Slow Hand by Michelle Slung Page B

green plastic chair beside his desk. He shut the door and walked over to the window. It was a big room; there was a long expanse of old green and yellow floor tiles between them. Leaning his hip against a filing cabinet, he just stood there, hands in his trouser pockets, regarding her with such a polite, impersonal expression that she asked him if he recognized her.
    “Of course I do,” he said quietly.
    “Well—” Suddenly she was mortified. She felt like a woman about to sob that she couldn’t afford the abortion. She touched her fingers to her hot face.
    “I don’t know your name,” he said.
    “Oh. Ali. Ali Perrin.”
    “What do you want, Ali?”
    Her eyes fluttered down to his shoes—black, shabby loafers. She hated his adenoidal voice. What did she want?What she wanted was to bolt from the room like the mad woman she suspected she was. She glanced up at him again. Because he was standing with his back to the window, he was outlined in light. It made him seem unreal, like a film image superimposed against a screen. She tried to look away, but his eyes held her. Out in the waiting room the telephone was ringing. What do
you
want, she thought, capitulating to the pull of her perspective over to his, seeing now, from across the room, a charming woman with tanned, bare shoulders and blushing cheeks.
    The light blinked on his phone. Both of them glanced over at it, but he stayed standing where he was. After a moment she murmured, “I have no idea what I’m doing here.”
    He was silent. She kept her eyes on the phone, waiting for him to speak. When he didn’t, she said, “I had a dream …” She let out a disbelieving laugh. “God.” She shook her head.
    “You are very lovely,” he said in a speculative tone. She glanced up at him, and he turned away. Pressing his hands together, he took a few steps along the window. “I have very much enjoyed our … our encounters,” he said.
    “Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not here to—”
    “However,” he cut in, “I should tell you that I am moving into another building.”
    She looked straight at him.
    “This weekend, as a matter of fact.” He frowned at his wall of framed diplomas.
    “This weekend?” she said.
    “Yes.”
    “So,” she murmured. “It’s over then.”
    “Regrettably.”
    She stared at his profile. In profile he was a stranger—beak-nosed, round-shouldered. She hated his shoes, his floor, his formal way of speaking, his voice, his profile, and yet her eyes filled and she longed for him to look at her again.
    Abruptly he turned his back to her and said that his apartment was in the east end, near the beach. He gestured out the window. Did she know where the yacht club was?
    “No,” she whispered.
    “Not that I am a member,” he said with a mild laugh.
    “Listen,” she said, wiping her eyes. “I’m sorry.” She came to her feet. “I guess I just wanted to see you.”
    He strode like an obliging host over to the door.
    “Well, good-bye,” she said, looking up into his face.
    He had garlic breath and five o’clock shadow. His eyes grazed hers. “I wouldn’t feel too badly about anything,” he said affably.
    When she got back to the apartment the first thing she did was take her clothes off and go over to the full-length mirror, which was still standing next to the easel. Her eyes filled again because without Andrew’s appreciation or the hope of it (and despite how repellent she had found him) what she saw was a pathetic little woman with pasty skin and short legs.
    She looked at the painting. If
that
was her, as Claude claimed, then she also had flat eyes and crude, wild proportions.
    What on earth did Claude see in her?
    What had Andrew seen? “You are very lovely,” Andrew had said, but maybe he’d been reminding himself. Maybe he’d meant, “lovely when I’m in the next building.”
    After supper that evening she asked Claude to lie with her on the couch, and the two of them watched TV. She held his