I suppose I liked his honesty. He was somewhat guileless and somewhat a gentleman. Vic would end up being similar. All these paltry stand-ins for my father.
When I went to pay my check that night my card was declined. This had never happened to me or, I should say, this was just the beginning of those sorts of things happening.
—I’ve got her, Tim said to the bartender. He had a platinum card between his knuckles like a blade.
It wasn’t inexpensive, my bill. I’d ordered the foie gras and the steak tartare, plus a few glasses of wine. Eating like that was the only way I knew to console myself.
He took my phone number and I took his and the next day I was about to write to him to say that I would send a check to his work address. But he wrote to me first. He asked me if I knew any women, any girls, for a friend of his who liked to be kicked.
Another message followed right away.
I’m the friend, it said, with a little winking face.
I looked around my room. It was an attractive and clean apartment that I had recently moved into and feared losing. It was barely furnished because I’d lost the job at the hospital downtown. I hadn’t lost it. The contract had run out. The previous week I’d canceled my cable service and returned two dresses I’d already worn to Bergdorf. They accepted anything in those days, with the tags gone, with the smell of cigarettes. It wasn’t without a price, of course. The women would gather the garment into their arms, sniff it, and look back at you like you were trash.
I think I have a friend who might be interested, I wrote back.
One minute later I wrote, I’m the friend.
Kicking Tim was healthier than all those steak dinners with Vic.
—Like just straight with the toe?
I was standing in his hotel room at the Soho Grand. The room was very small but tasteful and dark. He was up against a wall in his nice work shirt and tasteful boxers. Black, thin socks rose up the calves of his pale legs. I wore a pin-striped skirt suit with a high slit and a pair of heels he’d just bought me in the Meatpacking District. I was upset because I’d let him pick them out. Peep-toed black patent-leather sling-backs. Stupid.
He nodded quickly because to give instruction would have gone against the spirit of the thing.
Primly I brought my leg back, then smashed his testicles against the minibar behind him that held the Scotch decanter and rocks glasses. The room twinkled with the sound. He groaned but did not cover himself. Nor did he smile or look like he was in sexual congress with his pain.
That first night, with the Talking Heads in the background, I kicked him six times. Afterward he spooned me in bed. I felt him small and hard against my skirt suit. He moved in little increments, up and down instead of back and forth. He kept his palm flat against the side of my waist, the palm paralyzed like a stroke victim’s. We sat for an early dinner at the restaurant inside the hotel. I ate an octopus appetizer and he had the endive salad. The leaves were glossed demurely in oil and lemon. We both drank water, then he went back to Connecticut and I went home to my studio, one thousand dollars in hand.
We never know how much worse it will be. That’s the greatest gift we have in life. As a child you’ll scrape your knee and the first time will sting terribly. It will shine like mica as it starts to heal. For maybe a week you’ll look at it and think, God, that hurt. But then you will lose a child out of you. Maybe you should stop listening to me. Sometimes I think you won’t endure life without what I’ve learned, and other times I believe the exact opposite. But mostly what I think is that you won’t love me.
11
ON MY THIRD DAY AT the health café I worked alone. Natalia was gone. She and her braids and cowboy hat had gone home to Salinas for the summer.
The rumpled folksinger came in at noon. He ordered the green soup and waited inside with me. I hadn’t given a sign that I knew who he was. I knew eventually he would bring it up now that Natalia was gone.
—When Doctor Johnson was a thing—do you know any of our songs, “Jessica’s Father”—
—Yes, I do. I’m a fan.
—Are you?
—No.
He was leaning on my counter and looking up at the ceiling between us. He wore expensive casual pants and leather sandals and wasn’t offended.
—When we were a thing, we did a show at the Theatricum Botanicum down the way. We stayed with a couple of friends on Tuna Canyon and they brought us to lunch at this café. A beautiful young woman was slinging beans and rice. There was leche in the icebox and Pepsi-Cola. That’s it. Now look.
My phone vibrated on the counter. Vic’s Wife, said the caller ID. The warming timer dinged on Dean’s soup. Some of the soup bowls were thick and brown. Others were shallow, light pink, and very thin. We weren’t supposed to let the customers bring the latter outside themselves.
—I can follow you to the table, I said. I was holding the hot bowl of soup and my phone vibrated again.
—Do you want to get that?
—No, thanks.
—It’s Vic’s wife, he said, smiling. She seems anxious to get in touch.
—Could be a follow-up to
