Sex as a Second Language

  “She’s doing well.” Unlike you, Kat thought. She wondered why he didn’t take advantage of the fact that he’d been a government employee and go see a dentist. Then she remembered that he was in hiding. “Dad?” There was that word again, unfamiliar and yet irresistible. “Do you need anything?”

  “You’ve already given me more than I expected.” Ken put his thin arms around her in an awkward embrace. “So,” he said. “Tuesday it is.”

  “See you then.” She watched him lope away, then said, “Dad?”

  He turned to face her, and Kat realized why she’d initially thought he was homeless. In his threadbare jacket and old-fashioned cap, her father had that air that many homeless people have, of expecting nothing and accepting everything, of having dignity but no pride. “Yes?”

  “If you want me to—if you need a job—I can ask at the Persky Institute, where I teach.”

  Ken Miner smiled around his ill-fitting teeth. “That’s very kind, but I have to maintain a relatively low profile. Why don’t we talk about all that on Tuesday?”

  “All right,” Kat said. “Bye.” Then she wondered: Why did I do that? All the way home she asked herself why she felt as if she should have done more. Given him a hundred dollars. Invited him to sleep on her couch. Offered to cover his dentistry bills. Objectively, she knew that he owed her an unpayable debt, but when she’d been in his presence, she’d felt as if the opposite were true.

  When she opened the door to her apartment, she found Dashiell and Magnus in the middle of a Scrabble game. Kat picked up the phone and called her mother.

  “Well,” she said, “I saw him. He looks pathetic. And no matter how mad I was, I kept having these bursts of feeling sorry for him.”

  “Oh, honey,” her mother said, “that’s how he operates. Don’t let him suck you in.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Don’t start trying to help him.”

  Kat could still smell the residue of tobacco on her clothes. “Why would I?”

  “Because, Kat, at the end of the day, a spy is a salesman. He has to convince you that betraying your country is a good idea. He has to convince you that the whole thing was your idea.”

  Okay, so that explained a lot. Profoundly irritated with herself, Kat walked back into the living room. “Well,” Magnus said, “how did it go?”

  “It was all right.” Kat ruffled her son’s bangs. “Your grandfather asked about you, baby.”

  “Cool,” said Dashiell, clearly unimpressed. “Okay, I have my word.” He slipped his Scrabble tiles into place. “Equivocal. Count up the points.”

  Magnus gave a low whistle. “Do you know what it means?”

  “Of course. Open to more than one interpretation. Ambiguous or misleading.” Dashiell smiled proudly. “I study the Scrabble dictionary,” he admitted.

  “Okay, Einstein, thank Magnus and pack it in. You have school tomorrow.”

  For once, Dash didn’t argue with her. Wow, it really was her birthday.

  “Katherine.” Magnus put his hand over hers, stopping her from folding up the Scrabble board. “Was it all right? Were you glad you went?”

  Kat thought about it for a moment. “I guess so. It was a bit like climbing that rock wall with you. I didn’t enjoy myself, but I feel like I faced something.”

  To her surprise, Magnus leaned over and kissed her briefly on the lips. “You did.”

  “He wants to come back Tuesday, to meet Dash. I just don’t know if I did the right thing telling him he could. I just spoke to my mother, and she reminded me that he probably has a hidden agenda.” Kat brushed her hand against Magnus’s hair. “What do you think I should do?”

  “Take some time to think things over yourself. Your mother is right. But remember, she isn’t objective, either.”

  Kat tucked a strand of Magnus’s hair behind his ears. He has nice ears, she thought. “You’re good for me, do you know that?”

  “I hope I am. But what your mother said…you could say that everyone has a hidden agenda.”

  “Oh, yeah? What’s yours?”

  Magnus swallowed. “Well, to begin with, there’s the real reason why I took your class.”

  “Mom!” Dashiell, as usual, was hollering for her from the far end of the apartment instead of coming to get her.

  “One minute,” Kat yelled back. “Go on,” she told Magnus.

  “The real reason I took your class, you see, is…”

  “MOM!”

  Kat sighed. “Dash, can’t you wait a minute?” She had a feeling that Magnus was going to tell her he had a crush on her from some old movie. Which wasn’t so bad, so long as he’d gotten over feeling star struck. She remembered all too well the way some men would get disenchanted when the mystery of dating an actress they’d seen onscreen wore off.

  “MOM, MY NOSE IS BLEEDING!”

  “Oh, hell.” Kat made an apologetic face. “Can we talk later tonight?”

  “Sure.”

  “Oh, wait, I have my infomercial tomorrow. I should get to sleep early. Let’s talk when I get back.”

  “MOM! HOW MUCH TISSUE DO I PUT IN MY NOSTRIL?”

  Kat glanced at the door, then turned back to Magnus. “Just tell me one thing. You’re not some sort of crazed fan, are you? You don’t have a shrine to me back in Iceland?”

  Magnus looked a little taken aback. “No, absolutely not.”

  “Fine, then, we can talk tomorrow. But don’t let me hear that you went cutting any more classes, or you’ll get me in trouble. Marcy’s a good teacher.”

  Magnus held up his right hand. “I promise.”

  But the day held one more surprise. When Kat had finished getting Dashiell cleaned up and ready for bed, she went into her own bedroom and found a carved ivory pendant on her pillow. Turning the object around in her hands, Kat thought the designs were Norse. There was also a note: A Little Viking Good Luck Charm.

  For the first time since Logan had left, she fell asleep the minute her head hit the pillow.

  chapter twenty-six

  e ither Viking good luck did not work on Jewish Italian women, or Vikings had a pretty strange idea of what good luck meant. And now that Kat thought about it, hadn’t the Norse believed that death in battle was the best kind of ending?

  Maybe Magnus’s charm was working a little too well.

  Kat had arrived at the downtown studio only to find that she was supposed to shoot her segment in a cramped, poorly lit apartment with only one cameraman, a grip, and a director who appeared to be all of twenty years old.

  Kat’s next discovery was that the actress from Sex and the City was not one of the show’s four stars. Instead, the pretty blonde was a bit player who had appeared in one memorable episode. Making matters worse, she was full of herself, demanding bottles of Evian and a tray of sushi, which the director kept telling her he would bring in just a moment, when the lighting was set up.

  That looked like it was going to take awhile: The newbie director, who had the unfortunate name of Schnook, kept waving his hands in the air, exhorting the overweight lighting guy, who was rolling his eyes. The grip, who resembled Bruce Dern with dyed yellow hair, kept muttering something dire about the outlets.

  Kat went over to the BBC actress, who was looking haggard and slightly disoriented. “Good God,” she said, “what have we gotten ourselves into? I’ve seen porn films with better production values.”

  “I don’t really give a flying fuck what you think,” said the actress, her upper-class English accent slightly slurred. “I’m being paid to act, and I don’t condescend to my roles.”

  Okay. Kat moved away from Arsenic and Old Lace, noticing that the former Oscar winner kept sipping something from a small thermos.

  “It’s tea,” she said sharply when she caught Kat watching.

  Kat closed her eyes and wished she were back teaching her class.

  The director tapped her on the shoulder. Despite his extreme youth and the acne covering his cheeks, he was going prematurely bald. Kat
felt sorry for the man, but wished that he hadn’t chosen to wear a flannel shirt. He reeked of sweat and fear. “You’re going to be up first.”

  “All right. Are you also doing makeup and wardrobe on this highly professional set?”

  A nerve beside the director’s left eye began twitching. “You’re, ah, supposed to do your own.”

  “You’re kidding me. What is this, an episode of Punked?”

  “No, really, it’ll be fine. You look great.” His eyes swept over her black, long-sleeved T-shirt and faded jeans. “Very casual. Casual is good.”

  “Okay, so who’s going to interview me?”

  “Excuse me?” The director paled, looking as though he might throw up.

  “You know, the lady in the white lab coat who’s pretending to be a dermatologist. Come on, all these things are the same. There’s the lady in the lab coat, there’s the main celebrity spokeswoman, which of us is your main spokeswoman, by the way?”

  “The main…well…that would be you. That would be you.” The director swallowed, his large Adam’s apple bobbing in his scrawny neck. “But we’re, ah, experimenting with a different format here.”

  Kat was torn between compassion and disgust. “You have absolutely no idea what you’re doing, do you?” She stood up. “All right. You. Grip guy. Go out and purchase a white lab coat. You can get it from any hospital uniform shop. Look it up in the yellow pages. Meanwhile, someone, take away Madame’s tea and fetch her some black coffee.”

  “Hang on,” said the pretty blonde Sex and the City extra. “Who made you boss?”

  Kat sighed. “Look, I’d like to walk out that door, but I can’t afford to get sued for abrogation of contract. So why don’t we all pitch in before this becomes a complete disaster?”

  “Ooh, watch out, Junior,” said the BBC actress, propping herself up on one elbow. “I think she’s after your job.”

  “Okay, listen up, guys.” The director drew himself up to his full five feet, five inches. “We are going ahead with my plan, thank you very much.”

  Oh, great, he thinks I’ve stepped on his balls. “Fine. What do you want me to do?”

  “Just face the camera and tell us why you love Rejuvenatrix products.”

  It had come down to this. Her acting ability, the attribute that she had once thought defined her, had become the instrument of her complete humiliation. “Fine,” she said, stepping in front of the camera. “Ready? Here goes.” The cameraman hastily began filming. “I can’t believe how much younger and firmer my skin feels since I began using your products.” Kat felt a stab of guilt for the poor, gullible woman who might actually fall for this patent falsehood. Still, an acting job was an acting job, and she summoned all the sincerity at her disposal, looked intimately into the camera and said, “You can really tell the quality of the ingredients that have gone into these creams and lotions. I’ll bet you’re wondering, Just how does the Rejuvenatrix line work to diminish wrinkles and pores and enhance the evenness of my skin tone?”

  “And…cut.” The director cleared his throat. “Yes. Well, um, well, that was pretty good…for a rehearsal.”

  “I wasn’t rehearsing. That was it.” Kat picked up her pocketbook. “I’m leaving now.”

  “But I never said ‘action.’ You can’t start before I say ‘action.’”

  Kat just looked at him, her arms folded in front of her. “You have to be kidding. That’s your big objection? So say ‘action’ now and they’ll splice it in during editing. Then you can pretend that you were directing.”

  The director cast a quick glance at his other two actresses. Clearly, he was realizing that if he didn’t establish his authority with her, he’d lose what little control he had left over this train wreck of an infomercial. “Ha ha. Very funny. But besides that little glitch, there was another…” The director cleared his throat. “That is to say, I just…I sensed a certain lack of conviction in your tone. I mean, to be honest, that sounded a little wooden.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes.” Emboldened, the director looked her in the eye. “Now, can you say that again, but this time, can you try to give a little laugh, like you’re surprised by how good this stuff makes you feel?”

  “A little laugh?” Kat’s voice was low with menace.

  “Yes.”

  “What kind of a little laugh?”

  “You know.” The director gave a forced little laugh. It sounded like a cat choking on a hairball. “Well, I’m sure you can do much better. You’re the actress.”

  “And you’re the director.” Kat smiled at him with loathing.

  “That’s right.” He made a motion to the cameraman. “Okay, and four, three, two, one—Action!”

  “Hi, my name is Katherine Miner, but you probably know me better as Helen Jessup from South of Heaven. Now, ever since my soap decided to replace me with a younger actress, looking youthful has been really important to me. More important than my health. More important than being a good mother. In fact, looking younger is so important to me that I’m happy to risk my life to get rid of a few wrinkles. So if someone told me that injecting massive amounts of snake venom into my face would improve my appearance, I’d do it. Which is why I was so eager to try the Rejuvenatrix line of products.”

  “Cut.” The director cleared his throat. “Um, listen, that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

  Ignoring him, Kat continued talking into the camera. “Unfortunately, the creams caused my skin to erupt in hideous lesions. I’m not sure why, since the scientists who created this skin-care line tortured a bunch of rhesus monkeys to make sure it was safe. Well, it was probably stray cats. Rhesus monkeys cost more, and Rejuvenatrix wants to keep their prices low for you.”

  “Now, that’s really enough, Katherine.”

  The cameraman, chewing gum, ignored him and kept filming.

  “Just remember, if it doesn’t say ‘no animal testing’ that’s your assurance that we care enough to kill for your complexion.” Kat smiled at the camera. “But that’s enough from me. Let’s hear from an ambitious twenty-two-year-old and a world-renowned alcoholic and find out why they love Rejuvenatrix!”

  The director looked at her coldly. “I don’t think this is going to work out, do you?”

  “No,” said Kat, “I don’t think it is.”

  chapter twenty-seven

  s earching through Katherine’s underwear drawer, Magnus realized that the problem with almost having amazing sex was that it created more of an appetite for actually having amazing sex. At forty-six, he wasn’t used to walking around feeling as horny as a teenager. In some ways, it was quite enjoyable. In other ways, it was just as inconvenient as he recalled from adolescence.

  Take right now, for example. Fred had just made it very clear that they no longer had the luxury of time. With the situation in Kyrgyzstan as volatile as it was, every hour leading up to Wednesday’s elections counted. So while Fred was thrilled to hear that Ken would be showing up tomorrow afternoon, he needed to speak with the man today. Magnus had to find the letter Ken had sent his daughter and use the information inside to make contact.

  We don’t need another situation like Afghanistan in the eighties, Fred had explained, reminding him yet again of the dangers of putting the Agency’s resources behind the wrong team. What he didn’t say was that he was being pressured by his own bosses to come up with immediate results. But he didn’t need to. Magnus knew what it meant when you had one plan—gain Katherine Miner’s confidence and enlist her help to make contact with her dad—and you exchanged it at the last minute for another—jump right in and grab Ken Miner before he could run, physically restraining him if necessary.

  Maybe part of the reason I can’t keep my mind on the objective is that it has “doomed for failure” written all over it. Ken Miner was paranoid to begin with; being nabbed off the street wasn’t going to put him in the best frame of mind to cooperate. And when the operation did not produce the desired result, guess who was going to get the blam
e?

  And Fred’s bosses weren’t the only ones who were going to jump all over Magnus when everything went bad. How did he expect Katherine to react when she learned that he’d been lying to her about his motives for getting to know her? Would she give him a chance to explain, or would he never get another chance to kiss her up against the kitchen wall?

  Magnus shook his head, trying to clear it. As much as Katherine mattered to him personally, her feelings were irrelevant right now. Like it or not, he had a job to do.

  Magnus returned his attention to the lingerie drawer, systematically feeling around the sides. It would have helped if Fred could have told him precisely what he was looking for—paper, computer CDs, floppy disks, a microdot, panties containing messages in invisible ink.

  Magnus wasn’t exactly sure how he’d even recognize this last item, but since the Egyptians had accused an Israeli businessman of smuggling information in this manner, he had to assume it was possible.

  Magnus held up a pair of white silk panties to the light. They looked nearly transparent, and he had a sudden vision of how Katherine would look wearing them.

  You’re thinking with your dick. Ken Miner may have been a negligent parent, but surely even indifferent fathers didn’t send their daughters thong letters.

  On the other hand, Guthrun had always hidden her diary in her underwear drawer, and Magnus had already searched through Katherine’s neatly organized box of computer disks, her two immaculate file cabinets, one overstuffed rolltop desk, and a surprisingly messy bedside table drawer.

  He’d also discovered the reading material she kept hidden from view. So that’s where all that Viking stuff came from.

  Hunkered down on the wood floor, Magnus brought his attention back to the task at hand. A row of plain, neatly folded pink-and-blue cotton underwear, a row of lacy pink-and-blue bikini panties, and two red-and-black thongs, each no bigger than his palm. Nice. In the back of the drawer, Magnus also unearthed three pairs of flesh-colored panty hose, one pair of black thigh-high stockings, and one pair of beige fat-lady undies. When the hell had Katherine worn these?