Casanova's Ghost

Riley Grimes his editor the first time he met her. She was shapely, energetic, sweet-smelling, and her red hair and clean features were straight out of a Botticelli painting.

Her name was Vanessa During. Riley knew that he loved her body and in time would probably even love her mind and that he wanted to sleep with her immediately, if not sooner. He also knew that she seemed too tough and independent to be interested in romance. Wasn't that the way it usually was these days? Most of the women Riley knew were too busy for dalliance. "Not this year, I have a career" was the universal female slogan.

"You write a good query letter," Vanessa said. She was reading Riley's article proposal with a tight smile. He had submitted the idea that he write a profile of a big-time commodities broker for Chicago Business Magazine. "Ever think of teaching a course to free-lance writers on how to submit queries? You'd be good at it." Vanessa smiled again. Her face had a flawed brightness to it, a wholesome beauty that was clouded by tension.

"Not a lot of liquidity in that market." Riley smiled as he stretched his arms. "Most writers would take the course and never pay me. Writers are always broke."

"That's good," Casanova interrupted. "There's no seduction without laughter. Keep it light. She'll (continued on page 152)Casanova's(continued from page 97) respond. Look, she's crossing her legs! That's very significant. She's fidgeting! You're getting to her."

"Shut up!" Riley hissed. He hated the way Casanova followed him around and popped up at embarrassing moments, carrying on a dialog that only he and Riley could hear or participate in. How many years had this been going on? There Casanova was, floating in the air close to Riley's shoulder, a ghost in miniature, a bantam phantom, a little figure about six inches high who haunted Riley's days and nights and irritated him no end. As always, Casanova was wearing his court clothes--knickers and frilled shirt and frock coat--but everything was slightly seedy, the wig poorly powdered, the vest in tatters.

"I suppose you're right," Vanessa said brightly. "Writers never have enough money to pay for much of anything, do they?"

"Nope," Riley said, laughing. He was trying to ignore Casanova, who had moved through the air and was currently peeking into Vanessa's blouse.

"Grazie, grazie," Casanova chortled. "What beautiful breasts! Long nipples, I'm sure, very responsive nipples that feel everything, and there's a scent here"--Casanova was sniffing like a bloodhound, hovering perilously close to Vanessa's neckline--"what a wonderfully clean woman, she's wearing hand lotion, aloecactus oil, I think, with a touch of strawberry fragrance. Bellissimo, molto bene!" Casanova kissed his finger tips in joy.

"Great view!" Riley said to Vanessa. He coughed once into his fist and nodded toward her office window. Chicago Business Magazine had an unbeatable location just south of the river on Michigan Avenue. From where he sat, Riley could see the Tribune Tower and the Wrigley Building, landmarks of that magnificent skyline with which he'd grown up. And this day, the summer solstice of 1988, was a Chicago special, a sky of Midwestern blue, the air clear and clean.

"Mama mia," Casanova chortled. He was gliding along the office ceiling, staring out the window at the Michigan Avenue Bridge. "Look at the wind twirl those dresses! Look at those legs! I love it, I love it!" He flew down and sat like a leprechaun astride Vanessa's trim ankle. "Giddy-up!" He laughed as he bounced to her beat.

"It is a great view," Vanessa said to Riley. "But I think we may lose it soon. It's a bit pricey. Warner's thinking of moving the office."

"Where to?" Riley asked. He tried to look sincere and businesslike, composed and sexless. That was what Vanessa expected, wasn't it? Casanova had told Riley that women these days wanted asexual professionalism at first, so Riley was determined to give it. He'd be neutral, rational, reserved, factual, orderly, against intimacy, very much in favor of getting the job done, without flirtation, a supposedly sexless, nonthreatening drone in the new American workplace. He didn't do any of that well, but he tried.

"Too much desire in the eyes, Riley!" Casanova yelled. He was still bouncing on Vanessa's ankle. "Cut the heat."

"West," Vanessa said, gesturing. "Somewhere behind the Merchandise Mart, I think. Much better price per square foot."

"Real estate," Casanova called. "Talk real estate--her condo, your condo, hot neighborhoods, location, location, location--you know the routine."

Riley tried to ignore his mentor. "You're from New York City?" he asked.

A sharp sound pierced the air. Casanova was whistling through his teeth. "Time out!" he yelled, pounding his palm on his fingers. "Whoa, hold your horses! Time!" It was maddening. Casanova could freeze time and carry on a conversation with Riley that contained, in that nanosecond, an annoying mixture of advice and criticism.

"You don't bring up New York City, Riley," Casanova said in exasperation as he jumped to the floor. "She gave you no indication that she wants to talk about it. You don't know what it represents to her. Remember the rules? Follow her lead. Make her comfortable. Acquiesce. You're The New Man talking to The New Woman."

"Real estate bores me," Riley griped. He hated these debates with Casanova. They were so draining.

"What are you here for, Riley? To entertain or to be entertained?" Casanova asked. He was on Vanessa's desk now, sitting on the edge of her computer keyboard. "All great seducers are entertainers. Besides, you're no spring chicken, buster. You've got to work for it. You're almost forty and you're losing a lot of hair and carrying a few extra pounds. You may think you look like Nick Nolte, but nobody else does." Casanova raised his arm and whistled once more. "Play ball!" he yelled.

"Because, being from New York, I'd think you'd find the real-estate prices in Chicago easier to deal with," Riley said. He took a deep breath.

"Definitely," Vanessa said. She smiled brightly, showing her perfect white teeth, then took off on her own story line about real-estate agents and mortgage rates and condo assessments and a cranky fireplace and a leaking roof.

Riley listened in his intensive mode, the beast on the prowl, in heat and unstoppable. He took in Vanessa's every signal, the movement of her eyes, the tilt of her neck, the pace of her words. He was absorbing her, an act that was as instinctual to him as breathing. Riley inhaled women as often as he could. They were his stimulant and comfort.

"Check list, Riley," Casanova said while Vanessa talked. He had his arms folded across his chest as he leaned back against the computer.

"I can't stop looking at her hair," Riley said. "It's Irish-setter hair, isn't it? Red as rust. An amazing color."

"Agreed." Casanova smiled. "Beautiful."

"She's about twenty-eight, maybe thirty. She's neat. Look at her desk. Nothing out of place. It's intimidating, this neatness. Look, she lines up her paper clips on a tray. What can I say? No family pictures, nothing personal in her office. She's an editor on a career path, an executive on the fast track. So what else is new? There are millions of women like that now. She wouldn't be interested in me, would she?"

"There's potential here," Casanova said. "She chews her pencils. She licks her lips a lot. She's very oral. White panty hose and red pumps and a very lacy bra. A Van Gogh print on the wall, a Shirvan hanging by the door. This is not a colorless woman, Riley. She's filled with passion and she doesn't know where to put it." Casanova paused. "She aches for it. I promise you, she aches for it."

"You don't know that," Riley scoffed. "She's terrified of sex. She's an ice queen."

"I know her, I know her," Casanova said. "I've seen her kind before--wonderful, anxious women who need it and deny they need it at the same time. They're all over the place these days. Reminds me of a contessa I met-gorgeous creature, lived two canals over from St. Mark's, always pretended to be colder than the Alps, snotty, severe, scared every man she met. Vanessa even looks like her. Same tight little mouth, same hunch to the shoulders. The contessa was dying for love. I could see it in her eyes when we passed in the piazza. I sidled up to her one evening at a ball in the palace. Without saying a word or introducing myself, I pulled the back of her hand down to my groin. 'My cape is in the atrium,' she said without missing a beat. We were in her gondola in ten minutes. I made love to that woman all night before she asked me my name. 'Giacomo Girolamo Casanova, at your service, contessa, I said. It was dawn and we were passing under the Bridge of Sighs. She had pulled the drapes back. The sunrise in Venice is like a sunrise in heaven, Riley, and I remember that moment as if it were yesterday."

"It was two hundred years ago," Riley said.

"Yes, but it seems like yesterday." Casanova smiled.

"You're ancient," Riley said. "You're a relic from another age."

Casanova laughed. "Some things never change, Riley."

"And you, Riley?" Vanessa was saying.

"Me?" Riley panicked. He had not been listening carefully.

"Yes, you. Hello in there. Anybody home?"

"Me? Well, I don't know, I guess I--"

"She's asking you about your condo assessments," Casanova whispered.

"I don't own," Riley said quickly. "No assessments. I rent. Old Town. Upper floor of a brownstone. I've got a great landlady. She hasn't raised my rent for years. She says it's her contribution to the arts." Riley laughed, a little too forcefully. He hated his own eagerness and anxiety, his relentless desire. He wanted so many women so much of the time.

'"Life in the Fast Lane.'" Vanessa cleared her throat as she read from Riley's article proposal. "You'd do a profile of a commodities broker, a day in the life of, that sort of thing?"

"Yes," Riley said, nodding.

"You think you could do a profile that really touches the reader?"

"Yes." I could touch you, Riley thought; I could touch you because you want to be touched, because you are as sick of the sexual wars as I am, because your life is as pale as mine.

"You could explain what a day in commodities is like, how people handle money and losses, how they relax--if they relax?" Vanessa asked.

"I think I have some good sources," Riley said. "I could pull it off."

"Her day!" Casanova called through cupped hands. "Get her talking about her day!"

"Besides," Riley said, "I've got something better than sources."

"And that is?" Vanessa asked, smiling.

"I love it! She likes to be teased!" Casanova clapped.

"Intuition," Riley said.

"Oh, I see. An intuitive male? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?" Vanessa asked.

"Not really. I can intuit your life. Parts of it. We've never met before, but I think I know you," Riley said.

"You do, do you?"

"Fantastic!" Casanova cheered. "High risk!"

"Yes," Riley said.

"Be my guest," Vanessa said, gesturing.

Riley took a breath. "You didn't tell me where you live, but I think it's near Lincoln Park. You take the one-fifty-one bus to work. You like to shop at Crate and Barrel. Your father's a lawyer. Your mother's a real-estate agent. In New York City."

"Scarsdale," she said, absorbed. She held a pencil eraser to her lips and smiled as she listened. Her eyes seemed suddenly moist.

"Breakfast!" Casanova prompted.

"You eat oatmeal for breakfast--after you've run three miles in the park. You have a cat. You hate dogs. You belong to the Art Institute. You spent a summer in France and you want to go back. When you're depressed, you drink a bottle of expensive Burgundy and listen to Mozart."

"You sure it's not Brahms?" Casanova asked.

"Mozart!" Riley said through gritted teeth.

"Her bath!" Casanova said.

"Not yet." Riley shook his head.

"Yes, now!" Casanova ordered. "Pounce!"

"You bathe with oatmeal soap," Riley went on, trying to see Vanessa at home, using the intuition Casanova had urged him to cultivate, "you have a whirlpool in your bathtub and a vibrating shower head--"

"That's enough!" Vanessa said, breathing deeply.

"And a lime-green shower curtain, and you use hand lotion, different kinds, hundreds of small bottles of hand lotion you've picked up in hotels when you travel--"

"Enough!" Vanessa's voice broke.

Casanova whistled. "Avanti!" he said.

"And you let your cat sit on the edge of the tub whenever you're in it, whatever you're doing," Riley said rapidly. "And you use large pink towels, very soft, very warm from your towel warmer, and you wear big furry slippers after you've oiled your feet and trimmed your toenails--"

"That's enough!" Vanessa said softly, raising her palms toward Riley as if to push him away." Please! Enough."

Riley shifted in his chair. He was almost out of breath. "All right," he said.

Vanessa stared at the article proposal. She seemed disheveled. She had slumped in her chair. The room was silent except for the white noise of the computer. She bit her lip. "That's very good," she said quietly. "That's really very good."

"Don't we make a great trio?" Casanova asked proudly. "Pounce, Riley! Kiss her! Grab her and kiss her!"

"No!"

"Seize the moment, Riley!"

"No!"

Casanova broke into a chant. "Riley's scared of women, Riley's scared of women."

"You don't exist, Casanova," Riley said.

"I do for you, paesano."

"I wish you'd go away."

"No chance, Riley. I'm your buddy for life."

"You don't sound like a count. You don't sound like you're from Venice. And how could you be two hundred years old? Impossible. You're just a ghost, a hallucination, a figment of my imagination. I can get rid of you whenever I want to."

"Oh, yeah?" Casanova laughed. "Just try it!"

"OK, wise guy, I will!" Riley snapped his fingers loudly and sharply.

"I'm still here, numb nuts," Casanova chortled.

Riley snapped his fingers again. The sound reverberated in the office.

Vanessa looked up with a frown. "I beg your pardon?" she said toughly. There was an enormous change in emotion. It was as if a cold wind had swept through the office. Ice formed on everything, thick, fierce ice that coated filing cabinets, bookshelves, mail trays, the carpet itself. "You think I'm a waitress, perhaps? Or do you snap your fingers at all the women you meet?"

"No!" Riley blushed and shivered. He pulled his hands into his lap. He wanted to crush his offending fingers into calcium. He searched wildly for an excuse, an explanation, a way out of hell. "I snap my fingers when I'm thinking," he stammered. "It's a habit, a nervous habit."

"Oh, Riley," Casanova moaned. "You blew it. You had her and you blew it!"

"Let's get on with it, shall we?" Vanessa said briskly. She sat up in her chair, cleared her throat, tucked her feet under her desk, made some notes on a legal pad. "How soon can you get us a first draft?"

"Stall!" Casanova argued. "Play for time."

"Two months," Riley said. "I'll need expenses. Lunches with brokers and that sort of thing. And a kill fee."

"You're not stalling," Casanova warned. "You're forgetting love for business? I don't understand that."

"Expenses within reason are all right," Vanessa said. "How about a mid-August deadline? We'll have to keep the kill fee small. Warner's a bear about that." She made sharp, slanting notes on the pad. Her back was very straight.

"You've really screwed this up, Riley," Casanova said.

"Two thousand dollars for the article?" Vanessa asked.

"Let's try four thousand," Riley said, trying to smile. He hated negotiating with women.

"Oh, go for it," Casanova said cynically. "Nothing sexier than a business deal."

"That's a little high for us," Vanessa said. "I can't go over twenty-five hundred."

"She's lying," Casanova said.

"Thirty-two hundred?" Riley asked.

"Can't do it." Vanessa shook her head.

"Twenty-eight hundred is tops and I'm going over my line at that."

"You've completely screwed it up, Riley," Casanova said, shaking his head. "When she talks dollars, she's in her cocoon, she's a butterfly in amber."

"OK." Riley nodded at Vanessa.

"Done," Vanessa agreed. She reached out and pumped Riley's hand with one sharp shake.

"Oh, great," Casanova said. "One second you've almost got her on the floor, now you're shaking hands."

"I'm looking forward to working with you, Riley," Vanessa said as she stood. She tugged precisely on her jacket, straightened her bow tie.

"Me, too," Riley said.

"Lame, lame," Casanova clucked. "You've lost it. Ask her out to lunch or something. Save it!"

"Well, it's been good meeting you," Vanessa said. She looked at her wrist watch. Every movement was controlled, premeditated. "I have a phone conference in five minutes."

"You wouldn't have time for lunch, would you?" Riley asked as casually as he could.

"Sorry," Vanessa said, shaking her head.

"I mean, I could come back after your phone conference--" Riley stopped talking. He was looking into corporate eyes, eyes that had completely dismissed him minutes ago.

"Sorry," Vanessa said again without smiling. As she led Riley down the office corridor, her heels clicked like ice picks on the tile floor.

"You're leaving?" Casanova laughed. "Oh, cute! We walk down the hall, she shakes your hand, the doors close, you're out in the cold! Hello. Goodbye. Nice to meet you."

Casanova sat like a parrot on Riley's shoulder in the empty elevator. "Totally ineffective performance, Riley. If I'd acted like that, you never would've heard of me. Persistence and endurance. All great lovers have persistence and endurance. And no fear of rejection--none at all. I remember once in Piombi Prison--lead-tile roof, hot in the summer, freezing in the winter--the jailer's wife, Carmen was her name, beautiful woman, enormous breasts--"

"Shut up, Casanova," Riley said as he walked through the lobby and into the sunshine.

"Just before they exiled me, they threw me in jail because I'd written this memoir about all the rich women I'd seduced--"

"Casanova," Riley sighed, "would you give it a break?"

"What are you going to do, huh, Riley? How many empty evenings have you got ahead of you for the rest of your life? You're not doing so well, you know that, kid? I mean, how many times can you work out at the club and pretend that you're happy?"

Casanova chattered on. Riley walked north toward his favorite coffeehouse. He turned onto Rush Street and ran smack into an outdoor art fair, booth after booth of paintings and pottery and wood carvings and photographs, crowds of people mingling slowly down the closed street in the afternoon sun, the smells of grilled food, the sound of music from loud-speakers.

"All right!" Casanova applauded. "This is my kind of market place!" He stood up suddenly on Riley's shoulder, sniffing the air like a bird dog. "I'm onto something," he said with urgency. He tugged on Riley's ear lobe and pointed his nose in different directions. "Lemons. New-mown hay. The sea."

Riley was sniffing, too. "Got it," he said, nodding. "A touch of baby powder. And coconut suntan cream. Banana-oil base, maybe?"

"Lemon hair conditioner," Casanova said. He coughed and waved aside a surge of barbecue smoke. "Straight ahead. It's getting stronger. Whoa! Right, forty-five degrees, Riley, or you'll lose it. She's here somewhere."

"Musk perfume?" Riley asked. His nose twitched on overload. "Booth seventy-six?"

"Yubba dubba doo, Riley. Booth seventy-six! Long, tall, tawny, with a ponytail! Bears T-shirt, pink bikini bottoms, shower shoes, great tan, great teeth! We could love her, Riley." Casanova, did a swan dive toward the pavement, circled the booth, went back to Riley's shoulder. "Not a bad photographer, either. I like her stuff. Cowboys and Indians. You think she took these herself?"

"You took these yourself, right?" Riley asked the woman. She was sitting in a lawn chair by her booth, smiling at Riley as he studied her pictures. Lisa Deneuve was the name on the photographs. "I mean, these look like the wild West from a hundred years ago."

"It's still the wild West in some places," she said, laughing as she stood up.

"I love her," Casanova said dreamily. He jumped onto Lisa's shoulder and held on to her ponytail. "I want her. You'd better be good, Riley."

Riley was good. He was superb. He pulled out every stop, talked cameras and darkrooms, history and genocide, Remington and Sitting Bull. He praised pictorial composition, sepia coloring, the interaction of light and shadow, the virtues of black-and-white photography, film speeds and flash attachments. He expounded on the outlaw in all men, the eternal cowboy in their hearts, his own urge for a life on the range, alcoholism on the reservation, the loss of the soul through the photographer's lens, environmental folly, corporate criminality, political cowardice. He even lied and claimed ranch-hand ancestors, rodeo progenitors. Riley was so good that Casanova didn't interrupt him for an hour.

"You know, I've always wanted to do a book about today's cowboys and Indians," Lisa said. "But I'm a photographer, not a writer. I can't do the text."

"There you go, little fella! An intro from heaven. Think you can screw this one up, too?" Casanova prodded. "Maybe you could push her into that charcoal grill or something."

Riley looked condescendingly at Casanova. "Just watch me, wop," he said. And to Lisa: "I'm a writer. Maybe I could help."

"Do you think you could?" She smiled.

"Sure," Riley said. "We'd have to work out the details."

"But you might help me write it?" Lisa asked.

"Maybe," Riley said, nodding.

"Oh, you'd be perfect!" Lisa clapped her hands. "You understand my work. And you come from a family of cowboys--"

"Make that bullshit artists--" Casanova scoffed.

"And we could be partners!" Lisa said.

"Well, there are details," Riley intoned, proud of his self-control. "We'd have to work out a contract, how we'd split the profits if there were any, who gets rights to what, that sort of thing."

"Maybe we should talk about that." Lisa smiled a prairie-goddess smile.

"Maybe," Riley said.

"I close up the booth about nine," she said, "if you'd like to come by then. We could have some coffee."

"Sounds good to me," Riley said, laughing.

Lisa shook Riley's hand vigorously. "You're on!"

"You're in!" Casanova cheered. "How to go, jerk. You did OK." He stopped. "But what about that commodities article, Riley? You've got a deadline to meet."

"Deadline?" Riley said, smiling. "Deadlines were made to be broken."

"You really mean that, don't you?" Casanova asked.

"Cross my heart," Riley said. This time, he was careful not to make the gesture.