Foreign Affairs - Alison Lurie [17]
Two things stand in the way of his taking any useful action. One is inexperience. Unlike most moderately attractive or positively unattractive men, Fred has never learnt to pick up women. He has never had to learn, because since he was very young there have always been plenty of females among his acquaintance who were ready, even eager, to know him better. It wasn’t his looks alone that interested them, but his high spirits, his good manners, his casual and modest skill in sports, his excellent but never arrogant intelligence. All he has ever had to do, really, is indicate a choice.
Even now, when his spirits are so low, there is no doubt that Fred could pick up women if he tried—that any initial awkwardness would be overlooked by most of those he might approach. But there is another and worse problem. Every woman or girl Fred sees in London has something wrong with her: she is not Roo. He knows it’s stupid and counterproductive to go on feeling this way about somebody who has cut you out of her life, to go on remembering and fantasizing As his childhood friend Roberto Frank said once, all you get from carrying a torch is sore fingers.
If Roberto were here now, instead of teaching French in Wisconsin, he would advise Fred to move in on the girl in the green cape and try to score tonight. As far back as junior high Roberto had begun recommending casual sex as a panacea. “What you need is a good fast fuck,” he would declare when any chum complained of being bummed out because of a cold, a sprained ankle, too much homework, unsympathetic parents, a bike or a car on the fritz—or any sort of jealousy, infidelity, or sexual reluctance on the part of a current steady. Since then, Roberto has collected women as he once collected baseball cards, always preferring quantity to quality: in grade school he once traded Mickey Mantle to Fred for three obscure and inept Red Sox. It is his contention that the world is full of good-looking horny women who are interested in a no-strings relationship. “I’m not saying you have to sweet-talk them or pull a fast one. When I meet a mama who turns me on, I lay it on the line. If she doesn’t want to play by those rules, okay; so long, no hard feelings.” Fred doesn’t agree. In his experience, no matter what is said in the preliminary negotiations, there are always strings. After even one or two dates he often felt like a tomcat entangled in an emotional ball of red yarn.
Yeh, Fred thinks, but maybe Roberto is right in a way, maybe if he could meet somebody—
The train stops at Tottenham Court Road. Fred gets off to change to the Northern Line, and so does the young woman in the green cape; he notices that she has been reading Joseph Conrad’s Chance. He quickens his pace, for he is a Conrad fan; then, uncertain of what he’s going to say to her, slows down. The young woman gives him a regretful backward glance as she turns toward the stairs to the southbound platform.
An opening remark has formed in Fred’s mind, and he starts to follow her in order to deliver it; but then he remembers that he is supposed to be on his way to supper in Hampstead with Joe and Debby Vogeler, who will take it badly if he doesn’t turn up. The Vogelers, who were in graduate school with him, are the only people of his own age he knows in London, and their continued good will is therefore important. Fred’s other acquaintances here consist of several middle-aged friends of his parents, and a member of his own department: an aging spinster named Virginia Miner who is also on leave and working in the British Museum. Toward the former he feels a polite obligation, but no social enthusiasm; in the case of Professor Miner his instinct is toward avoidance. Although she has never had a serious conversation with him on any topic, Professor Miner will presently vote on whether Fred is allowed to stay on at the University or cast