Charming Company

I am a bachelor. I must confess, that is an inauspicious note upon which to begin but it is a fact that continues to permeate through my life no matter what actions I take to circumvent it. I was born into this world with the love of two parents and subsequently the regard of a few close friends—but that is all. Not to say I have never been in love. Quite to the contrary—I fall in love everyday.

This is my curse. I love women but due to some disagreeable and unintelligible circumstance that I wish I could control, they do not seem to love me. I'm assured that the reasons are not of any physical or emotional impairment on my part. I am often told I am handsome and amiable but...

You see, I can't even finish the sentence. Nobody can. It is always "Roger, you're quite charming, but..." and then the sentence tapers off into silence and the woman speaking commences to fidgeting and doing her best not to look me straight in the eyes. They cannot, for some reason, ever bring themselves to love me. It is bothersome to the extreme. I often feel an immense pain whenever the moment inevitably comes that I am given the brush off.

Some of the women have cried, others were very reserved.

I most assuredly have held back tears on more occasions than any person should ever have to do so. It is because of this fault that I resolved myself some time ago to giving up the retched pursuit of my own happiness.

All the relationships I've had ended on amiable terms. I never had a woman throw things at me or shout. Of course, I think many of the women I've had affairs with would be quick to say in my defense that I'm not the type to give them cause to be upset or violent. On the contrary, they would attest that I am simply "the nicest guy."

Adjectives such as unassuming and intelligent would come up, phrases like well spoken and mild mannered...I suppose some would say I'm caring and compassionate. I've always tried and succeeded at being all these things to people. If I've ever met somebody who took an immediate dislike to me it was because I have an air of condescension to my demeanor.

My friend Hugo says it's what he finds most charming about me. I'm a know-it-all and sometimes a slight snob. "Never to the point of being hateful," he assures, I'm just "hard to shut up."

I don't know exactly how it all began. I suppose it was just a dare I made myself. An experiment of a sort intended to pass the time and satisfy curiosity. I can't take credit for the idea; that honor passes entirely to Hugo. I'll admit he intended it as a joke when he came up with it but... Well, the lonely and miserable become rather deranged and desperate when given the proper push.

We were in a bar, off Lexington, when he picked up the pitcher of beer and poured himself a second mug, smiling at me as I watched a group of office workers at a far booth. One of them was a slim red-haired girl with an abnormally large smile I found rather attractive.

"You wanna hear something?"

I turned back to him. "What?"

"You wanna know how you get a girl like that to talk to you?"

"Money, lots of it."

Hugo giggled. He liked it when I told jokes, even when I didn't tell them he laughed at them.

"No, man, no," he said, through his giggle fit. "That works okay though. Good guess. But I mean actual talkin' talkin'."

"If I let you tell me will you go let me go back to staring at the pretty red-head?"

Hugo looked down the bar and ferreted her out from the small crowd. "She's okay. But listen to me. I'm imparting a serious bit of information."

"Okay. How do I get women to talk to me?"

"Get hitched and women will talk to you all the time. It's a synch. I used to walk into bars all the time, remember? I'd maybe pick up a girl once in a while if I was lucky, but then I met Jackie and I got married. Now..." He held up his ring finger to show off the little silver band he'd been wearing for the past three years. "...I go out by myself I get talked to all the time."

"Is this your way of telling me that you're cheating on your wife?"

Hugo sniggered. "I'm just saying that they talk to me now. And do you know why?"

"No. Why?"

"'Cause they know I wont turn into one of those obsessed needy stalkers if I decided to actually carry on with them. Let's face it, Roger, women today don't really want relationships. They want to carry on with no strings attached. A lot of them hold off on getting into anything serious until it's absolutely last call."

"Last call?"

"You know, for kids. Look at Jackie and me. She went through college and had herself set up as a clothing designer long before she met me. Now we're married and fucking all the time. I mean, it's gotten so that all she has to say to me is 'Hugo, I'm ovulating' and I'm on her like butter on toast."

"Hugo, I'm ovulating?"

"Sexiest come on she's got these days."

"You've been reduced to a Pavlov experiment, is that what you're saying?"

"Pavlov?"

"Russian guy... Never mind."

I bought the ring from a little store on Lafayette Street. I figured nine bucks at discount is a fare price to pay for some decent entertainment.

A part of me did recognize it was a little perverted and odd, but most fun things I do are these days.

Some guys jump off bridges or out of airplanes. People pay hundreds of dollars to pilots to fly them as close to the eye of a hurricane as is possible. That millionaire, what's his name, that one with the $500,000 car-boat who owns his own island in the south Pacific, he's always blowing obscene amounts on stupidity.

Anyway, it was all a gag in the beginning.

I made up a name for her. I called her Jo, short for Josephine not Joanne. I even wrote a post card in feminine handwriting, addressed it to myself from London, and forged the postmark.

It was a week before someone noticed, a girl in a bar.

"Waiting for your wife?"

"No, just having a few after work."

She was youngish, about 23. The bartender asked her for her order she looked around and then at me.

"What you drinking?"

"Porter."

She ordered the same and took out a cigarette. With a careful pause, she seemed to want me to light it for her. I took a match from the bar and did so.

"You look married," she said after releasing some smoke out the side of her mouth.

"Do I?"

"I mean you have this air of, I don't know, being older. How old are you, by the way?"

"29."

"See, and I bet you've been married a while, huh."

"A few years."

"I'm Kris, by the way, spelled with a K. What's your name?"

"Roger, spelled with an R."

And that was it, we were talking. It was easy after that, she told me about her boyfriends, her pets, her parents, asked me what kind of books I liked to read, and at the end I bought her a drink and she asked me if I liked Bartok.

"Love him," I said, signaling the bartender.

"You don't. Nobody ever knows who I'm talking about."

"Bela Bartok. He's a Hungarian composer. My mother had some of his records when I was growing up."

"You're shitting me. You know classical?"

"I know stuff I like."

And we were off again. I asked her if she'd mind sharing a pitcher of New Castle and she accepted. Twenty minutes later she'd listed every composer she could think of, getting my yay or nay on them. Mahler... Yey, Shostakovich... Yey, Shubert...Yey, Puccini... Nay, Bach... Nay, Beethoven... Yay, Brahms... Nay, Bruckner... Nay, Verdi... Nay, Mozart...

"Last call!"

"Oh shoot," She checked her watch and then looked at me. "You kept me talking all night, you wicked man."

"Sorry."

She was standing up now, with some difficulty. "Now it's going to be hell to get a cab."

"I can call one for you."

She looked at me, the way drunken women look at drunken men. "You could offer to drive me, you know."

I shook my head. "Not in my state, Miss."

"See, you do act married. You called me Miss. Only little boys and married men ever call me Miss."

"Would you prefer I called you something else?"

She leaned in. "Where is your wife, Roger?"

"Away."

"Business?"

"Sort of."

"Is she handsomely pale?"

"Breakfast at Tiffany's?"

She playfully hit my shoulder.

"She makes you watch old movies, then?"

"Nope, found that one on my own. And as per your original question, Miss Kris, I only marry the pretty ones."

This brought on a fit of giggles. Not stupid giggles but close, inebriated.

We stood then on the lip of the great precipice. I could tell she was weighing something in her mind and it was right then that the bartender handed us our coats and I helped her into hers before shrugging into mine.

"Why are the charming men always taken?"

She swayed a bit and I caught her, putting my hand at the small of her back to steady.

"Do you always ask such random questions?"

We continued on until she pointed out her apartment door. After I took the key and unlocked it for her she turned around and kissed me. It was easy.

What?

So, I lied. Millions of men lie to millions of women every day. She says "I'm a vegetarian," and he says "Ditto, bring on the tofu." She asks, "Am I prettier than your last girlfriend," he responds, without hesitation "No contest, you win in every category, including the wet tee-shirt contest."

It's all a part of keeping people happy. One lies to avoid the painful reality, to facilitate the wonderful fantasy... to keep oneself in supply of nookie.

And, when you think about it, I actually did the girl a favor. What if she'd gone out and found a man who was actually married and then slept with him?

See my point?

Anyway, I thought about asking for her number before I left the next morning, but I didn't. Drunken tumbles are one thing but a full on affair? I wouldn't be able to pull that off to save Nietzsche from going insane. Besides, married men don't give out phone numbers, I shouldn't think. They'd be worried of the mistress phoning and the wife answering. True, I didn't have said wife but if I gave the number to the girl it would be out of character and she would probably have grown suspicious... I left her a note saying thanks and that she was a lovely girl.

The ring stayed on the finger and three nights later I bumped into another very attractive girl.

She put the sushi on the table.

"Eating alone?"

"Yeah."

She did that quick glance women do. Left hand, third finger, "yep, he's married."

"She out of town?"

"For a few days. She's an international trade consultant."

"What do you do?"

"I'm an adult film star."

She snickered. "Really?"

"No, haven't got the tattoos for it. Actually, I'm a theatrical agent."

She looked over her shoulder and then sat down across from me.

"When's your wife get back?"

"I'm on my own for three whole days."

"Gets back Saturday, then?"

I read her nametag and smiled, "If Saturday is three days from today, Fran."

She looked at her name tag and smiled. "Sorry, I sat down without asking, didn't I?"

"It's alright," I said. "I like the company."

"Its ruff when they're gone, isn't it?"

"Huh?

"Especially so early on, I mean."

"Early on?"

"I can tell you haven't been married long. Me, I've only been at it a few years now."

"Ah," I took the hint and looked down at her left hand, third finger. It was small and silver and had a modest little stone in it.

"Do the two of you have a place in the neighborhood?"

"I..."

"The reason I ask is, Vince and I, we just moved here last month from Boston and we haven't had a lot of time to meet some new friends, you know?"

"I..."

"We're having a barbeque at our place. We're inviting as many people as we can. Well, I take that back. We're inviting most of the people in our building and as many people that we come across that rub us the right way, you know?"

"Um, yeah."

"It's just, you seemed kind of lonely and you say your wife gets back the exact day were having our thing. It's kismet."

"Karma."

She was already writing down the address. "It's off-off Third Avenue, just north of west 38th Street. We just put our name on the buzzer last week. I swear we are not crazy."

And that was when her manager called out to her. She thrust the address at me and was gone with a smile back in my direction.

Shit.

I blame Hugo.

Of course I planned not to go. But then, as I was preparing to leave, I realized I had no cash and I was forced to pay with my credit card.

She had my name and she could hunt me down with her husband in tow and have me disemboweled, drawn and quartered.

Damn it, Hugo!

Perhaps it was compulsion; I don't know. Deep down, I may be sick; my judgment skewed by too much time spent in an empty apartment looking through old photographs of myself with that girl I knew in college, or that one I met at the coffee store, or that one who was the actress who lived with me for almost a year.

I've seen in movies where people have a fire in their grate and spend the evening burning such photos while drinking wine an toasting the bright and sunny future. Monumentally brave of them and cowardly of me not to follow suit with their Hollywood stereotype closure sessions. I wish I could burn them but they are my memories and despite all the tears they bring on they remind me of the happy moments as well. Kisses on the subway, summer days in the park, trips to rock canyons and log cabins... I suppose you'll think its stuff to soft and mushy for a man to reminisce over.

They are fragments of heavenly contentment though. Cream colored arms draped over my chest in the soft light from the window next to the bed, whispered lines from books spoken into clean smelling long hair; all moments I'd expect to piece together in a montage of happiness, obscuring all the disappointments.

Anybody can guess at any number of reasons why I hopped the subway out to Greenwich Village and the wonderful "couples only" barbeque. Maybe it was because the waitress woman had been so pretty, maybe it was because I just couldn't give up the lie. Not showing up, to me, seemed like a confession that I didn't in fact have a wife.

So what if I didn't have a wife? That wasn't my fault, per say. I'd had tons of women I wanted to marry and I'd even proposed twice or three times. I'm rambling, aren't I?

Story:

I knocked upon the red apartment door with light but persistent knocks and was admitted posthaste. I presented my hostess with the bottle of 73' Bollinger I'd picked up from a very nice little boutique on 5th Avenue. She took my light summer jacket, hung it up, and then we hugged like old friends.

"Fran!"

"Roger!"

Ha, so she had read my name from the credit card.

"Sorry I'm late, the subway was murder."

"Late? You're ten minutes early."

"Am I? Shit, I'll go back outside and wait if you like. It's no trouble."

My joke brought a slight laugh to her face; very gratifying.

"Where is your wife?"

"Oh, damn it, she's still in London. Turns out she was at the gate, boarding pass in hand, when her mobile rang and poof. Now she's back in the financial district until God-only-knows-when. I love her dearly, but she's a power woman with her priorities," I sighed. "You know, secretly I think she made up the delay just to torture me."

"Don't all women like to torture their men?"

He was a tall and quite goofy looking man. I must admit I was rather disappointed. Fran was a picture, Botticelli on roller-skates; I'd expected her to be paired with a Cary Grant of the new millennium.

But he wasn't Cary Grant at all. He was gangly and looked sickly, with pasty pale skin and hair that was falling out in patches. Hell, he was 30 and already balding from the back, the poor ugly idiot.

"Roger, this is my husband Vince."

"Vince, nice to put a face to a name."

"Likewise, Roger. My wife tells me you like eel-rolls."

"Only the spicy kind," I smiled as I shook his hand (didn't mean either the smile or the handshake, but he thought I did).

He was dressed in a very unfashionable blue Henley shirt that was only half buttoned. A tuft of hair stuck out from the collar. Over his faded and ripped jeans he wore a blue-and-white-striped apron with something or other tattooed across it in French.

I didn't like Vince.

"Well, you two get acquainted while I go and put this on ice. Vince, wasn't this nice of Roger? It's imported."

It's imported. What a sense of humor. She left me standing with her husband in the entrance hall while she walked off with the bottle of R.D.

"So Fran tells me you're in show business."

"I was until a few months ago. Now I'm on a bit of a sabbatical."

"Writing a play?"

"No, but now that you mention it, I could. I even have a title in mind."

"Oh?"

I lifted my hand and wrote the imaginary marquee in grand neon across the air of his front living room. "How much I'd love to kill you, sir."

"Sounds like a comedy."

I'll admit that one made me laugh.

In all there were three couples not including myself and my absent and ultimately imaginary wife; Vince and Fran, Harry and Evelyn, Doreen and Grant.

I disliked Grant most of all. He was an actor. Actors are the worst part of theatre.

"So Roger, any calls coming up that would suit me?"

"I wouldn't know, Grant. I've been out of commission for a few months."

"I've been in a slew of revivals."

"I'm sure you have."

"You're more off Broadway, right?"

Fran came to the rescue. "No business at the table, boys. Vince and Harry might feel left out."

"What is it you do, Harry?" I asked.

"Finance."

I nodded, apt to hear more, but Harry just chewed his salad and seemed to stare at something invisible just to the left of the table's centerpiece. Evelyn smiled at me and shrugged an apology.

"He's with Bagley, one of the many up on Wall Street that nobody knows about but who make the world go round.

"Oh, then he might know Roger's wife. She's in," Fran lay down her fork and put her fingers to her temples. "Now don't tell me, Roger. It's something like 'International finance,' right?"

"International trade relations. Her name is Josephine Angell."

"Harry... Harry! They're asking if you know Roger's wife."

Harry looked up and I repeated the name for him. he shook his head. "Nope, never heard of her," Harry wiped a bit of ranch dressing from his chin and then went back to munching like a giraffe.

"It's really a shame she couldn't be here tonight," Evelyn gave her best attempt at an apologetic look before letting her true animation shine through. "Still it must be grand for her to travel all around. I've always wanted to see London."

"It is lovely when the fog is slight and you can see things," I said.

"Are you from there, Roger?"

I cocked my head toward Doreen, the frumpiest of the three wives who had managed to say very little besides 'Hello' and something like 'Blah blah animosity in the White House'.

I measured my surprise. "Why? Do I sound British?"

"It's just every time you say something it's like you're quoting a book or something."

"I don't read a lot of books. I haven't the time."

"Still, you sound very nice; your speech, I mean. Almost English at times. Don't you think, Fran?"

"He's just overly educated. Right, Roger?"

"Mom and Dad didn't skimp on the Plato and Socrates, sadly."

And dinner went on. The women asked me questions and I answered them. We talked about politics and the weather and music. They all seemed to like everything but classical. Doreen liked Jazz, so I took a bit of a liking to her toward the end of the conversation. We riffed a bit on Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Davis, Mingus and Wynton Marsalis.

We talked while all the husbands ate chicken. They didn't seem too keen on anything but finishing dinner so that they could retire to some room of the house to watch football.

I helped clear the plates afterward and then went into the living room and played Boggle™ helping the girls finish off the champagne. Nobody seemed moved to comment upon its expensiveness or its quality. I thought it was quite good.