Four Blondes

I

e have a saying in New York: English girls who are considered beautiful in London are merely "pretty" in New York, while American girls who are called "attractive" in New York are beautiful in London. And this sums up one of the biggest differences between Life in New York and Life in London. In London, if you're an attractive, nice girl with some personality and a career, you can meet a man, date him, and—if you want to—marry him. On the other hand, in New York, you can be a beautiful woman with a body like Cindy Crawford's and a highpowered career and you cannot even get a date.

Maybe because Englishwomen can actually snag a man—and can do so with ratty hair, unpolished nails, and flabby thighs—they possess a certain sort of annoying smugness when it comes to relationships.

Recently, I had an encounter with one of these women in New York. As she sat there eating a smoked salmon sandwich and interviewing me about w my life (which was sounding, to my ears, more and more pitiful by the moment), my eye was inevitably drawn to her large sapphire engagement ring topped by a sapphire-studded wedding band.

It shouldn't have made me hate her, but it did. "Let’s see," she said, checking her tape recorder. "Is there any man in your life right now?”

“Noooo," I said, although I had just broken up with a man who refused to marry me after six months of dating. I believe his actual words were "I do want to get married someday, but I don't want to marry you.”

Okay, maybe I did rush him a little. But on the other hand, he used to sit at home in the evenings watching Kung Fu movies. And when I tried to talk to him, he would say, "Shhhhh. Grasshopper is about to learn an important lesson." After this happened a few times, I realized that "Grasshopper" had indeed learned a lesson: By the time you get to Grasshopper's age, there is absolutely no reason to be with a man who watches Kung Fu movies unless you are married to him.

But there was no reason to tell the English journalist this.

"How ... interesting," she said. "I've been married for six years.”

"Is that so," I said. I took a sip of my Bloody Mary and wondered if I was getting drunk. "Well, if you lived in New York," I said, "you wouldn't be. In fact, if you lived in New York, you'd probably be living in a small one-bedroom apartment, agonizing over some jerky guy you slept with three times." Ah yes. Grasshopper was just getting warmed up. "You'd think that maybe you were going to have a relationship, but then the guy would call to tell you that he didn't want any obligations. He would actually say, 'I don't want to check in . '“

I ordered another Bloody Mary. "Commitment is a mystery here," I said.

"Not in London," the English journalist said. "Men in London—Englishmen—well, they're better than American men. They're rather ..." Here her face took on a sort of disgusting look that I could only call "dreamy." Then she continued, "Steady. They're interested in relationships. They like them. Englishmen are ... cozy.”

"You mean like ... kittens?" I asked.

The English journalist gave me a superior smile. "Now, let's see. You are ... how old now?”

“Forty," I whispered.

"That's right. So you must be at that point where you've realized that you'll probably be alone for the rest of your life.”

And so it was that a month later, Grasshopper found herself on a flight to London. In the tradition of many American heroines before her, she was off to England in search of something she hadn't been able to find in New York: a husband.

That, of course, was my secret plan.

Being one of those clever American women who are so clever that they manage to trick themselves out of having relationships, I naturally needed some kind of cover-up. And I'd found it: This big English newspaper was paying me a ridiculous amount of money to find out about sex in London. If there actually was such a thing.

It was the kind of assignment that would involve copious amounts of alcohol and quite a lot of late night bar crawling, the kind of activities I specialized in. Which was probably the reason I didn't have a husband in the first place.

But there were two things that worried me: Sex and Death.

You see, years ago, I had actually dated a couple of Englishmen. Unfortunately, both had tried to kill me—one by "wave-jumping" ten-foot waves in Australia in a twenty-five-foot Chris Craft, which he then crashed into the dock (he was drunk); and the other by suffocating me with a pillow (he was sober). Indeed, when I called Gerald the Suffocator to tell him that I was coming to England, his response was "Good. Now I can finish the job.”

My second fear was, naturally, sex. Over and over again I had heard how horrible Englishmen are in bed. The conventional wisdom was that they failed miserably on three counts: One, their willies were really small. Two, foreplay didn't exist. And three, they came in about two minutes. In other words, they were all premature ejaculators, and if they lived in New York, some sensible woman would have put desensitizing cream on the tip of their willies and then made them have sex for three hours, which would probably cause the poor man to go running to his shrink—but, hey, that's not our problem. But maybe they don't have desensitizing cream in England. Or maybe they don't really care that much about sex.

I decided to begin my "research" by staying at the home of a man known as The Fox. The Fox was one of London's most prominent theater directors, and also one of the most notorious womanizers in London. Years earlier, The Fox's wife, whom, I was told was known in London as The Saint for putting up with him, had divorced him for something like egregious adultery and outrageous behavior. The outrageous behavior including turning up at four in the morning naked and clutching an American Express card over his privates. And so, on a Tuesday afternoon, I arrived at The Fox's house with three Louis Vuitton suitcases, stuffed, rather inexplicably, with Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, and Gucci evening clothes, plus one pair of combat pants. The Fox wasn't there, but his housekeeper, a woman who didn't speak English and was ironing towels, was. Through a series of hand motions, I began to understand that, as there were only two bedrooms and the "guest" room was, at that moment, occupied by a large man and an even larger case of wine, I was supposed to sleep in The Fox's bed.

Aha.

Luckily, as I was about to open a bottle of wine and proceed to get drunk in order to deal with the situation, The Fox's assistant, Jason, arrived. Jason was twenty-five, cute, and of some sort of indeterminate nationality, although he claimed to be English. When I quizzed him about the so-called "sleeping arrangements," he grabbed me and said, "Don't have sex with The Fox. Have sex with me instead. I'm sure I'm much better in bed.”

"Jason," I said patiently. "Have you ever even had a girlfriend?”

"Well, I'm having some romantic trouble right now," he said. Then he proceeded into a longwinded story about some girl he was in love with, whom he'd had sex with once, nine months ago. He met her at a pub, and even though she was a lesbian and with her girlfriend, he had somehow convinced her to go off to a hotel room with him, where she handcuffed him to the bed and had "amazing" sex with him. The next morning he realized that he'd never felt this way about a woman before, had fallen madly in love with her, and since then, hadn't even looked at another woman although the object of his affection refused to take his phone calls and refused to see him. And then she'd changed her cell-phone number.

"So what do you think I should do?" he asked. For a long time, I just stared at him like he was insane. Then I said patiently, "Jason. You had a one night stand. You don't fall in love after a one-night stand with a lesbian sadist.”

“You don't?" Jason said.

"No," I said. "Why not?”

"Because," I began, but at that moment, the door flew open and The Fox himself arrived. He ran across the room to the window and looked out fearfully. "You're late, boss," Jason said.

"Late? Late? I'll give you late," The Fox spluttered.

"My life is a fucking nightmare. Doesn't anyone understand that? Miranda's following me again. I had to run all the way around Picadilly Circus to get her off my tail.”

It seemed that The Fox was being stalked by his most recent ex-girlfriend, a woman named Miranda who was an actress in one of his plays.

"Look at this!" he said, brandishing a creased piece of paper. "She faxed this to me this morning. She says if I don't comply by midnight, she's going to have me arrested.”

I removed the piece of paper from his hand and examined it. It was a list of items she'd left in his apartment and wanted returned. It contained entries like "kitchen sink,”

“lightbulbs," and "Julia Roberts videos.”

"Like I want those fucking Julia Roberts videos. Doesn't she know I can't stand Julia Roberts?”

“Lightbulbs?" I asked. "Why can't she buy her own?”

“Exactly!" The Fox said. "Finally, someone understands why I had to break up with her!”

That night, I went to Titanic for The Fox's birthday party, where Grasshopper learned Lesson #1 about Englishmen: They won't shut up. The Titanic is a perfect London restaurant—loud, full of drunk people, and so large that you basically have to scream to have a conversation. Of course, this isn't a problem for the Englishman. Let me explain: In New York, women have to "entertain" straight men. We have to read newspapers and magazines or go to movies so we can have "conversational gambits." Otherwise, the man will a) just sit there, b) talk about his psychological problems, or more likely, c) winge on and on about his career. On the other hand, American men are great in bed, and Englishmen supposedly are not.

In fact, I'm convinced there's a direct correlation between talking too much and being bad at sex.

At the bar, I met a man named Sonny Snoot, an extremely good-looking hairstylist.

"Great color," he said. When I looked at him blankly, he said, "Your hair. You must be American. From New York. They just seem to know how to do that great ashy blond.”

"I'm just happy that I have all my hair," I said.

And then I laughed, "Har, har, har," and he laughed, "Har, har, har," and before you could say "blow job," he was yapping about sex.

"This is the way it is," he said. "If sex is number one in Italy, ifs number seven in London. If sex doesn't fall a man's way, he'll go off and do something else. But men talk about sex all the time. In fact, one of the reasons to have sex is to talk about it the next day. And we talk about it in minute detail and make the story really good.

"Sometimes," he continued, "you get the urge to talk about sex while you're actually doing it. For instance, if you're doing a weird position, you kind of want to call your mates on your cell phone and say, 'Guess what I'm doing now?' “

"Oral sex," I suggested.

"Oh no," Sonny said, shaking his head. "The Americans, they're all very horny. But we don't do that here.”

At dinner, I sat next to Peter, a magazine editor. Peter's girlfriend had just moved in with him, and he couldn't stop talking about how happy he was. "We've known each other for ten years, of course,”

he said. "But one morning, when she was going back to her apartment, she just said, 'I think we should move in together.' And as soon as she said it, I knew she was right. So now we've bought an apartment together. Englishmen don't patently object to marriage or commitment the way American men do," he said proudly. "If s very easy to find a relationship here.”

Yeah, if you've got ten years.

"Of course, I don't know what it would be like for an American woman," he continued. "You know, American women are neurotic about their careers, while Englishwomen are only neurotic about sex,”

he said, as if this were a good thing. "Englishwomen don't like it. Well, maybe they would like it, but they think that men are only after the one thing." Maybe it was the champagne, but Peter seemed to be getting what the English call "stroppy.”

“Englishwomen suffer from this half-baked feminism. They think they're really open about sex, but then—aha—they find out they have the same hang-ups their mothers did.”

“Well, maybe there's a reason for that," I ventured. "Maybe if you'd stop talking—”

Peter cut me off. "Women here think that any adventure in the bedroom is only for male pleasure!”

he said triumphantly.

The chatty Englishman problem continued to plague me to the nightclub China White, where I attempted to take refuge in one of the private Moroccan-style rooms with my friend Sophie, who worked in documentaries and lived in Notting Hill. I had just settled against the cushions with a bottle of vodka when I looked up and noticed a tall, dark-haired, shockingly good-looking man. Although these kinds of things supposedly don't happen in London, the man came over and sat down next to me. And then—so much for "English reserve"—I swear to God, he immediately launched into a conversation about sex.

"Everybody thinks if s the man's fault that women don't have orgasms. Why can't they just have them like ... like men?" he demanded.

"Actually, they can," I said, wondering if perhaps this was a come-on, and if so, what I should do about it.

"Oh yes. They're always saying they can, but then you're in bed with a woman, and she's just lying there like she's doing you a favor....”

"Now, where I come from, we sort of got over that in the sixties," I was saying, when suddenly Sophie jumped in.

"Oh please/' she snapped. "Don't listen to him. The first thing an Englishman does in bed is to try to flip you over. Because That’s how they're used to having sex. And they all say Englishwomen can't give good blow jobs. But if s only because they're used to getting them ... from boys!”

Sophie and the good-looking, dark-haired man sat glaring at each other. I wouldn't have minded this, but I was sitting between them, and I really wasn't in a mood to get clocked by a wayward punch. Luckily, at that moment The Fox poked his head in.

"Ooooh. Hello, Simon," he said, as his eyes narrowed. "Haven't seen you for a while.”

"Right. Well, I'm ... I'm having a baby," Simon said.

"Good for you. Then maybe you can stop chatting up my date!" The Fox grabbed my arm and pulled me out of there. "Listen," he said. "I spend most of my life with people who know fuck-all about fuck-all and deserve to be kicked to death. Most people are complete scum. Most people need someone to explain to them that their very existence is a nuisance!”

The Fox continued in this vein until we reached his house, where he insisted that I stay up with him until six in the morning, listening to obscure American cowboy music. And talking about it. At this point, I realized I needed to sleep. I also realized that the only way to get The Fox to stop talking was to drug him. Yes, I'm very sorry to say that I actually tried to slip Xanaxes into The Fox's glass of wine. Unfortunately, it all got mixed up, and I ended up passing out instead.

When I woke up the next afternoon, there was a note at the bottom of the bed: "Darling, never mind Shakespeare, I'm in love. Still crazy after all these hours. Love, The Fox. P.S. I didn't touch you." Englishmen are just ... so ... sweet!

I spent the next few days going to lunches and dinners and nightclubs. The thing That’s kind of weird about London is that even though people say they have jobs, no one ever seems to get any work done. I mean, how can they, when lunch begins at noon and goes until four o'clock? And usually involves several cocktails and a couple of bottles of wine? And then that Miranda person snuck into The Fox's apartment and really did steal all the lightbulbs. So when I had to get dressed to go out at night, I had to do it by feel.

And then there was no hot water.

And then I remembered that I was actually supposed to be doing something, like working, so I called my friend Claire.

Claire is an interior decorator—has been for five years, ever since her second husband ran off with her best friend. Claire is the only truly single girl I know in London. Meaning she hasn't had a real boyfriend for three years. Which pretty much makes her an honorary New York woman in my book. But unlike most New York women, Claire has already been married twice. And she's only thirty-seven. Did she really have that much to complain about? "Let me put it this way," she said. "I haven't had sex with anyone new in over a year. I've only had sex with old boyfriends. Which everyone knows doesn't count." We agreed to meet at Shoo House, one of these private clubs where people go in lieu of restaurants and bars.

I looked around at the clumps of men and women, all of whom seemed to be in their late twenties and thirties, and all of whom seemed to be dressed in varying shades of gray or black clothes that looked like they'd been plucked out of the dirty-clothes hamper. Right away, I realized I just wasn't getting the clothes bit right—I was wearing a Dolce & Gabbana coat with a cranberry fur collar. Everyone was drinking and laughing, but it didn't look like people were trying to pick each other up. "God," I said. "I feel like a desperate single woman.”

Claire looked around wildly. "Stop it. Don't ever say that. Women in London are not desperate. People don't understand things like that here. They'll think we're serious. We don't have men because we don't want to.”

"We don't?" I said.

"No." She took in what I was wearing. "And take that off," she said. "Everyone is going to think that you're a prostitute. Only prostitutes wear designer clothes. With fur.”

Okay. "Cocktail?" I asked.

"You know me," Claire said. "Oh, by the way. I've decided to become a housewife. But without the husband or kids. Did I tell you about this fabulous floor waxer I just bought? Secondhand, but it's lovely. I don't think you can get things like floor waxers anymore.”

At the bar, we ran into Hamish and Giles, two Notting Hill media types whom Claire knew. Hamish had a sweet face like a baby and was in a dither over his romantic life: He was trying to decide whether or not to marry his girlfriend.

Meanwhile, Giles said that he might have to swear off casual sex because he kept running into women he'd slept with, and things were getting "complicated." Ah. Casual sex. Now we were getting somewhere.

Or so I thought.

"The worst thing about casual sex is the cats," Giles said. "All these single women have cats!”

“Can we talk about my girlfriend?" Hamish asked. "I don't know what to do. She's threatening to leave ...”

"Cats are the ultimate put-off," Giles said. Obviously, he'd had the girlfriend discussion a few too many times. "Once I was thinking about seeing a woman, and Hamish said, 'Giles, don't be ridiculous. She has a cat.' If s not the cats, so much, but the way they talk about the cats. 'Ooooh, look at little PooPoo.' Ifs disgusting." Giles took a sip of vodka. "I haven't mastered the relationship thing. But I'd prefer to have a girlfriend. In London, we don't have dates. We just go out together. And in London, a snog is a down payment on a shag. Once you get down to snogging, you know you're in. In New York, that isn't true.”

I agreed, pointing out that in New York, it was entirely possible to kiss someone and then say, "See ya," and never see him again. And if you did see him again, it was considered good form to pretend that the snog never happened. This rule also applies if you have gone further than the snog and have actually shagged.

"Oh, here we have this fake kind of chivalry,”

Giles said. He seemed a little bitter about it. "The next morning, guys will say, 'Thanks very much. It was a lovely shag,' but it doesn't really mean anything.”

"I'll tell you everything about sex if someone will please tell me what to do about my girlfriend afterward!" Hamish said.

We all looked at him.

"Well, British men have this bad rap for being crappy in bed," Hamish said, somewhat desperately. "But I think we're getting better at it. We try to have some foreplay and we will, you know, perform oral sex. I've tried to get better in the sack. I read my mother's women's magazines to find out what to do.”

"Yeah, but they don't show you pictures of a clitoris!" Giles said.

This comment was so pitiful, I didn't know what to say.

"I can't do the casual sex thing because I fail at the post-post-coital portion," said Hamish. "Should you call? What do you say if you do call? I haven't gotten to that part of the manual.”

"You pray for an answering machine," Giles said. "Inside, I'm really a trembling mess," Hamish said.

"I'm not good about being friends with women afterward, which is stupid, because if you are friends, you leave the door open for a shag six months later.”

“The whole thing is just too fucking complicated," Giles said. "Now I'm trying to only shag girls I think I might want to have a relationship with. It's important to be choosy. Besides, I want to have kids. In fact, I'm desperate to have kids. I've wanted to have kids since I was about sixteen.”

"That reminds me. I have to go home. To my girlfriend," Hamish said.

"What’s with this marriage and kids bit?" I asked. "How should I know?" Giles said. "That's the thing about Englishmen. We're not very analytical. We don't go to shrinks." He paused, then looked at Claire. "Hey. Don't you have cats?" he asked.

We left.

"See what I mean?" Claire said. "London is just impossible. I would go to New York, but I'm afraid to fly. Why don't you come over for a nightcap, and I'll show you that new floor waxer?”

And then I got the phone call. From this Judy person. My supposed editor at the newspaper. That was paying me to write this stupid story. I had to have lunch with her the next day.

Judy was, to my mind, a "typical" Englishwoman. She had long, stringy brown hair and a pale face and wore no makeup. She drummed her half-bitten fingernails on the table. She was a no-nonsense kind of gal.

"Well," she said. "What have you found out about sex in London?”

"Mmmm ... er ... can I have a cocktail?" I asked hopefully.

She nodded to the waiter. "So?" she demanded. "Frankly," I said, "I've never been anywhere where the sexes are so disparaging about each other. When it comes to, ah, actual sex.”

"Meaning?”

"Oh, ifs just that ... " I looked at her and thought, Hang it. "Ifs just that Englishmen say that Englishwomen are terrible in bed and vice versa.”

"Really?" she said "Englishmen say that Englishwomen are bad in bed?”

I nodded. "They also say that Englishwomen don't know how to give blow jobs." I examined my naturally perfect nails. "What is this obsession with blow jobs, anyway?”

"Public schools," she spat.

"They also say that ... Englishwomen are hairy and don't care about how they look.”

Judy leaned back in her chair, folded her arms, and regarded me smugly. She was scaring the shit out of me. No wonder Englishmen are a dithering mess. "Englishwomen are not like American women. That’s true," she said. "We don't care about things like coloring our hair. Or our nails. We don't have time to get our nails done here. We're too busy." Oh, I thought. Like American women aren't?

"Men and women understand each other here.”

She gave a short laugh. "Englishmen understand that we're all they've got. In other words, they're stuck with us. And if they don't like it, well, they get no sex at all.”

"That might be a good thing," I said. "For you, I mean.”

She lit a cigarette. Smoke came out of her nose. "It seems to me that maybe you haven't been doing your research.”

"Now listen," I said. "I'm perfectly willing to be reasonable about this, but—”

"That's not good enough," she said. "You're going to have to find an Englishman, a real Englishman, and you're going to have to shag him. And don't call me until you do!”

Oh dear. All I could think about was my poor bottom.

II

There's only one thing better than being single, American, and in London over Easter weekend. And that is being single, American, in London, and in love over Easter weekend.

I wasn't planning to fall in love. Okay, I thought I was, but I didn't really think it would happen. Especially since I'd met dozens of men, and although they were all very charming and amusing and would talk about things New York men wouldn't, like novels, I hadn't found one of them appealing enough to go to bed with. To tell you the truth, they all looked a little ... grubby. You got the feeling that if they took their clothes off, you might find something you really didn't want to know about.

Plus, this assignment was beginning to drive me crazy. I knew it was, because two days earlier, Grasshopper had apparently checked into the Halcyon Hotel in Holland Park at three in the morning. It's all pretty much a blank as to how she got there and what happened after she did, but it appeared that she had eaten a hamburger, and that somehow, in the past forty-eight hours, she had become a complimentary member of three private nightclubs. Apparently, she had also done something to the staff at the hotel, because every time one of them saw her, he or she would look at Grasshopper with a terrified expression and scuttle away.

See what I mean?

In fact, I was looking forward to the fact that everyone was going away for the weekend. I was planning to take long walks and look at the cherry blossoms and the short white buildings that were everywhere. Even without a man, London was a romantic city: unlike in New York, you could see the sky, and at night there was a full moon. When you walked down the street, the people in the coffee shops looked interesting, and at the sandwich shop on the corner, the lady behind the counter said she liked my shoes. A young man came in with flowers, and she bought some. We looked outside and a funny car was passing, a car that was half boat that you could drive into the river.

Anything can happen, I thought.

But I still had to complete that stupid assignment.

The night before, I had gone trolling at a party at the restaurant MoMo with The Fox. The Fox had promised that it would be a party crowd, as opposed to a posh crowd, which would be much better. All it really meant was that Tom Jones, the singer, was there with his bodyguards.

A pretty girl with half-closed eyes and a short flowered skirt walked by. Sonny Snoot was following her. "If s so funny to see a posh girl trying to be trendy," Sonny said. "Upper-class girls don't know what style is. They don't even know about Prada. But you know who's worse?”

"Who?" I asked.

"Upper-class guys. They don't know anything about women. They don't know how to treat a woman.”

"Basically, the longer the name, the worse the person," The Fox said.

"And the worse they are in bed," Sonny said.

I had to ask the inevitable question: "Is it true that they keep their socks on?”

"Only in Chelsea," The Fox said.

Then Claire came in. "I hate the upper classes and I hate the lower classes. I only like the middle classes.”

"I hate anyone who lives in Notting Hill," Sonny said. "Even though I live in Notting Hill.”

All this was a bit too much for me, so I went to Notting Hill, to a tiny club called World, where there were rastafarians and a really, really dirty-looking Englishman who was dancing by himself. My old boyfriend, Gerald the Suffocator, was there with his friend Crispin. They were drinking vodka out of tiny plastic cups.

"Babes!" Gerald said. "What were you doing at a party in Soho! You've got to be in Notting Hill. Or even better, Shepherd's Bush. If s all happening in Shepherd's Bush. We're the new bush-geoisie!”

"I can't stand the people in Notting Hill," Crispin said sullenly. "They live wild lives, and they all say they don't want to get married, but then they do. And they all say they don't have any money, but then you see them driving a bloody Mercedes!”

“Excuse me. But aren't you getting married?" I said.

"He lives in Shepherd's Bush. So if s okay," Gerald said.

"Whatever you do, don't go out with one of those Chelsea types," Crispin said. "They're all upper class, and they engage in Gothic sex.”

Gothic sex?

"I slept with an aristocrat once," he said. "And she could only come if she pretended I was her horse." Crispin drank my cocktail. "I didn't neigh or anything, but I had to go along with it.”

"Well, I'm supposed to have sex with someone, so I might as well have sex with one of those Chelsea men.”

"They've all got small willies and they're impotent," Crispin said. "If s something in the water. The entire water system in London is polluted with female hormones.”

"Aha," I said. "So that's why Englishmen talk so much.”

And that was why, secretly I suppose, I was walking around Chelsea on Good Friday. I was looking for one of those Chelsea Englishmen—a guy who had sex with his socks on, possessed a microscopic willy, and came in two minutes. Or less. Not that I was really looking forward to it or anything.

I was walking by Joe's Cafe when I bumped into Charlie, a man I'd met a couple of days before at the bar Eclipse. Which was also in Chelsea. Charlie was one of those Englishmen who was divorced but still wearing his wedding ring.

"I've been trying to reach you for days," he said.

"You must come and have lunch. I'm meeting The Dalmatian." The Dalmatian was not a dog but a person, a freckly English lord. "And this other chap might come too," he said. "Rory Saint John CunningsnotBedwards.”

"One of the long-names," I said.

"What’s that? Oh right," Charlie said. "He's a very, very funny chap. Very, very English. I don't know him that well, really just met him last night at China White, but he's very amusing. I thought he might be good for your research. He's so very English, you see.”

"How perfect," I said, for some reason picturing this obviously horrible St. John Cunningsnot-Bedwards person as being short, fat, bald, and somewhere around the age of fifty.

I was only about half wrong.

Charlie and The Dalmation and I were sitting, drinking Bloody Marys and smoking cigarettes when the Rory chap made his entrance. He swaggered into the restaurant with that kind of self-absorbed energy that forces people to look at you. He was in his thirties, slim, dressed in jeans and an expensive suede coat, and even though he was a little bit bald, he was beautiful in the way that Englishmen can be and Americans never are. Okay, he was damn goodlooking, but also horrible.

"Right then," he said. "You must be the American.”

“Yes," I said. "And you must be the Englishman.”

He sat down. "And what are we talking about?”

he asked, lighting his cigarette with a silver-encased Bic. He was very precise in his smoking.

"What do you think we're talking about?" I said.

"I have absolutely no idea," he said. "I have just arrived and wish to be informed as to the content of the conversation.”

As it just so happened, The Dalmatian was in the middle of a story about how he once had sex with his old girlfriend in a steam room in Germany, and there were other men in the steam room, but they couldn't see who was having sex and it was driving them crazy.

"Sex," I said.

"The most overrated activity in the universe," he said. "I mean really. I find sex so boring. The repetition of it. In. Out. In. Out. You're in and then you're Out. After two minutes, I want to fall asleep. Of course, I'm known for being terrible in bed. I've got a tiny willy, about half the size of my little finger, and I come almost immediately. Sometimes before I say hello.”

"You're perfect," I said. "I know that, but I have absolutely no idea why you should know that.”

I smiled.

"I've heard you're doing research on Englishmen," he said. "I shall tell you everything you need to know right now. The English are a fierce warrior race ...”

"I wasn't aware that the English were, exactly, a race," I said.

"I think you two should have dinner," Charlie said.

The Dalmatian offered to drive me to my friend Luanda's house after lunch. The Rory person agreed to come along. The car was a two-seater.

"I hope you don't mind," I said. "Obviously, I'm going to have to sit on your lap.”

"I don't mind at all," he said. "In fact, I shall enjoy it.”

I sat on his lap, and he put his arms around me.

The thing about Englishmen, this type of Englishman, anyway, is that you never know where you are with them. "You can put your head on my shoulder if you want. If s more comfy," he said. He began to stroke my hair.

Then he whispered in my ear, "The thing I like about you is that you're always observing things. Like me.”

Lucinda lived in Chelsea. I jumped out of the car and ran up the steps to her white house. I was shaking a little. "Darling!" I said.

"Oh darling, " Lucinda said. She had just gotten married to a paleontologist and was decorating her house, looking at samples of fabric.

"I think I've met a man," I said.

"Darling. That’s marvelous. What’s his name?" I told her.

"Oh, he's lovely. But darling," Lucinda said, looking at me. "I've heard he's really bad in bed.”

"I know," I said. "That was the first thing he told me.”

"Well, if he told you, then that makes it okay." She hugged me. "I'm so happy for you. And don't worry about it. All Englishmen are bad in bed.”

I went to Rory's house for dinner. I couldn't decide what to wear, so I wore my combat pants. I was nervous. And who could blame me? I had never deliberately had sex with a man who had a willy the size of a little finger before.

"Calm down," he said airily. "Everything's going to be okay.”

"I like your apartment," I said. It was filled with overstuffed couches and armchairs and antiques. It had a fireplace. There was quite a bit of chintz, but I didn't think that much about it, because most English people who live in Chelsea have chintz.

"Oh yes," he said. "If s terribly ... cozy, isn't it?" Then we drank champagne. American men almost never drink champagne because they think it's kind of a sissy drink. Then we put on music and danced madly. American men almost never dance. And then it hit me.

Ohmigod, I wanted to scream. You're gay!

Of course. The champagne, the dancing, the chintz ... the only men who were like that in New York were ... gay.

I turned down the music. "Listen," I said. "There's something important I have to talk to you about.”

“Yes?" he said.

"You may not be aware of this ... in fact, chances are that you've probably been wondering yourself why it is that you don't like sex with women ...

but honestly, I think you're gay," I said. "And I think you should admit it. I mean, wouldn't you be much happier if you were out of the closet?”

"I have considered that very possibility," he said slowly. "And I have come to the conclusion ... that I am not gay.”

"Gay," I said. "Not gay," he said.

"Look here. You don't like sex," I said. "With women. You don't like sex with women. Hello? What does that tell you? Of course, I don't mind at all. You seem like a very nice man, and—”

He said, "I'm not gay." And then, "I know you're going to kiss me.”

"I'm not going to kiss you," I said.

"You are going to kiss me," he said. "It's only a matter of time.”

Three days later, we got out of bed.

I went to see Sophie in Notting Hill. Sophie was getting married and was stuffing her wedding invitations in envelopes. "I'm with a man in Chelsea," I said. "I've been with him for five days. We take baths together and sing.”

She sighed. "It's always like that with Englishmen in the beginning. How is he in bed?”

"Great," I said.

"Well, they can be great at the beginning. That’s what they do to woo you. But then they just stop caring. One of my girlfriends says her husband goes in, out, in, out, and then he comes.”

"We'll see," I said.

"Maybe you'll get lucky," she said. "But in general, men in London are not a good bet. I'm only getting married because I've known my fiancé for ten years. But other than that, the men want to get married and career women don't. If s a much better deal for the man than it is for the woman.”

Sophie made us vodka tonics. "Englishmen just don't do anything. They're lazy. They make absolutely no effort. The woman has to do everything.

And she has to pay for half of everything. The house, the car, the food.... All the man wants to do is hang around.”

"Do they, uh, watch Kung Fu videos?”

"Oh God no. They're not that stupid. But they do want you to make them baby's puddings all the time.”

"Baby's puddings? You mean ... babyfood?”

“No. You know. Dessert. Apple crisp.”

Oh.

I went back to his house. "Do you want me to make you baby's puddings?" I asked.

"Oh Minky," he said. "What’s a baby's pudding?”

“You know. Apple crisp," I said.

"Well, yes, actually. I like apple crisp. Do you want to make me apple crisp?”

"No," I said.

"Okay, well, how about an egg?”

We spent two weeks together. We rode around London on his Vespa and tried to go to bed early every night, but then we'd lie there from one to four in the morning, talking. He told stories about how he'd been caned at Eton and how he once tried to stuff his nanny in the toy closet.

"I'm confused," he said. "I have all these words swirling around in my head. 'U-S-T' and 'O-V-E.'" I wanted to say, Well, hurry up and make up your mind, but I wasn't in New York.

"Do you want to meet my friends?" he asked.

His friends were Mary and Harold Winters, and they lived in a big house in the country. It was, I suppose, the sort of life that every single woman who's spent too many nights alone in a tiny apartment in New York City dreams of: your own house with space, dogs, children, a Mercedes, and a jolly, adorable teddy-bear husband. When we walked in, two towheaded children were helping Mary shell peas in the kitchen. "I'm so pleased you could come," Mary said. "You've arrived at just the right time. We're having a moment of calm.”

All hell broke loose after that.

The rest of the children (there were four of them altogether) came galloping in, screaming. The dog pooped on the carpet. The nanny cut her finger and had to go to the clinic.

"Do you mind giving Lucretia her bath?" Mary asked.

"Which one is that?" I asked. All the children had names like Tyrolean and Philomena, and it was hard to tell which one was which.

"The little one," she said. "With the dirty face.”

“Sure," I said. "I'm great with kids.”

This was a lie.

"Come along, then," I said to the little creature, who was staring at me balefully.

"Be sure to wash her hair. And put conditioner in it," Mary said.

Somehow I got the child to take my hand and follow me up the stairs and into the bathroom. She took off her clothes willingly enough, but then the trouble began.

"Don't touch hair," she screamed.

"I'm going to touch your hair," I said. "Hair. Nice clean hair. Shampoo. Don't you want pretty clean hair?”

"Who are you?" she asked, rather sensibly, as she was naked in front of a complete stranger.

"I'm your mommy's friend.”

“How come I never saw you before?”

“Because I was never here before.”

“I don't like you," she said.

"I don't like you either. But I still have to wash your hair.”

"No!”

"Now listen, you little rug-rat," I said threateningly. "I'm going to wash your hair and That’s it.

Get it?”

I squirted the shampoo on her head, and she immediately started screaming and thrashing about like I was murdering her.

In the middle of this fracas, Rory walked in. "Isn't this fun?" he said. "Aren't you having a lovely time?”

"Lovely," I said.

"Hello, there, tiddlewinks," he said, waving to the child.

The creature screamed louder.

"Right ho. I'll see you downstairs, then.”

“Rory," I said. "Do you think maybe you could give me a hand?”

"Sorry," he said. "Bathing children is women's work. I'm going downstairs to open a bottle of champagne. He-man in the kitchen and all that.”

"You know, I really admire you," Mary said after dinner, when we were washing the dishes. "You're so smart. Choosing to have a career. And not being pressured to get married. That takes guts, you know?”

"Oh Mary," I said. She was one of those lovely Englishwomen of whom the Brits are so proud, with a beautiful oval face, clear fair skin, and blue eyes. "Where I come from, what you have is an achievement A husband, this house, and four ... adorable ... children. That’s what every woman wants.”

"You're very kind. But you're lying," she said.

"But your children....”

"Of course I love my husband and children," she said. "But half the time I feel like I'm invisible. If something happened to me, I wonder if they would even miss me. I know they'd miss what I do for them. But would they actually miss me?”

"I'm sure they would," I said.

"I'm not," she said. "You know, if s all a big fantasy. I wanted to be a painter. But I had the big white fantasy—that dream you have about your wedding day. And then it comes true. And then, almost immediately afterward, you have the black fantasy. No one ever tells you about that one.”

“The black fantasy?”

"I thought I was the only one who had it," she said, wiping her hands on a dish towel. "But then I talked to a few other married women. And they had it too. You have this vision of yourself, all in black. Still young, wearing a big black hat, and a chic black dress. And you're walking behind your husband's casket.”

"Oh dear.”

"Oh yes," she said. "You have a fantasy that your husband has died. You still have your children and you're still young, but you're ... free.”

"I see," I said.

Rory and Harold came into the kitchen. "Can we help?" they asked.

"If s finished," Mary said pleasantly.

Rory and I took the train back to London. The next morning, I had to leave. It was time to go back to New York.

"Now listen, Mink)-," he said. "Are we going to be adults about this, or are we going to have tears?”

“What do you think?" I said.

"Good-bye, Minky!' he said.

"Good-bye," I said.

"I love you," he said. "Go on. You'd better go now.”

The petals from the cherry blossoms had fallen off the trees and onto the sidewalks. I walked over them, crunching them into the cement.

Oh God, I thought. Now what am I going to do? Grasshopper says: Be sensible.

What I did, of course, was get into a cab and go to the airport.

But what did I really want?

I got on the plane and sat down in my seat. I took my shoes off. I opened a magazine.

A man sat down next to me. He was tall and darkhaired and slim, and he was wearing Prada trousers.

He had all his hair, and an intelligent, interesting face. He opened a magazine. Forbes.

Now That’s my type, I thought.

God, I was so fickle. I'd left Rory only two hours ago, and already I was thinking about another man.

What was it I wanted? The story.

I wanted the story. I wanted the big, great, inspiring story about an unmarried career woman who goes to London on assignment and meets the man of her dreams and marries him. She gets the big ring and the big house and the adorable children, and she lives happily ever after. But stories are not reality, no matter how much we might wish them so.

And that's not so bad.

Somewhere over Newfoundland, about two hours from JFK, the man next to me finally spoke. "Excuse me," he said. "Sorry for asking, but you look somewhat familiar. Do you mind my asking what it is you do?”

"I'm a writer," I said.

"Ah yes," he said. "I do know who you are. You're that famous single woman who writes about single women and, er ...”

"Sex," I said.

"That’s right," he said. He opened another magazine. He seemed kind of shy.

"Excuse me, " I said. "But you look kind of familiar. Do you mind my asking what it is you do?”

"Oh," he said. "I'm a businessman.”

“I knew that.”

"You did? How?”

"Your choice of reading material," I said.

Well, we did get to talking after that. And we discovered that we had practically the same birthday and had grown up in towns with exactly the same name—Glastonbury—although his Glastonbury was in England, and mine was in Connecticut.

"Well," he said, "it's not enough on which to base a relationship, but it's a good beginning. Would you like to have dinner tonight?”

We did have dinner that night. And eventually, one thing did lead to another. And now all I can say is that my friends are very happy for me, and my mother has been bugging me nonstop about flower arrangements.

But that, of course, is another story.