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Friday, August 27, continued

Matt was hinting pretty heavily that he'd rather sleep over at my apartment, but I pretended not to hear -- anything to avoid showing him the envelope from the U.S. Treasury Department.

As we strolled down Second Avenue, I had the feeling I was choreographing disaster. Why tell him about the envelope if I'm not ready to show him the contents -- or see them myself? Part of me wants a boyfriend who can fix things -- another part won't let him get close enough to do so. I've known, from the minute I opened my mailbox, what the letter might be about, but when I told Matt, I feigned innocence.

Nancy Chan: Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl appears in Health & Body every Monday and Thursday. + About Nancy Chan: Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl -- with links to all episodes to date. + Read the Diary from the start.

"Taxes." Matt says the word dismissively because financial matters come naturally to him. But taxes scare me, government forms are emotionally overwhelming and money has always been the one part of my life I simply couldn't quite control. I love it when a venerable madam like Liane gets the impression that I'm "obviously in control," but she hasn't seen the half-completed tax forms in my hat box next to the cashmeres in my closet ... nor has anyone else. And Matt has no idea how flaky I am with money -- he doesn't even know how long I've been out on my own. I'm always vague about those precarious but enchanted years when I ran away from my dull Canadian hometown to explore the hotel bars of London.

At 15, passing for 20, I picked up clients at the Hilton on Park Lane -- and knew I was making per trick what real adults earned in a week. Ignoring the older girls who advised me to save money, I blew it on restaurants and clothes, indulging my whims. Three days after turning my first trick, at 13, I'd spent the entire sum -- but that's not really where it started, either. Before I became a teen hooker, I frittered away my baby-sitting money on boarding-school stories and ice cream cones, then -- as my tastes evolved -- on foreign magazines, French pastries, handmade Turkish delight and the occasional schoolyard Quaalude. No matter how much I spent on these "delicacies," there was always another baby-sitting gig. The local parents thought I was wonderful! Responsible and mature. I was, but not when it came to money.

My mother's efforts to teach me about money management in exchange for an allowance just made me want to turn down the allowance altogether. I was determined to earn all my own money so I wouldn't have to listen to anyone. When I became a hooker, I learned to hide my spending habits. Most girls think I'm super-professional because I fanatically meet my self-imposed weekly quota, pay my cuts on time, possess a good, steady business. But I sometimes wonder: When will I grow up? The magazines and pastries have been succeeded by Hermes scarves and handbags but it all springs from the same girlish appreciation of instant gratification. It's easy to get caught in the cycle of being precocious. You wake up one day and realize you're not some smart little 16-year-old passing for an adult and -- uh-oh.

Next page | Watching my boyfriend hide remnants of his girlfriend