E. Jean Carroll is a dating coach and Elle’s agony Aunt. She writes the longest, currently-running advice column in American publishing. She is also fucking awesome.
There are mornings when the world seems full of joy and laughter. A child’s voice from the fire escape above, the sun shining just so through a half pulled damask curtain. Today is not one of those days. Rain is coming through a skylight I left open last night, pooling in a martini glass, which is now spilling out onto the cashmere rug. It’ll have to wait till I’ve had my coffee. Everything has to wait.
Out on the street the smell of garbage has been replaced with the smell of wet dog, I take a deep breath, and drag on my cigarette. The coffee shop is two blocks away, so I hop in a cab and tip the driver $50 to keep quiet about the smoking. My barista, Chad, is a darling. Six foot five, blond, trapezius muscles you could wrap your legs around, and lips like two pigs wrestling under a bed of rose petals. He hands me my soy splenda pumpkin mocha caramel skinny latte and for a second, just a second the air is lit with sexual tension. I leave before it gets too awkward.
Back at my apartment Luz is cleaning up around a sleeping figure, draped across my sofa. As I approach him Luz shakes her head and presses a finger to her lips. From the cut of his jacket lapel it looks like Silver Fox. I wish he slept at his own damn apartment more often. In the study I pour a little bourbon into the last of my latte, and get to work.
David, who I’ve been coaching for six months, called his ex last night and alternated between crying and heavy breathing while telling her he loved her. I can almost taste the tears. They taste like cold hard quarters and soft twenty dollar bills. Amanda has accidentally hooked up with two roommates. Resisting the urge to high five her, I explain that she must either choose or take this to its logical conculsion: a sordid affair in a Parisian attic, after which everyone goes their separate ways.
Around 2pm I buzz for Luz who brings me my coffee and a preztel. I return the tray to her a 2.15pm, pretzel uneaten. This impasse has been going on since 1986. For all I know it is the same shellacked pretzel every day. I have no intention of finding out. At 3.30pm sharp I turn the computer off and go into the front room. Silver Fox is gone, but his cufflinks remain. Luz sweeps them into an ashtray and tips them down the garbage disposal unit. She’s not all bad, I have to admit.
What I do between 3.30 and 7pm is no-one’s business but my own, suffice to say that when I exit my cab outside the 21 Club I am both buffed to within an inch of perfection, poured delicately into a navy pantsuit, and spritzed with a fine sheen of whiskey and soda. Inside I take my usual seat and scan the crowd discretely. Don, who I coached last year, is holding hands with a sweet redhead in the corner. I turn away and look over by the door where Steve hugs his date Conor. They wave and I raise my glass with a nod. Across the bar a shape is moving ever closer, I can smell that familiar mix of pomade, fine Egyptian cotton, and brut. I pull the bar stool out at just the right moment and Silver Fox slides onto it gracelessly. He drinks half my cocktail and puts his hand on my knee. “Dear E. Jean,” I hear in my head, “My partner is an asshole…”
