Faking It (2 page)

While Carol moved on to the next conversation, I searched for and found Maggie with a small group of post modernists from Long IslandCollege and pulled her aside when the lull in the chat appeared.

I leaned in and whispered, "He's an
escort
, Mags! Can you
believe
that?"

"You're kidding!"

"Nope, Carol just told me. Do you think maybe she's putting me on?"

"I don't know. How do we find out?"

"Well, according to Carol, apparently he gets around the lecture circuit more than we do."

"He's been watching you, you know," Maggie said.

I looked at her, agog. "Are you kidding me?"

"I saw him take notice of you before, and then a few minutes ago when you crossed the room to talk to me. He actually looked up from whoever--
whom
ever--no,
who
ever--"

"
What
ever..."

"--he was talking to."

"Why?"

"What do you mean, why?"

I didn't answer her. Instead, I went to the bar to get another ginger ale, when I heard a sonorous, baritone voice behind me.

"Enjoying the party?"

I whipped around, and there was Versace, flashing another smile. I practically had to crane my neck to look him in the eye, he was so tall. God, his eyes were incredible. Not brown. Sienna.

"Yeah, it's been a long time since I've been to one of these," I said.

"Are you driving tonight?"

I looked at him, perplexed. "I'm sorry?"

"You've been nursing that ginger ale all night. I was wondering if you were a designated driver."

"No, I took the train in from the Island, but I'm staying with a colleague in Brooklyn tonight."

Why did I call her a colleague and not a friend? Did I want to sound more like a professional and less like a schoolgirl at a dance?

"I'm Devin," he said, extending his hand.

What the hell kind of name is
Devin
?

"Andrea," I replied. His shake was sturdy, without squeezing. I quickly scanned his hand: he manicures his nails.

"What university do you teach at?"

"I just came to Brooklyn U about six months ago."

"And you live on the Island?"

"Yeah, just moved back after ten years in New England."

"Wow," he said. "I'd like to see the foliage up there in the fall."

"Yeah," I replied, indulging his small talk, "It's really beautiful."

Geez, how long does it take to get a ginger ale?

"So," I said, "I saw you with Allison? She's the rep who invited us here. My colleague and I are putting together a deal to write a textbook for her company--"

"Just a friend," he interrupted. As the words came out of his mouth, Allison approached, a younger carbon copy of Carol minus the silk scarves, looking at the both of us with daggers. Just a friend, my ass...

"Well, I didn't ask. But now that you mention it, I think your friend wants your attention."

He looked at her and signaled that he was getting her a drink. Then he winked at her. What a player, I thought. Gorgeous, yes. But way too into himself.

Allison then practically stood between us. "Honey, I'd like to get going soon, okay?"

"Sure, Ali," he said before he kissed her on the cheek and put his arm around her. I couldn't be sure from the angle I was standing, but I thought I saw her give his rear left cheek a squeeze, like Charmin.

"It was nice to meet you, Andrea. Welcome back to New York." He shook my hand again.

In the six months since I'd been home, no one--not even my mother--had welcomed me back.

"You too," I replied as he and Allison walked away arm-in-arm. I saw Maggie grinning at me.

"What did he say to you?" she asked when I walked back to her.

"He's a jerk," I replied. "He just wanted to pick me up."

"How do you know?"

I didn't know. I'd just assumed.

"He insisted that he and Allison were 'just friends.' Give me a break. He's a charmer."

"Well, he must be good at it."

"Yeah, well, everyone needs a skill."

"I did some research and apparently he does really get around. And you're right--he
is
an escort. 'Bout a year ago, one of the reps bragged about him to a professor, and the next thing you know, he's the hot commodity. Even Jayce knew of him. She never, you know,
used
him, or anything like that. But she's seen him with the others. I just wanna know how
we
stayed out of the loop for so long," she said, pointing between the two of us.

"What does he do? I mean, does he just go on dates? Or does he do more?"

"Judging by the look of these women's faces, I'd say he does
everything
."

For sure, this guy would never get past my front door.

Maggie lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, about six blocks away from the university, and I often crashed at her place whenever we attended an event in the city. Later that evening, as I snuggled under the faded, folk-style quilt on her couch, I thought about Devin and his smile. Those sparks that flickered in the specks of his pupils. That Versace suit and finely-woven mock-neck. I thought about our brief conversation, replayed it in my mind. Wondered what I could've or should've said to him. Coulda-woulda-shoulda. Moments later, as I drifted off to sleep, Devin visited me in a dream. And he disappeared almost as quickly as he did earlier at the bar.

Chapter Three

April

S
PRING BREAK CAME AND WENT, AND I DID NOTHING more exciting than a day trip to East Hampton for window shopping with Maggie (we couldn't really afford to do much else), while Jayce went on a Bahaman cruise. I'd pretty much stayed away from the city and shacked up in my apartment, cleaning and de-cluttering it. I could cover the walls of an East End mansion just out of the paper I'd accumulated that seemingly reproduced like bunnies. At one point, while on my knees scrubbing a stain out of the livingroom carpet, I felt the urge to sing,
Some day my prince will come...
God, how pathetic.

Spring weather came early this year, and I started taking my classes outside to the courtyard, a landscaped blanket of grass and benches and little trees with a fountain at its nucleus, all encircled by concrete walkways leading to every building that took up about a five-block radius of the city (Brooklyn, I mean. We New Yorkers call every inch of land covered in the five boroughs "the city"; we call Long Island "New York"; and everything else is "Upstate"). Surprisingly, the students remained attentive and even productive. Some wrote furiously, freewriting about places they'd like to visit, places they'd never seen, and places they never wanted to see again. And I joined them, getting lost in my own prose, remembering long walks on RockyBeach with Andrew. I was missing him lately, re-tracing his hazel eyes that slit in sunlight, his blondish brown, wavy hair that fell past his shoulders, and his soft hands. He had the softest hands of any man I'd ever known. How I loved holding those hands. How I loved when those hands strummed his twelve-string guitar and serenaded me with James Taylor and Cat Stevens and Paul Simon, even though I didn't particularly care for James Taylor or Cat Stevens or Paul Simon. How I loved when those hands glided down my cheek and across my bare back and along my thigh...

"Professor Cutrone?"

I looked up. Steven, a student from Maine and still wearing a wool cap from winter that fell past his ears, interrupted my fantasy, as well as my freewrite.

"Yes?"

He lowered his raised hand. "Are we going to read these aloud?"

I paused and looked down at the ode to Andrew I was scribbling and felt a quick hot flash.

"Nope."

***

Allison, the Westford-Langley rep, had just come out of Maggie's office, juggling textbooks, when I nearly bumped into her in the hallway, both of us gasping a "Whoops!" followed by apologies.

"Walk with me, Andi. I've got a new edition to show you." She held out the updated edition of a writing-across-the-curriculum book and explained its added features while I flipped through the text and half-listened to her, imagining her with Devin, wondering what they did together after the cocktail party and how far they had gotten. When an image of the two of them naked in a shower stall permeated the picture, I spoke up and handed the book back to her.

"So tell me about that guy Devin you were with at the seminar a couple of months ago. I was just wondering if the rumors are true."

She shot me a glance, and I was afraid that I'd struck a nerve, forgetting how jealous she'd looked when she saw us talking at the bar in the National Arts Club that night.

"What have you heard?" she asked.

"I heard he's an escort."

"Yes, and a damn good one, too. You want his number?"

I turned sharply to look at her. "You don't mind?"

"Of course not. He's not my fiance or anything like that."

"You seemed a little miffed when you saw us talking that night."

"I did? Well, that's just because I pay him plenty to talk to
me
. I can't help but get possessive when he's mine for the night."

"Where'd you meet him?" I asked.

"Delia gave me his card."

"Delia Howard? The dean?"

"Yeah, that was nice of her, wasn't it? She met him through the rep from Ashton Press and then went out with him the following week to a Broadway premiere and the rest is history."

"Are all his clients in academia?"

"Well, word's gotten around to a lot of us. But he's got 'em all over the city in all kinds of jobs, mostly high end. You know, corporate women, lawyers... We have a great time together, and he's a-
ma
-zing, if you know what I mean," she said the second part in a hushed voice. I didn't know how to respond to that, so I simply said, "I'll bet."

I braced myself for my next question: "Um, what does he do?"

"You want a list?" she laughed.

"How much does he charge?"

She leaned in close and whispered the amount in my ear. My mouth dropped open.

"Did I hear you right?"

"If you have to ask, you did." I looked at Allison in disbelief--not because of the amount she had just quoted but because I had no idea textbook reps made that much money. The dean, yes. And what about my colleagues? Were they partners in some stock deal?

"How often do you use him--I mean, see him?" I asked

"Not enough. Face it: he is pricey. He's also really busy, getting busier all the time. Sometimes he works straight through the week. I had to make my date with him for the seminar a month in advance."

"Not even off on Sundays for a day of rest?"

"Andi, this guy is
good
."

"He seemed kinda arrogant when I met him."

"He is definitely a charmer. But give him a chance. He's actually quite intelligent and holds a good conversation. Here..." She stopped in her tracks, reached into her over-the-shoulder briefcase, pulled out a pouch bursting with business cards, sifted through the deck, and found the one she was looking for. She handed it to me. STRAWBERRIES AND CHAMPAGNE blazed in fire-engine-red letters, with a phone number in Century Gothic type underneath. "It's a message service. Leave your name and number and someone will call you back--usually Devin's partner. There are five guys total. Be sure to specify that you want Devin."

"He owns the business?"

"Yeah. Self-starter."

I stared at the card some more. She said, "Trust me. It's like finding a good therapist."

"Or a good mechanic," I added.

"You'll never want to go back to conventional dating, for one thing. Who needs the aggravation? He's safe, he's respectful, and he's sexy. What more could you want? And you don't have to nag him to take out the garbage or mow the lawn or any of that crap."

I never had to do that; then again, with the exception of Andrew, I was never with a man long enough to get to that stage. Besides, Andrew lived in a condo, and we broke up just as we decided to move in together and started house-hunting...
What am I thinking?

"Don't you need this?" I asked, holding the card out to her.

She shook her head. "Keep it. I've got him on speed-dial on my cell."

Later that evening, in my apartment, I tacked Devin's card on my bulletin board above my computer and stared at it.
There is no way you are going to call this guy.
You can't afford him. And besides, you don't
do
stuff like that
. I then resumed my rapid typing, but the hot red letters burned right through the screen. I did my best to avert my eyes and focus on the monitor; but I didn't get much work done.

***

Dating in New York is more like an anthropological study of mating rituals of a certain cultural species. There's no excuse for sitting home any night of the week other than being in traction. I'd been to more cocktail parties in the first three months since I'd returned than in the ten years I lived in Massachusetts. Granted, I was no longer a poor graduate student, or worse, an adjunct treated like a second-class citizen, so I could afford nights out. But still. Despite the fact that I had lived thirty minutes from Providence and an hour from Boston, a night out in New England consisted of a movie at the Fairhaven Bijou with Andrew or dinner at the Bayside restaurant in Westport, followed by walks on the beach. Come winter, everyone holed up in their propane-heated nests and hosted their own dinner parties so they wouldn't have to go out in the cold to someone else's.

New York City, however, was the quintessential cornucopia of places to go and people to meet, a vortex. Relationships progressed from ten minutes at a bar to a quickie in a cab to a week in the Hamptons to the bridal registry at Bergdorf's, or Macy's if you had to slum it. In Massachusetts, school, friends, and online match sites were the way to meet people. In New York, all you had to do was ride the train, for starters.

But I was never that kind of casual dater; I never trusted anyone. I avoided eye contact with everyone on the train, and whenever someone wanted to set me up with a friend or colleague, I insisted on enforcing the Patriot Act and getting hold of his library reading list, Netflix orders, dental records, prior convictions, you name it. Most of my exes had started as friends I'd either met through coworkers or classmates. Andrew was part of the SCCC faculty, an adjunct like me, and we'd met at an orientation meeting a week before my second semester began. I'd watched him from the other side of the classroom, sitting quietly but listening intently to one of the tenure-track professors drone on about academic integrity of the faculty, and I wondered,
What's his story?
One week later, as I whisked into the English department's main office to check my mail, he was standing at the mailboxes, saw me, and smiled as his eyes brightened.