How I ended up with a roommate and friend with such loose morals, I’ll never be able to explain. She started going on these “dates” almost two years ago now, an opportunity that arose after she ran into an old college friend who was putting herself through law school with these same “dates.” Patty wasn’t doing it to pay tuition, though. She just wanted to cover her bills and shop for clothes way above her pay grade, until her career in advertising took off. I told her she was crazy, but who am I to argue whether she needs a five-hundred-dollar purse when I spent my week’s grocery money on an antique china doll.

“You remember Carrie Seltzer from Human Psych?”

I frown. “She had ginger hair?”

Patty nods. “Doin’ it to pay for medical school.”

“Really?”

“Remember Sorcha Jackson?”

“The newspaper’s editor?”

“Columbia Journalism graduate now.”

I sigh. Patty knows how to work away at my defenses. “I just . . . can’t.”

She pouts. “I hate that I’m leaving you in the lurch like this.”

“Honestly, it’s okay. And you’re not.” I reach out and settle a hand on my friend’s knee. “You could have afforded to move to a much better apartment years ago and you stayed, because of me.”

She hasn’t given up on persuading me just yet. “At least try it once, this Saturday night, and see if you can handle it.”

“This Saturday?” As in two days from now?

“Yeah. Why? What big plans do you have? I mean, I know that Antiques Roadshow is on . . .”

I grin sheepishly. She knows me too well.

“Seriously. I have something lined up with a really nice guy. I’ll tell him I’m sick and you can go in my place. He won’t care.”

“I don’t know.”

“One date a week and you could have this palace all to yourself when I leave.”

We each scan the dumpy, five-hundred-square-foot roach-infested apartment before our eyes meet again.

We double over in laughter.

————

“I can’t believe you talked me into this.” I smooth the black silk over my abdomen. It’s one of Patty’s more subdued cocktail dresses, which she reserves for one of the many agency entertainment functions she has to attend throughout the year. We’re the same size, only my curves are much more pronounced, making this dress hover on the brink of scandalous.

“You look great,” she murmurs, catching a loose strand of hair with a shot of hairspray. “Just don’t eat too much or you might pop out of it.”

My laugh sounds wobbly, thanks to my nerves. “I’ll be lucky to keep anything down.”

“Well, try not to puke either. These guys pay a lot of money. They expect a certain pedigree. One that doesn’t puke all over them.”

The buzzer sounds, and I’m hit with the overwhelming urge to pee.

“You’ll be fine. Come on.” Answering the buzzer with “We’ll be right down!” she grabs her keys and leads me out the door in her signature flip-flops, tank top, and baggy shorts. “I went out with Raymond when he was in New York last time. He’s really nice. And filthy rich. Big-time into the oil business.”

Oil business. I wonder if the Sparkes would know him.

God, Maggie would literally fly all the way over from Africa and murder me if she knew I was doing this. Definitely one of those secrets I’ll take to my grave.

The archaic, musty-smelling elevator creaks and groans down six stories while Patty fills me in on sixty-nine-year-old oil tycoon Raymond Easton from Dallas, Texas, who lost his wife ten years ago to cancer and hasn’t remarried. “Don’t bring her up unless he does, but if he does . . .” Her face turns sad-puppy. “It’s so sweet, Celine. Oh my God! You can tell how much he loved her and misses her.” Her slender arms tense with the strength needed to open the old lobby doors. “Just be yourself and he’ll adore you. And, for God’s sake,” she gives me a little push toward the town car waiting to drive me to Manhattan, “make sure you smile!”

————

I climb the cracked concrete steps to the front door. Our building looks even shabbier now, in comparison to the travertine-and-glass venue I just spent the last four hours at, eating delectable food I couldn’t refuse despite my nerves and my binding dress, pacing my martinis to avoid getting drunk, and listening to industry chatter that made no sense to me.

Luckily, it didn’t matter that it made no sense because, as Patty promised, I wasn’t there for more than polite chitchat and arm decoration. I did exactly what she told me to do: follow his lead, answer his questions, and above all else, smile wide. The first hour, those things proved difficult, but I managed, and Raymond didn’t seem to mind. I admitted later that this was my first “companion outing” as he calls it.

I waited for him in the hotel lobby, at a private table under his name. And when a weathered man with white hair, a rotund belly, and a bulbous red nose approached, I was sure I’d made a terrible mistake. I was sure I couldn’t go through with it.

But he shook my hand and sat down, and just started rambling. He talked about his children—two sons—and his four grandchildren, and their latest report cards. He talked about his five-hundred-acre ranch and his seventeen horses and his three dogs. He talked about his business and about how he’s thinking of retiring.

He talked to me like he hadn’t had anyone to talk to in a long time.

Once we left for the event—an industry meet and greet of sorts—he gave me his arm and led me around. I watched and listened quietly as all kinds of guys in suits introduced themselves to him, lavishing him with compliments. In between, he’d lean in and tell me what they wanted from him. Invariably, it was always money. The question was only how much.

And when he walked me to the town car and bid me good night, he kissed my hand, told me my payment was waiting for me in the car, and asked if I’d consider another “companion outing” in a month’s time.

I smiled. And agreed.

Now I rush to my apartment, a war of relief, guilt, and curiosity swirling within me. Relieved that the night is over, guilty that this would kill my mother if she ever found out, and curious about the contents of the Tiffany-blue gift bag that was waiting for me in the car. I didn’t dare open it under the driver’s watchful eye.