On his way back from the bathroom he asked me about my oysters. Like an asshole, I talked about why I preferred West Coast to East. After politely but ludicrously asking if he could try one, he slurped it off its rocky beach like he knew how much I already wanted him.
He was there with a friend, a blondish man who was married and lived in the suburbs. The chasm between them was considerable. The friend was a regular guy with a regular tie. He took the train into work and his wife didn’t have to worry.
I wondered if Big Sky’s wife had to worry. I saw a picture of her when he showed me one of his young son. Long brown hair, in shape, uninteresting legs. She’d held a good job in the city, something creative, before quitting it for the kid. She was from a city and from a family that made Big Sky proud. She ran every morning around the park.
Big Sky pointed at his friend with a gorgeous thumb.
—He still gives up shit for Lent, isn’t that tragic?
I laughed too loud.
The bar, intended for after-work cocktails, began to clear at nine p.m. The bartender opened the door and I felt the cool spring air. I got cold. I was wearing a sleeveless dress. A man I knew from the bar came by with his coat, a thick patchwork pelt, and draped it across my shoulders. It was heavy and it laid across my slight frame in a tyrannical manner. It wasn’t a nice gesture. It was like he’d rolled his balls out and stretched the sticky dough against me. Men were always putting their coats around my shoulders. They mark their territory that way. It’s better to freeze to death.
Big Sky had been in the bathroom or making a phone call and I’d thought of nothing but him, but also I had tolerated other people’s conversation because the first day you meet someone like that you still have your self-decency, you still can have an interest in life beyond every tendril of their hair.
He came back and said, What’s this, and he took the pelt off of me and replaced it with his cashmere jacket; he laid it across my shoulders and one of his fingers brushed my flesh and he said, That’s better, isn’t it?
The friend left because he had to catch a train. We talked for an hour more. He worked in finance. He spoke candidly of what was going on, the collapse of Wall Street.
He looked me in the eye over his bitter-smelling beer and said that he and all the men down there were a sad bunch of losers.
—We don’t create shit, he whispered at my mouth. We trade paper. It’s all worthless.
It was the same type of thing Tim had said, but Big Sky made even more money. His dishonor was grander, sexier.
When men tell you they are pieces of shit, when they tell you they are scumbags, they do it because they subconsciously know that you are hooked. It hooks you more. They push you away to pull you in and the most terrible thing is they don’t even do it on purpose.
I told him I needed an accountant, that I was in the midst of my own collapse. He smiled and said he had the best one. He said he himself would give me sound investment advice. He said his accountant was the type who should go to jail but never would.
—Write or call me, he said. I’ll make an intro.
Then he said he should go, too. He wrote down his full name and number and email on an order slip.
I went home that night feeling beautiful.
A couple of days later I wrote to him. My note was all business and he wrote back, How about a drink next wed?
He wasn’t much for punctuation, which I liked because it showed confidence and carelessness. Sure, I said, same place?
He wrote, How about spring lounge?
It was north about twenty blocks from the people he worked with and the place I lived.
I walked the whole way there. It was a bright day in early spring. I wore a leather halter top and jeans and riding boots. I’d pulled my hair into two loose pigtails. Some hypochondriacal thoughts were passing through. Cancer, mostly. A black-and-blue on the inside of my arm that I thought could be the first sign of blood cancer. A sharp headache meant it had now spread to my brain. I soothed myself with the thought that if I were dying it would all be over soon, including not being able to have this man who was the only man for whom I had ever felt this strongly, even after just one meeting.
I thought about turning back. But I looked good and a part of me knew I needed this, that you can’t turn away from feelings like this even if they’re wrong. I called my aunt, who told me to go inside. That, for God’s sake, it was the most beautiful day.
So I did. And right away I saw him. Spring Lounge had these old picture windows with fly wings in the seams, and the Easter-time sun was shining on his face. All the anxiety left me at once. He looked imaginary, wearing the same fishing vest and a pair of cargo pants. I would come to know and love
