Free The Saving Graces by Patricia Gaffney Page A

in fact, lately he'd noticed a recurring character in his paintings and sketches, a young man, maybe an adolescent, whom he was calling "Joe" and who he thought was probably himself. Color was his strength, drawing his weakness; he took two different drawing classes, four nights a week, and he was beginning to see a little progress. He wished he had the time and money to go for a master of fine arts somewhere, because he was at a point where his lack of formal training was becoming more and more of a handicap.
I got most of it down, but the longer he talked, the more distracted I got. He was so beautifully intense. Art was his passion, obviously, it bordered on his obsession, and I am such a sucker for men who really love their work. I find their single-mindedness incredibly sexy and desirable. And the best part is, they don't depend on me to make sense out of their lives.
I ran out of questions. I glanced at my watch.
"Let's eat something, I'm starting to shake." Mick held out his hand; sure enough, his fingers were trembling. "I never drink coffee like this," he admitted and got up to go to the men's room.
We ordered cheeseburgers, french fries, and milkshakes, the kind of food we both swore we never ate, but I noticed we polished it all off without any trouble. While we ate, he asked me questions. At first I didn't even notice; it seemed like the usual give-and-take, just normal conversation. But when he said, "Is newspaper work what you've always wanted to do? Or-if you suddenly found out you had a different birth mother, who would you like her to be?"-I realized he was turning the tables and interviewing me.
Okay, I was flattered. In my experience, the majority of people don't care that much about other people's inner lives. They're nice, they're polite, they ask how you're doing-and as soon as you start telling them they click off. Their eyes glaze, they go into wait mode, and what they're waiting for is you to run down or take a breath, so they can jump in and tell you how much more interesting their lives are than yours. This isn't cynicism. I'm telling you, it happens all the time.
The exception, of course, is men who are trying to sleep with you. The better they are at it, the harder they listen; the more they want you, the more entranced they become by your every random utterance. What's funny is that this tried-and-true method really works, at least on me. As one who has, as they say, been around the block a few times, I ought to know better, but I don't. It gets me every time.
So it was with considerably mixed feelings that I stared back into Mick Draco's intelligent brown eyes, currently focused on me with much interest and expectancy, and contemplated his acute question. Are you trying to seduce me? I asked him via mental telepathy. God, I hope so.
No, I don't, I'd hate that. - "Mary McCarthy." His eyebrows shot up. "The writer?" "Yeah, or Iris Murdoch. Katherine Anne Porter. No, not really-I was trying to think of who'd be the right age to give birth to me about forty years ago. Thirty-nine." Shit, I told him my age. And he was younger! Only one year, but still.
"Oh, so you'd like to write fiction?" Now that was the really disconcerting thing, not that I'd told him my age but that I'd told him my secret dream. Not that secret-the Graces know, although Rudy's the only one who knows how much I want it; and my mother knows; a couple of ex-boyfriends know, because I was stupid enough to blurt it out to them. But it's supposed to be a secret. Why? Because I hate to fail in public. And because the journalist-who-yearns-to-write-the-great-American-novel is such a foolish, humiliating cliché, I don't care to be associated with it.
But I was speaking to a man who had given up lawyering for painting. If anyone would understand the dream, it ought to be Mick. So I didn't back down or try to wriggle out with a joke, I looked straight at him and said, "Yes, I would. Someday. It's what I want to do most. But I'm, you know.