In Bed with Courtney

I’m in Courtney’s bed. Luis is in Atlanta. Courtney shivers, presses against me, relaxes. I roll off her onto my back, landing on something hard and covered with fur. I reach under myself to find a stuffed black cat with blue jewels for eyes that I think I spotted at F.A.O. Schwarz when I was doing some early Christmas shopping. I’m at a loss as to what to say, so I stammer, “Tiffany lamps … are making a comeback.” I can barely see her face in the darkness but hear the sigh, painful and low, the sound of a prescription bottle snapping open, her body shifting in the bed. I drop the cat on the floor, get up, take a shower. On The Patty Winters Show this morning the topic was Beautiful Teenage Lesbians, which I found so erotic I had to stay home, miss a meeting, jerk off twice. Aimless, I spent an inordinate amount of the day at Sotheby’s, bored and confused. Last night, dinner with Jeanette at Deck Chairs, she seemed tired and ordered little. We split a pizza that cost ninety dollars. After toweling my hair dry I put on a Ralph Lauren robe and walk back into the bedroom, start to dress. Courtney is smoking a cigarette, watching Late Night with David Letterman, the sound turned down low.

“Will you call me before Thanksgiving?” she asks.

“Maybe.” I button up the front of my shirt, wondering why I even came here in the first place.

“What are you doing?” she asks, speaking slowly.

My response is predictably cool. “Dinner at the River Cafe. Afterwards Au Bar, maybe.”

“That’s nice,” she murmurs.

“You and … Luis?” I ask.

“We were supposed to have dinner at Tad and Maura’s,” she sighs. “But I don’t think we’re going to anymore.”

“Why not?” I slip on my vest, black cashmere from Polo, thinking: I am really interested.

“Oh you know how Luis is about the Japanese,” she starts, her eyes already glazed over.

When she fails to continue I ask, annoyed, “You’re making sense. Go on.”

“Luis refused to play Trivial Pursuit at Tad and Maura’s last Sunday because they have an Akita.” She takes a drag off her cigarette.

“So, like …” I pause. “What happened?”

“We played at my place.”

“I never knew you smoked,” I say.

She smiles sadly but in a dumb way. “You never noticed.”

“Okay, I admit I’m embarrassed, but just a little.” I move over to the Marlian mirror that hangs above a Sottsass teakwood desk to make sure the knot in my Armani paisley tie isn’t crooked.

“Listen, Patrick,” she says, with effort. “Can we talk?”

“You look marvelous.” I sigh, turning my head, offering an airkiss. “There’s nothing to say. You’re going to marry Luis. Next week, no less.”

“Isn’t that special?” she asks sarcastically, but not in a frustrated way.

“Read my lips,” I say, turning back to the mirror. “You look marvelous.”

“Patrick?”

“Yes, Courtney?”

“If I don’t see you before Thanksgiving …” She stops, confused. “Have a nice one?”

I look at her for a moment before replying, tonelessly, “You too.”

She picks up the stuffed black cat, strokes its head. I step out the door into the hallway, heading down it toward the kitchen.

“Patrick?” she calls softly from her bedroom.

I stop but don’t turn around. “Yes?”

“Nothing.”