“You’re funny,” she said.
“Am I?”
“Look at you.” She giggled. “You’re so stiff.”
“I’m not sure we should be doing this,” he said.
“We’re not doing anything,” she countered. “But you want to, don’t you?”
“I’m married,” he whispered.
“Your wife never has to know.” She trailed her hand down his chest and touched his penis. “You’re hard,” she said.
She started kissing him on the mouth, thrusting her fat tongue between his teeth. James was too startled to resist. This was so different from Mindy’s kisses, which were dry little pecks. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d kissed someone like this, marveling that people still did this — that he could still do this — this making-out thing. And Lola’s skin was so soft, like a baby’s, he thought, touching her arms. Her neck was smooth and unwrinkled. He tentatively touched her breasts through the fabric of her shirt, feeling her nipples erect. He rolled on top of her, pushing himself up on his arms to stare down at her face. Should he go further? He hadn’t made love in so long, he wondered if he would remember the moves.
“I want you inside me,” she said, touching the mound of his penis. “I want your fat cock in my wet pussy.”
The mere suggestion of this sex act was too much, and as he was trying to unzip his jeans, the inevitable happened. He came. “Damn,”
he said.
“What’s wrong?” She sat up.
“I just ... you know.” He slid his hand into his jeans and felt the tell-tale wetness. “Fuck!”
She got onto her knees behind him and rubbed his shoulders. “It doesn’t matter. It’s only the first time.”
He took her hand and brought it to his lips. “You are so sweet,” he said.
“You’re the sweetest girl I’ve ever known.”
“Am I?” she said, jumping off the bed. She pulled on a pair of cashmere sweatpants. “James?” she asked in a syrupy voice. “Since you’re leaving and I won’t see you for a month ...”
“Do you need some money?” he said. He reached into his pants pocket. “I’ve only got sixty dollars.”
“There’s an ATM in the deli around the corner. Do you mind? I owe the landlady two hundred dollars. For utilities. And you don’t want me to starve while you’re away.”
“I certainly don’t,” James said. “But you should try to get a job.”
“I will,” she reassured him. “But it’s hard.”
“I can’t support you forever,” he said, thinking about his aborted attempt at sex.
“I’m not asking you to,” she said. On the sidewalk, she took his hand.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
He extracted five hundred dollars from the ATM and handed it to her.
“I’ll miss you,” she said, flinging her arms around him. “Call me the minute you get back. We’ll get together. And next time it will work,” she called over her shoulder.
James stared after her, then set off down Ninth Avenue. Had he just been taken for a ride? No, he assured himself. Lola wasn’t like that. And she’d said she wanted to do it again. He strolled down Fifth Avenue full of confidence. By the time he reached One Fifth, he’d convinced himself it was a good thing he’d ejaculated prematurely. No fluids were exchanged, so it couldn’t really be called cheating.
20
Early that evening, on her way to Thayer Core’s place, Lola paused across the street from One Fifth and stared at the entrance. She often did this, hoping to run into Philip or Schiffer. The week before, they’d announced their engagement, and the news was all over the tabloids and on the entertainment programs, as if the union of two middle-aged people was not only a big deal but an inspiration for all lonely, still-single middle-aged women everywhere. Schiffer had gone on Oprah to promote Lady Superior, but really, Lola thought, to boast about her upcoming nuptials. Their marriage was part of a hot new trend, Oprah said, in which women and men were finding first loves from the past and realizing they were meant for each other all along. “But this time around, one is older and wiser — I hope!” Schiffer remarked, which drew knowing laughter from the audience. They had yet to set a date or a place but wanted to do something small and nontraditional. Schiffer had already picked out a dress — a short white sheath covered in silver bugle beads — which Oprah held up for the cameras. While the audience oohed and ahhed, Lola felt sick. It should have been her wedding Oprah was blathering on about, not Schiffer’s. And she would have chosen a better dress — something traditional, with lace and a train. Lola couldn’t stop thinking about the wedding; filled with envy and anger, she possessed a pernicious fantasy of confronting either Philip or Schiffer.
Hence her occasional stakeouts of One Fifth. And yet she didn’t dare linger too long — she might encounter Philip or Schiffer but might as easily run into Enid.
Three days after Billy Litchfield’s memorial service, Enid called her, and Lola, not recognizing the number, took the call. “I hear you’re back in New York, dear,” Enid said.
“That’s right,” Lola said.
“I wish you hadn’t come back,” Enid said with a disappointed sigh.
“How do you plan to survive?”
“Frankly, Enid, it’s none of your business,” Lola said, and hung up. But now she was on Enid’s radar, and she had to be careful. She wasn’t sure what Enid might do.
That evening, however, standing across from the building, she saw only Mindy Gooch going in, pulling a little cart filled with groceries behind her.
“I need a job,” Lola said to Thayer a few minutes later, plopping onto the pile of dirty clothes that Josh called his bed.
“Why?” Thayer asked.
“Don’t be an idiot. I need money,” Lola said.
“You and everyone else in New York under the age of thirty. The baby boomers took all the money. There ain’t any left for us young’uns.”
“Don’t joke,” Lola said. “I’m serious. James Gooch has gone away again. And I only got five hundred dollars out of him. He’s so cheap. His book has been on the best-seller list for two months. And he gets five thousand dollars for every week he’s on the list. As a bonus.” She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “I told him he should give me the money.”
“What’d he say?” Thayer asked. “You’ve had sex with him, right? So he owes you. Because there’s really no reason for you to have sex with him other than money.”
“I’m not a whore,” Lola grumbled.
Thayer laughed. “Speaking of which, I might have a job for you.
Someone e-mailed us a request today. They’re looking for writers. Female writers. For a new website. It pays a thousand dollars a post. That made me suspicious. But you might check it out.”
Lola took down the information. Doing nothing in New York City was much more expensive than she’d imagined. If she spent too much time in her tiny studio apartment, she began to go crazy. By the time nine P.M. rolled around, she had to get out and took sanctuary at one or two of several nightclubs in the Meatpacking District. The doormen knew her and usually let her in for free — pretty, unattached young women were considered an asset. And she rarely paid for a drink. But she still had to eat, and she had to buy clothes so she would look good to get the free drinks.
It was a vicious cycle. To maintain even this lifestyle, she needed cash.
The next day, Lola went to the address on the e-mail. The building wasn’t far from her own: It was one of the grand new structures that had popped up around the High Line, overlooking the Hudson River.
She was going to Apartment 16C, and rather than calling up, as they would have done at One Fifth, the doorman merely asked her to sign in on a time sheet, as if she were going to an office. Knocking on the door, she was greeted by a youngish man with an alarming tattoo around his neck; upon closer inspection, she saw that not just his neck was tattooed but his entire right arm. He was also wearing a ring in his left n
ostril. “You must be Lola,” he said. “I’m Marquee.” He didn’t bother to shake her hand.
“Marquee?” she asked, following him into a sparsely furnished living room with an unobstructed view of the West Side Highway, the brown waters of the Hudson, and the New Jersey skyline. “Your name is Marquee?” she asked again.
“That’s right,” Marquee said coolly. “You got a problem with it? You’re not one of those people who has a problem with names, are you?”
“No,” Lola said with a scoff, letting Marquee know right away that he wasn’t going to intimidate her. “I’ve just never heard of anyone with that particular name.”
“That’s because I made it up,” Marquee said. “There’s only one Marquee, and I want people to remember it. So, what’s your experience?” he asked.
Lola looked around the living room. The furnishings consisted of two small couches, which at first glance appeared to be covered in white fabric.
On closer inspection, Lola saw they were covered in bare white muslin, as if they were wearing only their undergarments. “What’s yours?” she said.
“I’ve made some money. But you can see that,” he said, indicating the apartment. “You know how much a place like this costs?”
“I wouldn’t want to guess,” Lola replied.
“Two million. For a one-bedroom.”
“Wow,” Lola said, pretending to be impressed. She stood up and walked to the window. “So what’s this job?”
“Sex columnist,” Marquee said.
“That’s original.”
“It is,” Marquee said without irony. “See, the problem with most sex columns is — there’s no sex in them. It’s all that relationship bullshit. Nobody wants to read that. My idea is brand-new. No one’s ever done it before. A sex column that’s really about sex.”
“Isn’t that called porn?” Lola asked.
“If you’re going to call yourself a sex columnist, I say, show me the sex.”
“If you’re going to hire me to have sex, I suggest you show me the money,” Lola replied.
“You want cash?” Marquee said. “I’ve got cash, and plenty of it.” He pulled a wad of bills out of his pocket and waved it in front of her. “Here’s the deal. A thousand dollars a pop.”
“I’ll need half up front,” Lola said.
“Fine,” Marquee said, peeling off five one-hundred-dollar bills. “And I’m going to need details. Length and width. Distinguishing characteristics. What went where and when.”
That evening, instead of going to a club, Lola stayed home and wrote about sex with Philip. She found it surprisingly easy, cathartic, even, working herself up into a froth about the cruelty he’d exhibited in dumping her for Schiffer Diamond. “He had a fat penis with swinging balls in a sack of prickly skin. And he had wrinkles on the back of his neck. And little hairs beginning to sprout from his earlobes. At first I thought those little hairs were cute.” Finishing the entry and reading it over, she found herself longing to do it again and decided Philip deserved more than one measly post. By changing his name and profession, she ought to be able to get at least three more entries out of him. And then thinking about the best way to spend the money, she paged through one of the tabloid magazines and found a bandage-wrap Hervé Léger dress that would look amazing on her.
A few days later, Enid Merle was cleaning out her kitchen cabinets. She did it every year, not wanting to become one of those old women who accumulated dust and junk. Enid had just taken down a metal box filled with old silver when her buzzer rang. She opened the door to find Mindy Gooch standing in the hallway in a huff. “Have you seen it?” Mindy asked.
“What?” Enid asked, slightly annoyed. Now that she and Mindy were friendly again, Mindy wouldn’t leave her alone.
“Snarker. You’re not going to like it,” Mindy said. She strode through Enid’s living room to her computer and brought up the website. “I’ve been complaining about these posts by this Thayer Core for months,” she scolded, as if the posts were somehow Enid’s fault. “And no one took them seriously. Perhaps someone will, now that there’s one about Philip.”
Enid adjusted her glasses and peered over Mindy’s shoulder. “The Rich and the Restless” was written in small red block letters, and underneath, in large black type, “Hell Hath No Fury” next to a photograph of Lola taken outside the church at Billy’s memorial service. Enid pushed Mindy aside and began reading.
“Lovely Lola Fabrikant, spurned lover of seedy screenwriter Philip Oakland, gets even with him this week by penning her own brilliant version of sex with a man who bears a satisfying resemblance to the aging bachelor.” The words “brilliant version” were highlighted in red, and clicking on them, Enid was taken to another website called The Peephole, featuring yet another photograph of Lola, followed by a graphic description of a young woman having intercourse with a middle-aged man.
The description of the man’s teeth, hands, and the little hairs on his earlobes was unmistakably of Philip, although Enid couldn’t bear to read the details about his penis.
“Well?” Mindy demanded. “Aren’t you going to do something?”
Enid looked up at Mindy wearily. “I told you to hire him — this Thayer Core — months ago. If you had, this would have ended.”
“Why should I be the one to hire him? Why can’t you?”
“Because if he works for me, he’ll only continue to do the same thing.
He’ll go to parties and make things up and write unpleasant things about people. If you hire him, he’ll be working for a corporation. He’ll be stuck in an office building, taking the subway like every other working stiff, and eating a sandwich at his desk. It’ll give him a new perspective on life.”
“What about Lola Fabrikant?”
“Don’t worry about her, my dear.” Enid smiled. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll give her exactly what she wants — publicity.”
Two days later, the “true” story of Lola Fabrikant appeared in Enid Merle’s syndicated column. It was all there: how Lola had tried to fake a pregnancy to get a man, how she was obsessed with clothes and status, how she never gave a thought to being responsible for her own actions, or even what she might do for anyone else — making her the ultimate example of all that was wrong and misguided about young women today. Portrayed in Enid’s best schoolmarmish tone, Lola came off as the poster child for bad values.
On the afternoon the piece came out, Lola sat on the bed in her tiny apartment, reading all about herself on the Internet. The newspaper lay beside her computer, folded open to Enid’s column. The first time Lola read it, she burst into tears. How could Enid be so cruel? But the column wasn’t the end of it, having ignited a firestorm of negative comments about Lola on the Internet. She was being called a slut and a whore, and her physical features had been dissected and found somewhat lacking — several people had hypothesized, correctly, that she’d had a nose job and breast implants — and hundreds of men had left messages on her Facebook page, describing what they’d like to do to her sexually.
Their suggestions weren’t pleasant. One man wrote that he would
“shove his balls down her throat until she choked and her eyes bulged out of her head.” Until that morning, Lola had always enjoyed the Internet’s unfettered viciousness, assuming that the people who were written about somehow deserved it, but now that the negativity was directed at her, it was a different story. It hurt. She felt like a wounded animal, trailing blood. After reading another post about herself in which someone wrote that the Lola Fabrikants of the world deserved to die alone in a flophouse, Lola once again burst into tears.
It wasn’t fair, she thought, holding herself while she rocked on the thin mattress. She had naturally assumed that when she did become famous, everyone would love her. Desperate, she texted Thayer Core again. “Where are you????????!!!!!!!!” She waited a few minutes, and when there was again no response, she sent another text. “I can’t leave my house. I’m hungry. I need food,” she wrote. She sent the
text, followed immediately by another: “And bring alcohol.” Finally, an hour later, Thayer responded with one word: “Busy.”
Thayer eventually turned up, bearing a bag of cheese doodles. “This is all your fault,” Lola screamed.
“Mine?” he asked, surprised. “I thought this was what you always wanted.”
“I did. But not like this.”
“You shouldn’t have done it, then.” He shrugged. “You ever hear of
‘free will’?”
“You have to fix this,” Lola said.
“Can’t,” he said. He opened the bag of cheese doodles and stuffed four into his mouth. “Got a job today. Working for Mindy Gooch.”
“What?” Lola exclaimed in shock. “I thought you hated her.”
“I do. But I don’t have to hate her money. I’m getting paid a hundred thousand dollars a year. Working in the new-media department. In six months, I’ll probably be running it. Those people don’t know squat.”
“And what am I supposed to do?” Lola demanded.
Thayer looked at her, unmoved. “How should I know?” he said. “But if you can’t make something out of all this publicity I got you, you’re a bigger loser than I thought.”
June arrived, and with it, unseasonably warm weather. The temperature had been over eighty degrees for three days; already the Gooches’ apartment was too warm, and James was forced to turn on the sputtering air conditioner. Sitting beneath it one morning, perched over his computer and thinking about starting another book, he listened to the sounds of his wife and son packing in Sam’s bedroom next door. He checked the time. Sam’s bus left in forty minutes. Mindy and Sam would be leaving any minute — as soon as they did, he would read Lola’s sex column.
When he’d returned from the final leg of his book tour, exhausted and jet-lagged, he’d claimed he was too tired to even think about writing but had managed to get over to Lola’s apartment six times in ten days and, on each visit, had made fantastic love to her. One afternoon, she had stood above him while he spread open her labia and licked her firm little clit; on another occasion, she’d fucked him while he lay on his back, positioning her bottom in front of his face, and he had slid his middle finger in and out of her puckered asshole. In the evenings after these encounters, Mindy would come home and remark that he appeared to be in a good mood. He would reply that yes, he was, and after all his hard labor, didn’t he have a right to be? Then Mindy would bring up the country house. They couldn’t, she conceded, afford a house in the Hamptons, but they could find something in Litchfield County, which was just as beautiful, and maybe even better than the Hamptons because it was still filled with artists and not yet overrun with finance types. In her usual pushy way, Mindy had convinced him to drive up to Litchfield County for the weekend; they’d stayed at the Mayflower Inn to the tune of two thousand dollars for two nights while they looked at houses during the day. Mindy was, James knew, trying to be reasonable, limiting their choices to houses under one point three million dollars. James found something wrong with every one, but in an act of defiance, perhaps, Mindy had signed Sam up for a month of tennis camp in the tony little town of Washington, Connecticut, where Sam would be residing in the dorm of a private school.
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