Cherries In The Snow Read Free Page B

kid. Even though I have been with the company mere months …
    Holly gathers her notebook and pulls her stiletto-booted feet off the table. The boots go all the way up her legs, stopping at her thighs just beneath her hot pants. They are ridiculous. A fisherman/hooker. She makes them look great.
    â€˜Oh, yeah,’ she says as she pulls her hair into a clip, ‘Isaac called.’
    The hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
    â€˜You gonna call him back?’ she asks casually.
    â€˜Fuck, no!’
    But the truth is, I don’t know.
    â€˜Yes, you are.’
    I point at the fruit I bought for breakfast. ‘It depends. Is this a mango or a papaya?’
    Holly rolls her eyes. Marine Escort, a Fresh eye powder now discontinued, flutters from her lashes to her cheekbones. ‘You eat it all the time. How can you not know the name of your favorite fruit?’
    â€˜That isn’t good, is it?’
    Isaac Isaac Isaac. The man with the biblical name who gave me the twenty-first-century computer on which I cannot write.

Born to Run (Waterproof)
    Isaac and I met in the parking lot at a Springsteen show. I couldn’t find my car or my purpose and had intended to ask Springsteen to help me, at least with the latter, but I was seated so far away from the stage, I could barely see the Boss over the Earth’s curve. Isaac, being who he is, had the best seat in the house.
    â€˜Have you ever been to Elaine’s?’ asked Isaac, from the backseat of a shared limo into Manhattan, my ears still ringing from Springsteen’s third encore. I couldn’t remember where I’d left my car and Isaac persuaded me to leave it there and go with him. ‘Oh, you must have dinner at Elaine’s. I’ll take you.’
    What I should have said then, what I realize now is: If I had wanted to go to Elaine’s, I would have already gone. There were any number of middle-aged suitors who would have taken me.
    When I met him, I was still working reception at the Crunch gym on Lafayette. Men there tried to pick me up because I was so unworked out, so uninterested in triceps, biceps, and quads, my soft arms writing down credit-card numbers and handing out locker keys with a barely disguised sneer. Seeing me amid all those aspiring hard-body actresses was, I guess, like going to Sweden and seeing an ugly person. Their interest was captured. But I rarely returned it.
    I got off work early the night of the concert and changedclothes in the ladies’ room before making the slog to the stadium. No one would come with me. No one my age gets Bruce Springsteen. I tried to get my dad to fly over and he thought about it – he researched all kinds of Internet deals – but in the end he was too busy. I bought him a Springsteen key ring from the souvenir stand and planned to e-mail him a full report as soon as I got home, but then Isaac got in the way.
    Why Isaac? Perhaps the idea of meeting your lover at a Springsteen concert was simply too intoxicating for me to pass up. What a story to tell your grandkids. Except Isaac told me he didn’t want children. And though I never said it out loud, I knew we weren’t in love. And that we had no future together. How could I be so sure? His stomach slapping against me when we did it. Let’s get this straight. It wasn’t the weight. It was the noise. He never fucking shut up, not even in the sack.
    Springsteen looks like he only works out onstage, which is the ideal. When straight men primp, I feel so embarrassed for them, I lose my erection immediately. Isaac worked out with a personal trainer twice a week, but he never lost his tummy. Sweaty against me when we, ugh, made love. Cringe. Really, really cringe, like origami folded up into a million corners. C’mon: younger girl, older man. Successful writer shagging a girl who yearns to be a writer. I could see how it looked, and how it looked was the truth. There wasn’t a whole lot of depth. I