Wait for Me (5 page)

“Yes, of course. Sorry.”

After making sure it was really Adam, I let him in and remembered – from the way he was looking at me – that I was only wearing a skimpy towel. I took a few steps back to shield myself with the cash register.

“Sorry, I was taking a shower,” I smiled awkwardly at the situation. “If you wait a minute, I'll get dressed and fetch the keys, then I can let you out of the main door and… listen… could you lend me your flashlight and I'll leave you the laptop?”

I caught him smiling in the darkness. He was definitely enjoying this.

“Of course, it's all yours,” he said, handing it to me.

I ran to my room, threw on a sweater and a pair of jogging pants then returned to the office. Adam was behind the desk with the laptop on his knee.

“Sorry about that… again. Please, follow me,” I said, edging towards the back of the room. Adam followed.

“Aren't you afraid, here all by yourself?” he asked as we were halfway down the corridor.

“No,” I answered.

With the help of the flashlight, I fumbled with the lock and opened the door into the dark street, now tinged with an eerie silence.

“There you go, you're free,” I said with a dumb laugh.

He gave me a perplexed smile, then just as he was about to step outside, he turned towards me so quickly that I dodged to the side.

“Do you want me to stay until the electricity is back?” he asked.

Startled and confused by the offer, I stammered over my words.

“Um, no. That's okay.”

“Are you sure?” he said, gazing at me with his magnetic, almost serpentine eyes. “I don't think it'll take too long. I believe the blackout is just on this block.”

“No, really, you're too kind.”

“As you wish, see you soon then, Sophie.”

And again, a shiver trickled down my spine. Nobody said my name like he did. As I was closing the door, I realized I was still holding his flashlight.

“Mr Scott, the torch,” I shouted.

He stopped halfway across the street. “Look after it,” he said without turning.

“What floor do you live on?” I asked him.

“Excuse me?” and, in a slow and measured movement, he turned to look at me.

“Well, I'm pretty sure the elevator won't work, so you'll have to climb the stairs in the dark. How high up do you live?”

“On the twelfth floor, in fact,” he said. “I hadn't considered that.”

Driven by curiosity and the slightest, repellent desire for his company, I ventured: “Look, if you want to wait here I'll put some coffee on.”

Remarkably, he greeted this with a beaming smile. “That sounds good to me,” he said, retracing his steps.

We sat awkwardly at my brother's desk. The silence was tangible. Mostly as a distraction, I served the promised coffee, with a few broken cookies.

“How are your studies going? The exam you took the other day?” he asked, after taking a long drink.

“It was good. It's the first exam I've taken in a long time but it went well – I kept my average.”

“How many do you have left?”

“Four,” I answered.

He took another sip of coffee and licked his lips. In the faint glow of the flashlight, I had a sense that behind this gesture, involuntarily as it was, lurked a shade of desire. I shook my head. It was probably just my own desire, left unfulfilled by the evening with Ryan and the blackout.

“And how is everything else? Are you used to the city?”

I shrugged. “More or less.”

“What do you do when you're not here?”

I shrugged again and snapped a cookie in half. “Not much.”

Mr Scott shook his head, amused. “You're a woman of few words, aren't you? Go on Sophie – tell me something about yourself.”

True. I wasn't much of a talker, and these questions made me feel like I was sitting with Dr Richardson.

“I don't really know what to say.”

“Well, I'll go then shall I: My name is Adam Scott, which you already know. I'm thirty. I'm from Philadelphia. I have two younger sisters. My father was a carrier and my mother was a housewife, devoted to her three cubs. The middle sister is a neonatal surgeon at the Philadelphia Children's Hospital, and the other teaches elementary school. I graduated from—” he broke off, frowning. “This is really boring.” For a second, a surge of electricity lit up the room before leaving us in darkness again. “I think they're trying to restore the power. We should have light again soon,” he said.

“Yeah, I think so too,” I yawned.

“Sophie, I'd like to ask you again – are you not afraid to stay here all alone?”

“No, why would I be?” I answered. “I'm locked in my bedroom and I can see anybody who comes and goes.”

His eyes widened, as though I had muttered some obscenity. “You mean you watch the CCTV?” he asked.

“Yeah, well, I don't watch it all the time, just when a customer enters or leaves. Ever since my brother got the automated system, he's had cameras so that he can see when someone needs help. Like tonight, for instance. It's too bad the generator didn't kick in.” I gave him a smile, but took it back at his troubled expression.

“So you see me every time I come and go?”

“Well, yeah, a quick glance, just to make sure there are no problems.” His expression had darkened. “Anyway, most of the time – just between us – I'm asleep or watching TV”.

He barely smiled.

I pointed the flashlight toward the clock above the dresser. Only twenty minutes had passed. The night was never ending.

“So, aside from college, you don't do anything? You're not seeing anybody?” he asked out of the blue, after a whole minute of looking unsettled.

“In what sense?”

“You know what sense,” he answered bluntly.

I sighed, shrugging again. “No, I'm not looking for a love story right now.”

“The last one ended badly?”

“You can say that again.”

“You could always look for something simpler,” he suggested, with a provocative look.

I frowned, pretty sure I had heard him correctly, and stopped myself from smiling at this brazen suggestion. Remembering the fiasco that occurred a few hours earlier, I answered: “I'm not looking for any kind of anything right now.”

He shook his head, with a look of dangerous cunning.

“I have other things to think about,” I added in response to this charged expression.

“Such as?” he asked.

“Graduating.”

“And then?”

“One step at a time. For now I'll worry about graduating, the rest comes later,” I said, hoping the interrogation would end soon.

“That's fair enough. One step at a time,” he answered earnestly. But his expression gave me that same feeling I had experienced back in the car. I was the Bronx polar bear again; a species to be studied and analyzed, and fed occasionally.

“What about you anyway, are you seeing somebody?” I asked directly.

He cocked his head to one side and grimaced. A hint of hostility.

“Don't you watch the monitor?” he asked.

I looked down, a little guiltily. “Yeah, well, I do see you with lots of women. I suppose ‘somebodies' would be more accurate?”

Adam seemed to appreciate this, and his expression softened.

“Somebodies… right. So, what's the question Sophie?”

Each time he said my name it seemed to echo. It was disarming.

“None in particular,” I said, trying to disguise my discomfort by eating another cookie. “You asked me. I was just making conversation.”

He set his cup on the desk, crossed his legs and locked his fingers around one knee.

“I think you want to know why there isn't one specific ‘somebody', and why I see a certain type of woman,” he said. “It's no big secret.”

His honesty felt excessive. I had pushed a little too far. At the end of the day, he was still my brother's customer.

The electricity came back on – and not a minute too soon. His truth remained undeclared. I bolted out of my chair, tipping it over and feeling like a clumsy schoolgirl.

“I'll be off. Thanks again for the coffee Sophie. Nice talking to you. I'll be sure to thank your brother for your kindness.”

He was uncomfortably close to me, I nodded timidly.

I walked him to the door, feeling sensitive to his presence behind me. He made me feel naked and exposed. We exchanged a brisk handshake and I closed the door. After years of failed relationships, I had learned to recognize when a man was getting impatient with me, and this was almost certainly one of those moments.

The next morning, while I was at the café reading a newspaper, Adam knocked on the other side of the glass and gestured as to whether he could join me for a drink. As he approached, I tried to think of a casual way to apologize for the conversation last night but drew a blank. In contrast to his usual, expensive business attire he was wearing casual clothes. He looked more normal, and remarkably sexy. For once, I didn't feel like a freak beside him. He reached the table and sat down in front of me, with purpose and elegance.

“Hello Sophie,” he began confidently. “I'll be honest – I was hoping to run into you to apologize for my strange attitude towards your question last night—”

Bewildered, I examined his tie-free neck. He had a nice Adam's apple. There was a certain something about its shape.

“As you might have understood, I—”

I raised my hand to interrupt his confession. I had little desire to hear about his private life. Besides, it was my fault for bringing it up in the first place.

“Listen, you don't have anything to apologize for. Everyone has their own complications, especially where attraction is involved. You don't owe me an explanation. I'm sorry I brought it up. I was just trying to tease you… I don't even know how I got onto all that.

“Ah,” he mumbled. “Trying to tease me?” He gave a playful frown.

“Yeah, kind of, you were asking awkward questions so I thought I'd retaliate a little.”

“Sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you.”

“Not really embarrassed, you just… put me on the spot,” I corrected. “I don't really like to talk about myself, and much less about the romances that I do or don't have.”

“I see. Well, I apologize.”

“Me too.”

“That's settled then,” he muttered, pleased.

A moment later, Ester materialized out of nowhere – it was spectral and disquieting. “You want something?” she asked in her laziest accent, visibly grumpy.

“Yes, black coffee please” Adam said, barely looking up.

“Anything else?” she asked, eyeing him like a hawk. I tried to silently communicate that she could leave; that I had everything under control.

Alone again, we exchanged guarded smiles. I can't speak for him, but I could not think of a single thing to say. I could barely hold eye contact. I had never felt so flustered around a man before. He unleashed a deep sense of inadequacy within me, but this was far removed from my low self-opinion; this felt more like my insides were dissolving.

“What were you reading?” he asked, pointing to the newspaper.

“This,” I shifted it across the table, pointing to the article. “A promising discovery, assuming it's feasible,” I added.

After reading a few lines – “Interesting.”

“Yeah, if you really can draw fuel from water then there might be hope for us yet.”

His cell phone interrupted the conversation. His side of the call consisted of “yes… no… later… depends… perfect… see you tonight.” His gaze returned to me.

“I have to go Sophie, I have an appointment,” he said, drinking the last of his coffee.

“Alright, see you then,” I replied.

“Yes, I'll see you soon,” he said, rising from his seat.

“See you soon.” I smiled and returned to my article.

Five lines later, Ester emerged wearing a pair of rubber gloves. She collected Adam's cup and murmured something about God and viral epidemics. “Did you look at his hands yet?” she asked, taking a seat at the table.

“I didn't notice them,” I answered.

“Sophie… dangerous… very danger—”

She froze as Adam re-appeared at the table. Without a word, she stood up and continued to clear the tables.

“Listen,” Adam said tautly. “I'm going to
MOMA
to oversee an exhibition that my company is sponsoring. Would you like to come with me?”

What was I supposed to say? He was my brother's customer, who happened to live across the street, and the whole neighborhood knew about his exploits with women. This caught me off guard.

“But perhaps you have other plans? I asked because I thought an exhibition would be a change from the ‘nothing' that you usually do,” he joked.

I smiled. “No, I don't have plans, but what's the show?” I asked, still uncertain.

“Magritte,” he answered.

I thought about it for a few seconds and accepted the offer. I liked Magritte.

“Are you sure I won't be in the way?” I asked, closing the newspaper.

“Quite sure,” he said. “Let's go then.”

We left the café together, under the watchful eyes of Ester and Ben. I signaled to them that I would call later.

On the street, I asked Adam to collect the car by himself so that my brother wouldn't get the wrong idea, which wouldn't really be the wrong idea at all. I wanted him, make no mistake, and he had led me to believe that he wanted me too. And let's face it, I was still unfulfilled from the night before. I could not say why but he got my pulse racing hard – too hard.

At
MOMA
, Adam was welcomed by a hoard of smartly dressed men, women and their vigorous handshakes. I ducked towards the reception to browse through the postcards and brochures for the exhibition. After a few moments, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Adam break away from the lobby crowd to join me.