unctuous manner of a veteran service professional, he offers Mrs. Bowen whatever assistance he can provide her. Several minutes later, Eva is back on the tenth floor, talking to the Mexican chambermaid responsible for cleaning room 1046. The woman informs her that the DO NOT DISTURB sign was hanging on the doorknob outside Nick’s room for the entire length of his stay and she never saw him. Ten minutes after that, Eva is downstairs in the kitchen talking to Leroy Washington, the room-service waiter who served Nick some of his meals. He recognizes Eva’s husband from the photo and adds that Mr. Bowen was a generous tipper, although he didn’t say much and seemed ‘preoccupied’ by something. Eva asks if Nick was alone or with a woman. Alone, says Washington. Unless there was a lady hiding in the bathroom or the closet, he continues, but the meals were always for one person, and as far as he could tell, only one side of the bed was ever slept in.
Now that she’s paid his hotel bill, and now that she’s nearly certain he hasn’t run off with another woman, Eva begins to feel like a wife again, a full-fledged wife battling to find her husband and save her marriage. No more information comes from the interviews she conducts with other members of the Hyatt Regency staff. She can’t begin to guess where Nick might have gone after leaving the hotel, and yet she feels encouraged, as if knowing he was here, in the same place where she is now, can be construed as a sign that he isn’t far away – even if it’s no more than a suggestive overlap, a spatial congruency that means nothing.
Once she steps out onto the street, however, the hopelessness of her situation comes crashing down on her again. For the fact remains that Nick left without a word – left her, left his job, left everything in New York behind him – and the only explanation she can think of now is that he’s cracking up, in the throes of some violent nervous collapse. Has living with her made him that miserable? Is she the one who’s driven him to take such a drastic step, who’s pushed him to the point of desperation? Yes, she tells herself, she’s probably done that to him. And to make matters worse, he’s penniless. A miserable, half-mad soul wandering around a strange city without a penny in his pocket. And that’s her fault too, she tells herself, the whole wretched business is her fault.
That same morning, as Eva begins her futile rounds of inquiry, going in and out of restaurants and shops in downtown Kansas City, Rosa Leightman flies home to New York. She unlocks the door of her apartment in Chelsea at one o’clock, and the first thing she sees is Eva’s note lying on the threshold. Caught off guard, perplexed by the urgent tone of the message, she drops her bag without bothering to unpack and immediately calls the first of the two numbers listed at the bottom of the note. No one answers at the Barrow Street apartment, but she leaves a message on the machine, explaining that she’s been out of town and can now be reached at her home number. Then she calls Eva’s office. The secretary tells her that Mrs. Bowen is away on business, but she’s due to call in later that afternoon, and when she does, the message will be passed on to her. Rosa is mystified. She has met Nick Bowen only once and knows nothing about him. The conversation in his office went extremely well, she thought, and even though she sensed that he was attracted to her (she could see it in his eyes, feel it in the way he kept looking at her), his manner was reserved and gentlemanly, even a trifle distant. A man more lost than aggressive, she remembers, with an unmistakable tinge of sadness hovering about him. Married, she now realizes, and therefore out of bounds, disqualified from consideration. But touching somehow, a sympathetic sort with kind instincts.
She unpacks her bag and looks through her mail before listening to the messages on her answering machine. It’s close
Now that she’s paid his hotel bill, and now that she’s nearly certain he hasn’t run off with another woman, Eva begins to feel like a wife again, a full-fledged wife battling to find her husband and save her marriage. No more information comes from the interviews she conducts with other members of the Hyatt Regency staff. She can’t begin to guess where Nick might have gone after leaving the hotel, and yet she feels encouraged, as if knowing he was here, in the same place where she is now, can be construed as a sign that he isn’t far away – even if it’s no more than a suggestive overlap, a spatial congruency that means nothing.
Once she steps out onto the street, however, the hopelessness of her situation comes crashing down on her again. For the fact remains that Nick left without a word – left her, left his job, left everything in New York behind him – and the only explanation she can think of now is that he’s cracking up, in the throes of some violent nervous collapse. Has living with her made him that miserable? Is she the one who’s driven him to take such a drastic step, who’s pushed him to the point of desperation? Yes, she tells herself, she’s probably done that to him. And to make matters worse, he’s penniless. A miserable, half-mad soul wandering around a strange city without a penny in his pocket. And that’s her fault too, she tells herself, the whole wretched business is her fault.
That same morning, as Eva begins her futile rounds of inquiry, going in and out of restaurants and shops in downtown Kansas City, Rosa Leightman flies home to New York. She unlocks the door of her apartment in Chelsea at one o’clock, and the first thing she sees is Eva’s note lying on the threshold. Caught off guard, perplexed by the urgent tone of the message, she drops her bag without bothering to unpack and immediately calls the first of the two numbers listed at the bottom of the note. No one answers at the Barrow Street apartment, but she leaves a message on the machine, explaining that she’s been out of town and can now be reached at her home number. Then she calls Eva’s office. The secretary tells her that Mrs. Bowen is away on business, but she’s due to call in later that afternoon, and when she does, the message will be passed on to her. Rosa is mystified. She has met Nick Bowen only once and knows nothing about him. The conversation in his office went extremely well, she thought, and even though she sensed that he was attracted to her (she could see it in his eyes, feel it in the way he kept looking at her), his manner was reserved and gentlemanly, even a trifle distant. A man more lost than aggressive, she remembers, with an unmistakable tinge of sadness hovering about him. Married, she now realizes, and therefore out of bounds, disqualified from consideration. But touching somehow, a sympathetic sort with kind instincts.
She unpacks her bag and looks through her mail before listening to the messages on her answering machine. It’s close
Similar Books
