Out of Sight

EIGHTEEN

Three in the afternoon, a snowstorm blowing outside, the restaurant on top the hotel was nearly empty, only one waitress, it looked like, on duty. Karen was ready to bet anything the waitress would seat her at a table near the three men in business suits having lunch, and she did: the young executive-looking guys talking away, laughing at something one of them said until Karen walked past, and then silence. Karen glanced over as she sat down next to the outside window wall of glass; for a moment she thought of asking for another table, not so close. But they were finishing with coffee and cognac, or something like it, and she was only going to have one drink.

"Jack Daniel's, please, water on the side." She turned to see her reflection in the glass against an overcast sky, snow swirling, blowing in gusts, seven hundred feet above the city, down there somewhere. She heard one of them say, "Why not," and then to the waitress, "Celeste, do us again, please, and put the young lady's drink on our bill."

Karen remembered her dad reading a book, years ago, called Celeste, the Gold Coast Virgin. She turned to see them raising snifter glasses to her, smiling, pleasant-looking guys thirty-five to forty in dark business suits, two white shirts, the third one blue, as deep blue as his suit. She said, "Thanks anyway," and shook her head.

The waitress drifted back to Karen's table.

"They want to buy you a drink."

"I got that. Tell them I'd rather pay for my own."

"They're okay," the waitress said, getting girl-to-girl on her,

"they're celebrating a business deal."

"I'm not," Karen said.

"But listen, make it a double while you're at it, Celeste. Water on the side."

She watched the three guys looking up at the waitress delivering the message. Now they were looking this way.

Karen gave them a shrug and turned to watch the snow, thinking it was like the snow in a globe you shake and it swirls around, except that here you're in the globe looking out. Ten minutes passed before her drink arrived. She splashed it with water from a small carafe, took a good sip and the one with the shirt as dark as his suit and a pale, rust-colored tie was standing at her table.

He said, "Excuse me."

She liked his tie.

"My associates and I made a bet on what you do for a living." He smiled.

Not his friends or his buddies, his associates.

"And I won. Hi, I'm Philip."

Not Phil, Philip. Karen said, "If it's okay with you, Philip, I'd like to just have a quiet drink and leave. Okay?"

"Don't you want to know what I guessed? How I know what you do for a living?"

"To tell you the truth," Karen said, "I'm not even mildly curious.

Really, I don't want to be rude, Philip, I'd just like to be left alone." She turned again to the snowstorm.

"You're having a bad day, aren't you? I understand," Philip said, "and I'm sorry."

She watched his reflection turn and leave. The gentleman, polite, concerned, understanding-all she'd have to say is let's go and they'd be out of here.

The next one said, "I think I know why you're depressed-if I may offer an observation."

So fucking sure of themselves.

"You called on an account today, asked for the order and they said well, they were going to have to think about it."

It was her black suit; she had to be here on business, but didn't look too happy about it.

"I have a hunch you're the new rep and your customer isn't exactly knocked out by the idea of a young lady, even one as stunning as you, handling the account."

Yeah, it was the black suit.

"Am I close?" Smiling.

"Hi, I'm Andy."

Like that commercial on TV. Do you suffer the embarrassment of wetting your pants a lot? Hi, I'm June Allyson.

"By the way, we're simple ad guys. We flew in from New York this morning to pitch a major account." Andy hunched over to look out at the storm, maybe to get closer, be able to see through it.

"Hiram Walker Distillery, it's right across the river, if Canada's in that direction. There's no way to tell, is there? Anyway, we presented a test-market campaign for their new margarita mix. We show this guy who looks like a Mexican ban dido the big Chihuahua hat, crossed bullet belts, and the headline says, "You don't need no stinkin' bartender." The client flipped. So, we're having a little celebration here before going back tomorrow."

Karen listened. She said, "Andy? Really. Who gives a shit?"

He frowned, and it was kind of a sympathetic expression, as he asked,

"Why are you on the muscle? Want to tell me what happened?"

With these guys it had to be about business.

Karen said, "Beat it, will you?" and stared at Andy until he turned away. All she had to do was give in and they'd ask her to join them and she wasn't in the mood. Sit there and smile.

Okay, what do you do if you aren't in sales? I'm a deputy U.S. marshal and you assholes are under arrest. No, they'd like that, so she'd have to keep it simple: tell them she was in law enforcement, a federal marshal, and they'd say wow, no kidding, and act sincere, interested-You're packing? — until they began to play off whatever she said, show her how clever and entertaining ad guys were, finally getting to: Are you staying at the hotel?

She was pretty sure the third guy would feel he had to make a pitch, or the other two would egg him into it. Sooner or later he'd be along.

Karen drank with friends. Alone, she might once in a while accept a drink from a guy she didn't know if he wasn't an obvious geek. She had met Carl Tillman that way. He bought her a drink and turned out to be a bank robber: the one she told her dad about-after Burdon let her know they had Tillman under surveillance-asking her dad what she should do, and he said get a new boyfriend. She would have learned soon enough, though, Tillman wasn't her type-even if he didn't rob banks. It was the little annoying things about him, like saying «ciao» instead of so long or see you later, or the way he called her «lady» and it made her think of Kenny Rogers.

If they'd leave her alone this wouldn't be bad, a new experience, to sit warm in the middle of a snowstorm, a blizzard, sipping sour mash.

But as she thought this, and felt it, slipping into a relaxed mood, another dark suit appeared, reflected in the window wall, the third guy here to try his line. Karen waited for his opener. Finally he said:

"Can I buy you a drink?"

Without turning to look she knew who it was.

Even her insides knew, a muscle or something in the middle of her body had grabbed hold and wouldn't let go. What she had imagined and played with in her mind was happening, and she was afraid if she turned her head he wouldn't be there or it would be one of those guys. She stared at his reflection until she had to find out and turned her head. Karen looked up at Jack Foley in his neat navy-blue suit, his hair not quite combed but looking great. She said, "Yeah, I'd love one," and it was done, that easily.

"Would you like to sit down?"

He pulled the chair out looking at her. Now he was across from her, close, his arms resting on the edge of the table, neither of them saying anything, not even about the weather, the three ad guys watching-Karen knew it without looking at them-wondering what was going on here. They see a man walk in: white male, forty-seven, six-one, one-seventy, hair light brown, eyes blue, no visible scars… No, they didn't, they saw a guy who looked a lot like them. Only different.

Something about him… She had to try not to think of him with any reference to the past if this-whatever they were doing- was going to work. Not the past or anything happening beyond right now. But it was a fact, whether learned from reading his sheet or looking right at him, his eyes were a vivid blue. His teeth were white, white enough…

He offered his hand saying, "I'm Gary," and smiled.

She hesitated for a moment and then went along, said, "I'm Celeste," and had to smile with him, their smiles coming easily, in the mood to smile, sharing a secret no one else in the world knew.

When she lowered her hand to the table, his hand came down to cover hers. She watched his expression as she brought her hand out slowly, his eyes not leaving hers, and laid her hand on his. The tips of her fingers brushed his knuckles, lightly back and forth. She said, "It takes hours to get a drink around here. There's only one waitress."

He looked away for a moment and started to get up.

"I can go to the bar."

"Don't leave me," Karen said.

He eased back in the chair.

"Those guys bother you?"

"No, they're all right. I meant, you just got here." She picked up her drink and placed it in front of him.

"Help yourself." She watched him take a sip.

He smacked his lips.

"Bourbon."

"You're close."

He said, "You mean Jack Daniel's isn't a bourbon?" She smiled at him and he said, "No, I guess it isn't. You like Jim Beam, Early Times?"

"They're okay."

"Wild Turkey?"

"Love it."

He said, "Well, we got that out of the way."

She watched him take another sip and place the glass in front of her.

"Did you ever see Stranger Than Paradise?"

He looked out at the snow and she knew he had.

"The two guys take the girl who just arrived from Czechoslovakia, someplace like that, to Cleveland to see Lake Erie? And there's so much snow you can't see the lake? That one?"

She was smiling at him.

He said, "Was that some land of test question?"

"One of the guys gives her a dress," Karen said.

"She takes it off, throws it in a trash bin and goes, That dress bugged me."

" He said, "You like to act goofy, don't you?"

"When I have time."

"What do you do for a living?"

"I'm a sales rep. I came here to call on a customer and they gave me a hard time because I'm a girl."

"Is that how you think of yourself?"

"What, as a sales rep?"

"A girl."

"I don't have a problem with it."

"I like your hair. And that suit."

"I had one just like it-well, it was the same idea, but I had to get rid of it."

"You did?"

"It smelled."

"Having it cleaned didn't help, huh?"

She said no. She asked him, "What do you do for a living, Gary?" and saw his eyes change, become almost solemn.

He said, "How far do we go with this?"

It stopped her, threw her off balance. Karen said, "Not yet.

Don't say anything yet. Okay?"

He said, "I don't think it works if we're somebody else. You know what I mean? Gary and Celeste, Jesus, what do they know about anything?"

She knew he was right, but had to take a moment before saying, "If we're not someone else then we're ourselves. But don't ask me where we're going with it or how it ends, okay?

Because I haven't a fucking clue. I've never played this before."

The way he said, "It's not a game," she knew he meant it.

"Well, does it make sense to you?"

He said, "It doesn't have to, it's something that happens. It's like seeing a person you never saw before-you could be passing on the street-and you look at each other…"

Karen was nodding.

"You make eye contact without meaning to."

"And for a few moments," Foley said, "there's a kind of recognition."

You look at each other and you know something."

"That no one else knows," Karen said.

"You see it in their eyes."

"And the next moment the person's gone," Foley said, "and it's too late to do anything about it, but you remember it because it was right there and you let it go, and you think, What if I had stopped and said something? It might happen only a few times in your life."

"Or once," Karen said.

"Why don't we get out of here."

"Where do you want to go?"

Karen looked up. The advertising guys were getting ready to leave, dropping napkins, pushing their chairs back, taking forever. Philip looked over, and then Andy. Andy waved. Karen watched them leave the table finally and make their way out.

It was quiet. She looked at Foley in the slim-cut navy-blue suit, his white shirt with its button-down collar, his burgundy and blue rep tie-the conservative business executive-looked in his eyes and said,

"Let's go to my place."

"Your room?"

"My suite. I showed my credentials and they upgraded me."

"You must do pretty well, in your business."

"I don't know, Jack. The way things are going I may be looking for work."