Been There, Done That (34 page)

“What?” He asked as he closed his phone.

“It was right in front of me the whole time.”

 
 
Dennis swore it was the most exciting opportunity of his lifetime. I was afraid of pushing him into something he didn’t want to do. I knew how that felt.

“I want to do it,” he said. “I swear. Can I wear a wire?”

“I’m not the FBI, Dennis. I don’t have a wire.” I did have the mini tape recorder I used for interviews, though.

I picked Dennis up after work, and we battled our way through Boston traffic. Mercer seemed even farther away than usual.

Main Street was dark and quiet. I dropped Dennis off in front of The Snake Pit. I didn’t dare go inside; Gerry had a good memory for faces.

I spent the next hour and a half at the Denny’s by the highway, where I wolfed down a BLT and nursed a sweet cup of lukewarm tea. I looked around for Cheryl or her friend the hostess. They weren’t there. I opened a novel and tried to concentrate but couldn’t. Outside, vehicle lights shone red, white and yellow as they whizzed along the highway.

Finally, my cell phone rang. Dennis was at the gas station.

I pulled into a parking space and turned off the car. “You were right!” he said as soon as he’d closed the door.

I took a deep breath. “I was hoping I was wrong. Did you see her?”

He shuddered. “More than I really wanted to, if you know what I mean.”

Here’s what happened: when Dennis entered The Snake Pit, he sat at the bar, just as Tim and I had done last summer. He ordered a beer from Gerry (“I really wanted a Lemon Drop martini, but I thought that might seem too gay”), who asked, “You new around here?”

“Just passing through.” Dennis glanced from side to side as if he were afraid of being overheard. “I’m kind of lonely right now,” he stage-whispered.

After a bit of back and forth, Gerry finally cracked. “There’s a college here in town, and some of the girls, they’re pretty friendly. I can make an introduction if you want.”

“What kind of girls?” Dennis asked, with a look he described as “B movie heterosexual lust.”

“Pretty ones. Clean ones. Tall, short—whatever you want.”

Dennis pretended to consider. “Any thin ones? I don’t like fat girls. The skinnier, the better.”

Gerry’s face lit up, and he disappeared to make a call. When he returned, he handed Dennis a slip of paper. “Monique will be waiting for you at this address. Apartment’s across from the gas station.”

(“Monique!” I broke in at this point in the narration. “Couldn’t they come up with something a little more original?” Really: you’ve got to wonder what they call the whores in Paris. Debbie and LeeAnn?)

At any rate, Dennis walked to the apartment. “I almost called you, but I thought that might ruin my cover. Anyway, it wasn’t too far. A mile, maybe. It was freezing, though.”

When he rang the doorbell to the second-floor apartment, a high nervous voice called out, “Who is it?”

“A friend,” Dennis answered. Then, remembering the name he’d given Gerry, he said, “John.” (“Fitting,” I said.) He pushed the record button on the tape recorder in his overcoat pocket.

She opened the door wearing a short black negligee. “She looked so cold,” Dennis said. “No clothes, no fat—” He shuddered. Her pale blond hair hung limply along her heavily made-up face. Her upturned nostrils flared with fear.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said, moving aside to let Dennis in. She closed the door behind her.

Dennis took a few steps into the room and smiled shyly, unsure of what to do or say.

“Did Gerry tell you about the scholarship fund?” she squeaked.

“The—what? Oh, right. But I didn’t get the, um, the prices.”

“They aren’t prices,” Amber said, digging her painted toes into the brown carpet. “They’re donations.”

“Right,” Dennis said. “And what are the, um, donor levels, exactly?”

“Okay.” She cleared her throat. “Fifty dollars makes you a friend. For that, I will be friendly to you.”

“How friendly?”

“Quite friendly.”

“And would I be, uh, friendly to you?”

“No,” she said. “It would be a one-way friendship.”

Dennis stuck his hand in his pocket and inched the tape recorder up. “Just so we’re clear,” he enunciated. “Fifty bucks for a blow job?”

Amber was silent for a moment. Then she continued in a shaky voice, “A hundred dollars would make you an entry-level donor.”

There was a pause, then Dennis giggled nervously. “That’s actually kind of funny.”

Amber was silent. It was not funny to her. “Which do you want?” she asked.

“Is that front-entry or rear-entry?”

“Front only. A hundred dollars.”

“Is that . . . all?” Dennis asked. “Are there any other options?”

“From other girls, yes. Not from me. I’m still too . . . new.”

“What are the other options?” Dennis asked.

“Look,” she said. “If you want someone else, I’ll call Gerry. There are girls who will do—they’ll do anything. Anything. I’ll call Gerry.”

“No!” Dennis said. “I just want you. Look.” He opened his wallet and pulled out five twenties. “This is for you.”

She took the money and nodded. “You want to take off your coat?”

“No, thanks,” he said. She looked puzzled. “I mean, not yet.”

She nodded. “I’ll be right back. Make yourself at home. I mean, comfortable.” She disappeared into the bathroom. When she returned, she was naked, her collarbone and ribs jutting out like a starved child’s. Which is what she was, really. She began to walk toward Dennis.

“No!” he gasped, retreating. “Please! Put something back on—your nightgown or maybe a robe.”

She collapsed on the bed and buried her head in her hands. “It’s because I’m too fat, isn’t it?”

“No! It’s nothing like that,” Dennis said, pulling down the bedspread and wrapping it around her bony shoulders. “You’re beautiful—really, you are.”

She looked up at him, her splotchy face soaked with tears. Snot dripped from her upturned nostrils. Her red lipstick smeared from the left side of her mouth down to her chin. “Do you really think so?”

Dennis crouched down next to her and gazed into her face. “I have a confession to make. I didn’t really come here for sex.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Oh my God. Are you a cop? Because my parents would kill me if they ever found out.”

“No,” Dennis assured her, shaking his head. “I’m a writer. I’m, I’m writing this screenplay. About a hook—about a prostitute. Young, beautiful, really a good person.”

“Sort of like
Pretty Woman
,” Amber whispered.

“Exactly!” Dennis said. “Only a little more introspective. Kind of like
Pretty Woman
meets
My Dinner with Andre
.”

“I didn’t see that one,” Amber said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Dennis said. “All that matters is that you seem like my heroine. Crystal. You’re vulnerable like her. And maybe a little lost.”

She looked up with wide eyes and nodded.

“I was thinking,” Dennis said. “Maybe I could pay you for your time. Kind of a consulting fee.”

She agreed.

Dennis asked if she minded being taped; she said no. (As it turned out, she hadn’t been taped without permission, anyway; Dennis’s overcoat pocket was too thick to let any sound through.)

When he finally turned off the tape I was crying silently, like I do during sad movies.

“Police station?” Dennis asked.

I nodded and turned my key in the ignition.

forty

Marcy had her baby induced on a Sunday, the only day she could guarantee that Dan could get away from work. It was another boy, Thaddeus. “Have you heard of any other kids named Thaddeus?” Marcy asked. I hadn’t, and I complimented her on her originality. In truth, I was just so relieved that she hadn’t given Jacob and Joshua a brother named Jonah or Justin or Jared.

“The name better not catch on,” she said, nuzzling his velvety head. “If it catches on, just remember I was first.”

Dennis came with me to the hospital, but he got antsy. He associated hospitals with death. Also, while he was awed, he said, by the prospect of new life, he had a little trouble getting beyond the blood and the breast-feeding. When Marcy opened her cornflower blue hospital gown midsentence (the sentence being, “The episiotomy was only a half an inch long this time, but I’m still going to need a week of sitz baths”), he turned white, then red, then blurted out something about needing a Diet Pepsi and fled from the room.

Marcy moved Thaddeus’s open mouth to her breast. He rooted briefly before latching on. When Jacob was a newborn, Tim used to rant about Marcy’s insistence on breast-feeding in public. “Can’t she go into a bathroom to do it? Do we really have to watch?”

“The baby is
eating
, Tim,” I shot back. “When the baby poops, she’ll go into the bathroom to change him, but there’s no reason he can’t eat in the living room.”

“She doesn’t always go into the bathroom when he poops,” he grumbled. And yes, in the midst of an intimate dinner party (I’d served chicken parmesan with a smooth chianti classico), Jacob, aged two months or so, emitted a shockingly loud intestinal grumble, after which his mother placed him on the kitchen counter, a few feet from the table, and exposed his seedy mustard poop for all to see. When she was finished, she tossed the diaper into the kitchen trash. She never repeated the performance, however, so I suspect Dan had a word with her.

Something sparkled on Marcy’s wrist. I touched the bracelet. “Sapphires?”

“Not bad, huh?” She held out her arm, and the dark blue stones glowed in their platinum setting. When Jacob was born, Dan had given her a strand of pearls. For Joshua she received diamond earrings. This baby thing was good business.

“It’s gorgeous,” I said, fingering the stones.

“You can borrow it when you get married,” she said. “You know, something borrowed, something blue. It’s a twofer.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said. “Now all I need is a guy who looks good in a tux.”

“Details.” She took her arm back and switched the baby to her other breast. “I wish my milk would come in. This kid’s hungry.”

“I got some new jewelry, too,” I said, pulling up my shirt to expose my midriff.

“Oh. My. God.” Marcy gawked at my gold navel ring. “You really are eighteen.”

I let my shirt drop back down and shrugged. “Youth fades. Immaturity lasts forever. You hate it?”

She thought for a moment, then shook her head. “It’s kind of cool. Plus, I admire your daring. Let me see it again.” I pulled my shirt back up. The ring was a small gold hoop: entirely tasteful except for the fact that it was stuck in my navel.

“Didn’t it hurt?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “But probably not as much as childbirth.”

“Probably not.” She detached Thaddeus and rearranged her gown. “Just promise me you won’t pierce your tongue. If you pierce your tongue, I won’t be able to eat with you anymore.”

“It’s a deal.”

I held out my arms for Thaddeus. I’d spent enough time with Marcy’s babies to be a master burper. I buried my nose in the baby’s velvet head and breathed deeply. I nudged my shoulder into his belly and began the gentle patting of his back.