I t is a few days after Christmas, I am living in New York, working in a dead-end job. It's worse than that; I'm employed by the production department of a failing magazine. I probably won't even have my dead-end job for much longer. It's cold, and the city has an air of spent goodwill: there are already Christmas trees lying on the pavement.
I drop by the apartment of some friends, two girls who share a grand duplex in the West Village. I know they have people visiting, English people. But when I get there my friend Pat answers the door. He gives me to understand that the two roommates are in the basement having a protracted disagreement.
(mh=IGkae6W664YnGwB-)48202201a.jpg "Call girl Pittsfield")
They argue a lot, those two, and have a tendency towards high drama. I first see the English girl as she comes up from downstairs, where she has been attempting to broker some sort of truce and salvage the evening. Her short hair, charged with static, is riding up on itself at the back. She walks into the room, pauses to light a cigarette, and then looks at me and Pat. We all go out to a bar. The English girl has a bright red coat and swears a lot.
Her voice is husky. She is funny and charming, but also peremptory and unpredictable, with shiny little raisin eyes.
(mh=dAGrsTF7NVVTmYLp)13.jpg "Girls in Pittsfield")
If I'm honest, she scares the shit out of me. But by the end of the evening I very badly want the English girl to be my girlfriend. My plan is to engineer this outcome as quickly as possible. There are a few flaws in my plan: the English girl lives in London, and I live in New York; I already have a girlfriend of four years' standing; the English girl does not appear to like me.
