Hardly Knew Her

“I have to think about this,” she said.

“No you don’t. See you next Wednesday.”

He hadn’t even offered to pay for her chai or buy her a muffin.

SHE CALLED BRAD FIRST, but the moment she saw him, waiting in the old luncheonette on Eastern Avenue, she realized it had been a mistake. Brad had taken an oath to serve and protect, but the oath had been for those who obeyed the laws, not those who lived in flagrant disregard of them. He had already done more for her than she had any right to expect. He owed her nothing.

Still, it was hard for a woman, any woman, not to exploit a man’s enduring love, not to go back to that well and see if you could still draw on it. Brad knew her and he loved her. Well, he thought he knew her and he loved the person he thought he knew. Close enough.

“You look great,” he said, and she knew he wasn’t being polite. Brad preferred daytime Heloise to the nighttime version, always had.

“Thanks.”

“Why did you want to see me?”

I need advice on how to get a shameless, grasping parasite out of my life. But she didn’t want to plunge right in. It was crass.

“It’s been too long.”

He placed his hands over hers, held them on the cool Formica tabletop, indifferent to the coffee he had ordered. The coffee here was awful, had always been awful. She was not one to romanticize these old diners. Starbucks was taking over the world by offering a superior product, changing people’s perceptions about what they deserved and what they could afford. In her private daydreams, she would like to be the Starbucks of sex-for-hire, delivering guaranteed quality to business travelers everywhere. No, she wouldn’t call it Starfucks, although she had seen that joke on the Internet. For one thing, it would sound like one of those celebrity impersonator services. Besides, it wasn’t elegant. She wanted to take a word or reference that had no meaning in the culture and make it come to mean good, no-strings, quid pro quo sex. Like…“zephyr.” Only not “zephyr,” because it denoted quickness, and she wanted to market sex as a spa service for men, a day or night of pampering with a long list of services and options. So not “zephyr,” but a word like it, one that sounded cool and elegant but whose real meaning was virtually unknown and therefore malleable in the public imagination. Amazon.com was another good example. Or eBay. Familiar yet new.

But that fantasy seemed more out of reach than ever. Now she would settle for keeping the life she already had.

“Seriously, Heloise. What’s up?”

“I missed you,” she said lamely, yet not inaccurately. She missed Brad’s adoration, which never seemed to dim. For a long time she had expected him to marry someone else, to pursue the average family he claimed he wanted to have with her. But now that they were both pushing forty with a very short stick, she was begi

“Everyone okay? You, Scott? Melina?” Melina was her na

“We’re all fine.”

“So what’s this meeting about?”

“Like I said, I missed you.” She sounded more persuasive this time.

“Weezie, Weezie, Weezie,” he said, using the pet name that only he was allowed. “Why didn’t things work out between us?”

“I always felt it was because I wanted to continue working after marriage.”

“Well, yeah, but…it’s not like I was opposed to you working on principle. It was just-a cop can’t be married to a prostitute, Weezie.”

“It’s my career,” she said. It was her career and her excuse. No matter what she had chosen as her vocation, Brad would never have been the right man for her. He had taken care of her on the streets, asking nothing in return, and she had taken him to bed a time or two, grateful for all he did. But it had never been a big passion for her. It had, in fact, been more like a free sample, the kind of thing a corporation does to build up community goodwill. A free sample to someone she genuinely liked, but a freebie nonetheless, like one of those little boxes of detergent left in the mailbox. You might wash your clothes in it, but it probably didn’t change your preferences in the long run.

They held hands, staring out at Eastern Avenue. They had been sweeping this area lately, Brad said, and the trade had dried up. But they both knew that was only temporary. Eventually the girls and the boys came back, and the men were never far behind. They all came back, springing up like mushrooms after a rain.

HER MEETING WITH SCOTT’S DAD, in the visiting room at Super-max, was even briefer than her coffee date with Brad. Scott’s father was not particularly surprised to see her; she had made a point of coming every few months or so, to keep up the charade that she had nothing to do with him being here. His red hair seemed duller after so many years inside, but maybe it was just the contrast with the orange DOC uniform. She willed herself not to see her boy in this man, to acknowledge no resemblance. Because if Scott was like his father on the outside, he might be like his father on the inside, and that she could not bear.

“Faithful Heloise,” Val said, mocking her.

“I’m sorry. I know I should come more often.”

“It takes a long time to put a man to death in Maryland, but they do get around to it eventually. Bet you’ll miss me when I’m gone.”

“I don’t want you to be killed.” Just locked up forever and forever. Please, God, whatever happens, he must never get out. One look at Scott and he’ll know. He was hard enough to get rid of as a pimp. Imagine what he’ll be like as a parent. He’ll take Scott just because he can, because Val never willingly gave up anything that was his.

“Well, you know how it is when you work for yourself. You’re always hustling, always taking on more work than you can handle.”

“How are things? How many girls have you brought in?”

Unlike Brad, Val was interested in her business, perhaps because he felt she had gained her acumen from him. Then again, if he hadn’t been locked up, she never would have been allowed to go into business for herself. That’s what happened, when your loan shark became your pimp. You never got out from under. Figuratively and literally.

But now that Val couldn’t control her, he was okay with her controlling herself. It was better than another man doing it.

“Things are okay. I figure I have five years to make the transition to full-time management.”

“Ten, you continue taking care of yourself. You look pretty good for your age.”

“Thanks.” She fluttered her eyelashes automatically, long in the habit of using flirtation as a form of appeasement with him. “Here’s the thing…there’s a guy, who’s making trouble for me. Trying to extort me. We ran into each other in real life and now he says he’ll expose me if I don’t start doing him for free.”

“It’s a bluff. It’s fuckin’ Cold War shit.”

“What?”

“The guy has as much to lose as you do. He’s all talk. It’s like he’s the USSR and you’re the USA back in the 1980s. No matter who strikes first, you both go sky-high.”

“He’s divorced. And he’s a personal injury lawyer, so I don’t know how much he cares about his reputation. He might even welcome the publicity.”