Her name war Orly, world’s greatest, by her standards, matchmaker, marriage broker.  $100,000 a pop, per daddy.  “It’s not a dating service” this dark Israeli accented voice challenges me over the phone one night.  “I’m a miss-matcher myself.”  I offer obliquely to break the frontal charge of her voice and questions.  My age, height, weight and net worth are immediately assessed.  It’s not been since my early 20s, and the New York press, have I been so quickly labeled a mere meat market statistic by anyone. No subtleties preferred here.  At first launch I am a mail order bride-disaster.

“At your age, your income would be nil (period).  Actresses make nothing.”  I had tried to tell her in addition to acting that as a businesswoman I had enough not to need support.  “Money is not an issue.”  Money was her only issue.  My clients are Billionaires (the big B, not a small m).  “They travel by private jet and my charge is $100,000 per client, male or female.”  I had previously noted to her that the Manhattan marriage mavens, according to the New York Times, were charging the men exclusively, $50,000 for starters.  I was loosing ground rapidly.  “My clients have impeccable backgrounds.”  I had previously associated the word impeccable with something like integrity.  With her, the word lent itself more it seemed to the misuse and abuses of wit and intelligence for financial gain, quite possibly of power and profiteering.

By now I was indisputably in the target of her eye, entrapped.  I set forth with a candor utterly anathema to her.  “Money is a secondary objective to me . . .” I said.  The disconnect from her phone line was as sleek and irrevocable as a dead fly being brushed off a tablecloth, I had been terminated.  Terminated with a cool and concise punishment, for having wasted her time.