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When the collector couldn’t eat another bite, she surprised me again. She lay back on the pillows and let him massage her feet. She did not close her eyes but watched me instead. I knew that if I stretched out, dropped my feet in Arnold’s lap, he would massage my feet, too. Two Father Times massagi…

“The oshibori goes in the basket,” the mistress said. “You weren’t supposed to wash your face with it, just your hands.” Her voice sounded kind, but her look said, You’re an amateur at this. My return look said, I’m not a gold digger like you because mine has no gold.

“I hear you’re applying to …

A friend of his, an art collector, offered a loan—to be paid back in artwork—but only on the condition that he get to meet the teenager who had broken up a marriage. Arnold didn’t say as much, but I sensed I was part of the transaction. The collector owned a steel plant, three homes, had grandchild…

I had already told them that I was seeing a married man thirty years my senior. To an addict, not one of the boys or girls approved. Despite the messes they had made of their own adolescence, they believed that I had made an even worse choice. The girls in particular found the idea of having an old…

After I hung up, while I was still intoxicated from the accomplishment of having Arnold give up not one but two women for me, my mother swept aside the love beads.

“Is he getting a divorce?” she asked. “Is he going to marry you?”

I accused her of being pitifully conventional, but in truth, I …