed job: Just talk about it! The subject usually changes, quite rapidly, when I explain that my current “project” is a massive treatise on Eastern medicine that the author hopes to translate into German. It’s important to mention a language that is totally unsexy.

“How did you meet this guy?” Elspeth asked. “This—what is he, an acupuncturist? And a chiropractor? From where?” She wasn’t letting go of the subject as easily as I had hoped.

“Oh, ah, he’s a family friend of the translator,” I explained. “She’s going to translate the whole thing when I’m finished, and we’re having this terrible problem because a file got corrupted and he only made one backup.”

Christopher was trying to look interested and Matt was examining the wine bottles as Elspeth went on.

“And where did he train?” she said, looking directly at me.

I was stumped. Where did this fictional chiropractor learn how to be an acupuncturist? She was waiting for an answer.

“Uh, you mean his computer training or his medical training?” I did my best to appear confused. “His computer skills are negligible,” I added.

Elspeth glanced at Matt and began to say something. Then she stopped. I turned to the bar for another glass of champagne, horrified by my questionable performance. When I came back, Elspeth was having a rather quiet tête-à-tête with her brother. Matt looked up and came closer, to put his arm around my waist while Elspeth gave us both a long, thoughtful stare.

“So, what’s the publication date?” Elspeth demanded, in a cheery yet ominous voice.

“Well, I…” Leaning into Matt’s light embrace, I cleared my throat pensively. “The thing is, I made an agreement. I’ve signed a contract not to discuss—I’m not really allowed to disclose any of the details. I know it’s a bit silly—with a book like this—but it’s part of my arrangement with the translator.”

“Really? Is that a common practice?” Elspeth wanted to know.

Jesus Christ.

“I thought it was, but I really don’t know. Why?”

It bothered me that she had stopped asking where the chiropractor trained and was now on a new line of questioning altogether—just when I thought I might have a suitable answer for the last question. And this was all supposed to be so boring!

“I wonder if a contract of this sort is enforceable,” she said. “What are the limits? Did you show it to a lawyer? If you did, you’d have to tell your lawyer about the book. What if you told your doctor? Or your psychiatrist? Could a publisher call them to testify about what you leaked? What if there was a crime involved?”

“Elspeth had too much coffee this morning,” Matt sighed.

“Well, a contract like that raises important privilege issues that Nancy might not have considered.” She looked at me quizzically. “Not that you’re the kind of girl with any secrets to keep. Or are you?” she asked with a sharp, mischievous smile.

A tall blonde in a red scoop-necked blouse and a leather skirt caused Elspeth to break away. “Karen! You look great! I’d like you to meet my future sister-in-law, Nancy.”

I wondered if Karen was one of Elspeth’s law school buddies, a fellow prosecutor, perhaps. Increasingly, I find that the more provocative the outfit, the straighter the job. I almost wonder if a display of cleavage and flesh will make me blend in more.

“My brother’s a player,” Elspeth said proudly. She grabbed my hand to show Karen my three-carat diamond. “When he does something, he really does it.”

“It’s gorgeous,” Karen gushed. “We have to talk! I just heard about a fabulous two-bedroom—would you consider moving downtown? Tribeca?”

“Karen’s a real estate genius,” Elspeth chimed in. “Give them your card—I was telling Matt the other day, ‘You can’t expect Nancy to start a new life with you in that bachelor pad!’”

Elspeth’s husband appeared in the doorway carrying a huge briefcase. Jason’s the money in that marriage—an M&A lawyer. Elspeth, the assistant D.A., sees herself as the integrity. Naturally, he’s the polite one and she’s the loudmouth.

“Better late than never!” she rasped cheerfully. “Where were you?”

As he leaned forward for our perfunctory kiss on the cheek, we exchanged a brief look, that “Eye Contract” entered into by two people who might never have met if two other people weren’t related to each other. Restrained sympathy. A curious desire to understand the other person. Followed by relief because you don’t really have to.

When I turned around, Karen and Matt were trading business cards, and I could feel the walls of an unseen apartment closing in on me.

“Matt says you have a new e-mail address? Here’s mine. You’re going to love this place—it’s perfect for a young couple,” Karen told me.

“Oh, I’d love it if you two moved downtown,” Miranda said. “There’s so much happening! We can meet for lunch, Nancy, near the museum.” Miranda works at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, which is smack-dab in the middle of thronging hell! But she loves it because she has no memory of what SoHo was like when it was just a budding restaurant scene with a few nice shops.

“And it’s closer to work,” Matt said. “Definitely. Can we see it this weekend?”

What did I get myself into here? Tribeca? Oh god. Overpriced, inconvenient, miles from my hairdresser and my bikini waxing…not to mention my shrink. But my geographic horror gave way to relief. Thanks to Karen and Miranda and Matt, all singing the praises of an overrated neighborhood, Elspeth was now focusing on us as a couple and seemed to be less curious about me. Thank god.