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encountered my hips. After hooking up the little frog closures and pulling in my stomach muscles, I turned to look in the mirror. Not bad. In fact, better than I would have thought possible. When I moved, I noticed that the slits on either side of the dress flashed just the slightest bit of red silk lining, another elegant secret.
    That was it. I had to have the dress. Of course, wearing it meant I would have to be intensely aware of my posture, both upper andlower, for the whole evening. But given my infatuation with the image in the mirror, that seemed a reasonable price to pay.

    By 5:30 I was back at the hotel. Thirty minutes later the phone rang. It was a radio producer from Baltimore, calling to confirm I was in my room. At six, Paris time—noon, Baltimore time—I was to be a telephone guest on
The Allan Prell Show.
    For the past seven years I’d been a regular guest on this radio talk show. It was something I enjoyed doing. Allan Prell was both smart and funny and so were the listeners who called in to talk about everything from politics to books. Before leaving on my trip, it was suggested I do a radio interview on the show from Paris. I agreed. And now the familiar voice of Allan Prell was on the other end of the long-distance line.
    For forty-five minutes Allan and I talked about Paris. About the price of a glass of orange juice at Deux Magots—seven dollars—and the cost of a cup of coffee at the Flore—five dollars. About the hotels on the Left Bank. About what I was doing. Listeners called in to ask questions. Commercials came and went, bringing into my room on the rue de l’Université the voices of Baltimore Oriole Cal Ripken, Jr., and Morris the Remodeler. I could picture the radio studio, could see Allan in his white turtleneck swiveling back and forth in his chair, could even identify the voices of some callers. It was all so familiar.
    And yet, sitting in my Paris hotel, only a few blocks away from the Seine and the hotel where Hemingway lived, it already seemed like somebody else’s life.
    When the interview was over I sat for a while looking around the room. My gaze stopped at the wine-red love seat. Suddenly I thought:
it looks just like the love seat in the Kertész photo.
I got up and walked to the small sofa. Then, without thinking, I tried to arrange myself on it like the woman—the Satiric Dancer—in the picture. It wasn’t easy.
    Close enough
, I said to the empty room when finally I managed to get both legs onto the back cushion. After all, I was not young, not a dancer, and, although I fancied myself amusing at times, definitely not a satirist.

    When I arrived at the jazz club that night, there was no sign of Liliane and her friend. I decided to wait at the bar. La Villa was crowded, filled with affluent-looking men dressed in expensive suits worn with black T-shirts, and model-perfect women wearing creations from the salons of hot young Paris designers. The verdict of success was in the air; it rose up through the smoke and dim light, creating a halo of self-approval. I was glad I’d worn the new black silk dress. Although not up to the level of high fashion present in the room, it had a simplicity that might pass for elegance. At least that was my hope.
    Just then I spotted Liliane sitting at a small table with a man who could have stepped out of a Brooks Brothers’ ad. She waved me over.
    “Hello again,” she said as I approached them. Liliane looked spectacular. She was wearing a black silk dress with long sleeves made of crisscrossed green silk ribbons. On her head was a small hat of black tulle; a tiny green bird nested inside the tulle. Hercompanion stood up and nodded but did not speak; his handsome square-jawed face maintained its Mount Rushmore impassivity.
    “This is Justin Moore,” Liliane said. “But be warned—he is not in a good mood.” She laughed but her eyes darted nervously in Justin’s direction. I sat down, slightly put off by the awkward beginning to the