Been There, Done That

by Carol Snow

  “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.)

  “How long have you been doing this?”

  “Since October. It hasn’t been too many times, though. Gerry says I have to work on, like, getting regulars.”

  “How many times have you done it?”

  “This would have been the sixteenth.”

  “How much money does Gerry get?”

  “Half.”

  “Half! Doesn’t that seem unreasonable?”

  “I kind of think so. But the other girls think it’s okay. And I’m new, so I don’t want to make trouble. It’s just till the end of the year, till I graduate. Then I’ll move away and it’ll be like it never happened, you know?”

  “How many girls are there?”

  “About a dozen, I think. Gerry doesn’t tell us much about each other, but a few of us know each other, and we talk.”

  “Why do you do it?”

  “Because I need the money, mostly. Most of the kids here, they have these awesome cars and they take these awesome vacations and they can buy anything they want. Anything! CDs, shoes, really cool jeans . . . and I’m, like, the poor kid who’s going to be paying off my loans till I’m totally ancient, like in my thirties or something. Besides, I thought it would be exciting. And not so hard. I mean, it’s not like I’m a virgin. Whenever I’ve had sex with guys at school, it was always like I was floating over my body, just looking down, you know? Like they say what it feels like when you die. So I thought it would be like that.”

  “And is it?”

  “Sometimes. Except sometimes I feel something.”

  “What?”

  “Like I can’t breathe. Like I’m being smothered.”

  “Have any of the men hurt you?”

  “Not where anyone could see it.”

  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 h
ad 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.

  “The troops are here!” Dan announced, barging into the ridiculously small room with Jacob and Joshua. Joshua wore a sweatshirt that read, I’M THE BIG BROTHER!—a hand-me-down from Jacob. He clung to Dan’s neck.

  Jacob pranced over to my side and peered up. “That him?”

  “That’s him,” I said, squatting down to give him a better look. The receiving blanket fell open, revealing Thaddeus’s white plastic navel clamp. I felt an instant bond.

  “He looks like Yoda,” Jacob said.

  “No, he doesn’t!” I insisted. (I thought he looked more like Larry King.) “He looks like a baby. A beautiful baby.”

  “I like Yoda better than babies,” Jacob said.

  “Ah. Then Yoda it is. And he’s a boy. Your mom gets to be the only girl in the family.”

  “Nu-uh,” Jacob said, shaking his head. “You’re part of the family, and you’re a girl, too.”

  That’s when I fled for my diet soda because, honest to God, I started to cry.

  forty-one

  I never had to crawl to Sheila for a recommendation.

  As things turned out, my fifteen minutes of fame weren’t all bad. Mitch Lambert, the owner of Mission Accomplished, saw my picture in the paper and got my number from Dennis. “You ready for a career change?” he asked with little preamble. I was.

  Before I went in to talk to Mitch, I fantasized about a future in furniture design and glamorous research trips to Paris and Milan. I thought Greece had lots of potential, too: all that bright white and vibrant blue. Instead, Mitch offered me the job of Communications Director. That meant writing press releases and ad copy (no advertorials yet, but I’m waiting), creating brochures and placing ads, which I finally convinced a skeptical Mitch were the key to achieving greater editorial space. When he asked me whether or not it was worthwhile to buy a full page in Salad, which in the midst of financial hardship was offering bargain basement rates, I didn’t hesitate. “Nobody reads Salad. Trust me.”

  I also write the company newsletter, which always includes a feature that begins, “We’re all proud of our employee of the month!” It took just three short months for me to get my own employee of the month award—surprising, since management is usually passed over in favor of store clerks and warehouse guys. I made fun of it to my friends, but secretly I was proud. I hung my plaque on the side of my tan cubicle, which was bought just for me and smelled like a new car.

  For the first month, my line to everyone outside of the company was that my job was just a stopgap measure designed to get me through tough times until I could resume my writing career. But then a funny thing happened. I woke up one Monday morning and realized I couldn’t wait to get into the office, which was located in Boston’s tony Back Bay, above Mission Accomplished’s flagship store. I’d just learned a new graphics program, for use in laying out a brochure about sectional couches. Over the weekend, I’d thought about the layout, the copy, the paper stock. The project demanded neither the art of literature nor the craft of reporting, but it was something I never imagined work could be. It was fun. Besides, if truth be told, more people would probably read my couch brochure than had ever read one of my Salad articles.

  So, after all those years of calling myself a writer, I changed my tune. “I work in PR and marketing for Mission Accomplished—you know, that furniture store.” And, surprisingly, no one’s eyes glazed over. I was still an Interesting Person. That’s the thing about jobs for “creative types.” You can’t afford a house or a decent car, but lawyers and accountants will always buy you drinks because they assume you are somehow smarter or nobler than they are—even if you’ve spent your day writing about coil springs.

  My job certainly impressed Max. He was a junior associate at Dan’s firm, short and fit with close-cut brown hair and crinkly blue eyes. His five o’clock shadow revealed flecks of red. He had a tendency to rock back and forth on his feet when he had to stand too long, like he was filled to the brim with sparkling energy that might burst out at any moment. “He might be a little young for you,” Dan warned with utter sincerity. Marcy guffawed.

  They invited him to Thaddeus’s bris so he could meet me. “I thought it was a weird thing for him to invite me to,” he later confided. “But he’s my boss, so I couldn’t say no.” The thought of Dan being anyone’s boss jarred me. It was just so, well, grown-up.

  Max and I fell into an every-Saturday-night thing, then we added Tuesdays and occasional Thursdays. I had long since stopped believing in love at first sight. Now I tried to convince myself that “growing into love” was not only possible but positive: mature, logical and long-lasting.

  Max taught me to play tennis (at least passably), and we shared a passion for ethnic cuisine. At twenty-seven, he seemed like AARP material after the college life. He preferred television to books but was considerate enough to wear earphones if I was trying to concentrate on something else. Off the tennis court, he didn’t make my pulse quicken, but maybe that was a good thing.

  Shortly after I started my job, Tim showed up at my door. It was a Friday night, and I was expecting Dennis, so I answered without even peering through the peephole. I blinked and realized with bitter satisfaction that I didn’t want him there.

  “Can I come in?” He asked after a moment of silence. I nodded and moved out of his way. He strode over to the couch and sat down. He looked up, waiting for me to sit. I didn’t. He stood up, not wanting to feel himself at a disadvantage from being lower than me. Dogs are like that, too.

  “I just came from the hospital,” he said.

  Stupidly—this was Tim, and Tim made me stupid—I thought of his parents. “Is someone ill? Your mother’s okay, isn’t she?” I asked, genuinely concerned. I’d get over Tim, but I’d never get over losing his parents from my life.

  “I went to see the dean. He’s out of intensive care now.”

  “Oh. Right. How is he?”

  “They wouldn’t let me see him. But the nurse said he’ll be okay, though he’s going to need some plastic surgery. Dog took off most of his ear.”

  I winced. “Did you really think he’d want to see you?”<
br />
  He shrugged. “It wasn’t a social visit. I’m after a story.”

  “What story? His pain and suffering? Or his wife’s? There wouldn’t even be a story if we hadn’t gotten involved. Doesn’t that bother you?” At her husband’s urging, the police had never filed charges against Mrs. Archer. They didn’t have any proof that she’d instigated the attack, although they insisted she have the dog destroyed. Knowing how she felt about her dogs, she probably considered Altoid’s execution a worse punishment than her own incarceration.

  Tim ran a hand through his hair. “Of course it bothers me. But I started this thing; now I’ve got to see it through. I’m just doing my job.” Where had I heard that before? “New Nation’s reputation has really suffered. Advertisers don’t want to touch us. I’ve got to salvage what I can out of this story.”

  This was my moment. I could tell Tim that I’d cracked the case after all, that Gerry, his big source, had been at the center of everything. I could tell him that I’d put Gerry out of business—without hurting the town or the girls involved. Dennis and I had handed the tape over to the Mercer Police, who said they’d heard rumors about the ring but never believed them. Dennis described the girl he’d seen as “kind of average weight, brownish hair.” That was okay: with the tape in hand, the police were able to extract a confession from Gerry. With my encouragement, they decided against pursuing the girls. “You start arresting Mercer students, you’re apt to set off another media frenzy,” I cautioned. “Besides, Gerry’s the real criminal. With him in jail, they’ll be too scared to carry on.”

  But I didn’t tell Tim any of this. “Count me out of it,” I said.

  “I already did,” he said softly.

  I stared at him. “Then why are you here?”

  “I just thought I should try to make peace or something.”

  “Is that supposed to be an apology?”

  He blinked. “Actually, no.”

  I nodded. “You want something? Coffee? Water?” He shook his head. I willed him to say something. He didn’t. I willed him to leave. He didn’t do that, either.