You wake up and see, on the coffee table, your wallet spread open. Your cards, all of them — ID, credit card, library card, gym-membership card that was expired anyway — have been replaced with black valentines. The valentines have messages scrawled on them in metallic Sharpie, the usual messages in a girlish script. “Miss You!” “Kiss Me Quick!” “Bye-Bye!” Then you wake up for real.
Just a dream. A cautionary dream. Because even as you were writing the lousy poetry, part of your brain was thinking other thoughts. She’s too good to be true, therefore she is not true. She’s after something. She’s crazy. She’s a spy. She’s married. She’s actually a man.
No. You would know that. She’s not a man. Not with those hands. Maybe she’s crazy. You can’t refute that. You’ve heard the phrase don’t stick your dick in the crazy, and yet that’s just what you’re aching to do.
Married? Probably not. It’s not like you could see a ring with those gloves on, but if she’s married, why is she asking for romantic texts? So nope on that one.
Maybe she’s a spy. You can’t refute that either. Spying on... what? You? She’s just a very compelling woman, and you should probably text her all those photos and forget about her because then she’ll have what she wants and you’ll never see her again.
When you’re giving four dogs their afternoon walk, your phone rings and you give a little skip because it has to be her, nobody else ever calls you. And it’s your sister, saying you’ve got some mail that looks like a check. So at least some things are looking up.
You write one last poem, saying that you would like to replace all her credit cards with valentines from you, and you send her the rest of the pictures. Immediately you wonder why the hell you did that. Then you realize. It’s like you couldn’t take the suspense of wondering if she’d call, so you made sure she wouldn’t. No worthy poem, no more suspense.
You’re done with her. End of story. Period. Instead of anticipation of seeing her, or getting her phone calls, you feel relaxed, relieved. You can look at it dispassionately. You did all the giving, she did all the taking, and you got nothing. But you didn’t lose much either.
Not two hours after you’ve sent this off, your phone rings. A blocked number, so you don’t answer, but even if it was her, you wouldn’t answer, because what’s the point? You grit your teeth and tell yourself you don’t need this. Chick wouldn’t even tell you her real name. You had to make one up. You don’t need her, she’s playing with you. Any connection would have been only temporary anyway, for immediate gratification of base desires. Replace those valentines with, say, a poker deck. Or Cards Against Humanity.
Then your phone beeps, once every three minutes or so, reminding you that you’ve got a new voicemail. An annoying chirp, like an electronic drip. So of course eventually you have to listen to it or delete it.
When you hear her breathless honey voice saying she loves the poem, you start thinking that maybe she, too, wants only immediate gratification of base desires, so yeah, this could work. As long as she knows you’re not after her trust fund, or whatever, and you know she’s not after — what? You can’t even think what she might get out of you, other than free photos, which she already got, and it’s not like that cost you anything. As long as you’re both completely honest about who you are and what you expect, what could go wrong?
Various things, as it turns out. First there is the dancing around of whether you’re going on a date, and what constitutes a date, what you would both like to do on a date, and all that. You end up going to another bar, having beers and bar food, and then heading out on the street and holding her hand.
Which is still gloved. Kinda weird. Again you think: What is she covering up? Bad tattoos? Pus-oozing eczema? Slash marks? It’s like you’re getting a fetish about them. Or not about them, about seeing her hands.
So. “How come you always wear gloves? It’s not that cold.”
“Oh,” she says. “I’m a hand model. I really have to do everything to protect my hands. I even wear them indoors.” Then she puts her hands up to your face and holds it while she stares into your eyes. “Does it bother you? Do you mind?” Then she kisses you. Or at any rate that’s what you remember. And the next thing you remember is her asking to go to your place. Or, technically, Casey Feinman’s place. You begin taking steps in that direction, and so does she.
“And you don’t have like a roommate or something?”
“Just three cats,” you say.
She stops dead. “Oh, that won’t work. I’m deathly allergic to cats.”
You stop, too. “How about your place?”
“That won’t work either,” she says. “You have to get rid of them.”
For one wild moment you think about it. You wouldn’t get rid of them permanently, of course. Put them in the carrier, put the carrier somewhere outside the apartment. Your head clears a little. Realistically, if she’s that allergic, that won’t do it. You’d have to vacuum the place for hours. But for a minute there, Casey’s cats were in jeopardy.
Probably you wouldn’t have done anything to them. You have less than a week left there, and then you’ll be at Sid Elam’s place. Sid has an aquarium.
But it’s a dicey moment. If you say things are moving too fast, that sounds like you have some long-term relationship in mind, rather than something quick and dirty, and — you don’t. You just can’t see it.
“Give me a week,” you say. “To get the place aired out and vacuumed and all. Not even a week. Six days.” It’s a test. If she’s gone in a week, if you never see her again, well, you tried, and you will come back in the night and sneak in and kill those cats. Just kidding.
She pouts a bit, predictably, then says she can’t wait, and you make out a little more and then reluctantly tear yourselves away from each other. And you’re floating. Bouncing around, literally hitting your head, as you go up Casey’s stairs, on a plank you’ve never hit your head on before. Six days.
Five days. You’re still floating, but you’ve sent her a couple of texts with no response. You defy her instructions and call her, which gets you nothing but a nice recording of her voice that somehow causes you to float again and makes you want to call the number about a hundred times.
Four days. She leaves you a voicemail. Curious how she manages that since the phone is always on your person, always on, and you’d answer any call on the off chance it might be her. Still, a voicemail telling you she will be coming out of a photo shoot at approximately three o’clock today. So if you want to see her, you should text her at two forty-five if you think you’ll be there. You do, and you’re there, and you don’t see her. You’re not floating quite as high. You text back that you missed her, where was she? You hear nothing. You text again. Nothing again.
Three days. A black mood descends. Why is she playing these games?
Your phone rings, and it’s her.
“Sorry,” she says. “Things took a little longer than I thought, and I guess you didn’t wait?”
You pull out of your black mood. “How long was I supposed to wait, anyway? I hung around for like an hour.”
“I looked out the window when I took a break and I didn’t see you,” she says. “I’ve got another one tomorrow. Earlier, at nine. Text me if you want to see me then, and—”
“Why text you? Why can’t I tell you right now that I want to see you then?”
She’s silent.
“Okay,” you say. “You mean you’ll be coming out at nine or going there at nine?”
“Going there,” she says. “It should take about an hour.” She gives you an address in the warehouse district, then adds, “Text me when you get there.”