Chapter 3 - The Papers on the Floor
My phone was on the marble and my husband was saying my name like he didn't know how to say it in front of people.
I didn't answer him. I bent for the papers.
That was the choice. I felt it happen in my knees before I thought it through. The bottom of my blouse was damp and sticking to my stomach, and the coffee smell was coming up hot off the floor. Two of the cups were crushed flat near my right shoe. The third was on its side, still leaking a thin brown line toward the counter. My pages were in it. Three sheets fanned out, edges curled and dark. Another two had slid clean, face-down by the blonde woman's heel.
I crouched. My pants pulled tight and my hair fell forward. I tried to pick up the wettest page with just my fingertips so the ink wouldn't smear worse.
"Leave it," my husband said from above me. "Will you just —"
I kept my eyes down. If I looked up at him, I would have to decide what we were to each other in front of everyone. Down was easier. Paper. Coffee. My hands.
The woman in the red blazer didn't move to help. I could see her black pants and the sharp point of her shoe not six inches from my hand. She shifted her weight back, just enough to make it clear she wasn't going to step aside. Her arms were crossed now. When I reached for the second clean sheet, she didn't lift her foot.
"You going to get those with coffee all over your hands?" she said.
I didn't answer. I slid the dry page out from under her heel anyway. The paper made a soft scrape on the marble. My fingers left a faint brown print on the corner.
"Okay," my husband said, louder. He put one hand up, palm out, first toward her, then toward me. "Everybody needs to calm down. We're in the lobby."
Nobody calmed down. The air by the reception desk felt held. I could hear one of the pendant lights buzzing faintly and the elevators ding behind us, but no one got off, or if they did, they stopped and watched.
I got three pages stacked — wettest on the bottom so it wouldn't drip on the others — and stood halfway, still bent. My back ached. The stain on my blouse had spread while I was down there. I could feel the cool spot grow.
"Ma'am?" It was a younger voice from the left. One of the reception girls had come around the counter. Dark ponytail, headset pushed back. She'd been watching since the start. She bent quickly and picked up the page closest to the spill, the one I couldn't reach without putting my knee in coffee.
She turned it over.
I saw her eyes stop. She wasn't reading the text. She was looking at the top corner where the letterhead was still clean above the brown bleed. Her mouth tightened a little.
My husband saw it too. "Give that here," he said, and held out his hand. "I'll hold them."
The girl hesitated. She looked at me on the floor, then at him, then at the page in her hand. She didn't hand it over right away.
"I've got it," I said. My voice sounded thin. I held out my stained hand.
She gave it to me, but slow. As her fingers left the paper, I saw her glance again at that logo, then at the woman in red, like she was filing it away.
I stood all the way up. My knees cracked. I had four pages pressed against my chest, trying not to get more coffee on my hands. One page was still out there, half under the overturned cup near the counter leg. The brown was soaking up through it while we all stood and watched.
The woman in red looked at the bundle in my arms and then at my blouse. She smiled, but not wide.
"Careful," she said. "You're dripping."
May you like
My husband lowered his hand. He looked at the spill, at the coworkers, at the glass doors where daylight was coming in hard. "We can't do this here," he said.
I didn't move toward the doors. I looked back down at that last page on the floor.
