Hidden Agendas

My Best Friend's girlfriend--or, I should say, his fiancée--taught me a remarkably effective method of picking up women, and I don't care what your feelings are on the matter, I'm here to tell you the lady knew what she was talking about: She told me what to do, I did it and it worked. Simple as that.

"The thing you have to remember," Pamela told me, "the key thing, is that women aren't trying to impress men. Not really, anyway. What they're doing is competing against one another."

Brennan was out of town. That I was suffered to spend evenings in his apartment, with his fiancée, in his absence, surely testifies to the amount of trust he invested in me. I admit this freely. Brennan and Pamela's apartment was an opulent affair, with a living room as, big as an airport hangar and an assortment of leather furnishings so plush and profligate that they threatened to swallow you whole in their aromatic embrace.

"Explain," I said.

"It's simple, Ryan. When a woman walks into a bar, what's the first thing she looks at?"

"The guys," I answered, though even then I knew I was just her straight man.

"Wrong. The first thing she looks for are other women. She walks in and scopes out the prettiest women there. That's how she knows what the competition is--by looking at the women first."

"But I thought the men did that."

"Exactly. The women are the center. Don't you realize it? Both men and women look at women. Think of Vogue, think of Cosmo."

"So where do the men come in?"

"Men," Pamela said, leaning forward, "are just the spoils."

"Do you talk to Brennan this way?"

"Of course not. Now listen closely, because I'm about to tell you something not many men know. But first let me ask you a question: How do you make yourself more attractive to a woman?"

I arched my eyebrows, did a basset hound drop of my head and said, "Be thenthitive."

"Cute. But you're dead wrong. If you want to make yourself attractive to women, make sure you're seen with a beautiful woman."

I should point out here that I met Pamela before Brennan did. I should also point out that I introduced Pamela to Brennan. Our lives, it seems to me, are punctuated by little coordinate points on which we map our fate. Introducing Pamela to Brennan, I realized very early on, was one of those coordinate points. I was reminded of this fact the moment I heard Pamela say "a beautiful woman." I wanted to say, "That's exactly what I was thinking."

And what did Pamela look like? She looked like Greta Garbo one a health kick. She looked like a picture of your best friend's mother, back in 1962, say, when she was a busty college coed. Pamela's blonde hair, held at bay by a white headband worn in an elegant arch, gleamed luxuriantly beneath the track lighting with which Brennan illuminated their living room. She wore thin tortoiseshell glasses, a tasteful brush of eye makeup and hoop earrings. Her smile, with accompanying dimples, was like sunlight streaming through a cloud.

I said, "If you're with a beautiful woman, Pam, you aren't necessarily in the running."

"Precisely. That's part of the appeal. You're not going to hit on these women. Therefore, your stock shoots way up."

"So what's the other part?"

"The other part is narcissism. Women need validation. They need to know that they can compete with other beautiful women. So any guy who's with a beautiful girl must have something--money, intelligence, prowess--simply because he's with her. So the other women think, Well, if I can hook up with this guy, then I can compete with that bimbo. Voilà! The guy with the beautiful girl becomes the target."

To which I said, "Very interesting, but what's your point? Surely you didn't ask me over here just to give me a lesson in feminine wiles."

"It's like this," Pamela said, taking my wrist between her thumb and forefinger the way one might take a pulse. "I want to be your beautiful woman."

I waited a few seconds for the cobwebs in my throat to dissolve, and then, after a cough, I said, "Come again?"

"We're friends aren't we?"

I shrugged, then added, "Sure."

"Oh, Ryan," she said, letting go of my wrist. Then she stood up. "I get so bored, you know. I mean, not always--not often--but still. Brennan works long hours, I don't blame him, and then, of course, you know how he feels about drinking--"

I gave her a wave of my hand, as if to brush the subject aside. Last summer Brennan swore off alcohol, and rest assured I've heard enough about it to last a lifetime. About his job and his salary I've heard enough to last two lifetimes.

"OK," she said, "right. More wine?"

"I'm set." I waited.

"Take me out," she said.

My heart skipped and bobbed. Inanely, I asked, "Where?"

"Anywhere." She sat back down and took my wrist again. "Take me out dancing, pretend I'm your date, pretend I'm not your date, whatever. Just take me out--out of this living room, out of this apartment. I sit here every night with Brennan while he unwinds, and when he's gone he expects me to stay home and read a book. I can't stand it. I want to go out tonight and pretend I'm single again. I want to flirt and dance and drink. I want to go out, and I want you to take me."

My first reaction was to say "No way" and walk out the door. But since my id was doing the talking, I hedged my bets and said, "Have you told Brennan all this?"

"Sure. I mean, we've talked about it and all, but, look, if you don't want to do this, just say so."

I hesitated, and when I did she released my wrist--again--and got up to leave the room. The effect was instantaneous: I felt as if I had been set adrift in outer space. Before she got as far as the kitchen I said, "We'll tell Brennan, all right?"

"Oh, forget it, Ryan," she called, and disappeared. When I found her she was standing at the sink, holding her index finger under the running water. Why, I have no idea.

I said, "Then you don't want him to know?" When she didn't answer, I grabbed her arm and forced her to look at me. "But why? Why don't you want him to know?"

Placing her palm flat against my chest, she said calmly, "Because I'm twenty-six years old, that's why. I don't have to clear everything with him, you know."

And that was all I needed to hear.

"OK," I said. "Let's get a move on."

•

Since Pamela had been out of commission for several years, she left it to me to choose a night spot, an office I performed perfunctorily while listening to her change in the bedroom: hangers rattling, compacts snapping. A former girlfriend of mine once described Pamela as a "Laura Ashley nightmare," and I guess I can understand what she meant: Pamela was born to be married, to run a house with an anteroom and a veranda, to head committees and exploit her civic zeal. It did not escape my notice that the first two things Pamela did after accepting Brennan's marriage proposal were to quit her job and to subscribe to Town & Country. But she also kept up with the latest alternative bands, read Margaret Atwood and followed the NBA with the passion of a 17-year-old male. Her car sported a Jordan Rules bumper sticker. Still, I was surprised when she stepped out of the bedroom. For her night on the town she had affected a sort of Eurocasual chic: faded 501s, a thick black belt, white T-shirt and blazer. Totally au courant and totally unlike Pamela Martin.

Smiling, she took my arm and said, "After you."

She drove. That suited me fine, as my own heap smelled of cigarettes and fast food. Hers, on the other hand--a new Acura, hardly a heap--smelled of nothing so much as comfort and ease. The dashboard glowed, the tires licked the pavement. For some reason, being in Pamela's car made this untoward scenario seem much less sinister than it actually was. I recalled that Depeche Mode song from a few years back--"My little girl, drive anywhere. Do what you want, I don't care"--and felt better. Sort of.

"And you know," Pamela was saying, expanding on her theme, "this will be perfect for you too, Ry. The perfect setup. We're about to put a theory of mine into practice. If this works, then not only will you be forever in my debt, but you'll also qualify for royalties from the book I plan to write. I'll call it Hidden Agendas."

"But this isn't for me," I said. " It's for you."

"Well, yes and no. I mean, yes it's for me, but not exclusively. You're not just along for the ride, is what I mean. You keep telling Brennan and me how hard it is out there, how impossible it is to meet women and all that? Well, this will give you a leg up--no pun intended."

Shamefully, this was true. My perorations concerning the perils and vagaries of women-stalking constituted a depressingly large portion of my discourse with Pamela and Brennan.

"Well," I said, not altogether sure how I meant it, "thanks a lot."

I had decided on Rollo's, a polished-wood-and-brass affair in the heart of Georgetown, by the mall. In the abstract it seemed to be a harmless enough place for Pamela to reenter, however tentatively, the arena of the desperate and drunk. The place was neither hopping nor hopeless--it was just another weeknight in the big city--and yet, as I entered, I found myself viewing this commingling of lonely bodies with new eyes, that is, with Pamela's eyes. I saw myself, as it were, in the monitor.

Which was very strange if you considered the fact (and I'll confess it now) that I generally go out drinking five (continued on page 136)Hidden Agendas(continued from page 80) nights a week. Sad but true. Each night when I return home from work--for a living I "write" for a free weekly most notable for its scandalous personal ads--I find that I am still hung over from the night before, a condition that disposes me, for a while at any rate, to settle in for a quiet evening before the hearth. I unwrap my dinner from its aluminum foil and Styrofoam, watch two consecutive episodes of Family Ties and begin a book. Or start writing a letter. Or call a friend. But, inevitably, each activity only manages to open wider that canyon inside myself into which echo the voices of all the people in my life who have moved on and up. And soon a little man in overalls who lives in my stomach smacks his gums and starts grumbling. I ignore him for as long as I can, but by ten or so I've given up. The voices echo too loud, the grumbling gets more insistent and the sprawl of my studio flat--unmade bed, coffee cups and cigarette butts, cookie crumbs and half-read books--becomes unbearable. Just like that I'm out the door, cigarette glowing, heart thumping, the previous night's failures obliterated in a rush of guileless optimism. "Tomorrow," I promise myself. "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow."

•

I went to the bar and brandished a ten-dollar bill to no immediate avail. One bartender glanced at me and just as quickly glanced away. This went on. It soon became apparent that I must say something to Pamela, yet my mind was drawing a blank. I had a vague conviction that once I scored us a pitcher I'd have something to say, but until then--

"There she is!" Pamela yelled.

"Who?"

"Over there, the girl in red."

To my astonishment, the girl in question was an olive-skinned Mediterranean beauty whom I had been eyeing all fall. She appeared, like an apparition, nearly everywhere I went--and this is a pretty big town. I had advanced no further in my wooing of her than to send longing glances her way before slipping out the front exit and winding my solitary way home. Tonight her hair was done primly in a ponytail and her ears were adorned with sterling-silver crescent moons. For about the millionth time I noticed her teeth were perfect.

"What about her?"

"She's been scoping you out," Pamela said. "From the moment we walked in she's been taking your number. I swear to you. She glances over here every five seconds, like she--wait, did you see it? She just looked again. See what I mean? Am I right or am I right?

"She was right. My Mediterranean beauty had glanced our way. That is, she had glanced at me. What's more, her face conveyed an unconvincing look of ennui and nonchalance.

"Here," Pamela said, plucking the money from my fingers, "you go to the bathroom and I'll buy the drinks. Ten to one she's walking into the ladies' room when you walk out. Ten to one."

"Let's call it a round of drinks," I said, taking my ten back. "You pay if she stays where she is, I'll pay if she moves."

As I started toward the john, Pamela sidled up to the bar and I heard her--just like that--order two scotch and sodas. Then I drifted down a lurid yellow hallway and stationed myself, to no real purpose, at a free urinal. Beside me a mustached bodybuilder peed with vigor and aplomb; I stared at the wall. What if she did appear? What would I do then? Not only would it mean that Pamela was right, it would also mean that I would finally, irrefutably, unavoidably have to talk to her. But I couldn't hide forever, so after a while I buttoned up, made a pretense of washing my hands and pushed open the door.

There she was.

Like magic, like the fulfillment of a shaman's spell, like the blithely expected result of a tried-and-true laboratory experiment, there she was, tottering toward me through the element of yellow light, dressed in high-heeled cowboy boots, faded jeans and a shimmering red body shirt. Since she was fiddling with an earring I was unable to catch her eye, but when she got to the women's bathroom she turned around, put her back to the door and looked directly into my stunned and disbelieving eyes.

"Hi," she said, smiling, her brilliant teeth flashing like newly minted money.

Then she stepped back, pushed the door open and disappeared into the throng of women within.

"I'll get this round," I told Pamela when I returned.

"I saw," she smiled, sipping her drink. "Just like clockwork."

•

Her name--the girl in red--was Thella. "It means 'I want' in Greek," she explained.

How did I finally approach her? Easy: I didn't. Twenty minutes after she emerged from the bathroom Thella made her languorous way to the bar and stood, five-dollar bill in hand, right next to me. As is usually my way, I acted as if she were nowhere in sight, a strategy that might have delivered me of all social contact with her entirely had I not been elbowed in the ribs.

There she is, Pamela mouthed, raising her eyebrows and elbowing me again.

I scowled at her, as if to say, Let me handle this, and gave her my back.

But Pamela didn't let up. I felt myself being pushed, and not gently, into Thella--who, upon encountering my person, stepped back, grabbed my shoulder and said, "Whoops."

"Geez, I'm sorry, I must have--"

"No problem," whereupon--miracle of miracles--she shook the liquor off her fingers, extended her hand and introduced herself.

And that was all it took. The acquaintance was made, names were exchanged and questions were asked. Talking to a strange woman in a bar is like trying to suspend a ping-pong ball in midair by leaning your head back and blowing. If you stop to breathe, the ball falls. I fumbled a bit, said some stupid things, then, like a gift from above, it came to me.

"So, Thella," I began, after we had said everything there was to say about each other's names, "corroborate something for me, a theory, I guess you could call it. My friend here"--with a flourish of my hand I indicated Pamela, who was already deep in conversation with (mondieu!) the bodybuilder I had encountered in the bathroom--"claims that women, when they walk into a bar, don't necessarily check out the men first. According to her--and I'm not saying one way or another, this is her theory--women check out the other women first. That is to say, women in bars compete against one another. Now, based on your experience, would you say that's true? I'd really be interested to know--it seems extraordinary to me. What do you think? Yes or no?"

"Hmmm," Thella said, "let me think about that for a second."

This led to a two-hour conversation on men and women, dating and intimacy, orgasm and morning sex--astonishing but true. And it ended with Thella's offer to drive me home.

When I apprised Pamela of this fact, she acted as if she didn't hear me. Instead, she turned from the bar and took my chin firmly in her hand. "Come here," she said, pulling me toward her.

"Did you hear me? I said I'm--"

"Hold on a second, you've got--" She squeezed, so that my lips made an O, and then she scraped between my front tooth and my right incisor with her pinky nail. "There, got it."

"Got what?"

"A popcorn kernel. You had a kernel stuck in your teeth."

"Oh." I waited half a heartbeat for my toes to uncurl. "Anyway, like I said, Thella's going to drive me home, so, you know." I tried to make this sound prodigious, but I'm not sure that I succeeded.

Pamela gave Thella a long, hard look, as if she were casting the girl for a bit part in a movie, and said, "OK, I approve. You owe me."

"For what?"

"You'll see." And, adjusting the collar on my shirt, she spun me around and sent me on my way.

"Who was that woman?" Thella asked as we got into the car.

"Nobody," I lied. And then added, "My best friend's fiancée, actually."

As if that explained everything.

•

The next day Pamela called me at work.

"Well?"

"She stole my watch," I told her.

Which, insofar as I could tell, was true. Here's what happened. Thella did in fact drive me home, and we did in fact fall into an unseemly tangle on my unmade bed. There were problems with the condom--there are always problems with the condom--and I don't remember enjoying myself all that much, but we nevertheless managed to make happen what everyone who goes out on a weeknight hopes will happen. Although I remember wondering, just before I drifted off to a troubled and tenuous sleep, why I had been trying so arduously to succeed in doing what I had just succeeded in doing, I still went to work the next day happy and secure in the knowledge that I had been pursued, that I had been desired. For, in the end, this is actually all we want; the messy dance itself is nothing more, really, than Tantalus' unreachable fruit. If only we could remember all this beforehand! I should point out, moreover, that my morning's sunny disposition was quite possibly inspired by the fact that, somewhere before the first light of dawn, Thella nudged me awake to tell me that she had to get home and feed her cat. She was fully dressed--earrings and all--and her mascara speckled her eyelashes in little clots. Disturbingly, she had brushed her teeth.

"You're sure?" I said, reaching out groggily, but--forgive me--inwardly pleased that she was leaving.

"It was fun," she said, and pecked me on the cheek. "I'm sure I'll see you around."

And when I awoke two hours later, still naked but in any case alone, I turned to my bedside table to discover that my watch--a $600 Seiko with three displays and an alarm--was gone.

"That's wild," Pamela said, her voice quiet, as if she were very far away. Then she brightened up and said, "So tell, tell, tell. How was it? Did you get her number? What?"

"I told you. It was OK. Just a hookup. And I lost my watch." Just a hookup. As if I did this every night. "And no, I didn't get her number. Nor did she bother with mine."

"You slut," she laughed. "Anyway, Casanova, don't worry about me--I'm sure that was your next question--I shook the bodybuilder and found my own way home, thank you."

"Sorry," I said, and I suppose I meant it on several accounts.

"Don't be. I had fun, I feel great and I think we should do it again. Brennan goes to New York Tuesday and he'll be gone for three days. Let's make it a date."

"Pamela, what if he calls?" I was starting to sound like a nervous adulterer.

"He didn't last night, did he? Listen, Ry, don't freak over this. I checked my messages two or three times. I can handle it, this isn't your problem. We're not doing anything."

"So why all the secrecy? Why not tell him? I'm his best friend. He trusts me." My teeth clacked together, as if to force back the words.

"It would defeat the purpose."

"What purpose?" My voice was rising. Around me my co-workers, long accustomed to seeing me piddle my day away, hardly took notice, but still. "Are you looking to hook up? I mean, if you are, why don't you--"

"If I were," she said, "I wouldn't ask you to come along. Get a clue, Ryan. If you're going to learn about women, you're going to have to pay attention to detail."

•

And so, on it went. The next Tuesday Pamela and I went to O'Grady's, an Irish pub two doors down from Rollo's. Within 45 minutes of our arrival, the two of us had hooked me up with a sleek, smooth-skinned Asian named Lee. By Pamela's own admission, Lee was an even better catch than Thella. "You're moving up," she whispered wetly in my ear. "Watch out or I might get jealous." Again, I asked Lee if she looked at the women first, and again we talked about the gender gap--only this time I had Thella to offer up as a test case: "Interesting. A friend of mine named Thella says women generally, etc." All systems were go. The only problem was, we both had come with friends. "I'd ask my roommate to take us home," Lee said sheepishly, "but that would be so, I mean, like--"

"I'll take care of it," I said.

Needless to say, Pamela was more than happy to help.

So as to put me behind the wheel and Lee in the passenger seat, Pamela sat in back, a gesture that at first seemed thoughtful and generous but soon revealed itself to be otherwise. The whole way back to my apartment, Pamela leaned forward and pelted Lee with a barrage of innocuous questions--"Where do you live? What sorority were you in? Do you know so-and-so?"--while her left hand, lodged snugly between the driver's-side door and my seat, performed a Dance of the Seven Veils along my electrified rib cage. I squirmed, I giggled, I slammed on the brakes. And the moment we arrived at my place, she stopped. Incredible. Holding the seat forward so she could climb out, I tried to meet her gaze, but she blithely continued her conversation with Lee, and then roared away without telling me goodbye. The omission stayed with me long after she left, the way one's cheek tingles hours after receiving a slap. Although I told myself it was nothing--she just forgot that's all--I couldn't shake the notion that I had done something wrong. Or maybe I had done something right. Who knew? I brooded over the matter all night, both before and after Lee went home, but by morning I had approached no closer to the truth than when I had begun. I started to wonder if I'd ever figure Pamela out.

And a week or so later I did. More or less, anyway. We were back at Rollo's, and I was on the edge of making my third score in as many weeks, when I felt Pamela grab my arm. "Don't," she said.

The woman in question was named Shama, a lavish blue-skinned Indian so extraordinarily beautiful my mouth went dry the moment she introduced herself. Her eyes were as black and glossy as marble, and the slightest hint of down grazed her upper lip. By my own admission, Shama shamed them all--Thella, Lee, maybe even Pamela herself.

"Don't what?" I said. Shama had excused herself to the bathroom, and I was fishing for my apartment keys.

"Just don't," Pamela whispered. "Don't leave with that girl."

"Why not?"

"Because, Ryan. I just wish you wouldn't."

And there it was: Precisely what for five years I had been waiting for. I had a sudden vision of me and Brennan sitting in his kitchen with a six-pack of beer delineating the various axioms of my betrayal. Then I thought quickly about the year Brennan and I shared a dorm room. Grabbing Pamela's arm, I said, "But why? Just tell me why."

"I don't know why. I just--"

"Pamela, listen to me. If you don't want me to, I won't. I swear to you, I won't. But only if you don't want me to."

She was looking at me now, but, either because of the darkness of the bar or because of something undecided within her, I was unable to read her expression. We stared at each other for what seemed like a long time, and then something caught her eye. When I turned I saw Shama winding her way back.

"Look," Pamela said, jerking her arm loose, "forget it, OK? Just forget I said anything. You do whatever the hell you want. Don't let me stop you, God forbid." And with that she turned and left.

I didn't leave with Shama. Suffice it to say I made an excuse and she readily accepted it. The next morning at work I was a wreck: Twice I dialed Brennan's number and twice I hung up before the first ring. Nothing got done. The day was frittered away in useless anticipation and unseemly projection. I began thinking about a new job, law school, condominium living--I was ready to make any sacrifice, any change. In fact, I was a little disturbed by how ready I was.

Finally, at 1:30, she called.

"Did you score?" It was the first thing she said.

"No, Pam. I went home alone."

"Too bad--she was gorgeous. So anyway, I'm calling because I just got off the phone with Brennan and he says he'd love it if you came over for dinner. He says it's been a month since he's seen you . Is that true? I can't remember."

The reason she didn't remember, I reflected grimly, was that she was seeing more of me than he was.

"Tonight's bad," I lied. My brain, despite frantic efforts to the contrary, failed to divulge a believable excuse.

"It's Thursday night, Ryan. The paper goes to press this afternoon. I know your schedule, remember? Don't lie to me."

"I'm not lying to you."

"Just come over. He misses you."

"Then why doesn't he call me?"

"Because he asked me to. Look, if you'd rather not, I'll just tell him--"

"No, no, I'll come. Jesus. Tell him I'll be there about seven." I waited for her to add something, but when she didn't, I said, "We need to talk, you know."

After a pause she said, "I know."

"So I guess I'll see you tonight."

"And Brennan, too," she said. "Don't forget about him."

Oh, I thought, I haven't forgotten about him. Don't you worry about that.

•

Describing Brennan is easy. Picture the best-looking WASP you've ever seen and then imagine someone better looking. Brennan's smile always evoked for me the approach of a brand-new Jaguar XJ6, the front grille so cool and elegant you want to take a rock and smash it before it speeds by. When he greeted me at the door he was dressed in casualwear--jeans, sweatshirt, Top-Siders--and yet he seemed uncomfortable, as if his body had forgotten how to adjust to such ease. The sweatshirt was too clean, the sleeves were pushed up a bit too primly, the jeans betrayed a crease along the shin. This, I realized, was how adults dressed--that is, for occasions. Everything in the adult world, once you entered it, was an occasion.

"Tonight," he said, patting my shoulder and leading me inside, "I might even drink a cold one with you."

"Someone alert the media." I fished around for something else to say but my mind drew a blank, much as it did in the bar that first night with Pamela. Just to fill the void, Isaid, "Listen, I'm sorry about being so scarce, Bren. It's been a crazy couple of weeks, what with--"

"Oh, I know all about your past couple of weeks." He looked at me for a frigid, unfathomable second and then cracked a, sinewy Jaguar smile. "Relax, buddy. Pamela told me everything."

Only then did I realize he was leading me into the kitchen, where Pamela, wrapped domestically in an apron, stood at the sink washing lettuce. "Oh," she said as we entered, "that's what you think." Offering me her cheek--something she did only, it suddenly occurred to me, when Brennan was around--she added, "I didn't tell him everything."

"Then I'll let him fill me in on the rest," Brennan said.

"And you'll have to beat it out of him, I'm sure."

"Baby, don't you know that guys tell their friends everything?"

"Of course I do, sweetie. And women tell their friends everything they don't tell their boyfriends."

"Beer?"

This last was from me. During the entire exchange Brennan and Pamela had smiled and clowned as if I weren't even in the room. All of which begged the question, What exactly had Pamela told him?

Handing me a beer, Brennan said, "So far Pammy says you've scored a Greek, an Asian and an Indian."

"Not true," I mumbled, trying to smile. "The Indian got away."

Pamela shook her hands dry, turned off the faucet and said, "Brennan thinks I'm voyeuristic--the way I drill you about your personal life."

"No, no, I didn't say that. I said you were nostalgic for the single life. There's a big difference."

"Nostalgic, voyeuristic--it's pretty much the same thing, if you think about it." Turning back to me, she said, "Brennan also thinks it's a good idea that I call you at work."

"True," Brennan assented, ushering us all into the living room. I kept trying to catch Pamela's eye while Brennan wasn't watching, but she was keeping her cool. Insofar as I could figure, he had only mentioned her phone calls. Brennan must have presumed that this was how she had ascertained her detailed play-by-play of my personal life. "That you two are so close," Brennan continued, dropping into his leather recliner, "just makes me, I don't know, happy for some reason. I've seen too many friends get married and then disappear--the wife and the buddies don't get along, or the husband and her friends don't get along. You know, all that shit. Am I right, Ry?"

"Sure," I said.

"I mean, things are so different now--we're getting older, our careers are taking off, blah blah blah--and I just think it's important that we all stay together and keep everything open." I made a motion to say something, but Brennan cut me short. "No, wait, Ryan, let me say this. Just let me talk. I know I've been pretty invisible this past year or so, traveling and staying in on weekends. Pamela and I talked about this today--I came home early from work, did she tell you?--we talked and she's right. I haven't been paying her enough attention. And she also told me how you guys talk and all, which really got me, buddy. I mean, it hit me hard." Then he leaned forward. "I know I haven't been there for you as much as I could be. And so I want to say--wait, let me say it--I want to say I'm sorry for being such a vicious yuppie fuck." He laughed uncomfortably. "There, I said it. I'm a vicious yuppie fuck."

Kissing him on the ear, Pamela said, "But we love you anyway, sweetie. Don't we, Ryan?"

"Absolutely," I said. "You bet."

•

As if liberated by his predinner apology, Brennan proceeded to get ruinously drunk on beer and red wine, so much so that Pamela and I had to steer him down the hallway and help him into bed. All through dinner he rhapsodized about old times--that is to say, college--marching an endless procession of drinking stories before us. I smiled unconvincingly through it all, not only because I had heard these stories before--or, I should say, had lived them, for the principal subject of most of these tales was none other than yours truly--but because I realized how sad the whole performance was. Were these stories the most interesting thing Brennan could say about me? Was someone else's cavalier decadence really so enthralling to the likes of Brennan Worthington?

"What a night," Pamela said after Brennan finally consented to being tucked into bed.

"Maybe I should go," I said.

She was curled up on the couch, comfy and casual in gray stretch pants and a pinstriped oxford shirt unbuttoned so low I could see the front clasp of her bra. Her fingers caressed a heart-shaped locket hanging from a chain around her neck, and when she drew the chain along her bottom lip, my heart--I confess--kicked like a race horse.

"No, Ryan, stay." She patted the couch as one might for a dog. "We need to talk."

She gave me a look that broached no dissent, so I sat down.

"OK," I said. "I'll ask the first question. What exactly did you tell him? I've been sitting here all night wondering if Brennan wants to kill me or give me the Congressional Medal."

"He likes you, Ry, he really does. And he misses you. Work is wiping him out, you have no idea. The pressure, you know, it's starting to get to him. So it was great of you to come over. I think it's just what he needed."

She was talking as if Brennan were her fiancé and I were his friend--which, for some reason, bothered me immensely.

"I told him about calling you at work--surely you figured that out."

"And that's it?"

"Of course that's it. What do you think I said? How stupid do you think I am?"

"But why did you say anything at all? I thought secrecy was the A-one priority here."

"I don't know. I just did. It seemed right. He was talking about work and about how glad he was that you were coming over, so I said I called you at work and asked you about your nights, that type of thing. And he understood, he really did. He started blaming himself and...." She turned and looked longingly down the hall. "I don't know what got into him, but he was so sweet tonight, don't you think so?"

I couldn't stand it. I wanted to wake Brennan and tell him what his loving fiancée had said to me last night. I also wanted, at that moment, to hear her say it again. She was so close my eyes tingled from her scent, and each time she shifted on the couch her knee warmly brushed my thigh--a casual gesture, though I had my doubts. I wanted her to bend toward me and kiss me on the lips, a desire so visceral and real I could taste her on my mouth.

But instead, I said, "Look, forget all that. We've got to decide what we're going to do."

"About what?"

"About us, that's what. About what happened last night. Are you or are you not going to tell Brennan about that?"

"But nothing happened last night."

"Of course nothing happened, but something almost happened. Or did I just imagine it?"

For a long time she sat silently and stared at the floor. Then she reached over, took my hand and placed it in her lap. "Look," she said, "you're one of my closest, dearest friends--maybe the closest guy friend I have. You should know that. I care about you so much, Ryan, sometimes I wonder what might have happened if, you know, I had never met Brennan. I really do." She laughed, but when I failed to respond she assumed a different tone. "The thing is, I did meet Brennan, right? And I really think he needs me right now. I have to be there for him. I said some things last night, some things I probably shouldn't have said--"

"So you're taking it all back?"

"Yes. I mean, no. I don't know. Look, I meant what I said, I think, but that doesn't mean I'm ready to throw away my relationship with Brennan just because I felt a pang of, what? Jealousy, I guess., Or something. Jesus, I don't know. I'm sorry, Ryan. You'll have to forgive 'me, I--"

"Why is everybody asking me to forgive them? Don't you get it, Pamela? Don't you see?"

"See what, Ryan?" She gazed at me intently and pulled my hand deeper into her lap, her fingers interlocking with mine. "What am I supposed to see?"

"I mean, haven't you figured it out yet? I...." My voice trailed off. The tingling in my hand increased. My leg muscles tensed, as if in preparation for flight.

She moved closer. "Just say it, Ryan. What are you trying to tell me?"

And so I told her . In the white rush of her galvanic presence, I blurted out the three words. The big three. I said them right there on Brennan's leather couch. My mouth opened and out they came.

Pamela and I stared at each other for what seemed like a long time, my heart racing all the while. I could feel a whole new destiny opening inside me like a flower in bloom. My hand shook.

Finally, she blinked slowly, sat back and smiled. "Ryan, sweetie, don't you think I know that?"

I took my hand back. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I've known you for more than five years. I've seen the way you look at me, the way you act when I'm around. Women can always tell these things."

"So you've known?" My voice, I realized, was much louder than it should have been: Just how drunk was Brennan? "You asked me to take you out, to come over here and all that--you've been sitting next to me for five years and all the while you've known?"

"Please, quiet down. I wish none of this had ever come up, I really do. I mean, everything's different, now you're going to feel weird around me--"

"I'm leaving," I said, and stood up abruptly.

"No you're not. You sit back down, we need to talk about this."

"Tell Brennan I had a great time," I said, opening the front door. Pamela didn't move. "Frankly, I don't know if I'll ever be able to face him again."

"Ryan," Pamela said evenly, meeting my gaze, "grow up."

But since I didn't have anything to say to that, I stepped out into the hallway and closed the door.

•

I went straight to Rollo's, proceeded to drink three scotches in succession and was motioning for my fourth when I heard someone say, "Ryan, am I right?"

I turned. Standing next to me, dressed in black bicycle pants and a Georgetown sweatshirt, was none other than Thella What's-her-name. She was smiling, which I took as one of the evening's good omens.

"Thella,' I said, extending my hand. "How are you?"

"Great, just, you know, fine. And you?".

Figuring I had nothing to lose I turned fully around on my bar stool and said, "Not too well, actually. I think I just lost my best friend tonight, among other things."

She looked perplexed, or perhaps overwhelmed, but she managed another smile and said, "Sorry to hear that."

And then something came over me. I don't know what it was. Call it the imp of the perverse. Call it exhaustion. Call it base cruelty. Whatever it was, I found myself saying, "By the way, you stole my fucking watch."

She flashed me a look of genuine, heart-stopping virulence, and then, blinking rapidly, said, "Excuse me?"

"My watch. I woke up that morning and my watch was gone."

"From where?"

"From my bedside table."

"You didn't put your watch on the bedside table. The band broke on the way home. You put it in your blazer pocket."

And, lo and behold, I remembered everything. In the car. Giggles and gearshifts. Fishing underneath the seat.

"This jacket?" I said, plucking my lapel. But of course it was this jacket. I didn't own another jacket.

She nodded. Then, with astonishing self-possession, Thella looked me in the eye, reached into the front pocket of my sports coat and withdrew the missing $600 Seiko.

"Here," she said, dropping it into my lap. "You asshole." And without another word, she turned and walked away.

And what did I do? Well, first, I put my watch back into my pocket. Then I paid my tab. And then, just before I walked out, I turned to the mirror, looked at my face between the letters of Rollo's logo and thought, Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

" 'She's been scoping you out,' Pamela said. 'From the moment we walked in she's been taking your number.' "