Dating the Devil

by Lia Romeo

  “So what happened?”

  He smiles ruefully. “She was very devout, of course, like everyone was back then. The idea of being involved with someone like me was completely unthinkable.”

  “What did she do?”

  “Married her cousin and immediately moved with him to an estate in the country. I toyed with the idea of taking another form, going after her, trying to somehow get back into her life. But I knew enough to know when I wasn’t wanted.”

  “I’m . . .” Jealousy is warring with sympathy now. Poor Lewis. Though the way Tatiana von Vordenstam had reacted wasn’t all that different from the way I’d reacted initially. If I’d had a cousin with an estate in the country, I probably would have married him too when I’d first learned the truth. “I’m sorry,” I finish lamely.

  “It’s all right,” he says. “It was a long time ago. Anyway, after what happened with Tatiana—it wasn’t the first time something like that had happened, but I told myself that it would be the last—that getting seriously involved with anyone was just out of the question. I have urges, of course, and there were a lot of women who were all too happy to . . . gratify them—”

  “A lot of women?” I interrupt him. I shouldn’t ask, but I can’t help wondering what “a lot of women” means.

  “Well,” he says, looking a little embarrassed, “for a while I thought that the best cure for a broken heart would be to sleep with as many other women as possible. So I made it a sort of project to seduce some of the most celebrated beauties of the age . . . or of all the ages between then and now, I guess, actually.”

  “Like who?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Sarah Bernhardt, Mata Hari, Brigitte Bardot, Jean Harlow, Marilyn Monroe—and quite a few of the current tabloid fixtures, of course.” I want to ask which ones, but he continues: “But I told myself I wouldn’t get attached to anyone again . . . and I didn’t. For almost two hundred years. Until I met you.”

  “I just—I don’t understand,” I tell him. “I mean—obviously you could sleep with anyone in the world—or the underworld—and you really want to give all that up?”

  “Look—Lucy—I’ve been a bachelor, more or less, for thousands of years. I’ve had my fun. I’m ready to settle down.”

  “But . . . with me?”

  “First of all,” he says, and he reaches forward and lightly touches my arm, “you have no idea how gorgeous you really are. But it’s more than that. You’re a genuinely good person. Do you have any idea how rare that is?”

  I’m momentarily too surprised by his assertion to reply.

  “There’s a certain type of woman who’s always been very attracted to me,” he continues. “For my money, my power, my status . . . whether they knew who I really was, or not. But the women I’ve always found the most irresistible are the ones who are the most able to resist my temptations. The ones who are sweet . . . the ones who are innocent . . . the ones like you.”

  The waiter is back, hovering above us with an open bottle of pinot grigio. He pours a sip into my glass, and I taste it. “It’s delicious,” I tell him. He pours wine into our glasses, and Lewis lifts his glass to mine, then pauses.

  “So are you my girlfriend?”

  “Um. Well. I guess so.” I’m still not convinced that this is a good idea, but after everything he’s told me, I’m not sure what else to say.

  Lewis breaks into a wide smile. “She’s my girlfriend,” he says to the waiter, and the waiter’s face crinkles into a thousand wrinkles as he beams.

  “I bring you oysters!” he exclaims as he disappears into the kitchen. “Very good for the making of love!”

  – 19 –

  THE NEXT EVENING, I’m talking on the phone with my mom on my way home from work, which is something I do every few days. She’s asking me whether I’m dating anyone—which is something she does every few days—and I happen to mention that I’ve been seeing Lewis.

  I don’t tell her much about him—just that he’s a recruiter (“What’s that?” “He, um, he works in human resources”), he’s very handsome, it isn’t serious yet but it could be, potentially. When she presses me for more I tell her I have to go because I’m meeting a friend for coffee (“Is it him?” “No!”). As a matter of fact it isn’t anyone, I just don’t feel like continuing the discussion. I shouldn’t have mentioned Lewis in the first place, but after years of being single, there’s part of me that takes pride in my newly coupled-up status, that finds reasons to insert the phrase “my boyfriend” into conversations with my friends, my clients, the lady at the corner Starbucks, and yes, even my mom.

  This is a huge mistake, however, because three hours later my brother Jim is booked on a flight to visit me for the weekend.

  Of course, the timing could be entirely coincidental. Jim is actually coming to New York to attend a conference—he works in real estate for a company in Topeka. He doesn’t have to go to this particular conference, but he tells me that since his company will pay for his ticket—and since he’s got a free place to stay—and since we haven’t seen each other in a while—he figures he might as well. But I can’t help but suspect there’s another, unstated reason—which is that, having been unable to get sufficient details from me over the phone, my mother has put him up to it.

  Nonetheless, I’m excited to see him. Jim’s four years older, and we were close growing up, but ever since I moved away to go to college (he stayed close to home and went to Kansas State), our visits have been mostly limited to my twice-yearly trips back home, a week at Christmas and a week over the summer. He came to New York to see me once, right after Ben and I broke up, and helped me move some of my stuff into Mel and Nat’s place . . . but I spent most of that visit prostrate on the floor, crying, so I wasn’t really able to show him around. This time I’m looking forward to taking him out, showing him the sights—and the bars—and having a great time.

  But somehow, as the visit approaches, I find reasons not to mention it to Lewis. He asks me if I want to go to the Philharmonic Friday and I tell him I can’t, I’ve got plans with friends; he asks if I want to go to the movies Saturday and I tell him Linda wants me to work. He accepts my excuses with equanimity, which makes me feel guilty; apparently his belief in my inherent good nature is so strong that he doesn’t even suspect that I would try to deceive him. (And it’s not that I’m trying to deceive him, exactly . . . I’m just not ready to introduce him to my family yet. After all, we’ve only just started dating—at least officially—and I haven’t entirely made my peace with our fledgling romance. And if something should happen and they should somehow find out who he really was . . . well, I don’t even want to think about that.)

  So keeping Lewis away from Jim is easy . . . keeping Jim away from Lewis, however, is another story. The airport shuttle drops him off outside my building Thursday evening. I come down to the lobby to meet him, and after we exchange greetings and hugs, he doesn’t even wait until we’re in the elevator to ask: “So where’s your new boyfriend?”

  “Oh. He’s, uh—he’s working late tonight.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad.”

  “Yeah, he’s, uh—he’s really busy all weekend, actually. So you might not get a chance to meet him.”

  “He couldn’t take an hour off to come have lunch, or something?”

  “Um. No, I—don’t think so. His job’s, uh—it’s pretty important.”

  “What did you say the company’s called that he works for again?” Jim asks.

  “Um. You know? I forget.” Jim gives me a quizzical look. “It’s one of those big multinational companies.”

  “Huh,” Jim says.

  After we drop off Jim’s suitcase in the living room—he’ll be sleeping on the couch—we decide to head out to a tapas restaurant called Lola’s, on Third Avenue, to get some Spanish food. Mel’s working late, but Nat’s in her room performing some complicated beauty ritual involving her face, an avocado, a jar of honey, and a cucumber, so I invite her to come with us. She’s been instructed
—under pain of death—not to say the words “Satan” and “Lucy’s boyfriend” in the same sentence, so I’m not worried she’ll give away my secret. As it turns out, though, that’s not what I need to be worried about.

  Jim and Nat have met before, when Jim came to New York to help me move out of Ben’s apartment. At the time, though, Jim was still dating Stephanie, his college girlfriend. Stephanie was a petite blonde with the face of an angel and the personality of a total psychopath. She and Jim met their junior year at Kansas State, then lived together for six years after graduation in Topeka. Jim was working for the real estate firm where he’s still employed, and Stephanie was an aide at a nursing home, though her full-time job seemed to be pestering Jim about when they were going to get married.

  My mother—and I, from a distance—had serious reservations about whether such a marriage would be a good idea, but Jim was seriously in love with Stephanie, and was only waiting until he could save up enough to get her the ring she “deserved” (two-carat, princess-cut, in a platinum setting.) Three months after he slipped it into her wine glass at the best Italian restaurant in Topeka, Stephanie decided she didn’t want to get married after all, so she cheated on him with one of his friends, moved out, and sold the ring on eBay. This was two years ago, and Jim hasn’t entirely gotten over her yet. Once he falls for a girl, he’s totally devoted, as evidenced by the fact that last time he was here he barely looked twice at Natalie. But this time it’s another story.

  I decide not to change for dinner and just to wear the clothes I wore to work—a black skirt and a green v-neck sweater, with sensible low heels. Jim is still in the jeans and button-down he wore on the plane. But Nat, who believes in looking good whenever she leaves the house (not that she usually has to try very hard), emerges in a bright blue BCBG silk dress with brown leather boots and a brown leather jacket. When she comes into the living room with a perky “Okay! I’m ready!” I can tell from the look on Jim’s face that he’s impressed.

  At dinner, we share ham and potato croquettes, a goat cheese torta, a spinach salad and cold poached shrimp, along with a bottle of rioja. Then, after the bottle is empty, Nat decides she wants to try one of the imported grappas on the menu as an after-dinner drink. “Let’s each get one!” she suggests, but I beg off, saying I have to work tomorrow. She gives Jim a flirtatious glance. “How about you?” she says.

  “Well . . . I don’t have to be at the conference till eleven,” he says with a shrug and a sheepish smile.

  So they order two shots of grappa and drink them, and then they order two more, after which Natalie drags me into the bathroom and announces that my brother is “kind of cute.” And it’s true, Jim’s a good-looking guy, about six-two, with blond hair, blue eyes, and an open, honest face. “Would it be totally weird if I hooked up with him?” Nat asks me.

  “Um.”

  “It would, wouldn’t it,” she says. “Okay. I won’t hook up with him.” She takes her coral-colored lipstick out of her black fringed clutch and reapplies it carefully in the mirror. “I definitely won’t hook up with him.”

  “So I’m going dancing tonight,” she announces as soon as we sit back down at the table. “Who’s in?”

  “That sounds like fun,” Jim says, looking at me hopefully.

  “I can’t,” I tell them. “Linda wants me in early—our clients are coming into town for a meeting tomorrow.”

  “Well,” Jim says. “I could still go. If you didn’t mind me tagging along.”

  “Not at all,” Natalie says, and gives him a dazzling smile.

  “Is that okay with you, Luce?” Jim asks.

  “Sure,” I tell him. “Fine.”

  I want to somehow warn Jim about Natalie. Jim, after all, is a genuinely good guy, and Nat has been nothing but tragedy for any man she’s ever gotten involved with. But I can’t think of a way to pull him aside and talk to him without it seeming odd. And I doubt it would do much good—given the way he’s watching Nat toss her hair and run her tongue provocatively along the rim of her glass, he’s already a lost cause.

  Besides, given the way I’ve been spending my own time lately, I’m hardly in a position to be offering anyone else romantic advice. So before I know it, we’re hugging goodbye at the door, and I’m walking towards home while Jim and Nat are hailing a cab to go downtown to Avenue, where there’s a party hosted by some girls Nat knows from modeling.

  When I get up at seven a.m. for work the next morning, the couch is empty. I laid out a blanket and a couple of pillows before I went to bed the night before, but the blanket is unwrinkled and the pillows are just as I left them. Jim’s shoes, however, are on the floor on the front hall carpet . . . and so are his pants. This is not a good sign.

  Jim’s on the couch when I come home after work, though . . . and curled up next to him, holding his hand, is Natalie. They’re watching Sleepless in Seattle, Jim’s other hand resting on Nat’s leggings-clad knee, a smile on his face that reminds me of the way he used to look on his birthday when we were kids. If I didn’t know Nat so well, I would think it was adorable.

  “Hey, Luce!” they chorus in tandem when I come through the door.

  “Um. Hi, guys. Nat, can I talk to you for a second?”

  She disentangles herself from Jim, giving him a quick peck on the lips, and I practically drag her into my closet and shut the door behind her. “What’s up?” she says cheerfully.

  “I thought you weren’t going to hook up with my brother.”

  She giggles. “Yeah. Oops.”

  “Oops?”

  “What’s wrong?” she says. “I mean, he’s single, right?”

  “Yeah, he’s single, but Nat, he’s my brother.”

  “Yeah, he’s your brother, and I’m your best friend,” she says, sounding genuinely confused. “You should be happy for us.”

  “You’re my best friend,” I tell her, “but you’re not very—”

  “What?”

  I try to think of a way to put this without hurting her feelings. “You’re not always very nice to guys.” She looks offended and starts to open her mouth, and I put up a hand to stop her. “I mean you are for a little while, until you get tired of them . . . and then you move on. And that’s fine—honestly, most of the guys you’re with probably don’t deserve any better. But . . . Jim does.”

  Natalie looks thoughtful, drawing her perfect brows together in silent contemplation, and for a moment I’m hopeful that maybe I’ve gotten through to her. “He’s really sweet,” she says finally.

  “Yeah. He is.”

  “But Luce, I mean, he doesn’t even live here. It’s not like it could go anywhere even if either of us wanted it to. I think you’re worrying too much. He and I both know we’re just having fun.”

  I’m not convinced Jim knows this, but I’m also not sure how to tell him. After all, he’s my older brother—he’s the one who’s supposed to be giving me advice. And besides, maybe Nat’s right. Jim lives in Topeka, and Nat lives in New York City. Maybe he just sees this as a fling, the same way she does. Maybe I’m worrying too much and I just need to let the two of them have fun.

  So that night, I decide that’s what I’m going to do. Mel’s staying over at Brandon’s, so the three of us order pizza and then go out to a dive bar called McFly’s on Second Avenue. It’s the sort of place where your heels stick to the floor, should you be unwise enough to go in wearing heels—Nat and I have been there a few times, so we’ve learned to stick to flats. I’ve borrowed a pair of hers for the night . . . cute silver shoes with Lucite buckles, which I’ve paired with jeans and a white tank top. Nat’s wearing a black blazer, a silver sequined tank, leggings, and slouchy black suede boots. She looks fantastic, of course, and Jim hardly takes his eyes off her.

  McFly’s has a great jukebox, and soon Nat and Jim are dancing to Michael Jackson, leaving me free to sneak outside, smoke a cigarette bummed from the bouncer, and call Lewis. I tell him I miss him, and he tells me to come over later. I tell him I will if I can
get away.

  Nat and Jim and I walk back from the bar together sometime after midnight, the two of them holding hands and belting out “Black or White.” They quickly disappear into Nat’s bedroom, and I go back outside and take a cab down to Lewis’ place, where we spend a couple of blissful hours in his bed . . . and on his couch . . . and on his kitchen counter. I want to stay over, but I know if I’m not home in the morning Jim will start asking questions again, so I make up an excuse about having to go in to the office early the next morning and catch a cab back home.

  The next day, Nat has a photo shoot, and Jim tells me he wants to take me out to lunch for some brother-sister time. I’m afraid this means some questions-about-Lewis time, but it’s worse than that. We walk up to the Cosi at Forty-Third Street and order sandwiches—mozzarella and tomato for me, turkey, bacon and arugula for Jim. And as soon as we’re comfortably settled into a booth, Jim announces that he’s thinking about moving to New York City.

  “What?”

  “Wouldn’t that be great?” he says. “We could hang out all the time.”

  “I mean—yeah, it’d be great, but—since when? Why?”

  “I . . . I think I’m falling in love with Natalie,” Jim says.