Spygirl

by Amy Gray

  “So is this your boyfriend, Dr. Best?” Evan asked me.

  “No, this is the guy your mom was with last night.”

  At the end of the Flash presentation, there was a short paragraph about the Swindling Spin Doctor, how he has “lived in Paraguay, Thailand, France, and the United States, where he was a financial advisor to important international investors.” Right. “Mr. Smith's book Buyer Beware, a guide for stockholders to avoid poor investment strategists and unethical brokers, is forthcoming.” Uh-huh. Forthcoming.

  I felt like Alice having fallen down the virtual rabbit hole into his demented world. I forwarded the URL to George with the subject line “Mr. Smith's shrine to the self he's always wanted.” He wrote me back saying, “A. Gray: Did you see the links on that website? I think you might have missed something.”

  I was so embarrassed. George wouldn't look at me, which wasn't anything new. But I was worried I'd fucked up big-time and missed something critical.

  Pulling up the site again, I noticed that there was a page at the end with links to “Smith” “s favorite websites. “John N. Smith, Entrepreneur, Inventor, Consultant, World Traveler.” Demented sociopath. Narcissist. Liar. The links were mostly travel and shopping portals. But here was one, “CopsforCops.com,” that looked interesting. It was roughly designed, with flashing Vegas-style lettering that enticed police officers with any number of opportunities: “Employment Help!” “Get Tips on Exams!” “Great Online Investments & Banks Tips!” “Free Online Law Library!” “Get Connected to Police Fraternal Organizations!” “Stress Management and Counseling!” “Order Your Calendar Now: Sexy Ladies of Law Enforcement!” There was even a message board offering “Stress Relief!” and a chance to “consort” with fellow officers. “Consorting” sounded like cop-speak for “sure.”

  I clicked on the message board, but an error message came up, saying, “This site cannot be found.” The online library said the same thing. None of the features advertised actually functioned. There was one thing, however: a link to a “domain manager.” The e-mail address was the same one listed on Smythe's personal website. My self-promoting Sociopathic Spin Doctor was spinning an online web support site for cops from prison.

  On Wednesday I sucked up my pride and called Edward. The first thing he said was, “Thank God it's you.” When we rang off, two and a half hours later, my cheeks hurt from laughing. “I miss you,” he said at the end. “I know,” I echoed. We made a plan that he would meet me at the Dunkin’ Donuts in South Station in Boston on Friday night. It was a hint of things to come.

  I stuffed the last piece of hot blueberry-filled dough into my mouth when Edward appeared in front of me at the train station. “Umm, dough-nutty” he said when we kissed. Later, in the car, he pulled a package out of the glove compartment. “I have a present for you,” he said.

  “I looove presents,” I cooed.

  “Wait. I don't want you to open it now. I'm giving it to you now. But I want you to wait until you're home and you miss me to open it.”

  It looked liked a lumpy wrapped sponge. Or a purply sack of new potatoes.

  “Oh, I can't wait! Please, please, please let me open it.” I thrust out my lower lip and bounced girlishly in the passenger seat in mock impatience. This wasn't hard to feign, since I'm chronically challenged in the area of gratification-deferral.

  “Good things come to girls who wait,” he admonished.

  Suffering Fools Gladly

  The town of Amherst, Massachusetts, is about an hour and a half outside of Boston at a good clip. Edward didn't live in Amherst, however. He lived two towns away. As we started to near his house, I noticed a mile of abandoned clam shacks, auto graveyards, and strip malls passing by. “Where are we going to have dinner? ” I asked.

  “Oh, you haven't eaten yet?” He seemed surprised.

  “Well, I had pretzels on the train, but I'd still love a pack of nuts.”

  “Ha-ha. Well, I got me some of those,” he said, winking as he squeezed my knee. That's my boy, I thought to myself.

  As it turned out, I didn't think much about being hungry, because as soon as we got to his house, we started kissing, and we didn't stop until four the next morning. The last thing I remember before I fell asleep was resting my head on his chest (yes, it was everything his tight T-shirt that first night implied, and more) and seeing a pair of snowflakes fall across the triangle of light from a streetlamp.

  Waking up at Edward's was like arriving there for the first time. His apartment was big, if a little antiseptic. There was a huge kitchen, a living room, a bedroom, and a study. Excluding a dart-board, empty beer bottles, a bed, and a synthetic couch embossed to look like lizard skin, it was pretty empty, except for his dog, Maya. She was a hundred-pound supermodel of a dog. Despite her bulk, Amaya was delicately proportioned and graceful, and she was guaranteed to get any attention to be had when he walked her, which, granted, wasn't much in rural Massachusetts.

  “Dat's daddy's baby girl. Oooooh yeaaah,” he cooed. Maya's tongue was all over his face, slapping away, and his was licking her back. For a split second, I felt jealous of Edward's dog. I reminded myself aloud, “She's a dog.”

  We didn't get up until eleven. Edward didn't have any breakfast food in the house, so he took me out. “I don't usually eat breakfast,” he shrugged. There were five inches of fresh snow on the ground, which would have thrilled me if I didn't have the blood-sugar level of a goldfish. We brushed off the front and rear windows of his coupé and he navigated the strip of superstores. “This must be the last place in the world without a Starbucks. It's like the Old West of coffee,” I cracked. He took me to Dunkin’ Donuts, which was pathetically familiar to us now.

  There isn't much to do in Edward's town, so he took me to his school to show me the grounds. Then we stopped by the veterinary school. The newborn lambs were in an open-sided barn under big heatlamps. They bounded around the barn, swathed in a warm, pinkish light that contrasted with the blue clouds made by their exhalations. “Baaayyy! Baaayyy!”

  “I love them!”

  “Do you want to hold one?”

  “Yes!”

  He cupped his left hand under the front legs of one of the tiniest ones close to us, and the others ran away, crying, “Baaayyyy!” The lamb yawned and nuzzled its little nubby white head in my chest. “I'm in love!” Edward put his hand under my chin and pulled me toward him.

  “So am I.” He said it in a way that was frighteningly serious. I was speechless.

  By the time we got home it was three. Edward had said he was going to cook me dinner. He made me watch TV in the living room while he cooked, because he wanted to “surprise” me, and I was too hungry to do anything but lounge anyway. Two and a half hours later, we sat down to a plate of rice pilaf and a mystery meat.

  I didn't want to be rude, so I cut into it really slowly. Then I relished it like it was filet mignon. “Ummm,” I said. “Chicken?”

  “Nope,” he said, smiling.

  “Oh. Is it—” I was grasping—“turkey?”

  “Nope.” This was getting a little annoying. “It's emu.” My revulsion must have been evident, because he quickly added, “It's really good. Lots of athletes eat it because it's low in fat and very high in protein.”

  “Really? ” Now that I had lost the bliss of ignorance, I was fixating on the knowledge that this meat wasn't native to this hemisphere. I noticed that it was foul-smelling and weirdly colored. Purplish.

  “You know, there are so many meats out there that people don't even know about.” Do I want to be having this conversation— ever? I was wondering. “I like to take care of my body, so I read, you know, a lot about this stuff. My feeling is, my body's my temple.”

  “Right.”

  “I take care of myself, and it's worth it. I mean, look at me.” He made right angles with his biceps and gave me a creepy bodybuilder smile.

  “So …” I was scared to ask, “Where do you get this stuff?”

  “I mail-order fr
om bodybuilders’ catalogs. Ostrich is another good one that people underrate. I should make that for you next time—”

  “No!”

  After Edward ate all my emu and I ate both of our rice portions, he took me to Subway for another dinner. How appropriate that I was out of New York City in barren middle-American hell eating at a place called Subway. Nothing else was open at eleven on a weekend.

  Before bed, I noticed that Edward brushed his teeth for twenty minutes and took a thirty-minute shower. He also wouldn't let me wear shoes in his bedroom or sit on his bed unless my clothes were off because his bed and bedroom were “temples,” too. I sat naked on his bed, except for my socks, which I always wear to bed, come hell or high water.

  “Nope, can't break the rule,” he admonished.

  “C'mon, I always wear them. It's a security blanket.”

  “You have to leave your security blanket behind.” What's up with this creepy bedtime voodoo, I wondered. I felt like I was sleeping with Jim Morrison.

  “Please, I really”—I was exasperated—“want them.”

  “You can't have your present until you take them off.” The socks came flying off. Aside from wanting my swag, I thought maybe he was right, maybe I needed to lose this hang-up. They're only socks, after all. Then the lights went out.

  “Ahhh!” I screamed. Edward was standing in front of me with a candle held near his upper thigh, where a new Asian character was carved. My “present” was apparently a new tattoo near his crotch, some scrawl inside the prongs of a wishbone. What the hell kind of a gift is this? I thought.

  “What does it mean?” I asked, darkly.

  “I choose life.”

  “What made you decide on that? ” I croaked. Just as I was beginning to ask all kinds of questions I had no answers to—like why was this a present for me? in what fiendish twilight zone did I inspire men to tattoo their thighs? what was up with that aphorism “I choose life”? and why me?—he gave me one.

  “You did, baby,” he said, sweeping me onto the bed, bare feet and all, and reminding me silently why I'd chosen him. Yes, I recall thinking, I remember now. Looking back, I envision myself picking clues to fit a crime, choosing to ignore the evidence at hand to get what I really wanted. Like so many of our clients, I had explained our findings to close the deal. It never led to good partnerships.

  When we were saying good-bye to each other the next day, even after listening to him talk about how he had thought about faking his driver's license to get on TRW (his acronym, not mine), and about his daily beauty routine, and I was just about to throw in the towel, I looked into his spectacular eyes and thought, He's perfect—looking. On the Delta shuttle home to New York, I pushed my nose against the oval pane to see the sun still catching the clouds like a burr on cotton. I collected my uncertainties, sweeping them away like little cumulus clouds from an otherwise perfect horizon at 15,000 feet.

  I was lonely and drunk. I called Edward. He wasn't home. I left him a message that went something like, “Hi, it's me again. I guess you're not home. I miss you so fucking much …” And on and on like that for about fifteen minutes. I don't remember that it was that long, but that's what he said when he finally called me back two days later. By then I'd left him five messages. That same night.

  “Hi!” I tried not to sound too excited and surprised when I answered the phone. “How are you? I mean, where have you been? I've been trying to reach you. I guess you knew that.”

  “Yeah.” I guessed I'd blown the subtlety plan. He didn't say anything.

  “So … I'm sorry about all those messages I left you.”

  “Yeah.” Another silence.

  “Edward—”

  “Amy.”

  “You first,” I said.

  “No, you.”

  “Okay.” I wasn't sure what to say. “I'm sorry about all those messages the other night. I hope I didn't freak you out.” Another silence.

  “I think we need to slow down with this,” he said.

  I breathed. Hard. “What?”

  “I think we're moving too fast, and I need to be focusing on my schoolwork right now.”

  I breathed. Hard.

  “I just think we have different priorities and I really need to concentrate on mine.”

  “Are you breaking up with me?”

  “Let me finish. I think you're just more into this relationship than I am. You're like the debtor and I'm like the creditor.”

  When we got off the phone I had a horrifying and stomach-turning thought. I'd never opened Edward's present. Panicked, I raced to my suitcase and flung it open, exposing the squishy purple paper. I grabbed it, ripping and ripping, until all that was left in my hand was an edifying relic of our demise: a stuffed Mickey Mouse, holding a heart that said MY SWEETIE. A half smile gathered over my wet face.

  Four hours later, I was at Niagara, screaming at Cassie, “I overlooked the fact that he spelled ‘crazy’ in his e-mails with a ‘k’!”

  She nodded her head in sympathy for the hundredth time. I was not to be succoured.

  “Winslow Homer was his favorite painter. And he broke up with me!”

  She was agreeing with everything I was saying, but her attention span was shot. Her hand was paused in midair, ready to hail the next bartender or cab that came her way, whichever turned up first.

  “How are the two foxiest girls in the East Village to-nite?” I squinted in the glare of Stuart's shiny bald head, beating down right next to me.

  “Shitty.” Stuart must have sensed that I was not to be reckoned with because he was never that nice to me. Are there tears on my face? I wondered. Is there a tattoo on my forehead that says, DON T KICK ME, I M ALREADY DOWN FOR THE COUNT?

  Cassie air-kissed him. “Stu, bring this girl another tequila shot.” She patted me on the back. “And me too, while you're at it.”

  There are certain kinds of pain that I can't imagine feeling. I can't imagine what it feels like to have a sick liver. What does a liver feel like? I can feel my arm, for example, or my knee, but if someone hadn't already told me I had a liver, I'd never know better. Pituitary gland, gallbladder, ovary, duodenum, these are the humble workhorses, the unsung sentinels of the body. Three Cuervos later, I held my hand to my chest. This must be what a heart feels like, I thought to myself.

  SIXTEEN

  In another moment down went Alice after it never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.

  —LEWIS CARROLL, ALICE IN WONDERLAND

  The One You Left Behind

  For regular subway riders in the morning, there is a certain steadfastness and comfort in being so familiar with your surroundings, particularly when they're as urine-stinking and oppressive as the New York City underground. In July, the summer draws every hidden stench out of winter's dormancy, and the subways become a repository for every punishing odor. It's my stinking subway car, they're my belligerent, schizophrenic winos with me every day. Time passes. Attachments develop. I see the same people daily, and I keep a running mental log of their evolution. I remember reading Harriet the Spy's impressions of the New York City subway: “I don't think I'd like to live where any of these people live or do the things they do. I bet that little boy is sad and cries a lot. I bet that lady with the cross-eye looks in the mirror and feels just terrible.” Of course, I'm somewhat more evolved than Harriet was at nine years old. I noticed a sign one day in the stairway leading downstairs into Bergen Street, my stop on the F train. It read:

  Who are you? It was yesterday afternoon on the subway. We were stalled between Delancey Street and Second Avenue (or was it East Broadway and York?). I was astonished to have met such a sweet, generous, spirited person. Plus you liked Beck. Stumble back into my path. Coffee maybe? E-mail me at theoneyouleftbehind.com.

  This is the kind of John Hughes story that I dreamed up on mornings when I got enough sleep to be cognizant. Eyeing cute boys, I could create elaborate narratives of our meeting. On a July morning, I was at Broadway-Lafayette when I f
elt someone tap me on the shoulder.

  I swung around, poised for war, and a cute blondish guy with a guitar strapped on his back was smiling at me.

  “Hey,” he said. “Were you at that Built to Spill show last week?”

  I thought about it. “No.” But wait, I was at that show. Wasn't I? Not having had my coffee yet, I was in my usual morning stupor, racking my brain to remember. He looked puzzled.

  “It's okay,” he said, raising his hand as he painfully coped with my rejection. “You're probably, like, Why is this weird guy bothering me at eight-thirty in the morning?’ ”

  “Yeah,” I said, unwittingly. He started to turn away.

  “No—wait. I'm just confused.”

  “About talking to me?”

  “No, about the show. Honestly, I'm not a morning person. I'm totally out of it.”

  “Well, that makes one of us.” He put out his hand. “I'm Dan.” I shook it.

  “Amy.”

  “I'm pretty sure I remember you from that show. At Maxwell's. Last Friday.”

  It came back to me like a slap in the face. What an idiot. “You're right. I was totally there. Sorry about that. I'm really only semiconscious until I have my iced grande skim half-caf no-foam latte.”

  “Wow. You don't have any problem saying that.”

  “Years of practice. Ask me what my middle name is before noon, and I'd say iced grande skim half-caf no-foam latte.” We chuckled a little. He was an art director for a new dot-com start-up. We talked about how much we liked Built to Spill. As we pulled into Twenty-third Street, I shuffled my bag around to alert him that I was getting off.