“I did want to. I wanted you from the very moment you head-butted me. I just wasn’t sure I could have you.”

“Excuse me, you head-butted me. What sort of not sure?”

“Every sort.”

Two blocks away we found a small weird underground bar, with red walls and a pool table. Dry ice curled around our knees—the barkeep explained they were trying to re-create the glory days before the smoking ban—and at Aidan’s request, I told him all about my life as a magician’s girl.

“We’re called Marvelous Marvo and Gizelda. Gizelda is my stage name and we’re huge in the Midwest. I sew all my own costumes, six hundred sequins per outfit, and I do them all by hand. I go into a meditative state when I’m doing it. Marvo is actually my dad and his real name is Frank. Now tell me about you.”

“No, you tell me.”

I thought about it for a while. “Okay. You’re the son of a deposed East European despot who stole millions from his people.” I smiled, a little cruelly. “The money is hidden and the two of you are looking for it.” He looked progressively more anxious as his identity worsened. Then I took pity and redeemed him. “But the reason you want to find the money is to return it to your impoverished people.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Anything else?”

“You’ve a good relationship with your first wife, an Italian tennis player. And porn star,” I added. “In fact, you were an excellent tennis player yourself, you could have gone professional, until RSI put paid to it.”

“Speaking of which, how’s your burned hand?”

“Good. And I’m happy to see you’ve recovered from the coma I put you in. Any side effects?”

“Evidently not. Judging from how this Saturday night has turned out, I seem to be smah-tah than evah.”

That Boston accent again. I found it devastatingly sexy.

“Say it again.”

“What?”

“Smarter.”

“Smah-tah?”

“Yes.”

He shrugged, willing to please. “Smah-tah.”

A rush of physical desire, similar to but worse than hunger, overtook me.

I’d want to keep an eye on that.

“Game of pool?” I suggested.

“You play?”

“I play.”

Double entendre central and a meaningful eye meet that depth-charged something down low in me.

After twenty minutes of potting balls into swingy pockets that reminded me of testicles, I beat Aidan.

“You’re good,” he said.

“You let me win.” I poked him in the stomach with my pool cue. “Don’t do it again.”

He opened his mouth to protest and I pushed the cue a bit farther. Nice hard stomach muscles. We held a look for several seconds, then, in silence, returned our cues to the rack.

When the bar closed at 4 A.M., Aidan offered to walk me home, but it was too far. By about forty blocks.

“We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto,” I said.

“Okay, we’ll get a cab. I’ll drop you off.”

In the backseat, listening to the driver yelling in Russian on his cell phone, Aidan and I didn’t speak. I took a quick look at him, the lights and angular shadows of the city moving across his face, making it impossible to see his expression. I wondered what would happen next. One thing I knew: after the last knock-back, no way would I be offering business cards or convivial nights out.

We pulled up at my crumbling stoop. “I live here.”

Privacy would have been nice for our awkward “what happens now?” conversation, but we had to sit in the cab because if we got out without having paid, the cabdriver might have shot us.

“Look…I guess you’re seeing other guys,” Aidan said.

“I guess I am.”

“Can you put me on your roster?”

I thought about it. “I could do that.”

I didn’t ask if he was seeing other women; it was none of my business (that’s what you had to say anyway). Besides, something in the way Leon and Dana had behaved with me—pleasant but not terribly interested, like they’d been introduced to a lot of girls by Aidan over the years—made me sure he was.

“Can I have your number?” he asked.

“I already gave you my number,” I said, and got out of the cab.

If he wanted to see me that badly, he’d find me.

9

I woke up in the narrow bed in the sofa-filled front room and spent several dopey minutes trying to look out of the window. Here came the elderly woman and her dog; I watched sleepily. Then less sleepily. I half sat up: I wasn’t imagining it. That poor dog did not want to do its business but the woman was insistent. The dog kept trying to get up and leave but the woman wouldn’t let her. “Here!” I couldn’t hear it, but I could see her say it. Odd.

Then in came Mum and I partook of a hearty breakfast—half a slice of toast, eleven grapes, eight pills, and a record-breaking sixty Rice Krispies—because I needed to convince her how well I was getting. While she was washing me—a miserable business with toweling cloths and a bowl of scummy lukewarm water—I went for it.

“Mum, I’ve decided to go back to New York.”

“Don’t be shagging well ridiculous.” She continued rinsing me.

“My scars are healing, my knee can take weight, all the bruises are gone.”

It was strange, really; I’d had myriad injuries, but none had been serious. Although my face had been black-and-blue, none of the bones had been broken. I could have been crushed like an eggshell and spent the rest of my life looking like a Cubist painting (as Helen had put it). I knew I’d been lucky.

“And look how fast my fingernails are growing.” I wiggled my hand at her; I’d lost two fingernails and the pain had been—I’m not joking—indescribable, far worse than my broken arm. Even the morphine-based painkillers couldn’t entirely negate it; the pain was always there, just slightly further away, and I used to wake in the nighttime with my fingers throbbing so much they felt swollen to the size of pumpkins. Now they barely hurt.

“You’ve a broken arm, missy. Broken in three places.”

“But they were clean breaks and it doesn’t hurt anymore. I’d say it’s nearly better.”

“Oh, you’re a bone surgeon now, are you?”