Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl

by Tracy Quan

  Last night, I gathered my winter sweaters into a pile and started folding them. Every summer, I fold and cram as many sweaters as I can into a box and store them in my closet, under the blankets and boots. I felt a twinge of nostalgia for my solitary rites of spring, as I realized that next spring I’ll be sorting my sweaters in a shiny and new two-bedroom. Shouldn’t I be thrilled? The hall closet here has never been large enough for my needs, or those of my sweaters. I’m losing my sexual freedom but gaining a ton of closet space. Isn’t that the very definition of maturity?

  LATE EVENING

  This afternoon, I ran into Allison at the gym. I was on my way in and she was on her way out. Well, actually, she was standing in the locker room, half naked, in front of a mirror, holding a pair of tweezers over her right brow when I entered. She was taking her time, and it was obvious that she was preparing for some sort of well-manicured exit. A small towel was wrapped around her waist, leaving her breasts completely exposed, and her soft pink nipples added to the girlish effect. When I sat on a bench near the mirror, she almost jumped.

  “I didn’t see you!” she gasped.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, looking her up and down. She had done her eye makeup—not her usual style for leaving the gym. “Appointment with Jack?”

  “No,” she said quietly. “Today, I’m a NYCOT observer.”

  “What is a NYCOT observer?”

  Allie pulled out a cylinder of dark pink lip gloss.

  “Sometimes we go to the strolls and we watch the vice squad from our van. Today is unusual, though. I’m going to meet Charmaine in Carl Schurz Park. Remember Charmaine? From the meeting?”

  Charmaine! Didn’t I overhear her that night? Saying something about “meeting him”—whoever that is—“at Carl Schurz Park”? What is Allie getting mixed up with? And why does she look so pleased if she’s about to meet the dread “him”?

  “Why are you going to the park?” I asked as she applied a coat of pink to her mouth.

  Lip gloss to go to the park? Subtle eye colors are one thing, but lip gloss? Nobody on the Upper East Side gets tarted up to go to Carl Schurz Park. Or any park, now that I think of it. Then, watching Allie press her lips together, I added, “Does this have anything to do with the novelist who donated those shoes?”

  “How did you know?” She smiled with undisguised pleasure. “He’s meeting us, too!”

  “Just a girlfriend’s intuition.” And a darker shade of pink than is absolutely necessary for hanging out in a park at midday. “Allie, are you—What are you observing?”

  “I can’t tell you that,” she said quickly. “I agreed to protect Charmaine’s confidentiality.”

  The weird things I overheard that night at the meeting were echoing in my head: It’s humiliating! But I trust you!

  “What is this man’s relationship to Charmaine? Is that how you met her?”

  This was sounding sicker by the second.

  “Oh!” Allie looked surprised. “They’ve never met. He’s coming because I asked him to.” Aha. She calls and he comes. Maybe it’s not so sick after all. “Look, I shouldn’t really be telling you this,” she said.

  “You told this stranger? This weirdo with the shoes? Something that you can’t tell me?”

  “He’s a NYCOT volunteer! He is not a ‘weirdo,’ okay? And Charmaine felt—well, she felt sort of safer having a guy around. In case things get…” She paused. Then she looked overwhelmed. “I don’t know if I should tell you. She asked me not to tell the other members. She’s very intimidated by NYCOT. She doesn’t trust other working girls. She’s been mistreated and betrayed so many times!”

  “Well, I’m not a NYCOT member,” I reminded her. “I’m a bit of an ‘observer’ myself,” I added slyly. “And I’m in sympathy with her because NYCOT sometimes intimidates me!”

  Allie looked around cautiously to make sure we were alone. “Charmaine’s—she’s emotionally paralyzed. She e-mailed NYCOT from a Hotmail account after hearing me on the radio, and she asked for our help. I should really be grateful, I know.” Allie gave me a worried look. “After all, I went on the show because I wanted to reach the most isolated and alienated sex workers!”

  “Be careful what you wish for?”

  “Yes,” she sighed. “I’ve never heard of anything like this! First she says she wants a lawyer, then she changes her mind. I keep telling her: she’s just making it worse! She says her life isn’t her own anymore.”

  “What’s going on? Is she paying off the cops? Where does she work?”

  Allie threw her towel into the communal hamper. Sprinkling powder on her curves and crevices, she went on: “You’re not going to like this. She was working for one of those escort agencies—they advertise in Screw and they have an ad on Channel 35.”

  Those tawdry nymphomercials! With the bridge-and-tunnel girls posing in their eighties evening wear! And the pseudo-refined names they come up with for these operations! Je Reviens. Chanson de Nuit.

  “Oh, Jesus. Poor Charmaine. But,” I warned Allie, “be careful about getting too close to her.”

  “I knew you’d say that,” Allie sighed. “But I’m her friend—not her co-worker.”

  “If a girl isn’t in your league as a co-worker, you can’t afford to have her as a friend. Look, it’s one thing for you to make friends with someone like Gretchen. She’s had a hard life on the street and you’re doing something valuable together, helping the street girls. Gretchen has made something of herself, okay?” Allie was frowning at me unhappily. I pressed on. “But you can’t afford to get involved with a cable-TV escort. It’s too dangerous. Too close to home. She’ll resent you at some point.” Even as I said it, I hated being the bearer of this information.

  “Charmaine’s boss brought in a new partner who wanted to sleep with her,” Allie explained.

  “A woman or a man?”

  “The boyfriend of the owner. And when she complained to the owner, it was a disaster because, you know, the owner is a little older than Charmaine—actually, a lot older. And she’s not so attractive anymore. She didn’t want to believe Charmaine, she accused Charmaine of coming on to the guy and banned her from the agency.” Allison looked distraught. “So Charmaine had to quit, and she went out on her own. She was afraid to advertise in New York magazine, because the owner goes through the ads every week. Her boyfriend calls around, and they try to get all the new escorts and agencies in trouble with the cops. They keep tabs on everyone. So Charmaine went to the bar of the W Hotel. She had a scary experience with a guy who tried to tie her up.” Allie looked a bit exhausted, and I felt guilty about getting her to recount the story of Charmaine’s unhappy career. “Anyway, she designed her own little website and she started picking up clients online. She thought that would be safer.”

  “Uh-oh. And the agency goons—?”

  “No. Something worse.”

  “A cop?”

  Allison leaned forward to fasten her bra, and her long hair brushed against my face.

  “Much worse,” she said in a tense voice. “Somebody got into a long e-mail thing with her, back and forth, and he saved the evidence and figured out where she lives! And he called her at her home—even though she has an unlisted number. And he mailed her a printout of the e-mail to show that she had really solicited him!”

  A creeping sensation enveloped my whole body as she told me this.

  “He figured all this out? How?” I wondered.

  “I guess it’s not that hard to do.” The excitement I had seen earlier was fading from Allison’s eyes. “If you really know computers, I guess, you can find out anything about anyone! Just like the spam says! It’s awful!”

  “Now look, I know you’ve been hanging around with those girls at the NYCOT meetings and you want to be their spokesperson, but this is exactly the kind of thing I’ve been trying to warn you about! This is why you have to work privately. I hope this has cured you of any fantasies you might have about—”

  “I know,” she sa
id quietly. “Believe me. I don’t want to be out there like that. Ever! And I know how lucky we are now!”

  “So this is the guy she meets in Carl Schurz Park? This creepy blackmailer?”

  “Yes, but you won’t believe—The worst thing is—” Allie pulled on a pair of hip-hugging Capris, then sat down next to me, in her pants and bra. “You see, the thing is, Charmaine did something she should never have done!”

  “Well, that’s obvious. Is she having…” The idea was making me kind of nauseous. “Is she having unprotected sex with this sadistic creep?”

  “No. There’s no sex. That isn’t the problem.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He just wants money. At first she thought she could handle it by paying him off and then he would go away, a onetime thing. Now she worries about making enough to pay him, and she’s afraid this will start eating into her savings! She has a CD that’s coming due—and she took some money out of the bank last week!”

  “Jesus. This is scary.” Scary to think that a girl could be smart enough to have savings, yet foolish enough to pay off a blackmailer!

  “Well, it’s really scary because there’s—he’s—what she didn’t know when she solicited him—” Allie made a helpless gesture with her hands. “And I think she agreed to do a bunch of really explicit, dirty things to him in her e-mail because he asked her to—Oh, Nancy. I don’t know if I should tell you this part. She’s afraid of people finding out.”

  “Tell me what? Could it get any worse? And how do you know he’s not a cop?”

  “Well, I’ve seen him.”

  “And? How can you be so sure?”

  “Because he’s—”

  Allie paused.

  “What? In a wheelchair or something? That can be faked!”

  “He’s ten years old!”

  I was dumbfounded.

  “Hang on a sec. Are you—are you serious? How can a ten-year-old boy—how could that happen?”

  “Well, think about it! He goes online, he—” Allie made some more helpless hand motions. “And he’s ten!”

  I thought about it.

  “What does he look like?”

  “He looks like any other ten-year-old boy. I think he goes to Rudolf Steiner. And he doesn’t look as nerdy as you’d expect. You’d never know from looking at him that he’s a—” She groped for the words to describe this monster.

  “Juvenile extortionist,” I suggested.

  “Last week, I went to the park to make sure things didn’t get out of control. I wanted to see if there was anyone with him, that kind of thing. He didn’t see me, but I saw him. And I was—I was a little bit afraid that she might do something foolish if she was alone with him. She’s at her wit’s end,” Allie explained, “and sometimes she—”

  “Don’t say it.” God, what a nightmare. I’d be tempted to strangle him! “That park’s awfully close to the river,” I observed.

  “Well, she won’t do anything if she knows I’m there,” Allie assured me. “She’s afraid her parents will read about it in the paper. Did you see that story in the Times the other day about the high school teacher? She was charged with raping a fourteen-year-old boy! It’s his word against hers! Charmaine read that and got hysterical. And this—this ten-year-old. He’s very smart. He could say anything.”

  I pondered this for a while.

  “How long has this girl been working? Where’s she from?”

  “About three years. She just turned twenty-one in December. Her parents live in Pittsburgh.”

  “It’s time for her to quit,” I said bluntly. “She’s in over her head! And this is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard, Allie! You can’t afford to get involved with this! And you can’t go alone to the park—”

  “Well, fortunately, I’m not going to be alone,” she reminded me.

  The glow was returning to her eyes.

  “Does Jack have any idea you’re seeing so much of this guy?”

  “I’ve met him a few times for coffee, and we’ve had some meetings with Roxana. It’s not as if I’m—Nancy! He’s just a friend! A political supporter.” She blushed and then admitted, “Well, I saw no reason to tell Jack about a political contact. It’s not as if I’m sleeping with him. Or even thinking about it!” She gasped. “I’d better get going—I don’t want to be late!”

  She grabbed a gym bag and fled upstairs. I reached down to find my weight-lifting gloves and realized she had the wrong bag—she had taken my cell phone, my house keys, everything I couldn’t possibly function without. I ran after her, praying she had not left for the park. When I spotted her on the sidewalk, my black gym bag was hanging over her shoulder and she was looking around anxiously…for the guy she’s not even thinking about sleeping with.

  “Hey.” I nudged her. “You’re so uninterested in that guy you grabbed my bag by mistake!”

  She made a light squealing sound and turned. “Oh, my god, yes, I did. Look, here he comes. He is kind of cute, isn’t he? Butwe’rejustfriends.”

  “Who?” I peered down the street. “That delivery boy in the baggy pants?”

  “No, silly. Over here,” she whispered, tossing her head in the direction of the crosswalk. “In the blazer.”

  Walking toward us—well, toward Allison—with eyes only for Allison was…my future sister-in-law’s husband wearing a business-casual blazer and khaki pants. He was so delighted to see Allie that I, standing in the doorway, did not even register until—

  “Hiiii!” Allie waved at him like a professional activist courting votes. “Thanks so much for meeting me here! I’m really glad you could make it!” she said in her creamiest, most sincere voice.

  Jason and I were staring at each other, open-mouthed and rigid with confusion. Allie was oblivious.

  “This is Jason! The novelist I was telling you about.”

  Jason blinked frantically and gave me a helpless look of pure anguish. Whatever Allison might not be planning to do with him, he had guilt written all over his face. Jason goes around telling girls that he’s writing a novel about Mary Magdalene? Jason’s going to escort Allie to the park to meet with a ten-year-old blackmailer? And Jason’s the guy who donated his dead sister’s shoes to the homeless streetwalkers? Oh, my god. Those must have been Elspeth’s shoes.

  “Hello,” he managed to say in a shaky voice. “I—uh—”

  “I bumped into Nancy in the locker room and we switched bags by accident!” Allison was burbling away.

  What was she going to say about me? What has she said about me? I thought frantically.

  “But you left your bag downstairs!” I exclaimed. “Don’t you want to come down and get it?” I grabbed Allison’s hand. “Was your wallet in your gym bag? We’d better go get it.”

  If I were Jason, I’d be thinking about making a quick escape at this point, but Allie—unaware of the problem—invited him inside. Bewildered, he agreed to wait for her.

  In the locker room, I grabbed Allie by the arm and pleaded with her: “Listen to me. Have you ever told Jason anything—anything at all about me? You have to tell me!”

  “I can’t remember! I don’t think so. Why? What’s going on?”

  “You have to promise me something. You have to pretend that I don’t know anything about you—tell him I think you’re a student or something. I don’t know you’re in NYCOT and I don’t know you’ve ever worked in the business. Do you understand?”

  “How can I do that? You’re my friend, and he knows me from the radio show! He heard me on the radio, and he got in touch—”

  “You have to let Jason think that he knows something I don’t know.”

  “I do?”

  “Yes. Otherwise, god knows what he’ll think about me—or say.”

  “But you don’t have to fear him! He’s such a nice person! He’s donating his time to sex workers’ rights, and he’s a NYCOT volunteer. In fact, he’s going to be an observer with me—”

  “I have everything to fear! He’s married to my fiancé�
��s sister!”

  “He’s what?” Allie’s eyes flew open. She shook her head. “Are you sure?”

  “What do you mean, am I sure? I know him—didn’t you notice how he reacted when we met?”

  “No.” Allie looked crestfallen. “But he never told me he was married.”

  “Did he tell you he was single?”

  “Well, no. He just…”

  “Let you think it?”

  Allie looked puzzled. “But why would he hide that? He’s been so open with me, so giving of his time, and he genuinely…and he’s never even touched me or tried to ask me out on a date. He’s not trying to sleep with me! I thought maybe he was gay.”

  “He’s crazy about you! Don’t be so naive! Did he tell you he’s a lawyer, too?”

  “He said something about taking a break from Legal Aid work in the Bronx to write his novel. And he’s been meeting with our steering committee. Roxana wants NYCOT to be a 501C charity. He said he would do the paperwork for us. Is he—is he qualified to do it?” Allie looked worried now.

  “Qualified? He’s an M&A lawyer! I’m sure he knows how to file some corporation papers—but he’s obviously mixed up. I mean, if you knew this guy the way I do—” But then I realized that I don’t really know Jason, after all. “Please just trust me on this. If he’s still there when you go back upstairs, tell him we’re gym buddies: I’m a copy editor and I think you’re a student and I don’t know anything about your other life. You have to play it this way.”

  Allie looked reluctant. “I’d rather not have to…”

  “How would you feel if I had opened my big mouth when we had dinner with your parents?” I reminded her.

  Apparently, he was still waiting for her when she went upstairs. She didn’t come back or call my cell phone. And when I tried to call hers, she was unreachable. I had expected him to run away while we were in the locker room—hadn’t I given him a chance to extricate himself? His strange brand of loyalty—or is it just obsession?—surprised me. Who knew that Jason, my future sister-in-law’s corporate lawyer husband, could be such a trendy yet romantic dreamer? A novel about Mary Magdalene? A do-gooder lawyer chasing an activist hooker? Wow.