It’s in a hotel – no, in a series of expensive and discreet hotels, that they meet – no, that they meet, chat briefly, drink, undress, and have sex. It’s a classic pattern, time-honoured. It’s worked for years. So Melissa is more than a little annoyed when Gary throws a spanner in the works.
It is the day before Valentine’s Day, bane of the faithless. Valentine’s Day, like Christmas and birthdays, must by convention be spent in the company of the person you are officially with, rather than the one you love, or at least actually want to sleep with. So Gary and Melissa, both pre-booked by their significant others, have worked out a compromise involving a romantic dinner, flowers, a five as opposed to four-star hotel, jewellery for her and the special position for him. They perform this ritual every February 13th, which this year happens to be a Friday.
Melissa, admiring her new shoes, their elegant heels and satiny gleam in the low light of Twenty One, has a bad feeling about this. Gary is gazing at her across the linen tablecloth, his eyes deep and drunk with the candlelight, the lobster entrée, and the prospect of the special position later on. The little blue box sits on the table between them like a shiny white-ribboned land-mine.
It doesn’t look like earrings this time. It certainly doesn’t look like a necklace. It’s too small for a brooch, thinks Melissa, starting to sweat behind the ears, where the perfume Gary likes is applied. There’s nothing else she can think of that it could be. Gary grins at her encouragingly.
“Well go ahead, honey, open it.”
The waiter darts in to pour them more champagne, his eyebrows raised in anticipation of a romantic scene – or a scene, anyway. The champagne is Cristal, and pink. Gary’s taste, whether it’s in cars, clothes, hotels or sex, has never been less than obvious. Champagne makes Melissa sneeze, but he insists on it. It’s part of the ritual. He’s essentially a deeply boring and conventional man, and his wife Suzanne, God help her, must be even more boring, thinks Melissa – but he’s rich, and also, through some bizarre quirk of sexual chemistry, he’s an incredible lay.
The good thing about rich guys – the reason Melissa only dates rich guys, these days – is that they know exactly what they want and are used to getting it. This is not only sexy, it saves a hell of a lot of time.
Melissa stares at the box. “What is it?” she asks warily, wondering (if it is what she thinks it is) whether the ring will be hideous, or merely ugly. One thing she knows for sure, given that it’s Gary, is that it will be a diamond, and big. And given the colour of the box, probably from Tiffany’s.
“You won’t know unless you open it, will you?”
Gary grins gormlessly, like he’s guarding a great, unguessable secret. She wonders what it is she feels for him: it’s certainly not love, but it’s something soft and tender, like a bruise. A sort of disappointed affection, perhaps? He’s just so circumscribed; so predictable. She smiles back at him, and takes his hand briefly.
“Thank you darling.”
She opens the box, stifling the impulse to shield her eyes from the glare. It’s grotesque: a giant chunk of blinding bling that looks like something from Girl Props. The waiter, who has apparently been selected from a shortlist of the most excitable men in New York, gasps in sincere, if theatrical amazement. He’s hovering just at the edge of her vision, Cristal at the ready, looking like he’s about to explode, or expire. Melissa shuts the lid on it quickly. Never mind a box, the thing need its own parking spot.
“Oh, darling …” Those two little words that can mean so many things. Gary takes them how he wants to: as delight, gratitude and disbelief. He’s beaming like the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement award.
“I suppose I hardly need to ask, now,” he says confidently.
What, now? Melissa knows there’s a bomb in the building, but she doesn’t know which room it’s in yet. A ring means only one thing – unless you’re already married. Which he is. To Suzanne. And he told her right at the beginning that he could never leave Suzanne, just like she could never leave Rico. They were even. That was the whole point.
“Ask what?” she says.
“I’ve got a confession to make, Melly,” says Gary seriously. She hates it when he calls her that. “When we started seeing each other I – well, I lied to you.”
“You lied to me?” This is kind of exciting – Melissa hadn’t thought Gary capable of anything so interesting as deceiving her – but also dangerous. The ticking of the detonator is deafening. Melissa narrows her nougat-coloured eyes.
“You lied about what, exactly?”
Gary manages to look both smug and contrite at the same time, which is quite a trick. He sighs.
“I was afraid of getting in too deep, you know. I didn’t want to raise any … expectations. Some women, they’re only after one thing. Especially if they know you’re free.”
“If they know … you’re … free?” The building’s exploded now: Melissa’s just waiting for the shock wave to hit her.
“Suzanne doesn’t exist. I made her up to protect myself in case you got all clingy. Stupid, I know. I’m sorry, darling. But isn’t this wonderful! We can be together! Melissa, will you marry me?”
The waiter is practically swooning; Melissa can see him from the corner of her eye, hanging on to a wall moulding for support.
“But what about Rico?”
“Ditch him!” cries Gary joyfully. “He’s only your boyfriend, not your husband. Anyway, from what you tell me, he’s a bum. All he does is sit home all day while you run around after him.”
This is true, but it doesn’t mean that Melissa doesn’t still prefer Rico’s company to Gary’s. The sex with Gary is phenomenal, but his conversation is limited, to say the least. Christ, she even bores herself when she’s with him. The only way she can deal with it is by getting drunk as quickly as possible and then getting right down to the screwing.
Ah yes … the screwing … Melissa feels her crotch start to tingle. They could do it every night, every day. They wouldn’t have to talk. Would they? And she mustn’t forget Gary’s obscene amount of money, or his house in the Hamptons.
“Let me think about it,” she said.
At five in the morning on Saturday, February 14th, while Gary sleeps the sleep of the sexually exhausted, Melissa closes the door of the suite gently and creeps down the corridor to the elevator. The doorman of the Plaza hails her a cab, and she gives the driver an address in Greenwich Village, and, when they arrive, a large tip.
She opens the door to her apartment and listens for Rico. She thinks of the note she left underneath Gary’s ring on the bedside table.
“I’m sorry Gary. Rico needs me. I just can’t leave him. I don’t think we should see each other any more. Love, M.”
Melissa tosses her purse and coat onto the couch and crosses to Rico’s cage. Of course, she’d left the bag on – he’ll still be asleep. She lifts it off and make a kissy face at him as he squints open one eye and shakes out his feathers.
“Rico?” he said. For a mynah, his repertoire is pretty limited, but she doesn’t mind. He has a deep voice like James Earl Jones and he can yell “fuck off” at anyone trying to break into her apartment, and that’s the important thing. She finds a peanut in her purse and feeds him through the bars.
“Morning sugar. Guess what, you saved me again! Gary turned out to be a bachelor in disguise.”
“Fuck off,” says Rico, disbelievingly.
“You said it. Asshole.”
Melissa yawns hugely and stretches. Until she finds the perfect guy – or at least one who knows his Kafka from his Karma Sutra – there’ll always be Rico. But now it’s time to go to bed and sleep, for a change. She’ll have to start putting out feelers for a new lover tomorrow. There are a few guys she dated a while back who know about her “boyfriend” and will understand.
She sincerely hopes they’re as married as they say they are.
© E. P. Henderson, 2008
The Gold Digger by E. P. Henderson was read by Lynsey Pow at the Liars' League Fame & Fortune event on 10 June 2008
E. P. Henderson works to live and lives to write. One day she's hoping to spend more time writing than working. She is a Londoner by adoption rather than by birth and is working on a novel.
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