He had Tracy’s number in his phone, but it was almost nine, and he decided it was too late to call. It wouldn’t hurt to send an e-mail, though. Either she was up and would get it, or she’d get it tomorrow, and maybe by then he might have a change of heart. I wouldn’t mind seeing you again. She replied almost immediately—“I’m game if you are,” followed by a winking, blushing smiley face (even her choice of emoticon was seductive, thought Middlestein)—and, to his surprise, invited him over immediately. He hadn’t expected such a quick response to his e-mail. Even some of the women he had met who didn’t work (there were more than a few living on spousal support or inheritance) held on to some semblance of propriety and made him wait a few days to meet even though there they were, online, just like himself, obviously not doing a damn thing with their time. He suspected he knew what it all meant, but he also wanted to make no assumptions, because he didn’t want to get into any tricky kind of trouble. He was no fool. He watched Law & Order, he watched Dateline. He knew about blackmail and con games and the like. But this was the furthest he had gotten with any woman yet, and they were in the suburbs of Chicago not Manhattan, and he was obviously not a rich man, maybe even she could see that he was not a bad man, even though he had left his sick wife all alone (which in the quietest moments in the mornings, alone in bed, he knew was a truly terrible thing), and was there any possibility that maybe she liked him a little bit? Was that the craziest thing in the world?
These are the things Middlestein told himself as he drove to the half hooker’s house, the things that might make what he was doing okay in his book. If a friend of his told him he had done the same, Middlestein would like to think he wouldn’t have judged. World’s oldest profession. Biblical. Don’t knock it till you try it.
She lived two towns over from him; the streets were empty, and he arrived at her condo fifteen minutes early—now there’s no traffic, he thought, just when I could use a little traffic—so he drove around in circles for a while; past a massive Kmart with a gardening center that made him sentimental for his backyard, even though his wife would never let him touch a thing; strip mall, strip mall, strip mall; a drive-through hot dog stand, which he contemplated visiting, only he didn’t want hot dog breath; the high school his grandkids would attend in two years, and where he hoped he would see them graduate—they were both so bright, he bragged about them to everyone he knew, they were the best thing that had happened to their family in a long time and he was going to fight till the end to make sure he got to have them in his life, his daughter-in-law be damned—and then, after exactly seven minutes, he turned around and headed back to Tracy’s condo, past the sparkling, bubbling fountain in front, parking in a guest spot as instructed, and finally hustling his way up to her apartment. He was more eager than he had realized, and he found himself out of breath before he reached the last flight of stairs. Is this really happening? he asked himself. Yes, it is.
She greeted him with a kiss on the cheek and a gentle hand on his arm. She was wearing this sort of half-slip kind of top. It looked like lingerie but also it could just be a really nice shirt—what did he know about fashion? It was pink, and she had blown her black hair straight, so it was even longer than usual. The black fell against the pink silkiness, and it looked phenomenal. His penis grew slightly hard.
Inside, a plinky jazz song played. Her apartment was three times the size of his. Can I even afford her? It was done up in a frilly decor, with a hodgepodge of antiques that looked as if she had gone from house to house over a series of decades and plucked just one piece of furniture from each: There was a long, narrow, modern glass kitchen table with plastic white chairs, and a molded plywood chair next to a shag rug, a diner-style table in the coffee nook, a club chair, a Mission oak armoire, piece after piece jammed next to one another, and that was just in the first room he entered. In the middle of it all was a giant red velvet fainting couch, and it was there that Tracy directed him to sit. She probably lay on it all the time, he thought, and he pictured her lying on it dramatically, little puffs of breath emanating slowly from her mouth.
“This is a nice place,” he said.
“Thanks,” she said. “I inherited it.”
On a tiny bronze coffee table next to the couch, there was a framed picture of her with a white dog. Middlestein pointed to it. “Adorable,” he said.
“She was,” said Tracy. “Mitzi died a year ago.” She jutted out her lower lip and made a sad face. “It was sad,” she said. “I’m saving up to buy a new one, but they’re so expensive. She was a bichon frisé. I always have bichons frisés. I’ve had three. You have to go through a breeder, you know. You should never use a pet store.”
“Oh, yeah, why not?” he said.
“They’re so mean to the puppies,” she said, and she looked sincerely distressed. She snapped out of it almost instantly. “Let’s not talk about this. It’s depressing. Let’s talk about happy things. Like you and me.” She put one hand on his knee and the other in his hand. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away. I had a feeling about you.” She kissed him.