Dangerous Women

Infatuated with her. Those photos… all the little sexy bits… all there to stop him spotting the code.

And now she was gone. Really was gone. She’d finished the game, stopped playing with him. He’d have to go back to Jean and Tam and all the other letter writers, back to the real world.

Either that or try to follow her trail. The way she’d smiled at him… almost in complicity, as if she’d been enjoying his part in the charade. Would she send another letter, to him this time? And if she did, would he head off in pursuit of her, solving the clues along the way?

All he could do now was wait.

THIRD PARTY by JAY McINERNEY

Difficult to describe precisely, the taste of that eighth or ninth cigarette of the day, a mix of ozone, blond tobacco and early evening angst on the tongue. But he recognized it every time. It was the taste of lost love.

Alex started smoking again whenever he lost a woman. When he fell in love again he would quit. And when love died, he’d light up again. Partly it was a physical reaction to stress; partly metaphorical-the substitution of one addiction for another. And no small part of this reflex was mythological-indulging a romantic image of himself as a lone figure standing on a bridge in a foreign city, cigarette cupped in his hand, his leather jacket open to the elements.

He imagined the passersby speculating about his private sorrow as he stood on the Pont des Arts, mysterious, wet and unapproachable. His sense of loss seemed more real when he imagined himself through the eyes of strangers. The pedestrians with their evening baguettes and their Michelin guides and their umbrellas, hunched against the March precipitation, an alloy of drizzle and mist.

When it all ended with Lydia he’d decided to go to Paris, not only because it was a good place to smoke, but because it seemed like the appropriate backdrop. His grief was more poignant and picturesque in that city. Bad enough that Lydia had left him; what made it worse was that it was his own fault; he suffered both the ache of the victim and the guilt of the villain. His appetite had not suffered, however; his stomach was complaining like a terrier demanding its evening walk, blissfully unaware that the household was in mourning. E

Standing in the middle of the river he tried to decide which way to go. Having dined last night in a bistro that looked grim and authentic enough for his purposes but that proved to be full of voluble Americans and Germans attired as if for the gym or the tropics, he decided to head for the Hotel Coste, where, at the very least, the Americans would be fashionably jaded and dressed in shades of gray and black.

The bar was full and, of course, there were no tables when he arrived. The hostess, a pretty Asian sylph with a West London accent, sized him up skeptically. Hers was not the traditional Parisian hauteur, the sneer of the maître d’hôtel at a three-star restaurant; she was rather the temple guardian of that international tribe which included rock stars, fashion models, designers, actors and directors-as well as those who photographed them, wrote about them and fucked them. As the art director of a boutique ad agency, Alex lived on the fringes of this world. In New York he knew many of the doormen and maître d’s, but here the best he could hope was that he looked the part. The hostess seemed to be puzzling over his claims to membership; her expression slightly hopeful, as if she was on the verge of giving him the benefit of the doubt. Suddenly her narrow squint gave way to a smile of recognition. “I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize you,” she said. “How are you?” Alex had only been here twice, on a visit a few years before; it seemed unlikely he would have been remembered. On the other hand, he was a generous tipper and, he reasoned, not a bad-looking guy.

She led him to a small but highly visible table set for four. He’d told her he was expecting someone in the hopes of increasing his chances of seating. “I’ll send a waiter right over,” she said. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you.” So benevolent was her smile that he tried to think of some small request to gratify her.

Still feeling expansive when the waiter arrived, he ordered a bottle of champagne. He sca

He’d taken her for granted-that was part of the problem. Why did that always happen?

When he looked up a young couple was standing at the edge of the room, searching the crowd. The woman was striking-a tall beauty of indeterminate race. They seemed disoriented, as if they had been summoned to a brilliant party that had migrated elsewhere. The woman met his gaze-and smiled. Alex smiled back. She tugged on her companion’s sleeve and nodded toward Alex’s table.

Suddenly they were approaching.

“Do you mind if we join you for a moment?” the woman asked. “We can’t find our friends.” She didn’t wait for the answer, taking the seat next to Alex, exposing, in the process, a length of taupe-colored, unstockinged thigh.

“Frederic,” the man said, extending his hand. He seemed more self-conscious than his companion. “And this is Tasha.”

“Please, sit,” Alex said. Some instinct prevented him from giving his own name.

“What are you doing in Paris?” Tasha asked.

“Just, you know, getting away.”

The waiter arrived with the champagne.

Alex requested two more glasses.

“I think we have some friends in common,” Tasha said. “Ethan and Frederique.”

Alex nodded noncommittally.

“I love New York,” Frederic said.

“It’s not what it used to be,” Tasha countered.

“I know what you mean.” Alex wanted to see where this was going.

“Still,” Frederic said, “it’s better than Paris.”

“Well,” Alex said. “Yes and no.”

“ Barcelona,” Frederic said, “is the only hip city in Europe.”

“And Berlin,” said Tasha.

“Not anymore.”

“Do you know Paris well?” Tasha asked.

“Not really.”

“We should show you.”

“It’s shit,” Frederic said.

“There some new places,” she said, “that aren’t too boring.”

“Where are you from?” Alex asked the girl, trying to parse her exotic looks.

“I live in Paris,” she said.

“When she’s not in New York.”

They drank the bottle of champagne and ordered another. Alex was happy for the company. Moreover, he couldn’t help liking himself as whoever they imagined him to be. The idea that they had mistaken him for someone else was tremendously liberating. And he was fascinated by Tasha, who was definitely flirting with him. Several times she grabbed his knee for emphasis and at several points she scratched her left breast. An absentminded gesture, or a deliberately provocative one? Alex tried to determine if her attachment to Frederic was romantic. The signs pointed in both directions. The Frenchman watched her closely and yet he didn’t seem to resent her flirting. At one point she said, “Frederic and I used to go out.” The more Alex looked at her the more enthralled he became. She was a perfect cocktail of racial features, familiar enough to answer an acculturated ideal and exotic enough to startle.

“You Americans are so puritanical,” she said. “All this fuss about your president getting a blow job.”

“It has nothing to do with sex,” Alex answered, conscious of a flush rising on his cheeks. “It’s a right-wing coup.” He’d wanted to sound cool and jaded. Yet somehow it came out defensive.