Chapter Text
You sat in a hotel bar, watching the door. Your appearance was neat: white blouse, hair tucked behind your ears. You glanced at the screen of your phone, which had Messenger open, and then looked back at the door again. It was late March, the bar was quiet, and outside had begun to set over New York City. It was outside the window to your right, four minutes past seven, and then five, six minutes past. Briefly and with no discernible interest, you examined your fingernails. At eight minutes past seven, James entered through the door. He was tall, brunette, with a narrow face. He looked around, scanning the faces of the other patrons, and then took his phone out and checked the screen. You noticed him, but beyond watching him, you made no additional effort to catch his attention. He appeared to be about the same age as you, in his late twenties or early thirties. You let him stand there until he saw you and came over.
“Are you [Reader]?” he said.
“That’s me,” you replied.
“Yeah, I’m James . Sorry, I’m late,” he said.
In a gentle tone, you replied: “That’s alright.”
He asked you what you wanted to drink and then went to the bar to order. The waitress asked how he was doing, and he answered: “Good, yeah, yourself?”
He ordered a beer for himself and a rum and coke for you. You were at the table, tapping your fingers on a beermat, waiting. Your outward attitude had become more alert and lively since the man had entered the room. You looked outside now at the sunset as if it were of interest to you, though you hadn’t paid any attention to it before. When the man returned and put the drinks down, a drop of beer spilled over, and you watched its rapid progress down the side of his glass.
“You were saying you just moved here,” he said. “Is that right?”
You nodded, sipped your drink, and licked your top lip. “What did you do that for?” he asked.
“What do you mean? I mean, there’s not much in the way of people moving here, usually,” you replied.
“You’re here for work, are you?” he asked.
“Yeah, something like that,” you replied.
A momentary glance at you seemed to confirm that he was expecting more of an explanation. Your expression flickered as if you were trying to make a decision. Then you gave a little informal smile and said: “Well, I was looking to move somewhere anyway, and then I heard about a house in Brooklyn– a friend of mine knows the owners. They’ve been trying to sell it forever, and eventually, they just started looking for someone to live there in the meantime. Anyway, I thought it would be nice to live beside the sea. I suppose it was a bit impulsive. So— But that’s the entire story, there was no other reason.”
He was drinking and listening to you. Toward the end of your remarks, you seemed to have become slightly nervous, which expressed itself in a shortness of breath and a kind of self-mocking expression. He watched this performance impassively and then put his glass down.
“Right,” he said. “And you said you were in Toronto before, were you?”
You looked up to meet his gaze and said: “Yes, that's right. I was working for the University of Toronto until recently. How about you? Have you travelled at all? For work, I mean.”
“Different places. I was in Baltimore a while back. I’m usually here in New York, though, I think I told you that. And what are you going to do now that you’re here? Looking for work or something?”
You stayed silent, trying to process the slew of questions.
James smiled and sat back in his seat, still looking at you. “Sorry for all the questions,” he said. “I don’t think I get the full story yet.”
After more deliberation, you said: “No, I don’t mind. But I’m not very good at giving answers, as you can see.”
“What do you work as, then? That’s my last question,” he said
You smiled back at him, tightly now. ”I’m an Engineer, but it's mostly research, and I write sometimes”, you said.
“I’d tell you what I do, but I guess you already know that. Are you going to work for Stark Industries?” he said.
“Do you like what you do? You haven't told me much, but it seems important,” you said curiously.
“Not really,” he said. “But they wouldn’t be paying me to do something I liked, would they? That’s the thing about work, if it were any good, you’d do it for free.”
You smiled and said that was true and added, “To answer your previous question, I might be working for Stark Industries. I sent my application two days ago.”
“Maybe you’ll make the job a bit more tolerable for everyone there,” he quipped.
Outside the window, the sky had grown darker, and the lights down at the caravan park were coming on: the cool salt glow of the outdoor lamps, and the warmer yellow lights in the windows. The waitress from behind the bar had come out to mop down the empty tables with a cloth. You watched her for a few seconds and then looked at James again.
“So what do people do for fun around here?” you asked.
“It’s the same as any place. Few pubs around and nightclubs down in West Village, and we have sights, obviously, but that’s more for tourists. I suppose you don’t have friends around here yet, do you?” he said.
“I think you’re the first person I’ve had a conversation with since I moved,” you replied.
James raised his eyebrows. “Are you shy?” he said.
“You tell me,” you said.
Both of you looked at one another. You weren’t nervous now, but somehow distant, while his eyes moved around your face, as if trying to put something together. He did not seem, in the end, after a second or two, to conclude that he had succeeded. “I think you might be,” he said.
You asked where James was living, and he said he had a condo nearby. Looking out the window, he added that the condo was almost visible from where both of you were sitting, just past the cluttered row of cafes and restaurants. He leaned over the table to show you, but then said it was too dark after all. “Anyway, just the other side there,” he said.
As he leaned close, your eyes met. You dropped your gaze into your lap, and taking his seat again, he seemed to suppress a smile. You asked if his parents were still living locally. He said they weren’t and added, “Ah, I haven’t seen them in a while. They're dead.”
A long silence followed.
“Ah, I’m sorry,” you said.
“Yeah. Thanks, it's kind of nice to tell someone that.” he replied.
“I haven’t seen my father in a while either. He’s not very reliable,” you said with your hands on your thighs.
James looked up from his glass. “Oh?” he said. “Is he a Drinker?”
“And he— You know, he makes up stories.”
James nodded. “I thought that was your job,” he said.
You blush visibly at this remark, which seemed to take him by surprise and even alarm him. “Very funny,” you said. “Anyway. Would you like another drink?”
After the second, you both had a third. He asked if you had siblings, and you said you were an only child. He said he had a little sister. By the end of the third drink, your face looked pink and your eyes had become glassy. James looked the same as he had when he entered the bar, with no change in manner or tone. But while your gaze increasingly roamed around the room, expressing a more diffuse interest in your surroundings, the attention he paid to you had become more watchful and intent. You rattled the ice in your empty glass, amusing yourself.
“Would you like to see my house?” you asked. “I’ve been wanting to show it off, but I don’t know anyone to invite. I mean, I am going to invite my friends. But they’re all over the place. In Toronto mostly.”
“Where is the house?” he said. “Can we take the train there?”
“Most certainly we can. We’ll have to. I can’t drive, can you?” you said.
“I can, but I think taking the subway this late is nice. It's quiet,” he replied.
“How romantic. Do you want another, or shall we go?” you quipped.
He frowned to himself at this question, or the phrasing of the question, or at the use of the word ‘romantic’. You were rooting in your handbag without looking up.
“Yeah, let’s head out, why not?” he said.
You stood up and began to put on your jacket, a beige single-breasted raincoat. He watched you fold back one sleeve cuff to match the other. Standing upright, he was much taller than you were.
“How far is it?” he asked.
You smiled at James playfully.
“Are you having second thoughts?” you said. “If you get tired of the commute, you can always abandon me and turn back, I’m quite used to it. The commute, that is. Not being abandoned. I might be used to that as well, but it’s not the sort of thing I confess to strangers.”
To this he offered no reply at all, just nodded, with a vaguely grim expression of forbearance, as if this aspect of your personality, your tendency to be ‘witty’ and verbose, was, after an hour or two of conversation, a quality he had noted and determined to ignore. He said goodnight to the waitress as they left. You looked struck by this and glanced back over your shoulder as if trying to catch sight of her again. When you both were at the train station, you asked whether he knew her.
“The girl working there?” asked James. “I know her, yeah. Rebecca. Why?”
“She’ll wonder what you were doing in there talking to me,” you said.
In a flat tone, James replied: “I’d say you’d have a good idea. Where are we heading?”
You put your hands in the pockets of your raincoat and started walking down. You seemed to have recognized a kind of challenge or even repudiation in his tone.
“Why, do you often meet women there?” you asked. He had to jump on the train quickly to keep up with you.
“That’s an odd question,” he replied.
“Is it? I suppose I’m an odd person,” you said.
“Is it your business if I meet people there?” he said.
“Nothing about you is my business, naturally. I’m just curious,” you replied.
He seemed to consider this, and in the meantime repeated in a quieter, less certain voice: “Yeah, but I don’t see how it’s your business.”
After a few seconds, he added: “You’re the one who suggested the hotel. Just for your information. I never usually go there. So no, I don’t meet people there that much.”
Your curiosity was piqued by your remark about the girl behind the bar ‘having an idea’ what we were doing there. “Well, I’m sure she figured out we were on a date,” he said. “That’s all I meant.” Though you didn’t look around at him, your face started to show a little more amusement than before or a different kind of amusement.
“You don’t mind people you know seeing you out on dates with strangers?” you asked.
“You mean because it’s awkward or whatever? Wouldn’t bother me much, no,” he replied.
For the rest of the commute to your house, up along the coast road, you made conversation about James’s social life, or rather, you posed several queries on the subject, which he mulled over and answered, both of you speaking more loudly than before due to the noise of the city. He expressed no surprise at your questions and answered them readily, but without speaking at excessive length or offering any information beyond what was directly solicited. He told you that he socialized primarily with people he knew from work. He didn’t ask you anything in return, perhaps warned off by your diffident responses to the questions he’d posed earlier, or perhaps no longer interested. You unlatched a small white gate and said: “Here.”
James stopped walking and looked at the house, situated up a length of sloped green garden. None of the windows were lit, and the facade of the house was not visible in any great detail. You were holding the gate open for him, and, with his eyes still on the figure of the house, which loomed above them facing out onto the sea, he followed you. Around both of you, the dim green garden rustled in the wind. You walked lightly up the path and searched in your handbag for the house keys. The noise of the keys was audible somewhere inside the bag, but you didn’t seem to be able to find them. He stood there, not saying anything. You apologized for the delay and switched on the flashlight on your phone, lighting the interior of your bag and casting a cold grey light on the front steps of the house. He had his hands in his pockets.
“Got them,” you said.
Then you unlocked the door. Inside was a large hallway with white-and-black patterned floor tiles. A marbled glass lampshade hung overhead, and a delicate, spindly table along the wall displayed a wooden carving of an otter. You dumped your keys on the table and glanced in the dim, blotchy mirror on the wall.
“You’re renting this place on your own?” he said.
“I know,” you said. “It’s too big. And I’m spending thousands on keeping it warm. But it is nice, isn’t it? And they’re not charging me any rent. Shall we go to the kitchen? I’ll turn the heat back on.”
He followed you down a hallway into a large kitchen, with fixed units along one side and a dining table on the other. Over the sink was a window overlooking the back garden. He stood in the doorway while you went searching in one of the presses. You looked around at him.
“You can sit down if you’d like to,” you said. “But by all means, remain standing if it’s what you prefer. Will you have a glass of wine? It’s the only thing I have in the house, drinks-wise. But I’m going to have a glass of water first.”
“What kind of things do you write? If you’re a writer.”
You turned around, bemused. “If I am?” you said. “I don’t suspect you think I’ve been lying. I would have come up with something better if I had been.”
He continued to watch you and then sat down at the table. The seats were padded with cushions in crinkled russet cloth. Everything looked very clean. He rubbed the smooth tabletop with the tip of his index finger. You put a glass of water down in front of him and sat on one of the chairs.
“Have you been here before? I’ll give you a tour if you like,” you said. “You must think I’m crazy living here on my own,”
“For free?” he answered. “Fuck off, you’d be mad not to.”
He yawned unselfconsciously and looked out the window, or rather at the window since it was dark out now and the glass only reflected the interior of the room.
“How many bedrooms are there?” he asked.
You told him there were four, and James asked you where yours was. In response to this abrupt question, you did not move your eyes at first but kept staring intently at your glass for a few seconds before looking directly up at him.
“Upstairs,” you said. “They’re all upstairs. Would you like me to show you?”
“Why no?” he said.
You and James rose from the table. On the upstairs landing was a rug with grey tassels. You pushed open the door to your room and switched on a little floor lamp. To the left was a large double bed. The floorboards were bare, and along one wall, a fireplace was laid out in jade-coloured tiles. On the right, a large sash window looked out over the sea, into the darkness. James wandered over to the window and leaned close to the glass, so his own shadow darkened the glare of the reflected light.
“Must be a nice view here in the daytime,” he said.
You were still standing by the door. “Yes, it’s beautiful,” you said. “Even better in the evening, actually.”
He turned away from the window, casting his appraising glance around the room’s other features, while you watched.
“Very nice,” he concluded. “Very nice room. Are you going to write something while you’re here?”
“I don’t know yet, maybe.”
“What do you write about?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” you said. “People.”
“That’s a bit vague. What kind of people do you write about, people like you?” he said.
You looked at James calmly, as if to tell him something: that you understood his game, perhaps, and that you would even let him win it, as long as he played nicely.
“What kind of person do you think I am?” you said. Something in the calm, coolness of your look seemed to unsettle him, and he gave a quick, yelping laugh.
“Well,” he said. “I only met you a few hours ago, I haven’t made up my mind on you yet.”
“You’ll let me know when you do,” you replied
“I hope. I might,” he said.
For a few seconds, you stood there in the room, very still, while he wandered around a little and pretended to look at things. Both of you knew then what was about to happen, though neither of you could have said exactly how you knew. You waited impartially while he continued glancing around, until finally, perhaps with no more energy to delay the inevitable, he thanked you and left. You walked him down the stairs, part of the way down. You were standing on the steps when he went out the door. It was one of those things. Both you and James felt bad afterwards, neither of you was certain really why the evening had been such a failure in the end. Pausing there on the stairs, alone, you looked back up at the landing. Follow your eyes now and notice the bedroom door left open, a slice of white wall visible through the banister posts.