Femme Fatale and other stories

idiot—”
    He sank into the purple velvet easy chair opposite her, twisting the brim of his hat nervously in his hands. She liked the hat, the fact of it. So few men bothered nowadays, and as a consequence, fewer men could pull them off. Mona was old enough, just, to remember when all serious men wore hats.
    “I wish you could remember the name,” she said, teasing him, yet trying to put him at ease, too. “I’d like to know this stunner that you say I resemble.”
    “It’s not important,” he said. “I feel so stupid. Fact is—I bet she doesn’t look as good today as you do.”
    “Mona Wickham,” she said, extending her hand. He bowed over it. Didn’t kiss it, just bowed, a nice touch. Mona was vain of her hands, which were relatively unblemished. She kept her nails in good shape with weekly manicures and alternated her various engagement rings on the right hand. Today it was the square-cut diamond from her third marriage. Not large, but flawless.
    “Bryon White,” he said. “With an O, like the poet, only the R comes first.”
    “Nice to meet you,” she said. Two or three seconds passed, and Bryon didn’t release her hand and she didn’t take it back. He was studying her with intense, dark eyes. Nice eyes, Mona decided.
    “The thing is, you could be a movie star.”
    “So some said, when I was young.” Which was, she couldn’t help thinking, a good decade before the one in which this Bryon White thought she had been a model and an actress.
    “No, I mean now. Today. I could see you as, as—Catherine, the Russian empress.”
    Mona frowned. Wasn’t that the naughty one?
    “Or, you know, Lauren Bacall. I think she’s gorgeous.”
    “I didn’t like her in that movie with Streisand.”
    “No, but with Altman—with Altman, she was magnificent.”
    Mona wasn’t sure who Altman was. She remembered a store in New York, years ago, B. Altman’s. After her first marriage, she had changed into a two-piece going-away suit purchased there, a dress with matching jacket. She remembered it still, standing at the top of the staircase in that killingly lovely suit, in a houndstooth check of fuchsia and black, readying to throw the bouquet. She remembered thinking:
I look good, but now I’m married, so what does it matter?
Mona’s first marriage had lasted two years.
    Bryon picked up on her confusion. “In
Prêt à Porter.
” This did not clear things up for Mona. “I’m sorry, it translates to—”
    “I know the French,” she said, a bit sharply. “I used to go to the Paris collections, buy couture.” That was with her second husband, who was rich, rich, rich, until he wasn’t anymore. Until it turned out he never really was. Wallace just had a high tolerance for debt, higher than his creditors, as it turned out. Mona didn’t leave because he filed for bankruptcy, but it didn’t make the case for staying, either.
    “It was a movie a few years back. The parts were better than the whole, if I can be so bold as to criticize a genius. The thing is, I’m a filmmaker myself.”
    Mona hadn’t been to a movie in ten years. The new ones made her sleepy. She fell asleep, woke up when something blew up, fell back asleep again. “Have you—”
    “Made anything you’ve heard of? No. I’m an indie, but, you know, you keep your vision that way. I’m on the festival circuit, do some direct-to-video stuff. Digital has changed the equation, you know?”
    Mona nodded as if she did.
    “Look, I don’t want to get all Schwab’s on you—”
    Finally, a reference that Mona understood.
    “—but I’m working on something right now and you would be so perfect. If you would consider reading for me, or perhaps, even, a screen test … there’s not much money in it, but who knows? If you photograph the way I think you will, it could mean a whole new career for you.”
    He offered her his card, but she didn’t want to put her glasses on to read it, so she just studied it blindly, pretending to make sense of the brown squiggles on the creamy background. The paper was of good stock, heavy and textured.
    “In fact, my soundstage isn’t far from here, so if you’re free right now—”
    “I’m on foot,” she said. “I walked here from my apartment.”
    “Oh, and you wouldn’t want to get in a car with a strange man. Of course.”
    Mona hadn’t been thinking of Bryon as strange. In fact, she had assumed he was gay. What kind of man spoke so fervently of models and old-time movie stars? But now