“You’re not a bad man. You’re just run ragged.”
“Alex!”
She turns. From the back she was Alex—from the front she’s what’s her face from TV. Who sleeps with senators. She says she wants loads of children, but it won’t happen. My ex talked that way too but didn’t get pregnant until she shut up and started screwing Mormons with no expectations whatsoever. None. Except that the men would worship her perfect toes.
“I’m feeling them now,” Art says. “You really sat with him?”
My Schwarzkopf fib; I knew he’d call me on it. “We discussed my future. Man’s an empath. Total empath. St. Francis with a side arm.”
“Ryan!”
It’s her. Not Alex—Linda. Morse’s operative. She has on an airline-issued orange turtleneck that she seems to believe can double as swank casino wear if it’s accessorized with a rhinestone pin.
Anyway, we kiss. So now that’s over with.
On to the next thing, whatever she suggests.
“Hi, I’m Art Krusk,” Art Krusk says. Know thyself. He offers Linda his broad right hand that’s as tanned on the palm as it is across the back.
“Nice to meet you,” Linda says.
“Same here.”
Boy, are these two on their game tonight.
“I’m so glad I found you, Ryan. This city’s a zoo. Guess who I’m pretty sure I saw at Bally’s stepping out of a roped-off elevator?”
One, two, three, four, five. A, B, C, D. She’ll crack eventually, and I can wait.
“Brando. He’s giving a speech, I guess.”
“They all are.”
“Could we maybe talk for a minute? Over there. Excuse us, Art.”
“Excuse us, Art,” I say. It’s a technique: Neurolinguistic Mirroring, they call it. Do as the greats do and you can be great, too. Copy their walk, their inflections, everything. Big in the seventies, came back in the nineties, faded some, but will surely rise again.
We move “over there,” which feels like the same place and wasn’t, to my mind, worth the whole upheaval, emotional and physical, of getting to. Linda seems happier, though, and I’m happy for her. I count the pills in my pocket between two fingers and am disappointed with the tally.
“I was right about those hackers, Ryan. We’re not supposed to tell customers, so don’t spread this, but someone in Spain got into our computers—just some young kid, the FBI is saying—and scooped up account information, credit card numbers—”
“Anonymous Spanish teenager. Strangely plausible.”
“He e-mailed the data to friends who e-mailed their friends and now it’s all over the world and it’s still going. We’re getting calls from China. I’m serious.”
“Our global globe.”
“I’m not kidding. Cancel
“I’ve been working up to it all week.”
“Ryan?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“You’re loaded. It hurts to look at you. Can I get something off your forehead that’s been bugging me?”
She goes right ahead. I’ll never know what it was.
“I was going to say we should eat. You probably need to. This isn’t you, though. This is not my friend. I’m going to my room to study my materials for tomorrow’s seminar.”
“Don’t do it. Be kind, it’s that easy. Burn all workbooks. Erase all cassette tapes and dub them over with song.”
She kisses my cheek and it burns like the hot match heads my mother would use to make ticks release her children. “Goodbye, Ryan. I don’t think we’ll have more dates. This seminar has me thinking I’ll try nursing school, so I might not be at the club much longer, either. I think I always meant to be a nurse but veered a few degrees. Like you’ve said you did.”
“What did I tell you I set out to be?”
“A folk guitarist.”
I’m baffled. It’s so specific. “When was this, anyway?”
“June. Three months ago.”
“Wait here a minute, Linda. I’m coming down. Some ice water to dilute this and I’ll be me again. I want to reconstruct this folk guitar talk. Were we at your condo? Come back. Don’t wave. You know how we think we don’t have feelings for someone, but maybe it’s because they’re just too powerful? I love you. I have always loved you, Linda.”
