The Price of Conversation (Rosie says)

The Price of Conversation

I didn't ask what her name was. It wasn't important.

In the hotel room, she wiggled her fingers and said, “Pay me. Pay me first. It's just good business, you know.”

I got my wallet out my back pocket. “How much?”

“I don't know. I never done this before,” she said, shrugging. “Have you?”

I shook my head. “How much if we just talk?”

She thought about that a moment before answering. “Well, Rosie says time is time. Talking or whatever. Time is time.”

After plucking a couple tens out my wallet, I handed them to her and said, “How 'bout twenty? It sounds right.”

When I saw her frown, I took out another thirty and gave that to her, too. I needed to talk to someone. Real bad.

She smiled and stuffed the money in the back pocket of her paint-splattered jeans. She took the rubber band off her ponytail and shook her hair out. T

She turned off the light. I turned it back on.

“Like it that way?” she asked in a low tone. Then she started to undress.

I reached out and touched her wrist. “You don't have to do that.”

She kept undressing. “Rosie says that, too. She says if I get naked, you guys'll waste time staring. And time is time, right?”

“So why you still doing it?” I said.

She shrugged. “It feels weird not to.”

“But we're just gonna talk.”

“It's okay,” she said. She went on ahead and wriggled out of her jeans. She unbuttoned her blouse, then slipped out of it. Then she draped everything over the back of the chair, laid down on the bed and closed her eyes.

I dragged the chair next to the window, sat down, and put her clothes in my lap.

For a full hour I talked. She listened. Not once did she yawn. Not once did she check the clock on the nightstand. Not once did she tell me to be quiet. When I was all talked out it felt like I'd gotten more than fifty bucks worth of worry out of my system. A bargain. I took another ten dollars out of my wallet and offered it to her. But she shook her head no.

She got out of bed, came across the room and stood naked in front of me. I handed her the clothes that were still in my lap. She smiled. “I like you,” she said, “Yanking her jeans up. I like you a lot.”

“Thanks. I like you, too. The way you let me vent reminded me a lot of how my wife used to --”

She raised a finger into the air and gently pressed it against my lips, hushing me. “Rosie says we're not ever supposed to talk about the wives or the girlfriends.”

I understood.

She bent forward, kissed my forehead and whispered. “We'll do this again, okay.”

After she left I stayed a while longer, sat in the chair and stared out the window. Later, when I came into the house I saw my wife sitting in front of the TV, I asked her how her day went. Without looking my way, she shrugged and gnawed her fingernails a little. I started to tell her how bad things were becoming.

But she raised a hand and said, “Please stop talking.”

So I did. And it didn't bother me one bit.