The Man Who Isn’t Anybody

Dess

The Narragansett Mutual holiday party was held every year in the Grand Ballroom of the Providence Biltmore, a room so thickly gilded that it appeared to have been dipped in a vat of butterscotch pudding and left to set. There were chandeliers like frozen fireworks. There were mirrors in carved frames. There was a wall of poinsettias, red and white, banked up to the ceiling like a Christmas avalanche, and a dance floor of polished oak that had been laid in 1922, and over everything, from the corner where a six-piece band in tuxedos were murdering "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," there hung the thick sweet smell of mulled wine and floor wax and four hundred people trying to have a good time.

Dess stood just inside the doors in a green velvet dress she had bought in 2022 for a wedding and worn once, and looked at it all, and thought: I am going to be sick.

"You're not going to be sick," said Gabe.

"How do you know?"

"I can tell by your face. It's the face of a woman who has made up her mind." He stood beside her in a black tuxedo that had, she suspected, been rented from a place called Tux-O-Rama, and a clip-on bow tie in a shade of red that could be seen from space. His hair had been combed, with a wet comb, to the left. His ears were pink. He looked about nineteen. "Also, you ate half my sandwich in the car, and nobody who eats half a sandwich throws up in a ballroom."

"I'm thirteen weeks. I'm allowed to be unpredictable."

"You're fourteen. I checked the app."

"You have an app?"

"Peg sent me a link. I was told to be informed." He held out his arm. "Shall we? The carving station opens at eight. I'd hate to miss the ham."

She took it.

…

It was, she was astonished to discover, wonderful.

She had been certain it would not be. She had spent the afternoon in a spiral of dread so familiar that she'd almost forgotten it was optional: the cold, creeping, sinking certainty that she was going to stand against a wall for three hours holding a plastic cup of sparkling cider, while four hundred colleagues in sequins looked at her stomach and then politely away. She had practiced answers. Oh, this? Just a big lunch. Lovely to see you. No, I'm not, I'm driving. She had a whole arsenal of evasions, laid out in her mind like surgical instruments.

She did not need one.

Nobody looked at her stomach.

It was not yet visible, under the velvet. It was visible only to her, as a small round private hardness below the waist, like a stone in a pocket. And Gabe, who had appointed himself her guard, stood at her elbow with the vigilant geniality of a golden retriever at a picnic and handed her things: a glass of cider, a plate of crab puffs, a cheese cube on a toothpick. He steered her around the clumps of Underwriting and the Claims Review Committee, who were deep in a debate about the correct pronunciation of actuarial. He introduced her to the new head of Subrogation, who turned out to be a pleasant elderly man named Dunmore with a bow tie and a laugh like a rusty gate, and who proved to be an inexhaustible source of facts about the Great Molasses Flood of 1919.

"Fifteen feet high," said Mr. Dunmore. "Thirty-five miles an hour. It killed twenty-one people and a number of horses. And do you know what the company did? Sued the claimants. For negligence in standing in the molasses."

"That's not true," said Dess.

"It's perfectly true. It's a case study. We teach it in orientation."

"Do you?"

"Only to the sensitive ones." He winked. "I'm told you're a very sensitive adjuster, Miss Rourke."

"I'm a very thorough one."

"Ah. The best kind." He lifted his glass. "To thoroughness. And to molasses."

She drank to molasses. It was ridiculous. She felt, for the first time in two months, as light as a feather.

This is it, she thought, in a surprised and giddy way, as Gabe pressed another crab puff on her. This is what a normal person's Saturday night is like. You're thirty years old, and you're at a party, in a dress, with a friend. Nobody wants anything from you. Nobody's keeping a ledger. You get to stand in a room full of strangers and be nobody in particular.

The man who isn't anybody, said the voice in her head. That's what he said, wasn't it? In the bus shelter. I'm nobody. I'm a neighbor.

She pushed the thought away.

…

At nine, Peg Alvarez took the floor.

It happened without warning. The band had finished a mangled "Jingle Bell Rock" and launched into something slow, a swaying, sentimental ballad from the nineteen-forties, and a murmur went through the room like a ripple across a pond. People moved aside. A path opened. And down the middle of the oak floor, in a long black gown with a rhinestone brooch the size of a tea saucer and a pair of sensible low-heeled shoes, came the small, upright, formidable figure of the head of the Marine & Property Division, towing a bewildered young man from Mail Services by the lapel.

She took her position at the center. She placed one hand on his shoulder, the other in his. She nodded once to the bandleader, like a general signaling a charge.

"She dances like she's directing traffic," whispered Gabe.

"She's directing him."

"Look at his face."

"He looks like a man who's been drafted."

"He looks like a man in love with his captor."

They watched, helpless with laughter. Peg Alvarez waltzed: rigid, straight-backed, in quick decisive pivots that sent the Mail Services boy careening about the floor like a toy on a string. She did not smile. She did not speak. But somewhere in the middle of the second verse, she shot a look across the room, a flat, level, dry, unmistakably amused look, directly at Dess, and one eyebrow rose a quarter of an inch.

Told you, said the eyebrow. Complicated side. Enjoy.

"Dess," said Gabe.

"Mm?"

"May I have this dance?"

She turned.

He had stepped in front of her, very close, and held out his hand. He wasn't smiling now. He was looking at her with an odd, shy, stiff expression, like a man at the foot of a diving board, and the pink in his ears had spread to his cheeks.

"I know we said friends," he said. "I know I said it was just a waltz. I'm not asking for anything else. But I've never been to one of these without a partner, and I've wanted to dance with you since the Hatteras, and I figured if I waited any longer I'd have to do it at your wedding."

"Gabe."

"I'll be quick. I'm terrible."

"Gabe, I—"

"I just thought— it'd be nice. To say we did."

She looked at his hand. At his face. At the clip-on tie, askew, the color of a fire engine, and the honest anxious eyes behind the shaggy hair.

He's twenty-eight, she thought. He's a good man. He has a nice laugh and a bad haircut and he has been bringing you coffee for two years. He is entirely available. It would be the easiest thing in the world.

It would be so easy.

She put her hand in his.

…

He was, in fact, terrible.

He danced the way a very tall person walks across a frozen lake: carefully, with enormous concentration, in the conviction that at any moment something would give. He counted under his breath. He held her at the regulation distance of ten inches, one hand rigidly at the small of her back, as though she were a cake he had been asked to carry. When the band changed tempo he lurched, apologized, recovered, and trod directly on her left foot.

"Sorry," he said.

"It's fine."

"I'm so sorry."

"Gabe. It's fine."

"I'm having a lot of feelings."

"I can tell."

"I'm counting. One-two-three. One-two-three. If I stop counting I'll just stand here and stare."

"Then keep counting."

"One-two-three."

She laughed. She couldn't help it. It rose up in her chest, a warm bright bubble, and burst, and she put her forehead against his shoulder for a moment, helpless, shaking, while he steered her in a stiff, careful, heroic circle around a potted palm.

"You're laughing at me," said Gabe, into her hair.

"I'm laughing near you."

"It's the same thing."

"It's not. It's much warmer."

"I'll take it."

They revolved. The chandeliers wheeled overhead. The band, in a sudden upswing, struck up something with trumpets. Dess shut her eyes and let her body be led, and for a long moment, a minute, a bar of music, a held breath, she let herself imagine it.

A life in which she said yes.

A small clean kitchen, with a table. A man with a bad haircut humming over a pan of eggs. A baby in a high chair, being fed a spoonful of something orange. A mortgage. A minivan. A quiet, ordinary, sunny Sunday, with nothing hidden anywhere in it, no ledger, no leash. A man who loved her, and said so, and never once made her feel like a debt.

It was a good life.

It was, she saw with perfect clarity, a fine life. The kind that a hundred women would have given their right arms for. It was uncomplicated and decent and warm. It was exactly what she would have chosen for her mother.

And she did not want it.

The knowledge came to her suddenly, in the middle of a turn, with a small cold shock, like stepping into a cool stream. She did not want it. She had never wanted it. It was a good thing, and a kind man, and she stood there in his arms with her eyes shut, feeling her whole body say, in a clear small voice, no.

She opened her eyes.

"Gabe."

"Mm?"

"Can we stop?"

He stopped.

He stood very still on the dance floor with his hand at her back, in the middle of the swirling crowd, and she looked up into his face and saw that he already knew. It was all there. It had been there for a while. He wore the look of a man who has been waiting for a verdict he's heard coming down the hall for weeks.

"It's okay," he said.

"It's not okay."

"It's okay. I knew."

"You didn't—"

"I did. I mean, I hoped. But I knew." He smiled. It was a crooked, rueful, painful smile, and he did not look away. "It's the neighbor, isn't it?"

Her breath caught.

"What neighbor?"

"The tall one. The one in the long coat who stands at the window across your street." He said it gently. "Joelle told me."

"She what?"

"She didn't tell me. I mean, she told me around. She said, You should be prepared. She said, There's someone. She didn't say who." He gave a short, shaky laugh. "I'm an adjuster, Dess. I notice when a claim doesn't add up. You've been smiling at your phone for a month. You started wearing the green sweater. You said 'chicken' in a meeting and went red."

"I did not."

"You did. Peg heard. She said, Interesting."

"Oh my God."

"It's okay."

"It's not—"

"It's okay," said Gabe, "because I'd rather know." He squeezed her hands once, hard, and let them go. "I'd rather dance one bad dance with you and know than dance a hundred good ones waiting. I'm— I'll be fine. I'm going to be so fine. I'm going to go over to the carving station and eat a whole ham, and I'm going to feel better. And you're going to go home and not feel bad. Okay?"

"I do feel bad."

"Don't."

"I feel terrible."

"You're allowed to feel it for about a minute. Then I'm going to ask you to stop." He took out a handkerchief, a large rumpled red one with a hole in it, and pressed it into her hand. "I mean it. Your eyes are going to run and your mascara will wreck the velvet. You look beautiful. Don't do that."

She laughed, and cried, and wiped her face with the red handkerchief.

"You're a good man," she said.

"I know."

"You're the best man I've ever met."

"That's not true, but it's nice of you." He glanced away, across the room. His jaw tightened, and loosened. "Just promise me one thing."

"Anything."

"If he hurts you, I'm going to say I told you so. Loudly. In front of Peg."

"If he hurts me," said Dess, "I'll let you."

"And you'll come to my wedding."

"Whose?"

"Mine. Someday. To someone. I'm going to meet her on a train." His mouth wobbled. "I want you at the front. With the baby. In a little suit."

"I'll bring a ham."

"Then it's settled."

He bowed to her, absurdly, with a flourish and a click of the heels that sent the clip-on tie sliding sideways, and strode off in the direction of the carving station with his shoulders squared and his chin up and his ears burning like lamps.

She stood alone in the swirl of the dancers, in her green velvet, holding a red handkerchief with a hole in it.

I should feel worse, she thought. I should feel like a monster.

She felt light.

It was the oddest thing. She felt as if she'd put down a very small bag she hadn't known she was carrying, and the lightness of her arms made her want to float.

…

It was eleven when Gabe walked her to the bus.

They went out through the Biltmore's great revolving door into a cold, clear, glittering night, the sky above the Providence skyline black and starred, the streets of Kennedy Plaza lit with strings of blue and white lights. A few last revelers were spilling from the hotel, laughing, shouting, hailing taxis. Someone was singing "O Holy Night" in a quavering baritone. The air smelled of exhaust and snow and roasted chestnuts from a cart on the corner.

"I'll wait with you," said Gabe.

"You don't have to."

"I know." He stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I want to. It's my last official act as your suitor. I'd like to do it right."

They stood at the stop, side by side, stamping their feet in the cold, while the 7 bus failed to arrive. His breath hung in white clouds. After a while, he said, without looking at her:

"Can I tell you something? As a friend?"

"Always."

"About work."

She turned. His face, in the streetlight, had changed. It had lost the party flush. It looked tired and drawn.

"It's the Marguerite," said Gabe.

Dess's stomach dropped.

"I wasn't going to say anything. It's your day off. It's a party. But I've been carrying it around all night, and I think I need to put it down somewhere." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I've been through the file. Twice. And I've got a feeling, and I don't have any proof, and it's driving me insane."

"What kind of feeling?"

"The kind that says someone's been very careful." He glanced at her. "You know that smell? The one claims has, when a thing is too clean? The documents are perfect. The paperwork's perfect. Every date lines up. The fire marshal's report is by the book. The maintenance logs are immaculate. And the whole thing is wrapped in a bow."

"And?"

"And then Dunmore comes to me tonight, at the bar, and says— very casually— that the Wexcombe people have been calling. Their counsel. A man named Kessler. Three times this week. Wanting to know the timeline." He swallowed. "And Dunmore says, in the friendliest possible way, that the home office would like it closed by the end of January. A full payout. To maintain the relationship."

"They want it closed."

"They want it paid."

Dess said nothing. She stood in the cold with her arms wrapped around herself, and the smell of snow in her nose, and the memory, with sudden brutal clarity, of a lamp-lit desk, a blue folder, and a nine with a belly that didn't quite close.

Four days, she thought. The width of a pen stroke.

"Gabe," she said. "Is the suppression certificate in the file?"

"The—" He blinked. "Yes. September twenty-eighth. Signed. Why?"

"Check it."

"Check it how?"

"Against the original. The yard's work order. Not the copy in the policy file. The one they keep in the shop." Her voice was low and fast. "If there's a discrepancy, it'll be in the date. Look at the ink. Look at the sequence number. If they've altered it, they've done it by hand, on the log, and the work order will have a mate."

"You saw something."

"I'm not allowed to say."

"Dess."

"I can't touch the file. You know that. I'm walled off. If I say what I think, it'll be tainted, and if there is something, it'll never stand up." She looked him in the eye. "But if I were you, and I'd been told to close a claim by January, by the home office, to maintain the relationship, I'd want to be very sure I'd read the original."

He stared at her for a long moment.

"Okay," he said slowly. "Okay. I'll go to Bristol. Monday. I'll ask for the shop copy."

"Don't tell them why."

"I'll say it's routine."

"Say it's an audit."

"Is it an audit?"

"It is now."

A faint smile touched his mouth. "You're a very frightening woman."

"I'm a very thorough one."

"The best kind."

The 7 bus came sighing around the corner, bright and yellow and nearly empty, and stood open at the curb with its lights blazing like a lantern. Gabe stepped back to let her go first.

"Goodnight, Dess."

"Goodnight."

"Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas, Gabe."

She climbed the steps. She turned.

He was standing under the streetlight with his hands in his pockets and his hair full of tinsel, and he lifted one hand, and she lifted hers. The doors closed. The bus pulled away. She watched him recede, a tall shaggy figure growing small in the cold bright blur of the plaza, until the corner took him.

Then she sat down, in a seat by the window, and put her forehead on the cold glass, and let it come.

…

The house on Ives Street was dark.

She came up the walk at midnight, in her velvet dress and her winter coat, with her shoes in one hand, because the pinching had finally become too much. The street was silent. The maple stood bare against the sky. Frost lay on the cars in glittering sheets. She climbed to the porch, and put her key in the lock, and then, for no reason that she could name, she turned and looked across the road.

Number 14 was dark, too. Every window. A black, quiet, sleeping house.

Except one.

On the third floor, on the left, in the long window, a single lamp burned. And at the glass, in the dim gold circle of it, stood a figure.

He was not at the card table. He was not reading, or marking papers, or looking at a map. He was standing directly at the window, quite still, with his hands behind his back and his face turned toward the street, in the posture of a man on a ship's deck who has been keeping watch all night for a light on the horizon.

He saw her.

She knew he did. She knew by the stillness of him, which did not alter, and by the way the lamp seemed, all at once, to burn a little brighter. He did not wave. He did not lift the mug. He stood there, in the cold glass, and looked at her across thirty feet of frozen air, and she looked back, and neither of them moved.

Her phone buzzed in her coat pocket.

She took it out.

T.W.: I did not look. It was unavoidable. I was awake, and the street is not wide.

T.W.: You are wearing green. It becomes you.

T.W.: I am asking first: did you enjoy the evening?

She stood on her own porch with her shoes in her hand and her heart going like a hammer, and typed with her thumb.

Dess: Yes.

Dess: I danced with Gabe. He's terrible. He stepped on my foot.

The dots appeared. Vanished. Appeared.

T.W.: I am glad you were happy.

Dess: Are you?

T.W.: I am trying.

She smiled. It was crooked.

Dess: That's the most honest thing you've ever said to me.

T.W.: I was asked to be honest. On a napkin.

Dess: Ask me.

T.W.: Ask you what?

Dess: What you want to ask. I can see you at the window. You've got a question. You've had it since I got off the bus.

A long pause. On the third floor of number 14, the figure at the window stood motionless. Then it moved. It lifted a phone, and bent its head.

T.W.: Is he kind?

She almost laughed. It was the stupidest, simplest, truest question in the world.

Dess: Yes.

Dess: He is the kindest man I know. He is a very good man, and I told him tonight that I could not be what he wanted. And he said it was okay. And I think I broke something, and he's going to be fine, and I'm so sorry about it I could scream.

Dess: But that's not what you're asking.

T.W.: No.

Dess: You want to know if I said no because of you.

For a long time nothing came.

The street was silent. A single car went by at the far end, its headlamps sweeping the dark. Overhead the stars burned, small and cold and indifferent, over the rooftops of Fox Point. She stood on the step with her shoes in her hand and watched the man in the window not type, and not type, and not type.

At last, the screen lit.

T.W.: I would not presume.

Dess: I know.

T.W.: I have no right.

Dess: I know.

T.W.: But I find that I cannot bear it not to be asked.

She read it three times.

She closed her eyes. She opened them. She looked up at the window, at the thin tall shape against the lamp, and she typed, slowly, with a thumb that was not entirely steady:

Dess: I said no because I didn't want the life he was offering.

Dess: That's not the same as wanting yours.

Dess: I don't know what I want. I'm not going to pretend I do. I'm thirty and pregnant and I've got a ledger and a lemon named Gerald.

Dess: But I know it wasn't a fine, easy, uncomplicated thing. And I know I looked across a ballroom tonight and thought about a man who sits on a floor.

Dess: That's all I've got.

Dess: It's not much.

On the third floor, the figure in the window put one hand flat against the glass.

It stayed there. It stayed for a long time, pale and splayed and unmoving, like a man on the wrong side of a pane in a story with no door.

T.W.: It is a very great deal.

She lowered the phone.

She stood in the night, in the frost, in her bare stockinged feet, and raised her own hand, slowly, and laid the palm flat against the cold wood of her own front door.

Count your fingers, she told herself.

She had no fingers left to count.

Then she went inside, and climbed the stairs in the dark, and did not turn on the light, because she did not need to. She knew where everything was.