Free Leave It to Me by Bharati Mukherjee

into a neighborhood and treat us like dirt, she asked, “Wow! Did you feel that?”
    “Feel what?”
    “Three-point-two, at least. You know what I was doing when the last one hit? Weighing a Bulgarian in a Berkeley weight-loss clinic for nudists, and the man jumped naked off the scales and raced right out into Shattuck, that’s a busy street!”
    I hadn’t felt any tremor. Probably because I wasn’t tuned in to earthquake preparedness. I went back to haranguing.
    Samantha didn’t enjoy the drive as much as I did. When she showed me into Ham’s office, I heard her whisper, “For your lunch, I recommend the Turns, boss.”

Ham Cohan wasn’t Asian according to Frankie’s formula, but he was a man with more needs than wants. I sized him up before I’d clocked fifteen minutes in his office. He needed to wheel and deal in human vanities, needed to do favors so he would be owed, needed to break down doors for friends so he’d be admired and to rescue waifs like me so he’d be adored. I figure a guy who makes himself that indispensable must collect in imaginative ways. He didn’t look it, but he could turn out to be more dangerous than Frankie.
    At least Ham didn’t come on direct, forthright, as Frankie had, which was just as well. I was off men for the while, smelling smoke, seeing flames, when I thought of sex. I was attracted to Ham. I don’t deny it. It had to do with the game he played. Ham’s game was devotion. Devotion tending to the melodramatic.
    He sat me on a chair under a framed The Father of His Country , Parts I, II, III poster triptych while he networked for me on the phone. “Hi, Simone, what’s up? Still desperate for a house sitter?… Does that mean what I think it means?… I think it means Padraic’s out of the picture, et cetera. Well, mazel tov, darling … I’ll ask around.Shouldn’t be impossible to find someone … I know, I know, you have psycho goldfish and nervous plants.”
    “I need a job, Ham. I have a place.”
    “Hi, Verna, how’s the commute going? If you decide to spend the whole month with Larry in Tucson, I might be able to find you just the right tenant … Keep in touch, ciao!”
    Pappy used to be a chain-smoker. Ham had to be a chain-telephoner.
    “Hi, Jess, I have a very special friend sitting in my office … No, just arrived in town … Yeah, exactly, I’m trying to talk her into helping you out at the agency. Here, I’ll put Devi on so you can work your charm on her … Just for a second, though, we’re running late as it is … Day-Vee, yes … I don’t think it’s an Indian name, Jess. She hasn’t mentioned anything about being named for any Indian village or mountain. You’re thinking Uma, as in Thurman.” He covered the mouthpiece. “Is it a Hindu name?”
    I shrugged. “Got it off a license plate.”
    “Cool.” He laughed.
    I went with the laugh.
    “Okay, see you at Glide Sunday? You bring whichever tight-ass author you’re looking after this weekend, I’ll bring my new friend. Ciao!”
    “Who’s Jess?” I asked.
    “Just the woman who owns the hottest media escorting business in the country.” He punched up another number.
    “Why did your friend Jess think my name’s Indian?”
    Ham was still networking. “Hi, Francesca, cara mia , just checking in … Yeah, it’s moving, the director hasn’t shot himself in the head yet, and the cash cow from Osaka hasn’t cut us off yet, so we aren’t complaining … But how’re you doing?… That’s it, that’s why I’m calling. I just met someone who’d be perfect for your restaurant. Jaqui may’ve beat you to it …”
    Ham worked the phone, part agent, part producer and wanna-be lover; I paced his overfurnished office. After the sixth call I stopped eavesdropping and read aloud the names in fine print off Ham’s posters of art films. Lola Lavendar. Baby Tahbeez. F. A. Fong . Frankie Fong high-kicking in The Monster of Mandalay? My Frankie in a pre-Flash horror