Chapter 7 - The Guest Room With the Locked Drawer
The lobby was too warm after the rain. My feet left wet prints on the tile and I stared at them because I didn't want to look at the elevator.
He stood a few steps away from me, his hands in his pockets now, not reaching out. The doorman nodded at him and didn't ask about me. That scared me more than if he had.
"It's late," he said. "We don't have to go up if you don't want to."
I looked at the brass doors. I could hear my stomach still working on the spaghetti. My hoodie was damp at the sleeves and my hair stuck to my neck.
"If I go up," I said, "can I come back down?"
"Yes," he said right away. "Anytime you want."
The elevator dinged. A woman with grocery bags got out and didn't look at my feet. He held his hand against the door so it wouldn't close on me, but he didn't touch me. I stepped in first and stood in the corner. He pressed for the ninth floor and then stepped to the other side of the little box.
We didn't talk on the way up. I counted the lights over the door. Nine. The hallway smelled like lemon and old carpet. His door had two locks and he turned them slow so I could see.
Inside, it was dark except for the city coming through big windows. He left the front door open behind us for a minute while he turned on a lamp. The kitchen was right there, clean like nobody cooked in it.
"You can shut it," he said, "when you're ready."
I reached back and pushed it closed myself. It clicked. I kept my hand on the knob.
He hung up his wet coat first, then took off his suit jacket and laid it over a chair, not in a closet. I watched the pocket. The side where his hand had gone at the restaurant.
"Still cold?" he asked.
I nodded before I could stop myself.
He opened a hall closet and pulled out a folded gray blanket and a pair of white socks still folded together. He held them out and then set them on the edge of the couch when I didn't move.
"Bathroom's down the hall," he said, and pointed. "First door. There's a clean towel on the sink. Take your time. I'll be in the kitchen."
I picked up the blanket and the socks. The socks were thick and new. "You'll stay there?"
"I'll stay there," he said.
The bathroom was bigger than Grandpa's whole kitchen. White tile and a mirror I didn't want to look in. I locked the door and sat on the closed toilet lid for a minute just listening. The faucet dripped once. Somewhere out there a pan clinked.
I washed my hands and my face with warm water. The towel smelled like soap. I dried my feet too because they were dirty from the sidewalk, and then I pulled on the white socks. They went up past my ankles. My dress was wrinkled and my hoodie smelled like rain. I kept them both on. I folded the blanket over my arm and unlocked the door.
He was in the kitchen like he said, with his back half to me. A small pot was on the stove and steam was coming up. Warm milk. The same as at the restaurant.
He poured it into a plain white mug and set it on the table, then stepped back. "Careful, it's hot."
I sat down and wrapped my hands around it. It burned a little in a good way. He sat across from me, not too close. His jacket was still on the chair behind him.
"You live here alone?" I asked.
"Yes," he said. "A long time now."
I drank. My eyes kept going to that jacket pocket. The edge of something light stuck up just a little. Not money. Thicker. Like a bent photograph or a card that had been carried too long.
His hand moved when he saw me looking, but he didn't cover it. He just rested his hand flat on the table.
"What is that?" I said before I could swallow the question.
He glanced back at the chair. "Something I keep with me."
"Is it money?"
"No."
I waited. He didn't pull it out. The pocket stayed half open, and I could see a thin white line and a little dark shape on it, but nothing clear.
"Can I see it?" I asked.
"Not tonight," he said. His voice wasn't mad. It was tired. "It's old. It needs explaining and you're tired."
I felt my face get hot. "I showed you I hadn't eaten."
"You did," he said. "You're right to ask. I will show you. Just not while you're still cold."
I looked down into the milk. Okay. That was fair, even if I didn't like it.
He stood and picked up his jacket, and for a second I thought he was going to hide it. Instead he hung it on the back of the kitchen door where I could still see it. "There," he said. "It stays where you can see it."
That helped more than the milk.
He showed me the guest room next. Small bed made up with a blue quilt, a lamp on a wood table, a window with blinds half open to the rain. There was a dresser with one drawer that had a little key lock. I tried it without thinking. Locked.
"That sticks," he said. "I don't even remember what's in there."
I pulled the blanket he gave me tight around my shoulders. "Where will you be?"
"Across the hall," he said, and pointed to an open doorway. "With my door open. And yours stays open too, if that's all right. All night. So you can hear me and I can hear you."
"What if I want it closed?"
"Then you close it," he said. "But I'd feel better if we leave them both open a crack. Just for tonight."
I thought about the restaurant door, how heavy it was. How I'd pushed it open myself. I nodded. "A crack."
He didn't come closer to the bed. He set an extra pillow on the chair and left the hallway light on. "Bathroom's yours whenever you need it. If you get scared, you call out. My name is—" He stopped. "You can call me Walter."
I repeated it in my head so I wouldn't forget. Walter.
I climbed onto the bed in my hoodie and dress and socks. The quilt was heavy. He stayed in the doorway.
"Goodnight, Emily," he said.
May you like
I didn't say it back yet. I held the mug with both hands because he'd let me bring it. The milk was cooling. Outside the window the city buzzed low and the rain tapped the glass.
"Leave it open," I whispered, and he nodded and stepped back, leaving that crack of light from the hall falling across the floor. The jacket with the white edge still hung on the kitchen door where I had seen it last. I watched that line of light until my eyes got heavy.
