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Location: Home.
Listening: "Sugar" by Tori Amos.

Just spoke with an old friend of mine from elementary school. He had sent an email or two recently, asking me if I was coming home for Christmas, asking me to call any time, etc. So this looked like as good an any time as it gets. We didn't get to say much. He was in New York City, at dinner with friends, and a little drunk, I'd guess as he immediately wanted to know if there was anything I needed, sounding concerned. I reminded him that he had mailed me, etc. Told him I wasn't coming home for the holiday, etc. but that we'd talk later.

Surreal. However, it's often surreal when I talk to this particular person. We have a long and strange history, in that we went to Episcopal school together for years and actually became friends first there, as he was the only sixth grader who would talk to me when I was in fifth grade. He later went on to my brother school and we crossed paths again when we were both in the state Model UN competition in my sophomore year. After introductions redux, he and his friend spent the bus ride home trying to convince me why I should go to a dance with one and not the other. I eventually chose his friend, whom I ended up dating for the better part of three years and becoming engaged to. He started dating my best friend, with whom he had a tumultuous on-again, off-again relationship with until a few years ago. We kept up a steady stream of banter the entire time, which ended up leading to a blindsiding (and, frankly, spectacular) evening in the summer of 1996, when we very randomly slept together. Rather, it was random for me. Apparently much less so for him, as he chose that moment to inform me that he had been nursing a fascination with me for years. My former fiance spent the summer before we both went to college living with this friend and, apparently, we were looked and listened in on more than either of us suspected--and that night was the culmination of those images from years before. The whole thing was a bad idea. I was involved with several people at the time and he had a girlfriend in Philadelphia. My best friend was outraged, even though she had left him conclusively two years prior. Things were complicated until I returned to LA.

He hung out in the periphery from then on and would occasionally surface as an intriguing proposition. He was my mother's idea of what I should have been looking for--a young stockbroker from a good family with money of his own, Ivy League educated, ambitious, good-looking, etc. He was my idea of a potential disaster--a boy from the world of "equestrian communities", prep schools, and social codes I had grown up in. A Scorpio with Scorpio rising with a closetful of kinks and a yen for toying with that which he considered dangerous--motorcycles, drugs, me. A former linebacker on the football team who became a frat boy and who could lift me off my feet with one arm. I alternated between dismissing him out of hand and being amused every time he called me, drunk, from his cel at three in the morning. I wouldn't hear from him for months and then I'd get a call--he was in San Francisco on business and would I like to come up and see him, all expenses paid, with nothing to do all day but go shopping or perhaps lay in bed with room service provided by the company? Or could I perhaps manage to find time to fly to London, Zurich, New York City, for a few days? Circumstances and my sense of ethics and self respect always intervened to prevent us from meeting up again on that level and, to this day, our involvement with each other consists of that night and a few interrupted episodes in dark corners. I'll admit, it was good enough for me to remember and I enjoyed the game--whether it amounted to listening to him ramble on about the ceiling in his flat after too many pints or dodging his smirking questions when we managed to be in the same place at the same time.

Last Christmas, unfortunately, spoiled things to an extent. I came home barely a week after moving in with Peter to find a dinner invitation from the broker. We went out to a local yuppie eatery for drinks with a mutual friend (who, incidentally, had accompanied us for dinner on the night in question back in '96). He came to pick me up and, when I walked into the den, he was chatting with my mother. I couldn't help noticing the new wire-rimmed spectacles, the cashmere sweater over an oxford cloth shirt (strike one for me--I have a "thing" with oxford cloth), the beautifully tailored overcoat. I had dressed for the occasion and, after characteristicaly letting his eyes walk all over me, he walked me out and we slid into his father's new black Jag. It was an automatic, which was unfortunate for a girl with a fetish for stick shifts, and found our way to the bar with small talk to spare. Drinks with the friend were civilized, with several significant "watch yourself" glances from said friend in my direction. Eventually, we segued into news of how our lives had been progressing and I told him about moving in with Peter. The friend was congratulatory--almost excessively so--with an eye on him the entire time. He was visibly annoyed, to my amusement. We spent the rest of the evening drinking and then he took me home. We had been scheduled to have lunch the next day. I wasn't surprised when he didn't call.

Even though I expected his annoyance, it, quite frankly, pissed me off. I had no illusions about the nature of our relationship, but as game playing went, he had made the fatal error of wearing his intentions on his sleeve and I lost a lot of respect for him when he didn't bother trying to recover with lunch. Something in me concluded that he had played poorly and my vacation was soured by this realization and his arrogance. I basically wrote him off.

He called me at home, out of the blue, in June, to let me know that he was back stateside (he had been living in London at Christmas), in the MBA program at Duke in North Carolina. He had also apparently regained his chutzpah, as he asked first if I was "still with that guy from Christmas" and, when he received the affirmative, still wanted to know if I could find my way to the Raleigh-Durham area. I told him no, he gave me his cel number, and we finished the call. When I got the email a few weeks ago, I smirked and replied that I had lost his cel number. When he heard that I wasn't coming home for Christmas this year, his voice was obviously flat. "Oh. OK. Well, I'll call you back soon, huh?". I'm not holding my breath.

Perhaps it's time for some explanatory admissions. Yes, I have a thing for money, but not what you might expect. I used to joke that I was raised, in more ways than not, to be one of two things: a rich man's wife or a rich man's mistress. Basically, if you impress me enough, I won't even think to consider it. However, thanks to my background, I know what to do with money to derive my fullest satisfaction from it, and, when it's presented to me as someone's primary asset (no pun intended), I know how to play on that level. There's a lot to be said for all expenses paid--and a lot to be done with it. I'll admit that I can handle the "finer things" as well as I can handle sleeping in the back of someone's Olds as they rebuild the engine block and considering Taco Bell to be a "night out". I like what money can buy, but I never fool myself that that's all that it is. I also have a thing for power (trust me, if you've ever had an otherwise very power-laden boy spread out across his desk, you know what I mean), but it's also variable. I have exes who are brokers and lawyers, but I also lose my breath in the presence of what I consider to be sheer artistic power. Depends very much on the person. A close friend once insisted that I had been a gang moll in a former life. I wouldn't go that far, but I know that I'm not intimidated by power. On the contrary, it amuses me probably more than it should. What I don't have a thing for is cowardice and the inability to stay in the game when the odds are stacked against you--and he lost on that level. I can be bought in the sense that it takes cunning to do so. A worthy opponent. Sadly, the boy in question proved to be unworthy on that level and hence, not worth my time. Disappointing that, but c'est la vie. He was fun.

I'm everyone
Put your label on me
I'm everyone
Painted black and white and easy.

~ Spin, Spin Sugar Sneaker Pimps