The Hooker (Swanson Court 1.50)

Across the table from me, Aidan is finishing the last bits of what used to be my salmon. He’s silent, focused on his food. He must have been ravenous, I decide, frowning in concern. He wolfed down his food in record time before starting on mine.

The new play he’s directing must be taking too much of a toll on him. When he was a teenager, whenever he was focused on anything, exams, a school play, a girl, he would forget to eat. I shake my head and take a sip from my wine. Everybody calls me heartless, and yet, here I am, worrying like a mother hen about my twenty four year old brother.

Aidan drops his fork and picks up his glass of wine, taking a long sip as he leans back on his chair. His gaze goes to glass wall of the restaurant, from which the city lights can be seen shining like decorations on an endless Christmas tree. He doesn’t say anything, and neither do I. When we have these dinners, verbal communication is not usually the priority.

My thoughts are interrupted by a waitress, young, with long black hair and honey toned skin. She’s slender as a bone, but adequately filled out in all the right places. She walks towards our table, holding a bottle of wine with a napkin at the base. I watch as she passes by, detached in my assessment of her assets, but as she crosses Aidan’s line of vision, I see his interest perk, and he sits up, only a little, but enough to make me smile in amusement.

“You can’t have grown tired of all the talented girls on Broadway already,” I say with a small smirk.

“Impossible,” Aidan replies matter-of-factly, “New ones keep arriving every day.” His eyes are still on the waitress, who’s behind me now, but right in his line of vision. With obvious reluctance, he turns his gaze back to me. Looking at him is like looking in a mirror, at a younger, more carefree reflection. “I’m allowed to appreciate beautiful women,” he says with a shrug, “even the ones who can’t sing and dance.”

“Appreciate away,” I chuckle. “I’ve been hearing good things about your play.” It’s his first time directing a play on Broadway. Off Broadway, yes, a couple of successful ones, but this is his first big outing, and while I have no doubt that he will be do great, I want to be sure he feels the same way.

“There’s just been one viewing. Nobody knows anything yet.” He frowns. “I don’t want to talk about the play. How’s the hotel?”

“Running.” The Swanson Court is our family legacy. The multi-story hotel was built in the forties, soon after the war ended, by my great-grandfather, Gabriel Swanson. A few years later, he almost lost it, but my grandfather, Alexander Court, saved the hotel and used his money to turn it into a world-class name in luxury. He also married Lily Swanson, Gabriel’s daughter, and changed the name of the hotel to the Swanson Court Hotel.

I own it. Most of it anyway, Aidan has his shares, but it’s mainly mine, and I run it too. In the ten years since my father died, I’ve expanded the brand across the country and made the Swanson Court name synonymous with luxury living.

“I’m sorry I forgot.” Aidan says suddenly.

I know what he’s talking about. “It doesn’t matter,” I say. “I couldn’t care less if it’s my birthday.” I remember the headline from one of the news magazines I’d seen in the morning, ‘Hotel Magnate turns twenty nine!’ It had screamed in bold font, with a picture of me leaving some society event. Hotel Magnate. When had that become my name? “I’m just glad we’re having dinner together.” I continue, as Aidan empties his wineglass, “Next week I’ll be in San Francisco, and you’ll be knee-deep in the murky depths of perfecting your play.”

“You’ll be here for opening night though,” he asks. Suddenly he looks like a child again, hopeful. Is Daddy coming back?

I blink, then chuckle, banishing the memory. “Of course.”

He grins, “If it bombs, at least you’ll be there to take me to a place where I can get well and truly wasted.”

“Let’s just hope it doesn’t bomb.”

“Well if it does, I want to wake up in a suite in Vegas with no memory, and at least three call girls who won’t care that I’ve forgotten their names.”

“If everyone got that after a bad show,” I say with a laugh. “I think we’d see more of them.” I pause, and watch as Aidan’s eyes find the slender waitress again. “Call girls though,” I remark. “You must be losing your touch.”

He turns back to me and grins. “Maybe I’ve learned that the only women who understand the term no-strings-attached are those who expect to get paid.”

He may have a point, I concede, my mind going to Cecily. Cecily Fenstein, curator at one of the bigger private galleries. We’d met through mutual friends, and she assured me that she didn’t want commitment either. That had only lasted three months before the usual questions began. Where are we going with this? Where do you see our relationship going? And finally, the ultimatum. She’d asked me to commit to her or lose her, so I’d gone with the second option. I don’t like hurting women, and the sheen of tears in her eyes when she told me that she hoped she would never see me again still feels like an indictment.

But she’ll get over it. For women like her, it’s not the man that matters, but what he represents. The money, the prestige, and the diamond ring. Some other guy will tick those boxes for her soon enough, and as for me, I’ll find someone else, and enjoy what I can get before the demands for commitment get unbearable.

“You have a point,” I tell Adrian. “At least with a hooker everyone gets what they expect.”

He chuckles, and when he looks at me, there’s a familiar, mischievous glint in his eyes. “Maybe I’ll get you one as a birthday present,” he suggests.

I wouldn’t put it past him. “Thanks,” I say firmly, “but I’m sure I can manage.”

He just shrugs. “Whatever you say.”

My apartment is at the top of the Swanson Court. Three thousand square feet of space that I don’t need, spread out over two floors. It’s vast and silent, and the sense of solitude it provides can be overwhelming to others, but I like it. I’ve never been the kind of man who’s afraid to be alone.

Outside, the city is a mass of shapes and light. Up here, I can’t hear the sounds of cars and people, but I can hear the wind, whistling and forceful. Forceful. The word dances around in my mind. Forceful, Ruthless, Single-minded. The words the Press love to use when they describe me. Cold, heartless, unfeeling. The words the women prefer. All the words that reduce me from Landon Alexander Court, brother, friend and whatever else I am, to just ‘Hotel Magnate.’

Do I mind? I never did before. Not in the years I s

pent planning how to expand the scope of what my father left to me. Not in the years I worked to engrave the name of Swanson Court in every mind interested in luxury living, and even those who were not. I have expanded what my great-grandfather built and made it greater than either him, my grandfather or even my father ever dreamed.

So I am single minded, I am forceful, I am determined, but I rescued Swanson Court from the brink of bankruptcy when my father died, and I am pushing further than even he had ever dared to imagine. If being ruthless is what it takes, then I’ll do it all over again.

Taking another sip of my brandy, I listen to the ice cubes chink against the glass as I lower it from my lips. Against the silence, I can almost hear the sounds from my memories, of this silent apartment filled with light and laughter. My parents, the way they used to be a long time ago. Aidan, running around and sneaking off to torment hotel staff by turning up in places he wasn’t supposed to be. Love, and family.

All that’s left of that now is me, and Aidan, now a man, no longer the reckless rebel he used to be.

I think of my parents again and drain my glass, turning away from the windows, suddenly restless. I need a woman, if only to distract me from thinking about the past. Cecily would have been perfect, but I can’t call her now. The last thing I want is for her to imagine that her ultimatum is working. I’ll have to find someone else. Someone who won’t be interested in commitment, at least for a while.

I place my empty glass on a coffee table and pick up my jacket from the back of a chair where I’d draped it when I came in earlier, deciding to go downstairs to talk to the hotel manager. I still have to thank the kitchen staff for the birthday cake that’s now chilling in my fridge. That’ll distract me from my thoughts, if only for a while.

I shrug on the jacket and walk to the foyer, towards the elevator. It’s not a private elevator, but the call button for the penthouse overrides all other instructions, so once I’m in it, it doesn’t stop on any floor but mine. On my floor, the doors don’t open unless a special passcode is entered from inside the car, or the call button is pressed from inside my apartment.