He introduced himself and we started talking. It was the first time in ages I had talked to a man, other than Stash. Stash is half-Polish and half-Italian, so conversation between the sexes doesn't go over so good with him.
This guy's name was Mikell and he was from South Africa and wrote novels, political-type novels, so he had been thrown out of the country some time back. They didn't actually throw him out, they just confiscated a work-in-progress. I asked him if he knew Jimmy Gwynne, who is from Cape Town, and naturally Mikell knew Jimmy—in fact, he had shared a flat with him in London about six years ago. He had come to the party with Millie, who I had always wanted to meet—Millie was one of the few successful woman painters in New York. So I said hello to Millie, and it turned out we had gone to the same college but at different times and she had graduated some eight years before me. I never thought Mikell and Millie were actually together, I thought they just came to the party at the same time. Whatever. Millie excused herself, and Mikell went back to talk to me.
As it happened, I gave Mikell my address and phone number without bothering to mention that I lived with someone. Let me tell you, at this point there was nothing devious going on in my head. Stash was always encouraging me to develop a life of my own. This Mikell had eyes that were truly sickening— green pools like you never see and never want to see: when he looked at you, it made you weak in the knees, which in actual fact made me mad. So I didn't respond—I mean, come on already, I didn't let my knees get weak, I just talked to Mikell like he was one of my girlfriends. Come to think of it, that was the only way I knew how to talk to anyone anymore.
A few days later, after Stash had gone off to work, Mikell called, and I agreed to meet him for a cup of coffee. It turned out he lived only a few blocks away. I sat in the back corner of the White Horse Tavern, hoping no one would be able to see me if they walked past the window and report me to Stash or anything.
Mikell showed up. Such white teeth, like you wouldn't believe (they must have something in the water over there in South Africa), and those eyes—brilliant green (maybe he wore contact lenses). I couldn't even believe it. He had a copy of his novel for me. It had been published in England and he was looking for an American publisher. It was called Registered Alien. After a while, I had to explain that I lived with a person, and Mikell asked me how it was going. I said okay, but that my dream was that someday I would get some bucks and then maybe I could move out. I said I got along all right with Stash, but that he never wanted to have anyone over, we had no couch, just a bed, all his stuff was all over the place, it hadn't been painted in ten years, and my dream was to have a real apartment, maybe with a little terrace, geraniums, and then I'd have dinner parties for eight or ten every once in a while.
Well, it turned out that Mikell lived with Millie. They had met in L.A. Millie went out there for a show and Mikell was living there reading screenplays for a production company. So Mikell invited Millie to South Africa, she met his mother, and they got along really well. Mikell took Millie to meet some Zulus and she danced with them; they stayed up all night drinking some local concoction, and Millie had a great time. When Millie went back to New York, she invited Mikell to move in with her—New York was where the publishing was. Mikell said yes, they got along great, there was only one problem, which was that they fought all the time.
What the situation was, Millie owned her own co-op, and her former boyfriend, during the time they were engaged to be married, had purchased the co-op next to hers, and they had torn down the walls between the two apartments. So now Millie's former boyfriend rented out his half of the space to Mikell at a very, very tiny rent, a rent so small that even though Mikell was absolutely broke he was able to afford living in New York, which was where he wanted to be. The reason the former boyfriend rented out his half of the co-op to Mikell at such a reduced rate was that it would have cost a fortune to rebuild the walls between the two apartments, and Millie absolutely refused to live with a complete stranger. But it was lucky for Mikell that Millie didn't consider him a complete stranger, otherwise he would have had to go back to Los Angeles and his job, when that was something he had nothing for but contempt.
We both just sat there. Mikell put his hand over mine. It wasn't a sexual thing, not really, it was just the two of us sitting there at a wooden table in the White Horse Tavern, looking at each other and sitting there. We were both in the same position. Things might have been different if one of us had our own apartment. It wasn't that Mikell wasn't very fond of Millie— he was. But they had a lot of fights, and he wasn't allowed to go out by himself at night, and Millie didn't feel like going out all that often, and Mikell would have liked to be able to see some of the New York scene now that he was finally here.
When we got up to leave, I let Mikell pay for my coffee. He said he would call me in a couple of days. I asked him to call only between the hours of eleven and one, when I could be certain that Stash would be out. I asked him to sign his novel. He wrote, "To Eleanor by the River, with love from Mikell." So I said, "Listen, why don't you write down your number, in case I have to give you a call?"
It was all totally out in the open. I just wanted to keep him like a girlfriend, and that was why I told Stash about meeting Mikell. I figured that things would never work out between me and Mikell because we were both in the same position, but maybe as a foursome I could be friends with Millie and Stash could go shoot some pool with Mikell. It was important to bring new people into a relationship, to make new friends, and if you're part of a couple, well, then it's easier to have new friends who are also a couple.
Stash almost had a nervous breakdown. For two days he wouldn't speak to me, then he started screaming. He told me to go move out so I could start sleeping with this guy, and said how dare I bring home little love notes from some cretin.
I said, "Well, Stash, I wouldn't have told you about it if there was anything going on. All I did was tell Mikell about you and how great you are, and he talked about Millie."
Stash said, "Don't give me that, that's how it begins—you go out and talk to each other about your relationships and then jump into bed with each other. Maybe we should just end this," he said. "You're beginning to bore me."
This went on all day. I started crying. I said, "If you want me to leave, then I won't stay here any longer. You know how much I love you, and I can't understand your reaction." I said, "I thought you'd really like this guy—he's interested in seeing your paintings, and I thought I could be friends with her."
"Who?" Stash said.
"The girlfriend," I said.
Stash said, "You want me to call her up and go out with her? Is that what you want? Fine. You're doing this out of insecurity. What is it about you I hate the most?"
"My messiness?" I said.
"No."
"My personality?"
"No," he said. "Your insecurity. That's what I hate about you the most. You are so damn insecure. Why don't you stop?"
I couldn't figure it out. I mean, I'm insecure, but I couldn't see how this related. My having coffee with a man didn't seem to illustrate this character defect. I cried all day Sunday, and Stash went out with his friends and played softball.