Evan Hunter - Candyland

"Washington, D.C. Atlanta. Miami. We have several clients in Miami."

"So you're away from home quite a lot, actually."

"Well, I wouldn't say a lot. But I do my fair share of traveling, yes."

"Are you married, Michael?" she asks.

He hesitates. He does not want to lose her. Losing her now would be altogether too crushing to bear.

"Yes," he says. "I'm married."

"How long?"

“Twenty-two years," he says.

"Any children?"

"A daughter.''

"How old?"

"Twenty-one. She lives in Princeton."

He knows he's made a mistake, he should have lied. He has found in the past that talking about his daughter is a definite turn-off to girls scarcely older than she is. Not hookers. Hookers don't care if you're single, married, separated, divorced, remarried, redivorced, whatever, hookers simply do not give a damn But Karen is not a hooker, and he cannot imagine having been so unbelievably stupid as to tell her he's married with a twenty-one-year-old daughter in Princeton, has he completely lost his mind? An incredibly beautiful Irish girl sans culottes drops into his lap — or almost into his lap, they are sitting that close on the banquette — and he tells her his life history? Why didn't he also mention his three-year-old granddaughter Put the icing on the cake, why not?

"Is the wine all right?" he asks, clumsily changing the subject, and she says, "Yes, yummy," but she seems suddenly distant and thoughtful, and he knows he will lose her in the next twenty seconds unless he does some very fancy footwork. "Do you feel moved by his death?" he asks, changing the subject yet another time to something that's on the lips of everyone tonight, anyway, the death of John F. Kennedy, Jr., even the waiter commented on it when he brought their wine.

"Kennedy, you mean?"

"Yes."

"Not very," she says.

Still distant. Aloof almost.

I've lost her for sure, he thinks.

"His father got killed on my eighth birthday," he tells her, and she immediately says, "I wasn't even born, " and rolls her eyes, which causes him to think he's just made a worse mistake than talking about his twenty-one-year-old daughter in Princeton, New Jersey. He remembers his mother keeping him home from school to celebrate his birthday. November twenty-third. He remembers her taking him into the city. All the women were crying over the President. just thinking about it upsets him, somehow, all these years later. It was a mistake to mention the President, anyway, because she wasn't even born then, rolling her eyes that way, sitting there so still and silent now, the hell with her, he thinks.

She reaches for her wine glass, sips at the Merlot. Picks up her knife, cuts into the veal. He knows he's already lost her, easy come, easy go, the hell with her. She looks up from her plate, turns to him, nods.

"Married, huh?" she says.

"Married," he repeats, and nods ruefully, trying to put a lighter spin on it, but he knows it's already over and done with.

She lifts the glass of wine, sips at it.

"So what do we do now?" she asks.

"What would you like to do?"

"Give it a shot," she says, and smiles.

He feels the soaring joy he knows when the roof goes on. That is when he knows it's going to be a building. Something that started in his mind, something he transferred to paper, has miraculously turned into walls and a roof. He has that same feeling of accomplishment now. Not satisfaction; that will come later. But fulfillment nonetheless. A secure knowledge that his efforts at the bar earlier and now during dinner have miraculously resulted in a promise of gratification from this beautiful young redhead at his side. He almost winks at the waiter on the way out.

"Do you think I could have another drink?" she asks.

"Of course," he says, and goes immediately to the mini bar. "Bourbon on the rocks, right?" he says, pleased that he remembers. "Wild Turkey okay?" he asks, rummaging through the bottles on the rack inside the refrigerator door.

"Yes, fine. Thank you."

The ice bucket on the counter above the mini bar is empty. He goes to the phone, asks room service to send up some ice, please, and then goes to where she is sitting, and leans over her, searching for her lips. She turns away.

"There's something I have to tell you," she says.

She's a hooker, he thinks. She is going to tell me this will cost five bills. She is going to pull one of those little credit card machines out of her handbag, the way a hooker in San Diego did one night.

"What is it?" he asks.

What were you expecting, he thinks. A virgin?

What the hell are you looking for, mister? Love?

"Wait till after the ice comes," she says.

The bellhop arrives some five minutes later with a plastic bag of ice that costs Ben a dollar tip. The bellhop glances at Karen where she is sitting in an easy chair near the television set, her long splendid legs crossed, the black skirt high on her thighs. He glances admiringly at Ben as he leaves the room. Ben closes and locks the door. He carries a glass over from the bar counter, shakes ice cubes into it, unscrews the cap on the bourbon, and pours.

"Aren't you drinking?" she asks.

"I don't think so," he says.

He carries the glass to her. Hands it to her. He almost asks Okay" how much? She takes the glass, nods thanks, and sips at the bourbon.

"I lied to you," she says.

She is going to tell him she's not really a phlebotomist. She is going to tell him she arrived here in New York from Minnesota last winter, got off the bus at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, hungry and cold, and was offered solace and cheer from a black pimp wearing a black leather coat. She is going to tell him she's a good girl who got trapped in evil ways but who wants nothing more than to go home to her rheumatic old mother and crippled younger sister in Moose River Falls. She is going to say she's saving every penny so she can go home, which is why she's asking seven bills for the night instead of the customary five, because she has to hold back a deuce for her pimp, you see, honey? Around the world, no holds barred, no questions asked, what do you say, honey?

He says nothing. He knows what's coming. The rest is all a matter of negotiation.

"Remember when you said it was probably the weather? And I said, No, I wasn't waiting for anyone? Remember? I was lying. Actually, I was waiting for a blind date. He never showed. Would you mind if I take off my shoes?" she asks, and then slips out of them, and pulls her legs up under her, making herself comfortable, the skirt riding higher on her thighs. He wonders again if she's wearing panties. "The way it works," she says, "before you actually meet, you talk on the phone. He must have called me every day last week. We had these long meaningful conversations on the phone. Finally, we arranged to meet for a drink. The way it works, if the drink goes okay, you usually move on to dinner. I waited a full hour. I never wait for anybody that long."

"I'm glad you did."

"Me, too. I was sitting there feeling sorry for myself when you walked in." She sips at the Wild Turkey. "I love bourbon," she says, "even though it gives me a head in the morning. I don't know why. Nothing but bourbon ever gives me a head" She takes another sip. "You thought I was a hooker, didn't you?" she says.

He hesitates. He still doesn't know if this is some sort of game. You thought I was a hooker, didn't you? And then: Well, you were right, baby! Five hundred for the night, how's that sound?

"Yes," he says. "I thought you were a hooker."

"I can see where you got that idea."

"But you're not."

"I'm not. Relax."

"Okay.”

"We'll give it a shot, okay?"

"Sounds good to me."

"I know you're married, but you won't have to worry about me calling your wife in Los Angeles and telling her I just slit my wrists, this won't be anything like that."