I'm Your Man Read Free Page A

cab, I decided to walk, hoping to exhaust myself. I’d been having trouble sleeping, which I attributed not only to the breakup with Daniel, but to a slowdown in my workload. I wasn’t being challenged enough, which gave me too much time to think about the wreck my personal life had become.
    I briefly considered stopping at a bar and finding someone to divert me for an hour or two. There’d been a few of those after I became single. I decided against it. Maybe if I went to bed early enough, I’d sleep in spite of myself. At least I no longer had to look down at Daniel’s dark apartment and wonder where he was.
    Over the next couple of weeks, cold, gray days continued to dampen my mood. True to her word, Gretchen and I talked every few days. We made tentative plans for our next Gay Day, a screening of the movie The Women in mid-February. Gretchen insisted it was mandatory viewing for a gay man. I ended up having to cancel on her because of a business trip. I wasn’t sure I regretted missing the movie, but I definitely wasn’t sorry that work was kicking into high gear as we finished getting ready for spring and summer.
    My focus was all business as yet another soggy day found me boarding a flight to Baltimore with Sheila. She was behind me in line, yelling into her cell phone. I tried to ignore her conversation, but it was next to impossible. Especially when she slid into her seat next to mine.
    â€œBob,” she said into the phone, “you’re not listening to me. The point is, I’m presenting an award for best costumes on national television, and Claude Martrand called with an offer to dress me from his couture line . . . Yes, well, you can imagine my surprise when he wondered why I had ignored his invitation to be in his spring runway show . . . Oh, really? He said you were the one who ultimately declined for me, since I was under obligation to Lillith Parker and couldn’t do any shows . . . You know that’s not true, Bob! I don’t want to hear your excuses, either. Lillith may have me on a busy schedule as her Zodiac Girl, but my contract clearly says I can do other jobs as time permits . . . Oh? You think? Well, I’ve got news for you, honey, I’m on my way to meet with Lillith. I’m on a plane even as we speak . . . No, I don’t need you with me. Blaine Dunhill is with me . . . No! Don’t call Lillith! It’s a personal meeting, Bob . . . Just don’t lie to me again. Bye.” She closed her cell phone and tucked it into a highly polished, black leather purse.
    â€œRough day at the office, dear?” I asked.
    â€œBlaine,” she said, turning to me, “I swear I’m going to leave Metropole if they don’t give me another agent. Bob’s a fascist. He thinks he owns me or something.”
    â€œMaybe you should talk to your lawyer, Sheila,” I offered. I didn’t know much about the hierarchy of modeling agencies, so it was the best advice I could think of.
    â€œMaybe you’re right.” I watched as she bit her lower lip. It was odd how the little overbite never corrected by braces could now earn upwards of fifteen hundred dollars an hour. “It’s not even noon and I already have a headache.”
    â€œExcuse me,” a woman seated across the aisle from us said. Sheila and I both turned to look at the magazine in her hands. “Is this you?”
    The magazine was open to an ad for Zodiac’s Aquarius line by Lillith Allure Cosmetics. Spread out over two glossy pages was a photograph of Sheila dressed as a mermaid, being carried by a buff man in a Speedo on a sandy beach.
    â€œGosh. Look at my hair. It’s huge,” Sheila pointed out.
    â€œIt looks great,” I observed. “You look fantastic.”
    â€œI look like the chicken of the sea.”
    â€œSorry, Charlie,” I quipped.
    â€œWould you sign this for me?” the woman asked. “It’s for my daughter.