Nick had just hung up from his conversation with Elle Smith when Noah called. On the one hand, he was delighted to hear his son’s voice: he had not seen Noah since returning from London the day before. On the other hand, he was feeling very foolish and he did not like to feel this way when he was dealing with Noah. In consequence, he was more brusque with his son than was usual.

“What’s up, kid? Make it quick. I’ve got a meeting in a few minutes.”

“Oh, OK. I just wanted to tell you I’m sick.” His voice sounded far away and forlorn.

“No kidding. What part of you hurts? Tell me quick.”

“Stomach. No, everywhere. Are you coming to get me tonight?”

“Sure I am. Are you too sick? You can be sick at my house, too, you know.”

“I know, Dad, and that’s what I want to do, be sick at your house.” Noah’s voice was the voice of a sick little boy, no echoes of the recent cracking his father sometimes noticed. It stirred Nick with its truthfulness, reminded him of his younger brother’s voice from long ago.

“Then we’ll do it. I’ll get you at 5:30 and we’ll go to Safeway and you can pick up some extra juice before we come home, OK?”

“Yeah.” Noah did not seem inclined to hang up.

Worried that he really was too sick, Nick asked Noah if his mother was there.

“No, Dad. I mean yes, she is here, but she’s in her room. Mrs. McVey is here. She and Allie are in the kitchen.” Mrs. McVey was hired to help Caroline with the cooking and cleaning.

“No kidding. Is your mom all right? Are she and Hugh fighting or not?”

“I don’t know, Dad. She’s all right,” Noah answered, his voice now defensive. Nick felt they would get nowhere. If Noah had more fighting to report it would not come out in this conversation: Noah could be very diplomatic, very loyal to his mother. While Nick admired him for that, he felt something was wrong. He’d try to get to the truth later, when they were face to face.

“Well, I’ll see you later this afternoon, right after five, right?”

“OK, Dad.”

“See you then.”

Nick put the phone down and his thoughts returned immediately to Elle Smith. What a jerk I am! He laughed out loud. It had taken him fifteen minutes of conversation before it dawned on him, and then only because she had named her price.

They had been chatting amiably about various matters, her graduate class at Columbia (she had been vague when he asked what specific course, but that had not registered itself as odd), about her mother who lived in Buffalo and his own frequent trips to New York. In hindsight ( I am one hell of a whiz with hindsight, Nick castigated himself silently) he recognized that she had been the one who brought the conversation back to lascivious matters again and again. He liked women who were willing to engage in talk titillation, in fact, he had found from experience that if he could not get some kind of verbal acknowledgment of a sexual side from a woman during their initial phone conversations then she was unlikely to have one.  So in the first conversations that is what he looked for, the woman’s willingness to talk about her sexuality and evidence of a sense of humor. Although not exactly aspects of his template, women who did not display these characteristics during his first chats with them did not usually make it into contention.

Elle Smith had shown both. Perhaps that was what had thrown him. She kept returning to this lovely jabber about how sexy she was and how he should not assume because she was a night school teacher that she was the frumpy type. She’s never worn chunky-heeled shoes with laces; she preferred spike heels and garter belts. More than once she told him about her great hands and the sensational view from her bedroom. More than once he reminded her that despite his own interest in the sexual accouterments, he was in actuality looking for a relationship with other dimensions. Elle kept returning eagerly to the prospect of their getting together soon.

Nick had spoken with another woman the night before and because she had turned out to be as lively and engaging in conversation as she had been by letter, they had agreed to meet for dinner in New York Wednesday night. Now he tried to arrange to meet Elle Smith for a nightcap after his early date. Elle was evasive. She liked to get to bed early when she could.

“How about breakfast on Thursday morning before my plane?” He suggested.

“Perfect. I’ll bring a picnic breakfast to your apartment,” she offered promptly.

Nick was astonished. She really did mean business, and he had never intended to hop right into bed with the woman. He had never even seen her. Christ, there had not been a picture enclosed with her letter.  He was not some eighteen-year-old stud who followed his hormones blindly. Flustered, he tried to redirect her.

“No, Elle, you don’t have to go to that much trouble. Why don’t I take you to breakfast…perhaps at the Regency? They have a wonderful weekend brunch, perhaps Thursday morning’s would be as worthy…” He sounded awkward and stumbled over his own hesitation.

“I really don’t mind bringing breakfast. Give me the address of your apartment. I’ll meet you at seven. You won’t even have to get up. Is there a garage? I have a car, although it might be better for me to come by cab.” She sounded like she was setting up a business meeting. Nick slipped back into the earlier flirtation.

“Yes, you told me about your car in your letter….how did you describe it, ‘all American, top of the line stripped’? Wasn’t that it?”

She laughed her throaty, provocative laugh.

“You’ll see soon enough, won’t you?”

Again Nick was startled back to reality. Were they indeed setting up a business meeting?

She giggled. “I’m embarrassed.”

“By what?” He could not imagine this woman embarrassed by anything.

“Well, you know, it’s because Columbia is so expensive…” She left the sentence deliberating unfinished, waiting for him to agree. But Nick was an old hand at this: this was a business negotiation suddenly and since he recognized the finesse, he did not rise to it but waited silently for her next ploy.

“…so I have to ask….would two hundred be all right?” She rushed right on, breathless, “Oh, Nick, it is so embarrassing…” She was the delicate, demurring woman again, relying on his gallantry. The duplicity annoyed him. This was business. His answer was clipped.

“I’ll have to think about it.” It was exactly what he would have said to any unexpected, unsolicited business proposition.

But she was flustered now and apparently angry. “Well, if you have to think about it it probably isn’t worth my time….”

“I didn’t say that.” Again he was clipped, yet clearly, he was not letting her off the phone. Maybe this was the answer, he thought. Hire someone. That’s what he did to solve his other problems. A woman was paid to clean his house, another to do his errands. When he gave parties he hired two women who planned and catered. He had another woman who was available to do holiday shopping for him. Maybe he should just give up on the desire for a substantial, multifaceted relationship and settle for a forthright arrangement with a professional. He recalled suddenly the last scene in CARNAL KNOWLEDGE. What he remembered was the dismal paucity of affection. He sighed heavily. Elle Smith picked right up on the hesitation, capitalized on it while obviously having her own interpretation of its origin.

“Nick, I can promise you that I can teach you ways to have sex safely that you could not imagine….that you will love…”She was back to the throaty, intimate voice.

Oh, yeah, thought Nick. There’s that, too. Safe sex. He shivered. In the age of AIDS, he was contemplating an arrangement with a prostitute and his first concern was that there would be a paucity of affection. He had to be crazy. But he was also somewhat gullible. Maybe she did know things about safe sex. Should he? He hesitated again.

“Nick, I know you want me. And that you’ll be pleased….” She gave the word a prolonged salacious emphasis. “But first, give me your New York address…” She prodded softly.

“I’ll have to think about it.” Nick was less clipped this time, more genuine. Elle’s reaction was the same.

“If you have to think about it, it may be that I am just too sophisticated for you, Nick. Too bad. I have to go now, call me if you change your mind.” She gave him a second or two to make his move, but Nick just repeated that he would have to think about it. There was this exasperated exhale on the other end, a sort of “humph,” and Ms. Smith hung up.

Nick sat at his desk, looking out the windows at the throbbing midday financial district. Here he was sitting atop his unmitigated professional success having just been propositioned by a prostitute who was probably neither a Vassar graduate nor a Columbia Business School student but who had the savvy to go looking for her clients among the wealthy, and obviously lonely, advertisers in the Boston Magazine personals.  He felt powerfully sorry for himself and for all the others who fell prey to Elle Smith’s come-on. Not because he did not admire her business acumen, because he did, just because life could be so cruelly unfair and because he had considered it, wasn’t sure he had not made a mistake in not arranging it. How could he remain so ignorant when it came to this?

Just then the phone rang. It was Noah.

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