Being Invisible by Thomas Berger

don’t think that’s got much to do with not liking a stranger to take liberties with you.”
    “They’re not always strangers.” Mary Alice’s tone was plaintive.
    Of course, Pascal! “I understand how you might not want to create a public disturbance,” he told her now. “But you really ought to get him aside and tell him privately, in no uncertain terms, it’s got to stop, or else.”
    “Or what?”
    “You’ll take measures.”
    “What measures?”
    Mary Alice was beginning to show her irritating way of asking foolish questions: she did that quite a lot with regard to catalogue copy. How could he know what she should do next? Women were expected, somewhere along the line but at a much younger age than Mary Alice’s, to acquire a technique to repel at least this kind of man, who after all was not a rapist.
    But Wagner found himself constitutionally unable to appear to her as less than an authority on any matter at hand.
    “Tell him next time you will make a public disturbance.”
    “You mean scream and yell? I couldn’t do that.”
    “But the idea is to make him think you would,” Wagner said. They were moving smartly, and had only one more floor to go, according to the number stenciled alongside the latest fire door. “You could have him arrested.”
    “My God, I couldn’t do that.”
    “Well, once again it would be the threat that would probably do the trick.”
    They were descending the last flight of stairs. “Listen, I’ve got it,” said Wagner. “Here’s something you can do.” He suppressed the impulse to say even you. “Tell him privately, quietly, that unless he doesn’t quit, you’ll spread it around the office. Now that should do it, and without any commotion. Nobody could stand that kind of embarrassment.”
    She said nothing for the few steps remaining, but stopped before the door to the lobby. “Thanks, Fred.” She put out her hand. After a moment he gave her his, and she shook it. Hers was larger and stronger than he expected. “As usual,” said she, “you’re the one with the answers.”
    Ordinarily he would have uttered some self-effacing sentiment, but he sensed that here it might be taken as a failure of responsibility. “I’m pleased to have been able to help, Mary Alice. I’m sure it will work. Let me know.” He was still shaking the hand with which she held him. He had never before touched her in any way, not even in the slight contact of brushing by at close quarters. He was not the kind of fellow who was given to that practice, and if he had been, she would not have been the kind of woman to whom he would have done it. That Pascal was rubbing his groin against her behind—which was undoubtedly what she meant—was peculiarly outrageous, but it was probably no worse than searching the personal drawer of a colleague. Wagner regretted only not having kicked him more savagely.
    Finally he got his hand free and opened the door, ushering her out. The roar of the lobby at rush hour, after the quiet of the stairs, was startling. He had intended to escape from Mary Alice at this point, but he now knew a need to be protective. Actually, as a team they posed a certain menace to others, for they both walked quickly and collided with slowpokes several times before reaching the sidewalk.
    As a result of this shared experience, which became richer by their stepping amongst the even more alien throng on the pavement, people who didn’t even work in the same building—competitors, even potential enemies abound in the city—Wagner again acquired an interest in Mary Alice. It was however too slight to affect his immediate behavior.
    Therefore at the corner, where they were detained by both a red light and the heavy traffic, he said, “I’m taking a left turn here. I’ll see you tomorrow, Mary Alice. Have a good evening.”
    A strain in her eye suggested she might insist on accompanying him anyway, but she did not. Instead she shook hands again, and thereby delayed him